by Dan Decker
The ground shook as the lurker came down outside, roaring again.
The nearby gunfire went silent.
I was halfway through when the tent shook.
The metal frame was torn from the ground as light flooded in behind me where the lurker had uprooted the tent. The stakes dangled down as the lurker held it up with a leg that it once again used like an arm.
I dove under a cot and kept crawling forward, hoping that the creature might lose sight of me and would be drawn to other soldiers who were renewing their attacks on it after apparently shifting to have a better angle, if the gunfire I heard outside was any indication.
It would be nice to have a rifle. I shook my head. Of course, I might’ve tried to fight instead of run and would be dead by now.
The tent shook as I crawled out from under one cot and made my way underneath another. When the lurker roared, a ghastly rotten stench filled the tent. The wind picked up bits of sand and slung them into my face as I came to a tent wall. The cot right above me was torn away, its legs scratching my back as I lifted a flap of canvas and rolled underneath the wall to the chaos outside.
Another blast of sand hit me in the eyes and made it difficult to see as I stood and saw another lurker right in front of me on a collapsed tent. At first, I thought the lurker had crushed it, but when I saw how badly the frame had been damaged, I assumed it was the work of the grenlings. It had not even been twenty-four hours since the grenlings had been dealt with.
This lurker had its back to me, which meant I was momentarily safe. The canvas wall behind me began to shake as the lurker’s claws reached underneath to lift it up. The canvas bulged at the top. I had mere seconds before the lurker would be free of the tent and I would once more be its main quarry. The way to the right was blocked by a crumpled tent. My only escape was to run past the lurker in front of me and hope it did not notice.
I dashed forward, wishing again for a weapon, because at the very least, I would have had a way to protect myself when it came down to a final stand, something that I assumed was moments away. I could have shot from the inside after it had eaten me, hoping to do more damage there than from without.
I studied the lurker as I passed, looking for its weapons, but did not see them. They had to be there somewhere, the only thought that came to me was that they were embedded in its flesh or that its armor was made to look like it was part of the creature and that the weapons were contained there. The lurker reared up on its back feet, giving me a view of a dead lurker in front of it.
How did they kill it?
I had to believe the weapons played a part, though from my present perspective they seemed to be about as useful as a BB gun against a lion.
I dashed into another tent as the lurker in the tent behind me tore free. I pulled to a halt to catch my breath, wondering if it had seen where I had gone. I shuffled forward through the tent, taking it as a good sign that it was not immediately ripped up. When I found another door, I was tempted to stay put and go to ground, hoping that the nearby lurkers would soon move on, but I knew in my gut that my best chance of survival was to get away from here as fast as I could and hope that none of the lurkers chased after me. When I darted outside I was once again on the outer edge of camp where I had been when the lurker had first taken an interest in me.
I stayed right up against the tent, controlling my breathing to not heave while also still trying to catch my breath as I waited to see if the lurker was coming.
I could not hear it.
I could not see it.
I listened for the sound of the lurker wings, but the chaos of the battle was so loud one could have been flying right overhead and I would not have known it.
As I crept back into the open, I feared that it was a trap. I did not make it more than five feet before I saw a shadow appear over me.
The lurker was perched like a bird of prey on the tent I had just come from, impossibly balanced on the top. Instinct, more than my eyes, told me that it was the same one. It opened its mouth.
I had no place to run.
The tent underneath it buckled and the frame collapsed. I sprinted forward, hoping to find another tent in which to hide. The next one was the tent the lurker had just uprooted.
There was a rush of air as the lurker took flight, once again attracting gunfire from all directions. It maintained its focus on me, despite all that. Did it identify me as a bigger threat because I was larger than all the other men?
Maybe these things thought size mattered more than brains.
Or more likely, it just wants a bigger meal.
I expected at any moment to feel its claws digging into my back before it pulled me up and bit off my head. Or perhaps it would just land on me, capturing me the way an eagle might have done a rabbit.
Maybe the fact I’m unarmed makes me more enticing.
The ground shook as the creature came down behind me. It roared again, but this was a different sound and I wondered if it was irritated by all the bullets coming its way. I did not understand why it had not just pounced on me, but assumed the gunfire was part of the reason.
I was not yet beyond the fallen tent, but feared it was about to lash out at me so I dove to the ground. As I landed, I felt something move in the air over me, and when I looked up, I saw one of its legs slashing above me. I crawled underneath the fallen tent, remembering how it had felt when I’d rescued Jeffords. My nerves had been rattled. My body had been pumping adrenaline through my veins, but it was nothing like what I experienced now.
I was filled with fear, but at the same time, I felt alert and was ready to do whatever was necessary to stay alive.
A moment later the canvas was ripped from off me. The lurker’s leg tore into the ground right where I had just been, snagging onto a cot as it pulled back. The bottom of the cot glanced off my head as I scrambled to get underneath another while looking for a way to escape from this monster.
