Anti Life

by Allen Kuzara

  “Take a good look,” she said. “This is what you wanted the whole time, wasn’t it? You’re such a pathetic excuse for a man.”

  She charged him, ramming him into a support pole. She stepped back as if admiring her work.

  He stumbled forward, wincing from pain. She came towards him again. This time he tried to run, but his legs didn’t cooperate. He limped toward the fish tanks, knocking over boxes as he went.

  “You don’t have time to feed the fish,” she said.

  He tried to navigate the tanks. But he had built up speed, and his feet slipped on the ice. He fell onto a frozen fish tank. Like a turtle on its back, he struggled to turn over, to right himself. He was too slow.

  Grabbing him with both hands, York lifted his squirming body above her head. “My only regret is not having time to savor killing you,” she said as she threw him against the wall.

  He landed on bags of fish feed, softening the blow. His body and mind were numb from adrenaline. If there was a thought left in David Parker’s head, it was no longer How? or Why?. It was Run.

  Parker got to his feet and slung a forty-pound bag of feed at York.

  She laughed sardonically. “Is that the best you can do? You throw like a girl.”

  With what strength remained, he tried again. This bag banged through some of the grow beds above the fish tanks, getting nowhere close to York. Fearlessly, she walked towards her prey.

  He grabbed one more bag, knowing it was his last chance. He shoved the bag forward. It arched slightly and landed in York’s waiting arms. It was an easy catch. But her bare feet slid on the ice, and she fell onto her back.

  Effortlessly, she flung the bag off her chest and released an intonation that was more roar than scream.

  This was Parker’s chance. As he dashed for the door something hit him; first on the shoulder, and then on the back of his head. Is she throwing things at me? he thought.

  He ran harder. Objects continued impacting him until, finally, something stuck to the front of his helmet. He slowed, trying to the pull it off. He discovered his unlikely assailant: tilapia.

  Fish continued jumping out of tanks, trying to attach their mouths to his space suit.

  He flailed wildly, knocking lose as many fish as he could. Keep running, he thought. He heard York’s steps behind him. He didn’t look back, knowing this was it.

  Miraculously, he navigated the mud room bend without falling. In the main corridor, he came to an instant stop as he regained normal traction.

  He grabbed the massive door by the wheel lock. York’s footsteps grew louder. She screamed, “You’re dead!”

  He slammed the door with all his might. It got within inches of closing before it hit Terra York’s body.

  Clang!

  The inertia of the half-ton door won out against York’s dead run. The door jolted back hitting Parker’s helmet. His vision blacked-out, but he was conscious. He flung his weight against the door. It clasped shut. He violently spun the wheel, locking York inside.

  His whole body drooped as he exhaled loudly. He slumped against the opposing wall. His vision started to return, but he had a hard time focusing his eyes. He squinted at the door, partly afraid, partly relieved.

  An alarm sounded in his headset. He didn’t have to look at his wrist console to know what it meant; his suit was losing pressure. Now that his eyes worked better, he knew why. His helmet was cracked.

  “No, no, no, no,” he said.

  He grasped the consequences immediately. Whatever contagion York was exposed to—he would be too after he lost internal pressure. He would have no choice but to breath air through his cracked helmet or take it off.

  He wondered if he would become like her. What would cause such a reaction? Why was the ventilation screwed up in the first place? If it came from the probe or the object, how did she get exposed?

  Too many questions and no real answers.

  Clang!

  His teeth rattled as the sound echoed inside his helmet.

  Clang! Clang!

  The sound was steady as York tried to beat her way through the door.

  It was hopeless now. He saw no way out. He knew he would be infected, if he wasn’t already. There was no way to save himself or the others onboard.

  Clang!

  Then something clicked inside. What about the Constance? he thought. He didn’t feel brave or courageous—he was still terrified—but the same impulse that made him a great architect now helped him detach from his emotions. He was compelled to solve a problem. He needed a way to save the ship.

  Clang!

  Chapter 20

  It had been over twelve minutes since Alvarez entered the tunnel. He knelt down in front of the source.

  “What are you doing?” Weston said as he white-knuckled his weapon.

