9 Tales Told in the Dark 19

by 9 Tales Told in the Dark

  Four doors—no time left to think, so I did what Zayla used to do when she had a decision to make.

  “Eanie, meanie...”

  I turned from door to door as I spoke.

  “...minie, mo.”

  THE END

  CRY HAVOC! by Shawn P. Madison

  Rousseau slammed into the bulkhead, his VacSuit absorbing most of the impact, bounced off and regained his footing – racing down the corridor toward the open hatch into the next module. Nezinsky hadn’t been so lucky, the F’Ckla catching him just a meter behind Rousseau, tearing into him with those razor sharp teeth and claws.

  He chanced one quick glance over his shoulder and immediately wished he hadn’t – Nezinsky had been torn open from throat to stomach, the beast’s nose was buried deep in his guts. The screams were tearing through Rousseau’s brain, his friend was dying a horrible terrifying death, and all he could do was run.

  Heart racing, he slammed into the hatch and cycled through for the airlock to open – C Module had been breached when the Thorns had rammed the ship less than twenty minutes ago. But B Module still had atmosphere so the airlock had to cycle through. Rousseau turned and looked down the corridor at the F’Ckla that was eating his former teammate and mentally counted down the seconds before the hatch slid aside. Not too much longer.

  The screams had stopped now but the grunts and tearing sounds of the beast came through his helmet microphone loud and clear. The ping of the airlock completing the cycle was but a whisper to Rousseau but the F’Ckla heard it and jerked its head up from Nezinsky’s guts. Their eyes met and Rousseau felt that instant sense of nausea that most people experienced when meeting the gaze of a Fuck Dog – some kind of mind twisting mechanism in their brains that worked particularly well on humans. The thing snapped its muzzle up and shrieked, blood and small bits of intestine flying, and launched itself toward the airlock.

  Rousseau’s heart pounded, his breathing somehow grew even faster, as the F’Ckla raced toward his position – getting closer, the speed was incredible, the dozen or so fangs dripping red gore, the razor sharp claws sending up sparks as it tore down the corridor’s deck planking.

  Knowing that the airlock door had cycled open in sync with the ping of a moment earlier, Rousseau took two quick steps backwards, entering the airlock, raised his weapon, and watched the heavy door slide closed. As the seal hissed and the other door, leading to B Module slid open, the F’Ckla slammed into the airlock and Rousseau saw the thick metal of the C Module’s door dent inward with the impact of several hundred kilos.

  The instant that the door had slid shut, his eye-lock with the F’Ckla was broken and Rousseau was able to turn and run again. Weapon up, blood pounding in his ears, he raced toward the small Command Module of the Hamilton. How many were left alive? How many could withstand the onslaught of both the F’Ckla and the Ghouls.

  Being chased by a ferocious F’Ckla was bad enough but brute force muscle could be rationalized, could be processed, and compartmented. A beast to be eliminated, to kill or be killed, throughout the corridors of the ship. That they could deal with, fight against…

  But nothing could prepare most people for the terror of the Ghouls. Humans turned into monsters, many times right before the very eyes of those who would be hunted. The Thorns, horrors though they were, had found a foolproof way of destroying the minds of their enemy. To turn men against men, women against women, in such a formidably evil way…it was unfathomable.

  Rousseau’s breathing was extremely loud inside his helmet, drowning out all outside noise, as he raced through the brightly lit corridor leading to the Command Module. So many corners, so many alcoves, so many places for an ambush to be sprung. Slowly, he turned his racing into a jog and then brought that down to a hurried walk. He needed to calm down, to soothe his wired nerves, to slow his breathing and stop his hands from shaking.

  The weapon felt good in his hands – a modified shotgun, carrying a load of packed needles instead of buckshot or slugs. Either of the latter could possibly tear through the hull, causing instant depressurization. But the needles would simply bounce off the thick metal skin of the ship should they miss their intended target. If they found their target, however – the resulting mess was usually very effective at putting that target down for good.

