by Aaron French
Spirits were good now despite the horrors they’d faced. Zazzi, awake and on her feet, hobbled about the room intrigued by her new surroundings. Her explorations were halted only when she tried stepping outside.
Pearson, playing cards with Kano, abandoned his hand to go stop her.
Voice slurry from the medication, Zazzi said as he approached, “How can such an ugly world bear such immense beauty?”
His earpiece buzzed as he reached for her shoulder. It was Franks.
“Commander Pearson?” He voice sounded tinny, distant. “We’ve found something I think you’ll wanna see.”
Steering Zazzi from the door he said, “Can you give me a little more information?”
Franks was quick to answer. “Well it’s alive... and something we’ve never seen before.” A pause then, “Best you come take a look.”
It wasn’t far to the structure. With no distinctive landmarks, Tibor and Franks hadn’t strayed far from base camp. A short-range locator beacon helped Pearson find them in minutes.
Pearson brought everyone, including Zazzi, to investigate the new lifeform. He thought it would be good for morale. Franks had sounded excited, an excitement that quickly spread after he’d relayed the information.
A hundred meters from camp, this new dome proved different. Theirs featureless inside, this bore a large circular hole at its center, a crown of blue spikes lining its rim.
Pearson took the lead, stepping across the spikes to discover a smoothly hewn staircase winding towards a blue-tinged twilight.
The locator beacon gaining volume, Pearson stepped across the threshold. Looking behind him he said, “Watch your step here, it looks slippery.”
This command mainly directed at Zazzi, he followed the steps without looking back. The footsteps sounding behind him were as soft and as careful as his own.
The stairwell’s rounded walls appeared ribbed, organic even. Kano mentioned this, saying, “Looks like some giant blue rectum we’re going down, sir. Smells like one, too.”
Pearson grimaced at the comparison. The increasing, musky smell was the first odor he’d noticed within the sterile city. Growing stronger as he reached the foot of the stairwell, he also discerned voices. Beneath his feet the ribbed tunnel turned horizontal, the steps disappearing into the floor.
A triangular doorway stood at the short tunnel’s termination. Lined with tiny spikes, a blue-tinged room lay beyond.
Shouldering his rifle he headed towards the doorway. The smell came thick as he entered: an unclean, animal musk intermingled with a bitter, chemical reek.
Like the room above, this bore a hole at its center. Stood before it, Franks and Tibor, deep in conversation, had yet to notice his entry.
Tibor noticed him first, followed by Franks.
“Hello Commander.”
“You gotta come see this,” Franks said, waving him over.
Pearson turned to his companions, signaling them to follow.
“We’ve found something amazing, sir,” Franks continued, Tibor adding in his nonchalant style, “It is an interesting find, Commander Pearson.”
The smell grew stronger as he approached; also there was an underlying, barely audible sound, like sluggish waves.
Franks saluted Pearson before saying, “Hey Zazzi, good to see you up and about.”
Georgina was quick to say, “This atmosphere can’t be good for any of us. What is that smell, anyway?”
“No airborne bacterium has been detected,” Tibor said, followed by, from Franks, “Tell them about the fragment, Tibor.”
Pearson paused beside the pit’s edge. Unlike the one above, this bore no protective spikes. What lurked within its blue-rimmed depths made his stomach turn.
Tibor said, “From the sample I took it would appear this whole city is organic.”
“Screw that,” said Franks. “He pulled one of those spikes off of the door and just ate it right out!”
Pearson barely listened, the disgust rising in his throat. The hairy, grayish thing in the pit was ugly and alive and terrible to behold. Between greasy black hairs a myriad lidless black eyes glared upwards. Mouths gibbering across its wide expanse, the shark-toothed rips dotted its shifting surface.
He’d had enough. Backing away Pearson turned to his companions. The faces around him revealed disgust.
He said, “Tibor, you got any idea what that thing is?”
Except for Tibor and Franks, the others stepped warily after him.
“Commander Pearson,” the robot said, placing his back to the pit. “I have several sources as to the genus of the entity. All fictional.”
