Pulse: Retaliation (Anisakis Nova Book 2) (18 page)

43 – Dr. Adam Baker

It was chaos as they fled the hospital. Gunfire, screaming, dying. Adam's senses were overloaded. He gripped Jean's hand in his, pulling the pregnant woman behind him as he followed Henderson.

Fucking healthies. Here they were again, ruining everything he worked for. The hospital was gone. His beautiful monster was
gone
. And Liam Busby? Did someone have enough sense to ferry him away from the scene? If he was alive, he would divulge everything he'd learned about Adam. His plans of domination and experiments.

They were crouched outside the loading bay behind the hospital, taking cover behind a dumpster that smelled strongly of all manner of bodily fluids. Soldiers had a solid grip on the perimeter and they hadn't found a way to slip out yet. Inside and in the front of the building, the battle raged.

Jean breathed deeply and whimpered. "I can't go much longer. I need to find somewhere to lay down."

"Shhh, I know." Adam patted her shoulder. "Henderson, how do we get out of here?"

There was a fracture in Henderson's stony facade. His white suit was soiled and had splatters of blood from soldiers he killed as they left. One sleeve of his jacket was torn at the shoulder, revealing his muscled forearm and bicep. A large tattoo of a swastika and the numbers 1488 stood out against the pale hairlessness of his skin.

His face—still covered with the mask—turned to Adam. "Where do you keep the drops that fix our eyes?"

Adam's brow furrowed in confusion. "I don't see how that will help us."

Henderson pointed across the loading bay area to an employee parking lot. Behind a chain link fence was a small number of soldiers. Jogging to them was another set of men leading what looked like Adam's hostages to safety.

"That's our way out," Henderson explained. "But the second they see our eyes they'll kill us."

Adam jabbed his finger in Jean's direction. "They'll think she's an exploder and shoot her."

"I don't look like that." Jean rubbed her hands over her stomach. "Their stomachs are huge and too high up on their chests. I look every bit the part of a pregnant woman."

"They'll test us for infection," Adam said.

Henderson ground his teeth together. When his eyes bore down on Adam, he finally realized how big and intimidating the man was. Adam had never been on the receiving end of Henderson's wrath before. He didn't intend to.

"Sir, if you have a better fucking idea you better tell me now."

"I keep it in my office. Top right drawer on my desk. There's two bottles of it."

"Stay here," Henderson commanded. "Don't move and I'll be back."

The man disappeared from view, moving with disturbing agility considering his size.

Adam was skeptical of his plan, but it was their only chance. If they waited, the soldiers would surely gain control of the clinic and kill all infected. If they ran for it they'd be shot down. Openly getting the soldiers to let them through was a risky plan, but it could work.

Jean moaned again. "It's coming soon."

"We'll be out of here soon. Don't worry."

They waited fifteen minutes. Adam kept his eyes on his watch the entire time. Stress brought out the worst part of his infection, and as such he was twitching erratically and had a strong craving to skin someone alive.

Then Henderson returned, now donned in a jacket that was slightly too small for him. In his hands were two bottles of the eye drops. He handed one to Adam and used the other on himself. "There are still a lot of us left, hiding mostly. I told them to meet us at an apartment building about eight blocks from here. We'll reconvene and then decide what to do from there. Do you agree, sir?"

Adam blinked furiously as the liquid coated his eyes. He'd never used the stuff himself. It stung like a bitch. He looked at Henderson and his perfectly normal eyes. "Agree, yes. How do I look?"

After taking a close look at his eyes, he nodded approval. "We approach the guards quickly, but not aggressively. I'll raise my hands to show we are peaceful. Adam, you keep your arms around Jean and act as though you're helping her. The image we present will mean life or death. Understood?"

The two nodded.

"They'll check our eyes, but I'm hoping they'll be so overwhelmed they won't do any other tests. If they have any, that is. Once we're in, we'll find a time to slip out and go the apartments."

"How will the rest get out?" Adam asked.

"Not sure. They'll find a way. We can't worry about that now."

Then Henderson took his mask off. Adam always expected to see a hideously maimed, burned face behind it. Even though the rest of him was unusual, Ray’s face was the epitome of normal, especially with his blue eyes cleared up. Not handsome, not unattractive. He'd be a good face for their escape.

"Let's move," he said.

