by Damian Foyle
scene. Children-size claws held on the asphalt and carved three deep lines as it dragged itself out of the water. Between the claws were webbed, a hint to the creature's amphibian nature.
The same paw reached out and pulled again, and then the second one landed on the ground. Before it landed, I had a good look at the bottom. It looked eerily like an octopus's mouth, beak or whatever it was. Teeth lined the hole in the middle of the paw. Something flicked in and out as the mouth contracted.
A behemoth was slowly surfacing. My little crack wasn't enough to see the whole creature. What I assumed was a head, surfaced when it had enough traction to pull its weight to the ground. It had no eyes I could see and revealed a mouth full of teeth like a plankton eating whale.
Its chest rose as it drew a huge chunk of air and it made an unbearable sound. I had to cover my ears and move away from the crack. Maybe the teeth swayed and rustled like a small forest of reeds. Maybe they all shook and waggled like the saw the idiot on the Taksim square used as a musical instrument. I didn't know. All I knew was that it was probably giving me an aneurysm.
The creature had moved the rest of its body out of the water when I had the strength to look back again. It started with a lazy stroll and sway. The house made unnerving sounds around me. I was sure the next few steps would drop it on my head.
I staggered to the door and dared a peek. Hell, I was going to be incinerated in a minute anyway. The creature had gills running on the bottom of its body. After another deep draw of breath, the gills opened as the creature exhausted the air.
It wasn't just air being exhausted though. Things fell to the ground. Some of them were simply crashed when it stepped on them. It left a mess behind like a slug. I couldn't see clearly, but I could swear some of those drops moved, some towards the sea and others lost among the building surrounding the place. Only after one dropped on a car nearby I could figure out their size.
"Shit!" I shouted. "Can you hear me?"
There was a faint reply I couldn't properly hear. I had to assume that was a yes.
"This thing is dropping creatures all over the place. Worst case scenario; they are its off-springs. And a few already dived into the water. It's going to be a hell to contain this shit."
There was no answer.
"I feel almost lucky I won't be around," I said to no one in particular.
Suddenly that feeling was back again. I could feel another shift coming and it was close. It would open right in the middle of the house I was hiding in. I turned and watched the room. If I could squeeze my eyes and try really hard, I could see a subtle shimmering inside the room. And the dust and dirt moved slowly, revolving around the spot like dervishes.
I checked my gun. I had still a few rounds left. If it opened before the jets dropped the load, I could at least try to plug it as long as I could. The eerie feeling increased and the dirt started moving erratically. There was a slight draft building up. It was coming.
I stood, the gun feeling heavy in my hands. The ground shook. The sound of jets scrambling overhead was almost lost behind the shrill shout of the creature shaking the ground outside.
I took a nervous look back and saw it too late. One of those off-springs stood in the doorway. Its head was slightly turned sideways and the tentacles going down from his hand twitching slightly like an insight into the creature's caution. It went dead still for a moment and was airborne before I could even react.
"What a way to go." I had time to speak.
It landed on me and claws dug into my body. The tentacles wrapped around my right arm. My hand and the gun were stuck between our bodies. I couldn't do anything but pulling the trigger and hoping that I wouldn't shot myself. I squeezed the trigger three times.
The creature's momentum made me stumble backwards. And suddenly the world was dark and the room was gone.
Day 2
It was dark and I hurt all over. I tried to move, but something kept me down. I breathed heavily; a different kind of darkness was falling on my eyes. My vision narrowed slowly. I was trapped under the rubble, I panicked. Now that I survived, I was scared shitless. I tried to get up again, trying to push at something.
"Stay still, you ox," I heard someone. "Yes, more like it. We got you restrained. Don't worry. There is a perfect reason for that."
He stood next to me with a massive blade in his hands. Another stood behind me, pressing on my shoulders. And the last was unceremoniously sitting over my legs, seemingly not interested in what was going on.
"You see," the man with the knife said and tapped my arm with the spine of the knife. "I'm afraid we'll have to cut this off."
"What?"
