Final Days: Colony

by Jasper T. Scott

  Roland spotted their newest ally, Sergeant Harper, a short distance away, holding portable oxygen masks and tossing them to her people. She noticed the pair of them emerging from Eden One, and she waved them over.

  “Roland, take this.” She passed one of the masks. “They seem to block the hallucinations.”

  Gunshots rang out as her remaining guards witnessed their nightmares attacking from the mist.

  “Everyone stop firing! You know these aren’t real!” she shouted, but it did nothing.

  “There could be predators any time. We need to escort everyone to safety. Why are so many people still outside?” Tony asked.

  Harper met his gaze, her voice slightly muffled from under the mask. “Eden Three was tampered with. The doors wouldn’t close, the lights won’t turn off. Everyone was about to head to one of Eden’s storage segments when the rain began.”

  A sharp scream drew their attention, and someone was shouting about a predator. “Take these.” Harper shoved three masks into Roland’s chest. He dropped one, bending over to grab it as Harper ran off, gun drawn and ready to assist.

  People were everywhere, shouting and fighting invisible monsters. Roland passed the chef a mask, telling him to wear it, and he spotted Thomas Hartford defending himself against two women attacking him. Roland pulled him free of their flailing arms and shoved a mask into his hand. “Wear this!”

  The doctor jammed it to his face, scrambling away from the ladies, who turned to fight one another. This was bad. Really bad. Roland wished Kendra was here, because she’d know what to do.

  “Have you seen Carrie or Keller?” Roland asked the doctor. Blood trickled down the man’s handsome face, scratch marks evident on his cheeks.

  Thomas shook his head. “Harper said they took off in a rover about a half hour ago.”

  “What?” Tony shouted. “Then where’s Val? She probably saw her dad and Kendra and followed.”

  “Could be, kid. I don’t know. No one found it important enough to tell me anything.” Thomas’ hands ran over his wounds, and he stared at the blood on his fingers. “This is going to be one hell of a patch-up effort when the mist settles.”

  The dense fog lifted momentarily, and a familiar figure moved toward Eden Five. Roland tried to remember the contents of Eden Five. Only Keller and Carrie ever seemed to set foot in there, and their armed guards. Wait. What was he seeing?

  “Tony, do you see the good Reverend there, or am I hallucinating?” He nudged the kid.

  “That’s her. She’s got two men with her. Holy crap!” Tony appeared taken aback. Roland saw the brutal attack. It was one of the farmers, a huge man with hands the size of melons. He’d also been at all of the reverend’s sermons, including the special baptism she’d held near the water treatment plant. He struck the guard with a rock, the man going limp. He took the assault rifle from the man and shot him in the chest, and the other man with Morris dragged the body away.

  She glanced away into the mist, and Roland saw a demented smile cross her face. He knew exactly what was happening. “That’s the command section. Inside there are all the controls for the colony. The tracking and power grid feeds from there,” Roland told Tony and Thomas, the doctor appearing confused by everything.

  “With Keller and Carrie gone, along with half the colony’s guards, she’s formed a coup!” Roland told them. More of the reverend’s people arrived at Eden Seven, many with guns, some with blood on their clothing.

  “This is bad,” Tony whispered.

  The reverend walked into the command center and shut the door, the guards staying outside in the rain.

  * * *

  Andew

  The forest flowed around them in ghostly tendrils of white and gray. Their utility lights reflected off sheer walls of moisture. Glowing eyes pricked through; flashing claws and teeth lashed out, but none of it was real. Nothing but shadows without faces. Monstrous silhouettes roamed between the glistening tree trunks.

  Andrew caught sight of a fallen log at the last second and leaped over it.

  “I can’t keep running!” Kendra cried out in a ragged voice.

  He glanced back at her to see her sailing over the same log. “You can do it! We’re not far from the highlands. Just another few minutes!”

