by Joshua Grant
Tick-tick-tick.
It was close! Somewhere! Everywhere! She couldn’t tell. Shit! She reached and touched gunmetal.
“Aubrey!”
Mac’s shouted warning registered in the back of her subconscious along with the shadow that passed over her, the one that smelled like dead fish. God it was fast! Aubrey didn’t have time to level her pistol. She didn’t have time to think. It slammed into her, its strange winged limbs flailing wildly. She felt its nails rake the surface of her vest. Cloth tore but no skin. Its moist body followed, smashing into her, knocking her to the floor. It was on top of her franticly trying to grasp her hair or clothes with its childlike hands. Aubrey tried to organize her thoughts, tried to put up some meaningful defense. She kneed at its bony pelvis but its lithe body slid around the blow.
It’s going to kill me! she thought with gut-sickening terror.
Bam-bam!
It was the bells of freedom. Mac was coming to her aid.
Stupid bastard! Again, she couldn’t attach any real anger to the thought. Mac was putting Gabe at risk by disobeying, something she couldn’t forgive him for, but being eaten by an anus-mouthed monster was just about the last thing on her bucket list so she welcomed the rescue. One shot slammed into the console behind the thing’s head punching a neat hole in the clean metal. Hopefully it wasn’t anything vital. The second grazed the creature’s shoulder. Black liquid oozed from the scrape. The creature squealed and shrank away, just enough for her to slide out from under it. She bear-crawled, fighting for traction against the waxed floor and flecks of blood sticking to her boots.
“Come on!” she heard Gabe yell distantly.
“It’s right behind you!” Mac added.
Why’s he not shooting!? Aubrey’s panicked brain filled in the answer. It had already recovered and was too close to her for him to get a clean shot.
She lurched onto her feet without breaking momentum and ran. She saw Gabe and Mac waiting for her at the half-opened bridge door, saw their eyes go wide, their expressions shocked and mortified as she sensed it closing. Leathery wings whipped her hair wildly as they beat the air all around her. And she felt it, God she felt it! Warm moist breaths pelted the back of her neck, the creature excited for the chance to sink its array of fangs into the flesh and bone there. She felt the edge of its wet lips touch her skin and her mind went blank.
Pure instinct took over. Aubrey felt like she was watching a movie in slow motion instead of living it. A puppet to an invisible master, she watched her arm lift on its own, watched it aim the weapon it still clutched over her shoulder. Seconds ticked by. Mac and Gabe screamed distantly. Aubrey was screaming too. The thing’s mouth twitched wetly.
Fire dammit!
The thought was violent and powerful as she poured her whole will into the nerve cluster that controlled her trigger finger. She squeezed off a shot, was awarded with the thing’s agonized screech, its wet choking sound as it released her and fell away. She didn’t stop running until she was past the other two and through the door. Mac and Gabe were quick to follow. They slammed the door behind them, sealing off the dark bloody massacre. Aubrey felt like she was going to be sick.
“It’s still alive!”
The alarm in Gabe’s voice kept her from dwelling on the thought of whether her breakfast was worth saving. Mac was already bracing the door when the thing slammed into the other side. Thump! The door shook violently, practically throwing the battered and blood splattered Mac from its defense. Aubrey looked around desperately for something they could use. She wasn’t eager to face the nightmare again. They might be able to kill it, but if it slipped past their bullets…
“There!”
Aubrey followed Gabe’s point to a half-toppled cart a few feet away. She lifted it with his help back onto its wheels. Surprisingly heavy. Good. They needed heavy right now.
“Hurry up!” Mac barked, the thudding becoming more frequent and desperate. “It’s got a taste and it wants the buffet!”
The very thought reenergized Aubrey’s aching muscles. She pushed the squeaking cart full speed like a battering ram. “Move!”
