Predator X

by C. J. Waller

“Shit.”

  “What’s shit, Janos?” I ask.

  He jumps. And I don’t mean that figuratively – his body actually, physically jerks. He spins around, looking hunted.

  “What?”

  “I only asked what was shit. Who were you talking to?”

  I was going to ask ‘what were you saying?’, but my mouth rearranged it. For some reason, Yuri’s warning fights to the front of my mind.

  Don’t trust him.

  Could he really mean Janos? A little ball of bile sits heavily in my chest, bitter and tight. I hate the way it makes me feel, but I can’t help it. You can’t help dread.

  Janos grins, but it doesn’t touch his eyes.

  “Oh, Megan, it is you,” he says. “No one. Just… myself.”

  “It sounded like you were arguing with someone,” I say. Usually I would have let him get away with that, but a little bit healthy paranoia never did anyone any harm. I think.

  Janos sighs heavily.

  “Yes, it probably did. I am struggling, Meg. You know, with all of this.” His shoulders slump and any feelings of dread flee. How could I doubt him? We all cope with things in our own way – this is obviously his.

  “It’s okay,” I say. It’s lame, but I don’t know what else to say. I step closer to him, so I can touch his arm in what I hope is a comforting way. “We’re all struggling with it. I mean… what now?”

  From the way he swallows after that, I wish I’d never said it. Up until now, he’d always been the strong one – our rock (if you would pardon the expression), and to see him crumble… Yeah, that’s hard.

  It takes him a long minute before he tries to speak again.

  “Do you know why I was hired?” he asks. I don’t answer, just shrug. I know a rhetorical question when I am asked one. “I was hired to keep you all alive. I am an experienced caver and extreme environmental expert. This should have been easy. But now Nik and Fi are dead, Marcus is half-crazed with grief, Brendan… well, I do not quite know what is going on with Brendan, but it worries me, and then you…”

  “…And me, what?” I ask, after he trails off.

  “…And you… each time I look at you, I see nothing but trust and despair. Despair at our situation, and trust in me.” He stops to wipe his hand over his mouth. It makes a rasping sound. “And I don’t know how much longer I can bear to see that. Or, indeed, face the day when there is only despair left.”

  My throat tightens at his stark admission. Salt gathers behind my eyes. I don’t want to cry, but I don’t think I can help it. I’m hungry, tired and frightened – and so is he. In one movement, I move closer to him and wrap my arms around him. I feel his heartbeat accelerate, and it takes him a few seconds to respond, but when he hugs me back, it is a bone-crusher. That’s when the tears fall, and there’s nothing I can do to stop them. They come from every single part of me, wash through me, gathering bits of emotional crud and specks of terror, cleansing me as I sob into Janos’s chest. I feel pressure on my head, and it takes me a few seconds to work out it is Janos, stroking my hair.

  “What are we going to do?” I manage between hiccups.

  “I don’t know,” he whispers.

  We stand in that dark and alien place, holding one another. We do not speak. We cannot speak. Once my tears subside, I raise a hand to wipe my face – I’m not exactly a pretty crier, and I know my eyes are swollen, my face puffy and red, but that doesn’t seem to bother Janos. When I turn my head back, he catches my cheek with one hand. No words are exchanged, but I know exactly what he intends to do, and I have no problems with it at all.

  In the past, I have been guarded with my kisses. I ration them, because I think they are special. Not because I think I’m special, of course – a drunken Christmas snog happens to me as much as the next woman – but the real, sincere ones… those I don’t dole out often, because they inevitably lead to choices I do not want to make.

  Down here, those choices mean sweet F.A.

  There is a selfishness to his kisses; a hunger that has less to do with desire and more to do with the cannibalistic need to prove that he is still alive. I know, because I feel it too. It doesn’t matter who we are, where we are, what we are. Right now, we are reduced to two entities, joined.