  Sodden leaves sprayed out around their feet, and branches shattered. If there were any real predators stalking them, they were making more than enough noise to draw them in. Andrew glanced about, his vision blurring and his eyes watering from the compounds in the mist. A quasi-familiar sensation of numbness filled him with a sudden craving for a bottle. He pushed that thought aside and focused on the forest. Shadows shifted and churned in the darkness, monsters reaching from behind every tree.

  Dead ahead, a serrated horror of teeth yawned wide, big enough for him to barrel right down the creature’s gullet—

  Only for that vision to swirl away as he ran through it. A shivery rush of adrenaline spurred him on, speeding his strides and making blood roar in his ears. The ground was sloping up, rising swiftly toward the mountainous ridges at the edge of the valley. Andrew didn’t even know if they were following the tracking beacon anymore, but it didn’t matter. All that counted was breaking free of this soup and clearing their heads. He saw that it was beginning to thin out up ahead.

  “Almost there,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to favor Kendra with a smile.

  But all he saw was swirling walls of white clouds rolling through the forest. Andrew skidded to a stop on the rain- and mud-slicked slope, his utility lamp flashing about as he turned back and forth, searching the mist. “Kendra?” he asked.

  No reply.

  “Kendra!” he bellowed. His heart rate soared with sudden terror. When was the last time he’d seen her? Five minutes ago? Ten?

  Damn you, Miller! He should have let her take the lead. Andrew dashed back the way he’d come, flying down the slope toward a nest of glowing yellow eyes set in rounded heads, with jagged ridges lining their scalps. He was about to run right through them when he caught a glimpse of glistening black fur and eight-inch needle-thin teeth.

  His rifle snapped up, but before he could fire, he heard the rattling report of another rifle and then bullets crunching into tree trunks around him. Andrew dropped to the ground and plastered himself there.

  “Kendra!” he cried while squirming around in the leaves and the muck to bring his rifle to bear, making inverted snow angels in the process.

  The creatures with the yellow eyes turned and melted away into the mist before he could squeeze off a shot.

  And then he heard a blood-curdling scream. Andrew’s heart seized in his chest for a horrible instant, and then he was up and flying toward the sound.

  “Hang on, Kendra! I’m coming!”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Kendra

  Kendra struggled to see what was real and what was fake as she leaned against the smooth-barked tree trunk. Her legs were covered in mud, her socks squishing as she danced from foot to foot nervously. Yellow eyes watched her from nearby, but she couldn’t tell if it was really a predator or her mist-soaked imagination.

  “Andrew!” she called, but heard nothing from the man. She couldn’t even pinpoint when she’d lost him, and wasn’t sure if he was ahead or behind.

  She peered around the tree, the eyes drifting closer. She gripped her rifle, taking aim, and fired, the shot going wide and embedding in the trunk of a nearby tree instead of her target. The thing, if it was flesh and blood, was faster than it should have been.

  It was on her, knocking her to the leaf-covered muck. Her rifle flew from her hands, landing with a splat, and she screamed, a piercing terrible noise she hadn’t realized she was capable of. The thing was heavy, its thin teeth gnashing toward her. She did the only thing she could think of and punched at its throat. It scrabbled away, giving Kendra enough time to grab the rifle. She used it like a club, bashing the creature in the side of the head.

  It howled, rolling away. She didn’t hesitate. S
he’d spent most of her time in the FBI as an underdog, a small woman in a man’s world, but she had something a lot of their agents were lacking: the killer instinct. It had saved her on numerous occasions, and it did again as she pulled the trigger, hitting the predator directly between the eyes. Its corpse fell to the mud and she propped herself against the tree, letting it steady her.

  “You’re okay. I’m here,” Andrew said, arriving with a flower in his hand.

  “Andrew… I didn’t know where you were,” she said. Her words cut off as his hand moved toward her face. His eyes closed as he leaned toward her, his lips so close.

  “Kendra? What the hell is going on?” Andrew asked, the real one standing ten yards away, rifle aimed at the dead predator. The mist dissipated, and with it the mirage of the handsome Marine.

  She waved her hand in the air, making sure the hallucination hadn’t really been there, and she cleared her throat before wiping her lips off with her sleeve. “Nothing. It… attacked me.”

