by David Peters
Dylan felt an arm around his shoulder. Erica put her other arm under his elbow and encouraged him to stand up. Cap-Cap stood on his other side and helped him to stand. Together the two guided him into the living room. They sat him still dripping from the rain and covered in mud on the warm fireplace hearth. Jen brought him a warm cup of tea and Cap-Cap sat down next to him. Dylan found he couldn’t look anyone in the eyes.
It was several minutes before anyone spoke. Finally Erica broke the silence, “Dad, I want you to listen to Cap-Cap, ok?” There was a pleading in her face that Dylan couldn’t quite figure out, an urgency that seemed out of place in his world.
Dylan nodded absently to her, not really hearing anything outside of his own mind.
Cap-Cap moved to the couch opposite from Dylan and stared directly into his eyes, “We are going to the hive to get Niccole, Dylan. I already have the team together. They are geared and ready to roll.”
Dylan looked at their faces as he tried to understand what the captain was saying. His wrinkled brow showed them he wasn’t following what they had said, “What makes you think they took her body there?”
Erica spoke up quickly, “The Hunter that took her did the same thing that they did to my Mom and I. I was left alive for quite a while before I was able to get away. Even though they killed my Mom she was still kept like me for a while, a long while. We can go get her. She is probably still alive. I mean, I know she is still alive. You just have to get her. Please.”
Cap-Cap stood up and gave his hand to Jen as she got up, “We leave at first light.” Cap-Cap looked at his watch, “That gives us a little over four and a half hours to get you cleaned up and get a quick nap. I’m planning this as a rescue mission Dylan, don’t give up on her, she’s a strong one. I need you for this, she needs you. You have been there before. I need your experience here.”
Dylan asked himself what Niccole would do. He again felt the sting of tears as the answer hit him hard. He suddenly felt awash in self-loathing and anger at himself. She wouldn’t have given up like he had. She never had and never would. She was the positive to his negative. She wouldn’t believe Dylan was gone until she could prove it with her own eyes. She would be there for him until she could prove he was no longer there to be with.
“I’m in.”
Chapter 3
Niccole heard the whimpering again. She wanted it to stop so she could keep sleeping. She faded off again but again the soft cry came and brought her out of a deep restful sleep. Again something whimpered and she opened her eyes. At first she could see nothing in the pitch blackness. She tried to move her hand to rub her eyes but found they were both bound somehow. She heard the quiet cry again and looked in the direction it was coming from. She blinked her eyes several times to try and clear them. Over the last several hours she had been in and out of consciousness. She knew her arm was broken by the painful throbbing. The more she was able to clear her eyes the more subtle movement she was able to make out around her. There was writing over of the doorway that tinted everything she could see with an eerie soft blue glow. She tried to recall how it was she came to be here. She wasn’t even sure where here was.
She felt her stomach knot up as the past suddenly caught up to her. She remembered Jonathan crumpled up against a tree. She could still hear the sound of his body landing. There was the savage attack by the second Hunter and the pain of the talons sinking into her shoulders. The gun shots as the lights faded to nothing. Her heart jumped again when she feared she had been turned. She couldn’t smell anything on her own breath and her blood certainly wasn’t on fire. She could still feel where the talons had sunk into her shoulders but there was only a numb tingling and an annoying itch.
“They must have some sort of drug in my system, I have no energy to move but my mind is sharp,” she thought to herself. “I need to get out of here.” She tried to pull her arms free and felt a wave of pain from her broken arm. One of the Workers heard the struggle and shambled over to stand in front of her. It smelled around the various points of restraint. She wasn’t completely covered. Her arms and legs were pinned in what felt like concrete. She also had a band of the stuff around her upper waist and chest. The Worker was sniffing around the restraints on her good arm when a long tube extended from the things mouth and began making a chewing sound. Small feelers around the end of the tube began building onto the restraints by adding more of the brown paper mache type material. She had a sudden wave of revulsion when it occurred to her that is where all of the restraining material had come from.
The Worker seemed satisfied with the addition and moved on to other tasks. Niccole thought back to what she could remember. She had come to at least once as she was being carried down to the hive. She remembered being slung over the shoulder of a Hunter and moving rapidly down the trail. The grip the Hunter had was like a steel vice with the talons of the Hunter pushing into the sides of her lower back. She winced as she thought about the pain of the constant shaking as the Hunter loped along.
She remember coming to once again as they passed between the two Guards at the door. She had met the eyes of the one she could see. The beast met her gaze with unblinking contempt and hatred. Again she faded out. That brought her up to where she was now. She was completely trapped and unable to move anything besides her fingers and her head. She started trying to free up her good arm by carefully picking away at the bits she could reach with her fingers. As she worked at the material she looked around the room. It was about the size of a very large living room with about a twelve foot ceiling. There were six Workers that she could see milling around the room.
