Then again, it apparently hadn't taught Andy anything either, or else he and Sun would have never come here.

"Just don't kill her," Andy said, quickly leaving the office.

Out in the hall, he startled to the sound of automatic gun fire. It was very close. Andy placed his back against the wall and peeked around the corner.

Three guards were shooting at something unseen further down the hallway.

A millisecond later, one of the men was pounced upon by something large, covered in colorful feathers.

It was the dinosaur. Achillobator. Tall as a man, five meters long, with a head bigger than a crocodile's and taloned feet that tore open the soldier as easily as unzipping a sleeping bag. Guts spilled out, and the creature immediately opened wide and bit off the second man's head before the soldier had a chance to adjust aim. The third turned and tried to run, but the achillobator's tail whipped around like a stingray, impaling him through the back and out his chest.

Charged with adrenaline, Andy sprinted in the opposite direction, heading for the elevator. A small tree fell before him, and Andy jumped over it before realizing it wasn't a tree at all, but a giant centipede, brown and thick as the trunk of a forty-year old oak. He glanced over his shoulder as he ran, and the insect reared up, its mandibles clicking and antenna whipping around furiously just as the dinosaur plowed into it. The centipede quickly wrapped around the prehistoric creature, coiling like a python, and Andy called the elevator with his key fob, unable to turn away from the two monsters as they locked in mortal combat.

As they battled, something else slunk around the corner. It looked like a giant bird of prey, with a massive, curved beak and sharp black eyes. But as the full animal came into view, Andy saw its back half was that of a lion.

The griffon.

It focused on Andy, and the feathers on its neck ruffled, standing on edge. Then its maw opened wide and it let out a terrifying screech that made Andy feel faint. It hunkered down- stalking mode-and its yellow talons click-click-clicked on the tile floor as it slunk toward Andy.

This is bad.

Andy thought of the countless nature shows he'd seen over his lifetime, where some predatory bird gripped its prey and tore off strips of flesh while it struggled to escape, and he was hard pressed to think of a worse way to die.

The griffon crept closer, and Andy shrunk against the elevator doors, no clue at all how to defend himself. What do you do when a gigantic eagle/lion hybrid attacks? Go for its eyes? Curl up in a ball? Or just pray it all ends quickly?

When it was a meter away, the griffin lowered its body to the floor, getting ready to spring.

The elevator still hadn't arrived, and Andy wondered what his very last thought would be. That he'd failed Sun? That he blamed himself for getting them into this mess? That it sure hurt like hell being eaten alive by a griffin?

Then the creature squawked again, immediately spinning around and attacking the dinosaur that had locked its jaws onto its back leg.

The elevator opened-blessedly empty-and Andy retreated from the monster wars and told the lift to take him to subbasement 5.

That's where Sun would be heading. To free Bub.

Andy had no clue how he was going to stop her, but he had to try. If there was even the tiniest bit of humanity left in his wife, he'd find it. She was strong. One of the strongest people he'd ever known. If anyone in the world had the willpower to fight back against the infection that had overtaken her, Sun did.

As the elevator took him deeper into the earth, Andy tried to get his breathing under control and considered the future. If he was able to help Sun, and if they got out of there, and if Bub didn't destroy the world.

A whole lot of ifs.

If things did work out, he vowed he and Sun would get off the grid. Go somewhere the government couldn't find them. Hide away in a little podunk town where Sun could be a veterinarian and Andy could teach French or Spanish or something equally banal at the local community college. Change their names. Start a family. Get away from all the death and the monsters and the ever-looming threat of humanity's annihilation.

When he reached subbasement 5, Andy tensed, but understood he couldn't brace himself for whatever he was about to face. Maybe it would be crawling with creatures. Maybe Sun was waiting to kill him. Maybe Bub was already freed, ready to take the elevator to the surface and make good on his promise to destroy humanity.

But when the doors opened, the hallway was empty. Andy quickly made his way toward the cell Bub and Lucas shared. Bub hovered in place, eyeing Andy malevolently. Lucas sat in his chair, looking pensive.

"Your lovely wife?" Lucas asked.

"She's... infected."

"Aye. Controlled from within, so to speak. In 1518, in Strasbourg, there was a dancing plague. Over four hundred people afflicted and unable to stop dancing. It lasted almost a week, and some literally danced themselves to death. Their disease controlled their actions."

"Was that Bub?"

"No. Least, I don't believe it was. Just saying that people, sick people, sometimes aren't responsible for their actions. Remember that, whatever happens next."

"Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun."

Andy twisted around, and saw Sun had come up behind him. She had that toothed, demonic smile on her face, and there was blood on the front of her hospital gown.

"You... you can fight this, Sunshine," Andy said. "I know you're in there. You can-"

Sun backhanded Andy, sending him to the floor. Then she placed a key card up to the cell's LED panel.

"Sun! Don't!" Andy reached for her leg, and was summarily kicked in the face. Sun quickly punched some keys and the cell door opened.

Then there was a violent crash.

The batling was knocked clean out of the air by a flying net of steel, careening into Sun and sending them both sprawling onto the hallway floor.

The steel mesh fence that had separated Lucas and Bub fell on top of the batling, pinning it underneath. Sun lay to the side, unconscious and bleeding from a gash on her forehead. Andy quickly crawled to her. She had a pulse.

