Overlord

39

Alex Wong sat with his staff, lamenting his life choices. Whatever had led to all this, he questioned if it was worth the paycheck. But, he consoled himself, these burly, heavily armed mercenaries had assured him and his staff that as long as they all sat quietly, no harm would come to them. He had to believe that. They would apparently be shipped off Antarctica and back to civilization soon if they behaved themselves. So far, the mercs had done nothing to dissuade him of the truth of it. So they just had to wait. He could do that.

Priya Yardley lay on one couch, sleeping fitfully, her face swollen and bruised. On the next couch lay a man called Tom Shelton, his cheek split open and patched now with a band-aid. Apparently he had tried to act like a hero when the mercs had swept in and one had floored him with the butt of a rifle. At least the fool hero hadn’t been shot. Tom’s boyfriend sat on the floor beside the couch where Tom lay, one hand gently stroking the injured man’s hair. On the plus side, between them Priya and Tom presented an ever-present warning that these guys weren’t mucking around. Quick and dangerous violence lay in wait for anyone stupid enough to try to stand up to them now. Perhaps a few hours of boredom wasn’t so bad. All the time things were dull, it meant no one was getting hurt. Alex knew well the old curse, May you live in interesting times. He had had more than enough of interesting and longed for the tedious monotony of base life again.

Just a few hours, they had promised. Or would it be longer? Alex thought about the first team that had gone down and never come back. Then the second team had been sent and no word had come from them until these mercenaries arrived. Were they lost too? Although Anders Larsen had come back then returned underground with the other squad of mercs. So perhaps it wasn’t that people were lost down there, but detained for some other reason. He didn’t like to consider what that reason might be. Maybe now they were all gone, dead somehow, and only the people in this room were left alive anywhere in the region. If Larsen and the other mercs didn’t come back up, how long would they wait here before deciding it was time to go?

“Hey,” he said, addressing a curly-haired merc called Hagen who seemed to be in charge of the other two soldiers left behind.

“What?”

“How long are you going to wait? Like, what are your orders if they don’t come back?”

Hagen frowned, a slow, dull thing. “Why wouldn’t they come back?”

Alex smiled inwardly, but kept his face neutral. “You haven’t heard?”

“About what?”

“An entire scientific expedition was lost in those caverns. They went down and never came back. This team is the second, sent down to find them.”

“What?”

The three newcomers exchanged nervous looks. Alex couldn’t help easing his boredom by playing with them like this, but his question was genuine. “So do you have orders for if they don’t return?”

Hagen shook his head. “No. We’re expecting them back any time now.”

“And if they’re not?”

A new tension had risen in the room, boredom turned to frightened attention.

Hagen started to speak again, but was interrupted by one of his squad. “Sir, what was that?”

Hagen turned. “What was what?”

“I heard something.” The man, tall and angular with ash blond hair, moved nearer to the wall at the end of the lounge room where he had been leaning against a table.

“What did you hear?”

“Kind of a thump, against the wall here.” The tall man leaned close, then jumped back as another thump, this one distinct, sounded through the prefab wall.

“The hell is that?” someone asked in a querulous voice. “Everyone is here.”

Hagen turned back to Alex. “What’s back there? Could the team come back that way?”

Alex frowned, picturing the base layout in his mind. “Nothing’s back there really,” he said. “That’s just an internal wall, a corridor outside it and the kitchens on the other side. But all the staff are here, so there’s no one in the kitchen. If anyone came in the back way, they might pass through there, but we’d have seen them going past these windows, I think.”

He gestured outside at the uniform whiteness, the scattering of sheds and equipment. The elevator entrance to the caverns was a good hundred yards beyond the base in the opposite direction. The thump came again, louder this time, followed quickly by two or three others, spread along the wall, then scratches and scrapes.

“It moved!” the tall man said, bringing his assault rifle up to bear.

“What did?” Hagen demanded.

“The wall! The fucking wall flexed!”

More rapid thumps and knocks sounded, then more scratching and scrabbling noises. “Sounds like a pack of dogs trying to get in,” Hagen said, moving a few steps nearer.

Alex moved back in the other direction, subtly indicating to his staff to join him in moving as far away from that wall as the room would allow. Gathered by the windows, they watched the three mercenaries line themselves up a few feet apart all facing the wall as it flexed again and the noises, more insistent than before, continued.

Alex opened his mouth, about to suggest they all decamp to another part of the base, maybe even his office, where they could see what was back there on the CCTV monitors. But the words froze in his throat when a large, zigzagging crack split the wall from floor to ceiling. Shocked barks of surprise and a couple of screams filled the air, then the wall burst open.

Beyond the split, the dark corridor could be seen, and it writhed with movement. Alex frowned, trying to make sense of the shadows, then needed no more time when they spilled into the room. Huge black, shining creatures, giant armored bugs with glistening carapaces and snapping mandibles, each at least the size of a grown man, fell into the lounge like maggots pouring through the split skin of a corpse. Bizarrely, their faces, including their large-looking eyes, were covered with ragged strips of cloth, seemingly taken from a wide variety of sources. Jackets, pants, even the acrylic lining of tents, all torn into strips and tied in place.

The room filled with thunder as the mercenaries staggered back, firing staccato bursts from their assault rifles. Bright green sparks flashed and spat as the bullets bounced off the shining shells. The tall blond man had been nearest to where the wall had burst open and the creatures fell upon him first. His screams were high-pitched and unreal as blood sprayed the walls and floor, his body parts quickly scattering as his screams were shut off. But the thunderous gunfire continued, people ran randomly, screaming and crying, with nowhere to go. Having backed up to the windows, the creatures now blocked the path to the only door out of the room.

The creatures, blind by the coverings, turned quickly left and right responding to wherever they perceived sound to come from. They snapped and tore and pulled limbs from sockets. And despite occasional success from the remaining two mercenaries shooting them down, more and more came. The corridor behind the burst open wall was thick with them.

Alex Wong, pressed into one corner with the wet, warm sensation of urine soaking through his pants, found himself wishing more than ever that he was bored again.