by Ben Hammott
Richard glanced at the monster riddled with holes oozing thick pus when it toppled to the floor with its tentacles waving frantically in all directions. He snatched up the knife he noticed beside him, climbed to his feet and in a staggering dazed run, followed Talbot back through the passage.
*****
The soldiers moved quietly through the room, which they assumed by the rows of beds lining its walls, to be a hospital ward. Some of the contorted skeletal remains of the patients' corpses remained on the dark-stained beds where they had come to be healed, but instead, by the evidence of missing body parts and gnawed bones, had suffered a horrifying and brutal demise. Remains of other unfortunate victims who had attempted, but ultimately failed, to flee from whatever horror had confronted them lay in pieces strewn about the floor. The gruesome remains both horrified and fascinated the men who cast anxious gazes at the bones of the crew who had once piloted the huge spaceship through space. It was a sobering thought to them all that advanced technology was no match against nature's primal instinct to slay and feed, whatever planet it originated from.
Startled by the loud boom and the crunching of metal that thundered through the room, some of the men instinctively glanced back at the sound, but found the door the beast had just struck blocked by rows of monstrous cocoons.
Colbert and Sullivan turned their gaze upon the cocoons surrounding them when the movements of whatever was inside increased. They were waking up. Bulges appeared over their surfaces like fast-forming boils about to erupt. Sullivan wasn't eager to be around when they did and pressed on. Equally eager to put as much distance as possible between them and whatever horror emerged from the now swaying sacks, the rest of the SEALs quickly followed. Haste had replaced their previous priority of silence.
Metal skidding across the floor followed the loud crash and rending of metal as the beast announced its arrival and charged through the room in search of its prey. The cocoons it barged aside, slammed into others. Casings split and dark-brown shiny things the size and shape of a soccer ball poured out. Some bounced slightly, others drifted in circles before coming to a stop, while others rolled across the floor.
Confused by the mass of cocoons blocking its view, the beast slowed and nudged another of the obstructions aside. Unaware of the object that rolled beneath its belly, it kicked it when it moved forward.
Hearing something approach, Brody glanced behind and stared at the strange ball rolling towards him. Though he had no idea what it was, he assumed it wasn't anything he wanted anywhere near him. When he lashed out a foot to kick it away, the ball changed.
As a head uncurled from the round mass, strands of sinewy hair sprung out from around the top. Dark eyes, more like shapeless holes, appeared. A crack on the lower part of the skull-shaped head separated and dropped to form a jaw displaying shiny, black teeth splayed at various angles. Committed to the maneuver, Brody was powerless to pull his foot away from the frightening monster that had formed in a split second. Two slender arms sporting four-fingered, clawless hands, unfurled from its body as it sprung over Brody's foot, scampered up his body, grabbed his face and pressed two fingers into his eyes. Brody screamed and pawed at the beast gnawing his cheek.
The beast snapped at the fingers, biting off three at the knuckles.
Brody screamed louder and staggered back into a cocoon.
Ramirez spun towards the scream and, for a moment, stared at the grotesque creature perched on Brody's chest. When the creature looked back at him, its hair splayed out like a bizarre crown as it dropped its blood-dripping jaw and let out a scream so high-pitched it hurt Ramirez's ears.
A single shot rang out.
The hole punched through the creature's head, ran with thick blood so dark it was almost black, like crude oil.
Ramirez knocked the dead creature to the floor and examined Brody. Blood poured from the man's eyes, cheek and hand. He was in bad shape, but still alive. “Okay, buddy, it's gone.”
“I can't see,” screamed Brody. He wiped at his eyes with fingers oozing blood from severed digits.
More of the creatures poured from the top of the cocoon behind Brody and headed for the scent of blood. Ramirez dodged back when they swarmed over Brody, biting and pulling free lumps of flesh.
Colbert arrived, saw the carnage taking place, aimed his gun at Brody's head and fired. The bullet brought a merciful end to the man's agony. He grabbed Ramirez's shoulder and turned him away from the horrific sight.