"I hate noisy roommates," Lucas said, stepping out of his cell and staring down at Bub.

Bub grasped the fence in his clawed hands and threw it back at Lucas, hitting the Manx man in the midsection and knocking him into the cell. It then beelined past Andy, who punched with everything he had as it landed on Sun. A moment later Bub had the key card in its hand, then it turned on Andy, placing its claw on his chest.

"Jooooooooin usssssssssssss, Dennison."

Andy felt a pinch, then Bub was gone, flying down the hallway. Andy lifted his shirt, saw the puncture mark in his sternum.

I'm infected. Like Sun.

He looked at Lucas, who was sitting against the rear wall of the cell.

"Wee bastard is strong, ain't he?"

"He... Bub... injected me..."

"He tends to do that." Lucas got up, seemingly unharmed, and walked up to Andy and Sun. With a punch too fast to see, he clipped Sun under the jaw. She slumped to the floor.

Andrew looked at his wife-the thing that was his wife-and realized he didn't want to live like that. He'd been willing to do whatever it took to save Sun, but the thought of being a prisoner in his own, demonic body, slavishly serving Bub...

Andy would rather die. And he selfishly dwelled in self-pity for several seconds before saying, "Maybe you should just kill us both."

"I didn't peg you as one to give up, Andy. Didn't you defeat this Bub fella once before?"

"No. I mean, we hurt him, but..."

"How'd ye hurt him?"

"Radiation."

Lucas nodded. "I can see how that would work."

"But it didn't work," Andy said. "It only slowed him down, but it didn't kill him."

"Slowed him down, did it?"

"Killed his cells. Bub has such an advanced physiology that he's more susceptible to radiation than most life forms."

"Is that so?"

Andy blinked, a beam of hope cutting through his despair. Was Bub's mutagen serum also affected? Could a dose of radiation stop the infection in him and Sun?

"There's an x-ray machine in the infirmary. They also have a PET scanner. Which means a cyclotron, for creating injectable radiopharmaceuticals."

Andy didn't know much about medicine, but Sun used a PET scanner at work (which always amused him because she was using a PET scanner to scan pets-irony is funny). It involved an intravenous radioactive tracer. Maybe some combination of internal medicine and external bombardment was worth a try.

"We can give it a go," Lucas said.

"Okay. But you have to promise me one thing. If I... if I turn into one of those things..."

"Don't worry, lad." Lucas patted Andy's shoulder. "I'll put an end to your and your wife's misery."

"What? No! I changed my mind. I want you to make sure Sun and I are cured. No matter how long it takes. I don't want to be a martyr."

Lucas chuckled. "Understood. Truth told, your species always seemed a little too eager to self-sacrifice, if you ask me. Willing to march into death for the greater good. Noble it can be on rare occasions, but other times it's just bloody stupid."

"Can you help me with Sun?"

"I can do you one better." Lucas picked up Sun and slung her over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing. "And we'd better move along. Our demon friend is freeing beasties, and the ones on this level aren't too friendly."

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

Dr. Chandelling wanted to get the hell out of there.

The Sun-demon had promised Bub would reattach his ear-which he'd gotten back after overturning Satchmo's tank and dumping the hungry little fish onto the floor. But if that promise turned out to be a lie, Chandelling needed to see a doctor. Someone with more talent and experience than Gornman.

The problem was, they were on lockdown. Which meant nothing got in, or out, until Kane and his staff of rent-a-thugs got the situation under control. Knowing Kane, that could take hours.

Chandelling didn't have hours. His ear was on ice, but it wouldn't keep fresh forever.

"Are you a Shakespeare fan, doc?"

Chandelling was startled by the voice, and he flinched in his hospital bed. He searched the room, but didn't see anyone.

But... where did that banana on the counter come from?

"I was going to quote Julius Ceaser," the banana said. "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. But it seems you already did."

Shit. Mu. That annoying little multidimensional fruit who made fun of everyone.

"Funny," Chandelling said. "Now why don't you leave."

"Don't you mean split?" the banana asked.

"Just go away."

"I'm staying for the show, Doc. You see, someone is dying to meet you."

That's when Chandelling noticed a figure shuffle into his room.

Bub? To heal me?

No. It wasn't the batling.

It was someone who stank like a corpse.

And looked like a corpse.

And walked like a corpse. Well... walked like a walking corpse.

"Braaaaaaains," the zombie said.

Chandelling screamed, two octaves higher than his normal voice. He immediately leapt out of bed-losing his balance because of the narcotic painkillers he'd insisted be administered-and fell to the floor.

The zombie was on him in three steps, reaching down with its rotten hands and immediately biting Chandelling in the scalp.

"Your brain... smells so good," the undead abomination growled between bites. "So rich and spicy..."

Chandelling screamed, trying to force the creature away, but it continued to gnaw, tearing back the skin until its rotting teeth were scraping against his exposed skull.

"What's eating you, Doc?" Mu asked.

For a dead man, the zombie was amazingly powerful, and there was a disgusting CRACK! followed by a most disturbing slurping sound.

"Something on your mind, Doc?" Mu said.

I can't let this goddamn thing eat my brain!