by Paul Jones
It’s okay, she reassured herself. You don’t have to hit it, you just need to scare the fuck out of it.
Emily sucked in a huge lungful of air and concentrated on calming her nerves. She tried to focus on relaxing her hands; they gripped the shotgun so tightly her knuckles had turned white. She spread her feet wide apart and with the front sight of the shotgun, drew a bead on the spot where she thought the sound was coming from.
The rustle of movement and the sway of a tall clutch of red fronds, about ten feet to the left of where she had first noticed movement, grabbed Emily’s attention. Whatever was moving through the vegetation was circling her, stalking her like a predator eyeing its prey. She swung the shotgun to point in the direction of the still swaying plants as sweat popped on her forehead, trickling down into her eyes. Immediately, her eyes began to sting.
Emily pushed the stock of the shotgun tightly into her shoulder with the hand holding the forestock, using it to support the weight of the weapon. She released the pistol-grip and used her freehand to wipe the sweat from her watering eyes, then across her forehead to halt the rest of the sweat gathering there. Her hand was travelling back to the shotgun’s grip when a huge shape exploded into the air from the grass, landing with a loud crash less than ten feet from her.
She staggered backward in surprise, the heel of her left foot clipped one of the roots of a tree and she stumbled, falling flat on her back. Her arms windmilled as they flailed desperately in a vain effort to try to steady herself, but there was nothing to grab hold of and she dropped hard toward the floor of the forest. The second between her falling and hitting the ground felt like it stretched out into a minute, and in that extended moment, Emily saw the creature that stalked her.
It bore little resemblance to the alien-spider creatures she had already encountered; this thing looked more like a regular animal than an insect. It was six-feet long and walked on four muscular legs. Each leg terminated in a four-toed paw tipped with wicked six-inch long talons. Its body, covered in long spines that stretched backwards from the tip of its neck, looked muscular and powerful, like a tiger. The spines were colored varying shades of red that gave the creature a striped camouflage of sorts and allowed it to blend in with the alien flora sprouting up around her. Instead of a head, there was a mass of articulated blood-red tentacles as long as her arm. Each pencil-thin tentacle moved independently and stretched out towards Emily, writhing and twisting like a pit of snakes, as though sensing the air for her body heat or smell. At the center of the mass of flailing tentacles was a long muzzle that, as Emily watched in terrified astonishment, opened wide to reveal row upon row of serrated teeth. It had no eyes that Emily could see, but the creature’s ‘head’ swung directly at her. It bobbed back and forth excitedly as it tracked her movement while she scrambled backwards across the ground until she felt the bergen connect with the base of one of the tree trunks.
The creature opened its mouth wider and Emily could see a pink tongue flicking back and forth between the rows of teeth. The air was split by a sudden wavering ululation emanating from the creature. It sounded like a high-pitched growl and ended with a trilling warble.
This thing could have been stalking her the entire time she was walking through the forest, Emily realized through a mind hazy with fear. It was too small to have come from one of the red orbs she had seen growing in the clearing, so this must be something else again. Maybe something created to protect whatever was gestating in the orbs?
The creature moved closer to her, its head dipping low then back up again in a shoveling movement with each step it took. Emily’s feet refused to move. This time, she knew she was going to die. There was no escape, nowhere to run, and even if she did manage to command her legs to move, this thing looked more than capable of running her to ground in a heartbeat.
This was it, she thought, as the creature stalked closer. Game over. The end.
And then she realized she still held the shotgun in her left hand. Blinded by her fear she had forgotten the weapon, but now she grabbed hold of the pistol grip and swung the muzzle of the weapon to point directly at the advancing animal. It must have sensed her aggression because the spines covering its body vibrated loudly, giving off a threatening rattle as it dropped back on its haunches and launched itself at her, jaws wide open, tentacles striking as it soared through the air.
Emily closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger.
She heard the boom of the shot and felt the butt of the weapon buck violently back into her still recovering shoulder, sending searing pain down her arm. She heard the creature let out a grunt that turned into a squeal of pain. There was a heavy thump as the creature hit the ground.
When she finally opened her eyes, she saw the creature lying on its side at her feet. It was still alive; the round from the shotgun had caught it just above the right shoulder blade. A gaping wound leaked green fluid and the thing’s right leg hung loosely at its side while the remaining three legs spasmed as the monster—and that was what this thing was—tried to right itself. The creature’s jaws were inches from her feet, snapping angrily at her as its tentacles writhed and jerked. Emily knew that if she didn’t force herself to get up and finish this thing right now, it was still more than capable of killing her even in its debilitated state.
Pulling her toes clear of the snapping jaws, Emily pushed herself to her feet, careful to stay out of range of the tentacles and teeth of the creature. She racked another round into the shotgun’s chamber and aimed at the monster’s head. It must have sensed its own demise because as her finger tightened on the trigger, the creature let out another of its mesmerizing ululations, only to fall silent as the shotgun blast splattered its head into mush.