  A distant splash brings me to my senses. A sour taste fills my mouth, bringing with it the scent of dried sweat and fear. The switch is flicked, and what felt so right now feels all together wrong. Whether it’s because he senses my reluctance to go further, or because he himself feels the same way, I don’t know. That sudden hunger now satiated, we release one another. Awkwardness fills the space between us. Was that a good idea? I don’t know, and I don’t think he knows either.

  A flicker of movement behind him catches my eye. I allow my gaze to slide towards it. Right on the edge of my vision, a figure crouches. It waves at me and takes one sidling step closer. It is Yuri. He is staring at me with an intensity that is frightening, and when our eyes lock, he shakes his head and points at Janos.

  Before I can react, he slides back into the darkness.

  Chapter Eleven

  I don’t know what to think.

  Was Yuri really hinting what I think he was hinting? Not that I can ask him. I can’t find him. None of us can. He’s found a hidey-hole somewhere, and he’s not letting on as to where it is.

  I wish I had a hidey-hole.

  A hidey-hole where I could curl up into a ball and try to forget any of this ever happened. A hidey-hole with a bed, and a thick blanket that I could pull up over my head to keep the monsters out. Just like home.

  I wish I were home.

  I’ve tried not to think about it, but it's getting impossible not to. Once upon a time I viewed home as an anchor, as something tying me down. This trip was supposed to be the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that allowed me to break free of home's mundane shackles. And the ironic thing? It is. Once in a lifetime. Never to be done again.

  Because I can’t see there ever being a chance to live any other kind of life.

  This, my friend, is it.

  The water is gently lapping at the base of the cliff. Yep, the same cliff where we ‘buried’ Clark. It’s almost inviting. If I peer down, I can just about make out the tiny waves. I wonder what does that? The tides on the surface are governed by the moon, but I can’t see how that would be much of an influence down here.

  The moon. I miss you. Funny how you take things for granted. I had the chance to just sit and stare, taking in its beauty, so many times, but didn’t. Probably because I’d always thought it would be there, waiting for me.

  Not any more.

  The faint phosphorescence of the chemotrophic bacteria filming the rocks makes the water glow. It’s beautiful in its own way, I suppose.

  I don’t want to be here any more.

  There. I’ve said it.

  I pick up a stone and weigh it in one hand. Is our friend out there? The one that is so desperate for us to stay? A plume of fury boils within me. That thing. That monster. Everything is all its fault. Why did it attack the boat? Why? I wind my arm back and fling the stone as hard as I can. As soon as it leaves my hand it may as well be invisible, the only proof of its existence a faint ‘plop’ as it strikes the water’s surface. I don’t even get to see the ripples. Suddenly, I feel a lot like that stone. I was once in someone’s hand, solid and true, but then I was flung into this dark hell… and then what? I sink. Down, down, into the depths, where no one will find me – just a few invisible ripples to mark my existence on this planet briefly.

  I want to go home. The fury twitches to a longing so acute, I actually think something vital within me is fit to burst.

  I catch a glimpse of white, out on the water. A strange sound, like someone opening a fizzed-up beer follows.

  It’s him. Her. It. Whatever.

  Our keeper. Our doom. Our Great White Whale.

  Funny, we spent so much time speculating what it was at first. Now, no one says anything. Probably because it doesn’t m
atter. A positive identification won’t change anything. Naming it won’t allow us to control it, or tame it. If anything, we should name it ‘master’ and have done with it.

  It sinks below the strange waves, only to surface again, closer to me. It’s almost as if it knows I’m here.

  Here, alone.

  Here, waiting.

  ***

  We suffer another meagre meal of raw shellfish before any of us dare broach the taboo subject of ‘what next’. Despite our reluctance, it has to be done. We can’t continue sitting on the rocks, brooding indefinitely. We need to do something, even if it is just to admit we don’t know what to do next.

  Brendan is sitting near me, looking like he is listening. I wish he wouldn’t. I think I prefer the air of tired defeat on Marcus’s face to the almost eager alertness in his. It’s unnatural.

  “Can you hear it?” he says. Marcus’s eyes swivel slowly from him to me, and then off into the distance. He doesn't need to say anything for me to agree with him.