  “I’m doing what we came here to do,” Alvarez said. “Turning off the plasma blast.”

  “How do you know how to use those symbols? I thought only Dr. Brennen…”

  “I’m not going to use the symbols,” Alvarez said. He reached into his pack and pulled out a small canister the size of a coffee can. Alvarez placed the canister at the base of the energy source. He flipped switches, punched his Colonel’s key-code, and entered 30.00.

  “You’re going to blow it up?”

  “Whatever we just heard didn’t sound friendly,” Alvarez said. “We’re setting this detonator, getting our men, and getting off this rock before it blows.”

  Alvarez punched the large button, and the countdown began. He synchronized his wrist console. Then he turned to Weston. “Turn your infrared viewer on.”

  Weston used his thumb to throw a switch on his rifle. It was both a safety and the on button for the viewer.

  “You’re hot now,” Alvarez said.

  “Shouldn’t we leave the safety on…until we need it,” Weston said.

  “It’s more dangerous on than off, now.”

  Alvarez figured Sarge and Jitters would turn on their infrared viewers too. A viewer was small, barely visible until you aimed the weapon. Then it illuminated the room, via heat signatures. Additionally, its auto-aiming system detected the intended target, theoretically ensuring a bullseye. It could be disengaged, of course. Certain situations called for greater prejudice than just hitting the closest warm body.

  The two men ran down the eastern tunnel. Soon the glow from the source was gone. Alvarez’s eyes hurt from the contrast between the ambient darkness and his intense infrared viewer.

  Alvarez examined their map. Based on the tracker beacons, they were close. His timer said twenty-eight minutes. There had been no new sounds and no comm contact for the last minute and a half. Alvarez saw lights ahead.

  “Be ready, but don’t shoot any of ours,” Alvarez told Weston. They slowed their approach.

  “Sarge is that you?” Alvarez said.

  “Don’t shoot,” said Sarge. Sarge and Jitters were scanning the room with their lights.

  Alvarez and Weston entered the new room, another cavern but smaller than the one they had left. There was no visible energy source. That’s good, Alvarez thought. He only brought one detonator.

  “We didn’t make it in time,” Sarge said.

  “What do you mean?” Alvarez said.

  Sarge pointed his light to the corner. What Alvarez saw didn’t make sense. Arms, legs, and guts were all over the floor, and blood was smeared against the walls.

  “They had their backs against the wall, and this still happened,” Alvarez said.

  “We can identify the two grunts. The first one’s here.” Sarge pointed to a helmet with a still recognizable face.

  “And here’s the other,” Jitters said pointing to a helmet with shattered glass that was impossible to see through.

  “The tracker beacon indicates these were the two grunts,” Sarge said.

  “What about Dr. Brennen?”

  “We’ve got his beacon…” Sarge pointed to another helmet on the ground. “But we can’t find his body.�
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  “Even if he’s alive, he couldn’t last long in this atmosphere without a helmet.” Alvarez tried the comm. “Brennen, can you hear me? Brennen, do you copy?” There was no answer.

  “If he is alive,” Alvarez said, “he’ll go back to the shuttle which is…” He looked at his wrist console. “…that way. North on the same trail he came in on.”

  “He can’t get back to the surface without a pressurized suit,” Sarge said. They were silent, the somber reality setting in. There weren’t any spare suits on the shuttle, and Brennen couldn’t last long without his helmet anyway. He’s probably gone, Alvarez thought.

  “What about these remains?” Jitters said.

  “There’s not enough time. I set this thing to blow, and we’ve got…” He looked, “…less than twenty-five minutes before we’re space debris.”

  Weston and Jitters aimlessly shined their lights around the room. Then Sarge tilted his head their way and whispered, “We better get them out of here.”

  The eastern wall of the room had the familiar glyphs. Alvarez still couldn’t figure out what they were for. The panel on the surface seemed to be a key lock or control panel for the entrance, he thought. But what were all these doing down here in what had only been straight tunnels leading to open rooms.

  Alvarez felt the ground vibrate, then the eastern wall shook. “Everybody stay sharp,” Alvarez commanded.

