Dead Space™

by B. K. Evenson

  The latter stumbled back, his laser pistol going off and singeing the wall. Together Showalter and the creature fell, toppling backward and into the creeper.

  Altman immediately fired up the torch and rushed forward, but it was too late. Showalter was engulfed and simply gone, part of the pulsating, shifting mass. Weirdly enough, it did the same thing to the creature, engulfing it just as quickly and dramatically, swallowing one of its own.

  He stomped on one of the creatures that was still moving and then lay down a blast of flame along the creeper’s side. It withdrew, moving back enough to allow him to sidle past and out the door.

  Just me now, he thought. Down to one.

  It was hard not to feel that there was no point going forward. It was inevitable—one of them would catch him, tear him apart.

  But he kept going. He was limping now, though he wasn’t exactly sure why, not sure what had happened to his leg. He’d bandaged his arm with a first aid kit from the lab, stopping every once in a while to drive the creeper back with the torch.

  He’d been lucky. Creeping through the half dark of the emergency lights, he’d met five of the bladed creatures since Fert and Showalter had died, never in sets of more than two, never in a place where one could get around behind him while the other tore him up from the front. The single one had been easy, but the pairs had been harder, and he couldn’t help thinking when it was all over that if the cutter had just once gone a little high or a little low one of the creatures would have sunk its maw into his neck and that would have been the end of him.

  And then he saw Ada. She contacted him by holovid, a static-thick message.

  “Michael,” she said. “Are you there?”

  “Ada,” he said. “Is that you?”

  “I’m here,” she said. “I’m safe for now, but I don’t know what they’re going to do with me. If you get this, please hurry, Michael.”

  “Ada, where are you?” Altman said.

  But she didn’t seem to be listening. She reached out beneath the camera, and the image flickered and shorted out, then began again.

  “Michael, are you there?” she said.

  A recording, then, being rebroadcast over and over. Still, it was enough, just enough, to get him going again.

  As he moved higher in the facility, he saw fewer of the creatures. Those he did see, he either hid from or killed as silently as he possibly could, trying to avoid attracting the attention of the others.

  Nevertheless, he was surprised when he realized that he was one hallway shy of the airlock. Suddenly he began to believe he might make it out alive after all.

  There was only one problem. He almost walked straight into a creature assembled from not just one corpse but several. It looked like a spider, but with the scythelike appendages of the other creatures serving as legs, seven of them in all. The body proper consisted of overlapped and buckled torsos awkwardly melding with one another. Two heads dangled weakly at one end, as if ready to drop off.

  He hid partly behind the doorframe, furtively examining it. On its underside was a pulsing yellow and black lump, maybe a tumor of some kind.

  Rush forward, start cutting, he thought. Not much of a plan, but it was all he could think of.

  He stayed for a long moment hesitating and then, taking a deep breath, rushed out and at it.

  It immediately turned to face him and hissed. It scuttled toward him, the tips of its bonelike appendages thunking against the tunnel’s floor.

  But before he’d gotten close enough to hit it with the cutter, something unsettling happened. One of the heads that had been dangling loose scrambled to the top of the body and launched itself at him. It struck him in the chest, wrapping a set of sinewy tendrils around his neck. It started to squeeze.

  Holy hell, he thought. He stumbled back, trying desperately to pry it off. The spiderthing was still coming, still scuttling forward, its other head alert and on top of its body now as well. He struck the one already on him hard with the side of the cutter, again and again. It loosened just a little, enough that he could breathe, and he forced his hand in between it and his neck and tore it off.

  It tried to crawl up his arm and back to his neck, but he held it tight by its writhing tendrils and didn’t let go. The other head launched itself at him and he batted it down to the ground with the first head, stamping it to a pulp. The head in his hands he slammed into the wall, then cut in half with the plasma cutter.

  The rest of the spiderthing was on him now. He sliced off the tip of one appendage, and it reared back on its three hind legs and struck at him with the remaining four. He managed to parry two of them successfully and dodge the third. The fourth, having just lost its tip to the plasma cutter, struck him hard but bluntly in the chest. He fell to the floor, the wind knocked out of him.

  Then he was beneath it as it danced about, trying to skewer him. He cut off one leg, then another, but it didn’t seem to hurt its balance. He kicked it hard and knocked it back and scrambled back himself and then, knowing it would do little good, just to buy time, he whipped out the plasma pistol and started firing.

  The shots flashed off its legs or entered the flesh of the body with a hiss, but hardly seemed to slow it. It was nearly over him again, and he kicked it back with both feet this time, succeeding in turning it off balance and flipping it over.

  As it struggled to right itself, he saw again the pulsing yellow and black lump. He fired at it.

  The lump exploded, the blast knocking him back through the doorway, deafening him. Bits of the creature struggled about, including one whole enough to come at him. He stood, stumbled toward it, sectioned it with the plasma cutter.

  The blast had stressed the corridor, covering the walls with hairline cracks. Stumbling up, he inspected it for leaks. For now it seemed to be holding.