  He moved for her side, his eyes running over her, checking for wounds. “You’re sure it didn’t get you anywhere?”

  She could only nod, her hand rising to touch his cheek, as if still under the influence of the mist.

  “Did you bump your head?” Andrew asked.

  “It was so real…”

  She thought Andrew was going to walk away, but he touched her fingers softly and kissed her on the lips, pulling away as if she was going to evaporate. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Agreed.” Kendra was at a loss for words. She was exhausted mentally, and even more so physically.

  Andrew crouched, rolling the predator over. “This sucker’s big. I don’t want to be here when more of them come. Let’s hit the high ground, check our tablet tracker, and rest for a bit.”

  “We need to find the ridge pass,” Kendra said, her thoughts muddled and weary.

  “We will, but not if we can’t walk. We’ll break. Make a fire to ward off the predators,” he said with a calm authority. She could only nod as he led her farther up the hillside. The rain had all but stopped, but she could see the dense fog a half mile below their position.

  By the time they took a break, Kendra fell to the ground, her eyes no longer able to stay open. She heard Andrew rustling around with their meager supplies, and the crackling of a fire. She idly wondered where he’d found dry fuel.

  “You should sleep. But you need to change out of those wet clothes first.” Andrew unrolled the sleeping bag, and Kendra self-consciously removed her clothes. Andrew looked away, and she covered the bullet-wound scar near her collarbone in case he caught a glimpse. She knew it was a dumb thing to worry about in these circumstances, but she couldn’t help it. Old habits die hard.

  Andrew pieced together a makeshift clothes drier over the fire, and he removed his own jumpsuit, hanging it beside hers. He had his own share of scars, and she found herself imagining the horrors he’d seen overseas as a Marine. One day she would talk to him about it, but not today.

  As she climbed into the bag, Kendra thought about the camp, and hoped their friends and the rest of the colonists had avoided the storm and the hallucinations that came with the mist.

  * * *

  Val

  Val cowered in the back of the rover. It sat idling silently, the taillights pooling crimson on the rocky shore of the lake. She listened to the rain pelting down, and wrapped herself in the tarp to keep the mist out, but it kept curling in. Her head was swimming with whatever compounds she was breathing. Her eyes watered, and her heart raced. She could have sworn she heard things padding around outside, pacing back and forth on the pebbled beach. The tarp shivered suddenly, flapping loudly and rattling her already frayed nerves—

  Something lifted the edge: a shadow with ten eyes and a hairy black face. Teeth glistened with green spittle.

  Val tried to scuttle away from it, but her body was already pressed to the side of the rover. The creature crept in under the tarp on long, hairy legs.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “You’re not real!” She felt it brush her arm, and then sharp prickles as teeth sank through her suit. Adrenaline sparked through her and her eyes flew open. She screamed and kicked the thing away.

  And it vanished in a swirl of gray mist.

  She glanced at her arm. Her white jumpsuit was pristine. No teeth marks or blood. It was just the mist and her mind playing tricks on her. Val cringed and pulled her knees up to her chest, waiting for the storm to end and the vapor to dissipate so she could get out of this waking nightmare.

  Finally the rain stopped, and the mist abated. A few minutes later Val heard doors sliding open, and booted feet hitting the beach.

  She crept to the rear of the rover and lifted the edge of the tarp. No sign of anyone.

  “...right through those trees,” someone said.

  “Lead the way, Private,” Keller replied.

  “Copy, sir.”

  Val climbed over the cargo gate and lowered herself gently to the ground. Peeking around taillights, she saw a group of six people walking up the moonlit shore toward a shadowy wall of trees. Their flashlights bobbed around, cutting a swath through the night.

  Taking a minute to calm herself and slow her breathing, Val slipped out from behind the vehicle. She hung back, as far from the group as she dared, going slowly and minding her footsteps, so as not to make a sound.

  Every now and then one of the group would turn and sweep their flashlight in her direction, looking for signs of pursuit. She anticipated each time and managed to flatten herself to the ground.

