«Damn sons of bitches!», bursts Stu, while the man dressed in black works fast, trying to completely sever the man's neck.
«These idiots are cutting the throat to a corpse. It must have been a while since the first recording was shot, the light is different and... look well, there is very little blood. If he was alive, with blood pressure and heart beat running with fear, you would see a real fountain and a lake of blood.»
The two men watch the video with the hostage victim starting to shake like having a seizure. Trickles of blood come from the corners of his mouth and from his nostrils, and start to drip...
Upward.
«What the hell...», murmurs Jennings, as something starts to happen and the scene, already too grotesque, begins to turn into a real nightmare.
The man's hand that's holding the knife slows down. The blade sinks in the neck of the dead man, as embroiled in the blood which, as by its own life, starts flowing upward, along the limb of the robber. At first this one gives no sign of being aware of what is happening. Then... as soon as he realizes that something is wrong he tries tugging to pull his hand free, without any result.
The man looks up towards the companion to his right, who is looking at the scene with a weird fac e. Long reddish tendrils, as thin as a finger, sprout from the bald head of the man who survived the plane crash. These stretch quickly, snaking upwards and forming rudimentary thorny limbs.
The robbe r shouts and tries to push away the body of the unfortunate prisoner with his right hand, frantically struggling to ward off the monstrous appendages. These, regardless of his efforts and his shouts, dig deep into his chest, while others manage to reach his neck and pierce his face through the fabric that's wrapping it.
The man on t he left of the screen lets out a scream and then, shouting something in Arabic, he points his assault rifle at his friend, whose head is soon hidden by the mass of tentacles that keep popping up from the skull of what, just a few moments earlier, had the appearance a normal old man. This one is now unrecognizable, his face distorted as if it's melting, while his mouth unnaturally wide open emits a wailing on different tones that reach the marines who stare at the scene on the screen. The eyes of the hostage victim move independently of each other, aiming at the same time at the man at the side of the screen and at the camera up front. The tiny speaker of the tablet emits a hissing sound, like that of a multitude of rattlesnakes.
Chaos breaks loose.
The robber armed with a rifle shoots at the creature. Other voice-overs shout something unintelligible. The blows of multiple rifles echo in the speaker. Suddenly the old man's body stands up and other tentacular appendages protrude from his belly, almost as if his guts had taken an independent life and had turned into a brood of snakes writhing on themselves. With a thud, a mass of bloody flesh is thrown at the man that's firing at the creature with his gun, hitting him on his thigh and firmly sticking on the limb.
The teeming being spits splashes of a whitish liquid that covers the face of the robber with a gelatinous coating. His shouts fade out in a gurgling gasp. His leg is yanked, knocking him down on his side. A burst of shots hits one of the jeeps, destroying the front window and one of the spotlights. The bullets open a row of holes in the side panel, till one of them hits the fuel tank, and the car explodes: the jeep jumps upward, falling back on one side, at the edge of the camera's view.
New tentacles and other splashes of mucilaginous material are thrown swiftly towards the camera from the abomination in the center of the screen. More screams follow. Then the scene tilts. The two marines stare petrified at the third robber dragged by one foot toward the seething mass, from w hich misdeed and deformed limbs emerge, while on the surface dozens of eyes come to life and just as quickly get reab sorbed.
The man shouts and kicks, trying to break free. In the excitement the camera's tripod is pushed aside by a tentacle, and the creature ends up out of range. The cries of despair of other men, accompanied by many guttural sounds, go on for about thirty long seconds.
Long tentacles dart in the air like a whip. The last man, crying desperately, is suddenly silenced.
Finally, the angry barking of the dog turns into yelps of pain.
The footage goes on in an unnatural strange stillness, the soldiers can hear just gurgles and liquid sounds, like wet rags that flap and glide in a hallway.
For never-ending seconds the two marines, soaked in a cold sweat, are unable to look away from the screen of the tablet.
«Jump forward, maybe there's more», exclaims Jennings at one time, with a dry mouth. The other obeys, with a trembling hand. The video starts running thrice as fast.
Then there's a flicker.
«Wait, go back!»
After some second the footage resumes, and the heartbeat of the soldiers freezes as they see the raiders heading silently toward the remaining jeep, strangely unharmed, albeit with tattered clothes.
Thoughts flow quickly and messy in the minds of the two witnesses, while they see a fifth person, accompanied by the dog tha t follows him wagging his tail until the man takes place on the jeep: the old survivor, unscathed and with both legs healthy. The jeep is set in motion, and with a quick maneuver it moves out of sight. The only living being left on the screen is just the dog, who crouches on the ground, motionless, with his eyes set on the c amera, almost as to look at Stu and Jennings through the lens. The footage cuts off after a short while.
«You gotta be fucking kiddin'...» says Stu in a trembling voice. «Please tell me, is this a fucking joke?»
Despite the shock, Jennings' reaction is immediate.
«Stu, take care of the memory card. Upload the video to a safe place and send a backup to the base ASAP. Call Seagull immediately and get him in contact with me. Ralph, where the hell is Black?»
