In a flurry of black water, the hell hippo charged. Will fired, and then fired again but it didn’t slow. Natalie leapt forward and grabbed Wolfgang. Will kept firing, the hell hippo was a few feet from crushing Natalie. Will ran ahead of them, shooting rapidly and landing shot after shot into the flesh of the hell hippo. It still didn’t slow. He kept firing, fury blurring his vision and sharpening his aim. He felt an arm around him, dragging him downward and to the side. The hell hippo stampeded past. Its footfalls shaking the ground and sending a tidal wave of black water into Will’s mouth and eyes. Its feet passed inches from his head.
“Come on,” Natalie yelled.
Will got to his feet and ran after the Doc, who still carried the squirming, barking dog in her arms. Will could hear the heavy breath of the hell hippo and the pounding of its feet behind him. They swerved behind a heavy boulder and kept running. After they had put some distance between them and the raging animal, they stopped to catch their breath.
“Your damn dog almost got us killed!”
Natalie looked at him wearily. She put Wolfgang onto the ground and tried to calm him. Eventually, he stopped barking and started to whimper.
Will looked around them. The black rocks were taller here and he’d lost his orientation. He hauled himself on top of one, ignoring the sharp pain in his left side. Mercifully, the rock wasn’t covered in the slippery green slime of the slug aliens. At the top, Will could see that the field of black rocks ended in a few meters at a shimmering lake filled with who knew what. He turned and through the atmosphere, found the cone structure he had climbed during his last visit.
“We aren’t far. Let’s go,” He said.
“Good. Which way?”
Will pointed and Natalie, with her dog at her heels, headed in that direction. Will jumped down and reloaded his gun. He was going to need it.
23
A black dome loomed in the thick, orange atmosphere. Natalie gasped, it clearly wasn’t natural. But who had constructed such a thing? She couldn’t understand the mind that had made it. Was it the mind swappers? The slugs? A combination of them together? The structure was made of the black rocks of the landscape, perfectly fit together, in a spiral formation. It looked mathematically precise, eerie and still. As they climbed the hill it sat upon, Natalie saw a layer of slime coating the rocks.
Will let out a heavy sigh. “We have to climb it.”
“You climbed that?”
Will nodded. “They’re inside.”
“There’s got to be an entrance.”
Will shook his head. “Nup. Slug boys coated it in slime. It’s easy for ‘em.”
Natalie raised an eyebrow. “And with their new human bodies?”
Will opened his mouth and then shut it.
“Let’s check the perimeter,” Natalie said.
Natalie hurried along the side of the structure. She was out of breath and her body was heavy and sore with fatigue, but adrenalin propped her up. She scanned the slime covered rocks, her heart pounding. She didn’t know what an entrance would look like, if it wasn’t obvious. So she poked her hands into various gaps and grooves. She couldn’t help dreading what they would find inside. They were so close, but they could still be too late. The townspeople of Quuorn, Tom, could be dead. Natalie paused to look closer at a particular section. Will grunted with impatience.
“Why aren’t you checking the other side?” Natalie said, annoyed.
He gestured to the gun. “You might need cover.”
Natalie shook her head and hurried on. Her mind was growing frantic and it was hard to concentrate. Finally, she spotted a gap in the rocks. It was about waist high and big enough for a human to squeeze through and certainly big enough for the slugs to travel through. Natalie ducked down. The rocks lay messily on the ground and had not been replaced. As though they were in a rush. It didn’t fit with the preciseness of the structure and Natalie grew uneasy.
Will brushed past her and without hesitation, headed into the tunnel. Natalie swallowed and went in after him, but she knew that something wasn’t right. Wolfgang whined from outside the entrance but followed Natalie inside.
Slime dripped down from the rocks and squelched beneath their knees and hands. There was a smell of rotten flesh which made Natalie’s head spin. Will, ahead of her, reached the other side and stood up.
“Shit,” He said.