They did exactly as Henderson ordered. Adam wrapped his arms around Jean. As it turned out, she really did need his help in moving quickly so they didn't have to act. Being that close to her, he inhaled the sweet scent of her body and felt calmed and protective.

The soldiers were on their game. The second the group came into sight, their guns were raised and they began shouting.

"We're not infected!" Henderson shouted in a pathetic voice Adam had never heard the man use before. "Please, help!"

The men conferred, then one yelled back, "Approach the gate. Be prepared for an infection field check!"

They approached. Adam's heart rate soared but he forced himself to act normally. Henderson went to the fence. A man shone a flashlight through and looked into his eyes. They peeled the fence back and let him go through. They repeated the process for Jean and Adam. Once in, they asked them a few questions about why they were there and if they had come in contact with the infected.

And that was it. The soldier's explained they could wait and be shipped off somewhere safe once the battle was over, or were free to leave. It was their choice.

Henderson thanked them for everything they'd done and said they would try making it back home on their own.

Without a look back, the three left the clinic.

***

There weren't many of them, but Adam knew those who followed were the best. The apartment building was teeming with them, yet it was still a third of what he had at the hospital. They followed directions well and, most importantly, were devoted to him.

Thirty milled about the apartment lobby and common area. Many toted machetes or bludgeoning devices, while a few had assault rifles. They were waiting to hear what the next move was. Adam heard them whispering, their yapping damp mouths spreading secrets. Or truth. He just didn't like whispering.

"Sir, I got us this far but anything after this isn't my call." Henderson spoke from behind his unsettling mask, which he donned the moment they'd cleared the hospital. "Where do we go from here?"

They sat inside an enclosed desk area where overdressed, overly enthusiastic people signed unassuming victims up for long leases and bad deals. A memory, so vivid and pure that it startled him, popped up.

Him and pregnant Gina, her stomach massive and heavy. Since she got pregnant she was forcing him to move out of the home he shared with his colleagues and friends. Adam recognized on an intellectual level the action made sense; soon they would have children to take care of and obviously they couldn't all live together. Yet he was depressed and hollow inside. It was just another thing taken from him.

They'd been in a leasing office just like this one where a young woman signed them up for an apartment that was too expensive for how small it was. It was the kind of place Adam hated. Worse than a cookie cutter home you could at least paint or modify to make your own, it had to remain in mint, matchbox condition forever.

As quick as the memory came, it was gone. It was as though the tendrils of the parasite grabbed hold of the memory of his past life and pulled it further into the depths of his mind.

Adam slammed the desk with his fist, then swept the dusty keyboard and knickknacks to the ground. Frustration couldn't begin to describe how he felt.

"I don't fucking know," he growled. "Has anyone brought Liam back?"

"He hasn't been found. We don't know if he is dead or alive."

Fan-fucking-tastic
, Adam thought.
Can nothing be in my favor?

"Dammit, Henderson, how do I get these people back in check? I'm losing control. I'm losing clarity." Adam set his head against the desk, hoping the sensation of cool wood would calm him. "We're at war and we are losing."

"Not necessarily."

This piqued Adam's interest. "Why do you say that?"

"A contact from the freeway checkpoint attacks followed infected back here. He reported success on the I90 and 405 attacks. No traffic will be coming in or out of the Seattle area unless we want it to. That will put a stop to any food, medicine, or military coming to aid the city." A shudder went from his neck down his entire body. He sighed in open pleasure. "There are enough infected to keep the checkpoints for now. If we continue to improve security on those checkpoints, it puts us in a very good position. A position of control."

Adam grinned. "We could take the city. The
entire
city. No one can come to help them."

The man nodded. "We are not losing the war. We simply lost a battle. We can create more powerful mutants, masses of them. But we can't give up now. That's what the swine want us to do."

"You're right." Adam straightened in his chair. He used both hands to smooth his wild hair back as he regained his composure. "This is why I chose you to be my right hand man, Ray Henderson."

"An honor to serve under someone like you," he said.

"Figure out how many we have left and how many we can send to the checkpoints. We need to mount an attack against the military. They're our biggest threat right now. Them and their fucking flame throwing lunatics."

"Of course. Right away."

Just as Henderson stood to leave, a woman came into the desk area from the lobby. She was older, perhaps Adam's age, with a mess of curly gray hair. He'd noticed her before from her thinness; not an ounce of fat or muscle seemed to exist on her body. It made the parasites moving within her visible. He saw them on her face and exposed arms.

