Lab Experiment

Sirens bled through the walls of the facility as screams began reverberating down the halls. Something escaped containment and was now lurking down corridors flooded with bright flashes of light. The creature, a hybrid of sorts, would eviscerate one person only to leave the next untouched. The hybrid's deformed handprints were dragged across the walls, blood trails marking its path.

Alan had leaped up in fear when the loud, piercing beep of the siren erupted in his office. He knew what it meant and scrambled to collect his leather jacket, car keys, notebook, and security card. He had three security doors to clear before he could get to his vehicle. The testing room, where the hybrid subject was kept, was further in the building, and Alan would be running in the opposite direction. He was hoping he would be safe, but that changed when he opened his office door.

The first thing noticed were the flashing lights in the corners. The once pristine hallway was now destroyed. The fluorescent lights had been pulled from the ceiling, a few still flickering in the flashing light of the alarms as they danced on the wires. The floor was littered with dead bodies with the occasional living person curled up next to the wall sobbing. There were large blood-soaked gashes in the once white walls while blood still dripped towards the floor. Blood flowed into little connected rivers of red winding through the carnage.

Alan stood there, terrified of what he was seeing. How did it get out? How did it get to the front so quickly? Where was it now? How did he not hear this? A swarm of questions poured into his thoughts. His first step out of his office was met with a squishing sound. He was too scared to look down and decided to take another cautious step. Another nauseous sound traveled up to his ears.

Alan held his breath and made quick but careful steps toward the end of the hall. The security door was still intact, and so was the power to the console that required a swipe of a card. The security card went through easily, and a soft beep sounded as the door opened. The next hallway was clear of the devastation of the previous, and Alan sighed in relief when the door behind him finally shut. He nonchalantly walked towards the next door and security console.

Just before he swiped his card, an intense roar erupted on the other side of the door. A scream pierced through the roar, but when a crack seeped into Alan's hallway, the sound stopped abruptly. Alan could hear a consistent crunching and envisioned the creature eating the corpse of the woman it just murdered. Alan held his breath again. An eternity seemed to crawl by before the crunching stopped, and new sounds found Alan's ears. The new noise, footsteps, and snarls seemed to be getting fainter by the second.

With his heart in his throat, Alan squeezed his eyes shut and ran through the building in his mind. There was no other route to the last door, which was an elevator. Being on the fifth secure basement level meant the elevator was the quickest way to the lobby. The stairs were not only deeper in the building but also required a two-step verification process; security card and facial recognition. He opened his eyes when he decided he was going the right way.

With an attempt to swallow his heart, Alan slowly reached his hand up to swipe the card. He paused for a few seconds, imitating a statue. Since the sounds of horror had faded, he hoped the beast had retreated into the building. His hand shook as it slid the piece of plastic through the metal console. The door clicked, louder than the last, and hissed as it opened inward. The door moved less than a foot, when it usually opened completely. Alan had to muster his strength and courage to push the door open.

The entryway was worse than the last hallway. There were more bodies, all dead, but some were whole while most were at least smashed. Other bodies had large bite marks taken out of the torso, limbs ripped off, and some were just unrecognizable as human bodies. The entire floor and at least four feet up the walls were nothing but a dark red. Pools of near black had settled in different human sized craters in the floor. The rest of the walls are dotted with different sized blots of blood.

Alan stifles a scream as he walks through what was left of his colleagues. Tears start to form and fall as he catches a few glimpses of portions of people he could identify. His stature became rigid as part of him wanted to run back to the untouched hallway and hide, while the other half wanted to get up the elevator. He slowly pressed forward.

The twenty feet that separated him from the half metallic silver on top and half pinkish film on the bottom double doors took calculated steps in order for Alan to avoid the piles of bodies. He gasped out a few times when he recognized a face or a tattoo. A few gasps and turns later he stood in front of the console to his freedom.

***RESET YOUR PASSWORD***

The screen flashed an eerie green light over his pristine white lab coat and white t-shirt. He didn't even bother to read the message before trying to swipe his card through the slot. It was impossible to swipe it through. Alan took a closer look and the metallic slot was full of viscera and flesh while it had a steady stream of blood dripping from the right side corner. His first reaction was to check for something in his pockets that he could use to slide the gunk out of the slot.

A few disassembled pens later and the slit was clear. His first swipe resulted in nothing, and so did the next couple. He finally realized the groove was still covered in a thick red residue. He picked up the inner corner of his lab coat and forced it in the slit. He sawed the console with his coat half a dozen times before declaring it clean. He braved to turn around and look for the monster he had created. Nothing, except a large hole in the wall leading back inside the secured level. Alan thought how the beast would starve to death down here just before swiping the card one more time.

This time the alarms on the console sounded. Alan knew that would probably draw in the hybrid and scrambled to try and figure out a solution. He wiped as much of the unknown substances off the screen of the console as he could. Once he read the message ***RESET YOUR PASSWORD*** he started to cycle through the menu on the partly obstructed screen. He only got a few taps into the categories before a low growling broke the silence.