“Get back,” she snapped as the new woman took a step towards them. “Back against the wall. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
The woman obeyed. Her sobs quieted as she raised her hands over her head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve just been waiting for so long, and when I heard you, I thought—” She broke off into a hiccup.
“Tell me your name,” Robin barked.
Jay glared at his leader. “Hey, cut the lady some slack. Let’s get her something to drink and a warm blanket before we start the inquisition, okay?”
“Unless you’ve forgotten,” Robin spat through her teeth, “we have two bodies rotting away in the sleeping quarters. Someone killed them.”
Charles tilted her head as she regarded the woman. She was small, with mousey brown hair worn unfashionably long, and she was clearly terrified. “Do you really think she—”
“Maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t. Either way, I do not want to have to face Central and explain how I got my team killed because I let my guard down. Now, I repeat: what’s your name?”
“Ellan,” the woman stuttered. Her hands were shaking as she held them above her head. “Ellan DeSouza. I was the station’s scientist.”
“That checks out,” Jay said. “I read up on them on the trip here. She only finished her training four months ago, and this was her first assignment.”
Ellan nodded eagerly, her limp hair fluttering about her face.
“Okay,” Robin said, holding her gun steady. “Tell me what happened here.”
“We were attacked,” Ellan said, still blinking at tears as the flare hissed and fizzled behind them. “Our equipment said there was a large lifeform that had come off an asteroid and was blocking part of our scanners. Jones and Mike went out to clear it while I stayed at the control panel. Then—then I heard screaming. And Mike was yelling at me to open the doors, so I did. They both came back in, but so did something else—” She broke off again and squeezed her eyes closed.
“It’s okay,” Jay cooed. “Take your time.”
The woman rubbed the tear tracks off her cheeks as she took a few deep breaths. “I pressed the distress signal and ran. I don’t know what happened, but I heard gunshots from the sleeping quarters, so I locked myself in the kitchen. I’ve been staying there ever since. There’s something in the station; I can hear it walking around at night, looking for a way to get to me. When I heard you come in, I thought you were the monster—but then you started talking and—and—”
Again, Robin pulled Jay back to stop him from hugging the woman. He glared at her reproachfully.
“Your teammates are dead.” Robin’s voice was empty of emotion, and her gaze was guarded. “But I suppose you already knew that. So, you say there’s a dangerous lifeform in the station?”
Ellan nodded.
“You know what I think?” The girl shook her head, so Robin continued. “I think you’re far too young to have been stationed here, and four months was enough to send you out of your mind. I think you killed your partners but lost the nerve to finish yourself off, so you placed the gun in your teammate’s hand to make it look like he was responsible. I think you’ve spent this last week sinking into insanity and came up with this monster story so that you could convince yourself you were innocent. What do you say to that?”
A flush of colour had spread across Ellan’s face. “I didn’t—I’m not lying! Search the station yourself; you’ll find it!”
“Yeah, we’re going to do exactly that. You know what else we’re going to do? Put you into quarantine on our ship. When we get back to base, Central will get to decide how much they believe your story.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Jeeze, Robin!” Jay snapped. “Give her a break already!” He turned back to the woman and lowered his voice, offering her the sweetest smile his face was capable of. “Hey, it’s okay. I believe you.”
“Monsters can’t fire guns,” Robin said bluntly. “Get up, DeSouza. I’ll escort you to the ship. Charles, Jay, finish searching the station. I’ll be genuinely amazed if you find anything, but regardless, it goes without saying that you should be cautious. Meet us back at the ship in no more than ten minutes.”
“Sure,” Charles said.
Jay crossed his arms and pouted as he watched Robin march the younger woman out of the room. “Remind me to never get on her bad side.”
“You’re already there.” Charles grinned. “I agree she could use a brush up on her empathy skills, but she’s only trying to keep us safe.”
“You can’t honestly believe that little dove is a killer.”