  Limping, still deafened, he moved to the end of the corridor and pounded on the airlock hatch. No answer. “It’s Altman!” he called. “Let me through!”

  When there was still no answer, he realized there was an easier way and established a comlink to Field through his holopod. Immediately the airlock slid open and he stumbled through.

  “Altman,” said Field. He was clutching his Marker icon tight in one hand, closing the airlock behind him with the other. “Thank the Marker. I had just about given up hope.”

  “Where’s Ada?” was the first question Altman asked.

  “What do you mean?” asked Field. “Still confined to the mainland, I presume. I haven’t seen her in days.”

  “But I saw her,” said Altman. “I saw her vid. She was right here.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Field. “I haven’t seen her.”

  Maybe it was the Marker, he thought. But how could that be? The Marker only showed dead people. But Ada wasn’t dead. And then his blood froze as he realized what he’d known ever since he’d dreamt of her earlier: Ada was dead.

  Field grabbed his arm. “We have to go,” said Field. “I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep them contained.”

  “Where’s Markoff?” Altman asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Field. “I think he must have packed up and left. Either that or he’s dead. Doesn’t matter much to me either way.”

  Altman nodded.

  “We’ll have to come back, you know,” said Field.

  “What?” said Altman.

  “We need to go get help and come back. We have to make sure this is contained. We have to protect the Marker.”

  Altman followed him away from the airlock and upward, through a series of open chambers and then around a curving corridor to the main dome. They got on the lift and prepared to take it to the top, but it didn’t move.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Altman.

  Field shook his head. “Apparently the lift won’t run on the auxiliary power,” he said. “We’ll have to climb. After you.”

  Altman slung the cutter over his back and started up the access ladder, Field right behind him. It was a narrow climb, not much
room between the ladder and the wall, and it quickly became an arduous one as well. Already exhausted by what he had just been through, Altman found he had to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Behind him, Field wasn’t doing much better; he was wheezing like he was about to pass out.

  “Everything okay, Field?” Altman called down.

  “I’ll live,” said Field. He started to say something further, then made a choking sound and was suddenly cut off.

  Altman glanced down and saw that Field was being choked by something that looked like a whitish gray snake or a length of intestine. One end was curled tight around the ladder, the other tight around his throat. Field was scrabbling at his throat with one hand, trying to hold on to the ladder with the other. Altman started down toward him, shouting, while Field let go of the ladder, both hands on the strangler now.

  Altman was still clambering down, just heaving the cutter off his back, almost ready to cut the thing in two. But Field wasn’t holding the ladder. If he cut through the creature, Field would fall.

  “Field!” he cried. “Grab hold of the ladder!”

  But Field didn’t seem to hear him. His face was purple now, and Altman saw that blood was leaking slowly from his ears. Altman stretched down and stamped on the end of the strangler holding to the ladder. It squirmed beneath his foot but didn’t let go. At the other end it gave a little wrenching jerk, and Field’s head popped off like a grape, thunking down to the floor below. The body, knocking against the walls and the ladder, swiftly followed it.

  He watched the strangler slither down, moving swiftly and sinuously. When it reached the bottom, it moved in twisting undulating motions until it reached Field’s headless corpse. He watched it prod his stomach and then one end of it narrowed to a point and it stabbed through the skin. Slowly, throbbing, it forced itself into Field’s belly. The belly swelled and slowly distended, until with a last wriggle the creature had disappeared entirely.

  Altman felt sick. He clung to the ladder a moment, staring down. He might have hung there for longer, but then a thought occurred to him. There might be more of them. Glancing nervously about him, he forced himself to continue up the ladder.

  When he reached the hatch, he opened it and clambered out onto the deck, making sure it was securely closed behind him. He hoped the creatures wouldn’t be capable of opening it, but he didn’t know for sure.

  He started clambering down the side of the dome, following the narrow steps cut in the glass. Below was the boat platform, slopping up and down with the swells. Most of the boats were gone, but one was left. He undid the mooring and climbed in.

  The motor started immediately. Only then did it start to seem real, like he might actually get away, like he might actually survive.

  And then he remembered Field, dead because he had waited for Altman. We’ll have to come back, Field had said. Make sure it’s contained.

  No, thought Altman. I’m free of it. I’m not going back.

  And then suddenly he felt a presence in the boat beside him, just behind him, just out of sight. He was afraid that if he turned, he would see Field, his head loose, in place but not connected to his neck, threatening to fall off at any moment.

  Hello, Altman, someone said.

  “Leave me alone, Field,” Altman said.

  Are you coming back for me? Only, when he thought of it, it didn’t seem exactly like Field’s voice.

  “You’re dead, Field. I can’t come back for you.”

  But what about me? it said.

  Definitely not Field’s voice. It was the voice of a woman now. He turned his head, saw Ada.

  “Where are you, Ada? Who killed you?”

  I’m right here. I need you, Michael, she said. I need you to finish what you started.

  He shook his head. “You’re not Ada,” he said. “You’re a hallucination.”

  It’s not finished, Michael. Everyone is in grave danger. You have to stop the Convergence.