I couldn't see my flesh with all the blood, dirt and that- that thing wrapping around it. Don't they know anything about first aid? I wondered.
It was riddled with teeth, sinking into my arm.
I could get infection here.
"I have to go back," I said. "The air strike."
It moved and twitched. Its hold turned into a crushing squeeze, driving the teeth deeper.
I had to go. I tried to get up.
There was a sucking sound.
"Let me go," I shouted. I tried to break free.
It- it was sucking me dry.
"Oh god. Get it off of me. Get it off, please."
The world became pitch black again.
Day 4
I was afraid to open my eyes. I made my right hand into a fist again and again. I was afraid it was just a very sophisticated case of phantom limb. And I was even more afraid it was not and I still had that god-awful thing sucking me up dry.
I finally opened up my eyes and found myself staring into an eyeless face. It was dark and smooth without a single feature on it. The head slowly moved and swayed like a snake. An opening showed on its seamless skin and turned into a gaping mouth. I had the front seat to the teeth lining inside its mouth all the way to the back of its throat.
It jumped to its feet, webbed claws digging at my skin through the clothes. Eyes popped up in the skin just as fast as the mouth appeared.
I let out a scream, shooting up from my uncomfortable bed. It landed on its feet and made a low growling sound. I grabbed the nearest rock, planning to crush it to death.
"Somebody stop him before he kills Teddy," the man entering the cave said.
"Oi! Relax. It's not going to hurt you."
It came towards me. I took a few steps back.
"I think Teddy likes you," the first one said. He carried a make-shift spear, and the big knife hung on his belt.
"I think it likes that," another said pointing at me.
My arm was swollen and bumpy, red scars showing on the already healing flesh. The tentacles hung loose down to the floor. Teddy bumped them gently with its nose. I felt its touch. The surprise made me nervous. The tentacles snapped back and wrapped around my arm. They started at my wrist, infused so well that they looked like they grew out of my flesh. Wrapped around me like ivy climbing a column, the tips reached almost up to my shoulder. The teeth, now retracted into what seemed like suckers you would see on an octopus barely touched my skin.
Something screamed inside me. I should have been panicking. But I couldn't take my eyes off of them. I tried to relax. They fell limp and Teddy was back to circling me.
"Fuck!"
"Well, I guess we don't need to do much explaining to him regarding why we left it on."
"We had no choice. We either left these things on you, or killed you trying to pry them off. Whenever we touched them you went nuts."
I barely heard them talking. There was something buried under my skin. It started thick as a thumb, moving up my forearm, around my elbow and then again inside my biceps and became just another bulging vein before disappearing into my body right under my armpit. I didn't want to speculate where it was heading… my spine? My heart?
I traced it down my arm until I reach my wrist where it broke through the skin and attached to the rest of the tentacles. The flaccid
arms retracted once again when I touched the spot.
"Fuck."
I sighed and sat down on the make-shift bed. Teddy came immediately, pushed his face against my right arm like a puppy and sat down. The tentacles were inert to his touch this time.
"Does anyone care to explain to me what the hell is going on? Because I'm this close to losing it… again." I said.
"You want the short version?"
"That would be nice."
"Well, you're fucked."
"That's it?"
"Yup."
"Okay, a bit more detail please."
"All right. Let's start with the introductions then. This fellow over there is Murat. That one over the fire, cooking god knows what is Alistair and my name is Brandon. You're looking at the only survivors of the one and only Alpha team."
"I thought you were a myth. They all kept saying these things worked only one w- oh shit. I'm on the other side, aren't I?"
"I'm afraid so," Brandon said.
"Well, not exactly the other side though." Alistair offered me food with a smile. It was meat, and tasted like nothing else I had before.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you think the UN simply gave up on sending people? Why did they try to hide the fact that the doors weren't one way?"
I shrugged.
"It's simply because they aren't stable. There were theories hinting to this fact even in the early days. We looked at the things coming through the shifts and it didn't make any sense. Sure, they were alien and defied our ways of classifying things. But why is it that some of them simply died after taking their first step into our world while others simply weren't