“Little dove?” Charles punched Jay’s arm. “Ha! You like her. And for a moment there, I thought you were being a decent human being.”
Jay pursed his lips but didn’t retort. Instead, he marched into the kitchen, flicking the light on as he went.
It was the first undamaged room they’d found. The shelves, cupboards, and cooling unit were all neatly stacked. Charles skimmed the labels and snorted when she discovered they were arranged alphabetically.
“Damn perfectionists.” She bumped one of the packets of liquefied fruit so that it no longer lined up with its companions. “I’ll bet she spent the entire week rearranging the shelves in here to be aesthetically pleasing.”
Without deigning to respond, Jay pointedly turned his back on Charles as he made a show of searching under the table. Huh, he must really like her.
The kitchen was empty, so Charles led the way through the door that divided the living quarters from the work area. The lights didn’t work, so she lit another flare.
The room had been demolished: the workstations were broken and knocked against the walls, the lab equipment had been smashed, and the floor was littered with scraps of paper that had been torn out of their crumpled filing cabinets. It really did look as though a monster had been through it.
Charles hesitated by the door and watched as Jay paced through the destruction, crunching glass under his boots. He had his gun held to his eye, and sweat shimmered on his face in the flickering red light of the flare as he searched the room.
Something wasn’t adding up. Something about the bodies in the bedroom… Her mind grappled with the memories, trying to discern what was disturbing her. Something clicked into place: Ellan had lied.
The scientist had said she’d locked herself in the kitchen to stay safe from the monster, but she couldn’t have. Charles had opened both kitchen doors with an easy turn of their handles. She swore. “Jay, I think we should find Robin.”
“What?” he stopped between a crushed shelf and a crumpled DNA extractor, glaring at her.
“I don’t like leaving her alone with—”
Gunfire, harsh and loud, drowned out Charles’s voice. She ducked instinctively then realised the noise was coming from deeper in the station.
Robin.
4
“Commander!” Charles yelled as she rushed down the hallway that led towards the airlock. She heard a crashing noise to her right. Jay’s footsteps echoed behind her as he tried to keep pace.
Charles burst into the control station, panting, searching for her missing team member. The room looked exactly how it had when they’d arrived: crushed panel, overturned chair, and black smudges on the floor. No sign of Robin or Ellan. She squinted through the large plexiglass window, but the airlock was empty, and the door was still closed.
“Damn!” Charles shoved Jay aside as she ran back into the main hallway. She hesitated, trying to decide which direction to go. They’d just come from the passageway directly ahead. To the left was the corpse-infested bedroom, and to the right was the living area where they’d first met Ellan.
“Robin!” she yelled, praying the older woman would answer.
“I’m—ugh—here!”
Charles swung around to face the hallway that led to the bedrooms. Robin was doubled over, clutching a hand to her stomach. Ellan stood just behind her, arms around Robin’s shoulders to support her. Drops of
bright-red blood fell from Robin’s hand as she straightened up.
Charles gasped. “You’re hurt—”
“No, don’t worry. It’s not my blood.” Robin wiped the back of her hand over her sweaty forehead, leaving a smear of pink gore in its wake. “The creature winded me. That’s all.”
“What—”
“DeSouza was telling the truth. There’s a monster in this station. I was able to shoot and wound it, but it got away from us before I could finish it off.”
Charles glanced at Ellan, whose eyes appeared even rounder than they had before, if that were possible. She was shaking but kept her hands on Robin’s shoulders to steady her.
“Jeeze,” Jay hissed, hurrying up to them. “You’re sure you’re not hurt?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” Robin was gradually collecting her composure. Her hands were trembling as she rubbed them clean on her suit, but her face had regained its serene mask. “We need to finish this thing off, though. We’ll split into teams. Charles, you’re with me. Jay, look after Ellan.”
Jay didn’t even try to hide the delight on his face. “Absolutely.”
