Alien Shadows

by Daniel Arenson

  "Watch carefully, everyone." Romy pointed. "This is the part where I valiantly defeat the evil creature of shadows."

  In the video, Romy wailed and made to flee, only to step on her tail and crash facedown. The demon beat her wings, soared, and slammed her head against the ceiling. Finally she stumbled out the doorway, fell again, and ended up hopping away with her hands on the floor, moving like an ape.

  "Truly you are a valiant warrior," Nova said.

  "The camera lies!" Romy bit her lip. "It also adds ten pounds."

  "As does consuming entire boxes of donuts." Nova pointed at the floor where lay a cardboard box, crumbs and sparkles and demon drool inside it.

  "I was hungry!" Romy pouted. "Ghost hunting makes you hungry. If you ever encountered a ghost, you . . ."

  As everyone started bickering again, Riff tuned it out and turned toward Lenora.

  "It seems we've found a pattern," he said. "Every time this ghost appeared, the witness was alone, facing the black hole." Riff frowned. "You told us this black hole is irregular. That scientists from across the galaxy flock here to study it. Why?"

  Lenora was staring in wonder as Romy and Nova were slapping each other, with Steel, Twig, and Piston all trying to tug the combatants apart. The scientist blinked, shook her head in confusion, and returned her gaze to Riff.

  "Yurei is unlike any black hole we've encountered," she said. "Black holes are, essentially, stars that collapsed under their own gravity. The forces of gravity are so strong, they suck in all four dimensions—the three physical dimensions as well as time. Even light cannot escape a black hole. But this black hole . . . our data shows that spacetime is sucked inside in a strange flow. It's as if there's . . . a chunk missing from the black hole. A piece in the middle, something we can't see, which causes our calculations to break. Almost as if there's something lodged in that black hole's throat. In fact, this black hole doesn't even seem to be round. More like . . . donut shaped."

  "Donuts?" Romy perked up. "Where? Me want!" The demon salivated.

  Nova dragged her away. "Shut it, or I'm going to shove you into our starship's engines and bake you into donuts."

  Romy gasped. "Really? Can you put icing on me? Ooh, and sprinkles! Purple ones." She furrowed her brow. "Do you think I'd be able to eat myself forever?"

  "Shut it!"

  Riff closed his eyes, trying to ignore the noise. A black hole with a piece missing. Ghosts that appeared in the shadows, making people vanish. How could he fight something he didn't even understand, couldn't even touch?

  "Captain, sir!" Rough hands tugged at his pants. "Captain! I've been going over the data, and I think I can trap one of them shady buggers."

  Riff opened his eyes, looked down, and saw Piston rifling through a sheaf of papers. The gruffle stood a good foot shorter than Riff but twice as wide, his stocky body suited for the massive, rocky world he had come from. His white eyebrows bunched together, and his dark face screwed up in concentration. He tugged at his beard as he looked over a long string of equations on his papers.

  "Trap one?" Riff said.

  "Aye sir." Piston nodded emphatically. "I've been going over the numbers Lenora showed me, and well, sir . . . seems these are physical beings. Solid as you and me." Piston sucked his teeth. "Meaning we can trap them."

  "Physical beings?" Riff tilted his head. "Piston, they look like ghosts. All smoky and . . . blobby."

  Piston's bushy eyebrows rose. "Well, your eyes will deceive you, sir. Eyes do that. But numbers don't lie. These creatures have shadows, have a weight to them. I'm thinking a good, solid electromagnetic field, mounted between metal rods, should do the trick."

  Riff sighed. "So long as we don't build a metal, female ghost for them to defile."

  Piston nodded. "Aye, sir. I'll get right to building some traps. We'll set 'em across the observatory before the planet turns toward the black hole again." The gruffle looked over his shoulder. "Twig! Twig, you clod, where are you? Get down from that shelf! Go to the ship and fetch me our magnet poles."

  Twig, no larger than a human child, was sitting atop a bookshelf, leafing through engineering books. She raised her eyes, blinked, and stared at Piston. "Magnets? You need to wipe another hard drive? Piston, I told you, nobody cares that you look at gruffle ladies on cyberspace. With their beards, they all look like men anyway, and—"

  "Twig!" Piston roared, raced toward her, and began a doomed attempt to climb the bookshelf.

