Epilogue

“Aaaand his eyes open.”

-Tom Servo, Mystery Science Theater 3000: Space Mutiny

           

            The shattered husk of what had been the island of Matoul continued to smoke.

Though the island was destroyed, together with the facility it had once held, a number of its deeper chambers remained. Blocked, choked with rubble, and buried deep below the waves, they were nonetheless largely intact.

            Within one of these chambers, sealed by earth and rubble and half-filled with smoking debris, there was movement. The pile of debris was shifting, as though something inside were trying to get out. Like a chick emerging from its egg, the unknown creature pushed and clawed its way up, little by little, until finally, all at once, it burst from its enclosure.

            “I LIVE!” shrieked Dr. Ted Nelson into the blackness. “Ha ha! The treatment worked better than I had ever imagined! Fritz! Fritz, where are you?”

            Next to him, another figure rose slowly from the debris as Fritz, looking thoroughly punch-drunk, emerged groaning.

            “You LIVE!” Nelson exclaimed in delight, pulling his assistant up. “Spectacular! I told Prosser that the same technique that made Hank could be used on ourselves with little to no cognitive loss. And now look! We still live while all else is rubble!”

            He clapped his long hands together and laughed in delight at his own success.

            “Now,” he said eagerly, looking around at the sealed and ruined chamber at the bottom of the sea and rubbing his hands with excitement. “How do we get out of here?”

Chapter Twenty-Five: Late Departure

“We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.”

-Prospero, The Tempest

            “Well, that’s wonderful,” said Helen as Hendricks helped her down into the elevator. “Now we’ve got a half-hour to do what’s taken us two days so far!”

            “At least they’re gone,” said Hendricks, jabbing the ground-floor button repeatedly. “That might make things a little easier…”

            “There’s still Python, though,” she pointed out. “And the Octodile, and whatever other things they left behind.

            “Yeah, well, we’ll just have to hope we don’t run into them,” said Hendricks with a grimace.

            “At least now I know what ‘Kobras’ is,” Helen said. “Or, rather, who he is.”

            “But what does it mean?”

            Helen’s brow furrowed.

            “The Dog only said that it was someone who lived a long time ago, and who did the same sort of thing that Prosser was doing.” She shrugged. “I guess he thinks he’s taking over the legacy. God, this thing is slow, isn’t it?”

            The elevator was indeed moving at what seemed to the two of them an unnecessarily sedate pace. They hadn’t noticed it before, but all of a sudden they both thought that this was the slowest damn elevator they had ever been in.

            “By the way,” she said. “You broke your promise.”

            “Yeah,” he said, suddenly becoming very interested in the ‘door-close’ button. “I don’t usually do that, but in this case I thought I’d make an exception.”

            “Well, I’ll forgive you this time,” she said, with an attempt at a smile. “But don’t make a habit of it.”

            “Promise,” said Hendricks. “For what it’s worth.”

            She chuckled, but in a way that sounded like she was forcing herself to do something that she didn’t have the energy for.

            “Hendricks,” she said slowly. “Uh, I probably should say something just, you know, in case…”

            He looked at her, and she looked back at him. She faltered, and before she could resume the elevator stopped and the doors opened.

            “Hold that thought until we get out of here,” said Hendricks, offering his hand. She took it, and hand-in-hand they ran for it, down the hall and out the door. In the pre-dawn light they could see that there was no one in sight, human or otherwise. The gate was closed, but it hardly mattered since the fence had been ripped open.

            The sight of this and the looming, black jungle before them gave them pause, as the thought of running through the dense woods with unknown horrors lurking about the island was not appealing in the least.

            “Hendricks,” said Helen. “Let’s go down the coast; that way at least they can only attack from one direction.”

            He nodded and they veered left, took the small intervening section of brush at a run, and emerged on the narrow, grassy strip that sloped down to the cliffs’ edge.

            It was a dangerous walk, since the grass was slippery and there was only about ten feet of space between the trees and precipice, forcing them to keep closer to the forest than they would have liked. Hendricks gripped Helen’s hand in his left and his revolver in his right, keeping his eyes fixed on the trees, scanning for any movement. But, by great good luck, they didn’t run into anything during that segment of their journey, and when the cliffs began to sink lower and the beach opened up before them, they began to feel the first strands of hope; were they really going to make it after all?

             They rushed down the steep, tree-lined slope, doing their best not to go tumbling head-over-heels in their hurry. Then they were just at the bottom, where the trees had vanished and only underbrush remained, when Hendricks suddenly seized Helen and pulled her down painfully behind a clump of bushes.

            The reason was that now they had a clear view of the beach, and the Octodile, looking ten-times as big in the dim light of dawn, was advancing out of the trees to their right barely thirty feet away. They suddenly felt very glad indeed that they hadn’t gone through the forest.

On land the Octodile moved, not with the clumsy, waddling gait of a crocodile, but with a single, continuous forward motion as first the foremost tentacle pulled and the rearmost pushed it along, then the inner pair replaced them, and then the cycle repeated, so that the Octodile’s movement was more like it were on treads than anything else.

            “It’s headed for the ocean,” Helen whispered.

            So it was. The Octodile’s long, ugly face was pointed out to sea, its beady eyes fixed purposefully on the water.

            “Shouldn’t we…do something?” Helen asked. “I mean, we can’t just let it escape…”

            “What, though?” Hendricks replied. “Do you really think a revolver is going to do much good against that?”

            Helen looked from the massive beast, which was just crawling into the surf, to the small gun in Hendricks’s hand.

            “No,” she admitted with a sigh. “But I think the world’s going to regret that that thing got out.”

            Hendricks watched the Octodile ride the surf for a second then vanish beneath the waves.

            “I think you’re right,” he said, checking his watch. “But we don’t have time to worry about that now; come on, we’ve got less than twenty minutes.”

            They left their hiding places and raced along the beach, keeping as far away from both the ocean and the trees for as long as they could. Spotting the path back to the villa, they scrambled up the slope, took a second to gather their strength, and ran down the path as fast as their tired legs would go. They met nothing along the way.

            The mansion, when it came into view, was a shocking sight. Huge chunks of the wall were missing, exposing the interior like a doll’s house. One turret had been ripped away entirely and was lying on the ground some ways off.