Robin hoisted her gun up and checked its ammunition level. “Charles and I will start in the work area. You two take the recreation room and kitchen. We’ll meet up in the middle. Yell out if you see anything, okay?”
Jay fired off a mock salute then raised the gun in his right hand and placed his left on Ellan’s shoulder. She gave him a shaky smile and leaned into the touch as he led her down the dark pathway towards the rec room. Charles waited until they were out of earshot before hissing, “Are you sure he’s safe with her?”
“Oh, yes,” Robin said, leading her down their path. “I trust her.”
“Really?” Charles asked. She wrestled with that as they entered the destroyed workroom. “Just like that?”
“Search the back of the room,” Robin said. “The creature is small and dark, so look carefully.”
Charles sucked a deep breath in through her nose then raised her gun so that she could look through the scope. Visibility was poor in the dimly lit room, so she moved carefully, her boots grinding on the broken glass and overturned specimen samples. The dancing shadows played tricks on her eyes, convincing her that she saw something small and menacing hiding in every dark crevice. Something nagged at the back of her mind, though, and she was only halfway across the room when she stopped and turned back to her leader.
“You said the blood on your suit wasn’t yours. Whose is it?”
“The monster’s.” The older woman’s eyes seemed very strange in the flare’s dancing red light, and her mouth twisted into a wide smile. “It’s all the monster’s now.”
That was when pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
Something about the two corpses in the bedroom had bothered her, but it had taken the sight of blood on Robin’s suit to make her realise what was wrong. The corpse on the floor had gummy, black blood in a pool around its head. It had stuck to Robin’s gun when she’d poked it. Charles had assumed that being exposed to the air for a week had turned it that way, but the blood from the body in the bathroom had been dark brown and dry—the way blood was supposed to look. Natural. Unlike the first body.
The words on the bathroom wall flashed back to her: They take our skin.
Charles stared at Robin, her mouth open but incapable of making a noise. Robin’s face was splitting in half. A crack had started over her nose and spread up to her hairline and down to her neck. The crazed smile slid farther and farther around her cheeks as the centre of her face opened like a book.
Inside was something unnatural. Something inky black, writhing and squirming to break free. Something alive.
Charles tried to scream, but her throat was frozen. She stumbled backwards, tripped over a broken desk, and landed on a stack of papers with a loud thud. Robin’s body was continuing to split, the two halves curling around behind her to free the dozens of thick black tendrils inside. They stretched out, poking at the air, tasting and testing, moving closer to Charles.
They take our skin.
Robin had encountered the monster. She hadn’t been lying about that. She’d just neglected to mention where it was hiding—beneath her skin.
Charles’s hand tightened around the gun. She raised it, aimed at the writhing black mess, and opened fire. The thick platinum rounds blasted holes through the place where Robin’s head had been. The tendrils jerked and thrashed, and little bits of them flew about the room as the bullets separated them from their body. One of the largest arms shot towards Charles and snatched at her ankle. She kicked at it, scrambled backwards, and closed her eyes as she emptied her clip into the beast looming over her.
Silence rushed in to fill the room as Charles’s gun ran empty. Gasping, trying not to hyperventilate, she opened her eyes to see Robin’s crumpled remains lying on the ground.
It was half human, half monster. What remained of Robin’s body was limp, strangely deflated, inexplicably fused to the stilled black creature that had hidden inside her. The black tendrils lay in a tangle, many of them torn in half by the gunfire. A pool of dark blood inched out from the body, dyeing the scattered papers black.
Ellan was probably the first to be taken, Charles thought, dragging herself away from her superior’s body, unable to avert her eyes. I bet she didn’t stay at the control panel like she said. They’d have needed their scientist to help identify the new lifeform. And it got her and took over her body, but her companions wouldn’t have known that, so they let her back into the station, and by the time they realised something was wrong, it was too late.
A loud thump echoed through the building, and Charles gasped. “Jay!”
