by M. L. Banner
Violet quickly saw that there were several dead bodies and their own Igor, who also looked dead, in a pool of blood. A large bloom of red covering most of his white shirt told her it was his. The door to the outside starboard exit was shut. She also heard someone coming up the stairs.
“We need to drag him back,” she said, grabbing one of Ivanov’s arms, Akashi grabbing the other.
In the process of lugging Igor Ivanov’s giant frame across the floor, Violet could see he was still breathing, though barely.
They made it back inside their area and secured it, leaving a long trail of blood.
She had no idea if he’d survive, but she didn’t leave anyone behind. Not today.
104
Coordinated Attack
The explosion sent Jay Falcone down onto his knees. Jay cocked his head all the way back and studied the ceiling, certain this was the explosion’s origin and it would collapse on top of him.
Jay continued to gaze upward into the murk, just noticing there were only two small lights on in the whole theater. He couldn’t remember if this was new, or if it had been the same the last time he’d done this.
The explosive tremors quickly subsided, but then they grew again. Now, the growing rumble and its accompanying noise—like the shuffling feet of hundreds—were coming not from above, but from the stage area. Jay turned his gaze to the growing tremors, wondering if this was the prelude to another explosion.
He had no idea how much worse it would be.
Only a few days ago, after a marathon day of poker, capped off by winning the ship’s poker tournament, Jay celebrated with the Bucket of Beer special and an unfunny comedy show, featured on this very stage. This current performance was far more mesmerizing. And in response, Jay’s mouth dropped open. His brain just couldn’t accept what his eyes were hollering at it: a multitude of naked men and women were dashing across the stage.
Frozen in his place, Jay didn’t budge even as the first of these naked performers, racing in his direction, touched down on the carpeted aisle. When they began to yell their torturous screams and they were close enough for him to see their red eyes, that’s when Jay sprang.
Boom.
In his panicked dash, Jay caught just a glimpse of the guard’s rifle crashing in front of him. Then beside him.
Boom-boom-boom!
Even in his youth, Jay was not much of a runner. Yet he’d already passed the guard, allowing his gaze to hang on the man one last second before he bounded out the door. Jay didn’t dare look back any longer.
The guard—Jay had already forgotten his name—remained on a bent knee, discharging his rifle, now on automatic fire. In Jay’s final glimpse, before turning to face the main entrance, he caught a white streak hit the guard so hard, it knocked him backwards.
Jay had just enough time to take in the faces of the two wide-eyed guards before they disappeared behind the closing doors—his only way out of this.
The realization hit him at the same time Jay felt something barrel into his back with the power of a freight train, sending him careening hard into three overturned seats. Coming to rest on his back, neck ratcheted up, he watched multiple blurs of white, brown and black whisk past his field of vision. His sensory world was awash with the banshee-like cries of these human-animals, their mind-numbing pounding on the door and then the face of one of these bare-skinned monsters.
At one time it was a woman, and a pretty one too, with its long red hair and attractive figure. Now this woman was the stuff of nightmares: it brayed at him, its mouth opened wide, its red eyes blazing absolute hatred. Without warning, it stuck its thumb into his left eye socket. Jay attempted to react, lifting a hand to protect his other eye, but she struck again with the force and speed of lightning.
His mind—since he had no eyes to see—filled with flashes of bright light and equally searing pain. All he could do now was scream his blind terror.
The she-beast did its best to silence him, but his escalating screams of panic and pain lasted the longest minute of his shortened life. He sensed its teeth, followed by many others, violently rip into his skin, all of them pulling and tearing at the flesh of his arms, legs and chest, until at long last, Jay felt nothing.
Then, like Jay, the lounge was plunged into darkness.
~~~
Dr. Molly watched with dread as both an observant scientist and a feeling person.
Her eyes welled with tears, which she couldn’t hold back when she saw the pain on the volunteer’s face, as one of their parasitics viciously attacked him and literally ripped him apart.
The scientist in her marveled at the speed and agility of its assault, as well as its vindictive voracity to rob the man of his eyesight before it ate up his life. It was as if the parasitic was punishing him for gazing at its nakedness, even though Molly would have thought that parasitics no longer cared about these things: parasitics weren’t burdened by such human frailties as pride, fear or empathy.
Molly had never seen this kind of action in the animal or parasitic kingdoms before: animals and parasites killed for food or to fulfill what they were genetically programmed to do. The only beings who killed for revenge or sport were humans. Molly was observing the worst of combinations: human anger and cunning, mixed with animalistic reflexes and strength.
The parasitic woman then appeared to call out to the others, as many joined her to pounce on the man, ripping at him and feeding on him, while he was obviously very much alive and screaming in pain.
She shuddered at this whole episode. These creatures were advancing in so many more ways that she could have guessed.