“Fictional will do.” Something inside him, some instinctual fear of the unknown, told Pearson to escape the room immediately.
Instead he listened.
“The entity inside the pit can be best compared to a fictional creature created by the New England writer H.P. Lovecraft. It is called a Shoggoth, or Shaggoth, and first appeared in his novella At the Mountains of Madness, in 1931.”
Georgina appeared beside Pearson. “I’ve heard of him. What did the story say?”
“They were created by a race of beings called the Elder Things,” Tibor explained. “Bio-engineered organisms, they functioned as slaves for construction work and hard labor. Eventually rebelling, they slaughtered their masters, brutally and without mercy.”
Pearson stared to Tibor then Georgina. Searching the room he found Zazzi peering into the pit, while Franks and Kano stood talking nearby. The thing in question bubbled and blasphemed, exuding its bestial stench.
“Okay, soldiers,” he said. “We’ve seen and smelled enough of this damned thing so let’s move it. That’s an order, people!”
He turned. His companions went to join him, all except for Zazzi. Her sudden, strangled cry stopped everyone in their tracks.
Pearson twisted towards the sound, his rifle raised. Behind the others he found Zazzi, shuddering before the pit, and...
...a nightmare unbound, a gray hairy tentacle lay coiled around her struggling form.
Zazzi wailed. Her voice drowned by echoing footsteps, Franks reached her first. His belt-knife raised, he attacked the tentacle with gusto. Georgina slipped, almost tumbling into the pit herself if not for Tibor’s timely intervention.
Dropping his rifle, Pearson reached for Zazzi. She stared back mouth agape before a swift wrench had her disappearing over the edge.
His knife dripping blue ichor, Franks said, “Aw crap!” Clambering forward, Kano and Pearson quickly joined him. Pearson caught a glimpse of Zazzi’s head and flailing arms, her mouth squealing in terror, before she vanished completely into the gray, soupy filth.
Pearson saw faces frozen in shock. Looking down towards the unclean, roiling flesh, he suffered a wave of vertigo.
Kano was the first to speak. “Fuck... it just ate her,” he muttered.
“According to the literature,” Tibor said, “absorbed is the more accurate term.”
Georgina swore, Kano spitting towards the pit with a snarl.
Pearson sent Tibor an annoyed look. “Okay, everyone just back away from this thing, NOW!”
His team obeyed, until a sudden, loud sloshing made everyone freeze.
Kano said, “Oh shit, what now?”
“Rapid fire deployment, ready yourselves,” Pearson ordered, his rifle retrieved and aimed towards the noise.
He rushed the pit in a running crouch. Georgina joined him, her pistol unholstered, Tibor beside her with wrist-cannons extended.
“Damn I wish we’d brought grenades,” Georgina whispered. Pearson nodded.
The grayness belched and shuddered. The new sound, nauseas and frothing, diminished as a wide tear slid across its mass. Releasing an ammonia-like stink, Pearson discerned white wormy things wriggling within the gash. Steeling himself for something monstrous, he couldn’t believe what followed. Zazzi. Skin slick and shiny, her hair lay wet about her shoulders. Eyes open yet glazed, part of the creature, some spindly bone-like protru
sion, elevated her by the crotch.
“Hold fire,” he ordered. Backing away, Zazzi continued to rise, her limp body brown and voluptuous in the room’s sapphire glow. Depositing her to the floor, the creature’s limb quickly disappeared from sight.
“What happened to her?” Franks said, followed by Georgina, saying in awe, “Her scars are gone, and that’s impossible.”
Pearson stared in silence. Zazzi stood unmoving, eyes staring blindly. Georgina stepping forward, he stopped her with a hiss. “Georgina, keep clear. Tibor, what happened here?”
“I can speculate,” came the robot’s reply.
“Then speculate damn it.”
“Well...” a motion interrupted his words. Zazzi, turning her head, examined her comrades in bewilderment. Noticing, then covering her nakedness, she looked from rifles to faces and said, “Hey guys, what’s up?”
