Out of the Black - Lee Doty [96]
He looked back to the monitor, but the clown-masked terrorists were gone. He started to zoom the camera back, but before it showed him anything, startled shouts, then ragged screams came through the door from the ambulance run.
"Holy..." Chase looked up at the entrance again, trying to make out shapes in the bursts of alternating red and white light. Then he looked down at the very, very small stunner clenched in his hand... this didn't look like it would be a good night for him. The screams cut off, leaving behind a silence that somehow seemed worse. A small buzz sounded from the security console. His finger was still on the zoom out key and the console was informing him that the camera had reached its widest angle. He glanced back down at the monitor, which now held an image of most of the area outside the door.
He got a series of impressions in about two seconds: motion, the ambulance's open doors, two bodies on the ground next to them, a crowd around the bodies, blood... eating? And then he wasn't looking anymore- he was running back toward the hallway where he'd entered the lobby. He'd seen the 2054 remake of Night of the Living Dead, and he got the point.
He had run maybe five steps back toward the inner door when he remembered Clint. He skidded to a halt and ran back to the security desk. It was surprisingly hard to lift a completely insensate human; it was like lifting a bag of bowling balls. Somehow he finally got Clint over his shoulder.
He ran as fast as his heavy load allowed. He hit the interior doors without slowing or putting out a hand. He just barreled through, using Clint's butt as a battering ram.
Chase heard the automatic doors leading to the ambulance run sliding open as the hallway doors swung closed behind him. He wasn't sure, but he thought he heard giggling coming from behind him.
***
The last forty minutes in the security ward had passed with only the usual tension. There had been no further power interruptions, the Harms had gone back to their usual sobbing, moaning, screaming routine. It was about two hours until Talia's shift ended and she could head home to get the kids ready for school.
Jeff sat across the desk, reading a book and smiling from time to time. Talia was doing a crossword on her tablet when silence settled again over the room.
"Here we go again." Talia said, looking up briefly.
Jeff looked up from his book, smiling. "Wow. Two in one hour."
His smile faded somewhat as his eyes focused on the scene over Talia's shoulder. After a few seconds, his brow furrowed. "Hey..."
She turned to follow his gaze, but before she saw, she heard. Unintelligible speech welled up behind her like a snowball rolling downhill, picking up mass. The mumble started with only one voice, but by the time she turned to face the source, all ten Harms had joined in the sound. It wasn't words, or at least none she knew, but all ten mouths were making the same sounds at the same time. All of them had raised their heads and were staring at the startled guards. The sound stopped and there was silence again.
"Ok, that's new." Talia said.
"And creepy." Jeff finished, staring back at the Harms.
Their expressions were blank, but as Talia and Jeff stared, the Harms began to smile. They spoke again, this time in perfect unison, but there was no meaning attached to the sounds, though it seemed to have a pattern to it. After another pause, they repeated the sounds, but they were clearer this time. The third time, the words were only slightly slurred.
"All around you." They said. "All around you now. Do you feel The Coming?"
What blood the sights and sounds didn't drain from them, the implication froze solid.
Darkness filled the room, descending like a plague over the grinning, chanting Harms. "All around you now." The chorus of restrained Harms repeated in the blackness.