Species II

by Yvonne Navarro

  The Patrick-alien swung its head toward Press for a moment, then dismissed him, apparently convinced that the lowly human no longer posed a threat. Instead, it stalked across the loft and pawed at the nearly senseless Eve until it had turned her body face-up; without preamble, it mounted her, intent on finishing the mating, howling like a victorious hyena the entire time.

  Stunned but not conquered, Eve’s eyes opened and she stared at Patrick with nothing less than undiluted loathing. Held in place and unable to move, Press blinked, unable to believe it when he thought he saw her smile.

  Then he realized why.

  A thick, muscular-looking tentacle unfurled from each of Eve’s breasts with blurring speed, rising up and encircling Patrick’s neck in a viciously tight grip before the huge male alien could do anything to stop them or pull away. With both of them oozing alien blood from a dozen scrapes, the gnarled appendages that served as Patrick’s hands released their hold on Eve as he threw himself backward and instinctively clawed at his neck, trying to break the choke hold.

  But Eve only pulled Patrick back, nearly shaking him as she put everything she had into this last assault and her would-be lover’s strange face finally began to darken.

  “They’ve been in there long enough,” Burgess said. “Set her down as close as you can get.”

  The Huey pilot nodded and brought the chopper to an expert touchdown in the field adjacent to the old barn into which Press Lennox, Dr. Baker and Dennis Gamble had followed the alien Eve. Colonel Burgess unclasped his seat belt, then unhurriedly pulled his bottle of Visine from one breast pocket and gave his good eye a generous drop of the stuff.

  That done, he pocketed the Visine and retrieved a small brown case from beneath his seat and opened it. Inside was his personal choice of a weapon: a Mauser-Werke HSC 7.65 pistol and a finely crafted laser scope. This baby dated back to 1941 and with a serial number in the early 700,000 range, it was a collector’s item. It took Burgess only a few seconds to snap the custom-made scope on and hold up the gun. The expression on his face was one of savage anticipation.

  “Let’s hope Lennox is as good as I think he is.”

  He left the pilot there to wait in the darkness.

  Laura didn’t know who was screaming louder—she or Dennis—as his head disappeared into the long, moist crack in the chrysalis.

  The machete was clearly useless—if she tried to stab at the cocoon she risked cutting Dennis, or worse. She flung it aside then spied Dennis’s canister of toxin where it had dropped at his feet when he’d been grabbed by the first tentacle. Laura’s fingers were slick with fear-sweat as she scurried over and grabbed at it, finally aiming the nozzle at the point where Dennis’s head had vanished into the disgusting pod and squeezing off a cloud of the fine, blue mist. There was no sense standing and waiting for it to work—it either did or didn’t—so she dropped the canister and threw her arms around Dennis’s waist, putting all her weight into a downward pull, determined to haul him out of the dripping cavity.

  The alien cocoon convulsed, expelling Dennis like an unwanted olive pit. The two of them tumbled to the floor, then Laura was up and dragging him bodily out of reach of any more questing appendages.

  But there was no need. A second later, the now-familiar burnt-umber glow swept over the chrysalis, followed immediately by the escalating shuddering of disease. No display of flailing tentacles this time—with the side of the pod fractured, the DNA-based toxin was clearly absorbed at twice the rate. Before Dennis could finish wiping the birth slime from his face, the cocoon caved in on itself with a pop!, then sagged.

  “Thanks,” Dennis managed. He staggered to his feet and held on to the wall for a second. “Thought I was baby food there for a minute.”

  Laura couldn’t resist an impish smile. “Actually, I didn’t really do anything, and you’d never have given it a good first meal. The hatchling needed food, but you’d’ve still been indigestible to it. It would’ve spit you out anyway.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Dennis said sarcastically, but there was no denying the measure of relief in his voice.

  “We need to check on Press,” Laura said. “He’s been up there by himself for an awfully long time.”

  “Yeah, and there’ve been some God-awful noises coming from up there,” Dennis said. His gaze flicked to the sagging pods around the walls. “We’ve just escaped death—hey, let’s go do it again!”