Robin had divided the teams carefully, she realised. She’d kept Charles for herself and put Jay with Ellan. Jay had trusted the girl. Charles cursed and kicked herself to her feet, slipped on the scattered papers, caught herself on a bench, and ran through the door to the kitchen.
Food, stacked tidily, none of it eaten, no empty packets in the bin, Charles noticed as she tore through the room. Of course. She wasn’t alive, so she didn’t need to eat.
She skidded to a halt at the entrance to the recreation room, fumbling to fit a fresh clip of bullets into her gun. The nearly spent flare continued to splutter on the floor where she’d thrown it, tossing a red glow across the overturned furniture. Jay lay in the middle of the room, spreadeagle, his legs twitching feebly.
“Jay?” Charles hissed, approaching him. She didn’t see Ellan. “Jay, can you hear me?”
His eyes were blank, staring at the roof, and his mouth lolled open. Charles pressed a hand to his chest. He felt cold. She gave him a gentle shake then pulled her hand back with a gasp as she felt his skin roil under her fingers. A tiny black tendril stretched over Jay’s bottom lip, tasting the air for a second before retreating.
“No!” Charles gasped. She clamped a hand over her mouth, smothering the wail building inside her.
The body in the sleeping quarters. The body that leaked inky black blood. It must have been changing. The final team member had seen it changing, and he shot it then hid in the bathroom and killed himself because the alternative was too terrible to stand.
Charles pressed her palms against her eyelids as bile rose into her mouth. What she needed to do was clear, but the very idea made her want to be sick. She’d become fond of Jay, despite his merciless flirting and teasing.
It can’t be real. He can’t be infested. He can’t be changing. He’s Jay, for goodness sake; he’s the ass who’s impervious to harm.
Still, she could see the black things crawling around his mouth, poking at his gums, and rubbing over his large teeth. Teeth like a horse’s and a mouth like a gate to hell.
How long had it taken Robin to change? It must have been fast; they’d found her within a couple of minutes of hearing the gunshots. And judging by the way Jay’s fingers twitched, he wasn’t going to stay still for long. There was no room for delay.
; “I’m so sorry, Jay. You deserved better than this.” Jay’s head jerked at her voice, and his eyes rolled around in their sockets to fix on her. Something strange and cruel lurked there, and Charles knew she was no longer talking to her Jay. She raised the gun, aimed it at her partner’s head, squeezed her eyes closed, and pulled the trigger.
The crack echoed through the rec room. Charles held still for a moment, tasting the gun’s bitter propellant on her tongue, before opening her eyes. Jay was still. Her bullet had entered at his temple, and the hole was so small that she could almost pretend it wasn’t there, except blood, inky black, oozed out from under his head.
Charles pulled herself up. Her legs felt unstable, but she couldn’t stand being in the room with her dead partner for a moment more. She turned towards the hallway and started running, leaping over the toppled furniture and trying to make out a clear path in the dim light. She didn’t know where Ellan was, and she didn’t want to find out. She was the only member of her team left—and the only one who knew what had happened on Station 332.
Get to the ship. Get off the planet. Warn Central.
5
Charles ran as quietly as she could manage, not bothering to try any of the hallway lights. Her heartbeat throbbed in her head as she struggled to control her panic. The station felt different, in a strange, cold way, now that she was the last human within its metal walls. The air had become thicker and staler.
The airlock was empty, at least. Charles shoved open the door, slid into the room, and scrambled to pull on her suit. She couldn’t remember which cables Jay had used to close the doors and depressurise the chamber, but that didn’t matter: all she needed to do was suit up, break the external door open, get through the sea of diamonds outside to the ship, and get off the damned planet.
She’d just wriggled her first foot into its boot when she heard the smooth whoosh of closing doors behind her. Charles jumped backwards and swivelled in the same motion, knocking over one of the shelves.
Station 332: Cymic Parasite Breach Book Two Page 2