So riveted was she by what was unfolding, Molly was barely aware of Mr. Deep continuing to holler on his radio. He had finally connected with security and mechanical. But it would do no good. She knew after observing this attack that once this new species was free on their ship, they were all doomed. There was no place to hide, as these parasitics would eventually break down every door to get to their prey. They were as smart as humans, now coordinated, bloodthirsty and lacking all the human hang-ups. In short, they were the perfect killing machines and they would prevail over their human forebears. And there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it.
Molly felt gutted. Every muscle and bone in her old body cried out in physical and emotional agony. She just wanted to give up...
But they weren’t.
She looked up from the big monitor, her watery eyes blurring the scene on one of the other monitors. Blinking away her sense of doom, she could see something was going on outside the lounge.
She scooched forward and sat up in her seat to see better.
At least my fellow humans are not giving up yet, she thought.
She always had hope in and a strong belief for what would come after this life ended. She’d just been losing hope in humans in this life. Ted said he had really believed in the human spirit. She hadn’t been so sure anymore. And yet, here was her proof.
Security and volunteers from around the ship were arriving at the main entrance and the side door, to try and shore them up. They were all working together to try and save their ship and seemed to be holding back the horde.
The side door was their biggest problem. There was too much damage, caused by just two parasitics. Now there was an uncountable horde, pushing, pounding and beating the door down.
And yet Molly could see her fellow humans on the other side, trying to stab the parasitics with poles and she suspected, because they didn’t have cameras back there, they were employing the same techniques that they were at the main entrance: heavy items and wedges. Was it even possible?
Then the four monitors on which they’d focused all their attention, went black.
Molly steepled her hands together and said a silent prayer, tuning out the horrific screaming coming from Deep’s radio.
105
Last Stand
When Paulo Oliveira saw the stampeding horde of crazies overtake their people, he was sure they waited
too long to shut the lounge doors. But somehow, they did, just as their non-human bodies struck the doors, one after another, delivering an inconceivable amount of pounding and shaking.
He and Jason Anderson, a new addition to his security team, took multiple steps back and watched the doors shudder and shake. They could feel the tremors below their feet and all around them. And it continued to build. When Paulo heard a cracking sound, he knew either he had to turn tail and run or do something before they broke through.
Then the lights went off and the entire area was plunged into darkness. The pounding continued unabated, though. When the emergency lights popped on, Paulo knew what he had to do.
“Help me,” he barked at Anderson.
They grabbed a heavy coffee table, just outside the lounge entrance, and drove it hard into the door.
Others joined them, some from security and some from mechanical, all grabbing heavy pieces of furniture and moving them to the door.
“Wait! We need to wedge them,” announced a slight man from mechanical, his grease-covered hands demonstrating. The man looked around the area for something, until he was jolted by a vision from another sitting area.
“Here. Help me now.” The man grabbed Paulo’s elbow and pulled him with him to another elaborate wood table with curved feet.
“You break. We use under door as wedge.”
Paulo understood right away, nodding. He turned the heavy table on its side; the glass top slid off and broke into a hundred pieces, some long and lethal-looking. He searched for the weak point in the legs and drove his foot into that point, separating two legs at their joints. Pulling one away, he handed it to the small man from mechanical, who dashed to the door, then around the group of helpers pushing furniture toward the doors, stopping before the table Paulo and Anderson had just used to buttress one of the doors. Already two more were on top.
The small man stuck the curved wedge under the door and kicked it a couple of times. “One more,” he yelled.
Paulo bashed the table into three curved wedge pieces and ran over to the small man, handing him one of the pieces. Paulo took another and used it like a hammer to pound the already set wedge in harder, while the little man set up the one he’d given him under the other door. Paulo pounded at that one as well.
“Thank you,” Paulo announced with a smile.
The man didn’t smile back; he stood up and said, “Come with me, need others.” He grabbed the other pieces from Paulo. “Side door bad. Must fix before they break out.” The small man grabbed a tool bag he must have left on the floor and ran to the crew access door at the far side of the hall.
“Stack up more furniture against here,” Paulo yelled to the now twenty men and woman who had showed up to help, while pointing at the bottom of the doors. “Then, I need a dozen of you to wait here.”
Paulo dashed back to where he had broken the tabletop and carefully picked up pieces of the thick broken glass. He pulled off his button-down work shirt and wrapped the pieces inside. In a quick dash back, he passed his dozen-plus volunteers and yelled, “Follow me.”
Paulo didn’t look back as he ran to the side entrance to the back of the lounge, used only by crew and performers. A thousand memories raced through his head as he opened it and held it for the others to follow.
A couple of years back, Paulo had an affair with one of the young performers. He had used this entrance to visit with her before and after her performances. And inside was one of the few places he knew where they could be intimate together and no one would know.
At the back of a dark hallway, barely illuminated by the single emergency bulb in the corner, was a storage closet. When he and Lucy had their affair, this room had just been cleaned out. Last he had seen, housekeeping used it for storage. He was counting on this.
Flicking on his Maglite, illuminating the door handle, he held the bundle of wrapped broken glass under an armpit and fished for his keys. Once open, he flashed his light inside. “Eureka,” he said. He laid the broken-glass bundle down and entered the storage room.