  Laura grabbed up the canister pack. “Let’s hope the third floor isn’t as full,” she said. “There isn’t much left.” Dennis nodded then took a quick two steps and retrieved the machete. He and Laura headed up the stairs, taking the risers two at a time and convinced they’d be met by a swarm of alien offspring. But this time luck was with them—only half a dozen or so chrysalises were positioned around the spacious third level and Laura waited impatiently as Dennis sprayed them as quickly as he could. When he came to the last one, the deadly dosage was there but it sputtered alarmingly at the end. Their toxin supply was almost out.

  “We’d better hope this is it,” he said as the last of the cocoons went into its unearthly pre-death glow, “or we could be into some really deep shit.”

  “We’ll have enough.” Laura motioned at him, her gesture nearly frantic. “Come on.”

  “We’ll have enough,” Dennis echoed as he shouldered the canister and hurried after her. “Provided the next floor isn’t full of them, too. We should check down here one more time—”

  Something howled horribly upstairs and obliterated his train of thought. He and Laura bolted up the final flight of stairs—

  —and never noticed the mild pulse of a golden-brown chrysalis deep in the rafter shadows above their head.

  With Eve and Patrick’s attention focused on each other, Press grabbed at the opportunity to hustle in the opposite direction and find the tranquilizer gun. A search in his pockets gave him another loaded dart—it would’ve been just his luck to drop the entire supply in the fight—and he slammed it home, praying that the undersized specialty weapon wouldn’t jam when he needed it most.

  Spinning back to view the battle, Press gasped as he saw the result of Eve’s choke hold on Patrick. The male alien’s face had gone almost completely black and had swollen until it looked ready to burst. For a moment it looked like Eve would take care of Patrick herself, then the inflated skin around Patrick’s skull abruptly split. A line of flesh that was long and repugnantly phallic shot from the center and rammed itself into Eve’s mouth, twisting and burrowing and chewing on the inside of her face. The tentacles around the Patrick-alien’s neck loosened and fell away and Eve’s hands beat ineffectively at her attacker as the shape of her face contorted and fell it on itself.

  In far too short a time, Eve was still.

  “Oh, fuck,” Press muttered. Patrick rose from Eve’s body and hovered there for a second, as though waiting to see if she would move. Before Press could bring up the dart gun, a noise from the stairwell—Dennis and Laura clambering into the loft—caught both his attention and the alien’s. They came over the last step and then Dennis and Laura stood frozen, their gazes tracking around the room to the Patrick-alien and Press, the deflated but still heaving nest in the corner, and finally, Eve’s crumpled figure.

  “Shit!” Dennis exclaimed. He put a hand out to stop Laura when she would have run forward.

  The two halves of his head flapping, Patrick rose to his full height and snarled at them, the sound somewhere between a lion’s roar and a wolf’s threatening growl.

  A challenge.

  Patrick brought up the tranq gun and fired, aiming intuitively. There was a crack! and the dart embedded itself in one of Patrick’s forearms. The alien jerked and stared down at it as though wondering why Press would shoot such a thing at him, then the skin around the small wound began to pucker and blanch, the alien’s normal amber-colored arm going the pallid, sickly white of infection. As the flesh shriveled and started to fester, Patrick let out a deep-throated groan.

  Determined t
o get the best of the creature while it was weakened, Dennis took four steps and aimed the nozzle of the canister, then squeezed hard on the spray handle. A haze of blue mist erupted, but it was far too small and feeble—Patrick easily jerked backward and out of harm’s way. As the mist settled harmlessly to the floor, the alien vaulted forward and shoved Dennis as hard as he could. As Press struggled to load another dart into the gun, Dennis and his now empty canister setup sailed through the air and crashed to the floor fifteen feet away.

  Patrick groaned again as the dart in his arm sent its contamination farther up his arm, then the creature cocked its head and held up its other hand. Too late Press saw the machete—Patrick had snatched it from Dennis’s belt before he’d struck. Press and Laura watched, thunderstruck, as Patrick swiveled the blade around and—

  —severed his own arm at the elbow.

