The Humanarium

by CW Tickner

  Pistol in hand, Harl backed away and turned to run. He caught up with Oscar, who was struggling with an angry man attempting to scramble back the way they had come.

  ‘But my daughter’s back there,’ the man said, trying in vain to push Oscar out of the way. It was like a child struggling against a boulder and, after a moment, fatigue made the man stop.

  ‘We’ll send someone to look,’ Harl said, stepping between them. ‘But you have to keep moving. Someone will have picked her up.’

  ‘I’ll go and make sure.’ Oscar said.

  Screams erupted at the back of the line. Harl turned and froze. Far behind them a titanic shadow rose into the sky. It was the Aylen.

  Chapter 74

  Another must carry on. The work I have started was lost and corrupted by my own selfish greed. The communities inside the tanks represent something much deeper than mere financial gain. Culture.

  Harl heard the screams from the people around him as they saw the creature. It looked even more titanic out in the open, rearing up against the skyline as if it really was a god. It was stood by the giant door, its head turning slowly from side to side, scanning the ground at its feet. A roar echoed out towards them, like thunder, and it took a huge step closer.

  It was coming for them.

  ‘Move. MOVE!’ Harl yelled.

  People were frozen in place, cowering and hunched down. Every eye was trained on the monstrous creature as it took another step forward, its gaze surveying the ground where they had entered the forest.

  Harl grabbed the nearest man by the shoulders and spun him in the direction of Delta.

  ‘Run!’ he yelled and propelled the man forward.

  He did the same for three more, shouting at everyone in hearing distance. They stumbled the first few steps and then, as the fear took hold, they ran. Possessions were thrown aside as they fled. A trickle of people moved at first, then a flood of them, all staggering along, tripping over each other and the uneven terrain. Some fell to the ground, then scrambled to their feet as a wave of terrified cries rolled back and forwards through the people as they gave in to their fear and fled.

  Damen staggered up to Harl, a child under each arm.

  ‘Get your men to guide them, Damen,’ Harl shouted at him. ‘They’ll run right past Delta if we don’t get them under control.’

  Damen began calling the names of his men and bellowed orders as the children in his arms wailed.

  Harl raced along the rough paths until the ground dropped away ahead of him into a small valley. The giant blades of grass opened out ahead and he saw Delta gleaming in the distance. He staggered to a stop and collapsed against one of the last blades of grass.

  Why was Delta sparkling like that? He’d never noticed it before.

  ‘What are the lights?’ he asked as Damen crashed out from the undergrowth next to him.

  ‘The energy panels!’ Damen cursed. ‘We’ve got to get them covered before the Aylen sees them.’

  By the time Harl reached the doors, most of the refugees were already outside. They were being funnelled up the stairs and through the narrow entrance and, as a result, the crowd had nearly stalled. The gates were wide open, but there press of people was just too much. Panic was breeding along the line, everyone pushing and pulling against each other. Harl saw more than one person stumble and fall, only to be trampled over as the line lurched forward.

  Damen’s braided head was just visible above the crowd next to Oscar at the top of the stairs. Both were shouting orders at those who blocked the door although, the hunter was being much less diplomatic than Oscar.

  ‘Move it!’ Damen roared, hauling men and women through the doorway one by one as if he was swimming through them.

  ‘Damen,’ Harl called and the big man pushed himself up on tiptoes at his name. He waded down into the bodies and forced a path to Harl. He grabbed Harl and dragged him back through the crowd to the door.

  Harl stopped just before he was through and glanced back over the panic-stricken faces.

  The Aylen was towering far above the stalks, its monstrous legs devouring the distance left to Delta as it ran towards them. It must have seen the light reflecting off the panels on top of the mountain because it didn’t hesitate, it just churned its way through the forest in a nightmarish display of power.

  Had it noticed the crowd still struggling to get into Delta?

  The people around Harl thinned and Damen roared as he dragged the last man inside.

  ‘Seal it up,’ Harl yelled, but then turned as a small voice cried from the nearest stalks. It was the girl he’d seen with her mother, alone now, and running for the base of the mountain.

