Slimer Page 7

  Even Rochelle's return might be enough to avert what was undoubtedly going to be a nasty incident. But no, she didn't really expect Rochelle to come back yet. She had left furious and in tears a half an hour ago after Alex had viciously slapped her when she'd tried to take the bottle from him. Linda knew now that she and Chris should have left with her. It was too late now. Alex would surely stop them if they made any attempt to leave.

  Linda glanced at Chris. She looked pale and tense and was obviously thinking along the same lines as her. Linda wondered what to do when Alex made his inevitable move. Shoot him? She'd like to but she didn't think she'd be able to. But then perhaps she wouldn't have any choice… if he tried to rape either her or Chris she would have to shoot him. If only he would just pass out…

  'You. C'mere. I want you…' He was pointing at her with the bottle.

  The muscles of her stomach tightened. Oh shit. 'What do you want?' she asked calmly.

  'Wanna fuck. That's what I want.' He lurched up out of the sofa, swaying badly. She hoped he would fall but he didn't.

  'Linda…' said Chris, in warning.

  'It's okay,' she said quickly, then, smiling at him, she stood up.

  'Sure I'll fuck you, Alex,' she told him sweetly, 'but you've got to promise me you'll behave. Promise me you won't hurt me - that you won't be rough. Do you promise that?'

  'Uh?' He hadn't been expecting this. He stared at her suspiciously through alcohol-glazed eyes. Then he grinned suddenly, pleased with himself. 'Sure… sure, promise.' The lie was so transparent it would have been amusing to observe his expression in different circumstances.

  'Good. Shall I undress now?' She managed to keep smil-ing at him.

  'Uh?' he gruntpd, frowning again. Then, 'Yeah, take 'em off. Everything.'

  She slowly undid the buttons on her shirt then pulled it open, baring her breasts. He stared at them with naked, leering hunger. All that was missing was drool falling from the corner of his mouth. She had to work hard to keep the smile on her lips.

  She began pulling the shirt free of her jeans. Reaching behind her she then drew the gun out of her waistband…

  There was a crash as the bottle hit the floor and shattered. Alex was lurching towards her, hands reaching for her breasts. At the precise moment he touched her she hit him very hard on the side of the head with the butt of the gun. There was an unpleasant thunk sound and he reeled backwards, eyes wide with shock.

  She hit him again - this time right in the middle of his forehead. He yelled with pain and sagged to his knees, clutching at his head with one hand and trying to grab her with the other.

  She tried to hit him again - thinking at the same time that knocking someone out with a gun never looked this difficult in the movies - but somehow he caught her wrist. 'Run, Chris!' she screamed as she tried to pull free from his grip. Then she kicked him in the stomach. He gave a bellow of rage but she was able to break free. The gun, however, was sent skittering across the floor.

  She made a dash for the doorway. Chris was already there ahead of her and they collided together as they went through the door. 'This way!' she cried, tugging on Chris's arm. They ran down the passageway in the direction of the kitchen where they'd eaten breakfast. She had no specific plan in mind - she just wanted to get as far away from Alex as possible.

  As she ran she looked over her shoulder and saw, with a sick lurch of her stomach, that Alex was staggering out of the doorway. He was brandishing his switch-blade in one hand. There was blood on his face but he gave no sign of being seriously hurt. Oh shitl she thought, I should have shot him…

  They ran into the kitchen and Linda wondered if she should grab something, like a carving knife - if there was one - and make a stand there. But she quickly dismissed the idea. She didn't fancy her chances of winning a knife fight with Alex. If ony half his stories were true he'd had a lot of practice at that sort of thing.

  She herded Chris through the kitchen and into the next corridor. Their cabins were down there. All they could do was get in one and barricade the door. Somehow.

  She pushed Chris through the first open door they came to. Checking to see that it had a key she slammed it shut and locked it. She knew Alex wasn't far behind them. She heard the sound of his footsteps as he half-ran, half-staggered along the corridor. Then there was silence, apart from their own ragged gasps for breath.

