by Cameron Hale
“Do you see?” Darien asked.
She nodded, her face pinched.
“There's no place else to land except the treetops,” he said, coaxing the Lunata toward a sparsely webbed group of conifers. “This is the most incredible thing I've ever seen. Solid forest. No visible ground anywhere. I’ve heard of ocean bound planets, but none completely land bound. Under different circumstances, this would have been an important discovery.”
“Darien, please!” she cried, panic edging her voice. “Don't land on those trees! Something’s down there. It just doesn’t feel right.”
“It's too late. I’ve lost engine power. We're going down.”
The Lunata coasted toward a trough between two towering conifer spires. Darien struggled to keep the nose up as tremendous boughs lashed and scraped the car. Saranoud flinched and ducked, terrified the formidable pine needles would smash the skyshield and impale them. Strands of flaxen silk slowed the car, some of the filaments snapping. They waved in the air like cilia, banners to whatever unseen eyes watched.
At length, the Lunata wedged nose down against the unyielding branches of the coupled trees. Though the surrounding webbing was sparse, Saranoud could barely contain her terror as she watched the filmy strands for signs of jerky movement.
“Not too bad a landing, considering we’d lost all power,” Darien said. “Are you all right?”
She noticed the tremor in his voice and nodded. “Yes, I guess so,” she said, her glance fixed on the tattered webbing.
Absolute silence engulfed them, the Lunata unequipped to deal with a potentially hostile environment. Darien fiddled with the emergency backup systems in a fruitless attempt to elicit even the briefest response. Resigned, he slumped into his seat.
“It's no use. The filters have shut down. Carbon dioxide levels will soon be toxic. We can't stay here much longer.”
“And be the starting course for God knows what?” Saranoud cried. “No thanks! You're welcome to go exploring. I'd rather suffocate in here. In case you haven't noticed, we're sitting in something's nest. Something big.”
“Don't you think it would have been digesting us by now?” he snapped. “Yes, these trees look like they're laced with cotton candy. And yes, it could be a spider's web, but we don't know for sure. We're on an alien world, remember? It could be anything, so we can’t automatically assume we’re in danger. We have to at least try to survive. Christ, I'd have thought saving your own neck would be top priority!”
Saranoud felt her face flush. “Listen to you! Space cadet Darien Breme is hardly in a position to lecture me. We were supposed to be going on a date, Darien, not crash landing on some infested planet God knows where. And while we're dissecting personalities, you're not exactly inspiring confidence at the moment. Maybe you should have been more cautious about testing a prototype in the first place.”
The trees juddered faintly. Argument forgotten, Darien and Saranoud simultaneously bolted from their seats.
“Something's coming!” she whispered.
Darien manually released the doors and pulled her out. An intense reek of turpentine assaulted them, cloying to the point of nausea.
“Jesus!” she muttered, gripping the car. Tears sprung to her eyes from the astringent odor. “I feel woozy. It's like breathing liquid fire.”
Darien nodded, his footsteps unsteady on the thick carpet of needles. “Take shallow breaths. And move slowly. Too much exertion could knock us out or possibly produce a hallucinogenic effect.”
Saranoud gripped his hand and kicked off her spiky shoes. Together they crept along the linked network of boughs, feeling for steady spots, searching for hidden gaps. Urgency prodded them as the quivering became stronger.
Pressed close to Darien’s body, Saranoud felt a sudden thrill of arousal. The sense of the chase, the sharp edge of fear that had pumped up her adrenaline had also inflamed an unexpected and surprisingly powerful desire. In the chaos of thoughts whirling through her mind, she imagined herself captured by the exotic inhabitants of the planet and subjugated to endless sexual indignities…
Darien stopped so abruptly she bumped into him, banishing her perverse fantasy. He groped the branches, separating them enough to create an inconspicuous gap. “I think we've reached the trunk,” he said, peering down at the scaly bark. “We might be safer if we climb to the forest floor. If whatever's coming lives on the treetops, it may not be able to follow us.”
“Can we make it?” she asked, wincing at the acrid undertaste in her mouth.
“Have a look.”
