Manifest Destiny

by Allen Ivers

  The Arches.

  Amelia plied the brakes and brought the Rover sliding to a stop. Everyone’s eyes were locked on those arches.

  Deep green, but dark and reflecting the dying light, like obsidian glass. They were smooth and polished, unlike anything else he’d ever seen. They were almost mystical, statues or monuments to something greater. Photographs did not do them justice.

  These were superior.

  Someone jostled Locklear’s shoulder. Amelia was trying to get his attention, “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said, noting the strange urgency in her voice. “Let’s get away from the Rover. It’s a bullet trap.”

  “No argument here,” Jazmin grimaced, her distaste for Locklear sidelined by the carnage on display.

  Helmets went on and suits were sealed. To make sure there was air in the Rover later, and algae to make it breathable, the Rover had to capture what atmosphere there was in pressurized tanks.

  It only took a moment to fully drain the air, but it was a nerve-wracking minute, as Locklear fully expected the Rover to split in two for no other reason than an invisible adversary objecting to its presence.

  Meanwhile, Jericho closed the hatch on the recycler, protecting the precious plants from exposure. The temperature would be dropping quickly as the Rover equalized pressure, and the subzero exterior would kill most any Terran plant instantly.

  Locklear’s fears only amplified as they pushed open the Rover’s hatch. Locklear hopped out, quietly counting the extra second or so it took for him to fall to the ground.

  Stepping out of the Rover was a bit like hopping out of a truck or backhoe. But hit the ground about a half second after his brain expected it, hanging in the air as though someone were belaying him down a structure. If the gravity were like Luna, where the fall was dramatically different, that would be one thing, but Mars was only so far off as to be properly disorienting.

  Here, he didn’t slowly float to the floor like some lazy feather in a lab experiment – it more resembled a record player skipping before remembering its place.

  And then there was that ground, packed and tight. Glassy, not – glassy. What?

  Locklear stopped, examining the dirt again. Cauterized to a shine, burned to carbon.

  “More of that turret fire. Guns up,” Locklear ordered, drawing his sidearm like a child’s stuffed animal. About as useful.

  The team reached for their weapons, eyes scanning the ridge line and the rockfalls that might spell their gruesome end.

  Maybe it would be quick, painless.

  They stepped forward, inching into the camp, checking behind rocks. Their progress was slowed by anxiety and fear. Locklear’s own heavy breathing did nothing for his growing sense of dread. That little voice nibbling on his ear, urging him to step forward into a trap that almost certainly awaited him.

  That voice was starting to piss him off.

  Locklear dragged himself up to the closest of the modules. Similar to the ones back at Manifest and on the Murci, the boxy multi-purpose dormitory had been dragged out and cemented into place to provide shelter for both work and rest.

  But the module had been ripped open, most everything tossed out onto the ground with the precision of an angry spouse -- they were pressurized when breached. It was as though the room decided to vomit up its possessions for a yard sale.

  “Where are the bodies?” Jazmin just asked the million dollar question. There was a firefight, but with who?

  Locklear peered inside the module. It had been some kind of research lab, with a few computers built into the frame, overturned desks, and a hazardous gas hood. Geology or biology? He’d never be able to tell the difference anyway.

  But it was almost sanitary clean, with not even a layer of dust or dirt to indicate it had been abandoned. It was a museum piece, a slice of life preserved.

  The only disruption was the breach in the wall, peeled open like a can, dark red sand caked onto the torn edges. Some of it was sand anyway. The rest of it had belonged to someone, now dried into a mortar. But sure enough, the owner of this blood stain was nowhere to be found.

  Not even footprints in the ground.

  “No chance we just put up a memorial and get the hell out of here?” Locklear asked, only half-kidding. Just like the colony, this was a ghost town, and he wasn’t liking that repeated discovery one bit. It was the same eerie song over and over.

  Where did everybody go?

  “Nah, Lock,” Jazmin stammered out, “Maybe they’re just planning your surprise party.”