  The Thorns were hideous creatures, built low to the ground, with three thick appendages that allowed them to traverse most surfaces and three slender prehensile tail-like tendrils with small suction cups, like an old Earth Octopus, springing out from mid-way up its torso. Three big black eyes lay center mass within their ugly grayish faces. No ears or nose to speak of but ugly slash mouths that seemed to cut their squat heads in half. And inside those mouths were three rows of very sharp and spiky teeth.

  Every Thorn he’d ever encountered had a viscous oily liquid perpetually leaking from their mouths, staining their lower jaws and throats black, making them look like broken machines, leaking lubricant. The pure putrid stench of them most probably emanated from that disgusting saliva leakage. Luckily, Rousseau had only experienced that nauseating reek a single time when he once came face to face with a Thorn without his VacSuit. He had barely brought his weapon up in time to blow the bastard’s head off before those suckers could get a hold of him. Just a millisecond later and Rousseau would have been Thorn food.

  This trip forward to Command had been much too easy thus far, Rousseau knew. Something was up – an ambush must lay in wait not too far ahead…but would it be Thorns or their Demonic Fuck Dogs laying in wait for him down the corridor? Rousseau was not a betting man but he would be willing to bet it would be a F’Ckla instead of one of those Godforsaken dwarves.

  He slowly came to a stop and squared up against a bulkhead. The barrel of his weapon pointed straight ahead at about waist height – just right for blowing the heads off both Thorns and F’Cklas. It was ugly when Thorns took head shots – that thick shit that passed for their blood got everywhere and into everything, including sensitive VacSuit filtrations systems. If those didn’t get cleaned out quickly, the wearer would be in a world of hurt. Thorn blood played havoc with VacSuits.

  Fuck Dogs, on the other hand, could take a full blast at close range with a needle pack and keep coming. He’d seen their faces get sheared clean off and still those teeth would snap and grind, looking for a morsel. Deep down inside, Rousseau was wishing the ambush would consist of Thorns. It was much easier to deal with those little bastards than it was their pet F’Cklas – just one of those beasts could take out a small squad of Axis Troops if taken unawares.

  Unfortunately, the Hamilton was not a troop transport ship or a military vessel – it was a modified freighter, scoped out for research and meditech transport. There was absolutely nothing onboard to attract an attack by the Thorns…nothing that they could benefit from in the taking of Hamilton. However, here they were – their ramship had sliced neatly into the Hamilton with that massive forward blade they had perfected in the past year or so. The port had opened suddenly to starboard, with no warning, just a quick blast of pure white light and two seconds to impact.

  The Axis hadn’t yet figured out how the Thorns had harnessed the port technology so quickly or how they had managed to upgrade the tech to allow instantaneous openings without any alarm bells being triggered. These sneak attacks had so far been targeting military ships and re-supply vessels – this was the first time a meditransport had been targeted, at least to Rousseau’s knowledge.

  The Hamilton had no troop presence – just Rousseau and his small security detail, like every other Axis meditransport in the fleet. His team’s shotguns had been modified to carry the needle packs but that was a just-in-case preventative measure – nobody had ever thought the Hamilton would have need to defend against a ramship.

  A clink sounded ahead, loud and clear in Rousseau’s ears inside his VacSuit. A sound that wouldn’t normally raise alarms on any given day…but under the current circumstances, that sound sent shivers down Rousseau’s spine.


  “Fuck me…” he muttered to himself and crouched down low, his weapon pointed straight down the corridor. Running through his internal control checklist, he cleared his mind and focused on the end of the corridor. The hatch to Command was in sight, far down the long hall, and he had to suppress his urge to run full out for that hatch. It was a trap, he could feel it deep down inside – a trap that he told himself he would not fall for.

