by Sharp, Tracy
Maybe except me and Mina. Maybe they’d have a special place for us.
An unbearable urge washed over me. I wanted to scream and scream until I had no voice left.
Then someone did.
* * *
“ZEKES!” Wilson screamed from above us and, then screamed again, the sound high and shrill.
My heart slammed in my ribcage. How many?
He screamed like he was being torn apart.
The voice of Ryder above me, “Go down! Go! There are a bunch of them!”
Wilson had been the last in the hole. The deadies must’ve seen him or heard him yell when he slipped.
“Down!” Mina screamed. “Go!”
We couldn’t fight them. Not down here.
Gunshots. Mina and Ryder were firing.
Kyle scrambled past me. “Zoe, go find another hole! We need to get out.”
I lost my foothold and slid downward. I was being swallowed by the cave, like I was in the esophagus sliding toward the depths of the belly.
Find a hole to escape out of.
I kept chanting this in my mind, moving backward, my hands and feet gripping the yellowed, hardened ground.
The hive flanked both sides of me. I looked into cells and I moved downward, trying to find Kelly, but the people shoved into the holes were older women, men, and boys in their teens.
I looked up as I descended, searching for an escape opening.
More shouts up from above.
Ryder was suddenly at my side, and Mina was directly above me.
I moved quickly, the partially eaten people on both sides of me pleading with their eyes, mouths opening and closing, or screaming silently.
Wanting to shut my eyes against the gruesome, horrific scene around me, I looked down at the tunnel below me, frantically looking for an escape route.
Finally the tunnel leveled out and I stopped moving downward, and suddenly there were several trails to take. Without thinking I took the right.
I crawled, my knees becoming raw beneath my jeans.
There was light ahead.
I was all but throwing myself forward now, my arms and legs burning with the effort. The strange, sweet smell of the substance was cloying in my nostrils.
And then there it was. An opening, only feet ahead of us.
I crawled and threw myself toward the filtered light in the ceiling of the tunnel. My lungs strained for breath. I felt as if I was suffocating.
The walls around me seemed to be turning. I was becoming disoriented.
I was going to die down here.
With a shove from Ryder behind me, it was directly above us.
Ryder pushed me up, shoving me toward the exit, higher and higher.
And then I was climbing up onto the frozen, white ground, the snow falling onto my face.
Ryder came up next, only a moment after I hit the surface.
Next came Mina.
Ozzie.
Kyle.
Wilson didn’t make it out.
We were running, then. Running toward the compound as the snow fell harder, coming down sideways, driven by a raging wind.
* * *
“The Zekes heard Wilson. Must’ve been wandering near the compound.” Ozzie paced the floor, agitated. “Damn it!”
Kyle built a fire, and we sat around it, needing its heat. The cold of the underground tunnels had seeped deep into our bones.
I looked up at Kyle, who squatted near the fire, eyes lost in the flames. His face creased with worry. “What’s on the flash drive?”
He looked at me, his face momentarily blank. “I forgot about that, Zoe.”
“What flash drive?” Ozzie asked.
Kyle dug the little blue flash drive from his coat pocket. “One of the people in the hive. A man. He managed to tell me to look in his pocket. In it was this flash drive.”
“Well, let’s see what’s on it.” Ozzie held out his hand and Kyle dropped the flash drive into his palm.
Ozzie put the little flash drive into a USB port on his laptop, which rested on the kitchen table.
I looked over at Sherry. “How is Logan doing?”
She gave a weak smile. “He’s doing better. His fever is gone. His wounds are healing, amazingly.”
“Thanks to you,” I said. “I’ll go in and see him in a minute.”
“I think he’d like that. He was awake a little while ago.”
“This guy was an anthropologist,” Ozzie said, reading a document he brought up from on the flash drive. “Jason Barrows. Doctor of Anthropology with the Lawrence Institute in Albany. He was some kind of researcher.”
We gathered around the table, looking at Ozzie’s screen.
“Dr. Barrows was watching these things for quite a spell, it seems. He first came upon them on a dig up in the Adirondacks. Apparently he found the first hole a month ago.”
“Good of him to let the rest of the world know that we were about to be invaded,” Mina said. “Strong work.”
“He went down there twice,” Ozzie said. “There’s no mention of people being stowed in holes in the walls. But he does mention a hive-like structure. Listen, ‘It would appear that the hive-live structure may be for sleeping or hibernating purposes. The underground tunnels are both insect-like and cave-like in design. The bones I found yesterday on my dig are like the ones I found in Greece last autumn.”
These creatures are prehistoric, and insect-like in formation but not in composition. These are definitely bones. They appear to be of the Pleistocene era. They would’ve thrived in a glacial atmosphere. More bones were laid out nearby. The proximity of the bones to others suggests an ancient burial ground the creatures used. The underground trails and tunnels I’ve discovered are fresh. These creatures had to have found a way to thrive in warmer conditions their ancestors wouldn’t have tolerated. It seems they’ve evolved. They’ve made a comeback.’”
“They lived during the Ice Age.” Ryder straightened, looking at me. “But they’re back? What happened? When their food died off, they died off?”
