The others around him weren’t so discerning, most of them coughing wildly as they yelled themselves hoarse trying to be noticed.
Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, Hurley lifted his head, squinting his eyes to see into the smoke. Something slowly lumbered toward him, growing more distinct with each passing second. He just about burst into cheers when he saw that it was the Lobster.
The crime fighter’s leather jacket was torn in places, his face scratched, bruised, and bloody, but he was still a sight for sore eyes.
“You’re alive,” Hurley said as the man approached.
“Of course I am,” the Lobster retorted, as if there could ever be any doubt.
He undid the straps on Hurley’s wrists.
“We have to get these people out of here,” Hurley said, as he untied his ankles and hopped off the table.
But the Lobster’s attention was already diverted to an area at the far end of the chamber.
“Take care of that,” he said absently, moving toward the back of the room and the strange, eerie noises emanating from there.
Hurley peered through the drifting smoke, as the Lobster approached what appeared to be a curtain. Taking the heavy material in his hand, he yanked it aside to reveal the nightmare it concealed.
It was a cage, a cage filled with at least seventy of the twisted and malformed victims of the devil’s injections.
Exposed to the light of the chamber, the creatures reacted, charging at the bars as one. Hurley watched with horror as the cage pushed outward with the strain.
“Free the prisoners quickly,” the Lobster said, backing away from the cage.
Quickly, they moved amongst the rows, freeing those captured by the horned creature, but leaving those who had been injected struggling against their bonds.
The occasional sound of gunfire bled out from somewhere beyond the chamber, signaling that the battle between Red O’Neill’s men and the monsters wasn’t over yet.
Bodies littered the floor of the large chamber. The Lobster bent down, retrieving a pistol from one of the corpses. Hurley did the same, finding a pump-action shotgun and some shells.
The monsters in the cage were becoming more aroused by the second. It wouldn’t be long before they were free.
“What about them?” Hurley asked, watching the cage. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“A quick and merciful death is the only answer,” the Lobster grimly replied.
Something moved in the smoke, a larger shape being helped along by a smaller. There was the sound of a metal door creaking open, and scuffling feet from somewhere in the gloom.
“Lead the prisoners out of here,” the Lobster said, hefting the revolver in his hand. “I’ve some unfinished business to attend to,” he added, before darting off into the unknown.
—
It wouldn’t be long until the army of the transformed was free. The monsters continued to shriek and wail their rage, pushing against the doors of their cage, straining the metal near to breaking.
The hostages seemed to be in a kind of shock, dull expressions upon their faces almost as if they were in a trance.
“Listen to me,” Hurley said loudly, and with authority. “I’m going to get you folks out of here.”
They were looking to him now, expressions of relief melting through the shocked stupor. They needed him to help them get through this, and he was more than willing to oblige.
Shotgun at his side, he herded the fifty or so people toward the door where O’Neill and his boys had made their entrance. He could see that that it led to a long stone corridor, and guessed that, if followed, it would take them up to the street.
“That’s it,” he urged, wanting them to go faster. “Everything is going to be fine.”
The confined monsters’ agitation was intensifying. From where he stood he could just about make out the doors to the huge cage being forced outward, the bars straining to hold back its nightmarish prisoners.
There were stragglers toward the end, older men and women, and he made it a point to speak to them in his calmest voice so as not to frighten, but they had to move, and move quickly.
“Follow the others,” he spoke to a woman, the front of her dress stained dark with blood. He wondered whose blood it was, and what horrors she might have seen.
The poor woman looked at him, but Hurley wondered if there was anybody behind that vacant stare.
“Help her,” he told a man with a severe limp. “Make sure that she doesn’t wander.”
The man agreed, putting an arm around the woman’s shoulder to guide her, as well as provide himself with support.
Hurley looked around the smoke-filled chamber, checking for more stragglers, and was just about to leave when he thought he saw something moving in a corner, behind one of the wooden tables.
A tiny voice in his head told him to leave, but his old cop’s instincts kicked in and he wanted to be sure that no one was left behind.
“Hello?” he called over the shrieks and gibbering from the monsters in their cage. “Are you all right? Do you need some help? We’ve got to get you out of here before . . .”
One of the newly transformed had managed to free itself from its table restraints. By the look of one of its arms, and the way it uselessly dangled, it had dislocated its shoulder to escape its bonds. It was in the process of using its one good hand to loosen the straps of another such monster.
Hurley barely had the opportunity to raise the shotgun when they pounced. The gun roared, firing up into the ceiling. The dim lighting of the former brewery flickered, threatening to go out and plunge the entire chamber into darkness.
The monsters drove him to the ground, clawing and biting at him. Hurley reacted primitively, kicking out with his legs and feet. Using the butt of the rifle, he smashed one of the nightmares squarely in the face, causing an explosion of blood that spattered him. As if driven to even higher peaks of madness, the other monster intensified its attack, its hooked talons raking deep, bleeding furrows into Hurley’s skin, beneath his tattered clothes.
Hurley shouted, trying to get out from beneath the attacking beasts, but they were relentless and the evening’s exertions had taken their toll upon him. He just wasn’t strong enough.
