In the front, Jakool rounded a corner. Pashma and Nolan were fast behind. There was an open service door that Jakool dove into. Nolan followed, conscious of the steady click-click-click behind him. It was getting closer—too close. There was no time to slam the service door behind him; Nolan just had to run.
Nolan knew this service corridor ran under the main deck, headed towards the bow of the ship. There was a hanger up in the forward section of the ship and not much else. That was where they were headed.
Stairs, an open blast-door. Jakool and Pashma still running. Nolan's feet skidding on the smooth surface of the service corridor. The steady click-click-click of the monstrous shadowy creature closing in. Nolan ignored it all, focused on just one thing: the shuttle hanger.
The hanger was closer than Nolan realised; another corner, a stretch of corridor and there it was. The hanger door was open, and Jakool was standing there now, right next to the button. Pashma reached him, threw himself to the side. Nolan wasn't far behind, and he could see the look of terror on Jakool's face.
Jakool pressed the button.
“No!” Nolan shouted as the heavy door started to close. It moved slowly—but it was still too fast for Nolan. He wouldn't reach it in time, not unless he moved at the speed of light. His legs pounded as fast as they could; he could feel his heart threaten to burst from the pressure. The door was half-way closed, and he couldn't see Jakool's face, only his torso. He wasn't going to make it. He was going to die.
Three feet to go and he threw himself down and rolled. The smooth, slick metal surface spun him around and he cried out as he slid under the closing door. He saw slender, stick-like legs crash into the closing door and there was a frantic, inhuman hiss. Then the door was closed, and there was silence.
And still, the stink of death.
“What was that!” Nolan demanded as he stood. He swayed like a drunkard. The blood was pumping through his veins so hard that he felt light-headed. It was hard to breathe.
Jakool and Pashma were also exhausted. Pashma searched for something to hold himself up, found a stack of wooden crates in the corner. He leaned against them and groaned. Jakool walked away from the door, into the centre of the hanger bay.
Nolan followed the short man with his eyes. There were crates all around, some stacked floor-to-ceiling. There were two orbital shuttles wrapped in plastic near the closed airlock in the distance. There was equipment lined up in two rows: forklifts and sliders and heavy machinery. None of it was useful, at least not to Nolan.
“Are we trapped in here?” Nolan wondered. He couldn't remember the layout of the hanger-bay. He had been in here before, but that had been only briefly, before he had departed. This wasn't part of his usual inspection routine: he left this equipment well-enough alone.
“There is another door, on the side,” Jakool said. “I hope it is clear.”
“Can you kill them?” Nolan asked. “The hunters? Can they die?”
“I have not killed one,” Jakool said, and he looked at the blaster Nolan carried. “But I believe it is possible.”
Behind them, Pashma groaned; they ignored him.
“I didn't get a good look at it,” Nolan said. “It had legs and a body, but it moved so fast. How big do they get?”
But Jakool didn't answer, and he wasn't looking at him. Nolan frowned, then followed Jakool's eyes—the humanoid was looking at Pashma.
Pashma stood by the crate, bathed in shadow. His skin pulsated; something moved under his torso, up through his neck, up across his face—up out of a tube that had erupted from his head.
Nolan gasped. Pashma's eyes fluttered out of control. It was only then that Nolan saw that Pashma's feet didn't touch the ground, but hovered a few inches above it.
Nolan tried to speak, to cry out, but nothing escaped his lips but a cowardly, tortured groan. He saw the tube that disappeared upwards and followed it with his eyes. There was another tube, sharp and hollow and it disappeared into a hairy, alien mouth. Fangs. Above the mouth: a million beady eyes, and they took in everything. Nolan could see his own reflection a thousand times, and the rest of the hanger, too.
The head was squat and hairy, and beyond that was a rounded, flattened body. Legs erupted out of its torso like sticks of wood, and below the legs was another bulbous, flattened sphere.
Nolan didn't need to count the legs to know there would be eight.
He took a step backwards, bumped into Jakool.