  Riff winced as the shelves collapsed, raining books.

  "I'm sorry," Riff said, turning toward Lenora. "I'm so sorry. I know we're not the most elegant pest controllers, but I promise you: We always get the job done. I—" Another crash sounded behind him, and Riff spun around. "Will you lot stop that! Show some respect, and—"

  He frowned. The other Alien Hunters stared back at him, still and silent, the room untouched. The rumbling, crashing sound continued, and Riff realized it had come from the distance—from outside.

  He stepped toward the round, glass wall and stared out at the spaceport. Alongside the Dragon Huntress stood the observatory's own starship: the silver, dagger-shaped Drake. Both ships' engines were rumbling. Smoke blasted out from their engines. They rose a few feet off the surface and hovered.

  Riff looked around him. All the other Alien Hunters were here, even Giga.

  "There are no scientists on the Drake," Lenora whispered.

  "And nobody on the Dragon Huntress." Riff stared outside and his belly knotted. Through his ship's windshields, he thought he could see just the hint of swirling shadows.

  "Ghost pilots," Romy whispered.

  Riff spun away from the glass. He ran.

  "What the hell's going on, Riff?" Nova shouted, running at his side.

  "Our ships are being hijacked, that's what!" he said, racing through the halls.

  Leaving us marooned here. His heart thudded. Marooned on a dead, haunted planet orbiting a black hole.

  The ships' engines roared outside, and Riff cursed with every step.

  CHAPTER FIVE:

  DRAGON RISING

  Riff burst into the observatory's airlock, the last chamber between the laboratories and the rocky planet outside. Through the window, he could see both ships taking off, blasting down fire. The walkway, which had connected the Dragon Huntress to the observatory, lay in tatters on the planet's surface.

  God damn it.

  Riff whipped his head from side to side. Airlocks usually had a few spacesuits in them, and—there! He raced toward the wall where three suits hung, complete with jetpacks. He grabbed one and began to suit up.

  "Steel! Nova!" he shouted.

  They nodded, ran forward, and grabbed the last two space suits. None of them fit well, but they would have to serve. When Riff glanced out the window, he saw that both ships had already risen kilometers into the sky.

  He pulled on his helmet and strapped on his jet pack.

  "Everyone who's not in a suit, stay back in the corridor," he said. "Lenora, can you depressurize the airlock?"

  The brown-haired scientist nodded, fear in her eyes. Standing in the corridor, she closed the airlock's inner door. Only Riff, Steel, and Nova now stood in airlock, wearing suits and helmets.

  The outer door opened. The air whooshed out.

  Captain, knight, and gladiator ran onto the rocky surface of Kaperosa and kick-started their jet packs.

  With roaring fire, they soared.

  Riff clenched his jaw as his head rattled inside his helmet; it was too large. Steel soared to his right, and Nova to his left. Far above, Riff could see the two starships.

  "Make for the Dragon Huntress!" Riff said into his helmet's communicator.

  Nova's voice crackled to life, emerging from his helmet's speakers. "Really, Riff? I thought you wanted us to fly into the black hole!"

  Riff curved his flight, rising toward the mechanical dragon above. Steel and Nova flew with him. If they could save only one ship, it would be the one they knew inside and out.
/>   God damn it, faster!

  Riff pressed the jet pack's throttle as far as it would go. The flames roared out, yet the Dragon Huntress was moving too fast, too far away.

  We're not going to make it. Horror pounded through Riff. It's going to fly away, and we'll be marooned here, a hundred light-years from civilization.

  He was cursing, the fear washing over him, when the Dragon Huntress turned to face him.

  For just an instant, hope filled Riff. The ship was coming back!

  Then he saw the cannon in the dragon's mouth heat up.

  Fear flooded Riff, colder than the icy wastelands of the frozen planet Teelana.

  "Scatter!" he shouted.

  He tugged his jetpack's controls, shooting to his left. Steel flew to the right, and Nova blasted forward.

  The Dragon Huntress spewed out her dragonfire.

  The plasma showered down, a blazing jet, white and blue and flaring out to red.

