Unwanted Overnight Stay (5)
Shut up. Just shut the hell up.
With a sharp, irritated flick of his wrist, the man killed the radio and clamped a hand over his own mouth.
They said it was safe. They swore up and down that the monsters sealed inside those test tubes would never, ever break free…!
…I have to get to the surface first. Otherwise—
Grrrk—
A cry. A monster’s cry.
The faint howl drifted in from somewhere far off; he froze mid-breath and forced his hammering heart to slow.
Calm down. If you don’t calm down, you’re dead.
‘To survive a monster, the most important thing is not to feel fear, gentlemen.’
That dry, emotionless line echoed through his skull. The mere memory of the face that belonged to those words—someone who looked as if he had never known fear in his life—made the man feel his nerves settle even in this nightmare.
Steady your mind. Count primes, slowly.
Thud— thud— thud—
‘Two, three, five, seven, eleven—’
Listening to the footsteps recede into the distance, he finally let out a quiet breath of relief.
There was no way an ordinary human could stand against a creature like that and live. Surviving, though… that might still be possible. For all their grotesque shapes, their intelligence wasn’t that high. If he just stayed calm—
“Oh my. There’s still a human left here.”
“—Ghk?!”
The sudden voice snapped his spine ramrod straight. He looked up with the exact guilty flinch of a student caught goofing off behind the teacher’s back—and found a pair of eyes the same color as the surrounding dark staring straight at him.
“A survivor…?”
“I suppose you could say that.”
She looked very young, yet the unnerving composure in her voice made it impossible to guess her age. The clothes underneath were the soft, floaty sort any ordinary little girl might wear, but the pure-white lab coat draped over them announced that she belonged to this place.
…A researcher. I never imagined a place this insane would have someone so young on staff.
The researchers he’d glimpsed from time to time had all been half-mad old men. Dark circles that reached their cheeks, eyes lit with an eerie gleam as they poked at monsters. Whether the research was important enough to drag a kid into it was secondary now; the accident itself was living proof that their work had been reckless from the start.
“Do you happen to remember the location of any secret passages that lead outside?”
“Yes, roughly.”
Follow me.
With that, the girl turned on her heel. The overlong sleeves of her lab coat fluttered past her fingertips like little white wings.
…Am I actually going to make it?
The fact that she had reached this far while monsters were loose meant she must know a way to move without being seen. Stick with her and he might walk out of here alive.
“Quite the mess, isn’t it?”
“…It is. More importantly, there are monsters nearby right now. Wouldn’t it be wiser to keep our voices down?”
“Is that so?”
A round little smile curved the girl’s lips as she answered with pure innocence. No—she had been smiling the whole time.
Everyone in the underground lab was missing a few screws; seeing her grin through this chaos only confirmed she was no exception.
Facing monsters and still this absurdly confident… Don’t tell me the things have some kind of implanted order not to attack researchers?
Otherwise there was no way she could stroll so casually through a slaughterhouse where monsters were roaming around looking for skulls to chew.
…Damn those researchers. Couldn’t they at least have made the monsters fully controllable while they were at it?
“I don’t know about you, but I’m just an ordinary human. The second one of those things spots me, my life is over.”
“An ordinary human… There’s no way someone like that would be down here.”
The way she said it—as if anyone who set foot in the underground lab was already far past ordinary—sent a brief, cold prickle of unease through him. It almost sounded like she was looking down on everyone here from somewhere high above.
…Probably just his imagination.
“…Anyway, please refrain from making noise.”
“Are you afraid of the monsters?”
“Is that even a ques—”
Grrk?
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
The cry from just around the corner stopped him dead. Round that bend and he was dead. His survival instinct was screaming inside his skull.
“Wait—”
“What’s wrong?”
Apparently she hadn’t heard it. The girl tilted her head and kept walking straight toward the corner. He half-reached out to grab her, then thought better of it—she was a researcher, she would be fine—and simply stepped back alone.
If the monster does attack, at least both of us don’t have to die.
He began to ease backward, preparing for the worst. Would he hear a scream? Or a casual “I’m fine”? He swallowed dryly.
At that exact moment the girl’s face popped out from around the corner.
“W-what the—you scared the hell out of—hup?!”
Lifeless eyes locked onto him. But the gaze he felt wasn’t one; it was two. Slowly he lifted his head toward the second pair—and found eyes the color of fresh blood.
Nothing human lived in those eyes. They were a predator’s eyes, closer to a beast’s than a person’s.
“A m-monster—”
“…”
“A-are you sure you’re okay?! Don’t just stand there freaking me out—say something!”
The monster had seen him and still wasn’t charging. Relief flickered. Maybe it really did listen to researchers. That was why it was only watching.
The image of another monster lunging the second it spotted people and tearing a colleague limb from limb was still burned into his retinas.
If it hadn’t obeyed, that girl would already be dead.
It still hadn’t moved. He slowly let out the breath he’d been holding.
I’m alive.
If he just followed this girl, he could escape this hell crawling with monsters.
Wiping the cold sweat from his brow, he started toward her.
“…”
“…”
Kik— kik— kiiik— kik— kikkikkikkik—
The moment he rounded the corner he saw the monster.
More precisely: the monsters.
Enough of them to pack the entire corridor solid, every last one staring at him and making those wet, hungry sounds. Like children drooling while they wait for a treat.
“Ah… aah… aaaah…”
“Please try not to get blood on this lab coat. I’d like to keep at least one of them clean.”
A dry, emotionless voice slipped into the ears of the man who stood frozen, gaping at the monsters.
Don’t get blood on it? Keep at least one clean?
Like prey already staring death in the face and unable to keep its body upright, he creaked his stiff neck around and looked at the girl—more precisely, at her eyes.
Red.
The same red the monsters had. No—exactly the same feeling—
“Oh, shi—”
No scream came.
The reason, of course, was simple.
The head that would have done the screaming was no longer attached to the body.
Humans, most regrettably, are fragile creatures that die when they lose their heads.
“Honestly, I told you to eat without getting blood on the coat.”
I heaved a deep sigh at the lab coat now freckled with the blood that had sprayed from the man’s neck.
How many coats is this already?
No matter how many times I told them, they never listened. Looks like they needed a proper “stay” command. Whether the training would actually stick was another question.
Still… this place really does have the atmosphere of a horror game.
On the way here I’d passed the power room. The monsters had been chasing humans through it and knocked something critical; most of the internal lighting was completely dead now. Humans despair more easily in the dark, which meant more snacks for me—so it was actually convenient. Monsters have pretty good night vision anyway, so the darkness barely registered as a problem.
“I already said anyone who wants to leave can leave… Are you all still planning to follow me?”
Grrrk— grrrrrk— grrk—
At my question the monsters started making soft crying sounds. Like hatchling birds imprinting on the first living thing they see as their mother, they seemed to regard me—the one who had let them out of the test tubes—as something similar. Or maybe it was simply because I was a monster myself. Because I was Apocalypse.
“Then let’s set a rule. From now on, every time you eat a human head, you leave my side. How does that sound?”
Kik, kigigik, kik—
One head each should be more than enough.
At first I hadn’t cared whether they tagged along or not, but their numbers had ballooned to an absurd degree and herding them around was becoming a real hassle.
I’m not the Pied Piper, for crying out loud. Tch.
If any humans saw a whole pack of monsters trailing after me like ducklings, all sorts of inconvenient things would start happening. I came here to enjoy myself; I had no intention of getting dragged into some ridiculous mess.
So first priority: ditch these guys.
In nice terms it was a farewell. In honest terms, it was release into the wild.