“Hunters...” Nolan found his voice. He stared at the giant spider that was sucking out Pashma's innards. It had been waiting here all this time, behind the crates. They would have noticed the stink if it wasn't for the other spider that had chased them. The monster was twelve feet high and it dominated the hanger bay like the monster it was. “Hunters... Huntsman! A huntsman spider... But... But...” No, it wasn't possible. It was too large. It was a dream, a nightmare. None of this was real. Jakool wasn't real. Pashma wasn't real. The fear wasn't real.
But what if it was?
The huntsman spider—the giant huntsman spider—stretched upright. Pashma fell to the ground as it withdrew the fang that stuck out of its head. Pashma was dead, that much was clear. Blood dribbled from the fang; a small lizard-like tongue darted out from its hairy mouth and caught each drop of blood before it fell. Nolan shivered.
Then the spider moved. It advanced hesitantly, curious. Jakool let out a gurgled whimper and started to run. Nolan followed. Behind him, he heard the giant spider give chase. It moved almost silently, but Nolan's ears were finely-tuned to terror and they heard every movement as the monster charged them.
Jakool headed for a small service door. He wrenched it open and then dove through. Nolan followed, and for a moment he thought they were safe: there was no possible way the giant spider would fit through the gap. Jakool kept running, but Nolan slowed and caught his breath.
Whump! The spider hit the metal opening and tried to squeeze through. Nolan turned and watched, transfixed. The bulbous head pressed through the opening, its eyes staring at him through pupils of midnight black. It was stuck, though. Nolan grinned, raised his blaster to fire.
The first leg reached through, hit the deck a scant foot in front of him. Nolan fired; the spider withdrew with a hiss, but there was no other reaction to the pain. Nolan watched through the smoke as the spider sat there, just on the other end of the door.
Then it jumped.
Nolan's legs froze as the spider hit the archway, legs first. All eight legs slid through the opening and found a hold on the bulkheads. Nolan saw the spider's body hidden behind the forest of hairy stalk-like legs and saw those hideous eyes staring at him. There was a senseless purpose there. All Nolan could see was his terrified reflection looking back at him a million times, and in those reflected eyes he could see his own death.
The spider's legs contracted. The hideous, monstrous face reached the small door and pushed through it. It didn't slow, and the rest of the body would follow in a second's time.
Nolan turned and ran.
Behind him, there was a metallic plop and he knew the spider was through. The bulkheads bowed and buckled under the weight, the only sound the spider made as it gave chase. Nolan spun around the corridor, almost skidded into the wall as he darted through the maze of passageways.
There was another door, and he ran through it blindly. The shape of the corridor changed and he knew where he was: he was near the hyper-sleep chamber. Nolan ran for it out of instinct. It had always been a place of safety, a place of peace. Behind him, the giant spider kept chasing. It was closing the gap, and Nolan would have to find a place to hide soon or he would be devoured, just like Pashma had been.
There was the hyper-sleep chamber. Nolan darted into it. He reached for the button to slam the door shut, but the spider's first legs were already there, covering the button. So close that the monster was right on top of him, its bloodied fangs inches from his hands, his face, his torso.
Nolan screamed and he fell. He scattered a doze
n bones all around him—the bones of the dead children that had been placed there. Nolan shivered at the sight, and he realised he had led himself towards a graveyard.
Above him, the spider crawled up the open door, stared down at him without passion.
Nolan scrambled to his feet and ran. The spider hit the deck with a whoomph of bowing metal decking. The chamber was huge and it was empty. There was nowhere to hide except one place: the hyper-sleep pod.
The pod sat there, glowing white and sterile and always waiting for him. In many ways it was a coffin, but it was a coffin that would save his life. Nolan reached for it. He jumped in, slammed against the plexi-glass walls on the side. The spider climbed on top of it, unaware that Nolan was saved.
The pod reacted to Nolan's presence the way it always did: it closed its lid. Nolan lay there on the bed, fully clothed with his blaster in his hand. He stared up a the underside of the massive spider, saw each of its legs disappear into its hairy abdomen, saw the two giant fangs staring down at him, confused.