  Then came a noise. An unpleasant one. Linda realised that it was the sound of Alex's knife being scraped across the door. Again and again. Then he began to speak. He no longer sounded drunk as he told them, in precise and clinical detail, what he was going to do to them both.

  Chris's sobs changed to retching sounds as she deposited her partly digested breakfast onto the cabin floor.

  ***

  Rochelle had no idea where she was going. Nor did she care. The right side of her face was still stinging badly from the slap Alex had given her. Her eyes were filled with tears but more from anger than the pain. How dare that bastard hit her like that! Who the hell did he think she was? Did he think he could treat her like trash and expect her to sit back and take it like an obedient puppy? He's just getting too damn big for his boots these days…

  And it wasn't just the slap, it was the way he'd made it plain he wanted to lay Linda, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes herself. Right in front of her. And of course the previous night he'd had Chris. She knew that for a fact. He hadn't admit-ted it yet but nor did he bother to even deny it - just grinned that smug grin of his. Okay, so during the eighteen months they'd been going together they'd both screwed around with other people - him especially - but they had an unspo-ken agreement not to be goddamned blatant about it. Well, as far as she was concerned he'd gone too far this time. Once they got back to dry land she was giving him the elbow…

  It was about then that Rochelle realised she was lost. She wasn't even sure which level she was on. She knew she had gone up some stairs and passed through at least one set of automatic doors but how far exactly had she climbed? All these corridors looked the same. It was like being in a giant three-dimensional white maze.

  She sighed and kept on walking. She would find the stairs and go down again. A tiny worm of worry was beginning to burrow into the edge of her mind but she tried to ignore it, turning her thoughts back to Alex again. She had never seen him that drunk before. It had been a bit frightening. But sometimes he was a little frightening even when he wasn't drunk. There was a manic streak in him that scared her a little. But she was attracted to him in spite of - or perhaps because of that. She knew it was unfashionable to admit such a thing these days, especially in front of a feminist like Chris, but she had always been something of a masochist when it came to lovers.

  Not that she didn't give as good as she got at times, but there did seem to be something about her that dragged the psychopaths out of the woodwork. Small-time psychopaths at any rate.

  She stopped her musing as she turned a corner and saw that the corridor came to an end at a pair of doors. After a moment's hesitation she went on through them and found herself in the big room containing all the empty cages and tanks. She frowned, trying to remember which level this had been on.

  She walked down between the row's of cages, hoping to find a way out at the other end. There was still a strange, eerie atmosphere in the aquarium and for the first time that morning she began to feel slightly ill at ease. Maybe it hadn't been a wise move to go off wandering on her own. The events of last night came back to her with painful clarity. The terrible sound that thing had made as it had tried to get into Paul and Linda's cabin…

  Rochelle began to quicken her pace. Suddenly she wanted to get out of that room. Badly.

  Then she came to an abrupt halt and gasped with aston-ishment.

  There was a body in one of the fish tanks.

  A dead body.

  Her heart pounding, she moved closer. It was in the big tank - the one bearing the mysterious label 'Carcharodon'…

  It was a woman. She was floating face-down near th
e bottom of the tank. She was wearing a white lab coat and had short blonde hair. She seemed fairly young.

  Transfixed, Rochelle bent down beside the tank trying to see the girl's face. Then she recoiled in horror. The girl's mouth was open and protruding from it was a mass of black tendrils. It seemed as if some sort of plant or fungus was growing out of her. And the tendrils were moving in the still water.

  As Rochelle continued to stare at this bizarre sight the girl in the tank turned her head and looked at her through the glass.

  EIGHT

  'How do you feel?'

  'My side still hurts when I breathe in,' said Paul, wincing. 'I think I might have cracked a rib.'

  They had given up trying to break the door down. Paul was leaning gingerly against the console, still looking shaken, while Mark sat there flicking the camera control switches. He was trying to find the others but wasn't having much luck. The recreation room was deserted now. They'd spotted Rochelle briefly on one of the screens but Chris, Linda and Alex seemed to have disappeared. Nor was there any sign of Dr Carol Soames. Or anything else, thank God. If, as she said, 'Charlie' was on the prowl again he was at least keeping a low profile.

