Nightmare Revelation

by David Longhorn

  What the – he thought, then stopped thinking forever.

  ***

  “How long will it take?” asked Zoffany.

  Gould shrugged.

  They were looking at a PC screen on which a bar was filling up, showing how much content had uploaded. It was half an hour since the other members of the Crazy Committee had left.

  “It's amazing how dull doing something rebellious can be,” she said. “Maybe we could have a look at our special guest? While we wait?”

  “Why?” he asked. “She can't have escaped.”

  “She did almost escape before by manipulating a guard,” Zoffany pointed out. Then added, “Admittedly that was before we–”

  “Nailed her to an operating table?” he cut in. “But I don't suppose it can hurt to check.”

  Gould smiled and moved to another computer, then tapped in his security password. This allowed him to bring up live camera footage from inside the building. Once the system was accessed, it showed an array of small screens. Gould was about to click on the image of Lucy's cell when he stopped, frowned.

  “What's going on?” he exclaimed.

  He selected the closed-circuit feed from the foyer, where some kind of fracas seemed to be going on. As they watched, they saw a foundation security guard and two cleaners reveal themselves to be Interlopers. They took down a young-looking man in a suit who managed to pull out a gun, but did not get to fire it.

  “Jesus Christ!”

  Gould checked the other security feeds. The building seemed to be deserted. Then Zoffany spotted a couple of bodies lying in a corridor just off the foyer.

  “The actual human guards, I'm guessing?”

  “Probably,” Gould said, switching to another viewpoint. “At least they're not heading this way. They seem to be going downstairs, in fact.”

  “To the sub-basement?” Zoffany gasped. “But how will they get past the security?”

  Gould gave her a quizzical look.

  “Oh,” she said. “They'll have taken a swipe card, and of course Lucy will have picked the code out of my mind.”

  Gould walked briskly to the door and locked it, shoved a chair up against the handle.

  “Better safe than sorry,” he observed, returning to the computer. “Now let's see what they get up to.”

  “Shouldn't we call someone?” Zoffany asked. “I mean, the police or, well …”

  “Message Jim,” Gould suggested. “Let him know there's an incursion. Probably best if they don't come back, considering the numbers.”

  “If they get the message,” Zoffany pointed out, taking out her phone.

  After a few moments, they saw a familiar figure in a dark suit emerge from the elevator, accompanied by three Interlopers in non-human form. They watched the suited individual walk along to the secure unit and quickly open the door.

  “That's that politician!” Zoffany exclaimed. “Do you think he was replaced before he visited or after?”

  Gould shrugged.

  “It hardly matters,” he said. “They've clearly got access to high levels of government now. Not bad going. Perhaps we should be trying to report this. The trouble is, who could we trust?”

  Zoffany did not reply. The two watched as the Interlopers entered Lucy's cell and began to free their comrade.

  ***

  The gateway was only a few yards from Hobs Lane station. Their torches picked out the spherical shimmer of the portal. It was in the mouth of the disused tunnel Jim had located.

  “You sure you want me to stay here?” he asked. “I might be a lot more use as backup if I've actually got your backs.”

  Denny hesitated, glanced at Frankie, who said, “He's got a point.”

  “Okay,” Denny said, “compromise. You wait about three minutes – that's may be an hour over there, right? Then you come through. Because we just want to get some shots of the PD, not win awards.”

  “Fair enough,” Jim said, still sounding unhappy.

  “We need you here to cover our retreat,” Denny explained again. “We've no idea how many of those things are loose in London. And remember what we discussed?”

  “Wakefield's trick?” Jim asked. “Do you really think it can cloud their minds?”

  Denny gestured at the gateway.

  “Through there we're fighting on their terms, in their world,” she said. She took out her key ring, held up the talisman. “We have one small advantage. Another one would be handy.”

  “Tick tock, guys,” put in Frankie, hefting her camera. “I don't feel comfortable just standing here, knowing there's a Soul-Eater down that tunnel.”