The other is unaware of what they have just seen, but he notices the urgency and concern in Jennings' voice.
«I left him near the vehicle, he has found a dog.»
A dog...
«Jesus Christ!», shouts Jennings, as he rushes towards the Humvee, followed by Stu first and then Ralph too.
Meanwhile Black got distracted, playing with that mischievous dog that always gives back the stone a few meters away from him, thus making him gradually walk away from the car and his friends, without him noticing.
«That's enough, boy, this is absolutely the last launch, okay?»
The soldier crouches down to take the long stone from the mouth of the dog, but he seems reluctant to let it go.
«What's up now? Come on boy, what's wrong?»
Only then he hears the excited loud shouts of his friends who call him from afar. The soldier turns, seeing his colleagues running in his direction, their shapes distorted by the heat of the desert.
In that, he realizes that the dog is not putting up resistance anymore.
A-ha, you've given up then...
Black turns to the animal.
At a first glance, he doesn't understand what he is looking at.
The stone in his hand still has the narrow dog fangs holding firmly on the other end. The gums, however, fade into a kind of reddish bowel, corrugated on its surface, which snakes for about half a meter, before disappearing deep into the animal's mouth, wide open in a weird diagonal angle. The disgusted boy lets the stone go, leaping to his feet. The stone floats in the air, waved by the snaking tentacle. A sound reminiscent of the wings of a multitude of insects, and the crunching sound of bent fingers starts raising from the dog's body. Black is a salt statue, as he watches petrified the beast standing on his hind legs. Reddish appendages sprout out of the brown fur on its chest, they seem like earthworms which burst out from the animal's skin.
Jennings is about ten meters from Black who, overcome by terror, watches helplessly at the metamorphosis of the creature.
«Black, for God's sake, Black! Come away, get away!», shouts Jennings while pointing his gun at the animal, quickly opening fire. The shots hit the beast in the chest, but new tentac
les pop out of the holes, and they start whipping the air with a whistling sound. With a hideous noise of fabric that tears apart, the dog's chest rips in two lengthwise. White ribs protrude from the reddish meat and spread out like the leaves of a giant carnivorous plant. Something stirs inside, an amorphous mass that is constantly changing, vaguely resembling a human head with horrific proportions. That twisted mouth emits a long and terrifying whine. Black seems to rouse for a moment, and he hints a half-step back, but the creature is faster than him and it jumps on the soldier. The ribs of what was formerly a dog lock on themselves, trapping the top half of the man in a deadly embrace that knocks him to the ground.
Stu and Ralph join Jennings, who stretches his arms as if to keep them at bay.
«Stay back, stay back, damn it!»
«Black!», shouts Ralph while loading the bullet in the chamber of his assault rifle. «Black!»
«What the fuck is that thing?», the voice of Stu is keen with terror.
Black's legs flap like shaken by electric current, a hoarse gurgle emerges from the writhing obscene mass. Awful eyes open on its surface to stare at the three survivors.
Aware of the ineluctable fate of their mate, the party opens fire, targeting the abomination with their weapons.
The monstrosity shakes, letting out chilling verses from the many mouths and cavities that appear continuously on its back, out of which the head of a dog starts to form. It takes shape like a plant growing in real time.
A yellowish liquid stream hits the ground a few centimeters in front of Jennings' boots, which pushes the other two soldiers back.
«Get away, these weapons won't work! They won't fucking work!»
The three men step back while keeping shooting at the monstrosity that is constantly changing in front of their astonished eyes.
«Let's see how you like this, you bastard!», shouts Stu while throwing an incendiary grenade to the creature. The bomb bounces on the monster's back and falls close to the only still visible leg of Black. The limb of the soldier keeps struggling on the ground, stretching and twisting like a snake, raising puffs of sand.
The soldiers dive to the ground, just before the grenade explodes into a flaming cloud that ravages the body of the beast, enveloping it in a deadly embrace. The screams issued by the shapeless burning mass are chilling.
The creature stirs for long moments, violently writhing in the sand. Then its movements become slowly less frantic, until it collapses and stays motionless.
Suddenly, just silence is left, broken by the nervous crackle of the flames that devour the remains.
The three look at the scene as if hypnotized.
Jennings is the first to rouse, turning to the others. «Stu, get in contact with Seagull, now! Ralph, see if you can contact the base, let's hurry to join the others!»
USA base CNT222
Emily Moore has just finished updating Alexander Ivanov on the results of her analysis of the blood of the young Ahmed and of the wounded soldier. «I think that's all», she concludes.
Ivanov just nods, staying silent and watching her with a faraway look. After a while the silence between them starts to become awkward, so she turns to store the vials containing the liquid sample in a freezer. At that moment he seems to wake up from his cogitations. «You're very smart, Dr. Moore, you made a good job. However due to this particular situation, your analysis may not be... enough.»
Ivanov goes on before she can answer. «I would take another test which, although not orthodox, is nevertheless effective enough, given the nature of the being with which we are probably dealing with. Let's start with the boy, since he entered the crash site's area first. If his blood is positive to the infection - God forbid – we have two big problems to handle.»
