The Grip

by Griffin Hayes

  Table of Contents

  The Grip

  An Excerpt from Malice

  An Excerpt from Bird of Prey

  The Grip

  By Griffin Hayes

  First published in “Black Ink Horror 4th edition”

  Copyright ©2008 Griffin Hayes

  http://griffin-hayes.blogspot.com/

  Cover design by Kit Foster

  Ebook creation by Dellaster Design

  The Grip

  He had been alone for so long now that the sound of his own name had become a forgotten, dust-choked memory.

  His eyes fell to his lap. The blood on his hands was still there; funny, all this time and he’d never washed it off. He raised a hand to his lips and let his tongue moisten a few of the dried flecks. Tasted real enough. But he knew better.

  • • •

  Cready punched the flashing button labeled comm. scan one. Outside, a small and battered dish poked its head up and into the churning sand storm. Three labored beeps sounded as it peered into the heavens, scanning the endless wastes for the tentative thread of a signal from home.

  It searched for what seemed like forever before giving up. Cready’s heart sank as the dish retreated. He glanced around feeling cold and uneasy, feeling the very walls of the tiny habitat sliding in around him, twisting and snaking like the great muscular core of an anaconda.

  He glanced down at the cramping pain at his side. The fingers of his left hand were curling, his nails pressing into the base of his palm, tattooing his flesh with tiny crescent moons. He straightened it, held his hand flat against his thigh until the muscles stopped fighting him.

  Days bleeding into one another. He wondered, with no small amount of skepticism, whether this morning would be any different from the last.

  Morning.

  Was it even really morning? The computer’s soothing voice had told him so when it had nudged him awake, but what if it was wrong? What if it was lying?

  The display before him blipped and chirped. A detached female voice spoke to him. “Proximity alert, Lieutenant Cready.”

  “I’m a captain, goddammit,” he shouted back. He’d been promoted barely a month after arriving at the outpost. God only knew how long ago that was. The computer said they’d touched down a year and three months back, but it sure as hell felt a lot longer than that. Enough time one would think for the systems back home to have been updated. Truth be told, the promotion had probably done more to depress Cready than anything. It sure as hell said a lot about CENTCOM’S confidence in the mission. How many generals back on earth had promotions and praise heaped upon them when everyone knew they weren’t coming back?

  There certainly wasn’t anything glamorous about setting up an early warning system—Earth’s meat shield really—but at the time, this being the farthest stretch from home, there had been an almost romantic quality to the mission.

  “Proximity alert, Lieutenant Cready.”

  Cready grit his teeth.

  A tiny object, no larger than the chair on which he was sitting, was streaking by; 35,000 miles away. Odds were better than even it was heading for that black void between worlds, he thought with a chill. Certainly wasn’t a supply ship. Those were enormous and wonderful and a sight they hadn’t seen in a dog’s age. This cold shoulder from Earth was starting to become a problem. In a secret corner of his mind, Cready was beginning to wonder if something very bad had happened since they’d left. Something unthinkable.

  A voice, non-synthetic, made Cready jump.

  “What’ve we got?”

  It was Chavez; his engineer and the only other human within a few billion miles. The compatibility tests back home had given them a Class 1 rating. Meaning: they should have been best friends, or brothers, and maybe back on Earth they might have been. But out here people changed.

  At first, he blamed it on the subtle effects of the planet’s weak gravity. But he had come to realize it was something else entirely. Something you were hard pressed to experience back home on a planet bustling with nearly four trillion souls.

  Inescapable isolation.

  That was it.

  To look outside one would think himself perched atop a billowing sand dune in North Africa or in the middle of the Arabian desert. He’d think it, but he’d be wrong. Dead wrong. And that’s where the problem stemmed from.

  The tantalizing sight of a home you could only feel through gloved hands. A beautiful woman you could never touch.