“We have to go before more come―we've found an exit.”
The beast appeared and rushed towards them. It snorted loudly, its eyes wide and full of terror. Colbert and Ramirez dodged aside and watched it bolt past. Creatures feeding on its flesh clung to its sides and back. More of the creatures were in pursuit, chasing the beast for a share of the feast. One leaped at Ramirez. His rifled barked, killing it in midair. Colbert joined him in spraying the oncoming hoard as they moved back and as soon as they saw a space, they turned and fled.
Creatures poured from every evil sack. There were hundreds of them. Gunshots echoed through the room from different positions, a sign the others were having their own problems. Colbert prayed they had managed to get the door open.
Colbert and Ramirez veered to the side and sought sanctuary on the nearest bed when a group of creatures blocked their path. A commotion raised their heads.
In its attempt to be free of the creatures eating it alive, the beast slammed into the wall, crushing those on that side. It bounded forward, knocking beds aside with its massive head and shoving others in front like a bulldozer pushing soil. Beds, mixed with the crew's ancient skeletons, tumbled over each other in a mass of metal and bones. A cocoon ripped from the ceiling joined the oncoming wreckage, adding the screams of the foul creatures trapped inside to the screeching clash of wreckage.
Colbert glanced at the floor crawling with creatures and realized they had nowhere to go. He shot the creature that crawled from the top of the cocoon nearest the bed, shouldered his rifle and shouted loud enough to be heard above the speedily approaching ruckus, “Ramirez, follow me.”
Ramirez turned as Colbert leaped onto the cocoon. His weight swung it away from the bed. When it was within reach, he climbed onto the next one. Ramirez kicked away the creature that jumped on the bed before it could attack and leaped as the mangled pile of beds, skeletons and creatures tore the one he stood on away. Trying to ignore the things moving about inside, he moved around the grotesque sack, and climbed onto the next one when it swung into reach. He grabbed his pistol and shot the creature that poked its head out the top and glanced at Colbert, two cocoons away when he dropped to the floor. He glanced down. The creatures ignored them and swarmed after the beast like rats drawn to the Pied Piper. Ramirez dropped to the floor and rushed after Colbert towards the exit.
Cleveland pointed. “Here they come.”
“Where's Brody,” asked Sullivan, gazing behind them.
No one answered. They knew the commander wouldn't have abandoned Brody if he still lived. Stedman and Sullivan slid the doors closed when Colbert and Ramirez were safely through.
“Brody?” questioned Sullivan.
Colbert shook his head sadly and glanced at the door at the end of the short corridor. It looked intact and would take them back onto the route to the armory. He didn't think mentioning he ended the man's suffering with a bullet would boost their morale, so he skipped past it and forced the men to concentrate back on the mission. He glanced at the tool in Cleveland's hand, pleased the man had kept hold of it. “Let's get that door open and find out if the corridor's clear.”
When the door had been forced open, Cleveland stepped through. The barricade of debris ended a few feet away. “It's clear.”
Keen to keep the men moving and their thoughts, for now, off the brother they had lost, Colbert urged them onwards.
*****
As Talbot and Richard sprinted through room away from the foul pool, Talbot slowed to let Richard catch up. “I suppos
e I should thank you for saving my life.”
“Yes, you should, but give me your rifle and I'll consider the debt repaid.”
Talbot smiled. “Not going to happen. I know it's the only reason you rescued me.”
When a loud, piercing shriek echoed through the room, they turned. The Slug Monster emerged from the tunnel and turned its gaze upon the fleeing men. Its tentacles reached for the ceiling, pulled its bulk from the ground and as fluidly as any chimpanzee swinging from branch to branch, swung through the room towards them at an amazing speed for its bulk.
Richard sighed. “What is it with these aliens? They never give up.”
“Probably the scarceness of food has something to do with it, but what surprises me more is how is that thing is still alive. You gutted it and I shot it.”
