by Mark Lukens
“You can see it, can’t you?” Daniel asked as he stared at him . . . that vacant stare that chilled Wyatt to his bones and angered him at the same time. That stare made Wyatt want to bash this guy’s fucking head in.
“You can see it,” Daniel said, and this time it wasn’t a question. There were tears in the man’s eyes now and a wide, insane smile on his face.
And then Wyatt saw something behind Daniel, some kind of tentacle rising up behind him like a cobra, the end of the tentacle splaying out like petals opening up on a flower. There was a giant hooked claw in the middle of what looked like some kind of puckered mouth with little jagged suckers and knobby teeth radiating out from it.
No . . . this can’t be real . . .
“Same thing I thought,” Daniel said as if he could hear Wyatt’s thoughts, and he began to laugh again. “It’s yours now. It’s all yours now.”
Wyatt turned and ran.
“You can run and run,” Daniel screamed, laughing even harder now. “But it will always find you!”
*
Wyatt raced home and parked his pickup in the driveway. He hurried inside his house and locked the door. It was two o’clock in the morning, but he poured himself a shot of whiskey. And then another.
Audrey came out of the bedroom, broiling in anger, itching for a fight, demanding to know where he’d been for the last two hours. But then she stopped, her expression softening, suddenly concerned.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
So he told her. He blended his lie about forgetting his tools with the truth of finding Daniel in the basement. He told her that Daniel had been naked, and that he’d had all of these cuts and wounds all over his body. He left out the part about the tentacle. That wasn’t real; that was just something he had imagined.
Audrey tried to console him. She told him that he should call the police.
He told her that he didn’t want to call the police.
“Why not?” she asked, and then a sudden fear turned her face pale. “You didn’t do something to him, did you?”
“No,” he snapped at her, and then his voice softened. “No, of course not. Why would you think something like that?”
“I don’t know. I know how much you hated that new guy.”
Wyatt was about to argue with her, but he really couldn’t say anything. She’d heard nothing but his rants about Daniel for the last four days.
He thought about that thing he’d seen behind Daniel. He’d only seen part of a larger creature, he was sure. What had that thing been doing to him? Sucking his blood? Eating him?
No. That hadn’t been real. He’d just freaked himself out, that was all. It had just been a trick of the shadows or something.
“I just need to get some sleep,” Wyatt told Audrey. “I’m gonna call Lee in the morning. Tell him . . . tell him what I saw.”
Audrey just nodded.
Wyatt lay down in bed next to Audrey, feeling suddenly uncomfortable in the darkness, his thoughts turning to Daniel. He thought about seeing him in the morning . . . in a few hours. He thought of that stare of Daniel’s, and that small smile. No, he wasn’t going to work with that guy anymore. He’d tell Lee that he would quit before he had to work another hour with that freak. Yeah, that was it. He’d put his foot down, it was going to be Daniel or him—the choice was up to Lee.
That made him feel a little better, enough to drift off to sleep . . . but only for a little while. He woke up to the sound of clicking noises, like a dog’s claws ticking across a tiled floor as it ran.
You can run and run, Daniel had said. But it will always find you.
It had found him—that thing that had been feeding on Daniel had found him.
Wyatt reached a hand out to Audrey to wake her up. They needed to run. But his hand settled into a warm wetness. He realized now that he hadn’t heard Audrey breathing. The thing had gotten her earlier, and now it was coming for him, bolting into the bedroom. He could see the whole creature now . . . and he screamed.
*
Lee drove to the jobsite as quickly as he could. Hector had called him, letting him know that neither Wyatt nor Daniel had shown up for work. Hector said that he couldn’t get in touch with Wyatt on his cell phone or his home phone. Then Hector called back ten minutes later and told Lee that they’d found Daniel down in the basement; dead, bloody—it looked like he’d been tortured.
“Call the police,” Wyatt told Hector. “And nobody leaves. I want you guys there to tell the police what you found. I’m on my way.”
Dear God, Lee thought as he hung up his phone and drove even faster. What did you do to him, Wyatt?
This is one of my older stories—I probably wrote this one in my late teens or early twenties—but I did a major rewrite on it before adding it to this collection. The idea came to me as a kind of vampire story, but not the typical vampires we usually see in movies and books, but more of a creature from hell that sucks not only blood but the actual life-force out of someone.
THE WRONG FEET
AUDIO LOG: 001
I’m alive.
I think I’m alive . . . which is strange because I died a long time ago.
Well, died in a way.
I woke up in the pilot’s seat, a little disoriented after an unknown amount of time in suspended animation, frozen in a cryo-tube. I have my exploration suit on. It’s a bit rumpled. My left sleeve is rolled up a little, the glove on but not attached all the way to the suit. The right glove is completely off. My helmet, tanks, and filters are still stored away somewhere in their cases.
I don’t remember coming out of the cryochamber. I don’t remember landing on this planet. I don’t remember anything before waking up here in the pilot’s chair in front of the windshield that looks out onto this place.
I’ve completed a full systems check, and all of the readings seem to be okay. It’s amazing that these computers still work, that there’s still some kind of power and battery life left. I’m recording all of this on audio, and I plan on sending the audio files out into space. Maybe the data will get back to Earth somehow. I don’t know.