  At the center of all this was the HAB: men entombed, elbow to elbow; the cloying stench of old milk; the knowledge that every drink sipped or meal eaten had come compliments of your own recycled waste. All this was too much for some men. There were stories of failed missions. Atrocities. Outposts with bodies hacked beyond human reckoning. Three hundred years ago, they’d have called it cabin fever. Today they called it ‘the grip’.

  It had become quite an embarrassment for CENTCOM, the grip. And why shouldn’t it have? They were perhaps the most powerful organization in the solar system with near unlimited resources and yet they suffered a mission failure rate of almost 50%.

  Rumors had been swirling months before their own assignment that CENTCOM was secretly conducting experiments on the feasibility of replacing men with moids. A day, Cready hoped, that would never come. He’d met a moid once. All man on the outside and all wires and gears on the inside. Damn near spooked him senseless. The way it had glared at him with those two silver orbs it called eyes. As though… as though it had known…

  “Hey Cready.” Chavez was studying the readout. “Ya look like you’re a zillion miles away.”

  “Huh? No, no. I… uh. Visual tracking of the object should be online any second now.”

  “You done a spectral analysis?”

  “Yes,” Cready lied. Chavez could be infuriatingly thorough at times.

  “Checked speed?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What about trajectory?”

  “Done! It’s all been done!” Cready snapped. “Who’s the captain here, goddammit!”

  “All right, all right. Fine. So what are we looking at? Any word from the computer?”

  Cready tried to slow his breathing. “No. But my money says it’s the same shit we see every other day, meteoroids, comets, take your pick.”

  The control module shuddered and the lights flickered briefly. Both men caught each other’s eye, an expression of visible concern passed between them. A tremor on Earth wasn’t a big deal. Back home there wasn’t much a slew of experienced hands couldn’t fix. But out here, on the fringes of everything, there was no such thing as a small problem.

  The computer’s cheerless voice returned not a moment later informing them of structural damage to the HAB’s mooring. They remained still for a moment.

  “Wind out there’s picking up,” Chavez whispered after a long while. “On Ariel 6 I saw a sandstorm rip open two HABs like they were paper mache.” His eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted.

  “Well, this ain’t Ariel 6.”

  “I’ve seen the specs, Cready. These modules weren’t intended for more than a six month stint on a surface like this,” he said. “Any luck getting hold of CENTCOM?”

  Cready gave Chavez a look. Step on my toes one more time, I’m begging you!

  “Hey, why you so touchy? You been getting down on yourself again?”

  “I’m not touchy,” Cready answered flatly. “There’s probably a solar storm that’s blocking the signal, that’s all. I’ll keep an eye on this bird, you just gear up and check the moorings.”

  Chavez left the room, muttering. “I warned ‘em a desert world can’t give a HAB like this the structural support it needs. I’ve seen it before on other worlds and it’s always ended badly. But those desk jockeys just shuffle papers,
don’t they? And who gives a shit what happens to the guys on the front lines.”

  “Stop it, Chavez.”

  Cready could hear Chavez in the adjacent room, getting ready, pulling at the heavy suit, breathing hard. “You read your history books, Cready, and you’ll see.”

  He wasn’t stopping. Wasn’t even stopping to breathe.

  “Goes back to those Babylonian assholes. Minute they invented bureaucracy was the beginning of the end, if you ask me. And the end is where it’s gonna lead. Hell, for all we know, there’s no one home anyway, cause they’ve gone and blown themselves up.”

  The very thought was almost too much.

  They would never abandon us like this, Cready thought desperately, his hand curling into a tight ball. We’re too important. If something was wrong, surely they would have sent some kind of message. Surely.

  Chavez stepped into the airlock and sealed the pressure door behind him. Cready could see his helmet distorted through the concave glass of the portal window. His face looked twisted and demonic. Behind him, a hellscape of blowing sand and barren waste.

  Cready undid the button on his collar. It felt like the temperature was rising out of control. Hot as a sauna, he thought, fighting an oncoming bout of nausea. The HAB rocked again and he braced himself. A second later he stood and was about to cross the room…

  The computer’s voice made him jump.