“Maybe,” Kyle said.
“Wait,” Ozzie continued reading. “He says they may have continued to survive in glacial areas.”
“Like the arctic?” Sherry squinted at the screen.
“Maybe,” Kyle said.
“So these things hadn’t eaten or stored anyone at the time Dr. Barrows wrote this,” Mina said.
“No,” I said. “They were preparing for it. Getting their storage area ready.”
“There’s a link here,” Ozzie said. He clicked the hyperlink and a slideshow appeared on the screen. Ozzie clicked the option to manually operate the slideshow.
The first photo was of the bones Dr. Jason Barrows had discovered on his dig in Greece. They were freakish and strange, and knowing what we knew now, absolutely terrifying.
The bones were laid out on a white table. They were insect-like. I counted four legs on either side of the body. The head was elongated, the face turned toward the camera. The mouth was open to expose three rows of razor sharp teeth.”
“Oh, my God,” Mina said.
“Those don’t look like the ones we’ve seen,” Ozzie said.
“Let’s look at the other pictures,” Kyle said.
Ozzie clicked to another shot. More bones, the same as the last photo, but laid out on its back. The under belly of the thing was covered in rings, similar to ribs, but without the space in the middle. “This shit is out of a horror movie.”
There were nine more photos of the bones from the dig in Greece, then photos of the bones he’d found in the Adirondacks. There were two of the creatures, bones exactly the same in structure. The older bones were the same insect-like structure as the newer bones. Similar creatures, but changed.
“There are similarities, but there’s no guarantee that these are the same things that we’re dealing with now,” Sherry said.
“We may never know,” I said. “Dr. Barrows is stuffed in one of their underground hives.”
“This guy thought he had the find of the century,” Ryder said. “He didn’t tell anyone.”
“Yeah,” Ozzie said. “He was thinking book deals, TV, and movie rights. He didn’t want to share. He wanted to keep his little discovery all to himself.”
Mina snorted. “Well, that was a bad call.”
“Yeah. He did have the find of the century,” I said. “Just before they started eating us.”
Chapter 10
Another night passed, but the scratching sounds were muted by the storm outside. The wind howled; snow thunder split through the night. I’d only ever heard thunder during a snow storm once before, when I was little, and at the time I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Now it just made me jittery. I didn’t know what was worse, being able to hear the crawlers scratching and thumping against the windows and roof, or not being able to hear them.
I wanted to look in on Logan, but knowing that these things sense movement, I didn’t dare. Sherry slept on the cot next to him, so at least he wasn’t alone.
Earlier, before the dark came, I went in to see him. He lay still on the bed, eyes droopy from the pain killer Sherry had given him. He lifted his hand slightly from the comforter, indicating that he wanted me to come and see him.
The sharp smell of antiseptic only barely covered the sick smell coming off of him. Although his fever had broken, the sweetish stench of it still clung to him, despite Sherry sponging him off earlier.
“I think I might live,” he croaked. “But I don’t know if I’m happy about that or not.”
“I know.” I patted his hand and sat on the bed next to him. “But you are one tough S.O.B. So you might as well just get better and not fight it.”
He smiled weakly. “I thought I was dead.”
“We all thought we were going to die when that horde came through the door.” I was struck by how gaunt and haunted he looked. He could easily be mistaken for one of the dead.
“What happened earlier? Sherry won’t tell me anything, and it’s worse not knowing. Being left with my imagination.”
I doubted that. But I told him anyway. “We went underground earlier. It went bad. Lost Wilson. He slipped. Shouted. A bunch of deadies followed him in the hole.”
“Damn. I’m sorry to hear it. He seemed like an okay guy.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you see any crawlers?” His voice was hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
I shook my head. I wasn’t about to tell him about the half eaten people stored in the holes of the underground hive. It was definitely a tidbit he didn’t need to know about. It could still happen to him --- to any of us.
He was getting better. But it would be a while before he could fight against deadies or crawlers.
“Nope. I think we were driven out of that tunnel too soon.”
“Probably a good thing.”
I nodded and gave him a smile.
The absence of sound startled me back to the here and now. The wind had died down, and all was silent. Mina was on watch, and as I looked over at her, her gaze locked with mine.
“It’s daylight,” she said, but she didn’t look relieved.
We were going back underground today.
* * *
The snow fell thick and fast. It seemed like winter would never end as we made our way out to the woods. Snowflakes fell on my cheeks and lashes, and down the back of my neck. I wanted to put my hood on, but the hood would obscure my peripheral vision. It occurred to me that if I lay down on the ground right then I’d be completely covered in no time.
Which reminded me to keep a lookout for holes.
Judging from the hunched shoulders of everyone around me, we all were dreading the second promenade into the underground tunnels.
Ozzie and Kyle decided that we’d try a different hole this time, in hopes of finding one closer to where the women were being kept. They chose a hole on the opposite side of compound, about a quarter of a mile away.
He stopped at the hole next to a large oak spray painted with a red “X”, then turned to the group. “Everyone keep watch. We don’t need any surprises coming through the snow at us.”