  'I can't get over how strong she was,' said Paul wonderingly. 'It was amazing. She threw me across the room as if I didn't weigh anything at all.'

  'Shelley was stronger than normal, too. Remember the way he got loose from Alex? Whatever they're infected with affects the strength. Or maybe they're just crazy. I read somewhere that schizos can be abnormally strong at times…'

  'She didn't seem sick or crazy,' said Paul. 'She was quite rational compared to Shelley last night.'

  'Until she threw you across the room,' said Mark dryly.

  'Yes…' He rubbed his side again. 'And I was so relieved to see her at first, once I got over the surprise of recognising her…'

  'You mean you've met her before?'

  'No. I'm talking about her photograph. Remember that clothing we found with the identification badge on it? That was hers.'

  'Oh.' Mark nodded. 'I wondered why her name sounded familiar. I don't suppose she told you why she'd abandoned her clothes like that? Or what happened to the owners of all the other piles of clothes?'

  'Afraid not,' said Paul. 'We didn't get around to that, unfortunately.'

  'Unfortunately is the right word,' said Mark. Then he frowned. 'When we found her lab coat last night her identification badge was pinned to it, right?'

  'Yes. I just told you I recognised her from the photo on it.'

  'Well I'm sure she was wearing it just then. How could that be?'

  Paul shrugged. 'She must have more than one. I don't see the point you're trying to make.'

  'I don't know either. It just struck me as odd.' He shook his head. 'Have you come up with any new theories yet?'

  'Well, from what she told us, if we can believe her, this artificial gene Phoenix must have got loose in the air or something and infected them all. She did say it was like a virus. Perhaps it drove them all mad and they attacked each other…'

  'I suppose that's possible.' But he didn't sound too convinced.

  Paul suddenly stabbed a finger at one of the monitors. 'Hey, stop right there and don't touch any more switches. We've found Alex!'

  Mark looked at the screen. He could see Alex in long-shot. He was kicking and pounding at a door and appeared to be quite drunk. Then Mark saw something glinting in his hand and realised he was holding his switch-blade. With a sick certainty he knew what was happening.

  'Christ, the girls must be in there!'

  Paul slammed his fists down with impotent fury onto the console top. 'And we can't do a fucking thing to help them!' he cried.

  ***

  Rochelle backed away from the glass tank, her mind filled with disbelieving horror. This can't be real! I'm having a nightmare! It's all that cheap shit we were smoking in Morocco… Any moment now I'm gonna wake up in the hotel room…

  But she didn't. Instead she was forced to watch as the woman emerged from under the water and began to climb out of the tank. The mass of oily black strands hung out of her mouth like a slimy beard. But the strands continued to move, twitching feebly with a life of their own.

  Rochelle screamed. She'd always thought of herself as the type who would never scream, no matter what happened. It was only stupid women in stupid movies who screamed, or so she'd believed until now. But this was just too much. She couldn't handle this…

  As she began screaming she turned to run. Her intention was to get out the door she'd come in. But she'd only gone two or three paces when she did something else that women in stupid movies always seemed to be doing - she slipped and fell.

  There had been a small pool of water there that she hadn't noticed. As her right foot skidded in it she felt a burst of blinding pain in her ankle. She fell face-down on the floor, catching herself a hard blow on the chin. She was stunned, but only for a few seconds. She struggled to rise, looking back over her shoulder.

  The woman was out of the tank now and walking slowly towards her. She was less than two yards away. The water was dripping from her white coat and her short blonde hair was plastered flat to her head. Despite her overwhelming terror a small part of Rochelle's mind registered the fact that the woman had very attractive green eyes. Sad eyes…

  The black mass hanging out of her mouth was longer now. Even as Rochelle watched more of the stuff emerged. It looked like a monstrous black tongue.