At least you got the others to safety, he thought, as he prepared himself for what was likely to be his end.
Then one of the monsters yelped and was suddenly gone, flying off into the flickering darkness. The other paused momentarily in its attempts to tear Hurley apart, and was roughly grabbed about the throat and pulled off of him.
It took a moment for Hurley to realize what was going on.
Standing before him was a mountain of a man, his clothes torn and caked with gore. He still held the savage beast by the throat, squeezing the life from it until it struggled no more.
“Filthy bastards,” Red O’Neill said with a grimace, kicking the twitching corpse with a size-twelve shoe. He then looked to Hurley, a twinkle of madness in his eyes. “Thought you could use a hand.”
He reached down, offering his hand, and Hurley took it as he climbed to his feet.
Something screeched and scrabbled across the floor. The monster with the dislocated arm came at them. Hurley snatched up the shotgun from the floor, where he’d dropped it during his struggle. He felt nothing but satisfaction as he stuck the barrel of the gun into the creature’s screaming face and pulled the trigger, turning its head to red mist and fragments of bone.
He pumped another round into the weapon, turning to his savior. O’Neill didn’t look so good. He was swaying upon his feet. It looked as though he’d taken quite the beating, and might have lost a lot of blood.
“Let’s get out of here before we—”
“No,” Red said with a shake of his large head. “I can’t leave my boys here.”
Hurley looked around; there was very little time before more of the monsters were free.
“I doubt that your boys have made it,” Hurley told him.
O??
?Neill’s expression darkened. “I told them that I would bring them home . . . no matter what happened.”
There was no reasoning with the man; Hurley could see that. But from the sounds behind him, their time was up. The door to the cage at the far end of the brewery finally gave way, exploding open and flying off its hinges with a deafening clatter as the hellions confined within flowed out into the room.
Hurley was already moving toward the exit. “If you want to live, you have to leave now,” he said.
O’Neill turned toward the commotion and then looked back to him, terror in his gaze. Even in his maddened state, he knew that he didn’t want to die that way, torn to pieces by a swarm of jabbering beasts.
In the flickering light, O’Neill started toward him, and then staggered to a halt.
“C’mon,” Hurley urged.
O’Neill’s expression became vacant. He dropped to his knees, the blade of an ax embedded deeply in his back.
The monstrous Rocco Fazzina stood behind him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
—
The horned mastermind of this entire affair wasn’t where the Lobster had left him. The creature wasn’t dead, and now the Lobster was on the hunt. He hated when things he thought were dead didn’t stay that way. It was a problem that seemed to be happening far more frequently these days than it had in the past.
The night-vision lenses in his goggles had been broken in the melee back at the Fazzina house, so he carefully moved down the concrete passage from the brewery, pistol clutched tightly in his hand, his every sense at full alert.
The stone corridor ended at an open wooden door, leading out onto a loading dock, where a box truck idled. A creature that he recognized as the one he’d slashed earlier with the broken beaker was helping his master into the passenger side of the cab of the truck.
The Lobster quickened his steps, eager to bring this entire mess to a violent close. He passed through the archway, aiming his weapon at the monsters attempting to flee justice.
“Halt!” his voice boomed, as he took aim.
Chapel awkwardly turned, the throwing knife still protruding from his left eye socket. The smaller beast hissed, baring its teeth as it protectively clutched its master’s arm.
The Lobster’s finger applied pressure to the trigger, but it never completed the task. Something crashed into him, throwing him through the air. He landed hard upon the concrete loading dock, then rolled over the edge to the waiting driveway below.
His ears rang as he scrambled to rise, his brain attempting to figure out exactly what he’d been struck with. A new abomination stood atop the platform clapping and laughing wildly. The monster was at least twice the size of the beasts he’d already gone up against. A length of chain attached to a thick leather collar wrapped tightly around its thick, tree-trunk-sized throat.
The monster bounded down to the driveway, giggling like a demented child as it grabbed for him. The Lobster tried to avoid its hands, but the creature was much faster than he expected, catching his foot as he attempted to evade it. The thing hauled him up into the air and tossed him across the driveway, where he crashed into the front of the idling truck before he dropped to the ground.
Through a pain-induced haze, he saw the looming figures of the horned master and his sidekick coming around the truck.
Chapel seemed amused that the Lobster was still conscious.
“It’s so refreshing when even the failures of my experiments can be put to use,” the master said, knife blade bobbing up and down from his oozing eye socket.
The giant lumbered closer, its excited breathing revealing an unsettling eagerness.
The Lobster leapt to his feet, delivering a powerful punch to the monster’s jaw as it bent down to yank him up from the ground. Its head flipped to one side, and it stumbled back, temporarily stunned.
The monster wasn’t laughing anymore. With a deafening roar it lashed out, swatting him so hard it nearly took his head off.
Again the Lobster soared through the air, landing atop the warm hood of the truck.
“Buddy was my first attempt at using the serum,” the master said, still observing the confrontation. “The perfect test subject: simple in mind and oh-so-trusting. His keeper gave him to me for five dollars and a bottle of alcohol. I wasn’t exactly sure how much of the formula to use . . . and I think I used too much.”