Emily stood over the motionless body of the dead creature, her chest heaving as she sucked in huge gulps of wet air. As the boom of the shotgun blast finally faded from her ears, she heard first one, then another and another trilling ululation, as somewhere off in the dense undergrowth of the forest, more creatures answered the call of their dead comrade.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
* * *
The three alien creatures appeared within a few seconds of Emily hearing their answering calls.
She was already running towards the edge of the forest when she heard their approach as they crashed through the canopy overhead like a troop of monkeys. She risked a glance over her shoulder; two were already on the ground, closing in on the corpse of the animal Emily had killed. A third was clambering down the side of a tree trunk, the muscles in its legs bulging as it swiftly lowered its body down step by step till it almost reached the ground. It leapt the last fifteen feet and joined the two others, their tentacles playing over the body of the dead creature. As one, all three of the creatures let out one of their startling cries, then turned in her direction and began pounding after her.
“Shit,” Emily hissed, and continued sprinting as fast as she could towards the edge of the forest, pushing her bike alongside her. Behind her, she heard the pounding of the aliens’ feet as they chased her down like foxes after a rabbit.
A very, very slow rabbit, she thought.
If she could just make it out into the open field beyond the tree line, she was sure she would stand a chance. She just needed to get out of here and on her bike, then she could put some space between herself and those things. She doubted they would follow her outside the perimeter of the forest … she hoped she was right.
Through the spaces between the trees, Emily could see the green of a field beyond the perimeter of the forest, and she decided to just run in a straight line for the closest gap, choosing to clamber over the tangles of tree roots where she could rather than skirting around them.
Emily’s heart pounded in her ears, a counterpoint to the rapid breathing and grunts of exertion she made as she sprinted towards the opening, leaping over the outcropping roots of trees, her momentum pulling the bike over with her. Just thirty feet remained between her and freedom when one of the creatures leaped f
rom the trunk of a tree in front of her.
These things were faster than she had given them credit for. How the hell had one of them managed to get in front of her? Emily’s brain had time to think before she dug her heels deep into the ground and released her grip on the bike, which clattered unceremoniously away to her left. Emily hoped nothing on the bike or in the panniers was damaged as it crashed to the ground, but she would worry about that once she was out of this situation … if she made it out alive, that was.
In one smooth motion, Emily unslung the Mossberg from her shoulder, aimed at the creature and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
“Shit! Fuck! Shit!” she hissed as she realized she hadn’t racked a new round into the shotgun. She quickly rectified her mistake and pumped a shell into the chamber with a satisfying cha-chink, aimed again at the creature in front of her and squeezed the trigger. The shotgun blast caught it square in the neck just as it began to advance toward her, sending the head spiraling into the air trailed by a spray of green liquid. The tentacles on the beast’s severed head flailed limply. It landed with a wet thump and rolled into a clump of red grass about the same time the decapitated body hit the ground.
One down, she thought, and spun around to face the remaining two attackers as she automatically ratcheted another round into the shotgun’s chamber.
They were gone, disappeared back into the foliage and trees.
Emily swept the barrel of the shotgun back and forth, looking for any sign of the remaining attackers. She was soaked through with sweat and covered in dirt from her mad scramble. Red juice from the plants she had crushed as she rushed headlong through the forest smeared her clothes and skin. It stank of ammonia.
Sweat once again trickled down to sting her eyes but she resisted wiping it away, blinking rapidly and shaking her head instead to try to clear her blurred vision. She decided to leave the bike where it was for now, she couldn’t risk dropping the weapon or her guard until she was absolutely sure she was clear of these creatures. If that meant leaving her bike and coming back for it later when the coast was clear, so be it.
There was a rustle in the long grass off to her left and Emily spun to face it, loosing off a shot that severed a wide swath of the grass but didn’t seem to have hit anything else. She’d have to check her shots now. The shotgun only held a total of eight rounds, she’d used four already so she only had four more left in the magazine with no chance to reload; she’d left her spare ammo in one of the panniers of the bike.
Emily turned and faced back into the forest, her back to her exit as she started to edge carefully backwards towards freedom while blindly feeling her way over the remaining few feet of tree trunks and uneven ground. With each tentative step she swung the barrel of the shotgun left to right to cover her retreat.
There was a sudden blur of motion in her peripheral vision and Emily instinctively dropped to the ground, just in time to avoid losing her own head to the massive paw of one of the remaining two creatures. Emily felt the hair on the top of her head fly up as claws sliced through the air where her head had been a millisecond earlier. She rolled to her right and brought the weapon up to where she thought the creature should be but it was already gone, leaping off the ground to land on the trunk of a nearby tree. It stopped for a second and stared at Emily, spines vibrating in anger and its mouth wide open in a vicious snarl. As she brought the shotgun to bear on the alien, it began climbing in swift graceful leaps up the tree trunk. Emily tracked it with the shotgun as it used its claws to pull itself up the tree before finally disappearing into the dense canopy, well out of range of her weapon. The feathery branches shook as it leaped from tree to tree above her head. It seemed to be heading towards the edge of the forest as if it knew that direction was her only escape route.