  She screamed again and pushed herself backwards. Using her heels and her elbows she slithered across the floor, away from the apparition, for several yards then scrambled to her feet and made another dash for the door. She was vaguely aware of the agony in her right ankle but her panic enabled her to ignore it.

  She was a few feet from the door when her ankle simply gave way beneath her. Once again she was sent sprawling onto the hard floor. As she lay there, barely conscious, she heard the approaching footsteps of the woman behind her.

  ***

  The sound of a distant scream penetrated Alex's befuddled brain. He frowned. It had sounded like Rochelle. Yeah, Rochelle. What was wrong with the silly bitch? He stood there trying to think, swaying slightly from side to side. The door in front of him was heavily marked with cuts and grooves from his knife but it remained firmly closed. He'd made a few attempts to break it down with his shoulder but got nothing but some bruises and headache for his efforts. He couldn't seem to get his body to do what he wanted… he felt sluggish, heavy… confused. Maybe I'm drunk, he thought.

  He gave the door one last frustrated kick and began to stagger off down the passageway. Those bitches in there could wait until later. Right now he'd better go find Rochelle. But why? He frowned again then his face cleared. Oh yeah, to teach her a lesson. He'd teach her a lesson first then he'd come back for the other two…

  'Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Barbara Ann! Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Barbara Ann…!'

  His voice echoed up and down the corridors as he lurched along them, trying to find Rochelle. He became aware of the TV cameras pointing down at him at regular intervals from the walls. They began to seem threatening to him and he waved his knife at them as he passed. He wanted to smash them, to stab each of their single, unblinking eyes…

  He was so absorbed with the camera that he almost bumped straight into the woman before he saw her. She was leaning against the wall, her eyes closed, as if sick. She was also soaking wet. Water was dripping from her white lab coat.

  'Hey, who the fuck are you?' demanded Alex. He brandished the knife at her.

  She opened her eyes and turned towards him. He realised that she was very good-looking. A real beauty, in fact. The old, familiar urges began to stir within him. He grinned at her.

  'Help me,' she said in a voice that was not much more than a whisper. 'I'm not well. Help me get to my room. It's not far away.' If she noticed the knife she gave no sign of it.

  He retracted the blade and put the knife in his back pocket. 'Yeah, sure, I'll help you, lady. Where's yo
ur room?' he said with exaggerated concern.

  'Just along there.' She raised a limp hand and pointed.

  'Okay then,' he said, trying unsuccessfully not to slur his words, 'Gimme your arm. I'll help you…'

  She leaned against him and he almost fell over. Shit, the bitch is heavier than she looks, he thought with surprise. But then he got an arm around her waist and managed to hold her upright. Together they began to stagger down the corridor, with Alex soon gasping with the strain and hoping she'd been telling the truth about her room not being far away.

  Their progress was slow, much to his annoyance, but at the same time the feel of her body beneath the wet fabric of her coat excited him. She was slim and firmly muscled, just like Rochelle, and he looked forward to seeing what it was like in the flesh.

  After what seemed hours she indicated that they had arrived. He man-handled her through the open door and onto the single bunk. She lay back with a groan. It took Alex a minute to get his breath then he leaned over her. 'You feelin' better?'

  She opened her eyes again. 'Who are you?'

  'Me? I'm Alex Rinaldo. Look, lady, you should get out of those wet clothes. You'll get sick.'

  'Sick?' She grimaced. 'Yes, I'll get sick alright… very sick.'

  'How'd you get all wet like that? You fall in a swimming pool or something?' asked Alex, vaguely curious in spite of his main preoccupation.

  She didn't answer his question. Instead she said, 'You had better get away from this place Alex. As fast as you can.'

  Thinking she was telling him to leave her cabin Alex immediately became more aggressive. 'Hey, lady, that's no way to talk to the guy who just helped you. You should show some gratitude.'

  She sighed and closed her eyes. 'Go. Fast. As far away as you can.'

  'I'm not going anywhere, lady. Not least till after I've got you out of those wet clothes and we've had some fun…' He grabbed the front of her lab coat with both hands and began to rip it open.