Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV)

by JC Andrijeski

  She was still sitting there when something grabbed at the pack on her back, forcing it off her arms. She tried to keep hold of it, wrestling them for it briefly, but they merely pushed her back to the ground with a claw-like hand. They took her winter coat in the process.

  Jet felt briefly naked with both things gone.

  She rarely left the underground without either. Anyway, her backpack had her knives, even a small bow in a tube that she’d brought for possible trade with Everest.

  Without that or Black, she would be helpless.

  But there were more of them now, a sea of faces she could feel peering at her from the dark. Looking around at those reflecting black eyes, Jet got the feeling not everyone they netted fought back, much less managed to nick one of them with a sword.

  She watched her pack and long coat disappear into the darkness. She could hear claw-like hands going through them both, pulling items out of the canvas knapsack and probably inspecting them one by one. Biting her lip, she tried not to care when she heard the clatter and tug, the rip of cloth as they found her mother’s shirts, the sound of the bow she’d made and arrows she’d feathered fall out of the tube to the metal of the deck.

  When she finally forced her eyes up, she found herself staring at the midnight blue face of one of her nightmares. The creature stared back at her. He continued to hold his shoulder where she’d cut him with the Japanese-style sword, but she couldn’t tell if it was still hurting him. He looked more puzzled than in pain. Jet watched the Nirreth take in the length of her body with a slow stare, as if she were as much of an animal to it as it was to her.

  Black, opaque-seeming eyes scanned her hands and feet where she sprawled, as if looking for more weapons, anything that might be a threat.

  After the faintest pause, it bared its teeth.

  It smiled too wide, showing too much gum, ape-fashion. The effect caused her to recoil even more, until her shoulders met the ridged metal of the bulkhead behind her.

  Her uncle Draven told her once that the Nirreth tried to smile because they knew humans did it. They tried to copy other mannerisms too, apparently, but she couldn’t remember much of anything else of what he’d said about the specifics.

  Her mind was too busy churning through the reality of her situation.

  Anyway, she couldn’t help but see the thing’s attempt to reassure her as pretty superficial.

  She’d been caught.

  The Nirreth had caught her. Worse, they’d taken her sword.

  It was the unthinkable thing, the thing she spent most of her waking days worried would happen to Biggs, not her. She’d always assumed it would be him one of these days, if he didn’t grow up a little and learn to pay attention. Biggs refused to follow all of the precautions everyone else did. He wandered alone, at night. He explored the overworld even when he didn’t have to. He was fascinated by the parks, which everyone knew weren’t safe, as the Nirreth often spent time there too, collecting samples and rooting out the squatters who tried to grow gardens and orchards in the relatively clean soil.

  He even tried to catch animals, not to eat but as pets. He’d been found trying to rope a wolf once, down by the water. If old Kimchee hadn’t been there, he probably would have gotten his throat torn out.

  But it hadn’t been Biggs who got snatched by the cullers.

  It had been her, Jet.

  She’d been the one who’d been caught off her guard. It would be her, Jet, who would be taken to one of their floating cities and be experimented on, enslaved, beaten...maybe even eaten, once they were finished doing whatever else.

  Assuming they didn’t just drop her out the hovercraft door to watch her body explode on the moss-covered pavement.

  Her mind went into a kind of static.

  Somehow, that blank, empty state left her surprisingly calm.

  Rubbing her ankle, which hurt from the vine that dragged her up into the air, she realized that the hovercraft still wasn’t moving. They remained over the same section of street where they’d picked her up, not far from what used to be the Gaslamp district.

  She wondered again how high they were off the ground. Maybe she really could jump, suicide or no. Her chances would certainly be better now, from a stationary position, than they would be in a few minutes.

  The thought was absent at first, almost a muse, but it quickly turned more pointed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the flat top of a brick building. She couldn’t be certain, but it looked to be within landing distance.

  It would be suicide to jump, her mind reasoned. Anyway, they would only rope her back up to the hovercraft again.

  But how much worse could it be than staying here?

  Could she ever forgive herself for not at least trying to get away?

  Jet pondered this as she tried to get a sense of the layout of the small cargo hold. She didn’t fully take her attention off the Nirreth’s face, though. She only took her eyes off him directly once, to look quickly around the dark space in the back, where they presumably had her things. Her eyes couldn’t penetrate that blackness though, not enough to locate her sword.

  In the same motion, she glanced at the brick building outside.

  It would be a long jump.

  Too long, she suspected.

  Even so, Jet could feel the part of herself that wanted to try it. Her heart beat louder, deafening her, so Jet knew she was on the verge of making a dash for the opening.

  But she’d already stared too long, shown too much interest.

  Even as she thought it, the Nirreth she’d stuck with her sword kicked her with its two-toed, flat foot. It wasn’t a hard kick, or even a particularly threatening one. But she found she understood it well enough. He wanted her eyes off that hovercraft door.

  Looking back into the dark, she saw more black eyes staring at her, reflecting light.

  A few bared teeth at her as well. Most only stared, their faces unmoving.

