Pandora

by Joshua Grant

  “Move!” Julian barked and they rushed for the door. He knew the Abomination wouldn’t be down for long. Already, it was absorbing more bodies—and changing! Its six limbs snapped, curling under it, becoming more lion-like. The mouth of its chest pushed up, the tusk like teeth ringing its equally hideous meaty neck like an ungodly mane. The tentacles protruded upward from its now arched back, fluid wings for the ferocious behemoth. It was evolving, becoming a better hunter, preparing itself to come for them!

  Julian caught a glimpse of its dark hateful eyes pouring scorn into them and then they were through the door, running almost full speed despite Julian’s injuries, the whips of fear and Watcher’s tentacles driving them.

  “Stairs!” Aubrey coughed between breaths. They jolted across the lobby and slammed into the auxiliary stairwell. The force of their entrance echoed up the chamber and then fell back to silence. Julian didn’t look forward to encountering the creature from earlier again. If it was still here, it wasn’t showing. Aubrey only had one round left in the magnum and God only knew what was left in the shotgun.

  Bigger problems! his mind screamed, the hairs on his neck quivering at being so close to the lobby door. Gotta get some distance! Hurry!

  They limped up the stairs, a landing flying by, then another. “How much time?” Aubrey asked breathlessly, the exertion of the run and carrying Julian taking its toll.

  “Two minutes, maybe less,” he replied grimly. Where the hell is Watcher? Why isn’t it—

  As if on command, the Deck 1 lobby door exploded just a few floors beneath them and something far worse than flames poured through. The Abomination stood on the landing momentarily searching for them. Suddenly its head snapped back, mouth pincers twitching, dark eyes searching the upper levels, and Julian shrank back from the railing. Did it see? Was there any possibility they’d be able to slip by unnoticed?

  Not on this night, he decided and did his best to limp faster. Their only hope was to put as much distance between them and it as possible. Maybe it would get swallowed up in the explosion when the engine room went off.

  “What the hell is it?” Aubrey rasped, sweat drizzling down her face.

  “Nothing we want to be close to,” he replied. He didn’t have the heart to tell her it was Gabe, or what was left of him. Watcher had done enough psychological damage to them both already.

  A tremendous roar emanated from below, rising up the stairs, a promise of what was soon to follow. They had just passed Deck 7, its door still bashed in from Julian’s escapade what seemed like years ago. Five more decks to go.

  --and the stairs suddenly rattled under their feet, and then again, and then a constant tremor like a stampede on the planes of Africa.

  Oh no.

  Julian risked a glimpse over the center railing and had his fears instantly confirmed. Watcher pounded at the stairs with its six legs, six charging pistons that had been bred and broken to achieve maximum speed and lethality. It was coming, and coming fast! Already it had ascended two decks. They weren’t going to make it!

  “Aubrey, Aubrey!” Julian stopped her at the Deck 9 landing. He slumped against the wall out of breath and so, so tired.

  “What, what is it?” She grabbed at his arm trying to pull him up. “What are you doing? We’ve got to go!”

  “It’s too fast,” he said, casting off her attempts. She stared at him, realizing what he meant. He swallowed hard. “You’ve gotta go. I think I’ll stay here awhile, see what happens.”

  Aubrey stared at him hard--and then socked him in his one undamaged arm.

  “Ouch!”

  “Try this shit again and I’ll put one in your bad arm.” She turned facing the stairwell leading down, magnum at the ready. “It’s coming.”

  There was no time to argue the point. The stairwell’s rattling had grown so intense he couldn’t hold the shotgun steady. Besides, Aubrey had already made up her mind and when that happened nothing could stop her, not even an exploding ship.

  “Just, stay behind me okay?”

  Aubrey conceded half a step. At least he won that much. They waited, watching the stairwell intently. The rumbling grew louder, elevating to a dull roar. Has to be just a floor below us! Even the railings shook, adding their clanging cry to the thunder of the storm coming up from hell—

  --and then all fell silent and still. The railings quivered to a halt, the still air broken only by the sounds of their panting.