Mac dove out of the way last minute and momentum took care of the rest. The cart slammed into the door and toppled sideways, bracing against the cream-colored wall to form a perfect wedge. Thump! The cart scraped along the wall, tearing at the wallpaper, but it held. The creature let out a muffled wail of frustration, an alien, primal sound that burnt its way into Aubrey’s memory and would provide nightmare fuel for years to come. Its angry thumping eventually faded, ceased. They all stared at the silent barrier breathing rapidly.
“Is it gone?” Gabe asked. They looked at the door, waiting for it to crash in after such a statement like in all the movies.
Maybe it’s climbing out on deck, looking for some other way in, Aubrey thought morbidly. And maybe you should stop standing around waiting to get eaten and get the fuck out of here! She liked that thought better. She was about to suggest it when she felt something move—felt it! Something on the back of her neck!
“What’s wrong?” Gabe asked, his dread matching her own.
She reached up and touched the spot. Gah! Something slimy and warm was nestled against the base of her skull, matted into the hair there. It was a grimy water balloon or a clump of nasty snot. And it was alive! The bat creature hadn’t gurgled and coughed because her shot had pierced its lung or throat. It was vomiting this—thing onto her! It began to wriggle, squirming against her spine. Get it OFF!
She grabbed the squishy mess, squeezed and pulled. The sticky clump resisted, clinging to her skin, but with another jerk it came free. She felt it writhing between her fingers. Reflexively, she threw it to the carpet.
“It’s a bug!” Gabe cried. His clenched throat contained the same disgust and fear she felt.
The semi-translucent sack enveloped what looked like a large grub or maggot. Its fat, ringed body pulsed against the slimy cell membrane. Aubrey brought her boot down on it hard. There was a wet pop, a splash of viscous goo…and then Aubrey was puking, every consideration of her breakfast lost long ago.
They needed to get out of here. They all needed to get out of here right away, just like Gabe said.
“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay,” Mac soothed awkwardly, unsure if he should touch her or not.
“No,” Aubrey wheezed, her mouth tasting like vomit. “It’s not. Nothing is ever going to be okay again.”
Mac blinked, but nodded, understanding. “Well, when you put it that way…yay we lived!” he said after a moment.
Aubrey met his eyes--and snorted, surprised she had any humor left. She was in danger of spiraling into crazy laughter, just sitting back and laughing her way into a comfortable psychosis. They needed to move. Get somewhere safe.
“Gabe, is there somewhere we can go? A place where we can get our heads on straight and come up with a plan?” A place that’s not here with parasite spitting monsters, she failed to add, avoiding the spot where she had crushed the insect.
Gabe thought for a moment and then nodded. His resilience never ceased to amaze her and again she was surprised at how much affection she had built for the kid in such a short time. He was going to get out of here, she’d make sure of it.
“Lead on.” She nodded.
One last look at the greasy stain that was once an impossible creature, one more suppressed gag, and they darted off into the gloom of the ship.
Chapter 18
Watcher sensed the woman’s fear, tasted her pheromones, drank of her revulsion and knew it had to have more. Her skin tasted like strawberries. A trivial thing far beneath Watcher’s field of focus but there it was. She was pleasant. Watcher hated pleasant.
It thought about when it was nestled against her back, warm in its amniotic sack. She didn’t know it was there. So much fun, its thoughts had squealed with glee. Like a great game of hide and go seek. Watcher loved that game. Everyone on this ship loved it too. Watcher had found them all though, at least most
of them. The woman hadn’t found Watcher until the last minute. Its fault. Its stupid stupid fault!
Watcher had clung there listening to the comforting soft sound of her heart beating. The gentle tremors trickled through the tissue of her body and into Watcher’s perception. So many organs, it had thought happily. And she didn’t know it was there either! It was too much. Every hammer of her heart drove up the intensity of Watcher’s blood flow too. It had to do something or it was going to pop.
And so the child disobeyed Watcher and moved involuntarily. It was the slightest of things but it was enough to tip her off. Watcher couldn’t help but think about what might have happened had things been more fortunate. It would have enjoyed tasting her strawberry skin in a different way. It would have inserted near the upper lumbar, crawled down along the spine as a guide post. Found that most beautiful of hearts and preserved it for its own pleasure. It would listen to that heartbeat for years to come, a symphony for the slaughter it would unleash on this world.