  The alien screamed in agony and threw the machete to the side, but whatever pain it had was short-lived. Press, however, was caught off guard by the unspeakable deed for half a second too long—enough time for the Patrick-alien to take three enormous steps toward him, rip the tranquilizer gun from his hand and grab him. Press had a moment of vertigo that reminded him crazily of roller-coasters, then the alien slammed him to the floor using all of its inhuman strength. For Press, the lights damned near went out.

  He didn’t know how he managed to hang on to consciousness; maybe it was hearing Laura’s scream that did it—

  “Press!”

  —or just knowing that things were headed downhill at locomotive speed and that if they didn’t find a way to stop Patrick, there wouldn’t be much left to wake up to. Press pulled himself upright and made it to his knees, and when he lifted his head he saw Patrick again, this time facing off with Laura. She’d snatched up the machete and was brandishing it like a pitchfork, but the multi-limbed creature advancing on her had no problem avoiding her jabs. She tried again but lost her hold on the blade when Patrick’s remaining hand zipped forward and twisted it out of her fingers. He flung it away and caught hold of her, intent on dragging the fighting and squirming Laura to that atrocious-looking dome of breathing alien flesh at the other end of the room.

  Press scrambled around on the floor for a precious two seconds trying to find the dart gun, then knew it was futile—the fucking thing had probably fallen through a crack somewhere in this pitted old floor. The only thing left was the machete and Press seized it, but how effective would it be against this thing that had withstood everything they could throw at it?

  Fuck it, Press thought, and headed for Patrick. He wasn’t about to let Laura become this disgusting alien’s next piece of tail.

  “Press—wait!”

  He almost ignored Dennis, but something in the other man’s voice made him turn. One side of his ebony face was bruised and hugely swollen, but the astronaut had hauled himself into a sitting position where he’d landed. He gestured at Press to come back. “Use me,” he rasped. “Use my blood—it’s our only chance!”

  Behind him, Laura screamed again. Press looked back and saw her bite viciously into the distorted arm around her neck, then gag and try to spit out the viscous green liquid that spilled from the injury. He knew he had to do it; by itself, the blade would be useless, but with Dennis’s help . . .

  Press sprinted over to Dennis and raised the machete. Holding it aloft, he locked gazes with the astronaut and was unable to move.

  Dennis punched him in the ankle to break the paralysis. “Do it!”

  He buried the edge of the machete in Dennis’s thigh.

  Dennis’s scream mixed with another from Laura and below both was Press’s own cry of anguish. He pulled the blade free and whirled, saw that Patrick had dragged Laura within only a few feet of the pulsing, fleshy nest. The damned thing would cover them both in a protective sheath that for all Press knew would be impenetrable even to human disease, and he was never going to get over there in time to stop Patrick from pulling her inside.

  Press brought the machete up, took one quick rehearsal swipe, then sent the machete hurling end over end through the air.

  “Die, you son of a bitch!”

  The point of the blade found its target and bit deep into the muscles running down the center of the Patrick-thing’s back.

  The alien’s screech was like nothing they’d heard before. Infection spilled instantly across the surface of its back, bleeding white into the veins and rippling along the lines of bone and sinew. Still gripping Laura, Patrick collapsed and pinned her beneath his oversized frame, knocking the wind out of her. She quivered once, then was still.

  Press dashed toward her, then saw with a jolt that he would never make it in time. Patrick’s body convulsed and tore down the middle as his head had done; from the resulting gore-filled cavity rose the same penile appendage that had retreated after destroying Eve—the core alien, the abominable thing that had manipulated both human and alien flesh in order to hide and safeguard itself. Now it was headed for Laura, his Laura, who lay unconscious, defenseless, and too fucking far away from Press for him to do anything to stop it.

