Free Chase Baker & the Humanzees from Hell (A Chase Baker Thriller Book 8) by Benjamin Sobieck Page B

time it takes for the SKS’s bayonet to appear against my throat.
    “Who needs body armor when you’ve got Helper 8?” Doctor X says with a laugh. “Helper 8 is the quickest of the three humanzees here in my laboratory. Helper 9 is by far the strongest, while Helper 10 is unusually smart. You’ll get to know them in a minute.”
    Doctor X pulls a lever built into the cave wall. A section of the wall near the Jeep opens on a hinge, revealing a long, dim hallway with steel doors lining either side. It reminds me of a prison. Sounds like one, too. The wailing coming from the behind the doors brings to mind an animal being slowly castrated. I detect the faint notes of human grief from within the cacophony, but I can’t be sure. A waft of air carries the smell of rotting death and old shit. If there’s a gateway to hell, this is it.
    Standing in the middle of the hallway are what I take to be Helpers 9 and 10. I didn’t think it’s possible, but my eyes fall upon two creatures that are somehow uglier than Helper 8. Doctor X may have improved strength and intelligence with Helpers 9 and 10, respectively, but he went backward in the cosmetics department. They’re wet behind the ears with primordial ooze, their bodies contorted into satires that mock other living things. To exist and to be that hideous must be painful by default.
    “Are the mating pairs prepared?” Doctor X says to Helpers 9 and 10.
    One of them nods and grunts something unintelligible. It seems more coherent than its companion, which stares at the floor.
    The one that responded must be Helper 10.
    “Good,” Doctor X says. He claps his hands. “Helper 8, escort our specimens to their breeding chambers. We’re about to begin.”
    Hillary screams until she passes out as we’re forced down the hallway. I try to fight back, but Helper 9 slaps the ESEE knife out of my hand and clocks me across the jaw. Doctor X isn’t kidding about Helper 9’s strength.
    The moans coming from behind the doors we pass as we’re dragged down the hallway signal how long and hard Doctor X has been at it. I can feel the misery on my skin. The Helpers separate us into adjacent rooms in a flurry of kicking and shoving. What’s waiting for me inside the room I’m forced into is beyond comprehension.

 
    19.
     
    Helper 8 uses the butt of the SKS to push me the final inch into the room. The inside is dim, illuminated by a single bulb dangling from the ceiling. After my eyes meet what’s in front of me, I spin on my heel and make a break for it through the door. Helper 8 cuts me off with another shoulder blow. I careen backward as the metal door to this tiny room swings shut.
    I’m trapped.
    In the adjacent room, I hear Hillary coming to the same realization as she regains her faculties. We’re up shit creek.
    I’m barely being figurative. Before me is a heap of excrement as tall as my waist in various stages of decomposition, seasoned with the occasional streak of blood flowing from the top of the heap like lava from a shit volcano. The stench makes every breath feel as if I’m sucking air through a straw with one end lodged up a corpse’s asshole. The heat in the room only intensifies the rancid aroma. It radiates from the floor up my leg.
    My eyes follow the mound of feces up to what I originally think are taxidermy mounts on the wall. Except mounts don’t typically feature buttocks and legs fastened to the wall with leather restraints. Even a basic understanding of zoology could deduce what’s happening here. Doctor X drilled three big holes in the wall and stuck female chimpanzees through them, facing their hindquarters into the room for breeding.
    Disgusting.
    To add to the trauma and misery, the chimps aren’t clueless about their situation. I can hear them clamoring from the other side of the holes, beating their bodies against the wall and screaming in deep, unearthly bellows. I wonder how long they’ve been here, how many experiments Doctor X put them