Natalie’s heart dropped. She quickened her pace. Her hands slid on the slime and she fell, hitting her head hard onto the stone floor. She shook it off and scrambled to the other side of the tunnel. Wolfgang slid in after her and started barking.
There were black wooden cages built in columns along the far wall. But they were empty. Nearby was fifteen dead slugs. They were laid delicately in the centre of the dome, their limbs arranged carefully. The rest of the dome had been stripped of whatever else it had contained.
Before she knew it, Natalie was running, she reached the bodies and bent down beside them. Had these slug bodies contained any of the people of Quuorn? Could one of them be Tom?
She examined one of the bodies closely. The bulbous head had blue veins across it and its skin had the soft, slime texture of a slug. The eyes were three times the size of a human, but were pale, cold and dead. It had stick thin arms with seven digits at the end. Someone had cut the stinger free of the tail, she checked the others, their stingers were missing too.
Natalie’s eyes widened, there was a bullet hole through its neck.
Natalie stormed over to Will. “What the hell did you do?”
His face was open with shock. “I took care of some slugs. So what?”
“So what?! Tom could’ve been in one of those slugs!”
“He wasn’t,” Will growled.
“How could you possibly know that? You- you oaf!”
“Oi, it’s not like you’ve done a thing to help ‘em. Calling the cops and-”
“You could’ve killed Tom!”
“I didn’t!” Will protested. “We don’t even have time for this! So, just… move on.”
Natalie was breathing heavily. Her hands shook, she clenched them and placed them at her sides.
Will lowered his voice. “It was before they swapped. And they attacked so, the humans wouldn’t have done that.”
Natalie let out a breath, she nodded slowly. “Okay… Okay. I’m sorry. It’s just-”
“I know,” Will said, with a nod.
He smiled gently. “Oaf? Is that the best you could come up with?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Natalie said, returning the smile. “But you did see the townspeople here?” She asked.
“Yep, in the cages.”
Natalie walked a few paces, taking in the details of the structure and the cages. “How do they adapt? How do they get their information? Is it from the actual brain of their hosts?”
“From what I hear, it’s mostly Google and torture.”
“They shut off all signals. They shut me out of my research and they shut themselves out too. They need the people of Quuorn alive. So that they can fool the rest of humanity into believing they belong here.”
Will grunted in agreement.
Natalie turned to face him. He was watching her and listening carefully. She could see that he was thinking just as intensely as she was. Natalie realised that he was a lot smarter than he let on.
“So, why would they dispose of them this early? It can’t just be because the portal is temporary. It doesn’t make sense. Is it because of us?” She asked.
Will shook his head. “The way I see it. They could take us out pretty easily. They uh, used some weak memory suppressants on me when I was knocked out. They want us to leave, convinced.”
“That’d save mind swapping us or killing us. Which would only create a bigger problem. Less contained than one town. They’d have to convince our friends and our…families and our colleagues. It would be a mess. But… they’ve blown that too.”
“Yeah I see that, but Doc, where are the people of Q
uuorn?”
“I don’t know,” Natalie said, her shoulders slumping. “But they’re desperate. And desperation leads to mistakes.”
“And violence,” Will added.
24
Will ducked through the tunnel, ready for anything to be on the other side waiting for him. There was nothing but the thick atmosphere, hanging heavily around them. There wasn’t a breath of wind on the planet. It was stifling and starting to grow warmer. He clenched his jaw and looked around. They had no leads and nothing to go on. The Doc had said, the aliens were desperate, they could be ‘disposing’ of the people of Quuorn as he stood there. The lack of direction, made his blood boil. He tried to calm it, but his head was also pounding as the alcohol wore off.
“Stupid bloody planet,” He groaned.
He turned to Natalie. “Let’s get to higher ground.”
She nodded, then looked up at the dome. “How hard was that to climb?”
Will let out a heavy sigh and looked back up the structure, his body remembered the pain of his fall. “Hard.”
Natalie frowned, still looking up at the structure. He could almost see the gears turning in her mind.