She glimpsed the brown, craggy surface of the monstrous trunk descending like a sheer cliff face into murky twilight. Though there were human sized gaps in the boughs, the proximity of the deadly needles frightened her.
“God, it's so dark.”
Darien slipped past her and hoisted himself down to a secure foothold. “Hand over hand,” he said, reaching up to her. “Take it slow and easy, though, the bark is as rough as sandpaper. Breathe through your mouth. Hopefully we'll get used to the stink.” He kicked at the branch. “No way is it going to collapse. It's solid enough to support ten of us.”
Saranoud hesitated before lowering herself through the narrow opening. She wavered before Darien could securely grasp her and brushed against an outcropping of pine needles almost a foot in length.
“Be careful, for God's sake!” he hissed as she frantically pedaled her legs toward him.
Though she made only momentary contact with the needles, they left a fine incision down the left side of her dress. She crouched panting on the branch and gaped at the scalpel-like tear in the fabric.
“Jesus, that was close,” Darien said. “You’ve got to be more careful. We can’t take the risk of getting injured.”
She stared fearfully below. “I’m sorry. I never expected to perform gymnastics.”
Darien carefully inspected a nearby needle. He cautiously plucked the dark green lance and brushed it against the tree trunk. A white scar immediately appeared, oozing a noxious white resin. He grimaced and dropped the needle, his mouth a tight line.
Saranoud stifled a sob. “My God, if I'd fallen harder against them…”
“Don't dwell on it. Just concentrate on each step. There's a forest floor somewhere below. Nothing much bigger than us is going to get through this booby trap, so let's move before it gets dark.”
Their progress was tortuously slow—the fear of impalement equal to the fear of what sought them above. Saranoud felt vaguely claustrophobic as the boughs closed tightly around them, though at least she had acclimatized to the astringent odor. A commotion shook the trees. They froze as the movement passed overhead barely thirty feet above. At the sound of stealthy rustling, they quickened their descent.
Saranoud gasped, her eyes furiously darting. “Up there in those branches! God, it’s found us! It knows we're here!”
“Shut up you stupid bitch!” Darien whispered. “Do you want to give us away? Try using your common sense if you have any.” He gestured impatiently. “Look, it probably found the Lunata. It may think that's all there is.”
A dull tearing noise left little mystery to the fate of the vehicle. At the sound of something hacking through the boughs, they pressed themselves against the abrasive trunk, the oppressive odor heavy in their lungs. They waited in agonizing uncertainty until the furious topside ruckus subsided. Leaden silence returned along with a new menace, darkness. Evening was approaching, a sinister nightfall of unknown duration.
Saranoud shivered, though the temperature remained moderate. Tears coursed down her cheeks, her streaked makeup clownish in the obscure light. Darien gestured her downward. They descended warily, their motions measured as they skirted lethal clumps of needles.
Wracked by a grinding weariness, Darien stumbled onto the base branch. Barely able to see in the smothering dusk, he overbalanced and swayed, momentum pushing him off before he could right himself. Saranoud heard a soft plop. She shuffled along the massive branch, her hands
groping the air around her.
“Darien? Are you all right? Answer me!”
“Sshh,” came a reply from directly below. “It's okay, the forest floor is resilient like a sponge. Jump. I'll catch you.”
She squinted down at his vague shape. “How far is it?”
“Twelve feet, maybe fifteen. The branches gradually slope. Short of scaling the trunk that's as low as you're going to get. Come on. You won't get hurt. I practically bounced.”
“Okay,” she said uncertainly. She crouched down and dangled her legs. “You'd better be waiting.”
The jump into his arms was short and painless. Together they sank into pliant, mossy earth. The pungent odor of loamy soil muted the medicinal reek to a more tolerable level. Drained and exhausted, their lungs full of the subtly narcotic odor, the pair fell into a deep sleep. Above, a string of cadaverous moons rose in the sequined indigo sky, the sky almost invisible through the conifer ceiling. Lurid shadows spanned the forest, the lunar light casting a sickly greenish tint to the eerie still life. Nothing moved in the breathless silence.
