Steven Santos - The Culling

I’ll need a vial for Cole-that makes two vials claimed. Then another one for Digory. That’s three.

That leaves Digory with only one vial, the final one, with either his husband or me as its recipient.

Which means I’m a dead man if he’s forced to choose.

Once you have deposited the antivirus in your respective Incentive’s chamber, they will be transported via pneumatic tubes to their final location and you must immediately proceed to your final Trial. Prepare to enter the gateway, Recruits.

The mechanisms on the door to the Biogenetics Laboratory grind and creak. The sound hurts my ears, which ache with a dull throbbing. Digory and Ophelia crowd against me, each of us facing our potential doom.

The gears of the door stop crunching and the locks spring free.

Even if I were to use my second vial on myself instead of Digory, then he’d be left to choose between the life of his husband and his own.

A quick glance at Digory’s pained expression tells me he’s been doing some arithmetic of his own.

The door arcs inward with a high-pitched squeak, exposing a flight of stairs. I fight the urge to push through.

The only way both Digory and I can both survive, with both of our other Incentives intact, is if we find all four vials-including the one intended for Ophelia’s sister. Effectively murdering Maddie.

The door swings open all the way with a deafening clank .

Already a fever’s baking my brain. Cold sweat weaves down my face. A vise squeezes my chest and I cough into my palm.

“How’re you holding up?” Digory whispers into my ear. A red trickle’s threading its way down his left nostril and teetering on the edge of his lip.

I shake my head. It’s already started.

“You poor dears,” Ophelia clucks in mock sorrow. “See you on the other side.” She eyes us both up and down and tsks. “Well, one of you at least. Maybe.”

A broad grin tears across her face, growing wider and wider until I realize I’m seeing double. I grind the base of my palms into my eyes, then let my hands drop back to my sides. I blink a couple of times. Ophelia goes from a total blur to slightly out of focus.

Panic chews on my heart. I have to be quick if I’m going to find those antidotes before the virus takes hold. If I should go blind …

Cross the threshold and begin antivirus retrieval,Slade’s voice booms.

Ophelia shoves me into Digory and disappears through the gateway.

I almost topple to the floor, but Digory’s arms engulf me and his hands lock against my stomach, propping me upright against him. My eyes finally tighten their focus on the blood streaking through his interlaced fingers.

“You have to keep it together,” he says. “We can’t let her get this, Lucian. Do whatever you have to- she will. Understand?”

I nod.

Then he releases me and dashes through after her. I seize a painful breath and lurch through behind him.

The gateway slams shut, with a terrible echo that penetrates my throbbing brain like shards of jagged glass.

“ Careful! ”

Digory’s warning startles me. I expected him and Ophelia to be way ahead of me. But they’re both standing close by, eyes riveted ahead.

I follow their gazes …

And gasp.

The wide steps that dominate the dimly lit compartment are no ordinary steps. For a horrified second I think that the virus has seriously impaired my faculties, to the point where I’m severely hallucinating.

“What is that?” Ophelia asks, all traces of bravado leeched from her voice.

The stairs are not so much hewn from the earth as growing from it, each step pulsating with slimy moisture. Translucent membranes separate each rise. Pressed against these are writhing shapes, twisted bodies with misshapen fingers trying to claw their way out.

“The sign on the door,” I croak. “ Biogenetics . It must be where the Establishment experiments with genetic manipulation … ” I stifle a cough with my fist.” And biological weapons, like the virus.”

Throbbing red and dark purple tendrils cling to the surface of each step like an arterial system, squirting random jets of a sickening yellow pus-like substance that coats the chamber floor in a gooey mess. With the door closed, cutting off any fresh air, the confined space reeks-a mixture of excrement and vomit … and something else …

Rotting meat.

I double over and cough up a dark wad that looks like tar.

But I know it’s not.

Digory rubs my back. “Lucian … ”

I shoo him away and straighten up.

Groans all around us, getting louder and louder.

It’s those shapes, trapped behind the stairs. Their moans rise and swell in intensity until a crescendo of doom vibrates through the air.

Above, on the landing of this organic nightmare, are three circular steel tubes, each large enough to fit a grown man. Even from down here I can make out the designations stenciled on each one.

Tycho Incentive Storage

Juniper Incentive Storage

Spark Incentive Storage

Ophelia pushes past us. “ Maddie’s up there! ” She bounds up the first two steps. One of the undulating tendrils wraps around her ankle and slams her down.

Splat! She hits the viscous rise headfirst.

Without missing a beat, Ophelia pulls her torso up with her arms. Blood trickles from her forehead, mixing with strands of gelatinous slime that sticks to her cheek. The slime gives way with a sharp rip the more she pulls her way upright, tearing flesh from her face until she’s free.

“Ophelia!” I pitch forward.

But Digory’s arm shoots out and barricades the way. “ Look for the vials .”

His eyes plead through the glaze that encases them. More blood oozes from his nose, as if it’s a spigot. Heat radiates from his body like a furnace.

I half nod to him and manage a grunt of agreement. When I swivel my head from left to right to pan the room, it feels like it’s going to slip free of the creaky bearings barely attaching it to my neck. I take in the solid walls, which ripple in the heat of my burning vision.

Digory wipes his nose and runs his palms over the walls as if searching for something-a hidden panel or concealed door, maybe? Soon the metal finish is streaked with his blood, and it looks like he’s trying to claw his way out his own tomb.

He turns. “ Nothing !” Anger flashes in his eyes. He kicks the wall. The impact causes him to flinch and slump against it. I can tell by the effort on his face that he’s trying to keep himself upright and not slide the rest of the way down to the floor.

The floor .

I try to focus on the ground. “Maybe the vials are hidden inside the gunk underneath us?”

He weaves toward me. “But we’d have stepped on them by now … ” He sloshes his boot through the goop and almost slips. He looks back up at me. “Wouldn’t we have?”

I shake my head, making myself more dizzy. I search the room again, until my gaze lands on Ophelia … still tangled on the stairs, trying to pry herself free of the tentacle gripping her leg. “Unless the vials are somewhere we haven’t stepped yet .”

Despite the waves of pain and nausea, I squat, careful to avoid the flailing tendrils, searching through the opaque membranes between each rise of the stairs, past the silhouettes of disease-riddled victims, their glowing eyes blinking at me …

Those aren’t eyes.

I dig my fingers through the clammy diaphanous skin coating the stairs and tear a portion away.

The blinking is actually the green flashing of a miniature beacon. It’s attached to a transparent packet, which contains a hypodermic needle and a small bottle of clear fluid. The packet’s half-wedged into the muck.