That said, the man puts on a pair of protective gloves, then he moves his hand towards the scientist, taking the vial containing the blood taken from Ahmed. He takes out a tiny quantity with a syringe, then he pours immediately the liquid into a glass Petri dish. «Stay sharp now.»
Using a long metal forceps, Ivanov puts the capsule over the flame of a Bunsen burner. The blood heats up, begins to smoke, then sizzles, turning into a brownish coal lump. A sickening stench, typical of burnt flesh, spreads in the laboratory.
«So you think this proves that the boy isn't infected?» asks Moore with a hint of sarcasm.
«Well, this test worked for some time, in the first period of our research. Nonetheless, as I already mentioned, the creature evolves, it learned to... sacrifice – so to say – a part of itself, just to ensure that the most of its body has a chance to survive. For greater certainty, we will take another test. Tell me doctor, do we have something like a taser or some device that generates a violent electrical discharge?»
«Not that I know...», replies the woman. Her gaze meets for a moment that of Juan Vasquez. The soldier left by Macready to attend to the woman's orders stays a few meters away, his arms are folded and he is leaning with his shoulder against the wall. As his eyes meet those of the woman he makes an imperceptible negative sign with his head. She goes on. «...anyway I'm afraid that, given the circumstances, this is out of the question, Dr. Ivanov.»
The man raises his eyebrows, a look that is a mixture of exasperation and disapproval. «I understand. In this case I guess we'll have to improvise with what is available here. At the present state of my knowledge, the best test is to subject a tissue sample to a non-lethal electrical discharge, but still strong and prolonged. This – so to say – jams something in that remote and unfathomable part of the organism that dictates its behavioral syntax. Its mind, although I believe that the meaning that we usually give to this term is overly simplistic in this case.
However there's another way, though personally I think it's another barbaric solution against a being endowed with a certain intelligence. You see, the fire acts violently, burning a large number of cells at the same time because the high heat also kills the deep layers of tissue. Death is relatively quick.»
Seeing the puzzled look of Moore, Ivanov clarifies his thoughts: «How to say... One thing is to withstand extreme pain that lasts a few seconds and kills you. Another is to resist such an intense and prolonged pain that wears you down without destroying you quickly. The creatures are somehow connected between them, and I believe th at this is what also provides their ability to retain DNA information gathered from so many different species. The mother organism, that is, the one from which the sample was drawn, perceives everything. In the three decades spent studying the creature, we conducted an incredible number of tests to be absolutely certain of this. Increased heart rate, sweating, dilated pupils... It, however, evolved quickly, and learned how to resist and keep control of itself, although this depends very much on the size, animal species, and finally on the character and nature of the treated and replicated subject.»
«Character and nature?», intervenes Moore. «Do you mean that you made tests on human beings?»
The man sighs, as if to suppress a painful memory. «Not willingly. After seeing what the creature is able to do with simple laboratory animals, and how dangerous and difficult their containment is, no one would ever want to deal with a mass greater than that of an infected lab-mice, believe me. Let alone a human being. Anyway, fate decided otherwise...»
Ivanov doesn't wait for an answer, he begins to work with several bottles of chemicals. Moore however is not inclined to miss the chance to learn more. «What happened?»
He raises an eyebrow, looking up from the containers with which he is working. Their eyes meet. «We made an error. The same one that claimed the life of the men and women of the Norwegian camp... The one that sealed the fate of the American expedition, thirty years ago, and the same you all will make today as well... We underestimated it.»
The man turns to mix different reagents, as if to imply that the conversation is over. However, there are several things on which Moore has been brooding since their last meeting.
«Is there any way to prepare a vaccine
or a cure?»
The scientist shakes his head, unsure. «I don't know yet, Dr. Moore. I can tell you that there is a kind of treatment that has initially yielded some encouraging results. But like I said, the creature learns quickly and I can't rule o ut that it will resist also this new procedure.»
The man notes her questioning look , a silent encouragement to continue. «Ever since I realized the real power of the creature, I started to regularly take a quantity of a modified molecule of potassium cyanide developed in our laboratories. In small doses, of course, otherwise I wouldn't be here talking about it. Over time, by increasing the amount taken periodically I developed some resistance, up to levels that would kill instantly another human being. I know that the creature can perfectly replicate the DN A. This however isn't altered by the procedure, and my DNA doesn't include natural resistance to high doses of poison, the same way that in the DNA of a child there isn't any information about calluses or scars that he may develop if, when adult, he was to be a blacksmith, or the muscles that he will build taking anabolic steroids and doing body-building, although the underlying DNA is still mostly uncharted territory. The individual cells of the creature are sensitive to this venom. Experimenting with laboratory animals we saw that, in the presence of this substance, the creature immediately cease assimilation, however it needs just a single cell to have the whole DNA information of its prey and if necessary it'll be able to replicate it. In any case, this treatment won't ensure immunity from the most violent dynamics of the assimilation process.»
Ivanov notices the suspicious gaze of the woman.
Cellular Activity- The Djinn Page 13