“The slime, the river water might be enough to dislodge it.”
“We don’t have time. Is that dog uh, good for anything?”
“What?” Natalie said.
Will scratched his stubble. “Can it sniff out anything. Is he a tracker. Like a bloodhound.”
“No, funnily enough- Besides, the environment is too novel. There’s an entirely new olfactory landscape. Plus the bodies and the smells of the Quuorn people are in Quuorn. Minds don’t leave much of a smell trail to follow… Though I guess, in some world, to some creature, they might.”
Will breathed a heavy sigh of frustration and fatigue. He turned away from the Doc and her verbal thought processing and looked through the sight of his gun. His eyes hurt so he pulled his glasses from his pocket and put them on. He refocused the sights and tried to adjust the settings to account for the atmosphere. He could just see some plants that he could climb on a nearby hill.
“Come on,” He said.
Natalie was grinning at him.
“What?” He asked.
“I didn’t think anybody wore glasses in this day and age.”
Will shrugged. “It’s just a habit.”
Will’s cheeks flushed, he cleared his throat and pointed towards the hill and the plants. They jogged away from the dome, down the hill and up the other. The trees were white and without foliage. They drooped downwards like old men. Still, Will thought they might hold his weight. He had learned a long time ago not to make any assumptions about anything that he came across through a portal. But in this case, he had to risk it. Will holstered his weapon and grabbed onto the low, thick branch. He pulled himself up and though there were a few quiet cracks, it held. Will climbed as high as he safely could and then a another meter higher. The plant swayed under his weight but Will could definitely see a lot further.
“What on Earth is that?” Natalie said.
Will looked over, surprised to hear her voice so close by. She was on the tree across from him, just as high, and holding on to just as little. The Doc never ceased to surprise him.
“Probably nothing on Earth,” Will said, with a sly grin.
Natalie ignored him and leant forward. The tree swayed violently, though she didn’t seem to notice. Will followed her line of sight. It was still hard to see through the orange brown tinge of the atmosphere, but higher up it was slightly clearer. Just a few kilometres away was a huge hole, with regular ridges along its edges.
“It’s a mine,” Will said.
“The mind swappers can’t be the dominant species. I can see tech.”
Will remained silent, he figured the Doc was about to go on about some theory or another. He hooked his elbow around a few of the measly branches and pulled his gun. He aimed it towards the mine and looked through the sights. It was definitely a mine. The ridges had been cut by machinery without a doubt. Nothing even that fancy or exotic. It looked like the old mines he’d visited as a kid in Western Australia. Will moved his sight beyond the mine and did a 360 scan, there wasn’t much besides black rocks and dead trees. No more domes for next few visible kilometres. The rest was obscured by steeper hills and the foggy atmosphere. He couldn’t see the portal from this vantage point but he suspected they were rapidly losing whatever head start they’d had.
“It’s gotta be the mine. That’s where they are keeping them,” Will said.
“But-” Natalie began. “It doesn’t add up.”
“Who cares, we gotta go.”
“Will, give me the gun. I want a closer look.”
“No time. I’ve looked. Let’s go.”
Will holstered his weapon and didn’t check to see if the Doc was offended. He slid down the trunk, breaking a few branches on the way down. When he got to the lowest branch he leapt onto the ground. The first thing he noticed was that the dog was lying down, completely motionless, at the base of the tree. The second thing he noticed was the gun pointed at him, before it fired.
25
A gunshot rang out across the quiet hills. Natalie froze, her leg extended to a branch beneath her. She looked down and could see both Will and Wolfgang lying motionless on the ground.
“Dr. Natalie Kyle. Won’t you join us?” Said the familiar voice of Monica Farrell’s body.
Natalie swallowed the panic threatening to blind her. She didn’t need to fall from the tree and break her neck. She focused her attention on her movements, as calmly and as quickly as she could, she made it to the ground. ‘Monica’ stood tall, her blonde hair and yellow dress dishevelled. She held a long rifle in her hands pointed at Natalie. Behind her were nine large men, they too held various weapons, of a sort. Two of them had guns, the rest held frying pans and kitchen knives.