***
They escorted Zazzi from the building at gunpoint, her nakedness covered now by Georgina’s jacket. Shaken and confused, so were those guarding her. Pearson wasn’t letting his guard down until they’d left the pit far behind. Flanked by Franks and Kano, he sensed palpably the tension around him. Their formation had Tibor at the lead, Zazzi at the center talking quietly with Georgina.
As they neared camp, Georgina turned, indicating that she wanted to speak with Pearson alone. After Franks and the others had escorted Zazzi into the dome, Georgina shook her head.
“Are the guns really necessary, Commander?” she said, nodding towards the doorway. “Zazzi’s been through enough, don’t you think?”
He glanced to his rifle, saying, “I think guns are necessary. But what about you?”
“I’ve asked some questions about the mission and her past. She seems all there.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, sir,” Georgina replied, her tone growing harsh, “that whatever happened in the pit, it’s still the same Zazzi.”
“I’ll think about it,” Pearson replied.
The discussion ended, they entered the building. Zazzi, still at gunpoint, was putting on fresh clothes from a supply box. Kano and Franks watched her nervously, guns trained on her bobbing head as she pulled on a pair of fatigues.
“Tibor, outside please,” Pearson said. The robot following him, he found Georgina staring after him sourly. Outside and out of earshot, he continued, “We can’t go on like this. What do you think happened to Zazzi?” And then, quietly, “Is that Zazzi in there?”
Tibor stared at him for a moment, his obsidian eyes inscrutable, then, “I can speculate on the available data, sir.”
Pearson replied with a nod.
“From a visual analysis of her actions and emotions and further analysis of her internal structure I would speculate that she is entirely human. Without a doubt she is the Zazzi we know.”
“Hmmm. And her wounds disappearing?”
“If that beast has any purpose, sir, perhaps it is in a healing capacity.” Tibor cracked a smile. “I could return to the pit and eat a piece for analysis?”
Pearson scowled before grinning himself. “I didn’t know you were programmed with a sense of humor, Tibor.”
“Only in the most stressful of situations, sir,” the robot replied.
They re-entered the building to find Zazzi fully dressed now and talking to Georgina. The men still had their guns on her.
“Zazzi, you’re off the hook,” he said. Then, to Kano and Franks, “Stand down and leave her be.”
The relief on Georgina’s face made him smile.
Zazzi laughed. “Thank God and thank you, sir!”
Sitting down with her, he soon discovered that she possessed all the memories and mannerisms of the woman he knew. This, combined with his trust in Tibor, allowed Pearson to finally relax. His attitude rubbing off on the others, all suspicions soon dissipated.
Still, they waited for pickup in an unknown and unexplored city. This in mind, he put Tibor on guard and set up shifts for sleeping. A long day for everyone, he felt more fatigued than he could ever remember.
Pearson allowed himself the luxury of first rest, four hours he sorely needed.
***
It was Kano who woke him, shoving him gently from sleep. He opened his eyes to discover a panicked, looming face.
“Sir,” Kano said, his voice quiet and urgent. “You’ve got to wake up.”
Pearson struggled from sleep. “What’s up, private?”
“Zazzi wandered off and Georgina went after her, sir,” Kano replied. “Right past Tibor and he didn’t even challenge them.”
This forced him awake in a hurry, not just because of the absconded women... but Kano’s words about Tibor? Something was very wrong here.
Sitting up, he found Franks sleeping to his left. Tibor stood still and implacable before the doorway.
“Tibor?” he asked. The machine made no reply. Kicking away his sheet Pearson grabbed his rifle, clambering to his feet.
Following Pearson towards the robot Kano spoke in whispered tones. “You think it’s a malfunction, sir?” A second later they paused before Tibor. Staring beyond the door he made no acknowledgment of their presence.
“Tibor!” Pearson repeated. The only response came from Franks, moaning in his sleep. Snapping at Kano, he said, “You should’ve stopped them you know,” before heading through the doorway.
Passing the robot’s frozen form placed a hole in his gut. Outside, beneath a night devoid of stars, the city’s ghostly glow felt uncanny, hostile.
A long, woeful howl forced him into action.
