David Golemon: Ripper

Jack pocketed the small light and slowly continued his descent toward the lowest level of the complex.

Before he reached level eighty-four, he saw the top of Charlie Ellenshaw’s head. The white hair acted as a beacon to tell him where the bottom was. As he gently touched down he realized that Charlie wasn’t on the bottom of the pneumatic tube, he was kneeling on the top of the disabled elevator rubbing his knees and rocking back and forth. When he heard the whine of Jack’s hands on the rope, Ellenshaw nearly panicked and tried to grab the M-14 he had lain beside him. He fumbled it as Jack lightly landed on the elevator’s torn top.

“You alright?” he whispered as he undid his rigging.

“I damn near broke both of my legs,” Charlie said as he continued to rub his scraped-up knees.

“Are you going to live?” Jack asked as he examined exactly where they had landed.

The top of the air-assisted elevator had been wrenched open like a can of soup. Jack kneeled down and looked inside the dark interior. It was empty.

“I think I heard something a minute before you dropped in,” Ellenshaw said as he finally reached for his fallen weapon. Charlie shook his head as he wiped blood from his chin.

“Damn, Doc, did you slow down at all before you hit?” Collins asked as he placed his legs over the edge of the hole.

“I slowed down just fine,” he said and slapped the two weapons still slung in front of him. “Then these damn things came up and nearly coldcocked me when I hit.” He looked over at Jack. “I made one hell of a lot of noise, Colonel. If one of those things is in there he had to have heard me yelp like a schoolgirl.”

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now, right?” Jack asked, feeling the stickiness of his gloves as he braced himself at the opening. He raised his hand and smelled the substance and knew immediately that it was blood — thick, rich, and still wet.

“Right,” Charlie answered, sad that he had let Collins down.

Jack looked at Ellenshaw one last time and slowly lowered himself into the black hole of the elevator. He hit softly, making sure nothing on his person rattled or made a noise. As Charlie’s foot came through the top, Collins reached up and tapped his black shoe. He saw Ellenshaw look down and Jack held his hand up and pointed. Charlie frowned as he understood that the colonel wanted him to stay put for the moment. Ellenshaw nodded his head, thinking that Jack was condemning him to once more stay out of harm’s way.

Jack hesitated as he leaned against the frame where the doors of the elevator once were. He saw one of the doors about ten feet away. In the dim lighting of the emergency lamp near the far wall, he saw even more blood on the sidewalls of the car. He looked out and saw the rail lead off toward the reactor. He just hoped that whichever creature was down here was too wounded to fight, or possibly even dead. Collins took his first step out onto the concrete floor of the reactor room.

Charlie watched as the colonel vanished. He knew he just couldn’t hang back like Collins wanted. He hated disobeying his order to stay, but as he was reminded time and time again by the security men he admired, he wasn’t a soldier. So orders meant little to him. Charlie eased himself through the hole, careful not to go crashing down and making him look the fool again. When he eased his aching feet onto the carpeted floor of the car, he quickly removed his glasses and wiped them clean. With a deep breath that he was careful to hold and expel silently, Ellenshaw stepped out into the open to follow the colonel.

Collins saw the two reactor vessels and the steam lines running out of them. Then he looked to the right and saw the coolant lines. He took a breath, relieved that they hadn’t been smashed into oblivion. He allowed his eyes to adjust to the near darkness and then took three quick steps over to a large tank of distilled water. He saw fifteen of the 5,000-gallon tanks and again was relieved to see that they were undamaged. He stopped at that point and listened. He thought he heard a sound coming from a distant corner of level eighty-four, but he wasn’t sure. He knew he couldn’t risk turning on the pumps, which were located between the two reactor cores, without ascertaining if one of the killers was in here with them.

He eased himself along the stainless-steel tanks, careful to place his boots on nothing more than concrete. He brought the Ingram up close to his cheek so he wouldn’t have to get off a snap shot at anything that came out of the dark. He came to a small separation between water tanks five and six and risked a look in between them. He saw a longer blood trail, but couldn’t see where it led. He cursed the darkness as he continued to move forward. He finally came to the last tank, meaning that the next step he took would leave him fully exposed to anything in the large room. Before he did that he looked around the giant tank and examined what he could of reactor number one. He saw the view port in the sixteen-inch steel door. There was a soft-green hue emanating from the vessel. He realized that time was running out. The steam from inside, generated by the nuclear fuel rods not being cooled, looked as if it were starting to melt the rubber seal not only around the view port but the thick containment door as well. There were streaks of blackened rubber flowing down the front of the reactor. He didn’t have to see number two as he suspected that it was also in a state of total meltdown. He looked down at his wristwatch and saw that according to his calculations he had about eighteen minutes to get the coolant flowing again. He had to risk exposure.

He stepped out from the protective cover of the last water tank.

The wounded beats struck Jack from the side. He was sent sliding along the polished concrete floor until his head slammed into the twenty-inch steel base of reactor number one. The stars flew bright as he came close to losing consciousness. As he shook his head to clear his vision, he was shocked to see the very same soldier he thought he had killed on level seven. The shots to the head, coupled with its fall down the elevator tube, should have smashed it to bits. Then he understood that the blood he found and the scratches and dents in the tube meant that the creature had somehow arrested its fall.

As he tried to sit up, he saw that the beast was staggering. It hit the water tank and came close to dislodging it from its secured base. Then he saw the stumps at the end of its long arms. Blood was pouring from the wounds where he had shot free the massive appendages. Jack reached for his fallen weapon, but the beast acted much faster than Collins would have thought possible considering its state. It actually leaped from fifteen feet away and landed in front of him. It kicked out with its tree trunk — sized foot and smashed Jack in the ribs, snapping two of them. With no air in his lungs Collins tried to roll before he was kicked again. The beast roared in anger as bullets started slamming into it from behind. As he rolled away, his eyes saw a sight he would never forget: Charlie Ellenshaw was limping forward from the spot he had just been. He was taking careful aim with the M-14. There was one second between each perfect shot as bullet after bullet struck the wounded soldier in the neck, face, and head. It staggered as Charlie ejected the spent magazine, and with a determined look he slammed home a fresh one. Then as Jack took his first breath in thirty seconds, he saw Ellenshaw stop and push his glasses back up his nose and begin his deliberate firing at the beast once more.

The creature finally went down to one knee and then both. Ellenshaw with a determined gait purposefully stepped as close to the dying creature as he dared and placed the muzzle of the M-14 against the center of its forehead. As the former mercenary meekly lifted its handless arm to protect itself, Charlie quickly placed four 5.56-millimeter rounds into its brain, making sure each side of that brain received two bullets. The naked creature fell over onto its side and died lying against nuclear reactor number one, right next to the badly hurt Jack Collins.