I stayed under the cots as much as I could but it seemed to pull them up just as I left the last.
Darkness enveloped me.
I wondered at first if I had died but then realized that the canvas had fallen down on top of me. It must not have been ripped all the way free. I no longer heard the lurker but kept crawling forward, fearing it was just moments away from getting me.
When I reached the other wall, I looked back and wondered if the lurker was gone.
Everything was quiet.
I feared it was a bad sign.
6
I waited for what felt like a long time as beads of sweat trickled down my head and into my eyes. Gusts of wind blew sand into my face from underneath the canvas tent. The noise of the battle came from all around me, reminding me of how I had sat on the floor of the brig and listened while the grenlings had attacked our camp.
Soldiers screamed in fury and cried in pain. Lurkers bellowed. I sighed when I checked my watch and saw that it had only been three minutes since I last saw a lurker. It seemed far longer.
Had the lurker moved on?
Or had it just been momentarily distracted because the soldiers outside the tent were firing their weapons at it?
I didn’t think it was in the tent with me any longer, but I couldn’t say for sure.
Was it a mistake not to run two minutes ago?
I shook my head. I didn’t know what the right thing to do was.
I tried to listen past the sound of the gunfire, hoping to hear the noise of the big gun Roth had mentioned. I also listened for the distinctive sound of the special rifle I had used to take down a grenling. That particular gun had exploded shortly afterward, but it could not have been the only one in camp, right?
Even as I thought about it my heart sunk.
There was a reason why Roth had been the only one with one. I hoped to hear the sound of its report but heard nothing like it.
I strained my ears, trying to discern over the sound of the battle if there was a big gun. I still had not seen any evidence of the weapon Roth had s
ent the soldier out to man.
Maybe it has already been taken out.
Lurkers roared. Soldiers yelled. Soldiers screamed.
Soldiers died.
The lurkers were dying too, but it seemed to be few and far in between, judging by what little I could make out of the battle from what I could hear.
I tried pressing the buttons of my watch that would enable my anti-grav boots, having a half-cooked idea of using them to shoot into the air, but, of course, nothing happened.
What do you want to bet, I thought, the moment that I left, Jeffords enabled everybody else’s and they flew to safety?
I turned at a noise behind, afraid the lurker had been there all along and was now coming for me—I haven’t moved, what did I do to give myself away?—when another soldier sidled up, grunting with effort as they came out from underneath a cot.
It was a blonde woman, her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she had a weapon.
“How long have you been in here?” I asked, immediately thinking afterward that I should whisper before realizing she probably couldn’t hear me over the sounds of the battle.
“From the beginning. I saw the lurker chase you. Luckily, he did not notice me curled up in the corner.” She coughed, something sounded off about her voice and I realized that she was sick or in pain. “I haven’t felt right since the grenling attack. I was ordered to rest.”
I nodded while looking her over and noticed she had a cast on her lower leg. “Are you able to move?”
“I think so, but I don’t know for sure, this is the first time I have tried to get up since the grenling attack. This little invasion is bad timing. I was scheduled to go to the rehabilitator this afternoon.” She snorted. “I don’t think that’s gonna happen now.”
I frowned, wondering why she hadn’t yet been into the rehabilitator when I had. My wounds had been much less severe than hers.
Had I been pushed ahead in priority because I had saved Roth?
“Can you stand?” I asked while carefully lifting up the canvas to allow in light so I could study her cast. It looked weak and temporary, nothing like what they would have used back on earth. I didn’t think it would hold if she tried to walk. Given the superior ability of the regenerator, I supposed it made sense that they would not take the time to put on a proper cast. “Can you walk?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I haven’t really tried.”
“What do you know about these lurkers?”
“Is that what they’re called, lurkers?”
I nodded, my heart sinking. I had been happy to have somebody else here because I was the least experienced soldier around. When I saw her weapon I had just assumed she would be more experienced and familiar with our situation.
“How long have you been here?” I asked in a small break in the noise.
“Since the battle started.”
“You misunderstood me. I mean here in camp, since you woke up from dying.”
“A little over a month.”
“It has not yet even been a full week for me.” I nodded at her rifle. “I take it you’ve been trained on their weapons.”
She gave me a look as if I had just said something strange. “We did that the first day.”
I grunted to cover my frustration and lifted the canvas so I could look out from underneath the tent wall. Of course, she did that on day one. Was it just Jeffords keeping us back or was there some other reason we were not trained?
I wanted to compare notes further, but feared we would die if we did not move soon.
“You know how to use your rifle?”
“I’m a good shot.” There was something defensive in her voice that gave me pause, but only for a moment. I didn’t know what it was and didn’t care.
“In between the two of us, we have three working legs and one weapon. That must be good for something, at the very least we ought to be able to get out of here.”