  “What is Convergence?” he asked.

  You’ve seen the Convergence, Ada said. You need to stop it.

  And then she disappeared. He put the boat in gear and pushed the throttle down hard. Damned if he could figure out what exactly she wanted from him. What it wanted from him. I’m not going back, he told himself, I’m not going back.

  But he already was afraid he would.

  60

  When he landed at the docks in Chicxulub, someone was waiting for him. Chava, the boy who had told Ada and him about the body on the beach. He was standing there in the dim light, shivering. Beside him was the town drunk who had lost his name.

  “I knew you were coming,” said Chava as Altman tied the boat off. “The bruja told me. She is dead and yet she told me. She has asked me to tell you that you must go back.”

  “I don’t want to go back,” he said.

  “You must,” said Chava, his eyes innocent and sincere. “She needs you.”

  “And why are you here?” said Altman to the drunk.

  He wasn’t drunk now, or at least didn’t appear to be so. He crossed his fingers and made the sign of the devil’s tail.

  “The only way to beat the devil,” the man told him, “is to take the devil inside you. You must open yourself to the devil. You must learn to think like the devil.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” said Altman. “I need to find help.”

  “Yes,” said Chava. “We will come with you.”

  He left the docks and set off, the old man and the boy following him. When it became clear that he was heading toward the DredgerCorp compound, Chava hurried to catch up, tried to hold him back.

  “You will find no help there,” he said.

  He shook the boy off and kept going, heading for the gate. When he looked back, he saw the boy and the old man had stopped, were standing motionless in the dusty road.

  “We will wait for you here,” the boy called after him.

  He tried his card on the gate and it opened. He crossed the stretch of empty ground to the compound and tried the card on the door, without result.

  He knocked, pressed the buzzer, then waited. For a long moment there was nothing and then the vid panel next to his face flashed on, to show a wavery black and white image of Terry.

  He stared at Altman, pushing his glasses back on his nose.

  “I’d like to come in,” said Altman.

  “I’m sorry,” said Terry. “No admittance for anybody at the moment.”

  “It’s important,” said Altman. “Something’s gone wrong with the facility,” he said. “We need to do something about it.”

  He heard the sound of someone speaking, a voice too low to make out, just outside the frame. Terry turned his head and looked offscreen. “It’s one of them,” he said to someone on his left. “I don’t know which one, I don’t remember his name. Alter, I think.” He was silent, the other voice rumbling again. “Yeah, that’s it,” he said. “Altman.” He listened intently and then turned back to Altman.

  “You can come in,” he said.

  “Who were you talking to?” asked Altman.

  “Nobody,” he said. “Don’t worry about that.”

  “I need to know I’ll be safe,” he said.

  “You’ll be safe,” said Terry after a moment’s hesitation, but by the way he looked sideways as he said it, Altman knew he was lying.

  · · ·

  He had almost reached the outer gate by the time Terry opened the door. He kept going, not even turning around. “Wait a minute,” asked Terry, “where are you going?”

  “Sorry,” said Altman. “Can’t stay.”

  “I’ve got a gun,” said Terry. “Don’t make me shoot you.”

  Altman stopped.

  “Now be a good boy and turn around and come back,” said Terry.

  He did. He turned slowly and went back. Terry held his gun casually, almost desultorily. The safety, Altman noted, was off.

  “What’s that you’re holding?” he asked, glancing down at the plasma cut
ter.

  “What’s this about?” said Altman. “First I can’t come in and then you’re insisting I come in?”

  “Orders,” said Terry. “You’re to come inside and stay put.” He gestured at the plasma cutter. “I think you’d better drop it,” he said.

  “Whose orders?”

  Terry just shrugged.

  “I don’t want to come in,” Altman said, moving slightly forward. “There’s something I need to finish first.”

  “And I don’t want to shoot you,” said Terry. “But I will. Drop that thing and put your hands up.”

  Suddenly the gate started to rattle, someone banging on it. Terry’s eyes flicked toward it just for a moment, just long enough for Altman to lunge and knock the gun to one side. It fired, the bullet sparking off the fence, but Terry didn’t drop it, indeed was already starting to bring it back to bear on him. Altman flicked the plasma cutter on and flashed it toward him in the same movement. The energy blade sliced through his forearm, the gun and the hand holding it tumbling to the ground.

  For a moment Terry was too shocked to realize what had happened. He just stood there, unable to figure out what had happened to his arm. And then, it hit him. Eyes wide, he stepped back and took in a deep breath to scream.

  Altman, not knowing what else to do, ran, trying not to hear the screams of the man behind him. He darted out the gate and was joined by Chava, who ran along beside him.

  “I came and knocked for you,” he said, “and now you come.”

  “A good thing you did, too,” said Altman. “Where’s the old man?”

  “El Borracho?” asked Chava. “He had to go. He was thirsty.”

  He started back down the street, the boy following him. What now? He turned and crouched beside the boy.

  “I have to destroy some devils,” he said. “Like the thing you saw on the beach.”

  “I will help you,” said Chava. “Together we will kill them.”