The bastard’s trying to cut me off.
The second creature melted into view from behind a tree to her right. Leaping over twisting roots it ran between her and the path she had already come, blocking any chance she had to retreat into the forest. The creature’s tentacles undulated and the spines on its body vibrated angrily, but it seemed to understand the shotgun represented almost certain death if it got within range. It slinked back and forth as Emily tried to get a bead on it but it moved too quickly for her to risk another missed shot.
She began backing away towards the edge of the forest. The creature on the ground in front of her matched her pace but kept its distance never stopping its evasive dance. With each backward step she took, Emily risked taking her eyes off the alien for a second to glance up and over her shoulder, searching the canopy, ground, and trees for any sign of the second monster that had moved to block her exit from the forest.
Each step took her closer to freedom and she began mentally counting down the remaining distance between her and the edge of the forest. She could feel the air begin to cool the closer she got to freedom, stirred by a light breeze seeping in from outside, but it didn’t slow the continuous river of perspiration that coated her body like early morning dew.
Emily had managed to count down to the final seven feet when she heard the creature dropping from the canopy above her. At the same time, she saw the second creature on the ground drop back on its haunches and begin to launch itself into the air towards her in a beautifully synchronized joint attack. The next few seconds stretched out into a dreamy slow-motion movie played out frame by frame. She observed everything from a distance, disconnected from the reality of the situation as her sympathetic nervous system took control of her body and forced her conscious mind into the passenger seat.
Emily felt herself drop to the ground and roll over onto her back, positioning her body to face the direction of the creature falling toward her from above. The shotgun traversed an agonizingly slow arc toward the creature as it hit the ground with a grunt just a few feet from her prone body, its muscles tensing as it raised one of its paws, the talons catching the sunlight that filtered through the tree line just a few feet away. The thing’s spines rustled in anticipation of the kill and she watched the tentacles flicker excitedly back and forth towards her like snakes readying to strike. Its jaws opened wide and she could smell the fetid breathe from way down in its stomach as it washed over her. And that was where she aimed the shotgun; she heard the boom echoing through the strange alien trees and watched as the buckshot tore through the mouth obliterating the tentacles into a fine red mist and exiting through the back of the creature’s skull. Globs of whatever amounted to a brain went spinning into the air behind it. The alien fell dead at her feet, its pink tongue lolling from what was left of its mouth as the dead creatures legs gave a final few kicks then became still.
Good shot. Good shot, her distant self cheered, as she flipped herself over onto her front and began to push herself up to her feet. Now there’s just one last one to—
The thought was pounded from her mind as the third creature landed on her back, its weight smashing her down into the ground and forcing the air from her lungs. Emily heard herself scream in pain as its claws found their way under the backpack and sank into her flesh just below her right shoulder. The force of the impact sent the shotgun spinning from her hands.
Her ears filled with the sound of shredding and ripping. She was sure it was the thing slicing the skin from her body, but then she realized with relief that it was her bergen tearing as the creature tried to get through it to her.
Emily began thrashing as hard as she could, but she was pinned firmly to the ground by the monster’s one paw while the other relentlessly tore at her backpack. The thing was just too strong and heavy for her to stand a chance of turning over to face the creature, not that it would do any good if she could because the shotgun now lay just outside of her reach. It was just a matter of time before the monster slashed its way through the layers of the backpack and snapped her spine or decided to take a bite from her throat. As if it sensed her thoughts, the monster dipped its head towards Emily’s face and she felt the wet slathering o
f its tentacles brush over her skin, probing into her mouth, nostrils and ears. She screamed in terror as it brought its mouth down to her eye level and opened wide, giving Emily a perfect view of the black rows of teeth lining its mouth. Emily felt the tongue, rough and scaly, against her face as it tasted her, savoring its moment of glory before it delivered the final coup de grâce.
It wasn’t so bad, she thought from the solitude of her inner mind. The pain was a distant distraction, the weight of the creature on top of her more disconcerting to her as she was finding it harder and harder to breath. Darkness was already starting to close in around the periphery of her vision as her oxygen-starved brain slowly began to shut down.
Through her blurred vision, Emily could see something advancing rapidly toward her from the direction of the field beyond the forest. The shape was just a silhouette of motion, backlit by the afternoon sun as it darted swiftly between the trees, leaping over the roots. It was another of the creatures, she supposed, come to join in the kill.
The shadow vaulted over a particularly large root, using it as a springboard to launch itself through the air towards her. She closed her eyes and waited for the end to come.
