SHUT DOWN FACILITY Y/N.

Y...

EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS Y/N.

Y...

TERMINATE FACILITY Y/N.

Y...

CATASTROPHIC SHUT DOWN TO OCCUR IN 60 MINUTES Y/N.

N...

IMMEDIATE SHUT DOWN Y/N.

Y...

TERMINATION PROTOCOLS ACTIVATED.

Kane collapsed onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

Then he died.

Jerry and Andy grabbed an arm each and got West up onto the examination table. The blood was coming from beneath the man's uniform; the source was not immediately clear.

West growled as they poked and prodded at him, but he did not resist. Andy pulled up the man's shirt to find a blood-slicked torso with a dark red wound at its centre. The books he had used as armour had not been thick enough to stop whatever had ripped him open.

"I-I got shot. W-when Gorman fired her gun."

Andy's eyes went wide. "Why didn't you say?"

"Everyone was a bit...busy. I-I didn't realise she got me so bad."

Nessie knelt down and checked West's back. She straightened back up with a grim expression. "No exit wound. The bullet must still be inside him."

West let out a long breath.

"Get me a scalpel," said Sun. She still sounded dazed, but was slowly coming back around to her old self. Andy's heart swelled seeing that she okay.

Nessie set about the lab, searching in cabinets and cupboards. "Gorman was pretty stringent with her lab. I don't know where anything is."

"Just get me whatever you can find that might help," said Sun.

"Let me help." Jerry moved up alongside Nessie and adding to the search.

"Just hold in there, fella," said Lucas. "You've cheated death this far, would be a shame to see you go now."

West frowned at Lucas, but said nothing. It was clear from his expression that he was in agony but fighting it.

A siren sounded, loud enough to make everybody cover their ears.

Andy grimaced. "What the hell is that?"

Nessie looked at him. He rosy face suddenly turned alabaster. "It's the facility shut down alarm."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we have about ten minutes before the place starts filling with cement. The Spiral is about to become a tomb."

Andy shook his head. "Kane must still be alive somewhere. He would have done this. Jesus, we can't catch a break. We need to get out of here. Somebody help me grab West."

"Andy, lad," said Lucas. He was standing beside West on the examination table. "I think the fella is going to rest right where he is."

Andy walked over to see West's gaping jaw and grey pallor. He checked the man's neck pulse. And then sighed. "West is dead."

"Then we need to get out of here right now," Sun said.

"How," said Andy. "Those things are still out there. The batling will be on us the moment we step out of the labs."

Nessie patted the top of the x-ray machine and smiled. "This might keep the batling at bay."

Andy nodded. "Okay, but what about the two suckers?"

Jerry picked up Gorman's fallen pistol and placed it next to West's assault rifle. "Anybody know how to use these?"

Andy shrugged. "I can probably handle the revolver. Not sure I'd be much use with the rifle."

Nessie moved over to the rifle. She picked it up and ejected the magazine, examined it and then pushed it back in. She cocked the weapon and held it across her waist like a soldier on patrol. She noticed them all staring at her and gave a little shrug. "Let's just say I didn't always have my head in a book growing up. Dad was a bit of a gun nut."

Jerry whistled. "Is it wrong that I find you kind of sexy right now?"

Nessie winked at him. "You're just thinking about what other weapons I can handle."

Andy cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should save the flirtatious banter for when we get out of this godforsaken place."

Jerry blushed.

Andy picked up the heavy revolver and checked the cylinder. There were five bullets left. Then he stood in front of Sun and kissed her.

"What was that for?" she asked.

"To give me strength. If I'd lost you then there would have been nothing left for me to fight for. Long as you're with me, I'll fight whatever this screwed-up world can throw at me."

Sun laughed. "I never saw you as one for grand speeches."

"Before we got married, I had nothing important to make a speech about."

"Time to go, me thinks," said Lucas. "If what the young lass says is true, then you only have a handful of minutes to get yourselves out of here."

Jerry hoisted up the mobile X-ray unit. Nessie turned the safety off her assault rifle. Sun held a table leg they had brought from the library in one hand and a scalpel in the other.

The troops were ready.

"Okay," said Andy, getting a firm grip on the revolver. "Let's go."

Chapter Thirty-Eight.

