The Ancient Breed

by David Brookover

  Crow faced Hanover. “The plan is to trick your clever alien into the particle-generator area, switch it on, and fry his body’s molecules into random, disorganized atoms. Once that happens, nobody will be able to put Humpty Dumpty together again,” Crow explained, his childish tone flaunting his distain for the president.

  Hanover was so scared that he didn’t catch Crow’s sarcasm. “I hope it works.”

  “Crow, you really bopped him good,” Blossom scolded her uncle. “We can’t revive him.”

  “He’s always been hardheaded,” Neo quipped. “He’ll survive.”

  “This is not a joking matter,” Lisa snapped. “What happens if Crow’s plan doesn’t work, and we don’t have Nick to save us?”

  “I don’t see how he could save us anyway.” Crow cleared his throat. “Actually, this whole scenario was Nick’s idea. His back-up plan if you failed to kill the shape-shifter beneath the lake.”

  The air grew stale and warm as they silently awaited the alien’s entry into the particle-generator test cell. Minutes slowly ticked into a silent, sultry hour.

  “Where is the damn thing?” Neo swore, the strain pinching his face.

  “Geronimo, can you identify the intruder’s position?”

  “It is not inside the ventilation ductwork leading to the particle-generator zone,” it answered. “I can’t detect its presence anywhere.”

  Crow tapped his fingertips on the computer desk. “It must have found another way inside.”

  “Oh, that’s just fucking great!” Hanover exclaimed.

  “Geronimo, run a diagnostic on all systems and possible entrances.”

  “That will take time.”

  Crow sighed heavily in the oppressive atmosphere. “It appears that’s the one thing we have plenty of.”

  “I will commence my diagnostic check now.”

  “Put a damn rush on it, okay?” Hanover commanded, sweat glistening on his face.

  Crow slid out of his chair and joined Blossom and Lisa. “How’s our warrior?”

  The women scowled at him. “Still out. His breathing’s strong, and his body seems to be . . . ,” Lisa hesitated.

  Crow glanced at one woman and then the other. “Seems to be what?”

  “Uh, growing again. Getting thicker. More muscular,” Lisa replied.

  Neo leaned over Crow’s shoulder. “Weird, man. The guy’s a regular Hulk.”

  “Not funny, Neo,” Jill rebuked him.

  “Bad news for silo city.” Geronimo’s voice startled them.

  Crow rushed back to the console, barely beating Hanover.

  “Spit it out,” Crow ordered.

  “There’s a power surge in the command center quadrant, and it’s flowing quickly through the electrical cables in this direction.”

  “Oh God, oh God!” Hanover whimpered.

  “Shut up!” Neo and Crow shouted simultaneously.

  “Can you reroute those circuits to another area?” Crow asked anxiously.

  “It will shut me down, Crow.”

  “Shit!” Crow paced the room, and then snapped his fingers. “Okay, big red genius, here’s what we’ll do. Shut down all circuits except yours.”

  “But that will direct him to me.”

  “Right. And when that happens, shut down. We’ll have him trapped while we come up with a longer term solution.”

  “Too late!” Geronimo warned. “It’s entering the command center from one of the 220 volt receptacles. Get out now!”

  Geronimo slid back the armored door leading to the corridor, and Hanover was the first through. A small black cloud appeared outside the wall receptacle below the rows of monitors and expanded at an alarming rate.

  Neo and Crow dragged Nick into the corridor while Geronimo advised the others to retreat to the blast-shielded, missile-launch room down one floor. The armor-plate reinforcement inside the launch room’s reinforced concrete walls offered the best protection from the shape-shifter.

  Geronimo activated the command center door as soon as Jill helped Blossom guide her unsteady fiancé into the corridor, but the supercomputer was too late. The black cloud glided through the sliver of space between the sliding door and the frame and soared up to the thirty-foot ceiling. It hovered there, apparently watching the survivors make their way toward the door marked EXIT at the far end of the corridor.

  When Hanover was fifty feet from the exit, the cloud swept down and knocked the him backwards. The screeching and kicking Hanover skidded into Lisa, who fell over him. Blossom and Jill screamed and pointed frantically at the prone president’s face - it was reduced to oozing, crimson pulp.

