Ted Kosmatka - Prophet of Bones

The thud came again, louder this time. Then again. And again, and the door twisted inward.

Paul looked out over the side of the cage, and he saw a pair of hybrids enter the room. They passed through, barely slowing. One of them was covered in blood. Trieste’s blood.

Outside, the gunshots grew nearer.

A moment later, another hybrid charged into the room. Agitated, it shuffled across the cement floor on all fours. It turned.

Paul prayed that Lilli was still okay. Still locked in her cage.

There was a sound by the door. Then a gunshot, loud in the echoing expanse of the room. The hybrid screeched, and two more shots put it down. The other hybrids bolted through the far door.

Martial walked into the room.

Beside him was the red-bearded man, gun in hand. Redbeard was limping and his suit was torn. He’d crossed paths with one of the hybrids and come out the worse for the wear.

The old man walked to the far end of the room, then stopped at the door, just as Paul had. He looked out the door, just as Paul had. He closed the door.

He turned and considered the room. “It’s suicide out there for a man without a gun,” he called out. “Which means you’re still in here. You set us back many months today, Paul. It’s my own fault, really. I should have known you’d be a problem. But I am too kind. It is my fatal flaw.”

Paul slunk backward across the top of the cage so that only an eye peeked over the edge.

The old man watched as the red-bearded man stalked through the room, gun held at the ready, looking behind tables and around construction equipment.

Paul changed positions slightly, and he felt the cages shift under him. He dared not move. At the top of the cages, up near the ceiling, he waited.

The old man spoke aloud to the room: “We both know you’re in here, so why don’t you just come out? We saw your girlfriend in the other room. Locked behind bars, which she refused to open for us. Understandable, considering the circumstances. Safe behind high-impact glass, which has proved remarkably bulletproof, I might add. Lucky for her. But we’ve got a man positioned there now, and when this is all over, we’ll just cut her out, if we have to. But first we need to find you.” The old man started walking, moving along the wall to get a better look through the room. “We saw what you did to Trieste, Paul. That was unnecessary. Trieste was unique. One of a kind. But in many ways, too smart. Too independent.

“The other hybrids were more utile in many ways. But there’s the bottleneck in producing them, of course. Because not many women are up for the task. Though we’ve gotten around that. A recent development. Ovarian transplants from human to a chimp, a regimen of anti-rejection meds, and then the rest of the reproductive cycle works nicely. Of course, ovary donors are in short supply. But now we have your friend Lillivati.”

Heat surged through Paul’s body.

Open rage like an open sweat—a flower opening its petals into something beautiful, a simple, ancient sort of purity. It is not confusing. It has no subtext, no nuance, no alternate interpretation—just the winnowing down of want to a pinpoint laser of need.

He pushed off the wall with all his strength, and the cages shifted.

They were right beneath him now.

The old man looked up, startled. The red-bearded man raised his gun, but too late—it was done. Their mouths dropped open in wordless horror as the great wall of cages began to tip. Slowly at first, then faster, tipping farther and farther out. Paul clutched at an I-beam on the ceiling as the cages slid away from the wall. It was happening in slow motion—the steel dropping away beneath him—and then the cages came crashing down. A cataclysm. This is how it happens.

Paul got a grip on the central I-beam at the last possible moment, feeling the cages fall away, and he was left hanging. The sound was deafening, and when he looked down, twisted metal covered the floor in a shattered regolith. Nothing moved. The old man and his guard lay crushed under thousands of pounds of steel.

Paul hung from the beam on the ceiling. Twenty-five feet up, dangling by his hands. A two-story drop, if he fell. He moved hand over hand, heading toward the wall.

His fingers screamed in pain.

He kept going. His arms shook.

He had ten more feet. Then five. Then three. His fingers cramped in agony. He tried to pull himself farther, but the muscles in his forearms locked. Just a few more feet and he’d be at the wall. And then what? He could see a handhold where the beam met the cinder block. But he’d be in the same predicament. Hanging by his fingers.

His fingers convulsed into claws. He felt his left hand start to slip, slow movement under his fingers. He willed himself to grip.

He let his biceps relax, dropping down so his arms were straight. At furthest extension. He couldn’t keep going. He hung. The last moments of his life.

His fingers white on the beam, sliding—losing friction. His left hand fell away, and he dangled for a split second by his right, and time seemed to slow, and his fingers snapped free, and he fell.

He woke in pain. Lilli was cradling his head in her arms.

“Shhh, it’s okay.” She was crying.

“What—”

“I thought I’d lost you.”

“Where…” His head felt wooden. He couldn’t think.

“It’s fine. It’s fine. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Paul tried to stand, but his left leg wasn’t working.

“I think it’s broken,” he said.

He leaned on Lilli as the two of them climbed across the twisted remains of the cages. Paul had landed on the sprawling wreckage and somehow survived the fall. They trudged forward and collapsed near the wall.

“It’s death out there,” she said. “Those things we let free… they’re still running. Guards killed about half of them. But they’ve killed all the guards now, I think. The guard outside the control booth tried to leave and they ripped him apart. I waited for hours before I unlocked the door. I thought you were dead. I thought everyone was dead. The shooting stopped a long time ago.”

“We’ve got to get out.”

Paul let himself be pulled to his feet again. He leaned heavily on Lilli, putting most of his weight on his right foot.

They limped their way to the door. She helped him sit with his back to the wall. He opened the door and peered out. It was night. The trail leading back to the main structure looked empty, but it was hard to tell. No movement. It was a short walk back. Maybe a hundred meters, but it might have been a hundred miles.

“Do you think we can make it?” she asked.

“We don’t have much of a choice.”

They crossed the gap as quickly as they could, trying to keep quiet. When they entered the building, it looked like a tornado had moved through the area. Everything they’d seen the day before was overturned. Knocked asunder. Destroyed. The creatures had torn through the place.

In the lobby, they found two bodies. They recognized them as two of the guards who’d kidnapped them. One’s face was crushed. The other’s neck was twisted at an odd angle.

“Look,” Lilli said. She stepped across the room and bent to pick something up. She returned with a gun. Paul checked the ammunition.

“Four in the clip.”

She nodded.

Paul bent and checked the other body.

“No gun,” he said. “But…” He fished in the man’s front pant pockets and pulled something free. “Keys.”

They moved deeper into the building. Moving through the nursery now. A distant mewling could be heard, right on the edge of perception.

“Wait. Wait here,” Lilli said. “I have to check something.”

She disappeared into the darkness. It was the longest four minutes of Paul’s life.