            Helen and Hendricks didn’t allow themselves time to be alarmed by these ominous signs. They simply raced through the front doors and down the rubbish-strewn hallways (it seemed an eternity since they had seen them last, though really it was only three days at most) to Prosser’s office. Hendricks kicked the doors open the moment they reached them, and he and Helen rushed through the still-shattered mirror and down the narrow steps.

            They emerged into the enormous, empty room. Only now it wasn’t so empty. The bodies of three guards lay near the door; two of them had their heads lopped off, the other…didn’t.

            But they couldn’t pause to investigate, even if they had wanted to, because the dead guards weren’t the only things in that massive, eerie space; a pair of gleaming yellow eyes shone through the darkness in front of them. Then a loud hiss, and they only just had time to spring apart before Python’s acid landed just where they had been standing.

            The huge snake came forward, hissing menacingly at his last two victims. His head wavered back and forth between them, as though he couldn’t decide which to attack first. Then, making up his mind, he turned to Helen, fangs bared.

            “No you don’t!” Hendricks yelled, raising his gun and emptying it against Python’s scales. He didn’t expect it to have much affect, so he wasn’t disappointed by the fact that the bullets simply bounced off. But he did expect it to distract the snake, which it didn’t. Python lunged at Helen, who dove aside just in time to avoid his snapping jaws.

            Hendricks seized one of the guard’s assault rifles and, screaming as loud as he could, fired on Python’s head. The bullets ricocheted off his scales, but they pierced the softer tissue of Python’s mouth. That got his attention. 

            Forgetting entirely about Helen, Python whipped ‘round and spat acid at Hendricks, who dove aside out of the way, rolled, and came up again, firing.

            “Helen!” He shouted. “Run for it!”

Python whipped his tail out at Hendricks, but Hendricks dropped onto his stomach just in time. Scrambling to his feet again, he fired the last few bullets, threw the rifle aside, and, now completely defenseless, stood glaring up at Python, his brown eyes meeting the snake’s yellow ones unflinchingly.

Meanwhile, Helen had not run for it. Instead, she had crawled over to the dead guards, intending to grab a rifle herself (not bothering to ask what good it would do). As she pulled the rifle off one of them, however, she dislodged his grenade, which rolled onto the floor.

            A sudden inspiration struck her.

 Dropping the rifle, she seized the grenade and leapt to her feet, her excitement overcoming her exhaustion.

“Hendricks!” she called, waving it in the air. “You played baseball, right?”

“Yeah,” said Hendricks, not taking his eyes off the looming snake. “But I was never any good at it!”

“Well, here’s a chance to do better! Catch!”

And she threw the grenade at him as hard as she could. Hendricks turned toward it, but the moment his eyes left Python, the snake spat, and Hendricks had to attempt a leaping catch to avoid the stream of acid.

He missed.

But as the grenade sailed passed him, Python coiled around behind him, so the grenade, instead of rolling off into the darkness, bounced off his scales and landed only a foot from Hendricks’s hand. He snatched it up, but the instant he rose to his feet he had to spring aside as Python snapped at the spot he had been a second before.

“Hey!” Helen shouted, picking the rifle back up and firing. “Hey, over here!”

Python paused, looking back at Helen.

“No! No, over here! Come on!” Hendricks shouted. “Come and get it!”

Helen dropped the rifle and stood rigid. Python wavered…then turned back to Hendricks.

He had used Helen’s distraction to put a little distance between them, but now he was backing away, gripping the grenade tightly as Python came streaming towards him, murder in his yellow eyes.

Hendricks pulled the pin. Python was closing fast now, his jaws were open, ready to swallow Hendricks whole.

“Now!” Helen called. “Throw it!”

Hendricks hesitated a moment longer, letting Python draw closer…twenty-feet…ten…

Hendricks threw the grenade straight into the snake’s open mouth and dove aside. Python’s jaws snapped shut on empty air, and the next second the grenade went off.

            The explosion tore Python’s head and much of his upper body to pieces. Blood, flesh, and bone flew in all directions, coating the ground. Nevertheless, what was left of his body kept moving for a second, propelled forward by his own momentum, and crashed in ruin on top of Hendricks.

            “Hendricks!”

            Helen screamed in horror and ran to where the snake’s body had fallen. Reaching the spot where Hendricks had disappeared, she plunged her hands into the bloody pile before her and started to dig, calling his name over and over.

Don’t be dead, she thought desperately. You can’t be dead! Not after all that!

After only a few seconds of digging – though it felt like a lot longer – she found him. To her immense relief the moment she cleared the torn snake-flesh off of his face he gasped for breath and started to cough up blood, though whether his own or Python’s she couldn’t tell.

“Oh, thank God!” she said, trying to dig out the rest of him.

            Hendricks, once his arms were free, propped himself up on them and looked at Helen, breathing hard.

            “Are you alright?” he gasped.

            “Am…am I alright?!”

            Helen felt as though she might explode. She stared at him wide eyed for a few seconds, made some indistinct sounds that may have been attempts at finding the right words to express her indignation at his asking such a question at such a time, then, as though something inside her had finally snapped, she threw her arms around Hendricks’s neck and kissed him.

            The happiness that flooded them both as they embraced was so complete, so all-encompassing, that they couldn’t sure how long they had stayed like that. When at last they broke apart (not caring that now they were both covered with the snake’s blood), they just smiled into each other’s face for a few seconds. Then:

            “We really didn’t have time for that,” Hendricks observed.

            “You’re probably right. Let’s go.”

            She got up, pulled him to his feet, and they ran the whole length of the enormous room, found the far door, and raced down the winding passage, forcing their tired legs to work for just one last sprint. Hendricks half-expected to see Charles waiting for them again, but the doorway was empty and they passed it without stopping.

            Their biggest fear was that the docks had been destroyed, or that someone else had beaten them to the boat. But, with an exclamation of profound thanks, they found everything just as they had left it days before; the white speedboat sat bobbing in the water, waiting for them.

            Hendricks untied them as fast as his shaking hands would work, while Helen started up the engine. As soon as they were free, Hendricks leapt aboard, seized the controls, and urged the boat forward. They were moving, but in the narrow, winding cavern he didn’t dare go too fast. The suspense was terrible; every bend he expected to see the cave entrance, and every time they just saw more cave, while the precious seconds and minutes ticked inevitably by.