  Clay cradled the sobbing Blossom as the black cloud dived again. This time it hovered just above the floor and solidified into its real shape. A black, webbed footed, squid-skinned alien that towered over everyone but Neo. One of its brawny, tentacled arms shot out and curled around Lisa’s waist.

  Neo sprang for the shape-shifter, but it quickly positioned another machete claw at Lisa’s pulsing throat.

  “I apologize for this melodramatic threat, but I fear that I’ve absorbed much too much of your television programming,” the thing said, perfectly enunciating every syllable with its thin crevice of a mouth. “Now, if I read Nick Bellamy’s thoughts correctly earlier in the cavern, you folks want me to enter the particle-generator area. Well, just to please you primitives, I’ll do that for you; but I’m taking Lisa Anders with me—if indeed that is her real name.”

  Its tentacles propelled it down the corridor with a calm Lisa in tow and into the particle-accelerator test cell.

  “That’s just great! What are we going to do now, Crow? It knows we won’t risk Lisa’s life by turning on that big machine in there,” Jill demanded.

  Before Crow could concoct an answer, Geronimo’s voice boomed over the corridor speakers.

  “The intruder is inside our plotted position for atom acceleration. I am commencing phase one start-up.”

  Crow raced for the command center. “Geronimo, stop!” he shouted.

  The powerful atomic device hummed to life, and the floor vibrated beneath their feet.

  Crow stormed inside the command center as Geronimo reported, “Commencing phase two of accelerator start-up.”

  “Shut down!” Crow yelled. “I order you to shut down and deactivate the particle-accelerator, too.”

  “I cannot . . .”

  “Just do it, you insolent son-of-a-squaw!”

  Neo appeared in the doorway. “It knows we’ll do that,” Neo said, panting. “It’s stalling for time, but why?”

  Crow just shrugged. “Geronimo, activate the video in the test cell.”

  After the surveillance camera flicked on, the huddled group behind Crow watched in horror as the shape-shifter stripped off Lisa’s clothing and then hugged her against its slimy flesh.

  “It looks like it’s horny!” Neo exclaimed.

  “Geronimo, open the door to the particle-accelerator test cell!” Crow turned as he drew his gun. “Neo, we’re going in.”

  Neo tore a clothes rod down from the small walk-in closet, stripped off the hanging lab coats, and swung it a few times to get the feel of his inadequate weapon.

  Jill planted a hard kiss on Crow’s lips. “You better come back to me, Crow. I don’t plan on giving you up today or any day, you hear?”

  “I’ll be back,” Crow promised stoically, praying he’d be able to keep his promise.

  “I’m ready,” Neo announced somberly.

  “Then let’s get it on,” Crow said.

  They marched to the test cell entrance and waited while the door fully retracted. When the entrance was clear, Neo and Crow rushed inside.

  “Get away from Lisa, you shitbag!” Neo ordered, slapping the rod into his large palm.

  “Gentlemen, please, we’re having a private moment here,” it said sardonically. “I’ll get to you boys real soon.”

  Neo stepped closer. “Like hell you will.”

  “If you come any closer,
I’ll be forced to pull Lisa apart like a turkey wishbone,” it threatened. “Now you gentlemen don’t want that to happen, do you?”

  “Let it kill me!” Lisa sobbed. “I don’t want to give birth to its kind.”

  “Make up your mind, gentlemen.”

  Neo glanced at Crow, and they nodded. They split up and closed on the alien from different angles. Suddenly, its small mouth expanded three feet from its balloon face, and the lips parted into a repulsive chasm of razor teeth, large enough to slice, dice, and swallow a Rottweiler in a single chomp. The force of its shrill screech drove Neo and Crow backwards out the door. Taking advantage of their indecision, it swiftly slid across the room to the wall switch, and the door began sliding shut. With a violent hammering, followed by a pop, sizzle, and brilliant flash, the shape-shifter disabled the switch.

  Neo and Crow gripped the door’s edge to prevent it from closing, but they weren’t strong enough. The door continued on its path across the threshold with the two men straining to stop it. Neither wanted to admit defeat. Admit that Lisa was as good as dead.

