The Creator

by Neil Carstairs

  The first beast came out of the dark before Delaney’s three round burst blew it to one side. Ruiz saw more creatures appear as they darted from shadow to light. As they ran they began to howl. The sound turned Ruiz’s blood to ice. He’d seen combat in Afghanistan. Firefights with insurgents who came and went like ghosts in the night. These things were like ghosts as well. The kind of ghosts that haunted a man’s nightmares. Ruiz froze to the spot. Delaney continued to fire three round bursts to left and right that spattered the critters across the concrete but as one died more came and Delaney couldn’t hold them off on her own.

  Ruiz broke his stance. He jumped Rinlaker, who still sat like a dumb schmuck on the floor, and headed for a pile of old compressors stacked four high like a partition down one side of the hangar. More gunfire filled the air as the rest of the patrol woke up. Unearthly screams filled the air as the critters died. Another scream came as one of the monsters got through and took down Seeley. Ruiz had company. Stebber came alongside him in the sprint for cover. They almost made it. They were three steps from safety when Stebber’s legs went from under him. Ruiz saw the blood and heard the slap of incoming rounds as he dived behind the compressors. From cover, he looked out.

  Stebber writhed on the floor as blood pooled around his legs. Rinlaker had shot him, firing off a wild burst as he’d scrambled to his feet only for two of the creatures to take him down. He lay now with his stomach torn open. Ruiz retreated further behind the machinery. He ignored Stebber’s screams for help. The nineteen-year-old Texan kid could see something coming that Ruiz couldn’t. His hands rose to ward off a killing machine that ploughed straight into his body and tore a bloody hole in his throat.

  Ruiz’s legs weakened. He slid to the floor and peered between the compressors. Gunfire died out. The only movement from the monsters. Out in the middle of the hangar lay Delaney. At least he thought it was Delaney. Ruiz couldn’t tell as her head had gone. The cracking and popping sound he could hear came from one of the creatures chewing on her skull and that made Ruiz want to vomit. Sure, she’d been a stuck up bitch but that was no way to go.

  His eyes went to the elevator thirty yards away. It could just as well be on the far side of the moon. There was no way he was going to reach it. And even if he did the wait for the doors to open would get him killed. No way out onto the airfield either. The creatures gathered by the roller doors. They looked out into the light and marvelled at this new world. Ruiz believed the briefing now. He wished he’d paid a bit more attention to the General when he’d talked about what they might face. But Ruiz had been too busy making smart-assed comments to his friends in the back row to listen up.

  A growing light drew his attention back into the hangar. Whatever had caught Delaney’s attention now became a dazzling orb that rose upwards. A physical thing that pushed pallets aside. Ruiz saw a huge shape move out of the light. It walked on two legs and trailed tentacles thicker than a man’s thigh from its back. It had an axe-shaped head with a jaw that hooked under and bristled with teeth. This one did not come alone.

  Pain flared. It seared up from his foot to his knee. Ruiz had the briefest moment to look down to where one of the hounds had its teeth clamped around his leg. It dragged him out into the open. The movement so sudden that Ruiz dropped his rifle. He reached for it. The smooth polymer of the buttstock slid under his fingertips and out of reach. Ruiz clawed at the hangar floor as a scream bubbled in his throat. Fingernails ripped out of their roots as he dug them into the concrete.

  The beast had him where it wanted. Out in the open. Ruiz began to pray. Something he’d not done for a decade or more. The jaws released his leg but only so the creature could turn its feral grin towards him. Alberto Ruiz saw the dark of the creature’s mouth as it closed upon his face. He saw nothing else.

  ***

  If asked, Major Jonathon Freeman would classify the corridor as controlled chaos. Men and women in full battledress wielding assault rifles within the confines of the walls made for a hot press of bodies. Tension added to the heat. Everyone knew something bad had happened topside. Freeman forced through the last few troops as a Master Sergeant began bellowing orders. ‘We have the four elevators and three stairwells covered,’ Freeman said.

  ‘On how many floors?’ Dawson leant in close to make himself heard.

  ‘Just the two. This has all happened way ahead of any predicted timeline.’

  ‘I know,’ Dawson said. ‘That’s what worries me.’