Watcher sighed. Everyone loved a good daydream. But now there was work to be done. That fantasy was dead. The woman had killed it when she killed Watcher’s spawn.
Unless—
Watcher marveled at its own clever intellect. The serrated wheels in its calculating brain began to turn out a dark thought like charcoal smoke rising from the factories that drove the industry of this modern rendition of man. If there was such a sensation as joy, Watcher would be feeling it right now. As it was, joy was a lie, a mislabel invented by humanity to describe the sensation of achieving power over others, of being able to make others submit to their desires.
Watcher felt this—joy—in droves. It had many strong desires, but none of them like this. This was something new and more demanding than anything it had felt before. It needed the woman. It needed her so bad!
The others had to go of course, especially the man, the hated one they called Julian. He had killed one of the children. This was unforgivable, but not unexpected. Watcher had settled with the notion of toying with his body a little before allowing him to succumb to death. But the man refused to acknowledge its generosity. He swiftly and carelessly murdered another one of the Seeds. Watcher would play with his face for the next few years while it mulled over a suitable punishment for him.
As for the rest, Watcher was bored with them. The duplicitous one showed some promise. The others hadn’t discovered his true intentions yet. Watcher entertained the idea of allowing that particular little drama to unfold, to allow him to live long enough to reveal his real purpose. That was all petty human intrigue but Watcher would enjoy seeing the look of betrayal on their stupid clumsy faces before it took them for its own. A tempting thought, but it was far too dangerous. The spy was the only one that knew Watcher’s origins and that knowledge was only one degree away from obtaining its only flaw. Watcher was still far too vulnerable.
No, they all had to die. All except the woman. Watcher had thought of a fun use for her, a little distraction from the daily drawl. It was aware of human mating practices, had witnessed such practices in the cerebral cortexes it had crawled inside. Primitive things. Human beings were completely oblivious to the true pleasures of the universe. The woman was so lucky. Watcher would introduce her to them, her body intertwined with Watcher’s as it closed around her in a protective cocoon for all eternity. And if she resisted—well, at least a few select human beings understood the value of that particular pleasure. It was always better when they resisted.
Watcher turned its thoughts happily to the task ahead. Mmm, strawberries…
Chapter 19
Deck 6, Midship
Olga couldn’t breathe.
The anguish swelling in her throat made sure of that. She swept the edge of her rifle across the tabletop in front of her, knocking whatever fine dishes that had survived the ship’s initial panic to the floor. They clattered loudly, one plate smashing, its shards joining the multitudes of others that speckled the vast dining room’s tiles. She stood there, staring at the blank white slate of tablecloth.
Breathe. Just breathe. Just—
Olga couldn’t stop the sob from escaping her. It had been trying to claw its way out since the casino several floors above. Her strength finally gave. She sank into one of the plush cushioned seats, tears freely flowing. Her hands gripped the soft tablecloth tightly and squeezed, the twists sending wrinkles through the once perfect crisp surface.
It felt good to finally cry. It made her feel still human, how she hadn’t felt for the past hour. An hour of betraying and abandoning her friends. An hour of searching for some damned keycard that was probably lost to the ages and coming up empty. An hour of agonizing over her poor Jura—
Oh, my baby!
Pain surged in her chest squeezing out another strangled sob. She put her head down on the hard table and closed her eyes, tears leaking through the seams. She focused on breathing for the thirtieth time since her awful encounter with Konesco, drawing in one deep breath, holding it, and letting go. Then another. Hold. Release.
A funny kind of calm settled on her. She was so tired, more tired than she had been in her life, even when she had been fighting amongst the rebels. Part of her wanted to close her eyes now, forget her troubles and this terrible place, and just sleep for a week. But amidst the sorrow-driven fatigue a quiet determination was growing, had been growing ever since Konesco had finished speaking.