  When the door was less than a foot from sealing the test cell, a tawny-scaled claw slid into the remaining space, wrenched the steel door off its track, and flung it past Crow and Neo against the corridor’s far wall.

  “Jesus! It’s Nick! I think it is, anyway.” Neo yelled, backing away from the ten-foot beast that straddled the twisted scrap metal between him and a speechless Crow. There was no sign of Nick in the reptilian creature’s countenance. His physical features had been completely absorbed.

  Nick’s slanted, elliptical orbs burned orange hellfire as it regarded the two men quizzically; then, he faced the stunned shape-shifter. Lisa struggled to escape, but the alien’s grip remained firm. Its eyeless head seemed to size up its new adversary.

  The Bellamy beast resembled the mythical Pan. Below the waist, fawn scales blanketed a pair of tree-trunk legs with two, thickset reptilian feet with 5 splayed and clawed toes below. The knee joints were bent backward like coiled, steel springs.

  From the waist up, its scaly torso widened symmetrically to broad, stooped shoulders. Two knotted arms were coupled to tawny claws, each tipped with a trident of yellow, razor-sharp talons. A single row of bony crimson spikes climbed its spine, and its stout neck buttressed a massive, oblong skull devoid of scales and hair. Horizontal ridges of bone protruded both above and below the eyes, separated only by two broad, primitive nostrils. The jawline and mouth obtruded well beyond the cheek contours, outlined by black, leathery lips and gorged with yellow, dagger-like teeth. The smooth, tawny flesh tightly swathed its gruesome face like a latex mask.

  “Let her go,” Nick demanded thickly. His voice was deep and meancing.

  The shape-shifter stepped back. “No chance. This powerful female is mine. Go find your own breeding mate,” it said obdurately.

  Lisa pursed her lips to speak. “Mortal . . . Eclipse!” she shouted. “Mortal Eclipse!”

  Nick lightly scratched his massive skull as he considered her words. The shape-shifter stood its ground, preparing for the battle of its life as it stroked Lisa’s naked body with one of its keen claws.

  “Now,” she cried, “before it’s too late!”

  The alien cuffed Lisa’s face with one of its free tentacles, drawing blood from her nose and mouth. Nick raised his head, bellowed his rage, and charged the alien. The creature tossed Lisa against the side of the particle generator and swung its lethal tentacles at its enemy; but instead of striking flesh, the claws hit nothing but air.

  But how could that be? it wondered. Bellamy was still in sight and closing fast!

  Neo and Crow watched Nick avoid the alien’s defense by fading like a double-exposed photograph. It was there, but it wasn’t. Crow instantly recognized Nick’s maneuver. It was the Mortal Eclipse mechanism that enabled him to exist simultaneously in this dimension and in the purebloods’ former dimension. No one else could pull off that stunt except the Creeper and . . . his brother, Nick! Crow’s hand flew to his mouth. Nick’s worst nightmare had come to pass! Their friend shared identical genes with his murderous twin brother, Thomas. The Creeper. The Mortal Eclipse project had come full circle.

  Nick’s body fully materialized a second before it collided with the alien. He bear-hugged the shape-shifter’s thrashing body with his brawny arms, and they both vanished from the test cell, leaving a stunned Neo and Crow behind. They stood there, mesmerized by the sudden void, until Neo snapped back to reality and elbowed Crow.

  “We’ve got to help Lisa,” he urged, and ran to the particle generator where they saw her land.

  She was gone!

  “Could Lisa have passed us without being seen?” Neo asked.

  “No way. To get by us, she had to climb over that scrap metal,” he said, pointing to the crumpled door, “and I’m certain we would’ve heard that.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Neo conceded. “So where is she?”

  “Maybe she got sucked into the next dimension with those . . . things,” he speculated.

  They turned and walked away, disconsolate over the loss of their old friend, Nick, and their new friend, Lisa.

  Neo paused outside the command center. “Think they’ll ever return?”

  Crow shook his head sadly. “From what I’ve heard from various people in Duneden, no one has ever been in the other dimension for long and lived.”

  Neo shook his head and wiped a tear from his eye. “Yeah, I was afraid of that.”