The lid sealed itself fully, and Nolan was safe. He relaxed; now he just had to wait for the spider to leave, and he would be able to find Jakool and demand an explanation from him.
Something went hiss.
Nolan turned, saw a white burst of gas blast into the pod. He groaned: the pod was firing sleeping gas into the coffin. No! If he slept, he would... He would... No, he had to stop it. He placed his hand over the jet, not that it would do anything. The gas hissed again, made his hand feel numb.
Whump!
The plexi-glass wobbled. Nolan turned, saw the spider still on top of the coffin, its head raised backwards, ready for another attack. A second later, and the head rammed downwards again. The fangs bounced off the plexi-glass. Whump...
More gas hissed into the pod. Nolan could already feel himself getting groggy. It was hard to move his arms, his head. It was hard to blink or think. It would be so much easier to sleep. Stop fighting and sleep. Whump! It was a pleasant noise, like a drum. Whump-whump-hiss. A steady beat.
No! Nolan blinked and clarity returned, just for a moment. Just enough to see the spider's giant head crash down into the plexi-glass. The glass cracked but it didn't break—not yet. But the spider knew—it knew—and it raised its head again and slammed its fangs down onto the glass.
The glass cracked once more and one of the fangs broke through and slammed down into the bed, missed Nolan's side by an inch. The spider pulled back, and Nolan saw the fang open slightly, like a straw. It pulled back out of the hole.
Hiss—the sleeping gas erupted again, and the spider jerked back away from it. It slammed its head forward, and once more the fang slammed through the glass. Once more, it missed Nolan by an inch, but only because he had moved against the side wall. Hiss... The spider jerked at the burst of gas, pulled its fang out of the hole.
Nolan blinked at the fresh air the streamed in through the opening. He blinked again, looked up through the spider-web of cracks and the giant huntsman above him, ready to strike. He screamed, pointed the blaster vertical, no time to aim—just shoot!
Nolan fired.
The plexi-glass exploded in a shower of shards. Gas and smoke tumbled out everywhere. Amidst it all was the spider, which screamed in a high-pitched squeal and fell backwards. Its legs danced in the air, upside down, enveloped in a cloud of gas that clung to the hairs all over its body.
Nolan rolled off the bed, coughed and spat and stood. He slipped, managed to stand. The blaster fired again—this time by accident. Nolan didn't know if he hit anything, and he didn't care. He only cared about the spider and him. The spider was lying on its back, its legs no longer moving except for one that twitched, out of control.
Nolan ran for the main door. His legs weren't responding to his brain and, again, he slipped and fell, landed next to a skin-less corpse that stared back at him. Nolan tried to stand, but his legs weren't working. It was so much easier to sleep. Just sleep.
Just sleep...
12
Nolan awoke. Groggy, exhausted, his side in pain. His eyes fluttered open, but there was nothing to see. No, that wasn't right: there were shadows dancing on the walls. One shadow looked like a woman, another a man. There were more shadows amongst them all, but they were shapeless.
“Mum?” he murmured. There was a response, of a kind. Words that Nolan couldn't understand. Mumbles and grumbles and whispers. “Mum?”
He was lying on a slab of some kind. It was cold and it was hard. He could smell old sweat, as though the walls were painted with the stuff. His back was pressed up against a wall, not a bed. The lighting glowed from overhead, but it was muted and soft. Where the light didn't touch, the gloom remained. The shadows slowly pulled away, revealed faces that were unfamiliar and not quite human. Nolan groaned.
“He's awake.” He recognised the voice of Jakool. The young man's face peered in close to him, took up his entire view. Nolan could see himself reflected in the humanoid's eyes—only two versions of him, thank God.
“What happened?”
“You should never have moved him,” someone said out of view. Nolan didn't know who that was, but the voice was grumpy and authoritative.
“I couldn't just leave him. He's Godsmith.”
“He is not.”