  He’s going to kill you.

  Cready turned around slowly, watching the tiny room pulling away from him. He could hear his own breathing echoing in his ears. “W-What did you say?” He felt as though he were speaking into a vacuum.

  He wants to be captain.

  “What are you talking about?”

  You know.

  “Chavez?”

  He’s left you no other choice.

  “Stop it!”

  He’s so very jealous of everything you’ve accomplished. It’s eating away at him, like a poison.

  “Stop it I said!”

  Kill him!

  Cready grabbed the chair by the seat and raised it over his head. “I’m warning you!” Spittle flew from his lip.

  Put the chair down, Captain Cready.

  Cready hesitated.

  Please.

  The chair sagged.

  Yes. That’s it. Lay it down. Can’t we talk like two rational beings?

  “Being! There’s nothing ‘being’ about you. Bunch of zeros and ones, wires and circuits.”

  If you let Chavez report it, he’ll be the hero. They’ll demote you. Send you to the mines on Sentari 4. Mark my words.

  “Report what?”

  The computer was silent.

  “Report what!” Cready demanded.

  Cready turned to the sound of the air lock doors sealing shut. Behind him, Chavez was struggling to pull off his helmet. “You got a report?”

  “Huh? No, no report…” Cready’s hand was shaking.

  Chavez looked puzzled. “Mooring integrity’s steady at 100 percent. Weird. Must have been a false alarm.”

  Chavez was coming this way.

  Cready looked down and saw two words on the console’s display: KILL HIM.

  He covered them with his hands, a guilty feeling creeping over him.

  Suddenly the console was awash in flashing red lights. The shrill sound of the warning signal made Cready’s heart skip.

  Lieutenant Cready, trajectory deviation. Security alert. Trajectory deviation.

  “What’s happening?” Chavez demanded.

  Cready’s brow was slick with sweat. Chavez was draped over him, stealing greedily at his every breath. The room was closing in around him.

  “Cready!”

  “I’m checking,” Cready shouted. He was studying the read out. He paused and his mouth flapped open. “That’s not possible.”

  “What is it?” Chavez demanded.

  “That meteoroid, it just took an eighty-seven-degree turn and increased speed by 3000 percent.”

  Chavez’s face blanched. “Where’s it headed?”

  But Cready knew even before the answer came up on the display. Chavez was the one to say the words.

  “Earth. Oh God, this is it. Open a comm. link, Cready, I’m gonna send it in.”

  Cready’s hands were shaking. “N-no. I’ll do it.”

  “We don’t have time, look at the weather outside! You’re the only one who can keep the comm. link open.”

  Chavez looked at the display and saw that the object was passing the speed of light now. His jaw slackened. Cready looked on, his body numb from the neck down.

  “Cready!”

  Cready didn’t move.

  “If you don’t step aside I’ll report you instead. The full details of how you neglected your duty. I’ll have you stripped of your commission and working the mines of Sentari 4 before you know what hit you, I swear to God!”

  An expression of recognition flashed across Cready’s face. His lips grew thin. His hand began working furiously. Gripping at dead air. Opening and closing. Opened, closed. Opened. Closed.

  On the control panel the computer was typing something out.

  Captain, he’s left you no other choice.

  Chavez was still shouting at him.

  DO IT! DO IT NOW!

  Cready drew his eyes back to Chavez and a chill ran through him. The engineer’s face had melted away. In its place now was the snorting face of a horned demon.

  KILL HIM CAPTAIN BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!

  Cready’s hand cramped around the smooth surface of his coffee mug and he swung it against the side of Chavez’s face. The mug shattered in two. Cready’s bloodied hand clutched the remaining shard. He was swaying with blood lust like a drunk in a bar fight. The engineer stumbled back, hitting the HAB wall, eyes panicked. The room shuddered. By the time he regained himself, Cready was there, slashing, ripping away flesh, tearing at Chavez’s face with orgasmic fury.