  A Captain appeared at their side. ‘We’ve now lost contact with all four patrols that were on the surface. Two of them managed descriptions of what they were facing. It sounded like giant dogs.’

  Freeman looked at Dawson and the General shrugged. ‘Whatever it is, your people need to be locked and loaded.’

  ‘They are.’ Freeman turned to look back down the corridor. He watched the troops fan out. They levelled their rifles at the double banked elevator doors that this squad were guarding.

  ‘Do you have the civilians under guard?’ Dawson asked into what felt like a deathly silence.

  ‘Most of them are in the canteen on Level Three. We’ve got a couple in sickbay and two who we can’t track down yet.’

  Dawson nodded, then said, ‘Captain, do you mind giving us a moment?’ The officer retreated a few yards away. Freeman waited for Dawson to speak. ‘If the worst happens and it looks like we will be overrun there is an emergency escape route,’ Dawson said. ‘I need the psychics out of here.’

  ‘It may not be much safer on the surface, sir,’ Freeman said.

  ‘Maybe not, but any chance is better than none.’

  ‘And what about you, General?’

  ‘That should be us, Major.’ Dawson gave Freeman a glimmer of a smile. ‘If these things get through the pinch points then we pull out. Each level has two access hatches located in the machine stores at either end of the main transect corridor. The stairways are narrow and steep but they’ll get us out of here if needed.’

  ‘I’ll pass the word to our squad commanders,’ Freeman said.

  ‘Do that.’ Dawson’s face turned grim. ‘Let’s hope we don’t need them.’

  The General leant back against a wall. He tried hard to look completely relaxed but didn’t think he convinced the soldiers. The troops in this section of the base settled down. Most of them rested on one knee. Whatever had taken out the patrols up top would either come down there or down the stairwell. In some ways Dawson would prefer them to the elevator shaft.

  Freeman returned. ‘Level One teams report sounds coming from the elevators.’

  Dawson nodded. He said nothing because from the other side of the sliding doors came a deep, hollow bang that made half the soldiers flinch. Officers and non-coms spoke out in an attempt to calm the troops. Dawson could feel the tension rise again as a mix of thumps and scrapes came through the steel. He put his hand to his waist and drew the pistol holstered there. He doubted it would do much good but the reassurance it gave him strengthened his resolve.

  He needed it. The next blow put a dent in one elevator door.

  ‘Steady,’ Master Sergeant Diaz said.

  The soldiers readied themselves. Muzzles centred on the doors. Hands gripped tighter onto weapons. Fingers curled onto triggers. The steel door split with an ear piercing screech. The tips of what looked like claws stuck through, moving back and forth like the edge of a can opener.

  ‘Wait,’ Diaz said again but this time even his voice was tight with fear.

  The doors broke apart. They slammed back into their recesses. A dark red creature hung in the shaft. Tentacles clung to the elevator cables as the domed exoskeleton dropped down. Thick arms, tipped with talons, reached towards the soldiers.

  ‘Open fire!’ Diaz roared.

  The fusillade hit the creature like a wall. Flesh and shell splintered. Ribbons of blood splashed as its grip on the cables loosened and it screamed an unholy sound that tore at Dawson’s nerves. The soldiers continued to fire. More rounds pumped into
the shattered frame. For a moment, Dawson wondered if the creature would ever die but even as he imagined it as unbreakable the thing lost hold on the cable and fell from view.

  ‘Cease fire! Cease fire!’

  Freeman and Diaz were shouting the command. Silence returned to the corridor. Dawson’s mouth ran dry. He still held his gun and realised he hadn’t fired it.

  ‘Hasten!’ Diaz called to one of the soldiers. ‘Check the shaft.’

  The trooper put himself against the wall alongside the open doors and slid closer to the entrance. He held his rifle with the muzzle point up and ducked his head in for a look. Dawson saw Hasten wipe sweat from his face. The soldier tried another quick glance and gave an annoyed shake of his head as if he knew he needed to take a longer look. Dawson took his eyes off the soldier for just a second and turned to the stairwell. All quiet there. As Dawson turned back he heard the sound. A wet slap like hitting a soaking towel on a wall. Hasten stuck his head into the doorway for a longer look and a tentacle as thick as a man’s thigh plucked him from view.