It was also his way of making sure we didn’t see what was on the screen quite yet. He didn’t want us going down there blind, but he didn’t want to prolong the dread we felt before going in, either.
We all kept our eyes to the woods around us. The snow was falling so quickly now that it was hard to see within a ten foot distance. But we squinted against the snow and peered into the woods, doing slow turns every few seconds.
“Zeke.” Ryder pointed to an area somewhere to the left. “Slow mover.”
It was a man wearing an orange jumpsuit. He slowly trudged along the snow, arms barely moving at his sides. He spotted us, and he began his slack-jawed journey our way.
“That’s prison wear,” Mina said. “He must’ve escaped while being transferred or something.”
“Anything and everything could’ve happened when the shit first began to fly,” Ozzie said. “Birchwood Prison isn’t far from here.”
Kyle nodded over toward the deadie. “The cold might be making them slower, which is good, but it might make us reckless, too. Go on and get him. Use your knife. We don’t need bullets drawing more of them.”
“Yeah,” Ozzie said, drilling a hole into the frozen ground. “Let’s not have a repeat of yesterday.”
“You don’t think the sound of the drill will draw them?” I asked.
“I’m already done. And the drill isn’t that loud. We need to see what we’re heading into.” He laid the drill aside and began feeding the camera and cord down into the ground, watching the screen with furrowed brows.
I watched Ryder as he approached the deadie. The deadie made grunting noises and it stiffly walked toward him. He raised his arms and his hands opened and closed as he shambled over the drifts.
When the deadie was only about a foot from him, Ryder plunged his knife into the deadie’s eye, then stepped back, pulling the knife out as the deadie dropped. He wiped the blade off in the snow, leaving gore streaks on pure white.
Ryder’s face was devoid of expression as he made his way back. He’s already killed enough deadies to be unaffected by it. I wondered if I had, too.
Just last week we all had lives. Maybe not great lives, but they had to be a hell of a lot better than the life we were living now. If you could call it living.
Ozzie made a choking sound, and I swung my head around to look at him.
The back of his hand was jammed against his mouth, his face contorted into a mask of pain. He’d fallen back into the snow, and small, silent sobs hitched in the back of his throat.
Kyle had fallen to his knees, the heels of both gloved hands covering his eyes. He whispered, “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, no. No. No. No.”
We all stood frozen, staring at them.
My legs began trembling, and then tremors moved up my entire body. I broke out in a cold sweat, and my scalp crawled. I breathed, “What is it?”
Ozzie’s petrified gaze shot up to mine, and he shook his head. “I can’t . . . I can’t fathom it.”
Kyle rocked back and forth, his shoulders shaking, still whispering, “No, no, no, no.”
Ryder, Mina and I looked at each other, fear and dread were plain on their faces.
With my heart drilling in my chest, I stepped over to Ozzie, crouching beside him. I placed a hand on his arm, and slowly turned toward the screen.
My heart stopped.
It was more horrible than my worst imaginings.
The scope camera had been dropped through the ceiling of a breeding room.
Rows of women hung by their feet, naked in yellowish, transparent, cocoon-like sacks, their eyes wide open, mouths yawning in silent screams. Blood spilled over their shellacked foreheads and puddled onto the ground beneath their heads. The yellow substance around their mouths had been burst through. Holes
marred the perfect varnish of the cocoon that had covered them. Something had crawled out of their mouths. Something that had been inside of them.
Suddenly I couldn’t get enough oxygen into my lungs. I fell away from the screen, gulping at the air, making whimpering sounds deep in my throat.
Then my entire being rejected what I’d seen, and I emptied my belly onto the snow.
* * *
We stood around the hole looking at each other, like we could find strength from the others, if just one of us found a way to pull it together. Every one of us was trying to catch our breath. We’d all expected to see something bad on Ozzie’s screen, but not one of us was prepared for the horror only a few feet below us.
Finally, Kyle was able to form words. He leaned over, hands on his thighs, looking up at us. “Did any of you recognize any of those women?”
We all shook our heads.
He straightened, with effort. His strength had gone out of him, but he was fighting to get it back. “Then there is a chance that our loved ones are still alive.”
We nodded, still stunned, but I don’t think any of us believed that to be true. We hung on to Kyle’s fine, precarious thread of hope because it was all that we could do.
I looked at Mina and found her wild, dark gaze penetrating mine, and I knew what she was thinking.
What if we were caught? What if Kyle, Ozzie and Ryder were stowed in the hive as food, and we were caught?
We’d be strung up and bagged, and implanted with alien eggs, or however else they impregnated their prey, just like all the other women. We’d hang there, upside down in a dark cave, waiting until the monster inside of us slithered up through our throats and out of our mouths, killing us in the process.
Dead people don’t bleed. Those women were alive when those things crawled out of them.
I swallowed, and tried to slow my panicked heart.
Ozzie took a few breaths, walked a slow circle, looking up at the sky, then turned to us. “These poor women were likely some of the first to be grabbed. Kelly, Melody, Cassie, Marnie, Diane, and Penny may be in another room somewhere. But we need to be prepared for the very real possibility . . . likelihood, that they’ve been impregnated.”