  Aubrey looked at Julian. “What is it—“

  He threw her to the side, simultaneously bringing up the shotgun to deal with the new threat that rose up behind her. The Abomination launched into view from the space in-between stairwells. It must have sensed the danger of their blockade and decided to cut some corners, leaping at them from the deck below. Its clawed limbs and mouth tusks were splayed, a hundred ways to die terribly bearing down on them in the form of a ten ton monster.

  Julian managed to squeeze off a shot just as the thing was landing on top of him, the blast barely managing to deflect the claw-filled hand that was meant for his face. Still, the muscular shoulder that followed impacted his forehead, knocking him on his back and making his ears ring all over again. The monster stood over him, a deadly claw on every side, the stench of putrefaction and death everywhere.

  Aubrey was screaming something but he couldn’t hear. Run! he urged but his mouth refused to form the words. He felt the warmth of the Abomination’s massive breath blowing across his face. It smelled—well, like the thousand rotting corpses it was made out of. He choked on it and on blood. He was finished this time. It was going to eat him. Please run!

  The creature reared back, preparing its front claws for the plunge—

  VWOOOM!

  At first Julian thought he was dead, that the monster had actually crushed the bones of his face into powder. He was surrounded by a searing white light and he was floating. Was this heaven? If that was the case, why did his body ache so bad? Then the terrible thought hit him. Did he travel the other direction? He’d certainly killed enough people in his lifetime to warrant it.

  “Julian!” he heard through the murk and the intense ringing in his ears.

  Aubrey!?

  If she was here then this couldn’t have been hell. So where the hell—

  Julian’s wounded shoulder hit deck plating and scraped along the ground. He screamed, though he couldn’t hear it very well. He was sliding, falling, and the light was fading. Something writhed next to his legs and disappeared over the platform’s edge, the same ledge he was rocketing towards!

  His heart froze despite the intense heat that was being funneled up the stairwell shaft. Aubrey, no!

  Julian’s body slid off the damaged landing just in time to see the Abomination careen into the largest fireball he had ever seen several decks below. Not Aubrey!? his heart jumped, Then—

  “Gotcha!” Fire jolted up his arm as it jerked like a spring. He cried out, but somehow he stopped falling. Looking up, he caught sight of Aubrey’s hands clasped around his. She had caught him, but the strain was taking its toll and she was slipping. “Come on Julian, reach!” she said through gritted teeth. It was taking all of her concentration to not drop him. “Reach dammit!”

  Her body slipped another inch on the tilted platform. The stairwell landing was damaged pretty bad from the force of the explosion, but Julian realized it was tilting more than it should have. In fact the whole room was. He felt a rush of air from below, heard the roaring hiss of water combating fire, and knew they were really in trouble now. All had gone mostly to plan. The ship was sinking, this time really sinking. That would have been good news if they were in an escape pod and not dangling here!

  It was going to take too much time for them to hoist him up and then get safely to the pods. He looked Aubrey square in her determined eyes. “Don’t Julian. I’ve got you. I’ve got you!” she pleaded.

  I’m sorry. His side tore more, blood dripping off in droves. He’d be free of that pain soon. He was so tired, so dizzy.
Letting go would be easy. He’d just float down into his deathbed, free of a life of struggle at last. He’d see his mother again. Face her judgment at the man he became. His grip was loosening, not all of it involuntarily. His vision was fading. I would have liked…to have…seen that smile.

  “Dammit Eduardo, pull yourself up!” Aubrey barked. Something about the desperation in her voice—the sheer need and yearning and fear--drew him back. “I’m not letting go, I’m not! So you’d better help me out here before we both fall in!”

  Somehow, impossibly, Julian felt a new strength stirring in him. He sucked in a deep breath and reached for the platform. His hand banged uselessly off the metal edge. Aubrey gasped from the strain of his backswing. “Again,” she demanded breathlessly.

  Julian mustered one last ounce of strength and reached. “Got it,” he rasped in disbelief, “Pull me up.”

  But Aubrey was already gripping his tattered vest and yanking him onto the platform. They both lay there in a heap, panting, neither daring to push their muscles so soon.