  For a moment, everyone from General to Private struggled to understand what had happened. In that time another creature slid into view but this time it held objects that it threw into the corridor. The hellhounds tumbled amongst the soldiers like fragmentation grenades. All claws and teeth and spines. Four from the first tentacled creature, and six each from the next two as they appeared in the shaft. The corridor became a charnel house. One soldier lost his face to a huge paw. The second his guts to a raking swipe of hind claws. The third tried to push the nearest hound from him and when he fell back found his right arm gone below the elbow.

  Dawson saw Master Sergeant Diaz raise his rifle only for a hellhound to bowl him over. The creature leapt upon him with mind numbing speed, Diaz fell and never rose, his throat torn out in a welter of blood. The troops panicked. Random gunfire stitched through a hellhound and then on through a young lieutenant. Dawson aimed in a double handed grip as he put two rounds into the flat-topped skull of a hound as it ripped Major Freeman’s left leg apart. The Major fell. Caught by the dying hound’s final lunge as jaws like a steel trap clamped on Freeman’s hip. Dawson heard bone shatter above the sounds of gunfire and the screams and howls of the dying. Freeman puked onto the dead creature as he pushed feebly at its dead weight.

  Dawson knelt beside the Major and felt three rounds split the air where he had been standing. They blew chunks of concrete from the wall. Freeman’s face turned white and his whole body shook as if he were in a deep freeze. Dawson ripped an auto-injector from Freeman’s pocket and stuck the officer with a full dose of ketamine. Then he grabbed the Major’s M16 and turned back to the battle.

  A hellhound stood close by, shaking its head to dispose of the final tattered remains of what had once been a soldier. It paused, aware of Dawson, and opened its jaws wide to show a maw full of teeth and human flesh. Dawson aimed without thought. He put three rounds down the creature’s throat and saw splinters of spine blown out of the hound’s back as it died. Another hound died off to his left as the men who had been guarding the stairwell shot it down. Dawson looked left and right. The hounds were all dead, but so were most of the soldiers, their torn bodies resembled bloodied rag dolls flung across the corridor.

  ‘I didn’t…believe you.’

  Dawson looked down at Freeman. The Major stared hard at him as he fought against an inevitable death. Dawson put the rifle down and studied the dead hellhound. Its body had pushed Freeman into a sitting position against one wall but lay across his legs and trapped him in place. Dawson gave a tentative tug but the hound must have weighed a couple of hundred pounds. Made out of bone and muscle it would take four men to move it.

  ‘Leave me,’ Freeman said, pushing at Dawson.

  ‘No.’ The General didn’t want to meet the younger man’s eyes so continued looking down at the body.

  ‘Yes. Look.’

  Dawson turned. Two of the tentacled creatures returned into view. They reached from the cable to get purchase on the walls of the corridor and they pulled themselves out of the shaft. Dawson felt his heart sink. The surviving soldiers had seen them as well and Dawson could sense their rising panic.

  ‘Give me the rifle,’ Freeman spoke in a rush, as if a wave of pain pushed him towards oblivion. He laid the barrel of the weapon across the hellhound’s back. ‘Now, go.’

  Dawson understood the sacrifice Freeman offered and didn’t argue. He stood and moved to the left as he called to the other survivors. He had one corporal, the rest were privates and they all them seemed pleased to see an officer giving orders. ‘Follow me.’

  Dawson led them away from the elevator. The corridor ran straight for fifty yards, ending in a T-junction. A set of double doors stood on the opposite face of the junction, Dawson pushed them open, ushering the men through. He took one last look back as a burst of gunfire rolled down to him. One of the creatures sagged, the other scuttled forward with a speed that shocked Dawson. Freeman fired again and this time Dawson saw a rush of dark liquid spill from the creature as the rounds found their mark. It wasn’t enough, a moment later Freeman screamed as tentacles and claws found him.

  Dawson closed the doors to the machine stores and sagged against them. When he straightened he found the soldiers looking at him.

  ‘Block the doors,’ he said, pointing to three of the men. ‘The rest of you come with me.’

  At the back of the store there were four-wheeled tool boxes and behind those Dawson saw the access hatches to the emergency stairs.