It took everything that the Lobster had to remain conscious. He listened to the madman’s speech, focusing on every word.
The giant was screaming angrily, coming to snatch him from the roof of the cab.
“He remained quite childlike, but difficult to control. I had him chained in a subbasement until I could figure out what to do with him.”
The monster maker smiled, placing a taloned hand to his chest. “It warms the cockles of my heart to see him reach his potential.”
“Ghhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Buddy bellowed, a smell wafting from his open maw like raw sewage.
The Lobster knew that he no longer had it within himself to evade the giant’s clutches. The giant grabbed him in both enormous hands and hefted him from the roof of the truck.
Buddy glared at him with tiny, bloodshot eyes, a thick, muscular tongue snaking from his mouth to eagerly lick his chops. The Lobster had no doubt what his intentions were. He reached down to his belt, fingers fumbling for what hung there. It was a risk—a potentially dangerous risk—but this was a time for taking chances.
It was all he had left.
The grenade came away from his belt with a sharp tug, just as Buddy began to lift him toward his open mouth. The Lobster pulled the pin from the explosive. White smoke started to leak from the metal canister as he shoved it toward the monster’s gaping mouth. The beast recoiled, slamming his mouth closed, but the Lobster drove the canister into the beast’s mouth, shattering his front teeth.
Buddy roared with pain, tossing him aside.
The Lobster crashed into the side of the loading dock. Lifting his head, not capable of much else at the moment, he watched as the enraged monster reached for his mouth with one giant hand, just before the grenade detonated. Fire erupted from the struggling creature’s mouth, nostrils, and eyes, as the grenade exploded inside him.
Buddy lumbered around, his screams stolen as his vocal cords burned to ash. Crashing into the side of the truck, he nearly knocked it on its side before he landed on the ground, dead, his giant body aflame.
Chapel—or the thing that had once been Chapel—glared at the Lobster with his single functioning eye, before climbing into the truck.
With a grunt of exertion, the Lobster pushed off from the ground, climbing unsteadily to his feet as a veil of blackness threatened to pull him under.
But he would have none of that; pain could wait for another time.
There was evil yet to be destroyed.
—
It had taken every ounce of self-control that Harry had to let them drive away with the Lobster. He’d watched from hiding as those . . . things . . . had left Fazzina’s house, dragging an unconscious Lobster behind them. Harry had had to physically restrain himself, holding onto the side of an old oak tree, digging his fingers into the rough bark to keep himself from going to his employer’s aid. But the Lobster had been very specific. Harry was to remain undetected, no matter the situation.
Seeing the boss like that, though, being dragged along behind the twisted monstrosities—it was enough to push him to disobey the direct commands of his superior.
But he didn’t, no matter how much he wanted to disregard the Lobster’s commands. If there was one thing that Harry was, and always would be, it was a good soldier.
And that good soldier had been told to follow if necessary, and to wait for a sign to call the others.
Lester had fixed him up with one of his communication boxes. The device hummed and crackled from the back seat, as Harry waited to hear from his superior.
The lights of his own vehicle extinguished, Harry had followed the dark s
edan, driven by the Lobster’s captors, to the old Tadmore Armory. If his memory served him right, this had been the site of an illegal brewery not too far back, but it had been abandoned when the production was consolidated with other illegal brewing operations closer to Manhattan.
And here he waited, even after the other cars had arrived and a man who looked an awful lot like Red O’Neill—carrying an ax—led a group of heavily armed men into the old brewery. Another group waited outside.
Still Harry only observed.
The Lobster inspired this kind of dedication and confidence, and no matter how hard it was to sit there, and to wonder what was going on inside the structure at that very moment, he knew that this was exactly what he had to do.
What he was supposed to do.
He was tempted to fix himself a pipe, but didn’t want to take the chance of being noticed as he sat in the darkness. Harry had no idea how much longer he would have to wait, but he didn’t worry. He would sit here as long as he needed to, waiting for the Lobster’s inevitable signal.
When it came, the sudden sound of the boss’s distinctive voice—rising from the back seat—startled him.
“Harry,” the Lobster said, sounding far away. “Harry, are you there?”
He turned in the driver’s seat, reaching to retrieve the microphone and the headset from the back.
“I’m here,” he answered, speaking into the mic, one headphone pressed against his ear.
“It’s time,” the Lobster said, and then the line went dead.
But that was all Harry needed. He adjusted the controls on the radio set, tuning in the frequency for headquarters.
“Go ahead,” answered a voice that he recognized as Lester’s.
“It’s a go,” Harry said, knowing that his message would be relayed to the others who had been waiting for this call, making them spring into action.
It was what they were supposed to do.
All of them a part of the Lobster’s plan.
—
It was as if somebody had flipped a switch inside his head, a switch that was in control of everything that allowed a person to function as a rational, thinking human being. Seeing Fazzina in all his monstrous glory in front of him, something inside of Hurley just snapped. Here was the man who had taken away his life, who had killed him just as easily as if he’d put a pistol to his head and fired a bullet into his skull. Here was the man, now a monster among many other monsters, all flowing from their open cage and into the main chamber.