I’m looking out through windshield of this space pod right now, and I can see a beach of orange-colored sand that my space pod is resting on. There’s a forest of waist-high vegetation to the left that stretches off for a few miles to a line of mist in the distance. To the right is an ocean of dark churning waters. A brown cloudy sky hangs above everything, and it feels so low, pressing down on this world. There’s a light source from somewhere. A sun? I can’t see one. And all of the light seems to be a yellowish-orange color, like a constant sunset on a cloudy day. The fog or mist or haze, whatever it is, clouds the horizon in every direction, even out over the dark ocean. Actually, in a way, it’s kind of beautiful here.
According to the computer systems and sensors, the air outside is breathable with an Earth-like mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide, along with other trace gasses. The temperature is fifty-one degrees Fahrenheit. Winds are minimal. The gravity seems to be roughly the same as Earth. There isn’t a noticeable difference. No seismic activity detected so far. Toxin readings are coming back negative at the moment.
I need to put the rest of my exploration suit on and go out there to do some field tests for microbes, pollution, pollens, molds, etc. I’ll need to take samples of the soil, air, water, and vegetation.
AUDIO LOG: 002
I have my helmet on, and I’m speaking into a microphone inside of it, still recording everything. The tanks on my back are pumping air through my suit so I can breathe. I’ve attached my gloves. I’m ready to go out there.
I’ve just opened the pressurized door on the side of my space pod. As I open the door, a metal ladder unfolds to the ground.
I’m on the sand now. I’m about to take my first step onto this alien world. But wait—
My boots seem like . . . they seem like they’re on the wrong feet.
AUDIO LOG: 003
I’ve come back int
o my pod and switched my boots around. They’re oversized rubber boots and I’m not sure why they were on the wrong feet. Of course, I can’t remember ever putting them on in the first place.
So many mysteries to figure out. I can’t wait to get started. I’m going back out there again.
AUDIO LOG: 004
I’m back in the pod now. It feels good to have the helmet off. I was suddenly hungry as soon as I got back inside, and I squeezed some liquid-type stuff out of one of the food pouches. I’ve got the samples I collected from outside inserted into the diagnostic equipment, and I’m waiting for the readings to come back. So far there isn’t any sign of life here at all except for the vegetation. But nothing else. I didn’t see any sign of marine life in the ocean. I didn’t see any shore life like crabs or mollusks. No insects. So far, there isn’t any sign of microbial life coming back from the tests yet.
I sit back, staring out at that dark ocean, imagining all of that lifeless water. The yellowish light and clouds haven’t changed at all over the last few hours. The clouds move constantly, but they just seem to churn in a circle, never really moving anywhere. Long days here, I suppose. Probably a totally different rotational and orbital cycle than Earth.
AUDIO LOG: 005
I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Andrew. I was born in 1993. I became a very rich man, a self-made man. I built an empire. I gave back to charities when I had more money than I could spend. In my seventies I got sick with cancer. I was dying. There was nothing the doctors could do. In the last few months I had left, I opted to have this space pod built with a cryochamber inside. It was also built to shield the radiation from space. It had a solar sail that would open up once it was launched into space. The sun would push it away from our solar system, pushing it deep into our galaxy. A beacon on the pod would send a signal back to Earth for as long as the solar-powered batteries lasted.
Technically I was still alive when I was frozen into my cryochamber. As a lark, I had them add all the instruments and the exploration suit, enough food pouches and a recyclable water system to survive. None of us ever thought it would really be used. The reality was that I would probably float through space for thousands of years until I collided with some asteroid or moon, or was pulled into a distant sun by the gravitational pull and then incinerated—the most expensive cremation in human history.
Of course, there were other remote possibilities like being found by an intelligent alien species or landing on a planet like this one.
I had led a very fulfilling and adventurous life back on Earth. I’d traveled the world, done everything I’d wanted to do. I had no regrets. One thing I could never stand was boredom. So I figured, even in death, why not go out with one last big adventure . . . the greatest adventure of humanity? I wanted to be the first human to travel beyond our solar system.
And now I have.
So how did I end up here? Was it an accident? Pure luck? I can’t believe that. Even if I would’ve entered the gravitational pull of this planet I’m on, I would’ve crashed into the ground and broke apart, been pulverized. And somebody, or something, pulled me out of my cryochamber. Something powered up all of this equipment. Something dressed me. Something put my boots on the wrong feet.
Something brought me here.
AUDIO LOG: 006
Days have gone by now even though nothing ever seems to change here. The clouds above churn slowly, but still never seem to move anywhere. The ocean laps endlessly at the shore, but there don’t seem to be any tides. The wind is nearly non-existent. Even the plants don’t seem to grow. It’s always light here, no darkness, just that constant yellowish-orange sunset light filtering down from those clouds above. And that mist in the distance—it’s always there in every direction.
I’ve eaten more food from the liquid pouches, but I’m beginning to conserve the food as much as I can. Eventually, maybe in three or four months, I’ll run out of food.