  “Gotta work on that delivery, Jaz,” Amelia sniped at her.

  Locklear turned, doing geometry in his head. The shot that took this building, and the others around him, had to come from somewhere.

  Might be many sources for this kind of destruction. But the angles of impact at the module, the Rover, the carbon scoring on the ground, all seemed to fan out from one central point.

  Sure enough, there it was.

  “Contact, canyon wall, 210,” Locklear hissed, dropping behind the Module for protection. Old habits. Clearly, the Module was about as much protection as wishes and tissue paper.

  Everyone spun about, weapons up, scanning for the threat in the indicated direction. They didn’t find much to be scared of, but the adrenaline was already flowing.

  Propped up against the canyon wall, about fifty yards away, was one of the turrets, two legs snapped clean off. Iris closed and dark. No one was brave enough to approach, everyone waiting for it to wake from a slumber and cut them all down.

  It was like staring at a sleeping drunk, holding in their breath lest he wake, vengeful and mean.

  But no such response.

  There was that voice, that silent whisper prodding him forward. That survivor’s guilt wishing for an end to the constant aching. Locklear stepped forward free from his cover, almost as if presenting himself for violence.

  But no such luck. The turret laid dormant, its light long since extinguished.With two legs of the tripod snapped off, the iris collapsed in, and a fine layer of dust clinging to its frame. The material of the legs, exposed to the air, had a curious hexagonal pattern, like a beehive, but irregular and hollow.

  Locklear couldn’t help but be reminded of a chicken bone.

  That’s when he saw it, as he marched up to the crumpled frame. Curled up at the base of turret, dried and thin – almost like a fossil. A shape, the size of a dinner plate. A blast pattern?

  No, he’d seen what those turrets left behind. This was something else.

  He stooped down, peeling it off the ground, gingerly prying up the sheet of thin glass. It was so brittle, it might shatter in his hands. It resembled a sand dollar, but given its size, more like twenty dollars. It was two full feet across, with edges curled. He could see his own hand clean through it.

  “You picking up souvenirs now?” Jaz quipped at him.

  “Just hoping this isn’t a footprint,” he snarked back at her, waving the imprint in the air, “Mars might have its very own Sasquatch.”

  Jazmin shivered at the thought, too wrapped up in the tension to chuckle.

  “Sorry, boss,” Amelia croaked, “Whatever happened here, I think we missed it.”

  Locklear looked back at her, ready to agree, but he noticed Jericho had wandered off, a few dozen yards deeper into the canyon. Before Locklear could call out, Jericho was waving them over. He stood directly under the Arches, head craned back as thought he might catch rain on his face.

  “What do you got, Jericho?” Locklear called out.

  “It’s a door.”

  The words hung, like they could somehow echo through his radio. Feedback, maybe?

  But instantaneously Locklear knew that Jericho was right. He felt it, from his fingertips to his feet, a tingling -- hair standing on end, reaching up and out to escape the flesh. A charge running through his heart as it quickened to match the beat of a song at the edge of hearing. An urge to tap his feet, to bounce up and down and shake the energy right out
through the top of his head.

  It was overwhelming him to the point of tears.

  The Arches, dull and dark green, seemed to ebb and flow with the natural light, causing a throbbing in the back of his neck. They caught the setting sun’s last hour of light, casting long unyielding shadows across the canyon walls. With each pulse of fresh light, a sting bit at the back at his head, the grazing of teeth on his neck.

  All tension wafted away as something took hold of him, and he could feel the strangest urge to jump.

  He couldn’t look a moment longer, had to tear himself away from that maddening distraction. He closed his eyes, just a moment, to break whatever hold it had over him.

  The moment he closed his eyes, he wished he hadn’t. Because that’s when he moved.

  In that one shortest of blinks, he could feel the difference. Under his feet. Something hard, but rough. Even through his boots, he could sense the material was different. He never noticed it change, but it was now something metallic. There was no jerk nor shove, but his stomach turned ever so slightly, as his inner ear reoriented to whatever new place he found himself.