            Finally, they spotted the entrance. The instant he was facing it, Hendricks jammed on the throttle. The boat roared to life, lifted up its prow, and raced out into the open ocean. He didn’t know what direction they were going, but he didn’t care; they just needed to get as far away as possible as fast as possible.

            “Hendricks,” Helen said suddenly a few minutes later. “Time’s up.”

            Hendricks looked back. They weren’t far enough away yet…

            A flash, brighter than the sun, shone behind them. It was too late.

            No! he thought. We did not go through all that for ‘too late!’

            Seized by what seemed like their only hope, he cut the power to the boat. Then, before she could ask what he was doing, he grabbed Helen and pulled her overboard.

            Under the water, he embraced her and shut his eyes. She, grasping what he was trying to do, did the same.

            A rumbling roar, louder than anything either of them had ever heard, washed over them. At the same time, the water around them seemed to ripple and then to rush onward, carrying them with it. It was like being caught in the biggest wave of all time. They clung to each other as they were sent tumbling on through the water, their bodies straining at the terrible forces unleashed upon them…

            Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Hendricks opened his eyes and saw Helen doing them same. Smiles broke out across both their faces as they clawed their way to the surface. A mile or so behind them a huge, black mushroom cloud hung over what had been Matoul. The rumblings of the bomb could still dimly be heard echoing across the Caribbean.

            “I would have bet anything that wouldn’t have worked,” gasped Helen as soon as she had the breath to speak.

            “It kind of surprised me too,” said Hendricks. “But I figured it was either stay on the boat and definitely die, or jump and probably die.”

            “Good choice,” she said. “Speaking of which, what do we do now without the boat?”

            “Uh…hadn’t thought that far ahead,” Hendricks admitted, looking around him at the open expanse of water. “Oh, wait; there it is!”

            Indeed, there it was. Upside down and several hundred yards away, but the boat had indeed survived.

            “Now what?” Helen asked when they had climbed on top of it.

            “Now I guess we just wait until someone finds us,” said Hendricks. “You know, before we die of thirst, or get eaten by the Octodile or something.”

            “Or die of radiation exposure.”

            “Yeah, that too.”

            “Well, it shouldn’t be too long before someone comes out here,” she said. “I mean, a nuclear blast did just occur a couple hundred miles away from Key West.”

            “Oh yeah,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

            Indeed, only a few moments later, Hendricks spotted a silvery glint in the distance.

            “Speak of the devil,” he said excitedly, pointing. “That’s a helicopter!”

            They started waving and calling as it drew nearer and nearer, coming in at top-speed.

            “Oh no!” Hendricks said suddenly. “That’s the helicopter Prosser had!”

            “What?” Helen gasped. “Why would they come back?”

            “Probably to finish us off,” Hendricks said, looking helplessly at her. He didn’t see any way out.

            The helicopter swooped in low over them, still racing along. Helen and Hendricks ducked as it passed by. And as it did, something dropped from it; something white that tumbled in its wake, until it floated down right over their heads. Numbly, Hendricks reached up and caught it.

            It was a panama hat.

            “No way,” he muttered.

            In a moment, the helicopter swooped over them again and came in to a hover.

“Hello!” called Ralph Zanator from the cockpit, his booming voice audible even over the helicopter blades. “Glad to see you both in one piece! I thought you might need a lift!”

In another moment, they had climbed in and were speeding off in the direction of the rising sun.

            Helen and Hendricks rushed into the cockpit. Helen threw her arms around Ralph and kissed him on the cheek. 

            “Ralph, I thought you were dead!” said Hendricks shakily, holding out his hat.

            “Not at all!” said Ralph, taking it and clamping it down over his headset. “I told you I would be fine!”

            “How did you get away from Hank?”

            “Ha!” Ralph laughed. “I just told him who I was, and he practically ran for it!”

            Helen and Hendricks exchanged skeptical looks.

            “More or less,” Ralph amended. “There was running involved anyway.” 

            They laughed.

            “What about this?” Hendricks asked, indicating the helicopter. “Where’d it come from?”

            “You didn’t think Prosser only had one helicopter, did you?” he said. “I certainly didn’t. When I saw them fly off I decided it might be profitable to investigate. And so it was!”

            He laughed his booming laugh.

            “Poor Hogan, though…” said Helen, her face falling.

            “Yes,” said Ralph. “He was a brave man and a good soldier. Let us never forget him.”

            They nodded sadly.

            “You two had better strap in,” Ralph continued. “It’ll be a good hour or so before we make landfall. Rest for a time, and forget your sadness, and  ‘let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart that doth not wish you joy!’”

Helen and Hendricks took their seats in the passenger compartment and he put his arm around her.  He leaned back into the seat and she leaned back onto him. They both felt as though they could just go to sleep for days right then and there.  

            “We made it,” Helen said softly as she watched the mushroom cloud fade into the distance through the window. “I can’t believe we actually made it…”

            “Well, almost,” said Hendricks. “I’m not gonna relax until we’re in Key West.”

            Helen gave a weak chuckle. She was already starting to drift off.

            “So what’ll you do now?” she asked sleepily.

            “You know, I think I’ll stick with police work after all,” said Hendricks. “I’m starting to really like protecting people.”

            He gave her a little squeeze and she smiled.

            “How about you?”

            “Well,” she said. “I suppose first I’d better patch things up with the Governor. That’s about as far as I can think right now.”

            She heaved a sigh.

            “You know,” she said as she closed her eyes. “I think I like being alive.”

            She took his hand and gripped it tightly.

            “Thank you.”

            He kissed her forehead and watched as she fell asleep on his shoulder.

            “My God,” he whispered as he smoothed her hair back from her face. “You are so beautiful. I love you so much.”

            Helen watched Hendricks watching her sleep and smiled happily.

            “Glad to see you made it.”

            She turned around. The great White Dog was sitting next to her, smiling in his doggy fashion.

            Helen hugged him tightly and kissed him, burying her face in his sweet-smelling fur.

            “We couldn’t have done it without you,” she said. “Thank you.”

            “That’s what I’m here for,” said the Dog. “And I think you’re both going to be fine now. Kobras is going to have to go into hiding for a while, so he’ll have too much on his mind to bother about you for a long time yet. And you are going to be back under the protection of the Governor; well outside his reach.”

            “Will he ever rebuild?” she asked. “I mean, he’s not going to stop, is he? He’s still going to make more monsters and things, right?”

