SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

Nearing the lab, the two ex-soldiers heard shouts. Through the observation window they saw a guy in an orange jumpsuit strapped to a table shudder under his restraints. Dr Sturgess shouted orders at two technicians while preparing a syringe. Two other technicians ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, scrambling from station to station pressing buttons on various machines and monitoring vital signs.

“We’ve got a situation.” Their squad leader, Dot, looked from Sully to Rolf, her normally calm demeanor shattered. A line of sweat trickled down her forehead and rolled past her eye. Rolf appraised her reaction and surmised she probably had never seen any real combat. Her eyes lacked that hard edge he saw in the rest of his squad.

The inmate strapped to the table cried out, sweat pouring from every nook and cranny. As the rest of Rolf’s team lined up, the inmate shot up, tearing through the straps and ripping free from the metal clamps holding him to the table. Dr Sturgess shouted at the window but her words were lost as everyone watched in rapt horror as the inmate’s orange jumpsuit split, coils of muscle bubbling up through the material. Bones stretched, limbs lengthened in ways that went against nature or God, depending on what you believed. Hair rose in thick clusters all along its skin. Teeth clattered along the floor as fangs forced their way through.

What had been a man a few moments ago morphed into something…else.

“Oh my God,” someone, Rolf wasn’t sure who, murmured.

The creature stood upright, towering over the scientists. It snarled, saliva dribbling from its snout to chest. Dr Sturgess looked up, eyes wide. She scrambled to get away but a hairy arm connected with her chest. The air was forced from her lungs, her needle bouncing away. She landed on the floor in a heap and didn’t rise. The thing in the other room turned and looked at the window and growled – an imposing hulk of fur and muscle.

If Rolf hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would have never believed it. He had watched enough movies to know what he was looking at. And yet, he refused to think the word. Things like that weren’t supposed to exist.

“Holy… shit,” Sully said, giving voice to everyone else’s thoughts.

One of the technicians screamed.

The experiment was across the room in a flash. It lunged at the closest technician, opened its toothy maw and latched onto her throat. The thing shook its head from side to side like a predator would with its prey, blood spraying in wild arcs. Screams filled the room as the remaining technicians watched on in horror. One of them made a mad dash for the door while the remaining technician attended to the fallen doctor.

“Open the outer door. Now.” Rolf readied his HK416.

Dot didn’t move. She stood transfixed by the scene beyond the window. Her mouth moved but no words came out.

“Dot! Open the goddamned door!”

Dot jumped. With her eyes still fixed on the experiment, she slid a card through a magnetic reader beside the large window. A small light went from red to green. The outer door slid open with a hiss.

It looked like their squad leader checked out. Considering the circumstances, Rolf couldn’t blame her. He had commanded and fought with plenty of good men and women in both Afghanistan and Iraq and thought he had seen just about everything. After seeing that thing in the other room, he knew he was wrong.

“Sully and I will break right,” Rolf said patting his roommate on the shoulder. “Peretti, you and Kang break left. Cruz, get those people out of there. Everyone clear?”

Peretti and Kang nodded.

“You got it,” Cruz said pulling his Desert Eagle from its holster.

“Dot, keep that outer door clear.”

Their squad leader nodded, still unable to draw her gaze from the window.

Rolf entered the small hallway between the outer and inner doors, the rest of his squad close behind. The only thing keeping the experiment contained was a few inches of reinforced steel of the inner door. Once he pressed the large red button they’d be face to face with a savage beast who had already tasted human blood. He took a breath and jammed on the button. The scent of blood and wet dog lay heavy on the air. The experiment had finished with the first technician and had another cornered. The skinny guy slid down the wall, sniveling, snot bubbling from a nostril.

Cruz cradled a hysterical technician in his arms, running from the lab. They disappeared through the inner doorway unharmed.

The experiment leaned in and sniffed. The skinny technician shielded his head with his arms. Bloody drool dribbled down the experiment’s face. It reared back and howled. Just like a wolf.

Rolf motioned to Peretti. He and Kang moved like smoke through the lab, easy and silent. They came to a stop a few feet from the experiment, flanking the creature, rifles at the ready.