"What is it? I told you all, do not interrupt me."

"Dr. Baker, it's Jean," the bony woman said. "The baby is coming."

44 – Jean

Jean stared at the thing that had come out of her, wriggling and deformed, and had never felt happier in her life. Its mouth was almost an exact replica of the parasite's; circular with hundreds of jagged teeth. It had unbelievable control of the portal, pressing the mouth closed almost to look like a human mouth. It was uncanny. The eyes were small and glassy, yet knowing as they scanned the world around it.

It didn't make a noise. Instead, it merely looked around, it's multiple arms and legs limp. The extra appendages were tentacles. They appeared weak, like the umbilical cord still hanging from its stomach. Perhaps they would fall off?

Jean scanned its groin for gender, but there was no physical sign. She wondered what that meant for future reproduction. If they couldn't reproduce, it limited their potential.

Its extremities twitched, then it flipped over and pushed itself to a standing position. Even at a foot tall it was intimidating. Frightening. Jean had the same feeling with her own spawn that she did with the baby from months ago. That made her nervous. She didn't want to feel that way around it. This was supposed to be different.

But if Jean felt like this, she could only imagine the reaction the healthies would have once her child was fully grown.

The birthing experience wasn't what she'd expected, either. She'd felt a dull ache in her uterus, then a deep sense of urgency to go somewhere dark and quiet. It was so intense that it overrode any other intention or thought she had. Though she might not feel like it most of the time, her body was destructible and birth would take a toll.

Prepared for hours of agony, the birth took less than ten minutes. She was in the basement level of the apartment building
in a storage room, feeling achy and elated all at the same time, when the thing pulled itself out of her like it knew exactly what it was doing and where it was going.

Now she was there, blood seeping from within her, staring at the thing she'd been wanting for so long.

“
Ttttssskk tsk tsk
." Drool flew from its open mouth as it made a noise. "
Tskkkk tssskkk.
"

Ignoring the pain between her legs, Jean sat up and bent over the child. It looked at her with a similar sense of intelligence the spawn of her previous experiments had, but at a deeper level.

"I'm your mamma," Jean said, then felt dumb at the words. The thing wouldn't care that she was her mother. It was silly of her to think.

With lightning speed it tore its cord from its stomach and skittered across the floor and underneath a work bench.

Jean chose to let it be. It needed food. The previous experiment ate meat. They fed it prisoners Jean kept upstairs. She figured this one would want meat as well.

A knock on the door. "Jean? Did you birth it?"

Did you birth it
. Adam was no more a father than she was a mother. For the hundredth time since she was infected, her brain was torn between primal instinct and her old self. They were simply facilitators, incubators, creators without the implication of godliness. Yet that feeling of ownership, motherhood, called out to her.

"Yes," she shouted. "Come in."

He came in, his gaze darting around the room as he looked for it. "Where?"

"Under the work bench."

He dropped to his hands and knees and peered. His breath caught in his throat. After a few moments, he came back to her. He pulled alcohol and swabs out of his lab pocket and began cleaning her up.

"I'm sorry if it looks weak. It will grow stronger. We need to keep it isolated from the rest. It can't have any outside influence while it is growing," Jean said. "We need to make sure it learns and understand—"

"It's beautiful." When Adam looked up, tears made his red eyes sparkle. "I know it is strong. It has our genetics. We'll teach it exactly what it needs to know. The world is going to be ours, Jean."

Jean loved the way he said ‘ours’. At first she only wanted him for the sake of reproduction, but now she realized what he could truly do for her in the grand scheme of her life. They'd lost the hospital and their plans were derailed, but Jean was confident they'd rebuild.

The spawn shifted under the table, then was suddenly on top of it, looking at them. It had somehow managed to clean the blood and fluids off of itself. Its skin was white and glistening like oil, catching off the minimal light coming from the door. It watched them.

Adam kept his attention on Jean. "This will save us. The healthies can't fight evolution. They can't fight how strong we are."

She nodded. "My thoughts exactly."

"Clarity. Everything is becoming so clear." He sat next to her, his back against the wall. "We'll make more, and those will know, too."

"It's difficult to reproduce," Jean said. "We either don't impregnate or we miscarry."

He took her hand. "We'll make them try until they do. We'll infect thousands—millions—until we outnumber the healthies a thousand to one."

"The world will be ours," Jean said. "Everything will be ours."