Species II

by Yvonne Navarro

  In the daylight, the ancient barn was probably visible for a hundred feet, but at night Press thought it seemed to pop up out of the ground without warning, despite the light spilling from the cracks in the old wood. Three stories high with a hayloft at the top—the damned thing was huge. Dark and weathered by God only knew how many winters without care, it looked like the last place in the world he and his two companions wanted to enter, and the beams of light coming from within only made things worse—it was like some sort of strange, golden explosion was taking place inside.

  Then they stumbled across the ravaged corpse of Senator Judson Ross by the barn doors.

  Laura sucked in her breath and froze; she and Press and Dennis stared down at the old politician, unwillingly taking in the gaping hole in the center of his chest and the blood that was streaked across his wide-eyed face.

  “So much for family loyalty,” Dennis rasped. He ran nervous fingers along the handle of the machete hanging from his belt. At the same time, Press pulled the tranquilizer gun from his waistband and inserted a loaded dart in its chamber, then boldly stepped over Judson Ross’s dead body and pushed through the door of the barn.

  Inside it wasn’t nearly as bright as they had expected, but it was lit well enough for them to see everything that awaited.

  Chrysalises, suspended from knotted ropes of flesh twined about the rafters—at least a dozen of the things, maybe more, hanging there like butterfly cocoons subjected to some sort of radiation to increase their size to monstrous. And all of them glowing a deep, corrupt golden-orange and covered in thick slime, literally dripping with it as life pulsed fast and furious within each one.

  For a shocked second no one said anything. Then Press exhaled and spoke. “Welcome to the maternity ward from hell. Our astronaut’s been a busy boy indeed.”

  “Patrick’s offspring,” Laura said. Press glanced at her and saw a mixture of awe and sorrow on her face. “My God, Press—do you realize how many women must have died?”

  “Obviously more than the newscasters are reporting,” Press said grimly. “I mean, look at this—I can’t even count them all!”

  “Well, pardon me if I don’t pass out cigars.” Dennis swiped a hand across his forehead. “Damn, these things are ugly.” He looked to Press and got a confirmation nod; both men swung their canisters around to the front and unlatched the spray nozzles.

  “What about Eve?” Laura asked uneasily. “If she finds Patrick—”

  “Then we’ll deal with it,” Press told her. “But I’d rather fight the happy couple and maybe a junior or two than a whole army—these bastards are about to hatch. Come on, Dennis. Let’s do it.”

  The two men took battle stances, feet apart and firmly planted as they aimed the spray nozzles and began pumping the canisters to release the gel-based human DNA Laura had manufactured from Dennis’s genes. A fine blue mist erupted from the nozzle tips and floated over the first two cocoons, then Press and Dennis stopped the flow and stepped back.

  Nothing happened.

  “Oh, shit,” Press muttered. “Now we’re fucked.”

  “What?” Dennis stared at Press and then at the two chrysalises. His face twisted in panic. “What? What’s wrong, you alien motherfuckers? My DNA not good enough for you?” He balled up his fist and would have taken a step forward if Press’s hand hadn’t come down on his arm to stop him. “You let me live on the Excursion just so I could come in here and die in this damned barn?” Dennis shrieked. “Well, fuck you and your entire butt-ugly species—”

  “Dennis, wait.” Laura’s voice cut through his anger and stopped his tirade in mid-sentence. “Look—something is happening. I think we just have to wait for the chrysalis to absorb the gel.”

  And indeed, the chrysalises were doing that. The two slime-coated cocoons were still moving, but the quality of the shifting had changed—now the unborn hatchlings were shuddering instead of doing the slow, almost sensuous rolling the trio had seen before the spray had hit them. The trembling escalated to a violent pitch, then a rich, burnt-umber glow suddenly spread over the slippery-looking surface of the chrysalises in a pattern that resembled veins in a gigantic yellow eyeball. Something wailed once, then again, high and loud enough to make Laura clap her hands over her ears while Dennis stood there with his mouth hanging open.

  “I’ve heard that sound before,” he said in a low, wondering voice. He actually took a step toward the two cocoons. “I’m not sure . . . Wait, now I remember! It was on the ship right before I blacked out! It—yaaaah!”

