by Неизвестный
They were all tense with the uncertainty of being in a derelict alien vessel, and with the mystery of the switch that had yet to do anything besides hum, Jack felt they were all getting to their wits’ ends.
Jack took several deep breaths and closed his eyes. He exhaled forcefully and thrust the slide all the way to the right. Light shot through the row of lamps above the switch and the humming reached a soft crescendo. Jack’s eyes were still closed tightly as he stood motionless, his hand still extended. He felt a light tapping on his shoulder, and he slowly relaxed and opened one eye. He saw Hunter looking back at him.
“Congratulations Jack, you found a light switch,” Hunter said, as he pointed overhead to the lines of white lights that shone down on them.
Jack felt a hot rush of blood flood his face as his tension turned into embarrassment. He looked sheepishly at Josie, and they all stood back to survey their newly lighted surroundings. With the darkness banished, the three looked about for any indication as to where they should go next.
“I don’t suppose either of you boys read Martian, do you?” Josie asked.
“I know enough to get directions to the beach and ask where the bathroom is,” Jack said wryly.
Hunter saw the sign on the wall to which Josie was referring, and he stepped closer for a better look. He lifted his arm and ran his fingers along the strange engraved symbols. Dropping his arm, he began walking toward the hallway left of where they had entered.
“What we’re looking for is this way,” Hunter murmured as his pace quickened.
Jack pulled up along side Hunter, “Wait, you can read that stuff?”
“I get by,” was Hunters grunted response.
The footfalls of the three echoed through the corridor. The lights that now flooded the space filled them with a little confidence, and since the place looked to have been deserted for years, they holstered their firearms.
More bisecting hallways flew by the team, but Hunter led the others past each one. They all began to realize the scale of the ship as they moved through it. The craft was a behemoth, and that fact lead to curious implications. The operations of this vessel would require a huge amount of manpower, or rather, alien-power. The crew must have been massive, to pilot and operate the ship. Creatures must have been moving through every foot of the empty space, and must have been casualties from the crash. But where were the remains? No bodies, no bones, no nothing.
The idea permeated the minds of the three and seemed to pass from one to the other without words. The fortitude that the lighting had afforded them now seemed to wear thin and then dissolve entirely, leaving all of them in a deflated state—though the only one who outwardly showed any signs of this was Josie. She hadn’t yet been hardened by life’s horrors or by the tragedies of war that are dispensed to every fighting man as impartially as a vending machine doles out a pack of Lucky Strikes.
“Something isn’t right here, guys,” was all that Josie could muster.
The three came to a closed door and Hunter looked back over his shoulder, “We’re here to get what we’re looking for and get out, we aren’t going to pay attention to anything but that.”
Hunter punched a button at the side of the portal, and the doors slid apart in a widening “Z” shape. Unlike the hallway, this room had remained dark, and the only illumination was from the hall lighting falling upon the floor of the new space. Hunter withdrew his Mauser and the 1911 from their holsters and nodded to Josie and Jack that they do the same.
Jack produced a flare from his pack and after lighting it, tossed it into the inky blackness. The light wavered and smoke rose in a thin pillar as it rolled to a stop. A few moments passed and they observed no movement in the room. Slowly, with eyes in all directions, Hunter lead the way for his two teammates. Jack was to the right of Hunter as they entered, and he immediately saw a similar lighting slider at the side of the door. He pushed the control to the half-way mark. Strange sconces about the walls emitted a weak light and gave the team a better look about the room. Seeing no imminent danger, Jack pushed the slider over the rest of the way. The room leapt into full brilliance. The sconces produced a light not unlike that in the corridor, but it was tinged with a pallid yellow.
With the darkness dispelled, the scope of the room could finally be ascertained, and what they all saw was some sort of alien laboratory. Strange tables covered in peculiar instruments and vials that held only filmy ghosts of their original contents filled the center of the room. The sides of the room were lined with large dusty panels with buttons, knobs, lights, and dials. The crew looked about wiping dust from all surfaces for a better look at the tools and equipment that were spread through the space.
A crash of glass broke the silence as Jack yelled, “Hold it!”
Hunter and Josie spun to see what the commotion was, finding Jack standing over a broken cylinder, gun trained on a spot in the corner of the room. The two set their sights on a crumpled humanoid figure that lay obscured by the shadow from a large cylindrical vat. Despite the noise, the figure refused to move or acknowledge the intruders.
“Move toward us slowly. No funny stuff!” shouted Hunter at the slumped frame.
The mass remained immobile in the wake of the order, and tensions spiked as the deafening silence once again closed in on the group. Jack fired a shot above the outline, and it ricocheted as the lurker in the shadow slid sideways, landing prone on the metallic floor.
“Check your fire, Jack! We didn’t want to kill the only thing that could have answered any questions!” Hunter shouted.
“I fired a warning shot over the top of it—and high! There was no way I hit it,” was Jack’s retort.
“I think your sights are a little off then.”