  ‘Move these tool boxes,’ he said. ‘Then open these hatches. From the plans I’ve seen the emergency stairs will be a tight squeeze but we should be ok.’

  The men didn’t need telling twice. Dawson stepped back to give them room to work as the three he had detailed to block the doors came across. They seemed relieved to see there was a way out, Dawson could imagine them thinking he had led them to a dead end.

  ‘We’re ready, General.’ When Dawson got closer he could see the name patch on the corporal read Kosakowski.

  ‘You know your squad,’ Dawson said. ‘Pick the right people to go first. We should be clear all the way up but there’s no guarantee about what is waiting topside.’

  ***

  Ross Wilkinson woke from a nightmare. He tried to sit up only to drop back when a bolt of pain from his ankle threatened to bring vomit into his mouth. ‘Shit.’ Whatever pain killers the medical staff had given him the night before seemed to have worn off. Now he lay almost paralysed as lightning strikes of heat surged into his groin.

  Ross dug his nails into the palms of his hands. He fought the urge to pant and controlled his breathing by staring hard at one patch of damp that stained the already off-white ceiling. As the pain ebbed and his breath eased back to something like normal he looked around. The room had little in the way of furnishings but plenty in the way of medical kit. He had two cannulas in his left arm leading to bags of liquid that looked about half full. Some kind of monitor beeped at regular intervals above his head. He couldn’t see a call button anywhere near.

  Ross settled back. He figured one of the medical orderlies would be along some time to check up on him. He needed a drink and reassurance that the injury to his leg wouldn’t cause any long-term harm. That got him thinking about the way Sieting had attacked. People showed extraordinary strength at certain times. Maybe the malevolent spirit that possessed Sieting had been able to tap into that core power in the human body.

  Whatever it was, it scared Ross and made him hope that nothing bad had happened since the medics put him under. Talking of medics, where were they? The corridor outside his room was silent. No one even walked past. He looked around and saw the call button sitting on the visitor’s chair about six feet away. He sighed and tried edging across the bed. Pain lanced along his leg again and sweat popped out on his brow. He slumped back on the pillow with a muttered ‘fuck’.

  Two minutes later he shouted. ‘Hey! Hey! Is anyone there?’ and e
ven that made his leg ache enough to bring a groan of pain out of him. Ross lay on his bed and fumed. No doubt the stupid asshole medics were up on the surface getting some rays while he had to lie down here like a wounded rat.

  A noise from outside raised his head up a couple of inches. He stared at the frosted glazing of the door window. A shadow moved past and Ross bit down on his call for help. Something about the shape of the head made him frown. It could just be an odd throw of the light. Maybe one of the technicians carrying a box on his shoulder. But the nightmare that woke Ross came back into his head and he lay still.

  A clatter of metal falling to the floor made him flinch. As did another muted sound from somewhere in the complex. A scream? Ross looked around for a weapon. Nothing. Unless he could use his pillow to suffocate whoever – or whatever – moved outside the room. He glanced at the call button again and dismissed it. No point in drawing attention to himself. But he had to do something. The words sitting target were made for him right now.

  The shadow returned. Definitely odd. The head. The jaw. And those things he saw now that moved with sinuous freedom on its back. Were they serpents?

  Ross wanted to scream as the door opened. His bladder emptied and he realised he had a catheter as the bag slung beneath the bed filled with a faint gush of liquid. The head and body came in. Ross held his breath and closed his eyes. Praying the thing would see him for dead. The door creaked back on its hinges. Ross cracked his eyelids open enough to see the shape of his visitor as it shuffled into towards his bed. He heard it breathe, and smelt a mix of shit and blood as it leant over him.

  A serpent-like touch of warm flesh trailed down his face. Ross tensed, enough to let the thing know he lived and in a heartbeat the tentacle wrapped around his neck and tightened like a noose. Fear and pain sent Ross into a whiteout. His legs kicked and that triggered an eruption of agony that sent vomit into his throat. The puke had no escape, it burned soft tissue and spilt into his lungs. He thrashed on the bed, his body numb now to the pain in his ankle. Ross looked into the impassive eyes of his killer and saw only darkness waiting for him.