The two men fled the pursuing monster that quickly gained on them. Its excited shrieks growing ever nearer filled the men with dread.
Talbot's weapon-light fell on a door a short distance ahead. It was neither open nor closed. A small gap in its center provided their only means of escape. They rushed for it. Richard glanced behind and wished he hadn't. The monster was barely twenty feet away. Globules of white pus dripped from its body wounds and its teeth chomped menacingly.
Talbot didn't slow when he approached the door, but dived and passed smoothly through the hole barely wider than his shoulders.
Richard looked on in dismay as Talbot's feet disappeared through the small opening. He was a terrible diver. Though he had practiced when he was a teenager, so he could impress the bikini-clad girls at his local swimming pool, he had failed miserably. Every dive had turned into a clumsy and extremely embarrassing belly flop; the chances of him diving through such a small hole without hitting the side was something he thought impossible. A tentacle appeared beside his face and seemed to look at him. With doubts he would make it, Richard dived for the hole. His arms and shoulders went through smoothly, but his knees struck the edge painfully, causing him to crash to the ground. Panting heavily, he remained where he fell to catch his breath.
When the monster smashed into the door, Talbot aimed the weapon at the bulbous skin that filled the hole briefly before moving away. Though its body was too large to fit through the small opening, its tentacles weren't. They snaked through the opening and whipped out erratically in all directions in an attempt to snare their prey. Talbot prodded Richard with a foot. “I suggest you move.”
Richard rolled onto his back and glanced at the tentacles reaching ever nearer. He climbed to his feet, ducked beneath one and moved until he was out of their long reach.
“We're safe now,” said Talbot.
Richard snorted as he examined his scraped knees. “Safe! Nowhere aboard this damn ship is safe.”
Talbot roamed the light around until it settled on something fifty feet away. “What do you make of that?”
Hoping it wasn't another monster, Richard dragged his gaze away from the wavering tentacles to find out the reason for Talbot's question. Though large and unexpected, it wasn't anything alive. He gazed at the thing perched on a thick rail that ran along the center of the floor. “Well I'll be damned―it's a train.”
Talbot nodded. “The crew must have used it to move through the ship. Which stands to reason, I suppose. The ship's so large it would take ages to walk back and forth.”
Though two carriages had dislodged from the rail, one was still connected to the train. The other had broken free, slewed across the platform and smashed against the wall. Dim yellow lights lined the sides of the tunnel and led off into the distance.
While Richard headed for the train, Talbot climbed onto the wide platform beside it and looked down the side of the carriage that had struck the wall. He glimpsed two doors as buckled and dented as the wall. Even if they could move the twisted wreck, he doubted the doors would ever open again. He glanced along the platform dotted with seats, columns and walls adorned with alien posters and information signs, but saw no other exits. He glanced at Richard climbing onto the platform and walked over.
Richard placed his face against the window of the first upright carriage and peered inside. “I wonder if it still works.”
“It wouldn't do us any good if it does.” Talbot pointed the weapon behind him. “The way out is back there. We need to go up and head for the back of the ship.”
Richard looked at the carriage leaning against the wall and the tip of the door tops it blocked. “Good luck with that. In my experience aboard this vessel, it's never that simple. If you see a handy exit, point it out and I'll gladly follow, but failing that, I'm going to search the train. There might be weapons aboard.” Richard increased his pace.
“Or monsters,” Talbot added and smirked when Richard's pace suddenly slowed.
Richard turned. “As you have the only weapon, it's best you lead.”
“Not true, you have the knife.”
Richard glanced at the knife in his hand. He couldn't imagine fighting any monster in such close proximity to be able to use it. He held it out to Talbot. “Swap it for the rifle and I'll go first.”
Talbot strode past Richard. “I'm fine, thanks.”
They passed two more carriages before they found an open door. Talbot shone the light inside at the obvious neglect and deterioration. Two rows of large, facing seats lined both sides of the compartment. Tuffs of spongy filling poked from the many rips in the orange padded seats, evidence that sharp-clawed creatures had been inside. When they were confident it was free of danger, they entered and cautiously made their way through the train.