  As if to underline the point, a whiff of foul air blew past them. Denny felt herself gagging. She tried not to imagine the rotting mass of alien protoplasm blocking the tunnel and spilling onto the platform at Wells Road.

  But at least there were plenty of witnesses, she thought. And there must be phone-camera footage.

  ***

  “What are they doing?” Zoffany whispered, leaning over Gould's shoulder.

  “Some kind of – ritual?” he suggested. “You'd think they'd just grab her and run if–”

  He paused.

  “You know, this makes no sense. If they just want the data she's gathered on us, they don't need to rescue her at all. We know they can share thoughts over short distances. So, what the hell are they doing?”

  Four Interlopers had set Lucy free and then stepped back, heads bowed, as Lucy heaved itself painfully into a sitting position. Her ribs were still peeled back, internal organs hanging obscenely over its lap. A trickle of blood, black in the CCTV screen, ran down the short, skinny legs.

  “Can we get sound?” Zoffany asked.

  Gould fiddled with the settings, brought up the sound as high as he could. There was a slight hint of breathing just audible over the whir of an air-conditioning fan. But the Interlopers were saying nothing. Instead they moved closer, reached out their clawed hands, and placed them on the fake Lucy's ravaged body. As the humans watched, the gaping ribs began to fold in, covering the slow-pulsing organs. The four newcomers remained motionless, heads still bowed, as the rib cage began to heal itself.

  “You learn something new every day,” murmured Gould.

  Within a couple of minutes, Lucy was physically intact. The creature got down from the surgical table and almost fell. Its movements were hesitant, suggestive of great pain and weakness. The others held it upright, helped it to the door.

  “I never thought–” Gould began.

  “About how much they might care for one another,” Zoffany finished. “Me neither. And I suppose the information she's gathered is valuable. But still. This is a lot like compassion.”

  As if they had heard her, the five Interlopers stopped and stared straight up at the camera. The human flinched back from the small screen. The creatures said nothing, alien faces simply staring blankly with deep-sunken eyes. Then the rescue party turned its attention to the cell door, and took Lucy slowly toward the elevator.

  “I've always hated them,” Gould said, switching to a view of the corridor. “For what they did to my sister, and to all those other innocent people and children. I mean, I was fascinated by them, but the driving force was always that hatred.”

  “How do you feel now?” Zoffany asked.

  “Confused, to be honest,” he said. “If any intelligent species is desperate to survive, extreme measures must seem justified. We're in War of the Worlds territory, I suppose.”

  They watched in silence for a few moments as the rescuers took the freed captive to the elevator. Inside, one of them took off its cleaners’ uniform and put it onto Lucy. When the rescue party emerged in the foyer, all the Interlopers had taken on human form. One had adopted the form of naked young man. It calmly walked over and took the clothes from the stranger they had killed earlier.

  “Do you think they'll take her home?” Zoffany asked.

  “I suppose Bartram has clearance,” Gould mused. “But that might not be their ob
jective.”

  ***

  Denny went through the gateway first, expecting to land on something like the stone platform in the Interloper city. Instead, she tumbled onto a floor of compacted dirt. It was pitch dark. She moved quickly to one side just in time to avoid being struck by Frankie, who was holding her camera above her head. As a result, the other woman landed heavily with a yelp of pain and dismay.

  “Either it's night or we're underground,” Denny said, helping Frankie up.

  She flicked on her flashlight and pointed it straight up. There was an irregular surface about ten feet above their heads, walls about fifteen feet apart. It was a tunnel, but much larger than the ones Denny had traversed during her first venture into this world.

  “Big,” commented Frankie, turning on her camera light and filming the scene. “Their version of Hobs Lane station, maybe?”

  “Hate to see what passes for a train,” Denny replied. “Or maybe the tunnels reflect the size of the creatures that use them?”

  Frankie froze, lowered her camera.

  “A Soul-Eater?” she whispered sharply.