Paulo came back out with several push brooms. “You,” he said to one of his volunteers, “twist off the brooms from the handles.”
Another trip back into the room and he came out with a pile of rags. “Okay, some space please.” He plopped his pile next to his shirt bundle, which he opened. Snatching an extra-long piece of glass and a rag, he stood up straight.
“Okay, watch,” he said while slicing the rag into three long pieces. He wrapped one of the pieces around the base of the long splinter of glass he was using as a knife. “You,” he said to a woman nearest him, “make more long pieces like this out of these rags.” He flipped the glass-knife around and handed it to her.
“Okay, I need a broom handle.” Someone handed him one.
“Now,” he reached into his shirt and grabbed another fragment. “We’re going to make spears. Tie the glass like this to the ends of the broom handles. Do it now and then meet me in back.”
Paulo then left them, holding his newly-made spear, hoping they’d follow his lead. He turned a corner and felt his hope die.
The small man was stabbing a crazy trying to get through the top of the broken door. It wedged its way through the opening at the top of the door and grabbed the small man and tossed him down, either knocking him out cold or killing him.
The crazy turned just as Paulo drove his spear into its eye socket. He pulled back and then kicked the naked crazy in the head with his boot, just for good measure.
He turned to face the door, as it was literally being pulled off its hinges.
Paulo jabbed with his spear, getting several.
Then others joined in, also jabbing and slashing with their own homemade spears.
The ship should have killed them all, rather than believing they could hold them. There was no holding back these beasts. He knew they’d eventually get through.
Even though Paulo’s brain rapid-fired these thoughts, he felt no anger at his ship’s officers for their ignorance. In fact, for some strange reason, he was filled with pride right then.
Rather than abandoning him, as he probably would have done after seeing their situation was so hopeless, one after another of his volunteers showed up with their homemade spears. They stood toe-to-toe with the beasts, stabbing and slashing at them, probably killing quite a few.
Never did his volunteers falter. They held until the very end, when the door came off and they were overwhelmed.
106
Jaga
Jaga was rattled awake. He gazed into the darkness, disoriented and just trying to get his bearings. His hand touched emptiness, where there should have been a table and his flashlight. This tool allowed him to quietly navigate his way in between his roommates’ bunk beds to the bathroom door at the end of their cabin. Now, his table and flashlight were gone.
An ember of fright started to glow red in his gut.
Next, he turned to his left and felt around for Taufan, who often slept by his head, but his ferret wasn’t there either. And the cabin wall that was always there was gone: the bed went on forever, as did emptiness above.
The smoldering coal of fright burst into a hot flame of alarm.
He swung his legs out of his sheets and onto the floor, his feet instantly sensing a supple carpet as opposed to the rubberized flooring that he was used to. The same rubberized flooring that his roommates constantly made a fuss about Asap not cleaning when it was his turn was gone. “Guys, are you there?”
Silence.
The fire of alarm in his belly now exploded into a wildfire of panic.
He heaved out breaths and took in short puffs of putrid air. Looking for some shred of recognition, he noticed a small shaft of light, cleaving its way from behind a curtain, where there shouldn’t have been one. A flood of images dashed through his head: he was in a new cabin; he’d lain down on his new bed, relishing its softness; he must have fallen asleep, even though he didn’t intend to; he didn’t have any roommates anym
ore and he was split up from his best friend Yacobus; Catur was dead and Asap was a monster now.
He dashed over to the curtain, desperately wanting the light of reality to confirm that this wasn’t just some nightmare, but then hesitated.
Do I really want reality or to fall back into a dream?
The curtains flew open, and a foggy beam lit his new cabin. The air inside had substance... Smoke!
A quick sniff only made him cough. It smelled a little like smoke, but also something else... Dead fish?
He looked for a vent, not remembering where it was in this room, his eyes now sore, like they were burning. He found it above the bathroom and scrutinized it for a second. Little wisps of white smoke leapt in from the register.
It was enough. Something was happening, and he only knew he had to get out.
Taufan!
“Taufan? Taufan, where are you buddy?” he yelled out, now feeling overwhelmed by a raging bonfire of panic. He had to find Taufan and get out now!
“Taufan, please, where are you?”
Jaga slipped on his sandals, glad that they were by the bed, right where he left them.
He padded over to the closet. There was no time to change out of his pajamas, but he’d put on his house coat if it was cool and because of its special pocket.
“Taufan,” he pleaded, almost in tears. “Please, say something.”
He froze.
Was it the squeak of his sandals on the carpet or did he hear his little buddy?
Squeak-squeak-squeak.
Jaga heard the muffled cries coming from the closet. He flicked on the light switch, but nothing happened—the power was off. He tossed open the bi-fold glass door way too hard, and Taufan shot out, hopping once on the carpet, and bounded into his arms. He barked once and then gave out a slow whine; his body shivered. Jaga kissed his head, but took no time to relish this moment.