  An opening appeared the same size as the entrance from the surface. They all shined their lights, but nothing penetrated the darkness.

  “Sir, nothing’s on our viewer,” Weston said.

  Alvarez took his eye off the wall and glanced through his viewer. It was cold, blackness. Nothing.

  He looked up, glimpsing something. “Something moved,” he said.

  He looked down, but nothing appeared on his viewer. He toggled the resolution, trying to bring out the contrast without success.

  He squinted at the opening. A shape expanded with a rough, jagged motion. Then contracted smoothly. Alvarez heard a loud, chattering sound that accompanied the contractions. The sound stopped, and the shape disappeared from view. The men stood motionless as if hiding in plain sight.

  A creature, a hominoid beast, stepped through the opening and roared the same scream Alvarez had heard over the comm. It had gorilla-sized arms and legs, and towered at over ten-feet tall, but it was no ape. It looked like no natural or genetically designed creature Alvarez had ever witnessed. Its skin—if that’s what it was—was a dull gray, and its face only slightly resembled a human’s: no hair, eyebrows, or ears. Just a glaring set of recessed eyes, that reflected red when lights were shined on them. Its flap-for-mouth stitched up the middle of its face, like hands clasped together. The orifice opened sideways as the creature screamed, flaps stretched and quivering. Each climax revealed a series of narrowing ribbed hoops—its version of an esophagus.

  “Defensive positions—get back!” Alvarez said.

  The men fell into formation. The creature screamed again and came towards them.

  “Open fire!” Alvarez yelled as he aimed his energy weapon. His first shot missed entirely. He looked through his viewer. The creature still didn’t appear on-screen.

  He yelled, “Disengage thermal!”

  With a flip of a switch, it was off. He aimed again—this time by visual—and blasted the beast. It stopped in its tracks, but it didn’t go down. It wasn’t even phased. It stood there taking the continuous current. The blast enveloped the beast, wrapping it like a blanket.

  “We’ve got two more from the south tunnel,” Sarge shouted.

  Alvarez and Weston continued to fire on the first creature while Sarge and Jitters turned to face the new threats.

  Sarge’s shotgun blast was deafening. The sound maxed out Alvarez’s headset. The receiver attempted to compress the sound, but it just distorted into a high-pitched squelch. The energy weapons seemed to have little effect, but Sarge’s shotgun took off chunks of flesh, piece by piece.

  The first creature, as if its batteries were recharged, resumed its attack. The blasts didn’t slow it down. The thing swatted Alvarez with its over-sized arm, knocking him into the far corner where the dead bodies were.

  Then it turned and dismembered Weston. Alvarez, nearly unconscious, lifted his head. He didn’t know what world he was in. It was a dream, a bad dream.

  He saw the first creature on top of Weston’s body, crouched over it doing who-knows-what. Further away he saw Sarge fire shot after shot until one creature finally fell. Jitters continued firing his energy weapon at the third creature to no effect. The blast surrounded the creature just as it had with the first monster.

  They weren’t withstanding the blast, he realized. They were absorbing it. The energy made them stronger. He wanted to yell, to warn Jitters, to make him stop. But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t feel. Panic, the same emotion driving him to get up and fight, paralyzed him.

  Jitters maintained his blastfire on the creature as Sarge reloaded his shotgun. The creature swept forward, grabbed Jitters’s rifle, and hit him across the face with it. His helmet ruptured. He stumbled backwards. Bent over, Jitters placed both hands over his helmet to stop the leaks. Alvarez heard Jitters over his headset. “C-c-colonel! Colonel!” Alvarez tried to speak. His mouth jawed open, but no words came out. He was frozen.

  The beast bludgeoned Jitters with the rifle, then pinned his head against the ground with his foot. Alvarez heard Jitters scream until the pressure from the creature’s foot crushed his skull.

  Sarge, finished reloading, turned to exact retribution. He fired three times at point-blank range. The creature dropped in seconds. Horrified, Alvarez watched the first creature, now done with Weston, bolt towards Sarge who had his back turned.