  It was the black magic of waking up in the doctor’s office, IV in one arm, when Gamble would tell him to count backwards -- and he would blink awake in an entirely different room seconds later, but actually hours later.

  He opened his eyes. It was dark, impossibly dark, like a shadow wrapped around his face. Even blindfolds let some light through. This was a proper blackout.

  Locklear fumbled around his suit, trying to feel for the flashlight trigger on his wrist panel. He slapped about until it finally clicked on, revealing his new surroundings.

  To call it a hallway would be too blasé, but there wasn’t another proper word. The walls were smooth, rounded at the floor and roof, as though it were a tunnel bored out of the ground by a drill.

  Aside from his sudden appearance, there didn’t seem to be anything else remarkable about the locale. There was no pad, or doorway, or portico. No features of any visible kind. Every surface was made of some dark purple-blue material -- indigo his ex-wife would’ve claimed.

  God, there’s a voice he’d kill to hear right now. If he could be shouting about his next posting with an infuriating woman, it’d be a far flung improvement on his current situation.

  Force, like a weight, pulling on his shoulder.

  Locklear spun about, weapon up -- to find Amelia staring down his barrel.

  “Easy, boss.” Amelia raised her eyebrows, assurance. He swallowed his surprise, lowering his pistol to his side. Jericho and Jazmin were both there too, clicking flashlights on and making their own discoveries.

  “Total Snafu?” Amelia quipped, eliciting a snort from Locklear.

  “What does that mean?” Jazmin said with a sneer. That’s right, Jazmin had worn a badge on her shoulder, not a flag. Still, it was impressive the abbreviation hadn’t made its way through culture and back to her.

  Locklear turned back towards that gaping maw of a hallway, “Situation Normal, Jaz: all fucked up.”

  “How did it happen?” Amelia asked, “Anybody hit a switch or…”

  Jericho shook his head, eyes darting from shadow to shadow, looking for some childhood nightmare to materialize from the ether.

  “Well, ain’t we proper--?” Jazmin stopped her outburst, the sentence echoing off the walls, even through her helmet.

  Interesting. For sound to travel, there had to be air of some kind.

  “Quiet,” Locklear hissed the single command, expecting precisely no one to follow it. He just wanted a moment in that empty hallway to listen for creaking, moaning -- anything to indicate another life. If he could hear Jaz, he could hear whatever else there was.

  He stepped forward, his foot rolling across the uneven floor. Only an inch difference at most, but the pattern was regular, intricate rolling hills, like the sole of a shoe.

  He never ordered the others to follow him, but they kept close as he crept around the bend in the hall. Their lights lit up the sides of his helmet and the walls around him, silhouetting him as they advanced.

  He would be irritated if there was any other solution to the predicament. What else were they to do, wander blind? But whatever brought them here was going to have no trouble finding them. There was no way they arrived of their own power, and there was no way they could hide, with their lights and bulky suits.

  The hallways bent outward and away, opening into a large room the size of a small warehouse. In the darkness, Locklear couldn’t see all the way across.

  A thick smoke, like a fog, hugged the floor, not even enough to cover his boots. It was like stepping into a swamp in the heat of summer, moisture so thick it was condensing on his helmet.

  “Are you seeing this?” Jazmin whimpered.

  “I said, quiet!” Locklear hissed, before he realized it wasn’t his radio. She had been compelled by whatever she’d seen. He turned, scanning for whatever had caused Jazmin’s outburst.

  And he discovered, to his horror, the nightmare they’d all been searching for.

  Hands, dangling from the ceiling. One finger flayed open to the bone from tip to palm with a single clean cut. The meat exposed and clean, all the blood long since gone.

  Locklear panned his light up. He wished he hadn’t, “Jesus…”

  It was a man, or had been at one point. More cuts and slashes, skin peeled away. Clothes still on, where they weren’t ripped open. His ribcage and organs were exposed, with a chunk of his intestines dragged out onto his chest -- where it clearly had been snipped off.

