Down deep in the silent darkness, something stirred. It had been waiting for a while now, but for it, time meant very little. Its last prey had escaped for it, it mattered little, a small part of what it once had been knew that any predator only made a successful kill once out of an average of eight tries. So it was patient, new food would come, and it would feed.
There was a vibration in the stone, its bald head lifted from its resting place. New food had come, and it was hungry. It was always hungry, a pain they gnawed at it every waking hour. Even after it feeds, the pain never lessened, ever. For almost five years, it had been down in the dark. The dark was its friend, its only friend. The food was afraid of the dark. Everything was, it knew. But what they feared, it embraced, it made hunting easier. The rats that scurried through its huge underground world were its usual meals. Only lately had new meat arrived from above.
It moved, stretching its long white legs. What had once been fingers were now jagged claws made for one thing and one thing only, rending flesh. Legs that had once propelled it bipedal were now used in conjunction with its arms.
Moving with great care, the creature moved through the tunnels, upward and upward, until it came to its new feeding ground. The three that had escaped were still behind the heavy metal door that had kept it away from them, but now there were two more. These two were out in the open, moving towards the first three. If it waited, it might be able to attack all five of them at once. Yes, it would wait until all the meat was available, then it would feast.
When they reached the door, Malachi rapped his knuckles against it and waited for a response. It took a few seconds before a feeble knock came in return from the other side.
"Is that thing still out there?" Came a weak voice.
"What thing? We haven't seen anything?" Tamar called back.
"As long as that thing is out there, this door is not opening. We'll die in here before we let that thing have us."
"There's nothing out here." Malachi told the voice. "Now, if you won't open this door, I'll open it."
"It took all three of us to close it. There's no way you're going to open it by yourself." The smug voice said from the other side of the door.
Ten red claws punched through the three-inch steel, cut downward, then curled until they had a firm grip. Then with the grinding of steel against stone, the door was pulled out of the wall in a shower of dust and gravel.
"You were saying?" Tamar quipped from the light of a dim portable lantern. She stepped over the prone form of the man she took to be the one they'd been conversing with.
Malachi stood in the hall, still holding the door, when suddenly he was gone, the door dropping to the floor with a great metallic clang. Tamar whirled around in time to hear the sound of body against body combat. Rushing back out the door, she ducked as a shape sailed out of the darkness and landed with a thud further down the hall.
Out of the darkness, Malachi shot like a missile. Tamar only had a split second to see what he'd thrown. It was all pale,white skin, and flashing claws. Then it was gone, swept away in a flurry of red and black, its horse, rasping cries echoed off the cold stone walls. The last thing Tamar saw of it was its face. Something was so familiar about it.
A memory flashed through her head. Hayworth had been talking to one of her favorite guards to close to the cell she'd been kept in. She'd told her something about how she had created many creatures before she had perfected her gene splicing process. Some had lived, most had died. The one's that had survived she'd had disposed of in an underground cavern system where the aliens couldn't recover any of them.
"MAL DON'T!" Too late, the rending of bone, followed by a single sharp snap, and silence returned to the black hall of stone.
"Is this what attacked you?" Malachi drug the creature back to the room and tossed its head into the middle of it. All three men jumped at the sight of it, then nodded as one.
"Wha, what is that thing?" The man they'd been talking to asked.
"One of General Hayworth's experiments. She was done with it, so she threw it away, just like she does with everything she creates." Tamar stared at the head as well. She wondered if that would have been her fate had she not escaped from that place.
Everyone else stared at the remains of the creature with revulsion everyone, except Malachi. He stood there as still as a stone, but his eyes were on Tamar, not the creature. She was in a turmoil, not on the outside of course. She'd never let something like this show to anyone. Only, he didn't need to see any outward expression to know something was wrong.
"Are you guys able to move?" He asked quickly, moving into the room.
"I don't think Andrew can, but me and Tim can at least hobble. I'll crawl out of here if I have to." Bracing himself against the wall, the man who was talking pushed himself to his feet with a wince. Grabbing his rifle, he wobbled towards the door.
"Fine, I'll carry Andrew, Tamar, you take point. We need to get back to the main level. Tamar?" She hadn't moved since he'd entered the room, and now Malachi was worried.
"Tamar, we need to go. I know what's going on in your head now, bu..."
"HOW! How can you know what's going through my head?" Tamar leaped to her feet, staring Malachi in the face. Then she remembered who she was accusing.
"Oh, right? But you don't understand..."
"And this is not the time or the place to discuss it. With what you said, there might be more of those things down here. We need to get these guys out of here, then I'll listen to every thing you have to tell me," he grabbed her tense shoulders. "I promise," and felt them relax.
Without a word, she whirled, sprinted out the door and down the hall. The man who had been named Tim carried the dim hand lantern, so he and the man whose name they hadn't been told yet held each other up and sped down the tunnel after her at their best speed.
"It's all clear to the stair well." Tamar's disembodied voice came from up ahead.
With Malachi bringing up the rear, the five of them moved up the stairs in record time. Coming to the locked door at the top, the two injured men beat their fist on it in desperation. The sound of stone on stone, then a heavy metallic clunk, and the door swung open just far enough for all of them to slip through. The instant on the other side of the door, Malachi laid his burden down and spun to the door. Grabbing the heavy metal bar that served as its cross brace, with the shriek of protesting steel, he stretched the metal until it was at least two feet longer than it was to begin with. It was thinner now, but going from four inches square to three inches wouldn't weaken it too much, he figured.
He then grabbed both ends and, with the newly created length, bent both ends over so he had a foot long prong at both ends. Taking it in both hands, he rammed it into the solid rock on either side of the door. He sank it so far in that his fists made indentations in the stone.
Turning, he smacked his hands together, creating billows of dust. He didn't notice the looks of awe or the slack jaws of everyone who had just witnessed his display.
"That door does not open, for any reason. No one goes down past this level, understood?" Steve had just arrived, so he heard Malachi's order.
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