The room turned left at the end, extending out over the bottom floor’s entryway. He inched forward, looking for anything alive. Nothing moved, but he saw evidence of habitation, though not human. A nest had been built out of leaves and shredded lab coats. It looked similar to what a rat in a cage might make, but was far too large. It looked large enough for a medium-size dog.
Hawkins turned away from the nest and inspected what he thought were two more operating tables. But the angled, chairlike shape, twin sets of stirrups, and buckets at the ends identified these as birthing chairs. Hawkins winced when he saw more bloodstains on the floor beneath his feet. His face twitched with anger and revolt until he could no longer handle the conjuring of his imagination. He turned away from the table, muttering a string of curses.
Ting, ting.
The cautious tap of metal on metal sounded like an explosion. Hawkins flinched, but realized the sound had been slow and deliberate. Bray was calling him back. Hawkins double-timed his retreat, happy to be leaving the operating suite.
When he rounded the corner, he found Bray still standing guard at the bottom of the stairs. But the man’s face had gone pale.
“What is it?” Hawkins asked.
Bray’s eyes flicked toward Hawkins, but then quickly returned to the top of the stairs. “Something growled at me.”
“Did you see it?”
“No … but it sounded like…” Bray shook his head. “It sounded like a kid. And I don’t mean a baby goat.”
Hawkins remembered the oversize nest. Could a child be living here? He decided against the idea. A human child couldn’t survive on this island. Not alone. And he hadn’t seen any indication that there was anyone else here. At least not on the first two floors. Raising the rifle, Hawkins ascended the staircase.
The first thing he noticed was that the glass on the windows along the outside wall had been coated with a layer of mud—he smelled the rancid air—or was it feces? He decided he didn’t need to know the answer to that question. All that mattered was that most of the sunlight that lit the lower floors had been blocked out. A few shafts of light made it into the room, allowing him to see the most basic details, but he was at a serious disadvantage. He scanned back and forth, looking down the barrel of the rifle. He stepped cautiously forward, finger wrapped around the trigger. Safety off.
When the window to his right shattered, he spun and nearly fired. But the form of Bray, bathed in sunlight, stopped him short. He was about to chastise the man when he realized he could now see much of the room. And what he saw made him want to back up and haul ass back to the Magellan.
Like the second floor, this was one large room. But instead of being divided by operating tables, or cells, this room was a maze of shelves, each covered in glass jars of various size. Some were as small as baby food jars. Others, resting on the floor, looked large enough to hold a grown man.
And some of them did.
Many of the glass containers had broken over time and the bones of what they once held littered the floor. But others had weathered the past seventy years, blemished only by dust.
“Holy fuck,” Bray said.
Hawkins agreed with the sentiment, but couldn’t find his voice. The jar nearest him, perched on an eye-level shelf, glowed yellow, struck by the full light of day. And suspended in the amber liquid was a baby, curled up in a fetal position as though still in the womb. He stepped closer and lowered his weapon. “The baby,” he said. “It has a tail.”
“And not a vestigial tail, either,” Bray added. “I think that’s a rat tail.”
“Is it a chimera?” Hawkins asked.
Bray shook his head. “Looks like it was stitched on, maybe at birth.”
Hawkins ran a hand over his head. He knew that humanity had committed atrocities over the years, especially during wars, but this was beyond reason. What good would a human being with a rat tail be? How could someone do this to a newborn baby?
“Hey, Ranger,” Bray said.
Hawkins looked at Bray, who nodded toward the rifle.
“Mind keeping that up in case something tries to eat us?”
Hawkins’s distraction disappeared. He raised the rifle and scanned the room again. “We’ll move forward slowly and together. Break the windows as we reach them.”
Hawkins moved forward, trying hard to ignore the different animals and people of various ages kept in jars of formaldehyde. Some looked unaltered, but others had limbs, and eyes, and teeth, and digits that clearly did not belong to them.
A window shattered, spilling more light into the room and revealing more horrors. Hawkins ignored them now. He heard something a moment before the window broke.
Breathing.
“If you can understand me,” Hawkins said, “show yourself now. If you don’t, I will shoot you.”
“I don’t see anything,” Bray said.
“It’s there. Trust me.” Hawkins picked up an empty jar and threw it toward the back of the room. The sharp sound of breaking glass was accompanied by a shrill cry of surprise. And then a growl.