  They stared at each other for a moment, then both laughed nervously.

  “Doubt it,” Denny said, pointing at the ceiling. “This is way too small.”

  Frankie stepped back a few paces, resumed filming.

  “Okay,” said Denny, “we're in some kind of tunnel, and it could be anywhere on regular, boring old earth. So we need some proof we're in the Phantom Dimension. Let's go–” she pointed at random. “This way. Uphill, I think.”

  They set off, and after a couple of minutes, it was clear that the tunnel was sloping upwards as well as curving gently to the left. A faint light showed ahead what Denny hoped was the surface. She anticipated filming from the relative safety of a tunnel mouth, getting footage of the drifting Black Stars, perhaps even a passing Soul-Eater. But, as they got closer to the light, its quality seemed wrong.

  “Turn off your light,” she said, flicking off her own.

  The radiance ahead was clearer, now. It did not have the colorless quality of the sky in the Phantom Dimension. It was a dull reddish glow, reminding Denny of the color of the dirt walls of the tunnel. She mentioned this to Frankie.

  “Yeah,” said the camerawoman, “but maybe the sky's different in different places. I mean, a British sky isn't the same as one in Hawaii, right? Could be the same over here.”

  Denny clung to the idea, but soon it was clear that Frankie was wrong. Without conferring, they both slowed down and pressed closer to the tunnel wall. The tunnel opened out into a large chamber illuminated by patches of what looked to Denny like glowing moss. The angle of the tunnel made it impossible for them to see the ground level without going right up to the entrance.

  “Crap,” hissed Frankie. “We've still got zero proof.”

  Denny crouched down and worked her way up to within a few feet of the entrance. As she did so, a figure appeared, shambling slowly past the tunnel mouth. It was an Interloper, but vastly bigger than any they had seen before, standing at least seven feet tall. While the smaller creatures had a baboon-like basic shape, this one resembled a gorilla in its broad, muscular form. The main difference was that its huge forelimbs terminated in taloned claws bigger than Denny's head.

  Denny froze until the monster was out of sight, then turned to see if Frankie had got it on tape. Frankie raised a thumb. But Denny did not respond. Instead, she was staring past her friend at the two Interlopers behind Frankie.

  “You are welcome,” said an immense voice. It echoed around the chamber and down the tunnel. “Come closer.”

  Chapter 9: Survival

  “I am the All-Mother.”

  “Yeah,” Denny said quietly. “I get that.”

  Beside her, Frankie murmured something not quite audible as she focused on the vast creature at the far end of the oval chamber. There was no sign that the Interlopers wanted her to stop filming. In fact, the huge guards – all four of them – had ignored the humans. The ‘Type One’ creatures that had followed them along the tunnel had likewise stood looking on, instead of attacking.

  The All-Mother was roughly humanoid in shape, but would have been about ten feet tall if she had been able to stand. To Denny, this seemed unlikely. The Interloper Queen lay on a kind of mattress of pale fibers, taking up about a quarter of the brood chamber. The creature's limbs, while even larger than those of her gorilla-like guards, seemed small and atrophied in comparison to the vast, bloated body. The creature's head was likewise dwarfed by the huge, swollen abdomen. The deep-set eyes, however, were alive with keen intelligence and restless energy.

  But it was the other living creature that drew most of Denny's attention. A body was fastened to the Queen's massive belly. It was tiny in comparison, and at first Denny thought of deep-sea fish in which the male becomes a mere organ of the larger female. But after looking more closely, she realized that this was probably not a male Interloper. A few shreds of what had been a bright-colored dress still clung to the body, and untidy ropes of dark hair hung down over the pale gray alien flesh. Denny guessed it would be, if human, a girl of about six or seven.

  The Queen's abdomen heaved and a dark gray object began to emerge slowly from between the stumpy legs. The All-Mother moaned, limbs thrashing, as the egg slid out. One of her giant attendants caught it, and rushed to insert it into a niche. There were several layers of these recesses around the oval chamber, and they fell into distinct size ranges.