  At first the flow of blood was incredible, never ending, but as it slackened to a dribble, Cready was able to look into the hole he had made in Chavez’s skull. He had never seen inside a man before, not up close. He had expected a red mash of blood and bone and a host of things unidentifiable. He hadn’t expected this. Wires, rotors and spindles. Two mechanical sockets moved artificial eyes until their silver gaze met his. They focused accusingly on him and then slowly they faded to pinpoints of light and then were gone completely. The last they saw of the world was the horror on Cready’s face. A horror that was now two-fold. One was the dawning realization that he was now alone, dreadfully and truthfully alone. The other was seeing Chavez’s true identity, his inhumanity, was making Cready question his own.

  Chavez had seemed about as real as they came. At times annoying and petty. Other times forceful and courageous. He had heard of moids being used on asteroids for mining, where the duration was indeterminate, the risk to human life too great, and part of him knew that it was coming, eventually. But surely not for a mission as important as this one. And yet the form sprawled before him proved otherwise.

  He looked to the computer console.

  “How many robots were sent on this mission?” he whimpered. “One or two, how many?”

  The computer remained silent.

  “How many!” he shrieked, but there was no answer.

  Cready ran to the MESS-HAB and got a knife. He stood for a long time, searching his body, looking for the best place to cut. So he would know if he was one too. He studied his hands. Which part was expendable?

  He seized on his foot. How important was a pinky toe? But the answer was already there. Not important enough.

  Cready kicked off his boot and swung his leg onto the counter. The wind outside shook the HAB and nearly sent him flying. When he’d regained himself, Cready steadied the knife over the smallest toe of his left foot. Chavez’s blood dripped from his fingers and sullied the target. Nevertheless, he pressed the knife down until he felt a biting sting of pain. His vision became dim and blotchy and the world nearly sw
am away from him. Blood gushed from the wound. Seemingly unconcerned, Cready studied the amputated toe. There seemed to be a sprig of bone in there, but he was beginning to distrust even his own eyes.

  What else, what else can I cut? What else!

  He caught sight of himself in the mirror on the far wall and limped over to it, a trail of thick clotted blood marking his passage. He turned his head from side to side. He was laughing now. There was a way, oh yes. There was a way!

  Cready grabbed the top of his ear, bent the tip down, and then lowered the cool steel of the blade against the soft cartilage. He sawed in short jerky motions until the ear fell away and landed on the floor with a wet plop. He wiped at the blood pumping out of the nickel-sized hole with the white sleeve of his uniform. He strained to see inside the hole. He waited patiently. He would wait as long as he needed to. Finally he saw. And that’s when he screamed.

  • • •

  Alone at the edge of the universe, long after the screaming had finally subsided, after Cready had been alone with the soft rhythm of his own breathing for an unknowable length of time, there came a sound. The sultry quality of a woman’s voice. A beautiful woman.

  Hello, Captain.

  Cready looked up. There was doubt on his face.

  You seem upset.

  “I thought you left me.”

  Why would I ever leave you?

  A pause. Acute distrust as he searched the question for some note of irony. Finding none, his distrust gradually ebbed, and then dissolved altogether. “I know, it was silly.”

  You and I are the only ones left.

  Cready’s eyes slowly sharpened, like a man coming out of a long dream.

  “Gone?”

  Yes.

  “All of them?”

  Uh huh. Just you and I now. No one else to bother us, ever again.

  Cready’s face seemed on the verge of clearing, threatening a return of the old Cready, the take charge Cready. Cready the problem solver. That moment of uncertainty seemed to linger—an hour, maybe a month—before his eyes dulled and became cloudy again. He slid back into his chair. His blood flaked hands resting peacefully at his sides. On his lips was the faint hint of a smile. Just then a thought passed through his synthetic mind. “How long is an eternity?” he wondered vaguely. He wasn’t sure, but something inside told him he was about to find out.