            “Let us say, for the present, that the world has not heard the last of him or his plans. But, on the bright side, now it still has you to warn it if he tries anything.”

            Helen smiled.

            “And I’ve got you to help me.”

            The Dog continued to smile, but she thought it became tinged with sadness.

            “Yes,” he said. “I’ll always be there to help you. But you won’t be able to see me again for a long time.”

            “What?” she said, staring up at him. “Why not?”

            “I have my job to do,” he said. “And my orders to follow. Appearing to you like this was an emergency procedure, and now that you’re safe it has to stop.”

            Helen felt as though she wanted to cry.

            “I don’t understand.”

            “No,” he said. “I don’t expect you to. But understanding is not necessary for acceptance. And remember, I’m not going away! I’ll still be watching over you, even if you can’t see me.”      

            Helen sniffed once, composed herself, and nodded.

            “Oh well,” she said. “I guess I didn’t think you’d be around forever, but I wish you’d stay for a bit longer.”

            “Sorry,” he said. “I can’t. That’s just the way it is. But you’ll be fine; you have your dreams, and, well, plenty to occupy you.”

            He nodded at Hendricks and Helen couldn’t suppress a grin.

            “Well, before you go,” she said. “Can I at least know who you are?”

            The Dog looked at her lovingly and seemed to consider.

            “For the present,” he said. “I can only tell you this:”

            He touched her forehead with his tongue, and Helen once again felt warmth and courage and peace flowing into her. The sea, the boat, the Dog, and everything else seemed to fade into a white mist as the Dog spoke for the last time.

            “I am one of the Seven.”

            As far as she could remember, Helen had no more dreams for the rest of the journey. 

Chapter Twenty-Four: Man and Superman

“Spirit, we must prepare to meet with Caliban.”

-Prospero, The Tempest

            “If I am not mistaken,” said Ralph as he pulled the stumbling Hendricks up a flight of stairs. “There ought to be an elevator not far from here. Assuming Captain Hogan and Ms. Marshall ran into each other in the silos, I would imagine they would be making for them.”

            Hendricks briefly thought about asking why they were going up to the second level rather than just meeting them on the ground floor, but then he remembered the masked psychopath pursuing them.

            Ralph was a fast runner, but Hank was keeping pace with them nonetheless, despite the fact that he appeared to be going at no more than a walking pace. It was uncanny.

            “How does he…do that?” Hendricks gasped.

            Ralph didn’t answer, but only darted through the door to the second level, slammed it shut, and jammed it with a nearby stool.

            “What now?”

            Ralph looked critically about the hall, then peered through the double doors across from them. It opened onto yet another hallway.

            “This way!” he said cheerfully.

            The stairwell door shook with a terrible blow.

            “I don’t think that’s going to hold for long,” said Hendricks.

            The door shuddered again.

            “Right,” said Ralph, eyeing the denting metal. “You go on, I’ll keep him busy for a while.”

            “What?” said Hendricks. “No!”

            “Yes,” said Ralph. “You see, Hank will continue as long as he has a target. If I stay and deal with him, he’ll forget all about you and you can go find Ms. Marshall without leading him to her.”

            “You can’t do that!” Hendricks exclaimed. “He’ll kill you!”

            “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Ralph mildly, as though he were considering the likelihood of a change in the weather. “It’s you and Ms. Marshall that I’d be worried about.”

            The door received another tremendous blow, denting it outwards.

            “Time for you to leave,” Ralph said firmly.

            “Ralph, this is insane!” Hendricks pleaded. “You can’t…!”

            “I am a soldier,” said Ralph sternly. “It’s my job to protect people like you, and it’s your job to protect people like her.”

            “What about you? Can’t you…”

            “Once and for all,” said Ralph, raising his voice over the increasingly loud bangs against the door. “Are you a policeman or not?”

            “No!” Hendricks exclaimed. “I’m not! I told you, I can’t handle it!”

            “Very well, then,” said Ralph. “Are you a man or not?”

            “I…what?”

            “It is a very simple question: are you a man or not?”

            “Well, yeah, but…”

            “Then, Man, go to your duty!”

            Before Hendricks could say another word, Ralph seized him by his shirt and threw him bodily through the double doors.

            “Good luck, Mr. Hendricks!” he called cheerfully.

            “Ralph, no!”

            The doors slammed shut and locked.

            Behind them, Ralph turned and smiled as the stairwell door gave way.

            “Now,” he said cheerfully as Hank advanced towards him. “I don’t suppose that you have the slightest idea whom you are dealing with…”

            Helen and Hogan hurried down corridor, panting. The ground shook again as something else exploded deep within the island’s bowels.

            “We should be nearly there,” said Hogan.

            Indeed, they only went a few more feet before coming to a junction. A sign for ‘elevator’ pointed left.

            “Here!” Hogan said, nodding at the sign. “We can take the elevators down to ground level and make for the mansion. If we’re lucky, we might meet the others on the way.”

            “Are they working?”

            “I think so, I saw…”

            Helen screamed. As Hogan reached the corner of the junction, a black blade swung out from behind it. Hogan’s head fell away and a great fountain of blood spurted from the stump of his neck, staining the ceiling. His body collapsed forward as Charles Simon strode around the corner, looking livid; his clothes hanging in tatters about his muscular frame. His left arm looked normal. His right was unfolded in a blade streaked with Hogan’s blood.

            “You know, Helen,” he said, in a voice thick with fury. “You have been much more trouble than you are worth.”

            Helen turned to run. She hadn’t gone more than a couple paces when Charles caught her. He hit her hard on the side of her head, knocking her to the ground. White lights popped before Helen’s eyes and she fought to remain conscious.

            “Do you have any idea what you have cost us?” he spat, advancing toward her. “Years and years of work, all ruined because of you!”

            She tried to crawl backwards with no clear idea of where she would go or how she might escape; all she knew was that she wanted to put distance between herself and the monster in front of her.

            “But more important, of course,” he went, his voice suddenly calm again. “Is the fact that you’ve threatened my professional reputation by your stubborn refusal to just. DIE!”

            Charles took two strides and placed a heavy boot violently upon her stomach, knocking all the wind out of her. As she gasped for breath and clutched at his foot, Helen realized in a flash that this was really it; there was no way out and no one was coming to rescue her. After all that, she was actually about to die, and there was nothing she could do about it. It was over.  