  ‘She won’t make it,’ he said.

  She was two hundred paces away and slowing. He didn’t know why, but he looked at Damen.

  Damen, the faster of the two of them, sighed and burst out the door. He sprinted full pelt down the stairs, closing the distance fast. Harl had never seen someone cover so much ground so quickly. It was a clear run and Damen soon had the girl over his shoulder as the Aylen stomped down from the fringes of the forest. It stared down at the running figure running ahead of it, cocked its head and roared.

  As Damen rushed past, Harl pulled both doors inwards. The gates slammed shut in a pathetic attempt to seal the city from the wrath of the giant.

  Harl leaned against door and looked at Damen as he lowered the girl to the ground. An eerie silence descended on the people behind the door, then the vibrations rumbled into Harl’s back as the giant stomped towards the city.

  What had the plan been? What were they supposed to do? He held his head in his hands and tried to still his thoughts, but they just scattered as the floor vibrated under him.

  ‘Harl?’ Kane asked, stepping through the silent crowd and laying a hand on his shoulder.

  Harl lowered his hands. ‘It’s coming, Kane. It’s too big, too fast, and it knows we’re here.’

  ‘We stick to the plan.’ Kane said. ‘Everyone has to take shelter in the ship while we fire up the engines.’

  ‘Move along!’ Damen roared at the expectant faces. ‘Push deeper into the city. Follow the soldiers to the ship.’

  Harl nodded, glad to get moving again. Troy skidded in next to them, panting.

  ‘There’s no time,’ he said as the crowd surged down the tunnel. ‘That thing will destroy this place within moments when it chooses to.’

  ‘Then we’d better move,’ Kane said, a sad smile on his face.

  ‘The fire liquid?’ Harl prompted as a shudder rattled the metal panels against the walls.

  Kane slapped a hand against his head. ‘It isn’t loaded!’ Without saying another word he barged past Damen and raced into the city.

  Troy scrunched his shoulders up, cringing, as another roar echoed from outside. It sounded close.

  ‘I’m out of here.’ Troy said and ran off after the crowd.

  ‘Harl?’ It was Sonora.

  She squeezed past the last stragglers disappearing round the corner and threw her arms around him. He breathed in the scent of her and closed his eyes against the chaos. It was only a single moment, but when he stepped back and looked into her gleaming eyes, the weight and horror of it all slipped away. He kissed her.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  She nodded and laid her head on his shoulder, then stepped back and punched him in the chest.

  ‘Don’t worry me like that,’ she said.

  He squeezed her hand as another roar shattered the moment. He pulled her along in a racing blur through the tunnels.

  ‘We have to get to the ship,’ he said, taking a short cut through a narrow utility tunnel towards where the where the ship was waiting.

  ‘Gorman is already on board,’ Sonora said as they came out the other end. She forced her way around a pair of soldiers shooing the last people deeper into the cave system.

  A giant hand crashed through the ceiling, spilling light onto the screaming people as they dropped to the floor. Ever
ything around them shook and vibrated as debris rained down, cables sparked, and the walls buckled. The grey face of an Aylen leered in through the hole.

  The hand plunged in again, shredding the corridor as it forced its way in. Harl put his arms around Sonora to shield her, and saw half a dozen terrified people snatched away as the Aylen’s huge fingers closed around them. Others tried to reach out, grabbing the flailing limbs of their loved ones as they were lifted away, but it was no use. They were just yanked up to join them. Some even fell back down as the hand gained height and ended up impaled on the jagged edges of metal that formed the broken sides of the tunnel walls.

  Looking up through the jagged hole, Harl could see the Aylen as it stuffed the people into a clear jar. Many of them had been crushed, but even the survivors looked to have broken, mangled limbs.

  He needed to get Sonora out of sight.

  They scrambled over the broken timber and rubble from the roof, and then ran off down the corridor. Harl could hear the injured moaning behind them as he dragged Sonora away, but he focused ahead and tried to ignore her protests. Just this once, he thought. No one else matters, only Sonora.