  Dennis threw himself backward again as half a dozen mottled brown tentacles burst through the outer wall in each of the two chrysalises, flailing wildly at anything and anyone within reach. But the thrashing was growing weaker with each passing second, and at each place where an appendage had torn through the glowing flesh, a white spot of infection appeared. The spots themselves began to spread faster and faster, blossoming outward like drops of colorless liquid atop the reddish-brown shine. The tentacles slowed as quickly as the points of disease spread across the surface of the alien pods and a noxious-looking ooze gushed from the tentacle openings. In less than a minute the two chrysalises were a throbbing, sickly eggshell-white, and as the three of them watched with revulsion, the walls of both cocoons abruptly imploded—

  —leaving only sagging, empty sacks of unidentifiable alien flesh.

  “Score one for human DNA and the good guys!” Dennis said brightly. Despite the cheerful words, his skin tone was decidedly green around the edges.

  Press unslung his canister apparatus and motioned at Laura. “Here,” he said. “Take this, and you two nuke the rest of these bastards. I’m going after Patrick.”

  Dennis didn’t need to be told again. While Press hoisted the carry-all straps over Laura’s shoulders, Dennis began to sweep the walls of the first level with the toxic gel, aiming high and low and making sure he covered as many chrysalises as he could get to.

  Laura tugged at Press’s shirt before he could head for the stairs. “Wait, Press. This isn’t Eve’s fault—remember, she’s part human, too. She’s just doing what her instincts tell her to, and wouldn’t anyone kept a prisoner their entire life escape if they could?”

  “Human?” Press’s dark gaze flicked to the wilted alien carcasses hanging from the rafters and the other chrysalises around the barn area that were starting to twist beneath the onslaught of Dennis’s spray. There was no understanding in his reply, only sarcasm.

  “Sure, Laura. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Please, Press.” She was still holding onto his arm, her fingernails digging in as she struggled to keep him from pulling away before she finished having her say. “You don’t know her like I do. I made her, I watched her grow. I know how she thinks, and I swear to you there’s a human being inside that life-form!”

  Press opened his mouth with the intention of suggesting she stuff it, but the nasty words never came out. Who was he to judge? And based on what, besides—money? A million cold, but even at that price, was it worth killing Eve? He just wasn’t so sure anymore.

  In the end, Press gave Laura a quick squeeze on the shoulders to show his agreement, then raced up the stairs.

  Patrick had checked the second level of the barn—filled to capacity like the main floor—then moved to the third floor. Not as full, but there were more than a few pulsating birth pods well on their way to hatching. He had stopped now and then along the way to inspect and caress the cocoons, murmuring encouragement much like a mother talks to the child within her womb. It wouldn’t be long now—

  Eve was here!

  He felt her, sensed her, smelled her, as suddenly and completely as if she’d stepped in front of him and ran a hand across his face. He knew everything about her all at once . . . even before she stepped into the fourth-floor loft, he could feel the racing of her heart and the desire that was making her breath come in short, hot gasps as she searched for him. The only thing Patrick didn’t know before she climbed gracefully o
ver the edge of the loft was what she looked like.

  He wasn’t disappointed.

  Tall, lithe, with blond hair that brushed the line of her jaw like strands of soft corn silk, big blue eyes and a soft-looking, full mouth. She didn’t smile, and Patrick didn’t expect her to. Instead, they gazed at each other for a long moment, then Eve took a tentative step toward him. Patrick’s fingers found the top of his shirt and he pulled it open, ripping the fabric and tossing it aside. Eve did the same, and by the time they met in the center of the room, they were both naked.

  Their first kiss was soft and sweet and absolutely romantic. Somewhere in the recesses of his brain there had been moments like this with a woman who was now dead, but Patrick couldn’t really remember them. There was only now, and Eve, and this moment that it seemed they had both been expecting for eternity.

  Heat surged through him and he felt its match in her. When their arms wrapped around each other and locked, the bizarre and beautiful transformation began; by the time the full lengths of their bodies met, neither Patrick nor Eve were human any longer.