  Riff barely dodged the flames. The heat blazed against his boots' soles, melting them. He curved his flight and kept soaring. The fire slammed against the planet below, melting rocks.

  "To the Dragon's airlock!" Riff shouted. His jetpack thrummed.

  "You think, Riff?" Nova said. "I thought we'd fly through the exhaust pipe!"

  The gladiator soared beside him, her electric whip flailing. The Dragon Huntress blasted down more flame. The starship now spun in the sky, spraying dragonfire in a curtain. Riff cursed, whipping from side to side, barely dodging the flames. Steel shouted in the distance as fire splashed his arm, melting the space suit, but the knight kept soaring. The Drake, meanwhile, faded into the distance—now far beyond their reach.

  Before the flames could rain again, Riff reached the Dragon Huntress, turned off his jetpack, and slammed into the hull.

  He grunted with pain, clawing for purchase. With thuds, Steel and Nova slammed into the hull too, denting the metal, cursing.

  The Dragon Huntress flew a good fifty kilometers above the surface now. The observatory was barely visible below, a mere glint on Kaperosa's rocky surface. In the distance, Riff could see it now, rising above the planet's horizon: the black hole.

  Riff Starfire . . . spoke a voice in his head. We will break you . . . We see your death . . . We see your death in pain . . .

  Riff tried to look away. He could not. The black hole tugged at his gaze. He felt as if somebody had driven wires into his eyeballs, forcing him to stare into the abyss.

  And that abyss was staring back. Mocking him.

  It's alive, he thought. Yurei is a living being. A cruel entity. A dark queen.

  Her black soul bored into him, consuming him, driving through his innards.

  You will worship me . . . You will call me Mistress . . .

  Riff's eyes burned. His breath shook.

  "Mi . . . Mis . . ."

  "Riff, damn it!" Nova said. Clinging to the hull beside him, she yanked him toward her. Riff screamed as his gaze tore free from the black hole; it felt as if somebody had pulled scabs off his eyes. He shook his head wildly, banishing that unearthly voice. When he stared across the hull, he saw Steel open the airlock, exposing the staircase that led toward the main deck. The knight climbed in and Nova followed.

  With a deep breath, Riff joined them, entering the Dragon Huntress.

  They raced upstairs, barged into the main deck . . . and found the ghosts waiting for them.

  Riff hissed. He couldn't fire his plasma gun in here, but he could still pistol-whip with the best of them. At his side, Steel raised his sword, and Nova cracked her whip.

  The ghosts stared back at them with red eyes. For the first time, Riff got a good look at the creatures.

  Yet, even staring directly at them, he could not decide what they looked like. The ghosts were constantly changing: bulging, shrinking, twisting. One moment the creatures were blobby, the next stick-thin. One moment they seemed to raise beefy arms, and the next, their limbs tapered into blades. They were shimmering black with just a hint of blue and purple, woven not of smoke as he had once thought. They were beings of flesh—solid flesh that reflected the light, that cast shadows—yet somehow . . . not fully here. Flickering in and out of existence, half in this world, half in some world beyond, unable to fully enter this plane of existence.

  Even as their forms swayed, their eyes kept burning. Red. Cruel. Lusting for blood. Fanged mouths opened in their heads, and laughter rose from them. Ghostly laughter from another world.

  "Welcome to your grave, ones of three," one of the ghosts said.

  Riff looked around him. "This is Greenpine Cemetery, North Cog City?" He snorted. "I paid good money for a plot here, and the place looks like a dump. I was scammed."

  "Not Greenpine," Nova said, "but just as haunted. What say you, Riff old boy, want to bust some ghosts? It's good exorcise."

  He hefted Ethel, his heavy plasma gun. "Let's give these ghosts some boo-boos."

  "Trick or treat time, baby," Nova said.

  Riff nodded. "That's the spirit!"

  Nova cracked her whip. "Whips are a ghoul's best friend, after all."

  Steel groaned. "Will you two stop with the ghost puns and fight?"

  With a sad shake of his head, the knight charged into battle, sword swinging. An instant later, Riff and Nova joined him.