  “Hear what?” I ask, more to humour Brendan that anything else. “The creature in the water?”

  “No. No… below us. Underneath. It’s slithering around, trying to find a way out.” He’s grinning again, and now I understand that it’s his way of dealing with it. He’s not amused. He’s terrified.

  Before I can answer, Janos lets out a short, explosive sigh and stands up. He doesn’t look at any of us as he stalks away, but we watch him. Marcus shakes his head, and I go back to picking at my fingernails.

  “Do you think Janos heard it?”

  “No, Brendan, I don’t,” I hiss between clenched teeth. The fury is back, and right now, it wants to take Brendan’s head off. His constant questions, that grin, his… his… ‘oddness’ has gotten to the point where it isn’t so much grating as eating away at me, like acid, and I don’t know how much more of it I can take. “Will you just shut up for once?”

  “I only asked…”

  “Meg has a point,” Marcus says. He sounds so tired. Once upon a time, he would’ve been the one snapping, but it’s as if he’s had every ounce of stuffing knocked out of him. “Time to be quiet.”

  Brendan nods, a quick, jerky movement, and the fury is replaced by shame. He’s frightened. I’m frightened. We’re all frightened. I shouldn’t snap. So I try to humour him.

  “What do you think it was?” I ask. “Down there.”

  Marcus gives me a hard look. I know, I know… you defended me and now I’m all but encouraging him. My bad.

  “I don’t know,” Brendan says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it before. I… I don’t think it’s meant to be here. I mean – not now. Not ever.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I ask.

  “He means it’s not indigenous to this planet.” Janos’s voice floats out of the darkness. “That they brought it with them.”

  Brendan’s eyes widen as if in shock and nods. I don’t think he can quite believe that Janos has come to the same conclusion as him. I know I can’t. I swivel around to address the gloom behind me.

  “So you’re all for this being some kind of alien entity too?” I try not to sound sarcastic, but it’s hard, given the topic of the conversation.

  “After all you’ve seen…” Brendan says, sounding incredulous. “Meg, why do you insist on not believing?”

  Good question.

  “Because… because it’s madness,” I say. “I mean the supposed pliosaur in the water? That’s hard enough to swallow. A one hundred and sixty million year old species, surviving underground into modern times? It’s the stuff of late night movies and Loch Ness nutcasery. But I’ve seen it, and so I can’t deny it. It’s there. If it wasn’t, I’d be gone.”

  “Then why do you deny the thing in the tower? You've seen it, clearer than you've seen the pliosaur. Why is that so hard to admit to?” Brendan asks, and for the first time I hear a note of true anger in his voice. Stupid thing is, after listening to myself, I don’t blame him.

  “I… I don’t know. Because it’s insane. I mean, I know this whole situation is insane, but at least it’s, I don’t know… ‘earthbound’ insanity. A prehistoric monster, surviving in the depths of the earth? Rare, but not unheard of. Look at the Coelacanth, or the Megamouth. Both prehistoric relics, thought to be extinct but actually flourishing in a new environment. Like I said – unlikely, but not without precedent. But that…that thing in the tower? There is no precedent. There is literally nothing like it on Earth.”

  “Well… maybe not literally, Meg.” Brendan is now looking thoughtful, and a new surge of worry piles on top of the old ones.

  “No… no. Bren – don’t try to tell me there’s something like that in the fossil record that has just happened to survive down here-”

  “No, Meg, nothing like that,” Brendan interrupts me with a dismissive wave. Glad to know he’s not that far gone. “I was thinking more of what it might be constructed from.” He pauses, gathering his thoughts. No one interrupts him. “It seems to be gelatinous by nature, and mimicked us, yes? To me, that doesn’t say animal. More like colony.”

  “Colony? What the fuck are you on?” Marcus says. “Coral reefs are colonies, but you don’t see them taking the form of the fish around them.”

  “Of course not. I still stand by my assessment that there is no analogous species on earth for what lives down there, and there never has been. But I do wonder if it’s not one life-form, which is where the colony comes from.”