Again she heard the whimpering in the darkness. Her eyes were finally clear enough to see that there were other people in the room with her. There were four others that were stuck to the wall, “Not stuck to the wall, stuck in the wall,” she corrected herself. The girl closest to her was crying quietly and trying not to get the attention of any of the Workers. Both she and the girl next to her looked like they were wearing pajamas.
Commotion at the entrance to the room caught her attention. Several of the Workers began to move out of way as a large Hunter entered the room. In the darkness she could see that this Hunter was not entirely black like all of the others she had seen and was at least a full foot taller than most of them. Its left thigh was ringed by three two inch red bands and the same pattern was repeated on its left arm. It didn’t appear to be clothing or paint; it actually looked like pigment in the jet black skin. Two smaller Hunters were entwining themselves around its feet. These were at least a third the size of a normal Hunter and couldn’t have stood more than two feet tall. They crawled around the large Hunters legs as he dropped down on all fours and moved through the small chamber. Niccole had been able to identify five woman in total trapped in the room with her. All but one of them appeared to be younger than her by at least a decade. The woman closest to the door looked to be in her mid-thirties and was staring in terror at the Hunter. Niccole found herself calling him ‘Stripes’ in the back of her mind. She needed something to mentally distinguish this thing from the rest of the Hunters. This one was different.
Stripes slowly walked over to the first woman, it hissed as it passed several of the Workers. They would scamper submissively out of the way and out of arms reach. Even on all fours the beast was as high as the first woman’s chest. Stripes began smelling the woman starting as her feet. Niccole could hear the heavy huffs of air as it sniffed around her. When it reached her waist it paused and turned to hiss at one of the Workers. The Worker showed no visible reaction and stayed statue still.
When Stripes’ face was even with the young woman’s it said something in their sandpaper voice. It hissed and repeated the words. When the woman did nothing but shake and stare Stripes leaned hard on her chest. When she let out a gasp Stripes smelled her breath. He dropped down on all fours and hissed several gravelly words to the same Worker as the first time.
Stripes moved on to the second woman. The Worker he had
been hissing at shambled behind him but stayed well out of arms reach. The two smaller hunters stayed nearly wrapped around his legs. As he moved closer she could see that the two companion Hunters had appeared black from a distance but as they got closer she could see they were a very deep blue color.
He started the same process again with the second woman. She appeared to be in her early twenties and was not conscious like the first one. When his examinations reached the waist of the young woman Stripes snapped his head back like he had been hit. He hissed loudly at the unconscious woman and spoke several words to the Worker. When he spoke the two companion Hunters hissed at the woman and clawed at the ground. When the primary Worker hissed loudly several of the others that had been hiding against the far wall walked quickly to the woman and roughly tore her out of bindings they had built onto her. She landed on the ground with a thud and one of the Workers picked her up and carried her out of the room.
Niccole felt tears begin to creep into her eyes as she sat there unable to help the woman. She knew that she would never been seen again.
Stripes moved on to the third woman. She appeared to be in her mid-fifties or possibly a little older. She also looked to be wearing the remnants of a business suit. The Hunter began his examination again. Once again he hissed when he reached the waist of the woman. The older lady screamed when Stripes hissed at her. The Hunter stood erect quickly and brought his face even with hers. He leaned in until his face was nearly touching her nose and stared into her eyes as she screamed. He continued to stare at her face in silence until she could scream no more and just sat quietly trembling. The Hunter hissed quietly as he kept his face even with hers, unmoving and unfaltering in his gaze. Niccole could see he was toying with her. Playing with her fear like a child would play with a small toy. Without warning Stripes violently ripped the older woman from the restraints in the wall and savagely tore into her neck with his teeth. She fell to the ground motionless. Stripes let out an ear ringing Hunter call as he dug his powerful talons into her flesh. Niccole desperately wanted to cover her ears but did not have the ability. His scream continued for what couldn’t have been more than ten seconds but felt like an entire lifetime. When he finished he sniffed around the corpse then barked slightly to one of the Workers. Her body was carried out of the room like the first woman and Stripes continued down the line.
Niccole began to more rapidly work on her restraints. The new bonds they had placed on her wrist were already dry but she began flaking off small pieces with her fingernails. There were two more women left before Stripes would be standing in front of her. She certainly wouldn’t be able to kill the thing but she would tear its eyes out before she would go down.
The next two women in line were in their early twenties. When Stripes got to the woman’s face and spoke, she nervously exhaled into his nose. The beast appeared to laugh as she did so. He turned to the Worker and again hissed something incomprehensible. He turned and said something else with no meaning and let out a Corrupted laugh again. The writhing pet Hunters that circled his feet also joined in the mocking laughter.