When he left her alone in the casino, she had stood there dazed, hurt, and furious as hell. She couldn’t move for the longest time. She stared at her hands, her stupid shaking hands. Why hadn’t she blown him away? Why hadn’t she done something instead of just asking how high he wanted her to jump?
Then there were the confusing moments that followed of her wandering the corridors aimlessly unsure of where to search; unsure of whether she even should. And then finally some clarity. She decided that she needed to seek out Sasha down in the engine room. He’d know what to do. He always did. Despite the risk she’d find him and tell him everything. She’d search all the rooms on the way down there. Maybe she’d get lucky and stumble across the keycard. Then she and Sasha would have something to bargain with. Maybe, just maybe she could use that to free her child from the hands of a madman.
Olga felt the anguish building again like a modern Mount St. Helens and tried to shift her thoughts away from it. She had found her way into the Midsummer Night’s Dream, a vast and lovely dining hall nestled in decks six and seven in the dead center of the ship. The heart. Quite beautiful. Too bad she didn’t have the eyes for it. Right now they were bloodshot and burning so she closed them and focused on her newfound resolution.
She was going to find Sasha and then the two of them were going to kill Konesco. They’d likely wait to make sure Jura was safe. Maybe they’d call his bluff and do it before. But die he would, to that she’d swear her last breath.
But first she needed to rest her eyes, if just for a moment. Breathe…breathe…
“Here!”
Aubrey banked left into yet another ornate lobby. They were about midship now, Mackenzie leaning heavily on her side. The blood loss wouldn’t kill him. She just didn’t want him to collapse in the middle of their mad dash to safety, or whatever its equivalent was on this ship. He looked pale though. Aubrey didn’t want to consider the possibility of infection. She didn’t think the creature ever washed its hands or cleaned under its nails.
And what the hell was it!?
She rejected the thought for the hundredth time in their short run. Now wasn’t the time to mull that particular conundrum over. This ship was batshit and they needed a place to lay low for a moment so she could more properly dress Mac’s wounds.
“Gabe, stay close!” The boy had hung right behind her the whole time. He was a good kid. Smart. And brave too. God, a week! He spent a week here! She cast a glance back that way. He smiled, actually trying to reassure her. And once again Aubrey made a silent pact that she would get him out of this hellhole. “Mac, where are we?�
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“This way,” he rasped and pointed.
This stairwell lobby was different than the others she had seen thus far. Yes, two staircases capped one end and elevators dotted the sides, but the far wall was not taken up by artwork or deck signs. Instead, it opened up into a large viewing area. A bridge led to a set of glass doors, one of them spider webbed with cracks. Aubrey could see over the railing-lined sides into the deck below. A similar entrance lay in the gloom down there. They traversed the bridge, a couple of weary travelers crossing the moat into a grand castle, their fortress. Perfect.
“The Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Gabe narrated, catching sight of the sign above the doors.
Cute. Try nightmare more like it.
“You always take me to the nicest places,” she said to Mac.
He laughed and then groaned, the effort tearing at his brutalized shoulder. “Yeah, but you’re paying.” Another snort and groan. “I’d get the door but—“
Aubrey smiled wryly. She didn’t think it was possible under the circumstances but there it was. “You’re a real gentleman, you know that?”
“How…how do you think I get all the girls?” He sounded punchy. They needed to rest somewhere, if only for a moment.
“I’d say your good looks, but then you bled on me.”
“Always something…coming between us, eh?”
Gabe slid around her before she could reply. “I’ve got it.” He took up position next to the glass door with the roadmap of New Jersey cracked into its surface.
“Careful,” Aubrey cautioned. Who knew what might have already been inside? A large open space with plenty of maneuvering room and only two entrances sure as hell beat a door-to-door search for safety though. Gabe watched her, waiting. She nodded.
He peeled the door back and a gentle artificially created breeze washed over them. Still smelled like shit though. Aubrey gripped the pistol in her free hand. She felt Mac tense, ready with his own weapon should something choose to come through. The area just beyond the doors appeared to be clear at least. A good sign.