The team descended upon the sprawled body for a closer look. From arm’s length, they now saw it was the naked body of a Martian guard. The corpse lay face down in front of them, and Hunter kicked it over so the eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling. Soon it was clear that Jack hadn’t killed the monster at all. The hole from the ricocheted slug sat right above the left eye of the creature, and no blood—or anything else—came from that hole. Moreover, there were other strange things about the body. The three eyes were dried and shriveled within the large sockets, and the skin had a leathery toughness to it.
“Seems like we’ve found a body,” Hunter said, kneeling at the side of the thing. “He’s been here a while. It looks as though the controlled conditions of the ship and the extreme cold of the location mummified our friend here.”
“That’s not all,” Jack said softly.
With the barrel of his gun, he lifted the right arm of the body. Just below the elbow of the graying limb, there was nothing left resembling the creature’s original appendage. The arm terminated abruptly in a chemically charred stub. Discoloration extended from the end of the limb, and up the rest of the arm in irregular patches. The end yielded a cross section of the inside of the arm, showing the exposed bones and musculature, though dried and time-weathered.
“What the heck happened here?” Jack said, still holding the arm aloft and turning to look to Hunter for an answer.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Hunter replied, still staring into the end of the limb.
Josie rose and walked to the wall left of the body and examined the jagged indentation left behind by the ricocheting bullet. Her eyes strayed down the wall, not searching for anything in particular, when she noticed a large button set in the wall, adjacent to another lighting slider at the right of the vat. This slider was smaller than the two previous ones, and she moved the knob from left to right with her index finger.
A light from inside the clear vat shone down and further lit the partially obscured area. The men looked up from the body to see this new luminescence. They saw Josie with her hand at the control, standing beside the now completely lighted container. The cylinder was quite large, standing eight or nine feet tall, and around five feet wide. It was not empty though. Filling a third of the vat,
was a viscous ooze that glistened under the burning lights. Mostly gray in color with striations of a dark green running through the mass, it looked like a barrel of toxic sludge, but instead of resting in a stagnant pool, it seemed to churn and swirl slowly behind the clear barrier.
Hunter and Jack stood up and took in the spectacle in full. Josie motioned to the large button on the wall, and Hunter examined it with scrutiny. He ran his finger lightly across the surface, being careful not to activate whatever the button controlled. The device was shrouded in a thin layer of glutinous film. It had no odor but there was a gritty quality to it, and it clung to the wall under the button in long, irregular drip patterns, stretching to the floor.
“I’d bet our friend here found a chemical cocktail that got out of control, lost his arm, and didn’t make it to this toggle for whatever saving actions it would have given. Must have given off a poisonous fume or something, and then it was lights out,” Hunter said, rising and moving back toward the body.
A few moments passed as Hunter looked over the corpse. Jack wandered back to the tables of instruments in the middle of the room. The instant of regained calm was again ripped asunder, as an earsplitting siren filled the room. The oppressive volume filled the room like water. Hunter and Jack once again, guns in hand, searched for the source of this new threat. What they saw was a bright strobe above the cylinder, flashing yellow and red lights as the metal covering of the container slowly ascended. Josie stood, knees bent with her hands pressed to her ears trying to block out the omnipresent scream-like noise. Josie had obviously pressed the button. Hunter dashed back to stop what had been started. His fist beat the face of the thing with no change in their predicament. The lights and sirens blazed on, and the lid rose up from the apex of the vat while Hunter hammered at the button.
Frustration finally got the best of Hunter, and he leveled his pistols at the button and fired two quick shots, shattering the device. Smoke puffed out from behind the shattered pieces and the siren was silenced. The lights atop the vat still flashed their alternating colors, but the lid had ceased rising.
“What the hell happened?” Hunter shouted, his ears still ringing.
“I’m sorry!” Josie shouted, “I was watching that stuff move in the vat when something happened. It stretched toward me and pushed up against the glass. It frightened me and I fell backwards. I must have hit the button by mistake.”
“Wait a minute,” Jack jumped in, “You’re saying that stuff moved by itself?”
“Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but it looked like it was trying to reach out to me.”
It was then that the slime in the container emitted a deep rumbling. The three stood staring in awestruck fear, as they saw the substance begin to stretch and squirm toward the opening. The team backed away from the scene slowly, not taking their eyes from what was going on in front of them. This substance seemed to be one living thing, not the inactive collection of toxic mire that they had thought.
Once the thing gained the opening, it paused. From within its depths, it produced a colossal eye that sat in the middle of its liquescent bulk. The horrible sensory organ rolled about, casting its gaze around the room, and floating within the churning mass of the monster. Neither lid nor socket adorned the huge sphere. Then it floated over to cast its gaze upon the inert figure on the floor.
The thing began to move once again. The team suddenly became aware of the horrible odor the thing exuded. It was enough to turn even the strongest stomach, and it only intensified as the thing approached. The creature flopped to the floor with a wet slopping sound and reached out a tendril toward the carcass of the Martian. Its newly formed appendage wrapped around its target and the body began to dissolve until absorbed wholly into the gelatinous mass of the monster.
“Well, I think we know what happened to the rest of the crew,” Jack choked out, coughing from the acrid stench in the air.