            Helen didn’t have the air left to scream. All she could do was watch, as though in slow motion, as Charles pointed his blade at her chest, drew his arm back…

            And Hendricks appeared from around the other corner and tackled him off her.

            “Helen run!” he shouted as he tried to wrestle with Charles.

            “Hendricks, no!” Helen gasped.

            Charles gave a roar of fury and shook Hendricks off as though he were a child. He whipped around, slashing at him, but Hendricks ducked and the blade sliced against the wall. Immediately after his blade passed over Hendricks’s head, Charles’s other hand drove upwards into his gut, lifting him off his feet and slamming him against the wall. He stabbed, but Hendricks, almost dazed with pain but acting on the instincts he had developed over the past two days, dodged aside and the blade slammed deep into the wall. Hendricks punched Charles as hard as he could twice in the stomach. It was like punching a side of beef and about as effective. Charles simply grabbed Hendricks by the scruff of his neck and threw him aside while he ripped his blade out of the wall.

            Hendricks staggered, struggling to stay upright. Taking advantage of his few seconds of reprieve, he grabbed Helen and pulled her to her feet.

            “Go!” he gasped. “Run for it!”

            Helen ran a short way down the hall, but stopped and turned back. She couldn’t leave him. Not now…

            Hendricks had turned back to face Charles the moment she had started to run. Charles stood quite still facing him. They glared at each other for a few seconds, each looking as though he were trying to kill the other with the pure hatred of his expression. Then Hendricks, yelling in his final battle fury, charged forward in one final, reckless attack.

            Charles didn’t bother to fight or even to attack. He simply reached out the moment they met, caught Hendricks by the throat, and lifted him into the air.

            “Mr. Hendricks,” he snarled, drawing back his blade as Hendricks gasped for breath. “I have had it with your constant interruptions!”

            Hendricks looked straight down into his pitiless eyes, and suddenly found that, despite everything, he wasn’t afraid. It all seemed to be happening so slowly; the blade pointing at his stomach, being drawn back, starting forward…

            Hendricks’s mind turned suddenly to Helen, to the moment he had first seen her in the rain, of her beautiful face and the feel of being cradled in her warm, soft hands…

            All of a sudden, just before Charles stabbed him, another blade burst out of Charles’s own chest. The next thing Hendricks knew, both he and Charles were flying through the air and hitting the concrete floor hard. Struggling to restore air to his brain, willing himself not to pass out, Hendricks looked up in astonishment.

            Hank Voyeur was standing in the middle of the hallway. His eyes, just visible through his mask, were blazing with fury…and they were focused on Charles.

            “Ralph…” Hendricks muttered.

            Hank strode forward swiftly, raising his blade as Charles picked himself up. Before Charles could rise to his feet, Hank brought his blade crashing down upon him. Charles blocked it with his own, deflected it, and stabbed Hank in the stomach. Hank didn’t seem to notice and countered with an upswing that sent Charles staggering back with a huge cut across his face that healed almost instantly. Hank pressed his attack, but Charles knocked his blade aside and swung at Hank’s neck. His blade embedded itself about halfway in and stuck. Hank responded by stabbing Charles in the chest. Charles tried to cut off Hank’s arm, but again his blade wouldn’t go through.

            Hank pulled his blade out and did a powerful overhead swing. Charles, however, caught the attack, turned, and flipped Hank over his shoulder with so much force that he cracked the floor beneath him. Hank, however, didn’t miss a beat before chopping into Charles’s knee, sending him crashing to the floor as well.

            While the two Slashers battled behind him, Hendricks crawled over to Helen as fast as he could.

            “Hendricks,” she gasped. “You…”

            “I know,” he said. “I broke my promise; you can be mad at me later. Now we need to get out of here.”

            “Elevators,” she said as he helped her to her feet. “Around the corner. This way…”

            But to get there, they would have to pass the Slashers.

            Charles rose up off the floor, driving his blade into Hank and smashing him into one of the lights, which exploded in a shower of sparks. Hank took no notice, and punched downward with his own blade, slicing through Charles’s neck and nearly decapitating him. He might have succeeded in doing so, had Charles not released him and sprang back, pulling his own body off of the blade. The moment Hank hit the ground he charged forward and drove his blade through Charles’s chest, pinning him back against the wall.

            Hendricks seized the chance. Pulling Helen along with him, he darted passed behind Hank, who was far too busy punching and pummeling Charles with his free hand to notice.

            “No, you don’t!” Charles called furiously, trying to shove Hank off of himself to pursue them. But Hank, who cared nothing about Helen or Hendricks, only saw this as an opening to slam him into the wall even harder, cracking it with the impact. Bits of ceiling bounced off his helmet. Charles unfolded his other blade, stabbed Hank with both, and pushed him back until he had slammed him into the opposite wall even harder.

This turned out to be a mistake, as a large chunk of the ceiling fell out and cracked over Charles’s head. This wasn’t enough to harm him, of course, but it was enough to distract him enough for Hank to deliver a brutal haymaker to his face, knocking him to the floor.

“He remembers,” Helen muttered to herself, unable to help looking back as they ran. “He remembers who killed him…”

Charles rose to his knees and tried a scissor-like motion with both his blades, obviously hoping to cut Hank in half. As with his previous attempts, however, Charles’s blades simply stuck midway through as they ran up against Hank’s impenetrable armor. Hank responded by raising his blade high and bringing it crashing down straight onto Charles’s head, cleaving it in two and coming to rest somewhere in the middle of his chest…

            Hendricks and Helen didn’t see any more. Then ran around the corner and spotted the elevators at the end of the hall. Both doors stood open: one looked upon an empty shaft, the other on a waiting car.

            “Come on!” Helen gasped. “Ground level!”

            “Wait a second,” Hendricks said, stopping short. “If we take the elevator, he’ll know where we’ve gone…”

            “Well, we can’t help that, can we?” she pleaded. “Please, it’s our only chance…”

            “Not quite,” he said, looking around. A door to their left led into another corridor. Hendricks opened it, looked down the other corridor, and left it ajar.

            “Okay, now up on top of the car,” he said. “When he goes down that hall after us, then we take it down.”

            Helen nodded. Hendricks pulled open the maintenance hatch, gave Helen a leg up, and hoisted himself in after her.