  “Think I found what happened to our colonists,” Amelia jested, her voice quaking at the notion.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Jazmin whipped her light to and fro, panic setting in, searching for the next and worse terror.

  “You see an exit sign somewhere?” Locklear asked, unable to tear his eyes off the body. He could count the ribs and found an odd number -- one of them had been removed.

  Jericho nudged the body with his hand, clearly a bit braver or dumber than Locklear on his best day. The body swung at the waist, like a morbid wind chime.

  He was anchored above the knee, part way into some kind of tube. It was as though the roof had stopped mid-meal, its prisoner dangling from its lips.

  Locklear turned his light to the side, scanning the roof now. Sure enough, there were more bodies, in various state of roof consumption, and all missing patches of flesh -- a woman missing her jaw, or another man without a chunk of his shoulder.

  “Eyes up, folks.” He didn’t like the order any more than they would, and sure enough…

  “Hell with that!” Jazmin immediately protested.

  “We may be on the ground,” Locklear started, pausing to consider his words, “but whatever did this thinks a bit more vertically.”

  That got their attention. Jericho and Amelia aimed more than their lights upward now. The definitive action of Amelia’s shotgun echoed in that space, announcing intent -- “And what was it doing?”

  “Maybe we’re in the meat locker. How do I know?” Locklear rasped, his mouth drying out.

  He wasn’t going to lose his shit, not this time. “Stay together,” Locklear whispered, “only way out is through.”

  “Check your fire, there might be live ones.” Amelia’s point was well-taken but hardly of Locklear’s immediate concern at this point.

  “Fuck that,” Jazmin bit back.

  Locklear found himself agreeing with the rage machine. “There’s nothing left to save here.”

  Amelia looked back at Locklear, halfway between judgement of Locklear and her own clenching fear. He could almost smell her disdain; they all signed up with the explicit mission of protecting people. Abandoning that now...

  Movement!

  One of the hanging bodies, spasming, flailing even. All lights snapped over, fingers itching at triggers. Was this their host, the bump in the night, the monster of the hour gnawing on its latest victim?

  For the f
irst time since they landed, they had a stroke of luck. No monster, but buried in the ceiling up to the knee was a woman, maybe mid-fifties. Her shoulder length thin gray hair hung off her head, a twitching curtain about her face as her body shook in its ceiling berth.

  A voice croaked from her throat, groans of pain or stress. She thrashed about, deep in convulsions.

  “She’s alive!” Amelia slung her shotgun and rushed to the woman’s side, grasping the woman’s head with both hands. “Lock!”

  She needed a medic. Do it. Don’t freeze now. Goddammit, move!

  Locklear holstered his pistol and hobbled over, as if his feet could stutter in the middle of a sentence, regretting each subsequent footfall forward.

  This was inviting disaster.

  The woman was in better shape than most of the other colonists hung out to dry, with only a few patches of skin excised off her shoulders and neck. Maybe a more recent victim? Or less appetizing?

  Her body lurched, pulled upward a few inches, with a grunt of pain to match -- it was the ceiling, the metal bracings at her feet tugging on her, accompanied by the distinct sound of gnashing, like a drill biting into drywall.

  But there was something else, something… wet.

  The fucking roof was eating her.

  “Get her out of there!”

  Amelia and Locklear grabbed the woman under her arms, and gave her a swift jerk down, like they were trying to pull a toy away from a dog.

  Whatever resistance the two were able to apply seemed to just piss it off. The grind of that drill bit roared louder. And that’s when she screamed, cutting loose the kind of violent wail that she could no longer swallow.

  Her will broke in a shrill banshee cry, almost angry, hurling decibels of threats and hatred.

  At this point, it wasn’t very clear that Locklear was helping her at all.

  As the woman screamed in his ear, Locklear could feel her rising higher and higher, inch by inch. He could only imagine what it was doing to her, mulching her feet and ankles, snapping them off, or just shaving bit by bit. If he yanked on this woman’s shoulder any harder, he’d dislocate it.