The next woman in line was the girl whose whimpering had woken Niccole in the first place. Her tears were now gone and replaced with a look of frozen terror. Stripes continued the examination and again hissed the order when he got to her face. Stripes waited a few moments than barked loudly in her face. He again gave the gravelly order but the woman was frozen in place. As Stripes began to rear up the other girl dressed in pajamas spoke quietly, “Taylor, just breath out!”
Stripes launched himself at the young girl that had spoken. He grabbed her face in his sharp clawed hands and opened his terrible jaws as if to tear her apart. At the last second he leaned in close to her ear and hissed several words and ended in that same horrible laugh.
He returned to the second girl and she obligingly exhaled into his face. He snapped his teeth at her and laughed again. He seemed satisfied and moved on to Niccole.
Niccole had very nearly broken through the bonds on her right wrist when Stripes was standing before her. Up close he was massive and looked far more powerful than she was thinking. His arms and legs rippled with powerful muscles. She could still see the blood on his talons and face. The companion Hunters slinked around his legs and hissed at her occasionally. She realized that even if she managed to get one arm free she wouldn’t be able to hurt this monster in any meaningful way.
Stripes began at her feet. For the first time she realized her boots weren’t on and she was barefoot. As far as she could tell she still had pants and her shirt on. Looking at the other women she could see they also didn’t have shoes. Stripes stopped at her waist and snapped his head back as if he was surprised by something. He leaned in closer and drew in a deep breath. He turned his head quickly to the Worker behind him and barked an order. The Worker turned and vanished out of the room.
Stripes brought his head even with hers and spoke a long string of growly torn words. She could see the slit of a pupil dilate as the thing spoke to her. Its dark red eyes focused on hers with a deep and understanding intelligence. Its mouth was filled with razor sharp teeth and a dark purple tongue that seemed to twitch around unnaturally as he spoke. At the end he let out a long string of torturous laughter.
Niccole suddenly found herself infuriated with Stripes. She tore her hand free and sank her thumb deep into the eye screaming at the top of her lungs while she did. Caught off guard Stripes was too slow to fend of the attack and stumbled backwards screaming in anger. The companion Hunters scurried for the corners of the room in fear while Stripes let out a blood curdling scream and moved back towards Niccole. As it moved in on her again she tried in vain to gouge his remaining eye. This time he was prepared and easily intercepted the blow and pinned her arm to the wall. He swiftly brought his face down to hers. He stared at her with his remaining eye and again let out a Hunter roar that rolled down the halls. Niccole closed her eyes and mouth while turning her face. His breath reeked of death. Stripes spoke a few guttural words directly to her then opened his mouth to bite her.
Niccole struggled to free her arm as Stripes leaned towards her shoulder with his mouth open wide. It was then that she heard three sharp barks from the entrance. Stripes dropped Niccole’s arm and stood back suddenly looking very subservient. The companion Hunters had climbed the walls and were hiding in various corners far out of reach. Niccole heard the barks one more time and saw the source. A decidedly feminine looking Corrupted stood in the doorway. She looked very similar to what Dylan and Erica had described but she didn’t have the appendage for egg laying. She had two sets of arms and very powerful legs that ended in massive talons that gripped the floor as she walked. Her eyes were much larger than a humans and entirely black. She barked again and Stripes moved all the way to the far side of the room. His shoulders were held high and he hung his head very low the floor as he moved.
Niccole noticed that this Corrupted had two red rings where Stripes had had three. “Is that some sort of rank or something?” she wondered to herself quietly. As the newly arrived Corrupted walked closer she could see that this one was also an extremely dark blue. She nicknamed this one Shade because of the slightly different color. She had no idea why she felt the need to attach names other than these were different Corrupted and needed to be singled out as such in her mind.
Shade didn’t so much move across the room as she flowed over to Niccole. She stopped well out of arms reach and looked Niccole over from head to toe. After few minutes she barked over her shoulder several times. A very subservient Stripes hissed back several words and Shade growled deeply. She looked at Niccole’s’ still loose arm and made several very loud barking noises towards the group of Workers cowering in the far corner. Shade spoke a few of the gravelly words and then waited in patient quiet.
It had been nearly five minutes when Niccole could hear the same ‘thrumming’ sound they could hear from the towers above the hive. She could also tell it was getting closer. The vibrating sound came
around the corner and Niccole gasped.
There were three of them. They were about the size of a weasel or very large rat. They were long and black and appeared to have the same skin texture as a Hunter. They had six legs, the front pair being much larger than the other four. All of their arms ended in vicious looking three clawed hands. They landed on the floor around Shade and hissed at Niccole and the others. Their four wings would twitch and create the low buzzing they had heard from outside. The wings looked like a cross between a dragonfly and a bat. They were obviously similar to arms but the membranes were clear like a dragonfly
