Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [132]
‘Where did they go?’ snapped Maddy.
They heard something fall off a shelf in a dark corner of the archway and roll noisily across the floor.
‘Over there!’
With trained, quick precision, Forby squinted down the weapon’s barrel and flipped the night-sight of his scope on. A soft green glow poured across his face as he slowly panned the weapon around the archway, then up towards the curved brick ceiling.
‘Ahh … I see one.’
Liam followed the direction of his gaze and thought he could just about make out some dark shape moving among a criss-cross of old rusting pipes and loops of electrical flex. Age-old dust and the grit from crumbling bricks and mortar trickled down past the softly fizzing glow of the ceiling light, giving the hapless creature’s position away.
The man fired two aimed shots in quick succession. The creature screamed, then plummeted to the floor, bringing down a small flurry of dust and grit with it. It squirmed and screamed and drummed arms and legs against the floor, until the young man put a third shot into its long skull.
As the echo of the last shot rattled around the brick walls, Liam looked around him. He could see Edward and Laura huddled together by the displacement machine’s perspex tube, and Sal and Maddy beside the computer desk. All of them looking from one dark recess to another, listening intently for the sounds of movement.
‘Where’s the other one?’ whispered Sal.
The man with the gun placed a finger to his lips to hush her. ‘Hiding,’ he whispered.
‘Well, for Christ’s sake find him, Forby!’ hissed the older man.
Liam watched as Forby stepped across the floor into the middle of the archway, continuing to slowly pan his gun, studying every nook and cranny around until finally he came to a halt, aiming at the arched recess where their bunk beds were.
‘Uh-huh … I think he’s skulking under there.’
He squatted down low and pumped his finger. A single shot danced and ricocheted under Liam’s cot, sparking against the metal frame.
It was then that something dropped down from above, past the ceiling light on to Forby’s back – a blur of movement and flashing of claws and teeth, a bright arc of crimson.
‘HEELLP M–!’ His voice was cut off as the creature’s claws flailed at his neck. He dropped the gun as he staggered and struggled to wrestle the thing off his back.
Liam picked himself up and scrambled across the floor, reaching out for the heavy assault rifle as Forby’s legs buckled and he dropped to his knees, blood spraying from the multiple ragged wounds across his face and head. The creature leaped off his shoulders and darted towards the shutter door as Forby flopped the rest of the way to the ground. Quite dead.
Liam raised the gun and pulled the trigger. The gun kicked his shoulder as he emptied the clip with a protracted and unaimed volley that produced a dozen showers of sparks and brick-red plumes of dust.
With the gun angrily clicking in his hands, he finally eased his finger off the trigger and peered through the gunsmoke at the inert body of the other creature. Now a shredded mess.
‘Jesus,’ whispered the old man, his croaky voice shaking.
CHAPTER 72
2001, New York
They stared at the naked body floating amid the pink-red soup of liquid in the plastic cylinder.
‘Will the support unit survive?’ asked Sal.
‘Becks,’ said Liam quietly. His voice little more than a gentle croak. ‘Her name is Becks.’
The soft glow of red light coming from the base of the birthing tube was the only illumination in the back room. It was enough for Maddy to see the lost expression of post-traumatic stress on Liam’s face. ‘She’ll live,’ said Maddy with the hesitant smile of someone not really sure. ‘Bob said their combat frames can sustain roughly a seventy-five per cent blood loss and still be able to recover from that, given enough time.’ She glanced at the shredded remnants of the female unit’s left