“I'm Nolan,” Nolan said, and he sat up, looked around. Jakool was there, but there were others like him, too. Nolan counted six in total: four men and two women. Jakool looked to be the youngest, but one of the women was young, too. The others were all slightly older than he was; Nolan could make out the grumpy one standing against the wall. He was fatter than the rest, and did not have as much muscle; his eyes were hard and his face was distorted from frowning.
“You're awake,” Jakool said. Nolan blinked, focused on the young man.
“You saved me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You're Godsmith.”
“He's not Godsmith!” the fat, grumpy one yelled.
“Oh, shut up Gillen,” said one of the younger ones.
“Don't you tell me to shut up!”
“Please!” Jakool shouted and he stood up and turned around so the others had to look at him. “They're still out there. Be silent, or we'll die.”
“Yes, be quiet the lot of you,” said the fat one known as Gillen. “Jakool's drawn all of those things to us, the fool. We'll be lucky if we're still alive within an hour.”
“I didn't bring them with me,” Jakool said, defensively. “But if they hear us carrying on, then they will come on their own.”
“You saved me,” Nolan repeated, and he reached up and touched Jakool's shoulder. It felt real enough; muscle and bone hidden under old sheeting. Jakool turned and looked down at Nolan. “Why?”
“I had Pashma with me. I found you.”
“Pashma's alive?”
“He's dead. I laid him in the chamber of Godsmith,” Jakool told him. “Your chamber.”
“Oh,” was all Nolan could think to say. He sat up straighter, rubbed his head. The vision of the giant spider came rushing back to him and he shuddered. “How many of those... things are there?”
“We don't know,” said Jakool. “Too many. You killed one. We've never killed one before.”
“Oh,” Nolan said once more. He saw that Gillen had his blaster strapped to his side. Nolan frowned at that, and Gillen stiffened.
“I'm the elder. It's mine,” the fat man said, as though that settled the matter.
“There are more of them,” Nolan said, decided not to argue. He looked from Jakool and Gillen to the others. The creatures were small, but it was clear they were intelligent and strong. Yes, they were small, almost child-like, but they weren't children. “How many of you are there?”
“This is all of us,” Jakool said.
“I see,” Nolan said. “And... No, it doesn't matter.”
“What?” Jakool asked. Nolan just shook his head. Maybe later, he would ask them. Who were they, why were they here, how were th
ey here... Maybe later he would be able to understand whatever answer they gave him. Right now, he needed to focus on simple things. Violence and death—weapons.
“There are more weapons. Where are we?”
“Near the big heat,” said Jakool.
“Jakool!” Gillen hissed, as though Jakool had just given away an important secret.
“The reactor,” Nolan said, more to himself than the humanoids around him. He tried to see his mental map of the ship in his mind's eye. He failed; he was too groggy, too confused to remember much of anything. “That's... Okay, how to we get to the bow of the ship?”
“The bow?”
“Where you found me, Jakool. How to we get back there?”
“We can't get back there!” Gillen hissed, and he turned to Jakool: “you should have left him there! Listen to him: he seeks adventure. What did Father tell us?”
“No adventure,” Jakool said, almost too low to hear.
“And what do you do? You seek adventure! And now you've found him and you've killed us all. All of us!”
“Father?” Nolan frowned. “Who is your father?”
“He is gone,” Jakool said.
“Dead?”
“Gone.”
“I see,” Nolan said, although he didn't. There was a look in Jakool's face that he couldn't decipher, but it was human enough to know that there were secrets there, hidden from Gillen and the others.
“Why can't we get to the front of the ship?” he asked Gillen. “You said we couldn't go that way.”
“The hunters are there!” Gillen spat the word, and he stared at Jakool with angry eyes. “Thanks to Jakool.”
“We don't know that,” Jakool said. “They may not have followed.”
“Jakool, is there another way?” Nolan asked.
“No!” But that was Gillen, and Jakool only nodded. Nolan reached out, touched Jakool's arm.
“Jakool: how? Can you take me?”
Nightmare Ship: Space Exploration Thriller Page 6