  The Aylen’s hand smashed down through the roof again. Harl staggered as the floor buckled and then smashed into a wall as the impact shook the corridor. Sonora fell on top of him and they both tumbled to the floor. Harl shrugged a beam off his back and struggled to his feet, pulling Sonora up with him, before racing off down the corridor. They soon caught up with groups of people who were running around in panic. They were tank-dwellers, and it was obvious that they had no idea which way they had to go to reach the ship. Only a sense of self-preservation had pushed them deeper into the heart of the city.

  They found Damen at a junction several corridors further on. He was ushering people into the hanger although he wasn’t being too polite about it.

  ‘Get a bloody move on!’ he kept roaring as people scurried forward.

  The hanger lay under the plain in front of the city. Harl hoped it was far enough away from the Aylen to remain undetected. The ship was too precious to lose and he doubted the roof was strong enough to support an Aylen stomping around above.

  ‘We need to get up there and fight,’ Damen said when he saw Harl barging through the crowd towards him. He surrendered his post to one of his men and led Harl and Sonora into the hanger. ‘It can’t end like this. We must do something.’

  Oscar ran down the ramp beneath the ship as Damen, Sonora and Harl got underneath the sleek vessel.

  ‘There’s not enough time for Kane to get the ship out,’ he said, waving his arm at the vessel.

  ‘Let’s buy him some time then,’ Harl said, looking at Sonora.

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ll tell Kane to leave the ramp down,’ she said and gave him a tight hug before scampering up into the ship.

  Damen, Oscar and Harl ran for the armoury while, in the distance, the sound of tearing rock rent the air.

  The lights in the empty tunnels flickered as they took the twisting corridors. Whole passageways were flooded; the Aylen must have ruptured the water storage units and the torrent drained down into the lowest levels. Damen opened a door and a surge of water almost washed them back down the corridor. Only Oscar’s firm grip held the three of them in place, his muscles working against the current until the pressure eased and the water levelled to knee height.

  ‘Up ahead,’ Damen said, pointing to a reinforced door at the end of the corridor.

  ‘What’s that?’ Oscar asked as a steady rumble grew louder.

  It was hard to pinpoint the sound above the noise of rocks raining down from above ground, but it was familiar.

  ‘Borer!’ Harl shouted. He grabbed their shoulders and forced the two huge men down into the water, and then dived under as well.

  The rocks split apart ahead of them in an exploding shower of jagged blocks. A soft pink mass crashed through after, throwing more rubble and fragments out into the tunnel.

  They scrambled to their feet as the tail end of the giant worm disappeared into the opposite wall. A second rumble built up behind them and they raced for the door. The wall burst apart and the borer plunged out into the tunnel. Instead of forcing its way through the other side, it turned into the tunnel and writhed towards them. Its mouth was a circle of sharp teeth, opening and contracting in anticipation of an easy meal.

  Damen reached the door and gripped the handle. It didn’t open. He launched his shoulder against it but it still refused budge, so he gripped the handle again and strained to wedge a knife in the split and slide it open before the monster reached them.

  Oscar put his strength against the door as well and it inched open wide enough so that he could get his fingers between it and the frame. The borer slithered closer and, as Harl prepared to kick out, the door split open and they tumbled through.

  The borer slithered past the doorway, ignoring them. Damen grabbed a rifle from the wall and stepped out behind it, gritted his teeth, and then fired at the rear of the creature.

  It was dead before he’d emptied the clip.

  Chapter 75

  Using tools from my old lab I have discovered the hidden potential inside these creatures. The power within them must be kept secret.

  Harl moved to the nearest rack and pulled down two more rifles. They were battered but serviceable, and he tossed one to Oscar who looked at it as though it was about to explode. Seeing Oscar’s fear, Harl had an idea and scanned the tables for what he wanted.

  The water in the room rippled and sloshed as the Aylen continued its hunt for humans somewhere above.