  Sarge must have heard the creature’s footsteps. He turned to fire. The creature’s long arm reached forward, blocking the shotgun. Sarge fired into the ceiling before the creature knocked the gun out of his hands. He started to lunge for his weapon, but the beast charged head-first into Sarge, ramming him against the far wall.

  Before Sarge could even lift his head, the creature was on top of him. It pinned him—one foot on his legs and the other on his shoulder. Sarge screamed in agony and began punching the creature’s legs with his one free arm.

  The beast took its time. It repositioned its feet, crushing new parts of Sarge’s body. With unmistakable intent, the creature pounced and crushed his hips and thigh bones. Sarge’s cry changed. It no longer sounded like the man Alvarez knew.

  Alvarez had to do something. He looked to his right. On the ground beside him was blood and body parts. A shattered helmet was at arms-length. On it was a long shard of glass. He knew he couldn’t handle it without ripping his suit.

  He looked left and saw a torn, shredded spacesuit. He grabbed the fabric and wrapped it around one half of the shard.

  It took every ounce of willpower to lift himself. His footing still unsteady, he glared at his target. With speed that surprised Alvarez, he sprinted toward the creature.

  He gripped the shard with both hands raised above his head as his feet left the ground.

  The jagged glass entered the creature’s back between its shoulder blades. The shard remained lodged, but Alvarez fell to the ground. He stumbled to his feet.

  The creature screeched, turned, and swatted him against the wall. The beast performed a horrific dance, trying to pull the blade from its back. Its arms were long but inflexible.

  Alvarez’s body was saturated in pain. One cogent thought remained: the beast was in pain too.

  Alvarez had landed next to Sarge’s shotgun. The creature seemed to realize its mistake. It lunged towards Alvarez.

  Alvarez grabbed the shotgun, turned, and fired.

  He racked the gun. Fired.

  Racked it. Fired.

  Racked it. Fired.

  Racked it. Click. He was out of shells. But by then, it was over. The massive kinetic damage caused by the OO-Buck had nearly taken the head off the b
east. It was slumped over on its belly, not moving. Alvarez saw the shard still residing in its back.

  Alvarez tried to get up. His legs felt like jelly. He was winded, and he tasted metal when he exhaled. Bent at the waist, he limped over to Sarge.

  “Sarge, are you okay?”

  “I’ve been better,” he said wheezing.

  Alvarez shined his light on what was left of Sarge’s body. He appeared fine from the waist up, but his legs were turned in unnatural directions. His space suit was torn around his knees, and he was lying in a puddle of his own blood.

  “Colonel, I’m venting atmosphere. I won’t last much longer, once my oxygen’s gone. Go on and get out of here.”

  “Let me patch you up. We can stop the leak.”

  Sarge raised his voice. “I’ll bleed out before you figure it out.” It was as if Alvarez made him say something he shouldn’t have to. Sarge regained his composure. “Go on. Get out of here.”

  Alvarez looked again, not wanting to give up on him. Blood was pumping out of Sarge’s suit. He must have nicked an artery, he thought.

  “Take that shotgun. It’s the only one that seemed to do any damage. And don’t forget this bandolier.”

  Sarge struggled to remove the band of shells from his upper body. Helping him, Alvarez realized Sarge wasn’t getting out of there. He was in no condition to move, and they were running out of time.

  He looked at his wrist console. Less than eighteen minutes remained before the whole thing blew.

  Sarge took a sudden, deep breath. He held it for a moment and exhaled slowly. He closed his eyes and was gone.

  Alvarez stepped back. He looked at Sarge’s body. Why did it look different than it did a minute ago?

  Shining the light attached to Sarge’s shotgun, he scanned the cavern. He looked past the bodies as if there was something else to see. There was nothing else.

  He had to act. He had to do something. He should have felt guilty for losing his men, especially Jitters. But all he could think was that he was alone.

  He pulled up the map on his wrist console, irrationally hoping to find another ID beacon. He studied each ID. All but his were faded out, the program’s effort to demonstrate last known positions or inactivity. Usually this meant someone had retired their suits without turning off their beacons. Today it marked tombstones.