  “You make…a pretty good drill sergeant…you know that?” he grinned.

  “And you make a pretty lousy Frodo.” Aubrey rolled up onto her knees, apparently having recovered enough, and grabbed his vest once more. “Now on your feet soldier! We sure as hell are not dying today!”

  Julian allowed himself to be hefted onto his feet. Somehow they held his weight. The shotgun had disappeared in the chaos. This time it was lost for good, probably somewhere in the fire and flooding several decks below.

  And rising, he reminded himself. Aubrey may have doomed them both by rescuing him, but there was no changing that now. He nodded to her and they scrambled forward, stumbling over the uneven landing and stairs.

  The ship groaned and shuddered, a pipe knocking loose from somewhere overhead and clanging noisily down into the inferno-whirlpool mixture below. The flames cast an eerie orange glow, a part of which would every once in a while fade to black as it was doused by seawater, a grim reminder to them that they should climb the hazardous stairs faster. With all the smoke stinging his already splotchy vision, Julian couldn’t tell which deck they were on.

  “Are we close?” He coughed a lungful of the black smog.

  “This is it!” Aubrey clawed at the door that would release them out into some much needed fresh air. “Lido deck!”

  Just then, Julian heard a twisting of metal from far below and the unmistakable roar of something he hoped he’d never hear again. He chanced a glance over the side railing. “You’ve gotta be shitting me!”

  There in the smoke-riddled depths, a charred, six limbed monstrosity grabbed railing after railing, coming up at them, fleeing the deadly waters that gurgled after it. If it weren’t so damned tragic and he wasn’t in such a bad mood, it’d almost be funny. As such, he felt like he was going to collapse. He looked at Aubrey who steadied him and removed the magnum from where she stored it in her belt. It only had one shot, and that was a big damned monster!

  “Come on, let’s move!” she urged, ushering him through the hatch and onto the Lido.

  Julian gasped, gulping in the clean sea tinged air and trying to clear his foggy brain. Where were they? Where were the pods? “Stay with me Julian,” Aubrey beckoned, her voice tight.

  He blinked away the momentary dementia. The ship was pitching sideways worse than he thought, that or the blood loss was screwing with him worse than he feared. They huddled against the outer deckhouse wall, boots squelching against the deck slats as they fought gravity and staggered toward a metal staircase.

  Great, more stairs, Julian thought bitterly. At least this one was thinner with railings on both sides. They tugged their way up it, Julian feeling like the void beyond the ship’s edge was a giant mouth coming to swallow them in. It certainly looked that way, how the ship was rolling on its side. The engine room flooding was obviously catastrophic. The ship would be under in minutes at this rate.

  Julian could imagine all the fungus, the monsters, the death and decay being washed away on the lower decks. Good. Watcher can choke on it.

  WHAM!

  The stairwell exit burst outward with a wrenching of metal and the Abomination skittered out onto the Lido, its massive claws tearing broad gashes in the smooth wood slats. It roared its terrible primal roar, its black hole eyes searching, searching for them! It didn’t take it long to find its quarry. The deck was completely open and they weren’t far. It bounded at the staircase.

  “Hurry!” Julian growled.

  They jetted across the small machinery space at the base of the smokestack and rocketed through the door. Julian heard the beast’s thunderous footsteps on the stairwell just as the blast door sealed behind them.

  There it is! The escape pods gleamed in front of them. They were going to make it!

  --when the ship suddenly lurched hard to one side careening them into the nearby wall. Objects and bins rolled and clattered all around them. The ship groaned intensely. It was in its death throes and they were going to be too if they didn’t move.

  Aubrey once again yanked him to his feet. Together they leaned forward, pressing into the floor and climbing the hill that had once been a flat room.

  WHAM! WHAM!

  Two massive dents appeared in the featureless white door, then a third, and finally a corner peeled away. The Abomination was coming through! Julian could already see its spiny head peeking in.

  “It’s coming!” Aubrey gasped.

  “Eyes front Aub.” He too forced himself to tear his vision away from the quickly disintegrating door. This was no time to allow themselves to be distracted by the lethal platform of mouths nipping at their heels. With Aubrey’s help, he climbed up into the open hatch.

