Chapter 28
The Broken Lab

They walked for another two hours in stony silence. Fred, now uneasy, kept glancing into the shadows, trying not to see Gollum, but more than once, seeing something move in the dark. Maybe this wasnÂ’t the best decision after all.

Greg finally stopped in front of a large door. He turned and cleared his throat.

“I don’t know what the heck happened to this place,” he said “or the staff at the doorway. But I know that in this room is the answer to that. We’ll only go in if you’re prepared.”

“I’m ready,” said Aaron at once.

“So am I,” said Liam.

George chimed in. “I am!”

One by one, the fellowship voiced their agreement, until finally, only Fred was left. All eyes turned to him. With a last glance into the darkness, he nodded, but said nothing.

Greg gave him a knowing look, turned, and entered a password into the keypad near the door. There was a pneumatic hiss and the door slid open. The fellowship stepped into the room and stared around it in a mixture of horror and wonder.

The lights still worked in this part of the facility, possibly the only place in the entire place. This room, apparently, was connected to a different generator than the rest of the place. Around the room were twenty, maybe thirty containment tubes. They were shattered from the inside, and glass covered the floor. In the center of the room was a computer station, its computers still running from when their occupants had last stopped using them.

But what drew the FredÂ’s gaze around the room was the blood. Lots of it. It was splattered on the walls and was spread across the floor. It was dry, like all the other blood he had seen in the compound, but it still sent shivers up and down his spine.

There were also bodies. The bodies that the blood had come from. They were spread across the lab, some wearing white lab coats, others in once-nice suits that had been ripped apart. Each and every one of the bodies was killed in some sort of horrible, graphic way. One, for example, appeared to have had his head ripped about three quarters of the way off. Another was pinned up on the wall by large pieces of broken glass, his eyes staring into nothing.

Greg approached the computer terminals. At one of the stations, the body of a well-dressed man, who appeared to be in his mid-seventies, was sitting. His head was tilted down on his chest, and the back of his skull appeared to have been ripped away. Greg bent down and looked at the manÂ’s face. He straightened suddenly.

“This is Bill Moria,” he said, and everyone understood. Greg pushed the corpse down onto the floor and sat in the chair. Fred and Aaron came up behind him.

“What are you doing?” Fred asked.

Greg answered without even looking up. “I’m going to see what our friend Mr. Moria was doing before he was killed. Let me see…” He clicked on the screen to wake up the computer. After a moment, the picture came back.

MORIA PROJECT LOGS. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

“Well, that should be helpful,” Aaron noted.

Greg nodded. “Indeed. Now… let’s access the last five entries.” He clicked a few more times. The screen now read:

DAY 854: Have received disturbing news from sublevel C-14. Experiment designation BA1R0G has escaped from the containment device. Am now ordering C-14 shut down, and may possibly have to terminate entire sublevel.

Greg frowned. “BA1R0G? I didn’t know there was a project with such a designation. Mr. Moria had a lot of secrets.” He clicked a few more times.

DAY 855: Lost contact with sublevels C-12 through C-16. Have shut down the entire C sublevel, and will begin termination process tomorrow.

“You think the termination process backfired?” Fred asked.

Greg shook his head. “I don’t think so. I still don’t know what happened.” He clicked again.

DAY 856: A group of the funders of this project are coming tomorrow to assess the experiments. Mr. Moria is asking for another six million dollars to fund another project of his. Termination process was begun today, and will end tomorrow.

DAY 856 ADDED ENTRY: Lost contact with sublevel B. Scientists are starting to get a little worried.

Aaron looked around the room. “These must be the funders in the suits. The next entry must be the last one. Greg nodded and clicked it.

DAY 857: The experiments have gotten loose all through all the levels. They are already cutting off out escapes. We are trapped. I can hear them now. They are coming. They are pounding on the door. We are trying to keep the ones that are still in the tubes that way, but they are awake, and are pounding on the glass. They are coming. They

Fred squinted at the screen. “That’s it? What happens next?”

Greg gestured to the room around them. “Isn’t it obvious? The experiments in this room broke out of their tubes and slaughtered Mr. Moria, the financers, and the scientists. That’s what happened here. The experiments got loose.”

“Exp… experiments?” Sam stuttered, looking around the room. “What… kind?”

“Various.” Greg was pale. “Some were just super-humans, others, entirely new creatures.”

“Like the BA1R0G?” Sam asked.

Greg nodded. “Exactly. Now, we can’t stay here. Now that we know that the experiments are loose, we need to-”

At that moment, a piercing alarm started to ring throughout the facility. Fred and Sam put their hands to their ears. Greg rounded on Phil, who was standing near one of the containment tubes, pale and shaking. In three strides, Greg was standing in front of the shivering Phil.

“What did you DO?” he shouted, grabbing Phil and pinning him to the wall. “WHAT did you DO?”

“Nothing… nothing… just touched the tube…” Phil stammered. “I just touched the tube, that’s all. Don’t kill me!”

“You know what I was just saying? Let’s bring Phil along.” Greg hissed. Then his tone changed, and he yelled in Phil’s face. “THAT WAY, HE CAN DO SOMETHING STUPID, SET OFF AN ALARM, AND GET US ALL KILLED!”

Aaron came up behind Greg and tapped him out the shoulder. “Let’s go, Greg. We can’t wait around here. That noise might have attracted hundreds of-”

A loud beeping filled the lab. Fred looked around, and then realized that everyone was staring at him. He finally realized what was going on, pulled out Sting. He pressed a button, and the screen flipped open. One glance was all he needed to see. He looked up in horror.

“They’re coming.”

To Be ContinuedÂ…