  He started to cry out, then choked it back. Eve, Press and Dennis saw in amazement, had not been annihilated. Injured and perhaps even dying, she had nevertheless crawled unnoticed across the floor, and now she flung herself the last few feet toward Patrick’s dead shell. As the two men stared helplessly, one of her knotted alien hands buried itself into the fish-white, diseased skin along Patrick’s spine. She shrieked as contamination exploded along her arm, finding an instant pathway inside her body amid a half dozen scrapes along her skin. It surged through her system with phenomenal speed, turning her shining, deep-gold complexion into that deathly virulent shade of ivory.

  Then, with the last of her strength, Eve pulled herself over Patrick’s husk and sank the talon-tipped fingers of her other hand into the alien’s core tentacle as it was only inches away from Laura’s mouth.

  The last of the terrible species turned white and writhed in her grip—

  —then the ghastly duo imploded and was no more.

  For a moment, Press was too shocked to move, then sensibility returned and he raced over to Laura. But when he got to her he couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe that she wasn’t moving.

  Or breathing.

  “Please, Laura,” he begged. “Damn it, you come back to me.” Press slipped a hand beneath her neck and lifted her head, some long-ago CPR training kicking in when all he really wanted to do was scream. Bending over her, he closed her nostrils and covered her mouth with his, tasting the nauseating alien slime from her bite on Patrick’s arm, but feeling, underneath that, the soft lips that he’d kissed many times too long ago. He inhaled through his nose, then exhaled into her mouth, then did it again, watching her chest rise with the pressure of the air he was forcing into her lungs while his mind tried to remember the right ratio of breaths to chest compressions. Should he start chest compressions now, or breathe for her again? Everything was all muddled up and he couldn’t find the figures past a year and more worth of memories he’d forced to the background when they’d parted—

  Laura and him laughing over dinner and wine in a hundred restaurants—

  Laura smearing sunblock on her delicate, peach-colored skin during a trip to the Galapagos as Press admired her figure in a sleek, metallic-green bathing suit—

  Laura at his townhouse with him, her body entwined with his and moving like silk beneath the comforter on his bed—

  —then he felt the pressure of his lips being returned and realized she was kissing him as she swung her arms up and around his neck. She murmured something against his mouth, but Press wasn’t sure he heard it right. Surely she couldn’t have said . . .

  “Magically delicious.”

  “Okay, Dennis,” Laura said. “That’ll hold you until we can get you to a hospital.” She pulled back and inspected the makeshift tourniquet she’d fastened around the astronaut’s thigh. “Does it feel okay?”

  “Oh, sure,” Dennis
answered through gritted teeth. “Just like a big slab of sliced steak.”

  “Come on, buddy.” Press bent and hooked an arm under Dennis’s shoulder. “Up you go—get your weight on that other leg. That’s good, just like that.” He lifted the other man with a grunt and they both wobbled for a moment, then caught their balance; he was bone-weary and he ached in a dozen places he hadn’t known he had. He knew Laura did, too, and Dennis . . . well, he didn’t want to think about how Dennis’s leg must feel right now. “We’ve got all our stuff and we’re finally done here.”

  “Let’s go,” Laura said, leading the way to the stairs and holding on to Dennis’s other side as they made their way down to the third floor. “Jesus, I’m so tired. I can’t wait to get out of here—”

  “Hold it right there.”

  Laura gasped and jerked too hard, making Dennis hiss with pain as the trio halted. Across the room and coming closer was Colonel Carter Burgess. Clutched in one of his hands was a pistol, complete with a deadly efficient laser scope. The laser’s red dot had already found and settled on Press.

  Press let go of Dennis and steered the injured man’s arm to the railing so he could hold on, then stepped in from of his two companions. “Well, well,” he said sardonically. “Carter Burgess. They sent you for cleanup, huh?”

  “Sorry, Press.”

  Of course the older man didn’t look sorry at all as he moved closer. “Why, you rat-faced son of a bitch,” Dennis said in awe. “You—”

  “Take it easy, Dennis. Our friend here is just following orders. After all, we’ve got a dead hero on our hands. They can cook up some kind of story to blame it on us and get everything tied up in a neat little bundle to hand to the upper muckity-mucks.” Press raised an eyebrow. “I’m assuming it’s not just me, unless you grew a sudden streak of compassion.”