  69

  N

  eo and Crow were halfway to the command center when a hurricane exploded inside the test cell, spilling horrific gusts into the corridor.

  “Inside the command center, quick!” Crow shouted.

  They made a mad dash to the command center with a tsunami of wind at their heels. They dived inside the command center doorway as the wind roared past, carrying the spinning, screeching metal door with it. A minute later, the gale winds subsided. Neo borrowed Crow’s gun and ventured into the corridor. A monstrous shadow fell across the floor outside the test cell, and as Neo watched, it gradually shrank until it was a silhouette of a man.

  Throwing caution to the wind, Neo hightailed it to the test cell and caught his naked friend before he collapsed.

  A battered and bruised Nick glanced up at Neo. “We did it. The . . . alien’s gone for good.”

  Neo smiled for the first time in what seemed like years. “You did it, Nick. Don’t go all modest on me, now.”

  Nick’s swollen lips parted into a grin.

  “So did you take that rat-bastard into the next dimension?” Neo asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Neo’s face wrinkled into a puzzled frown. “But you didn’t die.”

  “I wasn’t there long enough. Just like the witches, I guess, I can slide over there for quick visits,” he managed. His head and body ached worse than a bad case of the flu.

  “But you changed into . . .”

  “The Creeper?”

  “Not really. You aren’t the bloodthirsty killer he was.” Neo paused. “But I have to admit, when you showed up under the lake, I did a double take.”

  “I guess we shared more genes than I thought,” he said dourly. “I can promise you that that beast won’t be returning for an encore.”

  “Damn straight. You scared the shit out of me, man,” Neo exclaimed.

  “If I’d done that, you’d be a three-foot string bean about now.”

  Neo laughed. “Don’t start with me, man!”

  “Can you find me some clothes? I’m freezing.”

  “Sure thing, if you tell me why Lisa pleaded with you to hurry up and attack that alien.”

  Nick groaned. “Okay, one last answer. You see, the alien had the ability to reduce itself to energized nanoparticles as a defense mechanism. That enabled it to travel between galaxies and dimensions without incurring injury. But in its true form, it had no such capability. That’s why Lisa kept trying to get through to my prehistoric brain to at
tack it before it changed back to that black cloud. As soon as we traveled through the energy fabric between the two dimensions, squidman popped like a big, black balloon. Satisfied?”

  “Sounds like a helluva trip.”

  “Trust me, I’d rather go on a Caribbean cruise.”

  Neo swiftly retrieved a lab coat from the command center, slipped it around Nick, and helped him navigate the corridor. Suddenly, Nick stopped and peered up at Neo.

  “Where’s Lisa?”

  Neo looked away. “Uh, we . . . I don’t know,” he replied uneasily.

  “She’s missing?”

  Neo sighed. “Yeah. Crow and I thought she might have gone with you.”

  Nick shook his head. “No, I didn’t see her.”

  “I’m sorry, Nick. I just don’t know what could have happened to her. She was on the floor one minute and gone the next.”

  Nick brightened. “I think I might know the answer,” he stated mysteriously.

  “Come on, spill the beans. I’m as worried about her as you are.”

  “Remember how we all disappeared down in the lake cavern, and nobody could, or would, explain how we got to Old Mother Hubbard’s?”

  “Sure, how could I forget that?”

  “And another thing. How did Lisa and Crow just happen to be thrown off course during their wind walk and wind up at the White House in time to save Hanover?”

  “That does sound way too convenient to be coincidence.”

  “I’ll bet if I ask Crow if he saw clouds and a red-sun world during his wind walk, he’d say yes,” Nick speculated.

  “So, what’s up with that?”

  “If I’m right, Crow wasn’t wind walking – he was being teleported by a witch!”

  “I heard that, white man!” Crow rushed to Nick and hugged him.

  Nick winced. “You trying to kill me or what?”

  “Sorry,” he said, stepping away. “But you’re right, I did see clouds and a red sun. It wasn’t anything like my other wind walks.”

  “There you have it,” Nick announced, triumphantly. “Now, what finally pins the tail on this donkey is that Alick Tobhor warned me that there was a witch named Wolfe under the lake whom I had to protect at all costs.”