Sinister Shadows

by Simon Smith-Wilson

  ‘You have done well,’ whispered Blue Eyes.

  The alien hounds galloped into the camp in their hundreds.

  Christie was smashed hard onto the floor.

  Not a single scream left her mouth, as two of the alien hounds ripped her limbs from her body. A single bite from these creatures was like being bitten by a great white shark. Her mind didn’t ever register the pain. It was as if she was in the middle of a drug induced trip. Blue Eyes magical charm had completely and utterly engulfed her. Another creature joined in the fight for fresh meat. Its teeth cut through the metal of her space suit helmet, cut through her face just beneath her nose and ripped off the top of her head. Blue Eyes faded from sight.

  ***

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Annie, as Noah pulled out of her and rushed across the living room. The handsome young man was now wearing a mask of concentration. Sad eyes looked out through the porthole at the compound outside. ‘What’s happening?’ She could tell from the look on his face that whatever was happening was not good news.

  ‘Do you trust me?’ he asked her, without looking back.

  She had only just met him, but something did down within her soul did trust him.

  It was like intuition.

  She knew Noah was a good person.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I need you to do what I say, without question. We don’t have long.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, picking up her panties off the floor.

  ‘You need to get changed and suit up.’

  ‘Are we going outside?’ she asked. A heavy thud crashed against the exterior wall of her living hut. ‘What was that?’ More thuds began to crash against every side of the small quarters. Part of the wall bent inwards. It was if someone had just crashed a car into the wall. Annie could feel her heart in her throat. She didn’t know what was happening, or why it was happening. Noah took her hand in his and pulled her towards the glass cabinet where her space suit was placed.

  ‘Suit up, Annie. If you do as I say I can save your life.’

  ***

  Susie backed up, as more of the beast threw themselves against the airlock doors. Phil changed radio frequency and spoke into the microphone. ‘Sergeant Roland, please come in.’ He paused for a moment, hoping this time the space marine would get it touch. ‘Shit.’ He threw the microphone onto the floor.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  Phil didn’t know.

  How had this happened?

  Who has taken down the electric perimeter fence and let those animals in?

  His eyes drifted to the surveillance footage. The camp had been overrun by the alien hounds. They had already infiltrated half of the buildings. Phil could see the monsters mauling civilians to death with deadly speed and incredible power. A silver claw suddenly cut through the airlock door. It was like someone had literally pushed a knife through a bed sheet. The claw cut through the metal as if it wasn’t there. Alarms began to sound, as air hissed out of the tear in the building. Phil hugged Susie tight to him. The young girl buried her head into his chest and closed her eyes tight. Phil searched the room for something to help them, but there was only one way into and out of the command room. There were no weapons. There was nowhere to hide. There was nothing.

  Claws cut through the airlock doors, as thick skulls bent the doors inwards.

  ‘I’m scared, Phil. I don’t want to die. I just want to go home.’

  ‘I know, Susie. Close your eyes.’

  One of the doors came crashing down onto the floor, and the alien hounds came charging in. The beasts came swarming forward for the kill. It only took them a single second to cross the room, but it felt like a lifetime. Phil pulled Susie in tight to him and closed his eyes. If there was a God in this world, then this moment will end quickly for the both of them. Unfortunately, God was not smiling on Phil today.

  ***

  Annie lowered the third oxygen tank into the opening of her kitchen floor. Noah was stood in the archway, facing the airlock. The beasts were beginning to cut through the thick metal doors with ease. Annie was dressed in her dark blue space suit. A backpack full of supplies, water and food, was stuffed into the tight storage area in the floor. Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of the haunting growls of the wild alien dogs. One of them was practically through the airlock. Annie dropped herself down into the hole and began to pull the metal floor panel into place.

  ‘You have to hurry,’ said Noah, his eyes were fixed on the airlock.

  Annie couldn’t see what he was seeing, but from the look on his face, she knew it wasn’t good.

  ‘Come on,’ she growled through clenched teeth, as she pulled the panel.

  Heavy footsteps began to thud through the house, as the beasts spread out into the rooms. Annie dropped down onto her arse in the storage hold, as the metal floorboard fell into place. She quickly flicked off the lights of her space suit, disappearing into the darkness. Wide eyes looked up at the large paws walking over the storage hold. Heavy breathing reached her ears, as two of the creatures sniffed at the air. One of them sent a warning bite at the other, who instantly backed away. Annie knew which one was the alpha leader. She released a breath she hadn’t realised she had been holding, as both animals rushed out of the kitchen. Noah was nowhere to be seen.

  ***

  ‘You have to go faster,’ yelled Richard, as he smashed the hammer against the dogs face. The beast was climbing through the back hatch of the three-man transport truck. Its claws had made short work of the bodywork of the vehicle. The blow of the hammer was hard enough to kill even the toughest of men, but the beast didn’t even seem fazed. The truck bounced and shook, as they sped out onto the rough alien terrain.

  ‘There are too many of them,’ cried Iris, from the front passenger seat.