  “Careful,” she beckoned, “Gabe was in here earlier. He’s--”

  “I know,” he said quickly, sparing her the pain of an explanation.

  Julian shot a quick glance around the cabin expecting to find another of Watcher’s puppets. Two chairs, an engine compartment door, and a small empty space greeted them instead. “It’s clear.”

  I hope.

  All bets were off tonight. He staggered to the chairs, throwing himself into the one with the blinking screen. Oh please be asking me how soon I’d like to be warm at home in bed with a nice juicy rib eye steak.

  Big surprise: it wasn’t.

  ACCESS DENIED. PLEASE ENTER PASS scrolled across the screen with a digital keyboard below.

  “It’s asking for a password!” he called, hoping Aubrey could shed some light before they were all dead in the water.

  She lifted herself through the hatch, stood, and turned to answer him—

  Screee!

  Metal wrenched as the smokestack room door gave in. Aubrey’s face went pale, staring at something beyond his vision outside the hatch. Shit, it’s in! Julian watched helplessly as she levelled the magnum and let off a deafening final shot.

  The projectile blew through the Abomination’s face as it jutted around the corner in the same breath. Pincer tipped legs that once served as its mouth, one of the many, blew through the back of its skull carrying grey juicy brain matter with it as it went. That was enough to give the monster pause at least. Julian wasn’t optimistic about it killing it.

  Aubrey didn’t waste the moment. She stepped all the way in and slammed her fist into the wall panel, swinging the hatch closed. If the Abomination was intent on getting in, the barrier wouldn’t hold for long.

  “What’s the pass?” Julian pressed.

  THUMP!

  The whole pod shuddered. Its curved roof groaned, undoubtedly under the weight of the massive creature that had mounted it. It’s going to tear through!

  “The pass!?”

  Aubrey tore her gaze away from the clattering above, rushing to join him at the front. “H-O-P-E,” she spelled out.

  “What?” he said, the whole pod shaking under Watcher’s onslaught.

  “H-O-P-E. Hope,” Aubrey repeated, sounding like the world’s first fast-fo
rward spelling bee champion.

  Julian keyed in the sequence with sweaty, bloody fingers. Please-please-please-yes!

  INITIATING STARTUP PROCESS. EMERGENCY CONDITIONS DETECTED. ACTIVATE EMERGENCY EGRESS? Y/N

  Julian jammed a finger into the “yes” option, his brain half wondering where the “hell yes” was. He heard the engines in the back whirring, the shaking of the pod taking on a different quality. This is happening! We’re finally getting out of here! This is finally happening! This—

  “Nothing’s happening!” Aubrey’s strained voice cut into his thoughts. “We’re not moving!”

  Icy tendrils snaked through Julian’s stomach. He slammed his fingers into the “yes” button a few more times only to achieve no change in the pod’s gentle rumbling. Come on Mac! Don’t tell me you built this piece of shit! Julian slammed a fist into the console, not caring that it made his side bleed more, the warm blood trickling—

  Trickling! “It’s gonna work!” He turned and looked at Aubrey. “When the water hits this room it will work! It has to!”

  A shadow passed over the forward window. “Julian,” Aubrey said in a choked whisper, her eyes going wide.

  He turned to see his greatest fears confirmed. The Abomination wasn’t going to give them the time they needed. It rose up on its haunches, filling the viewport with its grotesque mass. A hole still protruded through its face, the mandibles clacking around the grizzly doughnut. It pulled back a muscular clawed arm and brought it forward to shatter the thin glass membrane protecting them—

  “Julian!” Aubrey snatched up his hand—

  But the glass did not shatter, nor did they die. In fact, the Abomination didn’t attack at all. Julian and Aubrey gaped in pure shock. It stood there, poised for attack, its body quivering slightly as if it were fighting its very own cells. It just stood there!

  “Aubrey, what’s going on?” Julian asked, unsure if he was hallucinating on account of the blood loss and broken ribs.

  “It’s her,” she uttered in pure amazement.

  “Who?”