supplication.
Machinery whirred behind her within the glass-walled room, ancient lab technology that was being operatedâperversely, it seemed to Kaneâby another of the shambling undead figures, this one a short, stocky womanwhose skin had wrinkled into a black smear that clung like tar to her dead flesh. She was operating some kind of mixing device, Kane realized, and he moved a little to his right so that he could see what the device was doing. He watched as test tubes spun, their luminous contents bubbling and frothing with each rotation of a spinner arm. There were four test tubes at each end of the arm, eight in total, each clamped there by holding pincers, a stopper cap preventing their contents from spilling free as the arm rotated.
âWhat the hell are they mixing up in there?â Kane mouthed, his voice something less than a whisper.
Kane watched as the eight glass tubes were whirled around once again within the centrifuge unit, like a tiny funfair ride. The spinner arm itself was located behind reinforced armaglass, like a little glass display cabinet at the side of the room. Presumably, the cabinet was designed to both dampen the noise of the machinery and to protect the user from dangerous chemicals, for the door could be sealed to prevent any leakage. However, Kane spotted a crack in the glass and the lock appeared to have been wrenched off, a brown smear across the front panelâthe womanâs flesh, he acknowledged with a growing sense of nausea.
A digital timer at the top of the mixing unit glowed, proudly counting down from a little over twelve hours, its green numbers marching slowly toward an inevitable zero. Whatever it was that was being mixed there, it would be ready at sundown, Kane calculated.
His interest piqued, Kane shifted his position, turning his attention back to the taller, corpselike figure who seemed to dominate the room. The corpse woman was working through a file of papers, and Kane swallowed hard as he saw the pages begin to crumble in her hands,tiny flecks of paper sailing away on the air, now nothing more than dust. Wrapped in its brown cardboard sleeve, the file was marked U.S. Army and several notations appeared on its foremost page.
Kane edged closer to the glass, trying to make out the designation on the front cover where the corpse woman held it with vomit-yellow talons. RWI077-093-d.
Kane committed the number to memory as he watched the woman flick through the file, a rictus grin fixed on her hideous features. With each turn of the page, flakes of paper drifted from the file like ashes from a fire; it was literally rotting at her touch.
Kane turned at a nearby noise, ducking out of sight. Across the hangar, the animated corpse of a male was pacing toward the glass-walled room, rolling gait uncomfortable as he balanced a heavy metal cylinder in his outstretched arms. The man was wide-shouldered and must have been over six feet tall when he was alive. He still seemed formidable even with so much of his body rotted away beneath the ragged remains of his dark clothes. Despite himself, Kane smiled when he noticed that the corpse wore a leather patch over his left eye, even though the evidence of the right eye was just an empty socket now. Whatever it had worn in life, the man now wore in death, Kane realized.
Eye Patch stomped through the open doorway and into the glass-walled area, and he stopped in front of the woman, showing the cylinder for her approval like some mockery of an old-fashioned door-to-door salesman.
Kane hunkered down, watching the transaction from behind the concealing cabinets. The woman leader stared at the cylinder for a long moment, reading the coded markings there with lizardlike eyes yellow as egg yolks. There were several brightly colored haz-chem labels onits side, Kane saw, including one showing a cross through the black silhouette of a slope-sided beaker on a burned orange backgroundâpoison.
The woman ran her hand along the
Machinery whirred behind her within the glass-walled room, ancient lab technology that was being operatedâperversely, it seemed to Kaneâby another of the shambling undead figures, this one a short, stocky womanwhose skin had wrinkled into a black smear that clung like tar to her dead flesh. She was operating some kind of mixing device, Kane realized, and he moved a little to his right so that he could see what the device was doing. He watched as test tubes spun, their luminous contents bubbling and frothing with each rotation of a spinner arm. There were four test tubes at each end of the arm, eight in total, each clamped there by holding pincers, a stopper cap preventing their contents from spilling free as the arm rotated.
âWhat the hell are they mixing up in there?â Kane mouthed, his voice something less than a whisper.
Kane watched as the eight glass tubes were whirled around once again within the centrifuge unit, like a tiny funfair ride. The spinner arm itself was located behind reinforced armaglass, like a little glass display cabinet at the side of the room. Presumably, the cabinet was designed to both dampen the noise of the machinery and to protect the user from dangerous chemicals, for the door could be sealed to prevent any leakage. However, Kane spotted a crack in the glass and the lock appeared to have been wrenched off, a brown smear across the front panelâthe womanâs flesh, he acknowledged with a growing sense of nausea.
A digital timer at the top of the mixing unit glowed, proudly counting down from a little over twelve hours, its green numbers marching slowly toward an inevitable zero. Whatever it was that was being mixed there, it would be ready at sundown, Kane calculated.
His interest piqued, Kane shifted his position, turning his attention back to the taller, corpselike figure who seemed to dominate the room. The corpse woman was working through a file of papers, and Kane swallowed hard as he saw the pages begin to crumble in her hands,tiny flecks of paper sailing away on the air, now nothing more than dust. Wrapped in its brown cardboard sleeve, the file was marked U.S. Army and several notations appeared on its foremost page.
Kane edged closer to the glass, trying to make out the designation on the front cover where the corpse woman held it with vomit-yellow talons. RWI077-093-d.
Kane committed the number to memory as he watched the woman flick through the file, a rictus grin fixed on her hideous features. With each turn of the page, flakes of paper drifted from the file like ashes from a fire; it was literally rotting at her touch.
Kane turned at a nearby noise, ducking out of sight. Across the hangar, the animated corpse of a male was pacing toward the glass-walled room, rolling gait uncomfortable as he balanced a heavy metal cylinder in his outstretched arms. The man was wide-shouldered and must have been over six feet tall when he was alive. He still seemed formidable even with so much of his body rotted away beneath the ragged remains of his dark clothes. Despite himself, Kane smiled when he noticed that the corpse wore a leather patch over his left eye, even though the evidence of the right eye was just an empty socket now. Whatever it had worn in life, the man now wore in death, Kane realized.
Eye Patch stomped through the open doorway and into the glass-walled area, and he stopped in front of the woman, showing the cylinder for her approval like some mockery of an old-fashioned door-to-door salesman.
Kane hunkered down, watching the transaction from behind the concealing cabinets. The woman leader stared at the cylinder for a long moment, reading the coded markings there with lizardlike eyes yellow as egg yolks. There were several brightly colored haz-chem labels onits side, Kane saw, including one showing a cross through the black silhouette of a slope-sided beaker on a burned orange backgroundâpoison.
The woman ran her hand along the
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