  He felt new tips of flesh erupt from his sides, his shoulders and back, everywhere, wildly sensitive and matched one for one by Eve as thick coils pushed from her body and twined with his. Soon the strands of flesh were combining and encircling them both, protecting and quivering while the barn and the rest of the world faded away and became unimportant.

  There was only Patrick and Eve, and their driving need to mate . . .

  . . . and create.

  The second floor, Laura and Dennis soon discovered, was nearly as filled with chrysalises as the first.

  “Say good night, you ugly little shits,” Dennis said with a grimace as they came, finally, to the last two of the alien cocoons, off to the left of the stairway leading to the third level.

  “Hurry, Dennis—look at them. We don’t have much time!”

  He nodded and sent a mist of blue gel skimming through the air to cover the first one. A ropy-looking tendril shifted behind the glowing, murky shell; an instant later, the chrysalis’s color went the death shade of bright burnt umber and the appendage within it convulsed. Another few seconds and the alien pod imploded, sending a torrent of brownish muck at their feet.

  Dennis sniffed the air, then gave the drooping, dead sack a vicious grin. “I love the smell of burning aliens in the morning,” he said mockingly.

  “Dennis,” Laura said sharply from her stance a few feet away. “We don’t have time to waste. The other one—”

  Before she could finish, one side of the second chrysalis contorted and tore. An arm, not quite human, not quite alien, broke through and with terrifying speed seized Dennis around the neck.

  “Laura!”

  That word only, then his air was cut off. He clawed at the scummy thing encircling his throat, but it only tightened its hold and began dragging him backward and toward the split in the side of the chrysalis.

  Laura swiveled and brought the spray nozzle of her canister up in a motion so smooth that even Press would have been proud to witness. She made a sound that might’ve been a snarl and squeezed the handle . . .

  . . . but only a pathetic blue dribble came out.

  The damned thing was empty.

  “Hang on, Dennis!” she cried as she tried desperately to think. Just that small instant of paralysis and the tentacle clutching at him was joined by another, then by three more, and more still, until there were too many to count. Dennis had a moment of elusive freedom while the thing readjusted its hold and he managed to choke out—

  “Laura, the knife!”

  He saw Laura jump forward but didn’t feel her fingers grabbing at his waist. A moment that was surely a year later, and the comforting gleam of the machete blade whipped through the air in front of him as it swung up and cleanly severed the grasping limb around his neck, cutting easily through skin and bone or God knew what else was beneath it. Dennis gratefully sucked in air as Laura began hacking haphazardly at the ropes of flesh, but his relief soon returned to fear—he still couldn’t get away because every time Laura sliced off a tentacle, another sprouted from within the chrysalis to take its place. No matter how hard she tried, Dennis was being pulled relentlessly upward and toward the waiting slash in the side of the alien cocoon.

  As hardened and experienced as Press thought he was, even he was unprepared for the sight that greeted him on the fourth-floor loft of the barn.

  If he and the other members of the tracking team had thought the shining, golden-brown chrysalises that permeated this place were repulsive, the huge, quivering knot of grotesquely interlocked flesh in the center of the loft floor was nothing short of unspeakable. Easily five or six times the size of the smaller cocoons in the lower parts of the building, this monstrosity had the same unearthly amber glow coming from within it, the perfect illumination for Press to make out the two entwined forms inside. Eve was surely the smaller form squirming beneath something bigger and shadowy, with far too many limbs for Press to account for. The thought that his world might someday be filled with these disgusting things was enough to urge him forward, the tranquilizer gun aimed and ready as he circled the strange, alien “love nest” and tried to get a bead on the larger male form. He would have fired just anywhere, but something Laura had said—

  “I swear to you that there’s a human being inside that life-form.”

  —stuck in his mind and made him pause and shout instead, “Eve, this is your last chance—get the fuck out of there!”

  There was no response, and truly, no matter what Laura claimed, Press hadn’t expected one. Dark and light shifted and reshifted inside the nest and Press’s eyes widened as he found himself with the best aim he was likely to get to plant a toxic dart in the middle of the male alien.