  Where were Jenkins and Montivaldi? They were supposed to be working their way toward Command from D Module and should have arrived just a few seconds before he did from the other direction. The slight obstacle that had resulted in Nezinsky’s sudden bloody demise had slowed him down just a bit so the other two members of his team should already be here…unless…

  Rousseau swallowed hard and realized that he might be the only member of security left on the ship. Thorn ramships usually held at least two dozen of the dwarfish monstrosities and no one had ever really figured out how many Fuck Dogs they usually carried with them. He knew of at least a dozen Thorn kills so far since the ramship breached the Hamilton’s hull about twenty minutes ago, many of them coming from his own weapon. They were damnably slow and their weapons were clumsy – they preferred to kill up close and finish off their enemies with those sharp spike-like teeth – rending and tearing their enemies to shreds. Humans had proven so far to be a much more formidable enemy to the Thorns than the other races they had apparently wiped out. Which explained their addition of the F’Cklas to their most recent attacks. The Fuck Dogs had brought major changes to this war. Whereas the Thorns were slow, the F’Cklas were extremely fast…and strong and vicious. Then throw in that little mind trick of theirs…

  Rousseau had managed to kill several of the ugly creatures in previous battles but each one had taken multiple blasts with a shotgun loaded with needles to be put down, leaving him with several deep and nasty scars to show for it. Just once he’d faced two F’Cklas with a load of slugs and in those instances just one shot each did the trick. But he had been land-side during that battle…couldn’t use slugs in space.

  At least a minute had ticked by since Rousseau had crouched low and still nothing – no movement, no more clinking sounds. Sweat rolled down his forehead and into his right eye, momentarily making him lose focus on the corridor while he tried to shake off the stinging drop. It was no fun being unable to wipe sweat away from your face while wearing a VacSuit helmet but no telling when there might be another hull breach.

  Only seconds had passed but when Rousseau opened his eye again and looked down the corridor, his heart stopped. About four meters away stood not one but two Ghouls…still wearing what was left of their Axis Uniforms, the Hamilton Patches visible on their left shoulders. He couldn’t tell from their melted faces and empty eye sockets but he knew, deep down, he knew…these were Jenkins and Montivaldi. Quick, jerky motions brought them staggering closer to his position. Rousseau was frozen in place, he willed his finger to press the trigger and put his two men out of their misery but his finger refused to comply.

  The ugly black metal spikes sticking out of their left ears was how the Thorns controlled humans once they’d been turned into Ghouls. They seemed to take such evil pleasure in firing their acidic concoction at the heads of their human prisoners, melting away the outer layers of skin, their eyes, and lips, and leaving shrieking mindless monsters. The spikes were then thrust into an ear, piercing straight through to the brain, where usually only two words were spoken in their ugly Thornish tongue – roughly, they translated into Hunger and Hunt.

  Rousseau had been witness to the process several times in the past – forced to watch by some unknown will tucked down deep inside the human brain. Forced to watch as fellow humans were reduced to mindless murderous shells of their former selves…the screams were the worst part for Rousseau…the screams of the damned, their soulless shrieks of terror and despair…those were far worse than watching a friend’s face melt off and their eyes liquefy. The brain could interpret that, there were casualties in any war…but to hear the screams…those lingering damning screams…sometimes he still heard them in that quiet time, with darkness black and close, just before his mind fell deep into sleep.

  Blinking, he realized that his two former teammates were now less than two meters away, homing in on him by some unknown internal radar that only the Thorns could explain. Thoughts raced through Rousseau’s mind – he knew this trap, he’d seen it before…these Ghouls would come at him from the front while a F’Ckla or two ran up from behind, tearing into his back, leaving him bloody and broken on the floor while the Ghouls then took their time feeding on the leftovers.

  He wasn’t going to fall for it. The Ghouls were slow and erratic, he could take them down after…but, first.

  Rousseau swiveled and immediately let loose two bursts from his shotgun, the spent shells clanging with hollow rings as they bounced off bulkheads and fell to the deck. His first shot caught a Fuck Dog full in the face, tearing away the oily gray skin and leaving dozens of razor sharp teeth in ruins. His second shot took the other Fuck Dog, running up just behind the first, square in the chest dropping it in its tracks where it slid to a stop in the corridor, an inky trail of black goo smeared across the deck plates.