To Talbot, though on a larger scale, the seats and the layout of the train seemed remarkably similar to trains he had travelled on and abnormally out of place in an alien vessel. “Richard, do you have any idea what the crew looked like?”
“I never saw one, but the other scientists found the well preserved corpse of an alien they thought might have been the Captain. Apparently it was humanoid, taller than humans and, surprisingly, not that scary compared to the other creatures they transported. I'm not sure how much you know, but when the aliens were forced to leave their planet they built an armada of these gigantic Ark ships to evacuate their world. They filled it with a variety of species and plants and set off through space to search for a new planet to inhabit. After the crew had evacuated this one it was damaged by meteoroids and crashed on Earth.”
They moved through a small articulated corridor into a compartment identical to the previous.
“So this spaceship is the alien version of Noah's Ark.”
Richard shrugged. “I suppose so, though Noah didn't fill his ship with bloodthirsty monsters.”
The next compartment they entered was absent any seats. A pair of large doors in both side walls indicated the space big enough to fit an articulated lorry in was probably used for transporting cargo.
Three compartments later they arrived at one that gave them the most concern. Cages down the center of the room could only have one function―transporting live cargo. Monsters. Richard kept close to Talbot as they moved down one side, peering through the crisscrossed bars of each cage for any inhabitants. The first, second and third, though occupied, posed no danger; the creatures were a long time dead, nothing but yellowed skeletons. They paused at the fourth and stared at the gaping hole. Unable to get through the cage walls, whatever was once imprisoned here had burrowed through the floor.
Talbot looked at Richard. “Maybe entering the train wasn't such a bad idea after all.”
Richard grinned and held out a hand. “Does it earn me the rifle as a reward?”
“It wasn't that good an idea.” Talbot gazed ahead. “Let's keep moving.”
As they entered the next compartment, another cargo hold, Talbot held up a fist to halt Richard.
“That I understand, but I don't speak army talk. Anything more complicated you'll have to verbalize.”
Talbot turned, placed a finger to his lips and shushed.
That, Richard understood.
>
The two men tilted their heads up at the ceiling and their eyes followed the click-clacks that moved along the roof until it stopped directly above them.
Richard tapped Talbot on the shoulder and pointed through the window at the creature's shadow cast on the wall by the dim yellow lights stretching the length of the tunnel. It looked more like a spindly tree covered in thin, twiggy branches than any creature either of them could visualize.
Talbot pointed forward. Richard nodded and one careful step at a time they moved through the carriage. They stopped when the click-clacking started up again, moved to the edge of the roof and down the side of the carriage.
Talbot switched off the light when something appeared at a nearby window and looked inside. “Don't move,” he whispered. “It might not see us and leave.”
Richard huffed softly and whispered back, “Yeah, that's what's going to happen. It's probably got infrared vision or whatever ability it needs to see us in the dark.”
The head turned and looked straight at them.
Richard refrained from telling Talbot 'I told you so.'
Talbot raised the rifle, switched on the light and aimed it at the creature. Caught in the glare, the creature didn't move.
The twig-like growths they had first glimpsed from its shadow grew out from along its back and from a silver, almost metallic, head that reflected Talbot's light. Flat pieces of bone, the hue of ancient parchment, protruded in two lines along either side of its head and the top part of its torso. Exterior bone ribs, tightly packed together, adorned its chest. Its legs, which seemed to surround the body, matched the style of the twig-like appendages on its head and back, though these were slightly thicker and doubled jointed with smaller growths brandishing sharp points spouting from its knee joints. The creature, at three feet long, wasn't very big, but what it lacked in body mass it made up for with menace that wasn't lost on the two anxious men.
When it opened its small jaw set on the tip of its long head and let out a series of deep-throated squeaks and clicks, Talbot fired twice. The bullets smashed through the window and tore through the creature's skull, sending it flying against the wall before it dropped to the ground.