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His big palm squeezes the back of my thigh when we reach the door, where he pauses to listen. “Shhh.”
In spite of my wishes, my intent isn’t to get him and Kenny killed, so I do as he says and still in his grasp.
The quiet squeal of the door tells me he’s cracked it open, though I can’t see anything through his massive body.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “Four of them. About three rooms down. Looks like they’re polishing off some bones, or something.”
Through the haze of misery still clouding my brain, his words give me a jolt of urgency. Perhaps merely instinct kicking in, the rush of adrenaline masking my apathy.
“I’ve never seen anything like these. Some hearty-looking bastards.”
Brandon crosses the room and crouches low, where I’m level with his face. Expression blanched with despair, he shakes his head. “Crossbreeds.”
“What are they?”
“The early mutations. Before Legion built up its army, they crossbred dogs with the Alpha gene. Wiped out hives in minutes, but they were hard to control. They turned on their handlers.”
Cadmus finally sets me down, and I twist, peeking through the door to see four massive animals that hardly look like dogs anymore. Bulky muscles and blocky heads give the appearance of beasts, their lips deformed and peeled back over razor-sharp teeth, and milky eyes that make them look undead. One of them must cross a boundary, because the dog next to it growls and snarls, before it sinks its teeth into the other dog’s neck and thrashes its head, tearing a chunk of the second dog’s throat. The bitten animal yelps and lunges at the first dog, until the two of them are rolling on the floor. If not for the two still feasting on bones, it’d be a good opportunity to sneak out.
Watching in horror, I imagine those teeth sinking into my own flesh. “Why keep them, if they turned?”
“Not sure, exactly. Except, my superiors often threatened to feed us to them, if we got out of line. Plus, they weren’t afraid to attack Ragers. They used to unleash them on hordes, I guess.”
“This the only entrance to this room?” Cadmus speaks into the walkie-talkie.
“The back lets out to a lab, but that door is blocked by fallen equipment on the other side.” Kenny’s voice has been dialed down, so as not to rouse the dogs, but a beeping sound in the background stirs my curiosity. Like some kind of alarm going off.
“And the vents?” Cadmus looks up, as if searching for a way in.
“If you’ve got a ladder handy. The ceilings in that room were built high to accommodate the storage of capsules.”
An upward glance shows the ceilings well out of reach, perhaps thirty-feet high.
“Well, that’s brilliant. We’ll have to wait it out, then.”
“The dogs aren’t the only issue. I’m getting a reading on the liquid nitrogen tanks in the cryo lab. The pressure is dangerously high.”
“’The hell does that mean?”
“When the electricity was turned back on, it must’ve altered the ambient temperature in the room just enough to tip the balance between gas and liquid. The valves must’ve defected.” The sound of an electronic voice speaking in the background jumbles whatever follows. A warning from him, I imagine.
I glance up toward the dogs, who’ve stopped fighting, and I notice two of them are missing. “Cadmus, where …. Where are the other two?” Scanning the hallway shows no sign of them, but the sudden curiosity of the other dogs sends crystals of ice crawling over the back of my neck.
They turn toward the crack in the door, and I swear, their milk white eyes latch onto mine.
They bound toward us.
Air stalls in my chest, as the door slams before they barrel through, and Cadmus yanks me to my feet. “Get to the back of the room! The two of you find somewhere to hide! Now!” Shoulder to the door, he braces himself, to keep it shut against the growls and snarling on the other side.
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me, just go!” The last word is spoken on a grunt, as a hard thump knocks the door.
Swiping up Brandon’s hand, I take the lead, and race toward the back of the room, my stomach twice as tense when we pass Valdys’s chamber. A large, steel supply cabinet catches my eye. Perhaps hiding inside will mask our smell, as those things undoubtedly have a craving for blood.
Cadmus curses, and the clashing sound that follows begs me to run and help him, but I know I’m no match for those beastly things, and there isn’t anything in sight I could use for a weapon. I’d only put him at risk.
Swinging open the door to the cabinet reveals some large piece of equipment I don’t recognize. Brandon moves off to the side before prodding me in first, and I scoot over to make room for him beside me.