* * *
A trio of gleaming bronze ships flanked by a sextet of articulated joints appeared in the horizon and skimmed the trees. They moved in steady formation, a brilliant pool of light systematically sweeping the boughs until it fell upon the mangled remains of the Lunata. The lead ship descended and hovered a few feet above the wreckage. A translucent tube extended from the underside and inhaled the remains. A moment later, a squat, multi-limbed creature scuttled from the tube and quickly burrowed into the treetops. The ships rose and extinguished the searchlights. Moving at a blur, they pirouetted and retreated into the velvety night.
Concealed in the boughs, the seeker extended an array of wiry feelers from its dull brown carapace. Forests of tiny cilia shuddered at the robust alien scent, one that promised bountiful nourishment. Though unseen somewhere on the forest floor, the prey had left a clear trail leading from the abandoned vessel to the adjacent branches. Slowly, methodically, the seeker crept through the boughs and descended the trunk, its claws easily grasping the coarse bark.
It occasionally paused to study clues left by the prey, eyestalks and feelers constantly waving. A weeping gash in the trunk still oozed white resin, the slash obviously caused by a needle. At one point, the prey had even left their spoor, the wet patches against the bark providing a wealth of physiological knowledge. The seeker recognized that fear had stripped the prey’s caution, a trait that felled even the most cunning. It proceeded patiently.
* * *
Vague nightmares tormented Saranoud. While Darien lay motionless in an almost comatose sleep, she tossed and turned and babbled incoherently to phantom roses and unseen creatures lurking in the trees. At length, an intense thirst woke her, a scratchy, parched thirst that clotted her throat and caused her to wretch. She sat up and peered uneasily at the silent forest. It soared like a phantom cathedral, spectrally illuminated by arcing buttresses of vivid green moonlight.
Her feet squelched in the mulchy soil as she rose. The sensation was unpleasant, almost gelatinous. Gingerly, she goose-stepped a few paces. Surprisingly, no needles littered the ground, a blessing considering her barefoot condition. She looked around and listened, dismayed by the unnerving lack of activity in the forest. The view bore a relentless uniformity, the trees soaring like indestructible monoliths, thriving on means unknown.
“So much for the great outdoors,” she muttered under her breath. “Well, Darien, I think next time we stick to the nature reserves on Earth.”
A sudden sense of unease raised the hackles on her neck. She spun to find Darien’s recumbent shape swallowed by the gloomy forest. Somehow she had wandered off, her sense of direction foiled by the maze of trees. Panicked, she stumbled after shadows that taunted her and melted at her approach.
“Darien!” she cried. “Where are you?”
The unexpected grip on her shoulders brought a scream to her lips. Darien clamped his hand over her mouth and roughly shook her. Rage distorted his features.
“Dammit, Saranoud! Have you lost your fucking mind? What made you wander away like that? Don't you realize you could have gotten lost? What do I have to do to convince you to be more careful?”
Through the fog of her fear and a growing sense of disorientation, she became keenly aware of the feeling of his hands gripping her shoulders. The strength bore through her flesh, infusing her with a sense of excitement. These were hands that could easily dominate her, easily force her to submit to the basest of acts—naked, forced to grovel in the mulchy soil while she caught the come jetting from his cock with her mouth, the red imprint of his hands on her tender ass…
“—for God’s sake, are you even listening to me? What the hell is wrong with you?”
He shook her again, his eyes reflecting the fear that his voice could not quite conceal.
She whimpered. Her lips quivered, her words an inarticulate jumble in her throat. She sobbed into his chest. Darien stroked her tangled hair and muttered empty reassurances. Though he distractedly glanced toward the adjacent trees, he failed to notice the luminous eyestalks observing them.
* * *
The seeker's armored appendages silently worked as it studied the prey. Clumsy and vocal, they had betrayed their position almost immediately. An appetizingly salty aroma drifted from their bodies, though the weaker of the pair had a riper, more appealing odor. Its mandibles clicked in anticipation. There would be no tiresome pursuits or furious struggles with these creatures. If anything, their assimilation was going to be effortless.