Whatever brought me here hasn’t tried to contact me yet. I’ve yelled up at the sky. I’ve entered that sea of vegetation. I’ve even drawn messages in the sand: words, crude pictures, math equations.
Nothing.
All the diagnostic tests have come back negative. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of life here at all.
Just me.
I’ve entered the ocean looking for some kind of fish or sea life. Nothing. The water is salty, the same chemical make-up as the oceans on Earth . . . just no life in it.
It’s lonely here. I’ve been spending more time in my pod, listening to books or music stored on the computer. I’m homesick. I don’t even know how far away I am from home. I don’t even know how long it’s been, how long I was out in space.
Tomorrow I’m going to bring a few food pouches and a plastic jug of water, and I’m going to walk down the beach to that mist—see what’s beyond it. Maybe “they” are beyond that mist; maybe they are waiting for me to come to them.
AUDIO LOG: 007
Today I walked down the beach and into the mist. It took maybe an hour and a half.
As soon as I was into the mist, I began to get a little disoriented. But I could hear the ocean off to my right, and I just kept walking forward. I only walked another five minutes before I nearly walked into a wall.
A wall. Some kind of smooth glass or clear plastic wall with more mist behind it. I couldn’t even see the wall at first; it just looked like more mist. I ran my hands along the smooth surface. I knocked on it. Pounded on it. But it seems impenetrable. I dug down into the sand a few feet, but this wall or border or whatever it is, seemed to go far down into the ground. I followed the wall into the vegetation, wading through the waist-high bushes, but the wall seems to go on forever. I went back to the beach and followed the wall into the ocean, up to my chest, but the wall continues on into the ocean.
And then I came back here. Back to my ship. My pod.
AUDIO LOG: 008
It’s been a few days . . . or weeks . . . hell, I don’t know. I’ve followed that wall all the way around through the vegetation and then back to the beach. I looked for a door of some kind in the plastic wall, but there isn’t one. That wall or border, it’s all the way around me. It’s like I’m in some gigantic glass or plastic bubble, like some gigantic terrarium.
I keep going out there on the beach. Sometimes I yell up at the sky. I yell at them. But they won’t answer me.
Why are they keeping me in here if they won’t answer me?
AUDIO LOG: 0010
Today I dug down into the sand as far as I could. I made a big hole, and then it almost caved in on me. I felt like I was digging my own grave, so I stopped.
I cried.
I yelled at the sky again.
I came back in here to my pod and listened to some more music. I tried listening to a book. But then I got mad and pounded on the computer panels, and now my music and books won’t play anymore. I can’t fix it.
I cried again.
AUDIO LOG: 0011
I don’t know how long it’s been now—at least four months if the beard that I’ve grown is any indication. I’m starving. My food is gone now, and I’m existing only on water. I feel sick and weak.
I’m going to go into that vegetation and eat some of the leaves or roots or something. No way to cook any of it . . . I’ll just have to eat it raw.
AUDIO LOG: 0012
I tried some of the plant life, or whatever it is. It tasted bitter and left my lips and tongue a little numb. That feeling went away after a few minutes, but then severe cramps in my stomach started. I vomited the chewed-up plants, but I’m pretty sure I poisoned myself. I came back into my pod and drank some water, and then I threw up again.
I’m going to go outside now and lay on the beach.
I think I’m dying.
Finally.
AUDIO LOG: 0013
I’m alive.
I think.
I woke up in the pilot’s seat. My beard is gone. My exploration suit is on but the helmet and
tanks are still stored away. My left glove isn’t attached all the way. My right glove is completely off. My boots are on the wrong feet.
I’m staring out through the windshield right now. The beach is still there, the ocean to the right and the vegetation to the left, the clouds, that yellowish light . . . all the same. Always the same.
I should be dead. The cancer that I’d been dying from should have killed me by now. But they brought me back. Dressed me again. But something doesn’t feel quite right. I don’t know how to explain it, but it feels like a few minor details of my body weren’t reconstructed quite correctly . . . like my boots being on the wrong feet. I can’t help but feel that there were small errors made in my reanimation. Some of my memories feel mixed up . . . some of my thoughts seem strange.
AUDIO LOG: 0014
More time has gone by and I haven’t felt like recording anything for a while. My beard has grown long again. I’m starving again. Dying again. I keep eating the vegetation and throwing it right back up, but some of it must be keeping me alive.
Barely.
My music and books still won’t work even though the battery life is still charged on many of the computers and instruments.
I go outside a lot and yell at the sky, at these gods who are watching me. I know they’re watching me. Studying me. For what? Why? What do they want?
AUDIO LOG: 0015
I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to walk out as far as I can into the ocean and drown myself. I don’t want to come back this time.
Please . . . don’t bring me back.
AUDIO LOG: 0016
I’m alive.
I’m awake and in the pilot’s chair again. My exploration suit is on. My left glove is gone . . . I can’t find it. My boots are on the wrong feet. A piece of my thumb is missing now; it’s like it was never there. I don’t feel right. I don’t feel like myself. Am I some kind of clone? Has my consciousness been downloaded into this new body? With some errors, of course. For all their powers, whoever they are, they keep making small mistakes.