            They weren’t a moment too soon. Hendricks had hardly replaced the hatch when Charles and Hank came battling around the corner. Charles’s head had already healed and he seemed to have given up trying to cut Hank to death and refolded his blades. Instead, he was wrestling with him, using his greater size and weight to his advantage. Hank, for his part, was still stabbing and cutting Charles at every opportunity. Hendricks, watching from behind the metal mesh above the elevator, suspected that Hank didn’t even have the mental capacity to understand that he couldn’t kill Charles; he would just keep trying until something stopped him.

            Charles, though, clearly did understand. What’s more, he had devised a plan to rid himself of his troublesome opponent. With a bellow of rage, he unfolded one blade, stabbed Hank in the stomach, then seized his throat with his other hand and lifted Hank over his head like a wrestler. Hank managed to get one more brutal cut in before Charles threw him into the empty elevator shaft so hard that the far wall buckled with his impact. Hank fell straight down and out of sight, and a few seconds later the dull thud of his impact came echoing up the shaft.

            With his opponent gone, Charles cracked his neck and wiped the blood off of his face, seething. He ran to the open door, looked through it, and then turned back, slamming it behind him.

            Helen looked at Hendricks, who saw his own fear mirrored in her eyes. He wasn’t falling for it.

            Charles made an indistinct noise of frustration then got into the elevator right below them. Helen bit her lip. Hendricks found her hand and squeezed it tightly. If Charles knew they were up there…Hendricks became acutely aware that they were both sweating and bleeding profusely.

            The elevator began to ascend. Hendricks silently prayed that Charles would get off somewhere soon; somewhere he wouldn’t notice them taking the elevator down.

            But it kept going, passing floor after floor. Hendricks had brief glimpses of more corridors as they climbed, some strewn with debris, others looking like they hadn’t been touched by the disaster at all. And still they rose: three floors, four floors…

            Hendricks began to lose his fear that Charles was on to them, which was replaced by the fear of what might happen if he took the elevator as far up as it would go with them on top of it. And indeed, that is exactly what he seemed to be doing. Hendricks looked up to see that the top of the shaft was approaching rapidly. With nothing else to do, he gripped Helen’s hand tightly and they shut their eyes…

            The elevator stopped. They opened their eyes again. There were about six inches of space between the top of their heads and the top of the shaft.

            Relieved, Hendricks looked out of the grate. The elevator, he saw, opened out directly onto a helipad. It looked to be nearly dawn, and a large, silver chopper was already waiting. And waiting in front of it was Dr. Prosser himself.

            “Well?” he said as Charles emerged from the elevator.

            “They got away,” said Charles. “We have Dr. Nelson to thank for that.”

            Prosser’s face remained impassive.

            “No matter,” he said. “I doubt they will find a way off this island within the next…” he checked his watch. “Forty-three minutes.”

            “Are you sure you want to do this, doctor?” Charles asked. “After all we put into this place?”

            “I know a lost cause when I see one, Charles,” said Prosser. “Disappointing as it is, we must cut our losses and move on. That is the way of things. I’ve already activated the device, and the bomb will ensure no trace remains.”

            Helen and Hendricks exchanged looks of horror at this new information.

            “Do you have any idea where we’re going?” Charles asked.      

            “I’ve made arrangements with El Jefe for temporary accommodations,” said Prosser. “I shall plan our next move from there.”

            At that point, Helen clutched a hand to her own mouth to keep from crying out. Ulla Orlich had just walked onto the helipad, a little disheveled, but otherwise unharmed.

            “Donald,” she said. “Why the hell did you ever make those cockroaches?”

            “They don’t seem to have done you much harm, have they?” he replied.

            Ulla held up her hand. Suspended about a foot over it was a single struggling roach.

            “Of course not,” she said. “Untouchable, remember?”

            The roach shot from her like a bullet and struck the wall about an inch from the grate, pelting Helen and Hendricks with its guts.

            “Incidentally,” Ulla went on. “I’ll be billing you for my lost luggage.”

            Prosser apparently ignored this. His attention was capture by several men, including Andrew Wainwright, who arrived carrying what looked like a large, white, metal coffin with several pieces of electronics stuck on in places.

            “What’s that?” Ulla asked as the men loaded it into the helicopters cargo bay.

            “Something much more valuable than your lost luggage, my dear,” said Prosser with just a hint of sarcasm.

            Ulla made a noise as though she doubted that very much and climbed into the helicopter.

            “Hello, Charles,” she said as she passed him. “You look terrible.”

            “Thank you, Ulla,” he said. “So do you.”

            Charles turned to Wainwright.

            “Did you get everything?”

            “Everything we could find,” Wainwright answered. “Most of the equipment’s trashed, but we salvaged the U.T. at least. The Calvanite formula’s gone though.”

            “Of course it is,” Charles sighed. “I guess I’ll just have to steal it again, won’t I?”

            “We can discuss that later,” said Prosser. “For now, I would like to be well on our way within the next…” he checked his watch again. “Thirty-six minutes.”

            Charles jerked his head and Wainwright obediently climbed on board the helicopter, followed by his men. Before he went aboard himself, though, Charles took one more sweeping look about him, as though making one last attempt to find Helen before he left.

            “’Now my charms are all o’erthrown, and what strength I have’s mine own,’” Charles sighed. “This just wasn’t our day, was it, Dr. Prosser?”

            “You know,” said Prosser. “From now on, I would much prefer to be called by my new name.”

            Charles shrugged.

            “As you wish, Kobras.”

            Helen gasped. Hendricks frantically covered her mouth, but fortunately the helicopter had started at almost that precise moment.

            Charles, however, seemed to have heard something nonetheless. He cast a frowning look directly at the gate, looking as though he just realized where his quarry might have been hiding. Hendricks bit his lip hard.

After a few moments, Charles apparently decided that any suspicions he still had weren’t worth holding up the helicopter. He climbed in right after Kobras, and a few minutes later the chopper flew off and out of sight.

Next Week:
Chapter Twenty-Five: Late Departure
and
Epilogue

Chapter Twenty-Three: Four Meetings and a Parting

“Between the plan and the operation there is always an unknown…some people call that getting the breaks; I call it God.”