“You could give me a ride and I’ll shoot anything that moves.”
I had been thinking the same thing but had not wanted to suggest it because I was uncertain how she would take the idea, especially considering her response to my question about whether she could use the rifle. I was glad she had brought it up first.
“I think that is the only way we’re going to get out of here.”
I crawled forward, intending to roll out from underneath the tent but stopped when she grabbed my hand.
“Wait,” she whispered right into my ear, her moist breath sending an involuntary shudder down my back.
I had missed it while we had been talking. There was a shadow outside, a large one.
My fingers were still underneath the canvas. I released my hold on the fabric and pulled my fingers back inside as carefully as I could, moving so slow that I felt like I was going to have a coronary from the suspense.
When the shadow moved forward it was clear the source of it was not human.
The lurker paused and I heard a noise I could only describe as a high-pitched snickering. I could not tell what caused it, but wondered if it wasn’t the sound of the creature hunting by smell. There was just something about it that made me think the lurker was hunting.
I did not move a muscle and neither did the woman.
One minute passed and then it was two. When it finally moved on, I heaved a sigh of relief before I could stop myself.
“I don’t know how we are going to survive.” The woman’s face was pale. “All my instincts tell me to flee, but how are we supposed to escape from those?”
“We will,” I said, making my voice more confident than I felt, “no two ways about it.” After we waited for another moment or two, I lifted the canvas and looked around. I was about to suggest we go around the other way because there was another lurker nearby. I clapped my mouth shut when I noticed it was not moving.
It was bleeding.
Perhaps our soldiers were not doing as bad as I feared
Two different colors of blood dripped out of the creature as it spilled onto the ground. There was a considerable mess of blood already surrounding it—gallons and gallons—seeping into the hardened sand like it was a dry sponge.
After several long moments without it moving or anything else coming to investigate my head poking out from underneath, I pushed out further and saw it was clear.
“Stay here.” I pulled myself out from the tent and looked around, expecting a lurker to come out and swallow me whole.
The sun beat down on my bald head.
I curled my hand into a fist.
In all of the confusion I had managed to lose my hat, a fact I had not realized until now. I tried to think back to where I might have lost it, but could not remember it slipping from my head.
I was surprised, considering how the hat had stayed in place through almost everything I had done. It had not even slipped when I had jumped into the ravine. Maybe it had since been damaged, it had almost fallen off earlier.
I felt a distinct sadness at the loss of the hat because it was vital to my survival. I still had distinct memories of how the top of my head had felt that first day I had met Roth, but I could find a new one if we survived this.
I just hope my skin is not fried to a crisp before I do.
As I looked around I slipped out my bottle of block and rubbed some on to the top of my head just to be sure. I had gotten my head the last time I had put on block, but one could not be too careful on a planet like this. I put it on extra thick. I did not have a mirror but suspected my head looked like it was covered with white cream.
Far better than a burned scalp.
The lurker that had been chasing me appeared to have gone, an assumption that was not safe to make.
I got down on my knees and held up the canvas so the woman could come out. As she did I noticed she had a name tag on her shoulder. Her last name was Sampson. They had never given me or any of my other teammates a nametag.
Maybe they just wait until they know you’re not gonna die during the first wee
k.
When I offered her a hand, she looked at it suspiciously but finally took it. After I helped her stand, she put weight on her broken leg. I expected her to wince but she kept her face stoic, covering up the pain better than I expected. Now that I had a good look at the cast, I decided she could probably walk with it. It had seemed flimsy in the dark, but in the light of day it appeared to be sounder than it looked. The thin cast was covered with cords that gave it strength, almost like an exoskeleton.
“On second thought,” Sampson shook her head with a rueful smile, “I think I can walk after all.” She seemed relieved that I did not have to carry her. I was too and just hoped she could run, because we would have to. “Despite how they conscripted us, I can’t say much bad about their technology.”
I nodded, wondering if I might have finally found somebody who hated the situation as much as me. I wished I had the time to talk it over with her.
“Can you show me how to use the weapon, just in case I find another one or we get separated?”
“You aren’t gonna rob me and leave me for dead, are you?” The challenge was back in her voice, but there was something else there as well.
Was it playfulness?
This was my first good look at her and I suddenly realized she was pretty. Her blonde hair was just barely long enough to cover her head.
I figured she was joking when a smile split her face. The behavior seemed foreign as nobody else here had once said or done anything humorous.
Unless you count Jeffords telling me to jump off into the ravine as a big joke.
At almost every turn I had been treated like I was an enemy. I was glad for something that reminded me of normal human interactions.
She held out the rifle, showed me how to disengage the magazine, and put it back in. “You pull back the slide to make sure a round is chambered, see? Down here is the safety. You fired weapons back on earth, didn’t ya?”