  Fear clenched her stomach, knotting it. Jumping was crazy, but she couldn’t think of anything else...nothing else would come to her mind as a solution. Breathing was difficult, but the static in her mind remained. It didn’t seem all that realistic to try and fight them using only her body. The one standing over her had a hundred pounds on her, if not more.

  No, the sword had been her only chance at fighting them. That chance had passed.

  Jet saw tails flickering in the dark like snakes, seemingly separate from the bodies to which they were attached.

  Realizing she was breathing too much, rather than too little, she clutched a hand over her chest, trying to calm herself down...or at least to keep from passing out.

  They would pump less oxygen in here probably. From what her uncle said, they needed less, pulling in an odd combination of oxygen and CO2 from the air slits at the sides of their necks, just above their shoulders.

  Only one thought kept repeating.

  She had to get out of here.

  She had to get out of here now.

  Once they took her out of the city, she was a goner.

  As if taunting her, the hovercraft remained over the same street, too high for her to jump but close enough for her mind to toy with the idea. It felt like if she left this segment of asphalt and rusted metal, she would never see her family again.

  She would die in some Nirreth city. No one would know what happened to her.

  She risked another glance out the open door of the hovercraft. The vessel rose and fell gracefully in the wind, adjusting its height up and down. Jet noticed that the brick building was even further away now than before. Now it was clearly too far to jump. She might as well jump directly down onto the street, over 80 feet below.

  She could wait. Hope for a better chance, one she might survive. They would probably pass over water at some point, the sound or the actual ocean. Of course, the waters of either were dangerous as hell these days, just from pollution and toxic algae alone.

  The creature kicked her again, forcing Jet’s eyes off the door.
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  It shook its giant head at her. Again, its meaning was clear.

  Jet looked away from the door, but her mind continued to chew through scenarios. Even with the risks, a large body of water struck her as worth trying. Anything would be better than letting them take her back behind the high walls and force fields surrounding one of their “green zones.” She’d never seen one, even from the outside, but the traders she’d grown up with had. The parks and cities they’d built to dot the continent were more secure than any prison.

  Getting in from the outside was all but impossible.

  No one had heard of anyone getting back out again, not once they were inside.

  She took another breath as the thought solidified. Then another.

  She needed to keep her wits about her. She couldn’t give in, not now. That was the mistake most people made when the Nirreth caught them, she told herself; they missed their chance to escape before they’d been locked away in a place where escape was no longer possible. The lizard skins seemed surprised about the sword, enough that she’d managed to wound one of them. Maybe they’d be surprised by her willingness to jump into a toxic sea, as well.

  She needed to be ready.

  She was starting to get her focus back, to begin the semblances of a plan in her head...when one of those snake-like tails darted sideways at her.

  That time, it didn’t wrap around any part of her.

  Before Jet could move out of the way, it slammed into her side.

  She gasped in shock, thrown sideways by the blow. It didn’t release her.

  Staring down in a kind of horror, Jet saw the tail seeming to stick out of her side, the end of it stuck into her flesh. She pounded at it ineffectually with her fists, then struggled to pull it out, using her booted feet as leverage as she tried to force her body in the opposite direction. When Jet couldn’t free herself that way, she tore at the thick, dark-blue skin with her fingernails.

  The creature’s skin flinched along the ridge where she dug in her nails...but the tail still didn’t let go. One sharp end caught her flesh, holding her in place like a bone hook. It punctured clothing, skin and flesh, and it did it fast. Apart from the hook holding her in place, it felt like a thin-bladed knife had slid between two of Jet’s ribs.

  Once it penetrated a couple of inches, she felt something else.

  Liquid forced its way into her flesh. She gasped in alarm and pain as the substance was forced into the tiny hole in her flesh. A feeling of pressure met the flesh under her skin, making Jet light headed.

  When the pressure worsened, she yelled out, struggling for real.

  The tail left, as quickly as it had come.

  She could barely follow the motion with her eyes. The smooth skin slid out from between her fingers like water...and then it was gone, coiled back behind its owner.

  Crying out a second time, more in protest than anything, Jet clasped her side with her fingers, nearly in shock from the pain. She’d expected a lot of blood, but there was almost none. Even with the barb at its end, the tail’s blade was thin enough and sharp enough that it didn’t leave much of a hole once the creature unhooked from her flesh.

  The effects of whatever it had expelled into her lingered.

  In fact, Jet suspected the pain came more from that substance, whatever it had been...not from being stabbed by the sharp end of its tail. The drug reached her blood stream almost tangibly. There was nothing Jet could do but sit there, letting it happen.

  Whatever the Nirreth secreted into her, she felt it rapidly warm her skin. The warmth slid up to the middle of her chest, then down to her stomach and legs. Her arms began to warm a few seconds later, even her fingers. Her skin seemed to go numb.

  Looking up at the creature standing over her, Jet realized it had been him.

  That had been the Nirreth to stick her with its tail, maybe in revenge since she’d cut him first. Whatever his reasons, he’d expelled something from his body into her.

  She couldn’t quite move past that thought in her brain.