  ‘Hold on,’ roared Hugo, as he swung the truck left and right. They passed through a maze of free-standing rocks that made up this hostile landscape. Headlights illuminated more of the alien hounds galloping through the barren land towards them.

  ‘Help me!’

  Iris looked back at Richard, as he was dragged out the back of the truck.

  ‘Hugo, they got...’ Iris never got to finish.

  One of the hounds charged head first into the engine of the truck. Hugo was propelled through the windscreen, as the back of the truck flipped up into the air. The last thing Iris saw was the dashboard of the cab smashing the visor of her spacesuit and then breaking her nose. The edges of her world blurred into darkness, as the truck landed upside down. She gasped for air that wasn’t there. Horrifying howls echoed into the night sky, as the alien beasts closed in on the truck.

  ***

  Sergeant Roland, Omar, April and Corporal Jones stood around a monitor in the command room of the downed spacecraft. Thankfully the sensors were still operational, and with a little bit of time, they might be able to get a lot of the ship's systems back online. Captain Abbott had followed procedures and launched two dozen probes before the crash, which meant that they were able to pinpoint the location of every single person on the planet. It was part of the standard procedure that every person on board ship was given an identification chip in the back of their hand. Once they had arrived at Remus, the chip would be been altered to say they were then a resident of that planet, but right now all the identification chips were linked to the ship’s manifest. The drones were still mapping out the planetary landscape, but a basic map had been constructed. On the map were ninety-nine flashing red dots, which was the location of every single survivor.

  ‘There are only ninety-nine people on the planet,’ said April.

  ‘The ship’s log showed that someone opened the airlock before the crash,’ countered Jones.

  ‘You think someone was inside it?’ questioned Omar.

  ‘It makes sense,’ replied Sergeant Roland. ‘We now have ninety-nine people on the planet.’

  ‘I found two bodies in the corridor.’

  ‘We will deactivate their codes,’
explained Sergeant Roland. ‘This will allow us to monitor the living from the dead.’

  ‘At least we now know where the five sleeping chambers landed,’ said Jones.

  On the map of the planet were five different groups of people. There was the camp the four marines had come from. They were still totally unaware of the brutal massacre that had just taken place. The furthest group of tags were about a hundred miles away. The next group was about seventy miles away, but more to the North. One group was thirty miles away, near the coastline. Another group was only thirteen miles away, but the red dots were split into two groups. One group of twelve were two miles away from the other group of eight. The fifth group was from their own camp, five miles away. At least now they could start to discover what happened to the ship and how they ended up on this planet.

  ‘Help me...’ whispered a voice in Omar’s ear.

  He spun around, ‘who said that?’

  ‘Who said what?’ asked April.

  The other three were giving him a puzzled look.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, giving his head a shake.

  ***

  Annie dragged one of the oxygen tanks out of her broken airlock and carefully loaded it into the back of the truck. She kept her eyes fixed on the task at end, trying not to look at the shredded remains of her camp mates. The alien hounds had long since gone. The raid had lasted no longer than a handful of minutes. That was all it took for them to kill every last man, woman and child in the base. Noah was stood by the front door of her metal crate of a house. He wore no spacesuit, yet he was able to breathe in the air.

  ‘What are you?’ she asked him.

  ‘I am a friend,’ replied Noah.

  ‘You didn’t crash on this planet with us, did you?’

  ‘No.’

  Annie headed back inside the grab the rest of her stuff.

  ‘Were you already here?’

  ‘I have been here for a very long time,’ admitted Noah.

  ‘Are you an alien?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ he admitted.

  ‘Are you even human, or do you look like this for my benefit?’

  ‘I have been to Earth,’ explained Noah. ‘You see what you want to see, but I have no body.’

  ‘So what do you look like?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied with a shrug of his shoulders. Annie headed into the kitchen, grabbed her bag of supplies and sleeping bag. Noah was walking beside her the whole time. ‘You can trust me, Annie. I promise you I will take care of you.’

  ‘I do trust you,’ she replied, ‘if it wasn’t for you then I would be dead already.’

  ‘Good. We have a bit of a long drive, but I want you to come to my home.’

  ‘Will I be safe there?’

  ‘It is the safest place in the whole universe,’ he assured her.

  ‘Okay. I will come with you, Noah.’

  Chapter Three: Foreign Land

  Captain Abbott paced back and forth in front of the desk, shaking her head in dismay. Why wasn’t she listening to a word that she was saying? Victoria was sat in the chair on the other side of the desk with an expression of total dismissal. Victoria was an older woman, perhaps in her late fifties, but clearly took care of herself because of her slim figure.

  ‘You have to stop the dig,’ explained Captain Abbott.

  ‘The dig is not stopping. Don’t you realise what we have discovered on this planet?’

  ‘It is dangerous.’

  ‘How do you know this? What evidence do you have to support this?’