  The egg that had just been produced was of the most common sort, about a foot long and six inches wide. But there were a handful of larger cavities that contained glossy black eggs. And, Denny noticed, there was a single, huge niche that apparently contained nothing. Any egg that would fill that space would be enormous, at least three feet long. Denny flinched at the thought of the Queen producing it.

  “That space was made for our daughter, the new All-Mother,” the Queen boomed. “So that future generations may endure.”

  Okay, Denny thought, I'm going to interview an alien monster while she squeezes out a few eggs. No biggie.

  “What do you mean?” she asked aloud, and pointed at the huge guards. “Aren't these all your daughters?”

  The All-Mother gave a shuddering, deep bellow that might have been a laugh. Another egg began to emerge from between the creature's thighs.

  “I mean,” the creature said, “that there will be a mother to our people in their new homeland. So that the race can endure.”

  “Another fertile female?” Denny said. “But how will she survive? Oh, I get it. She's going to be one of the new types. She'll be able live in our world indefinitely, right?”

  The Queen did not reply, but finished producing a fresh egg. Again, one of the hulking attendants picked it up and placed it in a niche. As it did so, the egg in an adjacent niche split open. A small, white claw emerged, ripping the leathery shell in two. Then a perfectly-formed miniature Interloper dropped to the dirt floor. It began to lick off a layer of glistening slime.

  “You're still … producing regular Interlopers,” said Denny, trying to quell the disgust in her voice. “Why is that? You can't build an army at this late stage. Your world is going down, you know that?”

  This time the Queen's response was more emphatic. The All-Mother bellowed, thrashed her bloated limbs, and a flailing arm knocked a chunk of out the brood chamber wall. Denny was hit by a blast of rage and frustration, far more intense than anything she had experienced before.

  “I have no choice but to breed! It is the eternal way.”

  A mental image suddenly appeared in Denny's brain. She saw a group of bizarre creatures that she knew, without being told, were male Interlopers. They were the ones that hatched from the larger eggs, she realized. The beings were all too obviously male, huge and aggressive, with far more vicious claws than the familiar sexless Interlopers.

  Denny saw them from the Queen's viewpoint. The males were brutal, stupid creatures seeking to impregnate her. She
looked on as they tore each other apart, until eventually only one survived. Physical excellence was all the males contributed, Denny realized. Intelligence and psychic ability were passed down the Queen's line.

  Next, Denny experienced the mating ritual of another species. The prolonged coitus literally sucked the life out of the not-so-lucky partner, leaving him a dead, blackened husk. The twitching, near-dead 'husband' was carried off by an attendant and dumped, unceremoniously, on the surface. From the grotesque mating on the All-Mother, she was just that, the sole reproducer of a cloned tribe. And she would produce offspring every few minutes for as long as she lived.

  Denny fell to her knees, retching, as the intense, alien memory washed over her. She looked up at Frankie, who was shaking her head in disbelief.

  “I just got a whiff of that,” Frankie confirmed. “I guess romance really is dead.”

  Denny, still on her knees, pointed at the child lying sprawled on the fleshy dome of the Queen's abdomen.

  “What do you need her for?”

  She thought she already knew the answer thanks to the human cells found in the body of the fake Lucy.

  “The child was chosen,” the Queen hissed. “Her flesh can become our flesh.”

  Monster logic, Denny thought. All those child abductions down the centuries. To experiment on them, try and find a way to adapt to our world.

  “So your changelings spied on us,” she said, slowly getting to her feet, “while you tested the children to see if they were compatible with your biology. And you captured adults, experimented on them, too. Centuries for us, decades-long project for you. If you rejected a captive, you gave them to the Soul-Eaters. Win, win situation, right?”

  “It is your way,” the All-Mother replied. “You experiment on your own kind. You slaughter your own kind. Torture, maim, starve, destroy. We make war as you do. We are not human, and we owe you nothing.”