As soon as Jack finished speaking, the thing rose up, and the enormous eye emerged on the side facing the team. It stared straight at the three bewildered onlookers. Then it drew itself up, screaming and shaking, its gyrations rocking the whole room and knocking objects from the tables.
“Let’s move!” Hunter shouted and turned toward the door to escape.
Josie and Jack made the door first, and Hunter hit the button to close the door behind him after he passed through it. The three stopped short outside and glanced at one another in disbelief, when the thing threw its massive bulk against the door, nearly knocking them from their feet. From the looks of the protruding dent, the door wouldn’t withstand another hit, so the trio began running through the corridor. They had gained about fifteen yards, when they heard the crash of the door giving way to another massive hit. The foul stench filled the corridor as the creature flowed in horrible waves through the hallway in pursuit of them.
“I hope you remember when to hang a right!” Jack’s voice cracked, as he shouted over the screaming monster.
Hunter gave Jack an unsure look, and they kept running. The creature was gaining ground on the team; soon it would overtake them. Jack holstered his revolver and pulled a baseball grenade from his belt. He couldn’t be sure it would stop the pursuer but it might slow the creature down. One thing is for sure, Jack thought. Bullets will do nothing to a monster like that. He kissed the grenade for luck, pulled the pin, and threw it like a fastball at the pursuing abomination. The explosive sunk into the mass of the creature like a rock falling into a thick mud puddle, and it was lost to sight. The thing stopped its forward progress, seemingly in confusion. Then a few seconds later, the hallway rocked from the explosion. The team was knocked forward, and they all landed hard upon the metal floor. The blast had hit its target and the shock wave still had enough force to knock the Martian Killers unconscious.
The lights flickered overhead and debris covered the area around Hunter, Jack, and Josie. They slowly began to move, struggling to rise to their feet. Jack dusted off the sleeves of his bomber jacket and rubbed his head. He found dried blood caked around a wound he must have been dealt from the explosion. Although it was thickened by the dust, he knocked most of it away and leaned down to help Josie to her feet. Then Jack remembered why the explosion happened and he swung around to survey the situation. He saw Hunter kneeling by the wreckage and he joined him, surprised to be alive given what they had gone through. Small spots of grayish green ichor dotted the rubble but there was no sign of where the creature had gone. However, its omnipresent odor still hung in the air and clung to their clothes.
“So,” Jack began, “Do you think we got it?”
“I’m inclined to say no, but I’m not going to wait around and find out. We should keep moving toward the exit.” Hunter grumbled, heading down the corridor.
The team began moving again, though markedly slower than before. Josie held her side as she walked, and Jack needed to steady himself from time to time. Hunter, though he tried to hide it, was limping. No one had escaped injury from the blast.
It took longer than they thought it would to find the escape hatch, but they eventually figured out the correct hallway. They stood below the aperture, but the light of the sun no longer shone through it. It appeared they had been out longer than they had suspected. A small mound of snow also rested below the open passage, and it showed no signs of melting.
“I don’t think we’re in any shape to jump up there. We should split up and find something to––” Jack was suddenly cut off by an all too familiar sound. The piping scream filled the corridor behind them and the ground shook.
“Scratch that plan,” Jack said, offering his hands as a boost for Josie.
She painfully lifted her leg and steadied herself in Jack’s hands. Then he hoisted her up. Hunter kept his eyes and guns trained on the still empty hallway from which the screams were coming. Josie reached the opening and let out a pained yelp as she pulled herself to the surface and out of view.
“Let’s move, Hunter!” Jack shouted over the cacophony.
> Hunter turned from his vigil and stepped into Jack’s waiting hands. He nodded to Jack and was hoisted toward the opening. He tossed his guns out of the hatch and grasped at the edge, pulling himself free of the hole. A few tense moments passed and Jack waited beneath his salvation with no sign from those he had just helped free. The shaking of the ground intensified as the screaming grew closer. The odor became intolerable, and Jack knew the creature was only yards away. His knees began to give and he shook with terror, his hands still out, frozen in fear. Feeling abandoned and lost, he shut his eyes and waited for his inevitable fate.
He suddenly became aware of something landing in his outstretched arms and opened his eyes to see what it was. A coil of rope now occupied his hitherto vacant arms! He glanced upward and saw Hunter and Josie beckoning him to tie the rope around his waist. Jack immediately wrapped the rope around himself and tied it tight. He shot a thumbs up and soon was being pulled upward toward salvation.
With weak arms Hunter and Josie strained at the rope, pulled taught under Jack’s weight. Moving an inch at a time, Jack was hoisted skyward. All the while, the globular atrocity closed the gap between them. Jack pleaded for more speed from his two companions, but their weakened state allowed them to exert only so much. Jack stretched his arms up to further close the gap and quicken his escape, but the edge was still out of reach.
Putrid waves of the gelatinous slime repeatedly crested itself in a perpetual renewal of liquid horror. Every foot that it drew nearer, the stench of the thing intensified exponentially. Jack covered his face with one hand to block what he could of the noisome vapors. It seemed as though it would overtake him within seconds, rolling hatefully over everything in its path.