  ‘I have it on good authority.’ She couldn’t possibly mention the man with the long white hair and black makeup that had guided her to this planet. Victoria would think she was mad. It was time to pull the rank card. The white haired man had said that the dig was going to open something that could never be closed again. He had stressed that the dig is stopped without question, but how could she do that if they wouldn’t listen to her? ‘I am the Captain of this mission.’

  ‘You were the Captain, Jennifer,’ corrected Victoria.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but Victoria spoke over her.

  ‘It was your ship, but we injected one hundred million credits into this expedition. This isn’t Remus, but it is a destination. Your ship is destroyed. You are no longer in charge. My husband and I are now in charge, and if you want to stay in camp, I suggest you stop causing trouble with all this nonsense about the dig being dangerous. It is unsettling the others. Please, just go back to your quarters and rest up. You still need to recover from the crash.’

  Captain Abbott said nothing.

  It was true her body hurt from head to toe.

  It looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to her body.

  She was black and blue.

  She was surprised that she had managed to survive the crash and find her way here.

  ‘Go to your quarters, Captain. It is not a request,’ commanded Victoria.

  ***

  Kimberly wore nothing more than her white panties and a sleeveless vest. She was curled up in the corner of her couch, watching a movie on the television. Five Days Notice was one from her own personal collection and it was a romantic suspense film about a group of people in a dystopian world trying to survive. The two main characters were separated in age by two decades but fell in love in this harsh world. Secretly, she wished something like that would happen to her. Graham was a good man, and she did love him, but life was boring. She had agreed to go to Remus with him because of the money, but now she was stuck on this world. Unlike the others, Kimberly was a stay at home mum. What were the next two years of her life going to be like? She had nothing that she could contribute to this community. Was she going to be stuck raising her child and doing nothing more? She wished something exciting would happen in her life.

  It was at this moment something metal clanged in the hallway.

  ‘Christopher?’ she called out her son’s name. ‘Is that you?’

  It couldn’t be Graham. He was scheduled to be at the dig site all night.

  She climbed off the couch and headed into the corridor.

  Her heart instantly sank down into the pit of her stomach.

  Dusty footprints led from the airlock, down the hallway and into Christopher’s bedroom.

  The footprints were that of a grown man’s boot.

  ‘Christopher!’ She headed for her son’s bedroom.

  ***

  Sergeant Roland and April stood in the centre of the crashed spaceships command room. The repair bots had been located and activated. They had repaired the hull to this section of the ship in quick time. It meant that as long as the airlocks remained closed, there was breathable atmosphere in the command room. They both stood without their helmets reviewing the monitor. A deep scar was etched across Sergeant Roland’s brow, face and lip. It had been forty-eight hours since they arrived at the crash site and since then they had been monitoring the various groups across the planet.

  ‘Why are they not moving?’ asked Sergeant Roland.

  ‘I have no idea,’ replied the bald headed female.

  One of the groups nearest to them was split into two groups only a few miles away from each other. Eight of the group moved around a small area. They could see the red dots moving, as the people moved, but the other group of twelve and been motionless for hours. Sergeant Roland assumed they must be dead. The aerial images allowed them to zoom into about fifty foot above the red dots. Twelve of them appeared to be within a canyon of some kind, whilst the other eight were concealed within a network of underground caves. Roland typed on the computer console, and the map scrolled to the camp they had left behind. Everyone within the camp was stationary. No one had moved at all.

  ‘Why are they not moving?’ he asked again as if the world would give him an answer.

  ‘What about this one?’ April asked. The map zoomed out to several hundred feet above the surface.

  A single red dot from the camp was travelling north, alon
e.

  ‘I don’t know what is going on,’ he replied, ‘I will send Omar and Jones to check it out.’

  Neither of them wanted to say it, but they both knew the truth. If no one in the camp was moving then it was very likely that every single one of them was dead, but who would have killed them and why?

  ***

  The cab bounced over the rough terrain, as Annie continued her journey into the unknown North. Noah was sat beside her the whole time. They hadn’t said much since they left. Annie drove when he told her to drive, parked where he told her to park and slept when he told her to sleep. Something deep down within the core of her heart knew that Noah was a good man. She knew he was trying to help her, but the shock of the situation was overwhelming. She had crashed on an alien world, stayed in a camp where she knew no one, and then listened to every single person get murdered whilst she hid in a hole, and now she was travelling across an alien world with a man that could only be described as a ghost.

  ‘The tower is only a few miles away,’ said Noah.

  ‘I will be safe there?’

  ‘Yes. You will be safe. I promise you.’

  ‘You’re not going to hurt me, are you, Noah?’

  Noah looked hurt, but his features softened into a smile.

  ‘I will never hurt you, Annie. I really care about you. I think we will be great together.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  She didn’t know why, but she really did believe him.

  ‘Good. It won’t be long now. We are nearly there.’

  ***

  Captain Abbott stepped through the airlock into her private quarters and removed her helmet. The man with the long white hair and black gothic makeup was leaning against the hallway wall. His muscular arms were folded across his chest, as he waited for the report.

  ‘They won’t listen to me,’ said Jennifer.