  Still holding her side, she fought to slide her weight backwards on the floor. She had to strain to move her muscles, to operate her limbs. She shoved at her body sluggishly, using her booted feet as leverage, but unable to direct their movements very well, either.

  She wasn’t moving right. There was something wrong with her.

  The creature just watched, silent.

  Even less successfully, Jet tried to use the wall to climb once more to her feet. Her tongue gradually thickened in her mouth, and it hit her again that the Nirreth had drugged her somehow with its tail. Whatever the drug had been, it made it nearly impossible for her to move, much less fight them. It made it hard to even think straight.

  Her thoughts were repeating though, Jet realized...moving slow. Repeating.

  As she realized that much, another thought occurred to her.

  She wouldn’t be catapulting herself out of hovercraft doors anytime soon.

  The window of hope she’d left herself, that stood shining before her eyes as she’d thought about the hovercraft skimming over the water, began to dim.

  Jet had heard, of course that the Nirreth had poison in their tails. She’d never heard anyone say what that poison did, exactly, probably because no one knew for sure. She’d heard rumors, like with anything related to the Nirreth. She’d heard that it was like a kind of happy pill, rendering their victims docile but still able to work. It was said by some that humans could get high off the secretions, like a street drug.

  She’d also heard it made its victims die a horrible, painful and convulsing death.

  She could be dying right now. There was no way to know.

  In some ways, death wouldn’t even be all that terrible, not compared to what Jet heard they normally did with human captives.

  All she had was rumors. Rumors of rumors. Underground myths whispered from person to person in the dark, like ghost stories.

  No one escaped. The cullers came and people disappeared.

  That’s the way it had been for as long as Jet could remember.

  Gripping the lower part of the wall, she tried again to crawl away from where the tall Nirreth stood. That time, it grabbed hold of her arm.

  Before she could try to get away, it yanked her unceremoniously to her feet.

  “Captain wants to see you,” it said in stilted English.

  The oddity of it speaking English stunned her briefly. Then she was once more lost in looking at the thing, in making sense of it.

  She stared at his black eyes, at the strangeness of his features.

  It occurred to her that whatever else the stinger had done to her, the pain had vanished. The hardest edges of her fear felt dulled, as did her ability to think, to even be angry. Her limbs remained almost soft in the tall Nirreth’s thick fingers. She found herself looking at its face in more detail, almost in curiosity...unable to keep herself from staring at its odd features.

  The Nirreth who held her was larger than any human she’d ever known. He stood more than a foot taller than Edgar, their blacksmith, who was the tallest man in their settlement.

  She’d known Nirreth were tall, though. They found a skeleton from time to time, although it was rare, and usually from the first wars. But the height thing wasn’t rumor, at least; that much, people at the settlement could verify.

  Generally speaking, they had broader shoulders, too, like this one did...and longer legs. Most, including this one, were proportionately leaner than humans, with long, dense muscles on their appendages, including their tails.

  Their feet had only two large, flat toes. They had only three very long fingers and an even longer four-jointed thumb on each hand.

  She stared down at this one’s feet. Leather shoes encased its long, flat toes.

  They made him look a little bit like a duck. Or maybe a goat.

  Jet giggled, looking back up at it.

  That time, it didn’t bare its teeth at her.

  The Nirreth’s features were bo
th strangely sharper than a human’s and stood out further on its face. Rather than the nearly flat countenance of most humans, the creature standing in front of her, as well as those Jet glimpsed in the darker segment of the hold, looked closer to fish...or maybe reptiles. In some ways, they even resembled a horse or a deer at times, or any animal where the face appeared elongated and more symmetrical.

  Their large, black eyes still sat in the front of their faces, however.

  Jet read somewhere that predators always had their eyes staring forward, never to the side. Cats had that, and dogs. Deer and horses had theirs on the sides of their heads. Probably so they could see more peripherally and run away faster.

  So maybe its face was more like a big, fur-less cat’s, Jet thought.

  Like a panther or something.

  Jet wondered if humans would eventually evolve to having their eyes on the sides of their faces, from living under the Nirreth. Even as she thought it, she laughed again.

  Looking closer at the Nirreth’s face, Jet noticed that this one had a rim around its eyes that was a lighter midnight blue, even lighter than its skin. Its black irises were flecked with pebble-like dots of the same color, giving its eyes a jewel-like appearance.

  “Pretty,” Jet said, almost without meaning to. Her voice slurred.

  The creature smiled at her again.

  That time, she didn’t flinch away.

  “Better?” he grunted. “Feel better...person?”

  It took her a moment to understand the question.

  “Yes,” she said, a half-beat too late. She nodded seriously, as if her head had been jerked up and down on a puppet string.

  “Yes,” she repeated, a little stronger. “What was that?”

  The Nirreth grunted a little, making a kind of hissing sound in its throat.

  Then it turned, still holding her arm, and began to walk.

  “We see captain,” it said only.

  “Wait...” she started, then had nothing to follow from that.

  The Nirreth began leading Jet along a curved passage that appeared to wind her deeper and deeper inside the ship. There was some reason Jet knew she shouldn’t go that way, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was.