Kano swore, eagerly running towards the noise as if making up for his earlier transgression. Fast behind him, Pearson followed a second howl, this one longer than the first. In seconds, the exterior heat had his uniform clinging to him uncomfortably. Catching up with Kano they turned a blue-domed corner to confront the source of the noise.
The sight was both disgusting and unbelievable.
They found the women between two pylons. The former straddled the latter, pinning her struggling form to the ground.
Pearson said, “What the...” while Kano stepped back in revulsion.
His hesitancy was plain to see. Pinning Georgina’s wrists, Zazzi sat regurgitating something from her mouth into her victim’s. A thick, grayish thing, whose source was instantly recognizable. Georgina buckled and shuddered at the violation, issuing muffled chokes as Zazzi forced herself in.
Disgusted, Pearson screamed for Zazzi to desist. To his surprise, she obeyed, rolling away from Georgina in a sluggish, drunken manner. She left something gray and hairy wriggling in Georgina’s mouth.
Kano opened fire, peppering Zazzi with bullets.
A few seconds later and the woman was a steaming corpse.
Dashing towards Georgina, Pearson watched the sordid object disappear past her lips.
Her eyes glazed, she lay unmoving.
“George, hey George?” He took her pulse. Weak, damn!
Kano’s shadow passing over him, he watched the other crouch before Zazzi. Miraculously, she’d begun moving again, moaning and shuddering on the ground. Her uniform ripped and smoking, the flesh beneath appeared completely undamaged. Aiming his rifle towards Zazzi’s head, he looked to Pearson nervously.
Pearson shared his panic. “Help me get Georgina back to base,” he ordered. “We’ll deal with Zazzi next.”
Kano scooted over. Footsteps halted his movements, as he turned with frightened eyes. A familiar voice followed.
“You will not end Zazzi with bullets,” Tibor said. “She is beyond that now.”
Pearson twisted round, discovering Franks and Tibor side by side. Both aimed weapons, Franks bearing his rifle, Tibor with wrist-cannons extended.
His confusion became anger. Confronting the two, he stood, saying, “What is the meaning of this? Stand down!”
Their placid, uncaring expressions made him angrier still. Though intimidated, he hid behind his outrage.
“Stand down immediately, both of you!”
“Damned right!” Kano said, aiming his rifle towards the transgressors.
Un-phased, Franks and Tibor remained unmoving.
Franks spoke next. “You see, sir.” The last word he voiced sarcastically. “Tibor and I were taken by the Shoggoth too.”
“It is true,” Tibor added. “And it would save a lot of trouble if you just put your weapons down and came with us quietly.”
“You damned dirty bastards!” Kano said, readying to fire. A moment later Tibor’s wrist shot flame. Removing Kano’s head, the man collapsed to the ground.
Pearson ducked, opening fire. A pair of arms, appearing behind him, started tugging the rifle from his grip. The following struggle was not long, for Zazzi quickly had him disarmed.
***
A prisoner, Pearson walked with his hands over his head. Fronting him walked Tibor, dragging Kano and Georgina by their legs. Kano trailed limply, Georgina shuddering across the ground.
At Pearson’s heels, Zazzi and Franks both held rifles on him. They were returning him to the Shoggoth pit.
Franks appeared to be their leader. When Georgina’s chest had begun bulging in unnatural ways, he’d explained, “She’s being absorbed and replaced from the inside out. We’d rather place you directly within the Shoggoth mass however. That way is quicker and easier.”
“Is that what happened to you and Tibor?” he’d asked.
“And you next,” Franks replied.
“Then why are we taking Kano?”
“Because death is irrelevant.”
The Shoggoth’s dome lay just ahead now, Pearson pausing as Tibor struggled to drag his charges through the narrow doorway.
Not for the first time he considered flight. He doubted he would get far without being felled however.
With Tibor lifting then tucking the bodies under his arms, they were on the move again.
Following Tibor across the jagged rim, he entered the stairwell. “Watch your step there,” Franks said, “it’s slippery.” The ugly smell followed. Then, as he reached the bottom, the noise grew much louder. Entering the room, he discovered why.
The Shoggoth, having left the bottom of the pit, loomed horribly near its edge.