  ‘Sir?’ a voice said from the doorway. It was a soldier, one of the men Damen had trained. Half a dozen other soldiers stood behind the ragged figure, peering into the dim room.

  ‘Grab something with a trigger,’ Damen said, ‘and follow us.’

  Harl found what he was looking for in a metal container. Explosive cylinders. Kane had used one when fighting the Enlightened and they’d proved to be devastating weapons. Harl shoved them into his pockets and tucked ammunition into every other crevice.

  The soldiers looked like they had barely escaped capture. One had his arm in a sling and another had part of his scalp missing and a gash down one cheek. Harl could see the man’s teeth glinting through the wound, but the soldier just spat blood on the floor and nodded that he was ready.

  Damen checked that everyone was loaded and then led them through the maze of broken passageways towards the surface. The sunlight was blinding when they reached the upper levels. Harl’s eyes were slow to adjust, but it was almost worse when they had. They were standing amid a ruin of broken tunnels and piles of rubble. Parts of the city were completely open to the sky and everything in sight was twisted metal and piles of stone. The only thing truly recognisable was the face of the Aylen, leaning over the city through a hazy cloud of acrid smelling smoke and powdered dust. It was like a fruit picker rummaging through the debris as it hunted for treats.

  The tall, transparent cylinder for transporting humans was placed to one side of the city. It was almost half full of people who had been stuffed inside like sweets in a jar. Harl felt sick as he watched them squirm out from under each other.

  Damen had led them out through a tunnel near the main entrance and, sticking to the shadows, they were able to slip past the Aylen as it continued to sift the wreckage. Eventually they came to the open plain above the ship. It was overlooked by a long ridge topped with grass stalks that marked the boundary of the forest.

  ‘Stay out of sight and get to the ridge,’ Harl said. ‘I’ll join you in a moment.’

  Damen looked puzzled, but nodded and led the crouching group in behind the Aylen towards the tree line.

  Boulders littered the flat plain. Whole sections of the city had been torn out from the rock and casually discarded in the Aylen’s search for victims.

  The jar was only fifty paces away. People inside squirmed against each other and hammered on the glass in a futile
attempt to get out. Harl waited for Oscar, Damen, and the men to reach the ridge and then watched as they disappeared into the stalks before he ran towards the jar.

  The poor souls inside – those still standing or close to the side – pounded on the glass when they saw him. He pulled an explosive cylinder from his pocket and just before he flicked the switch to activate it, an explosion rent the air above him. The cylinder flew out of his hand and clattered down a hole in the rubble. He cursed and thrust his arm down the hole, fumbling blindly in the gap as rubble rained down around him, followed by a wave of choking dust.

  The Aylen had ripped out a steam engine, but it had burst apart, tearing chunks from its hand. Yellow blood fell through the cloud like a mystic rain. The Aylen roared in pain and grabbed its injured hand.

  Harl tried to ignore it all and grasped the cold cylinder in his fingers. He pulled it out and sprinted the last few paces towards the jar, then flicked a switch on the cylinder and launched it up at the jar. The mechanism inside activated and the air around the glass was engulfed in a blinding explosion. When the smoke cleared, he could see the glass had a thin vertical crack. Harl cursed and ran closer to the jar. He had one more cylinder left which gave him another chance to shatter the container.

  The Aylen roared and whipped its head down at the noise. Its yellow eyes widened in anger as it spotted the crack, then the evil gaze locked on to Harl and his heart skipped a beat.

  The Aylen swiped its hand down just in front of him. He skidded to a stop just in time and the hand flew by, scooping the ground out in front of him to leave a trench carved in the dirt. He jumped the hole and hoped he was close enough to the jar.

  Flicking the switch, he lobbed the cylinder as hard as he could and watched as it hit the clear wall and dropped down to the ground beside the container. Hands on ears, he flung himself backwards into the trench as they Aylen’s other hand swooped through the air where he’d been standing. Time slowed as the dust around him rose, kicked up from the giant hand’s movement. Then the salty particles blew back in his face as the cylinder exploded.