“I'm so thirsty,” Saranoud said, sinking to the ground with Darien. “I thought I could find some water. Surely there must be some on this wretched planet. How can these trees survive otherwise?”
“My fault,” he said. “I only stocked the car with vitriolade. I’m not even sure it had a medkit.” He shook his head. “Who was to guess we'd end up here? Anyway, we'll set off at daybreak. There must be water somewhere, otherwise the ground wouldn't be so spongy.”
They drifted back to sleep, exhaustion and growing hunger draining their strength. The seeker watched the huddled prey carefully. Its compact, chitinous body quickly descended the tree trunk on a sextet of agile legs, eye stalks constantly swiveling. Clicking softly, it approached Saranoud and extended its gently vibrating feelers.
A feverish heat suffused her as she drifted between sleep and wakefulness. Her gummy eyes fluttered open, allowing only a glimpse of the nocturnal forest. Something lurked in her peripheral vision, quickly descending into the realm of her troubled dreams even as it approached.
Moving around her, the seeker carefully analyzed her body, its array of sensitive feelers conveying a wealth of physiological information. Pausing between her legs, it studied the cellular composition of her dress before moving below to what appeared to be the prey’s reproductive organs. Feelers gently probed in and around two apparent openings, both of which revealed indications of recent coition, indicating a female gender. The seeker paused as the prey tossed its head and murmured in an undecipherable tongue, but did not awaken.
Retracing its feelers, it poised itself on Saranoud's exposed thighs. A proboscis emerged from between its mandibles and probed the layer of fatty tissue for a suitable incubation site. It gently scraped the skin and extracted a droplet of nutrient rich blood. After a moment, the proboscis dribbled a clear substance onto the abraded flesh, instantly numbing the area. With a single lunge, it expertly pierced the pale skin and pumped a yellowish amniotic fluid containing partially developed larvae deep into the tissue.
Saranoud moaned softly, her hands feebly swatting the air. Now the nightmare had assumed a more sinister quality as something dark and unmentionable snaked into her cunt. She felt it moving inside her, searching, tasting, yet through the fog of her stupor, she could see no face, feel no body. It trailed a ticklish path to her anus and entered her again. Revolted yet aroused, she raised her hips to allow the monstrosity to further pen
etrate her.
Scenting the prey’s potent sexual musk, the seeker quickly withdrew its proboscis and retreated to the nearest tree while the prey clumsily spread her legs and began to manipulate herself. After a moment, she muttered and writhed against her inserted fingers. Her eyes briefly opened, catching a flicker of movement from the overhanging branches. The image faded as she drifted back to sleep, her hand now straying to scratch the annoying irritation on her thigh.
* * *
“Saranoud, wake up. Saranoud…”
The vaguely familiar voice wavered through a leaden mist. She groaned and rolled over, her body a throbbing, aching mass. Darien shook her more vigorously.
“Come on, wake up! We've got to get moving.”
“Leave me alone,” she murmured, feebly flailing at his arms. “I feel terrible.”
He sat her up and touched her ashen forehead. Concern etched his face. “You feel like a hot coal. Jesus, that's all we need. Are you in pain?”
She shrugged weakly. “I feel so drained. Every muscle in my body aches. And my leg…” Her hand drifted to her thigh and scratched.
Darien pushed her hand away and peered closely at her leg. An angry red welt flared from the flesh like a miniature volcano, a brackish yellow fluid trickling from a tiny central wound. His expression darkened.
She glanced at the wound and blanched. “Dear God!” she said, scrabbling backward as if to escape the sight. “Darien, I had this nightmare that something—something fucked me. It didn’t seem real at the time. But I thought I saw something in the trees…” She gazed fearfully at the surrounding forest.
Darien shook his head and stared at her with a mixture of scorn and pity. “Only you could dream about sex at a time like this. Clearly something’s bitten you, Saranoud.” He laughed harshly. “Then again, on this hellhole, biting could be the native equivalent of fucking.”
She slumped and began to cry, her appearance rendered pathetic by her filthy, tattered dress, disheveled hair and smudged face.