Natalie kept her eyes on ‘Monica’. She inched her hand downward and placed her it on Wolfgang to check if he was breathing.
“I assure you, William Sanderson and the canine are both alive. I have loaded this weapon with our previous hosts poison. Who would’ve thought? My, your human brains are ingenious sometimes.”
The dreadful knot in Natalie’s chest, loosened somewhat. She felt the warmth of Wolfgang’s fur and felt the slight, but still present rise and fall of his breath. Anger almost blinded her but she took a breath and stood, facing ‘Monica’.
“Then why am I still standing?” She asked.
Natalie could see something different in ‘Monica’s’ eyes. She wasn’t trying to act human anymore, but it wasn’t just that. She looked crazed. Natalie got the sinking feeling that something had gone wrong, something more than just her and Will’s escape.
“Certain concepts have come to light that were previously unavailable to us in our former species limited…capacity.”
“And…and what’s that?” Natalie asked, trying to keep the fear from her voice.
‘Monica’ let out a strange sound, that seemed to express amusement. Natalie wanted to look away, ’Monica’s’ face contorted to allow the sound to come out of her human mouth. The wrongness of ‘Monica’, of the alien’s use of her human body, was growing.
‘Monica’ motioned with her gun. “Walk.”
“What about-”
“They’re coming too.”
The men walked past ‘Monica’ in unison. They grabbed Will and hauled his limp body onto one guys shoulders, another grabbed his feet. One of the men separated from the group, and moved to grab Wolfgang.
“I’ll carry him,” Natalie said.
She bent down and gently pulled Wolfgang into her arms.
“Hurry up!” ‘Monica’ yelled.
Natalie flinched and got to her feet. She felt the tip of the gun in her back and took a stumbling step forward. She spotted Will’s glasses on the ground.
“Wait, let me get those,” Natalie said.
Without waiting for a response Natalie hurried over to the glass
es. She did a deep squat, balancing Wolfgang against her and picked them up. She placed them into her lab coat pocket.
‘Monica’ jabbed her in the back with the gun. Natalie clenched her teeth and started walking. She was surprised when they didn’t head in the direction of the portal. Instead, they appeared to be heading towards the mine. Will must have been right.
As they walked, Natalie took stock of her situation. Will would come to eventually, but not before they had him restrained, or even, mind swapped. Natalie tried to keep her breathing even. She was still awake and that meant that she could still shift this situation in her favour. The aliens were desperate and that would mean they were liable to make a mistake. She had to wait for that mistake. She shifted her hand to feel the vial in her pocket. She still had the serum for the paralytic used by the slugs. If they had really used something similar in the guns, she’d be able to revive Will. Natalie glanced behind her. ‘Monica’ was so close by that Natalie almost jumped out of her skin.
“What’s happened in Quuorn?” Natalie asked.
‘Monica’ snarled and spit flew from her mouth. “Walk.”
Natalie nodded, the nine burly men were not far behind them, with Will, limp and unconscious in tow. Natalie faced the front, she wasn’t going to win with brute force. Even if she got hold of a gun, she couldn’t kill or seriously injure any of them. Their bodies belonged to innocent people, that she hoped were still alive somewhere. Natalie couldn’t imagine how scared Tom was. Trapped inside a body, a brain, a world he didn’t understand. He wouldn’t be able to see that his parents were his parents, even if they were right beside him. If he was even alive. If.
They walked past more dead trees and then into a valley with knee high water pooled at the bottom. It smelt dead and there were no signs of animals or plants. It took over an hour to reach the lip of the mine. As they drew closer, Natalie was beginning to understand. The mine was toxic. She could smell the chemicals and heavy metals and contamination.
“Is this the only mine on your planet?”
The Missing Town Page 9