  Little pathways light up in my brain. I can see where he is coming from. I don’t want to, but it does make a horrible kind of sense to me.

  “Like a hive,” I say.

  “Well… not really,” Brendan says. With each preposterous idea, he is becoming more and more coherent. I’m not sure if that says more about him or more about my mental state, but I can’t deny that I’m intrigued.

  “Think of siphonophores,” he continues. “Tiny individuals that make up, and control, a whole. Maybe even the bridge between a true colony, like a reef, and multicellular life.”

  “Excuse me,” Marcus interjects. “Siphono-what?”

  “Portuguese man o’war,” I say.

  “They’re jellyfish.”

  “No… they’re not. People think they are, but they’re actually colonies of simple individual animals that form a whole organism.”

  I can’t believe I didn’t see this. I know I’m a geologist and therefore my biological knowledge is pretty sparse, but this is beginner level stuff. Brendan is now making a kind of horrible sense.

  “Indeed,” Brendan says. “Lots of tiny organisms behaving as one.”

  “But that doesn’t explain why it mimicked us,” I say, grasping at any straws or remaining sanity.

  “No, you’re right – it doesn’t. A Portuguese man o’war floats around until prey becomes entangled in its tentacles and it feeds. And who knows? Maybe, in its own environment, that’s exactly what this thing does. But it’s not in its own environment – I hope – so it has evolved strategies. Or, at least, it involved strategies with some help.”

  Janos, who has been silent this whole time, now looks up and fixes Brendan with a hard stare.

  “So… what you’re saying is that this… colony has evolved mimicking as a way to entrap prey?”

  Brendan shrugs. “Why not. Look at the amount of species out there that use mimicry already for that exact purpose. Bioluminescent lures in anglerfish. The tongue of the alligator snapping turtle. Spiders in general. It’s a tried and tested strategy.’

  “So? What are you saying, Brendan?” Marcus asks. I never thought I’d ever be happy to hear that special brand of angry sarcasm he relies on so much, but what do you know? I am. It makes him sound more like himself. “How does that help us? How does that get us off this fucking island?”

  Brendan stops short, licks his lips and shakes his head.

  “I… I don’t know, Marcus. It’s just interesting-”

  “No, it fucking isn’t interest
ing. It’s useless. How long have we just spent going through this shit, when we could have been thinking about more important things, like… like…”

  It’s like the switch is flipped again, and the once gloriously angry Marcus folds in on himself, literally and figuratively. Yes – we could have spent the last ten minutes discussing our predicament… but to what end? That we’re well and truly fucked?

  Or are we?

  My mind keeps replaying the whole notion of mimicry, like a video stuck in a loop. My face coalescing in the slime. It copying me. It attacking. Mimicry. Mimicry. Mimicry.

  “What is it, Meg?”

  Janos’s voice is soft, as if he doesn’t want to break my train of thought.

  “I don’t know. Just something. Or nothing. Or… something.”

  “Megan?” Marcus looks at me, frowning. “Are you okay?”

  I look down and realise I’m wringing my hands a little too much. I force them apart and clutch hold of the rock I am sitting on.

  “Yeah... I was just thinking. I mean, I think… I wonder… I…”

  Do I really know what I’m thinking? Mimicry. That’s what I keep coming back to.

  Mimicry.

  “Tell us,” Janos says. “It can hardly be the worst thing we’ve heard in the last day or so.”

  That's true. I take in a deep breath and frown, trying to bully the amorphous feelings into some kind of coherent idea.

  “Mimicry,” I say. There. It’s out now. “It mimics things, right? To lure prey. Or, at least, that’s how it looks. So what if…” I pause. Am I really going to suggest this? I take another deep breath and let it out slowly. “What if we could use that to our advantage? Who knows how long it’s been trapped down there, laying dormant, hungry. All we have to do is point it in the right direction of some really impressive prey.”

  I haven’t said it outright, and judging by the frowns, it’s taking them a little while to get their heads around what I am suggesting. Hell, it’s taken me long enough, and I’m the one who came up with it. One by one, the frowns melt away and eyes swivel towards the water.