And then silence.
A few moments later, hands settle on the lid of the coffin, then lift it up.
My eyes have always been keen in the dark and are quick to adjust—the few moments in the coffin have practically given me night vision—so I can see my mother clearly as she looks down at me, a smirk on her wet, dripping lips.
There’s a dime-sized hole in her forehead, and her face is half-painted with her own drying blood. “Come on out,” she says. “It’s okay now.”
I climb out of the coffin and hug her around the waist. She hugs me back and I can feel the strength in her arms. Her body sings with rebirth.
There’s a twisted mound of flesh on the floor behind her, Mr. Jensen’s face a frozen snarl of shock and terror. His stomach is ripped open, his skin gray and shriveled, the limbs atrophied.
He’s been drunk dry.
I look up, concernedly, into my mother’s face. I notice her eyes have adapted, as well. They’re shimmering gold in the heavy darkness.
“I’m fine,” she says, then shrugs. “I was bored with the sun anyway.”
I press my face to her dress, her warm skin already cooling against my cheek, her heartbeat nonexistent. “You can turn me,” I say. “We could be together.”
She shakes her head, blows the hair out of her eyes. “Nah, I like you just the way you are.” She strokes my hair and I hold her tight, sad that she had to die.
“He doesn’t talk to me anymore,” I say, finally letting my tears come, soaking the fabric of her dress. “In my head. I can’t hear him.”
“It’s okay,” she says, “Don’t worry, sweetie.” Her mouth is close to my ear, her breath a cigarette-scented whisper. “I’m here now.”
She pulls me away, holds me at arm’s length. Her strong hands grip my shoulders tight, golden eyes dancing. A sharp white tooth climbs down her lower lip.
“You can talk to me.”
AQUARIUM DIVER
THE HANGAR IS PART OF a vast parcel of government land that hasn’t been officially inhabited since the end of World War II. Settled among the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the unnamed base is spread over thirty thousand acres of hard terrain, winding dirt roads, and a cracked runway pitted with stubborn weeds that have spent years pushing their way through the weathered concrete. The runway (such as it is) terminates into the main base, which consists of an empty administration building and two rows of barren hangars, lettered A through F (Alpha – Foxtrot), that are large enough to house whatever military aircraft once flew in and out of the dilapidated military complex.
Unknown to anyone who may notice the base from an aerial perspective—or perhaps from a distant vista while driving the two-lane roads that snake through the foothills—is that although the base appears unoccupied (even unusable) it is, in fact, very much active.
And despite evidence to the contrary, very well-defended.
The 20-foot-high cyclone fencing that surrounds the thirty thousand acres is vigorously maintained and, in many places, electrified; especially in areas where a man might gain a foothold without being visible from the surveillance cameras mounted every fifty yards around the perimeter. The camera feeds are monitored by a rotating team of army personnel situated in Hangar Delta. Were visitors allowed on the compound, they would have been shocked at the modernized interior of Delta, and equally surprised at the response-readiness of the over one hundred troops deployed within.
What would certainly cause a visitor’s eyes to widen, their proverbial jaw to drop, is the inside of the other occupied space, Hangar Foxtrot (standing directly adjacent to Hangar Delta), also modernized and outfitted with the most current technology and security apparatus.
Unlike Delta, however, Foxtrot is not a security complex built to support military operations. There are no offices or weapons storage, no training areas, none of the usual furnishings and amenities to comfortably house one hundred fighting men and women on a day-to-day basis: bunkhouses, bathrooms and showers, kitchens, and rec areas.
No, Foxtrot has none of those things. In fact, there are only two structures of note inside the cavernous hangar: One is a control room—a free-floating box the size of a Greyhound bus, suspended, like a web-stuck fly, by foot-thick steel cables attached to the hangar’s walls, ceiling and floor—hovering thirty feet in the air, and accessible only via a metal, switchback staircase with mesh walls that rises like a tower from the concrete.
The other structure is a 50-foot high, 50-foot-wide, cube.
The cube is enclosed on all four sides by two-foot-thick translucent polycarbonate walls, fully molded—no seams, no screws, no bindings, no crevices.
Airtight.
Inside the cube there are no vents, no air holes, no internal temperature control, and only one door, hermetically sealed and secured by an electronic mechanism accessible only from the cube’s exterior. Through the door is a sealed antechamber, much like the airlock of a space station, and this does have vents, but not for oxygen. At the touch of a button, from either inside the chamber or within the control room, the antechamber fills instantaneously with liquid CO2, removing the breathable oxygen and, most importantly, dropping the temperature of the small chamber to below freezing within seconds; a last fail-safe should something go horribly wrong.
At the end of the chamber is a second door, a second electronic lock.
Beyond that, nothing but the wide-open space of the hangar. And beyond that?
The world.
The scientists who work at Hangar Foxtrot, and the soldiers who occupy Delta, refer to the giant cube as the Aquarium.
As for what lives inside, they have several names.
To most of the scientists, it’s known simply as the Specimen. The grunts in Delta glibly refer to it as Booger or, when feeling magnanimous, Big Booger.
To the public—ever since the events that took place in a rural Pennsylvania town over fifty years previous, when dozens of innocent people died and a tight-knit community was torn apart by terror and chaos—it’s known by an altogether different name.
“HOW’S OUR BLOB TODAY?” BOB Cronus asks, still huffing from his climb up the stairs.