  Of course the first F’Ckla’s momentum carried it forward and Rousseau dropped flat, allowing the beast to sail right over him and bowl into the Ghouls, knocking them across the corridor where they all landed in a jumbled heap. Rousseau grimaced in pain from the resulting rake of a F’Ckla claw across the back of his left leg. The VacSuit had absorbed most of the punishment but he could feel the blood trickling down his thigh.

  Putting that pain aside for the moment, he turned his attention back to the F’Ckla which had regained its footing and was turning back toward him, faceless and with only one of three eyes still working – it charged. His weapon bucked once, twice and the F’Ckla went down. Just for good measure, he pumped one more shell each into the torsos of the two beasts – the resulting spray of black oily blood now splattered across his VacSuit and the surrounding bulkheads.

  The Ghouls were just starting to get up from their encounter with the careening F’Ckla and Rousseau walked over to them slowly – weapon pointed straight ahead. His friends – their eyes gone, their facial skin gone, leaving only the raw musculature beneath it. Their white uniforms covered in the blood let loose by the spikes that were driven into their heads and the acid that had cascaded down their bodies. The Thorns had stripped off their VacSuits before committing this murderous act. For Ghouls were essentially brain dead once the spike was driven into their skulls. Merciful that act was, actually, since it released their souls from the torture of having their faces and eyes melted away.

  One of them, he couldn’t tell which, reached for him from its knees, still struggling to stand up, and Rousseau shot him in the face…the headless torso thudded once as it hit the deck and moved no more. The other one clearly had broken its leg when the F’Ckla slammed into it and it could not gain its feet. Rousseau leaned over the Ghoul as it searched for him through eyeless sockets, reaching for him as well with the exposed bone of fingers that had also been nearly burned off by the acid.

  He looked behind him to make sure no other surprises were waiting and sighed. “Fucking Thorns,” he said through gritted teeth and pulled the trigger again. Rousseau stepped over the lifeless corpse and took two steps toward Command before a group of three Thorns stepped out of an alcove about ten meters up the corridor. They had two more Fuck Dogs with them, their slimy tentacle legs straining against the thick chain leashes held by the Thorn in the middle of the group.

  Rousseau plucked the nearly spent barrel magazine from his shotgun, discarded it, and pumped a fresh one full of needle cartridges into the big black weapon. Taking great pains to not make eye contact with the F’Ckla, he quickly unsealed his helmet, pried it off his head, and let it fall to the deck. Noticing moments earlier that what was left of his teammates weren’t wearing theirs, indic
ating life support was still active in B Module, he used the opportunity to suck in air that wasn’t helmet stale. It wasn’t fresh like land-side air but it tasted real good right about now.

  Hoping that their training had kicked in when the ramship made contact, Rousseau thought about the several hundred meditechs and supporting staff who should now be occupying the cargo holds in Hamilton’s belly. With Jenkins and Montivaldi gone, he was pretty damn sure there was no one else aboard ship to help him deal with the Thorns.

  So…three Thorns and two Fuck Dogs separated him from Command…five against one…Rousseau grinned and saw the lead Thorn tilt its head, trying to discern why he was smiling. He’d been through worse and come out on the other side intact. In fact, with the shotgun feeling good in his hands, solid and full of fury, he liked these odds.

  Knowing exactly how he could rid the ship of these slimy bastards once he got to the Command Module, Rousseau noticed two more Ghouls stagger into the corridor about ten meters behind the Thorns. What the hell, he thought, it was now or never…

  “Cry Havoc!” Rousseau suddenly shouted at the group of Thorns, taking them by surprise, making the one in the middle let go of the chains and the F’Cklas charged. “And let slip the dogs of war!”

  Shotgun booming, Rousseau charged forward and watched thick black blood splash against everything in his path.

  THE END

  FINAL STATION by D. A. D'Amico