Jeremy Robinson - Island 731

The center of the lowest floor held four oversize glass tanks arranged like a four-leaf clover, creating a kind of hallway around the room. Hawkins headed right, looking for cameras or a living occupant. He didn’t think he’d find Joliet here, but there might be some clue about who had been operating the facility since the Second World War.

Warped faces concealed in shadow seemed to stare at him as he passed. Who were these people? How did they get here? By the time Hawkins reached the far side of the surreal storage facility he had far more questions than answers.

A dull clunk spun him around. He nearly called out, “Who’s there?” but thought better of it. He ducked down and moved against one of the tall glass cylinders at the center of the space. It wasn’t exactly a prime hiding spot, since all the containers held clear liquid, but this one also held something large that provided some small amount of cover, though it also blocked his view of the doors.

The room lightened for a moment as the entrance swung open. Hawkins watched the light shift as someone entered. An ominous click echoed off the glass cylinders. Feet shifted over the concrete floor. Whoever had joined him was either really bad at being quiet or had no idea he was there. When a bell jingled, Hawkins was almost certain that the intruder wasn’t aware of his presence. He considered the idea that a goat had somehow opened the door and entered, but he could hear someone whispering to themselves. The words were impossible to make out, but the tone was clearly frustrated. Had he managed to elude the cameras after all?

Something clanged. A whispered curse followed the sound. And then, light.

The interior of the building exploded with light as bright as day. The sudden illumination made Hawkins squint. He looked at the floor while his eyes adjusted. When he turned his eyes up again, a face stared at him, just a few inches away.

Hawkins shouted in surprised and spilled back, dropping the rifle.

A battle cry filled the chamber as the person by the door charged around the hallway. A bell jangled with each heavy step.

Hawkins scrambled for the rifle. He snatched the barrel, dragged it to him, and spun to face his attacker.

But the man had already stopped his assault. He stood in the aisle, ax raised above his head, a look of relief spreading across his face.

Hawkins lowered the rifle. “Bray!” He jumped to his feet as Bray lowered the ax.

“You’re alive!” Bray said.

“I was going to say the same thing about you. I thought you went over the falls.”

Bray shook his head. “Woke up on the riverbank at dawn. Followed the path in the direction I saw Joliet taken. Figured that’s where you would have gone. Did you see Cahill?”

“I was unconscious beneath him,” Hawkins said. “In the ferns.”

“God,” Bray said. “I must have walked right past you. I steered clear of the path until I was beyond him. Was wicked sick. Nearly lost it.”

Hawkins looked Bray over. He looked in no worse shape than he had the night before. “How did you get here?”

“You mean, how did I get past the drakes and King Cow?” Bray held up a bell and gave it a shake. “You were right. Works like a charm. Give it a ring every few seconds and it’s like you’re invisible.”

Hawkins would have preferred to stay focused on Bray, but his attention slowly shifted back to the face he’d seen. He turned to the large tank behind which he’d hidden and felt his stomach twist.

Bray followed his gaze and jumped back. “Ahh!” After recovering from his surprise, he said, “You know, I was starting to hope I’d become jaded to this shit, but it just gets worse and worse.”

Hawkins stepped closer to the tank, trying to count the number of naked bodies jammed inside. He stopped at twenty-three. The men and women inside the tank had looked like a ball of multicolored flesh. Intertwining limbs mixed with the thin tubes descending from the tank’s top made the various people look like a singular organism. When Hawkins saw the stretched skin and thick stitching binding them together, he realized that’s exactly what they’d been turned into.

“Where did all these people come from?” Hawkins asked.

“I don’t know,” Bray said, “But they haven’t been here very long.” He pointed to a tattoo on a man’s shoulder. “That’s a Patriots logo. Flying Elvis. They didn’t start using that design until 1993. And honestly, the Pats weren’t really tattoo material until at least 2002.”

Hawkins leaned closer, looking at the faces. “Some of these people are Japanese, I think.”

“Really?” Bray put his hands against the glass. “You’re right. Why would they do this to their own—”

Pulse, pulse, pulse .

Bray rubbed his ear.

Hawkins flinched back.

“What is it?” Bray asked.

“Did you feel that? In your ear?”

“Yeah, but—”

Pulse, pulse, pulse .

Hawkins scanned back and forth with the rifle. Was something in here with them? Was Jim just outside the door? Finding nothing, Hawkins lowered the rifle and looked back at the large tank.

Twenty-three pairs of eyes now stared back at him.

“Oh shit, oh shit,” Bray said, staring at the tank full of bodies bound together. “They’re alive!” He backed away from the large tank until his back struck a smaller tank at his back. A thunk on the glass spun him around. A suction cup with a gnawing mouth inside was stuck where his head had been.

Hawkins saw the man-thing—a human body lacking arms, but with the face of some kind of bottom-feeding fish—lunge at Bray. He jumped forward and caught the man as he stumbled away. Had the creature not been contained in the glass, it would have easily caught Bray.

“They’re waking up,” Hawkins said. All around the room, monstrous creations were beginning to move. Some, with limbs, pounded on the glass. Some were enraged, others horrified. But they all wanted the same thing. Out.

Hawkins took two steps toward the exit, pulling Bray behind him, when one of the containment units tipped and shattered on the concrete floor. Viscous gel exploded across the floor, turning the path to the double doors into a slick mess. The freed creature just writhed, its large, limbless body useless.

These are the failures , Hawkins thought.

He pushed forward, intending to slosh through the gelatinous puddle, but a second explosion of glass and gel stopped him in his tracks. The creature that emerged had a powerful chimplike body. Its face was distorted, like some kind of pushed-in pig’s snout. It turned toward them as gel dripped from its black fur-coated limbs. The creature snapped its jaws open and closed, revealing a mix of long incisors and canines—like a beaver’s teeth combined with a wolf’s. A nasty bite.

Hawkins raised the rifle to fire, but a sudden alarm sounded, distracting him and the creature. Warning lights flashed all around. A voice spoke, in English. “Warning. Containment breach detected. Burn will commence in one minute. Please vacate immediately.”

Hawkins pulled the trigger.

The creature spun with a squeal as the round punched through its chest and burst out its back.

“Let’s go!” Hawkins resumed his charge for the door, but more shattering glass stopped him. Something large stepped out of one of the center tanks, cutting off his path. He fired twice, but only managed to get the monster’s attention. With a grunt, it turned toward him. The bulbous body was hairless. Sagging gray flesh covered much of its features, but not the tusks protruding from beneath its jowls, or the claws on its hands, which looked more like talons than actual hands.