  One of the ghosts lunged toward Riff, bulging out, expanding to twice its previous size. With a hiss, Riff swung his gun, trying to slam the metal against the creature. But the ghostly alien contracted, a portion of its body pulling back to escape the gun. A clawed hand appeared out of nowhere to slam into Riff.

  He cried out and fell back, blood dripping down his arm.

  At his sides, his companions seemed to be faring no better. Steel swung his blade, but the apparitions kept changing form, bodies shrinking, growing, vanishing, reappearing, dodging the sword every time. Nova's whip swung, but the electric lash found no targets either. Whenever a weapon swung, the aliens changed their forms, then lunged with claws.

  A dark hand slammed into Steel, cracking the knight's armor. A long digit whipped—perhaps a tail or a tentacle—slamming into Nova, then vanishing. The gladiator fell, her whip showering sparks.

  A shadow drove toward Riff and grabbed his throat. Red eyes stared into him, burning with hatred.

  Now, one of three . . . you scream.

  And Riff screamed.

  His skull unfolded.

  His vision opened up.

  And he saw it. He saw . . . full awareness. Shadows. Black fog in the air, a living thing, evil taken form. A hill that was a thousand hills. A rose upon its top, simultaneously wilting and blooming. A distant mountain that was a thousand distant mountains.

  No. No. Riff wept. It's too much.

  It was too wide, too much to see, too much to feel. All his life, his mind had viewed the world from within his skull—seeing, hearing, smelling, experiencing a flat reality. No more. Now the cosmos itself opened up, revealing . . . a child. Scared. An old man. Dying. A ship that was a thousand ships. And everywhere that red flower on that black hill, and beyond it . . . the mistress.

  The Dark Queen.

  Waiting for him.

  It's Hell. I'm looking at Hell.

  Riff ground his teeth.

  "No!" he shouted. "No. No! Enough! I refuse! I will not join you there, I will not see this!"

  He yanked his soul back into his body. His consciousness snapped back into his skull, sucked up like a noodle into a mouth.

  He blinked, almost surprised to find himself back in a single starship. Where were the thousand—the millions—of Dragon Huntresses he had seen, the worlds folded into worlds? He was back in but a dream, a speck lost within a speck of a cosmos.

  And the ghosts were still here.

  Riff swung his gun, driving back the creature that had grabbed him.

  "Nova, Steel, hold onto something!" he shouted.

  The pair were still fighting the ghosts, with little success. Every thrust of their weapons missed, a
nd both were cut and bleeding.

  "Riff!" Nova shouted. "What are you—Riff, no!"

  He nodded. "It's the only way. Now hold on!"

  Nova groaned and grabbed onto the ladder that led to the attic. Steel's eyes darkened, and he grabbed on too.

  "Time for an exorcism," Riff said . . . and hit the airlock controls.

  Both doors swung open at once.

  With a shriek, the air began fleeing the Dragon Huntress.

  Riff was too far to grab the wall-mounted ladder, but he clung to the couch like a drowning man to a dolphin.

  The ship roared, screeched, fluttered with fury. The board of counter-squares flew off the table. Pieces slammed into Riff like hail. Romy's crayon artwork tore off the walls and flew out the airlock. The goldfish was sucked right out of his bowl and flapped into space. Darts tore off the dartboard and flew like missiles; one scraped across Riff's shoulder. Dishes clattered. Toilet paper rolls flew like comets, leaving papery trails. The fleeing air was a typhoon, taking everything with it.

  Including the ghosts.

  The shadowy creatures streamed in the wind, stretching out into dark strands. They screamed, sounds like shattering glass, like snapping bones, like breaking minds. Their limbs fluttered, seeking purchase, finding none. One whooshed over Riff and blasted out of the airlock. Another followed. More streamed from deeper in the ship, draining from the corridors, the engine room, the attic, tumbling out into space.

  The couch Riff clung to scraped across the floor, then lodged itself in the doorway. Riff held on, legs in the air, fingers nearly slipping.

  "Are they all gone?" Nova shouted, clinging to the ladder on the wall.

  "Yes, along with almost everything else."

  Holding the ladder with one hand, Nova swung her whip. The lash hit the airlock controls, and the door slammed shut.

  Riff fell to the floor, panting.

  "Good thing we had these space suits on, isn't it?" he spoke into the vacuum.