Nessie led the way, seeing as how she had the biggest weapon. She led them through the corridors of the lab complex, heading towards the conference room. The silence that followed them was eerie; but despite the lack of sound, each of them knew that chaos and bloodshed filled every floor of the facility.

They reached the door to the conference room. Nessie unlocked the door, nudged it open. Jerry was right on her heel, staying close to her. Andy held onto Sun as he moved with his revolver pointed ahead. Lucas took up the back, unarmed as always.

The conference room was empty.

The siren was louder and there was a flashing strobe light spinning on the ceiling, but there was no other movement or sound. All of the room's computers-the one's still left standing-had switched off, leaving the room in near darkness. LED floor strips lit up amongst the debris, pointing a path towards the elevator. Not that the route offered any salvation.

"Where have they all gone?" Jerry asked.

Nessie scanned the room with her rifle. "I don't know. Keep your eyes open."

"I know where they've gone," said Andy. "They're trying to get out of here, same as us. The batling must know that the place is going to self-destruct."

"He probably wants to join up with his buddies from the other facilities," said Jerry.

Andy stopped. "What do you mean?"

"Rimmer told me that there were batlings at other facilities-they just showed up like they did here."

"The cave paintings," said Nessie. "The pictures of all the batlings leading armies of monsters."

"That's what all of this is about," said Andy. "The batlings are trying to liberate an army. We have to make sure nothing escapes this place. Bub's planning to start a war on humanity."

"What if the other facilities have all fallen like this one?" asked Jerry. "What the hell will we be returning to even if we managed to get out of here alive?"

"We can't think about that. We just have to focus on getting out of this place and making sure nothing gets out along with us."

"Okay," said Nessie. "Let's head for the library. That shaft is our only hope of getting out of here."

Andy grimaced as he stepped over a gobbet of flesh on the floor. There were puddles and swamps of gore everywhere; not to mention the mutilated bodies of the suckers that had been gunned down by West and Rimmer.

"Do you think Rimmer's still alive," Andy asked. It was almost a stupid question, but the fact was that nobody had seen him die.

"I hope he did," said Jerry. "We had a bit of a bromance going on."

Rimmer appeared before them, stumbling out from behind an overturned computer desk. His neck had dropped forward and now jutted out in front of him like a Halloween lantern on a stick. His beard had become a slick, glistening rope flesh that thrashed about like a newly-acquired limb.

"Something tells me he didn't make it," said Jerry.

"He certainly looks a bit under the weather," said Lucas.

All around Rimmer, the random gobbets of flesh began to vibrate. Andy watched in horror as a pool of blood at his feet began to coalesce into something more solid. The glistening puddle rose up, first forming a pyramid-like shape, but then reforming into something else entirely, something indescribable. It looked like a spider, but had as many legs as a scuttling millipede.

"I don't know what that is," said Jerry. "But I really don't like it."

"I need one of my books," said Nessie.

"No time to do research."

"No, I mean so I can splat that disgusting thing into oblivion."

Rimmer lunged at them, his head hanging out in front of him and his slick, thrashing beard taking on the shape of a dagger.

Andy shoved Sun behind him and fired off his revolver. The kick almost took his shoulder off, but he fought the sudden, unexpected pain and managed to fire again.

Both bullets hit Rimmer, the first taking off a section of his cheek bone, the second going wild and hitting him in the shoulder.

Chittering sounds filled the room as more gobbets of flesh turned into many-legged spiders. They all started skittering about, under tables and along walls.

Jerry wobbled on the spot and looked like he was about to pass out.

Andy grabbed him. "You okay?"

"I just don't like spiders, man. They're kind of my nightmare fuel. That and being buried by snow-don't ask me why because I don't know."

Rimmer came forward again and this time Nessie let off a burst of fire from her assault rifle. The bullets missed Rimmer's thrashing head and buried themselves in his chest. The glistening rope of his beard lashed out and grabbed a hold of Nessie's rifle.

She fought to hang onto it, but found herself sliding on her heels towards Rimmer's snarling jaws.

Sun leapt forward with her scalpel and swiped at the slimy beard, severing it in two like a piece of gristle on a bad steak.

Nessie tumbled backwards, the rifle still in her hands. Rimmer let out a pained snarl as viscous black fluid expelled from the open wound at the tip of his beard.

Andy took his opportunity and aimed his revolver carefully. He squinted, pulled the trigger, and then flinched as Rimmer's head exploded in a fountain of gore.