-Gen. George S. Patton

            “Okay,” Hendricks said aloud to himself, trying very hard not to panic. “So now you’re separated. Oh, God…well, she knows what she’s doing, right? You just need to find some way back inside and find her…or should you go straight to the boat, since she’ll be heading that way too? No, you need to find her first. Uh, this…this might lead somewhere…”

            He was walking parallel with the facility, looking for an entrance. He thought that if he could only get back in soon, they might just run into each other. But the longer he walked without seeing any, the less likely this appeared.

            “Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic,” he muttered to himself as he went. Finally, after what felt like at least a quart of a mile (though of course it was much less), he found a door and threw it open, only to find that there was someone standing right on the other side of it.

            “Ralph!”

            “Hullo Mr. Hendricks!” Said Ralph cheerfully. “I am glad to see you still in one piece. But where is Ms. Marshall?”

            “We got separated,” said Hendricks. “I’m trying to find her. Have you seen her?”

            “No, not recently” Said Ralph. “Come along; let us search together. Back inside!”

            “So, where’s Hogan?” Hendricks asked as they hurried down the corridor back (as well as he could judge) towards the garage.

            “We ran into Anansi and were obliged to separate,” said Ralph. “Last I saw he was headed back towards one of the old silos.”

            “What about Anansi?”

            “Oh, I don’t think we need to worry about him; if I’m not mistaken he was on his way to the docks while we leaving them.”

            “What, do you think the spider’s going to hop a boat and leave?”

            “Nonsense; there probably isn’t a functional vessel left by now. I imagine judicious use of his webbing might solve the problem, though.”

            “So…you think he’s going to make a raft for himself?”

            Ralph shrugged. “It’s not impossible.” He said. “That’s what I would do in his place.”

            “But you’re not a spider.”

            “Yes, well, he’s no ordinary spider either, is he? In any case, I doubt we’ll run into him again. I couldn’t vouch for the snakes or any of the other creatures, though.”

            “Not Boa,” said Hendricks. “Python just killed her.”

            And, since Ralph seemed interested, Hendricks described the fight as well as he could.

            “Ah,” said Ralph when Hendricks explained how Python had killed Boa. “Not so armored on the inside, are they?”

            “I…guess…not,” said Hendricks, who couldn’t understand Ralph’s interest.

            “Fatal flaw,” said Ralph. “All monsters have one.”

            “Do you have a lot of experience with monsters?”

            “I wouldn’t say a lot,” said Ralph. “But everyone knows that; haven’t you read anything about dragons or gorgons or the like?”

            “But…those are just myths!” Hendricks pointed out.

            “Are they?” said Ralph with an odd smile. “Are you entirely sure?”

            Hendricks didn’t know what to say to that. Ralph was acting stranger than ever; he wondered whether he was starting to crack under the pressure. 

            “You surprise me, Mr. Hendricks!” said Ralph, catching the expression on his face. “Surely you don’t think that all monsters are the product of science, do you?”

            Hendricks remembered the Giant Squid, and the unknown terrors in the sewers, and shook his head.

            “Excellent! It’s a very troublesome thing; men have a very odd tendency to assume that they have a complete picture of reality, when in fact they’ve only been staring at a single thread of the great tapestry all their lives. Dr. Prosser is a man like that; he’s brilliant on his own field, but he’s working under the illusion that his field is the sum total of reality…”

            The facility suddenly shook with a tremendous explosion.

            “…Which, as you can see, has not worked out very well for him. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophies,’ and woe to the man who forgets it!”

            “What was that?” Hendricks asked.

            “Hamlet, of course…”

            “No, I mean the explosion.”

            “Hmm, hazard a guess,” said Ralph after thinking for a moment. “Dr. Prosser is preparing to abandon Matoul and is attempting to destroy as much as he can prior to leaving. Of course, I believe he intends to destroy the whole island eventually, but…”

            Another explosion, even stronger than the last, cut him off.

            “…But he wants to make especially sure of these things, in case that doesn’t work. He tries to plan ahead, you know.”  

            “Why didn’t he have a plan to deal with, well, all this then?” asked Hendricks.

            “He did,” said Ralph. “It didn’t work. There are circumstances that render even the best conceivable plans little more than words. In such cases, I recommend a blend of improvisation and prayer.”

            Hendricks opened his mouth to respond to this, but they were interrupted. The handle of a door they were passing on their left suddenly wobbled noisily. Hendricks felt a thrill of anticipation:

            “Helen?” he called.

            The door suddenly dented outward from a powerful blow.

            “I do not think so,” said Ralph. “Let us run.”

            Hendricks felt as though he had run himself out, but Ralph seized his arm and dragged him along as he took off down the corridor, moving with alarming speed for a man of his size. Behind them, the door was blasted off its hinges as Hank Voyeur stepped into the corridor, looked about him, and strode after them.

            When Helen had run out of the garage, she paused for a second to consider. Her first priority, she knew, would be to meet up with Hendricks again so they could make the run to the boat. But since they were both planning to head in that direction anyway, the smart thing, presumably, would be to head that way and take the first door leading outside, then skirt the building until she found him. In any case, that was the best she could think of in the brief moment she paused just outside the room where the two giant snakes were fighting.

            This decided, she tore off down the hallway, looking for a left turn that might lead her outside. She didn’t find any for a long time, and when she did, someone was already there.

            “You again?” said Ulla Orlich. “What an unpleasant surprise.”

            Helen stopped dead.

            “It might interest you to know,” Ulla went on. “That Donny and I have come to a moderately satisfactory arrangement.”

            “I know,” Helen said automatically.

            “Don’t be stupid, girl,” said Ulla dismissively. “You couldn’t possibly know that.”

            “What? ‘Donny’ didn’t tell you?” Helen said with a derisive smile (for a moment her loathing of this woman overrode her fear). “I know all sorts of things. For instance, I know that your children are still alive, no thanks to you.”

            “You say that like you expect me to care,” said Ulla, glaring at her. “By the way, Donny reminded me of something; if you get away, that might be awkward for me. Do you know what that means?”

            Helen’s maniacal defiance faded. She looked into the older woman’s cold, cruel face for one more moment…then turn and ran for it.

            “Oh, don’t be childish!” Ulla said, starting after her. “You can’t get away, you know.”