  “Time for coitus interruptus,” he growled and squeezed the trigger.

  The dart never hit its mark.

  A tentacle, long and twice as fast as a bullwhip, lashed out from somewhere beneath the nest and knocked the tranquilizer gun from his hand. With a sense of unreality, Press grabbed for it with a hand gone numb—and missed; he saw it skitter away and out of the dim ring of light thrown by the glow of the alien nest. He heard it bump against the wall somewhere and stop as he stumbled and went to one knee while his gaze shot back to the nest. Fear dropped into his gut as he saw that the tentacle had receded and someone—something—was staring at him through the break in the nest’s side wall. Press started to rise—need to get to that tranq gun!—then fell back again as the nest suddenly heaved and bubbled; the tear widened as long, dark fingers grabbed the sides of it and pushed it open in another obscene version of alien birth.

  “Oh, shit!” Press exclaimed, but he was far too slow to gain his footing and flee from the creature that pulled itself from the slit. Press gaped up at it, speechless, scared beyond anything he’d ever known or expected. He’d thought he knew so much, but the male alien was different—a quadrupedal nightmare that chittered and screeched and literally towered over him when it rose on its hind legs, so much more deadly and so much larger than Sil or Eve or anything Press had ever envisioned. He remembered that shiny brown-gold skin of Sil’s, the huge, vaguely reptilian eyes and sinewy, long-limbed movements, but the rest of Patrick—the rest of it—was new, and completely terrifying: multi-jointed legs—it walked on all fours—below a long, flexible neck and winding body out of which sprang a dozen Medusa-like tentacles.

  And the whole hideous thing was looming over him and closing in for the kill.

  Press yanked the Glock 26 from its holster and emptied the clip straight into the monster.

  Ten shots using hollow-point bullets that should have sent the bastard halfway to hell, and they didn’t make a damned bit of difference.

  The Patrick-alien gave a low growl of rage and started to reach for Press. He cringed away, expecting agony, but a full-throated hiss to its right made the alien pause and swing its head toward the sound. When Press looked, he saw that Eve had emerged
from the nest and was striding toward him and her dreadful-looking lover. She was just like Press remembered Sil as being—a fantastic breed somewhere between human, reptile, insect and octopus, all constant, flowing movement. Deformed but oddly beautiful, weirdly sensuous in the way everything about her came together and just . . . fit, like something out of some dark, erotic nightmare. And so very, very dangerous as she stepped between her alien mate and Press and hissed again, volunteering to deliver the lethal blow.

  There was nowhere to run, no way to escape. All Press could do was stare into the cold color of Eve’s enormous glistening eyes and wait for her to strike. He might be defeated and have nothing left with which to fight her, and he might be frightened nearly witless . . . but he would not go down silent.

  “Oh, yeah, Laura,” he said scornfully as Eve leaned toward him. “Tell me again how Eve’s human, too.”

  Incredibly, Eve hesitated. The Patrick-alien made a rough chattering noise and gestured impatiently—Do it!—and if nothing else, Press thought that when Eve raised a gnarled hand to strike, she might’ve seemed just a little reluctant. Her mate, however, came forward in anticipation, crowding in as she was about to strike—

  —and was impaled on five spikes of dark, bony columns that burst from Eve’s back.

  The Patrick-alien bellowed in pain and wrenched itself free. It tripped backward and nearly fell, then crouched as Eve spun to face it, planting herself bodily between her former consort and Press. She hissed wildly, then launched herself at it and the two aliens came together in midair . . .

  And the true battle began.

  Instantly it was impossible to distinguish one from the other. The noise was indescribable—a sort of ongoing echoing bellows, and the force of their blows was enough to shake the floor beneath Press as, forgotten for the moment, he scrambled sideways to get out of their range. The two creatures rolled and thrashed, then split apart and circled each other, but Eve’s next offensive was cut pitifully short when one of Patrick’s limbs whipped forward and backslapped her with incredible strength. The impact sent her flying and she hit the far wall of the loft nearly twenty feet away; dazed, she slid down and slumped against the floor.