  Her dad had taken her out hunting a few times, so she knew how to be quiet. Val wasn’t a fan of shooting animals, but she’d always enjoyed the thrill of sneaking in the woods, of lurking undetected in the undergrowth. She’d made a point of deliberately missing her targets, though, and when her dad had realized what she was doing, the hunting trips had come to an end.

  Val followed the group into the forest. The moonlight vanished, blotted out by the jutting spears of trees and cottony leaves. Darkness gathered around her like a cloak. She walked on behind them for almost ten minutes, hiking up a slope the whole time. Then they began descending into a depression, and the mist came swirling in, curling around Val’s ankles and knees. Her heart began hammering with apprehension. Up ahead, Carrie’s voice rose in alarm.

  “We should turn back! This is too dangerous. We need to wait for this to dissipate.”

  “No, we press on,” Keller insisted.

  Bad idea, Val thought, creeping closer to the group for safety. She only had the flashlights of the others some twenty paces ahead to guide her way. Creatures skittered and chattered as they fled from the advancing soldiers. Muffled voices trickled to Val’s ears, muttering and too soft to comprehend.

  The mist was up to Val’s chest by this point, and within seconds she was breathing it in again. Acrid and sweet, it choked her and blurred her vision. Up ahead, the others’ lights ended abruptly, cut off by the silvery walls of moisture. Jagged shadows roamed just inside of the thick tendrils of vapor, but no one reacted to them. They knew better by now. Feeling the hairs rise on the back of her neck, Val crept closer to the men with the guns. She felt naked trailing along at the end of the group with no possible way to defend herself.

  Then her foot snapped a branch, and one of the soldiers whirled around. The flashlight at the end of his rifle blinded her.

  She threw her hands up. “Don’t shoot!”

  “Who’s there?” the man demanded.

  “Valeria Miller!”

  “Val?” Carrie’s voice came whispering to her ears, echoing strangely.

  “Carrie!”

  “Stand down, Private,” Keller growled.

  Val ran across the intervening space to reach the group. Their eyes and guns were already aimed at the trees, sweeping for targets as the sparkling walls of moisture closed in on them.

  Val found Carrie and crashed into her, arms wrapping tight around the o
ther woman’s waist.

  “What are you doing here, Val?” Carrie asked.

  “I hid in the back of the rover.”

  “Why?” Carrie pushed her away to regard her at an arm’s length.

  “I overheard you and Keller talking about Hound, and I thought... I needed to see for myself what’s happening.”

  “We need to keep moving,” Keller growled.

  “Roger that,” one of the other men said.

  “The pond should be right through there,” another added, pointing in a direction that looked the same as any other. Val wondered how he could possibly have kept his bearings in this gloom.

  “Move out!” Keller ordered.

  “Stay close,” Carrie whispered.

  Val nodded, and the two of them started after the others, walking dead center of the group. Carrie was unarmed as well, except for a sidearm that she kept holstered at her hip.

  The ground continued to slope away beneath their feet. Just a few minutes later, the trees parted and the mist thinned out slightly. Soon they were walking through a crimson field, the tall grass rustling against their legs. A gleaming black pond emerged ahead of them, perfectly smooth like a sheet of glass. They paused beside the water, and the man at the front of the group with Keller gestured to it with his rifle. “This is the spot.”

  Val heard sighs of relief. Some of the tension left her, too. She turned in a quick circle to check for signs of danger. Giant shadows shifted and lumbered around at the edges of the field. More hallucinations.

  “Are you sure?” Keller asked.

  “Positive,” the other man said. “I saw the lights shining down on the water. They turned the whole pond into a rainbow.”

  “Was anyone else around?” Keller asked. “It could have been a hallucination.”

  “There was no mist at the time, sir.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Val saw something. A dark, snaking line appeared in the grass, caused by a figure crouching low to the ground as it tracked toward them. Then another line appeared, weaving in from a different angle, followed by a third. No one else seemed to have noticed. Their attention was on the pond with Keller.