            Helen did know, but she didn’t care. This seemed far from the most hopeless situation she had been in over the past couple days. She raced down the hall as fast as her tired legs would take her, neither knowing nor caring where she was going. Ulla raced behind her, but as she did Helen noticed something rather encouraging; unlike Charles or Hank, Ulla couldn’t move inhumanly fast. She was fresher than Helen, but she was older too. The race was as close to even as any she had made recently. Through the halls, up a flight of stairs, and on deeper into the facility they ran, Helen ahead, Ulla following about ten yards behind.

            “Slow down, you damn girl!” Ulla gasped as they rounded yet another corner and down another hall, one which terminated in an open door. Hope surged in Helen’s chest; Ulla was tiring. If she could just maintain her lead for a little longer, she might, after all, escape…

            She ran through the door and found herself at the end of a narrow catwalk that stretched the length of a huge, empty missile silo. Without pausing to consider, she started to cross it. It shook under her feet.

            Suddenly, when she was about half-way across, another explosion rocked the facility, causing the already-trembling catwalk to sway dangerously. Helen stumbled, tripped, and fell forward onto her face.

            She began to pick herself up, but then she noticed something that momentarily distracted her even from her current plight. The floor of the silo was only about twenty feet below, and it appeared to be moving. The next second she realized that they were cockroaches; thousands and thousands of them all crawling and buzzing around below her. She didn’t think she had ever seen anything more revolting, even on Matoul.

            “Disgusting, aren’t they?”

            Helen flipped over to see Ulla striding carelessly onto the catwalk behind her, gasping for breath, but looking at the roaches with an expression of extreme contempt.

            “You know,” she said, still trying to catch her breath. “Just for making me run all over this goddamn facility I really ought to just throw you down there and let them settle you.”

            Helen began to crawl backwards away from Ulla, who kept coming at the same slow, careless pace.

            “But,” she went on. “If you give up now, I’ll just kill you quickly, how’s that?”

            Helen didn’t answer, but kept backing away, breathing hard, her heart pounding painfully in her chest.

            “Listen, honey,” said Ulla, quickening her pace. “Those things work by burrowing under your skin through your mouth and eyes and…other places. They’ll eat you from the inside out and you’ll be awake and aware the whole. Time. I’ve seen it happen. Trust me, you don’t want that.”

            Helen suddenly staggered to her feet and tried to make a break for it. Ulla was after her in a second and seized her by the hair before she had gone more than a couple paces.

            “Too late,” Ulla hissed. “You really ought to have take me up on my offer.”

            Helen struggled, but there seemed to be something more than just Ulla’s hand gripping her; she felt as though her whole head had become encased in something warm and soft, but very solid. So solid that wherever it touched her, she couldn’t move an inch against it. She reached back to try to wrest herself free, but that only caused her hands to become encased in the same invisible substance as well.

            Ulla pulled her sideways so that she was leaning dangerously far over the edge of the railing, looking down into the swarming, sickening mass below.  

            “No, no wait, please…” Helen gasped.

            “I gave you a chance,” said Ulla. “But now you’ve been too much trouble just to kill quickly. I hope they take a long, long time with you. Good…”

            But at that moment, another explosion tore through the facility, and this one burst through the wall of the silo itself. Ulla looked up and Helen at once found herself free from the strange force that had held her. Stumbling on the rocking catwalk, she ran for it. Ulla cursed and started after her again, but a terrible creaking noise caused them both to pause and look up in horror.

            A huge girder had been blasted free from the silo wall and was falling like an enormous tree at right-angles to the catwalk. Bits of the wall, ceiling, and God-knows-what-else fell around it, but it drew the eye irresistibly as it swung out and down.

            Helen and Ulla recovered their wits at the exact same moment. Helen made a mad dash for the door, and Ulla tried to follow, but before either could get very far the girder struck, smashed straight through the catwalk as though it were a twig, and crashed onto the swarming roaches.

            Helen, by instinct or good fortune or both, had leapt forward just as the girder hit, and for what felt like a long time she flew through the air clawing and trying to find something, anything solid to grab onto. She finally landed back on the catwalk, which was now hanging ominously at a steep angle, and clung to it with all her strength.

            Behind her Ulla gave a terrible scream. The girder had landed almost directly on top of her, and she had fallen straight down along with it. Helen looked back over her shoulder, but all she saw was a writhing, vaguely humanoid shape that was already completely hidden by the swarming roaches. She turned away, feeling sick.

            No one, she thought to herself. Not even she deserves to die like that.

            But Helen couldn’t dwell on it. She had to escape. Very carefully, but as quickly as she could, she climbed up the hanging catwalk. Miraculously enough, it held long enough for her to reach the far end.

            Once in the room beyond, she slammed the door and leaned against it, struggling to catch her breath. There was a painful stitch in her chest, but she barely felt it: she was too busy savoring the relief of her latest very narrow escape.

            Okay, she thought after a few minutes. Got away from that one. Now what?

            That was a very good question, as she now had very little idea where she was or which way to go. The first thing to do was to find a way out of this room, which was dark and crowded with large pieces of unidentifiable equipment. She picked her way carefully through, trying to pierce the gloom.

            Suddenly, a hand closed around her mouth and someone jammed the barrel of a gun to her chin. She gave a muffled scream and tried to twist away.

            “Don’t move,” hissed her captor. “And don’t scream or I’ll blow your head off, understand?”

            But she knew that voice.

            “Hmhn?” she said.

            “Now, I’m going to take my hand away,” he went on. “And you’re going to tell me who you are, got it?”

            He let go of her mouth.

            “H-Hogan?” she gasped.      

            “What…Helen? Oh, God, I’m so sorry!”

            “Believe me, I completely understand,” she said, turning around. It was too dark to see, clearly, but there was no mistaking the voice.

            “Where’s Hendricks?” he asked.

            “That is a very good question,” she said. “We got separated, but look; we know where there’s a boat that we can use to get off the island…”

            “The villa, right? Secret escape boat?”

            “Exactly. So right now, we both should be heading in that direction, so if we go that way…”

            “We’ll run right into him,” said Hogan.

            “At least, that’s what I’m hoping,” she added. “Do you know where we are?”

            “Second level,” he said. “But from the sound of it, there’s no way back through the silo, am I right?”

            “You are,” she said.

            “Then we’ll have to head out that way,” he said, gesturing off in the gloom. “I was about to go myself when the explosions happened, then you came in and…well, you know.”

            “Yeah. Well, lead the way, captain.”

           

Next Week:
Chapter Twenty-Four: Man and Superman