by Rick Jones
The Rex took a step forward, its senses telling it that something was nearing their position spoiling for a fight.
It waited.
It roared.
And its enemy approached.
#
The Mist could feel vibrations coursing through the air like the wafting reach of a delectable scent. It was something compelling, a gravitating force of curiosity. And so it coursed through the air like a cumulus cloud always reshaping itself, with bursts of energy going off in a beautiful display of fiery discharges.
When the Rex cried out the Mist raced toward the disturbance, the mass boiling forward like smoke from a caldera, fast and furious, the pops of light going off in quick succession.
And then it sensed it, the Rex, the creature standing and observing, its mind trying to determine this new enemy—how to fight it, how to win.
The Rex cocked its head, the creature stupefied at this transparent mass that hung in the air as several pieces, and then coalesced into a single whole, a cloud.
The lights intrigued it, mesmerized it, the flashes holding a hypnotic grace as the Rex took a few tentative steps forward, its mouth unhinging, growing wide, the lights going off in scores, the quick bursts a show of the Mist’s anticipation.
The Rex circled the Mist for a vantage point, snapping its jaws, roaring its deep-bass cry, the Mist appearing the same from one approach as another, always moving and reshaping itself into some indiscernible figure, with no point of obvious weakness.
And then it raised its tail, the appendage working back and forth above its head with a hypnotic effect of its own. The motion was perfect and fluid, catching the eye of the Mist as lights shot off in remarkable display, the countless bursts firing off like embers until the Mist became a pearlescent glow of luminous energy.
In a moment that took less than a beat of a heart the Rex reacted, swinging its tail into the mass, the razor ridges cut a swath and parted the Mist like the Red Sea, the two amoeba-like shapes reuniting back to a single mass.
The Rex became confused and agitated. It was a perfect strike, a killing blow. But the Mist continued to undulate in the air, its shape dilating and contracting, becoming dense, then translucent.
As the dominant creature on its world, the Rex cast aside all caution and attacked the Mist. Its colossal body charged forward with its head low, jaws and teeth snapping. And was immediately consumed by the Mist as smoky tendrils wrapped around the beast, embracing it, then feeding upon its flesh. Within seconds the Rex began to shake its head wildly, its roars more agitated, more terror-stricken. And then its hide began to ripple as if something alive was undulating beneath its skin, rolling. The Rex then wobbled upon weak legs as sores opened and pared back from its joints, exposing blood-laced bones. Its eyes bulged in terror, but only for a moment as they dissolved within their sockets, decaying. The meat of its tongue was now gone. Its flesh, disappearing. Within less than a minute its entire body had been broken down to its barest structure of the skeletal frame, and then gone, the Rex nonexistent. Not even a pool of fluids lay behind as evidence that the predator had ever existed. And in the end, once a dominant species on its planet, it had easily fallen prey to the perfect organism.
The cap of the Mist rolled and boiled upward, like a mushroom cloud before settling back into a morphing shape. Spangles of light continued to pop off in no apparent sequence, the bursts of energy radiating a brighter hue after feeding.
The organism hovered in space; its colorful eddies rolling within itself sensing its surroundings, detecting the measured heartbeats of life.
It was not alone.
And because it had no conscience or compassion or any sense of deductive reasoning, it was driven by pure instinct.
So it hunted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“That wasn’t much of a fight, was it?”
Whitaker accepted this from Quasimodo as rhetorical, no answer necessary. And then he brought his lip mike down. “Yo, Maestro?”
“Yeah, boss.”
“You all right”
“I’m fine. What’s your twenty?”
“By the lab tables to the west.”
“And Quasimodo?”
“He’s with me.” And then: “Circle around in a wide berth and use the shadows as camouflage.”
“Copy that . . . Out.”
Whitaker flipped his lip mike up over his helmet.
“What the hell is that thing?” asked Quasimodo. “It just—what?—dissolved that thing down to nothing.”
“I don’t care to stick around and find out.” Whitaker scoped the area. “Where’re Savage and Moore?”
Quasimodo tipped his head in the direction he last saw them, by the tables to the north of them. “Over there,” he answered.
“I’ll wait here for Maestro. You go pay them a visit and make sure that they don’t go anywhere.”
“Yeah, boss.”
“And be careful. That vapor’s acting unusual—not sure what it’s up to.”
Quasimodo tapped Whitaker on the shoulder and kept low to the ground, the commando maintaining a steady eye on the Mist as he made his way to the cryptanalysts.
Whitaker, his weapon an ineffective tool, aimed it at the Mist, nonetheless. The weapon that was once a sense of power was no more than a useless prop, this he knew. But it still served as a measure of security.
Whitaker took a sidelong glance at Quasimodo, who was nearing Savage’s position, then lowered his mike. “Maestro, what’s your twenty?”
“Just a couple of heartbeats away, boss.”
Whitaker raised his mike above his helmet and drew a bead with the point of his weapon directed at the Mist. The thing rolled and boiled with poetic motion, the lights within beckoning him with a hypnotic draw, the power of his will starting to surrender to its gravitating pull—the angler’s bait.
For a long moment he carried that thousand-mile stare until Maestro’s hand touched his shoulder, the gravitational pull fading, and quickly, the man refocusing his thoughts. With a hand gesture, he then pointed to the tables at the north end. “Over there,” he said. “We need to take up with Quasi.”
Maintaining a low posture, both men pulled back.
#
“What is it?” Alyssa whispered to John.
They had witnessed a brutal takeover of one apex predator over another, a one-sided contest confirming that there would always be something bigger and stronger. The Rex was massive, at least sixty feet in length with tons of muscle to back it up. The Mist, however, was buoyant with no traces of muscle, sinew or bone—a creature as wispy as smoke, something delicately transparent.
Within moments the Mist had embraced the Rex, its smoky tentacles encircling the beast until it was completely eclipsed, its leathery hide shedding from its bones as easily as stripping away the peel of a banana to reveal the fruit underneath. And then the muscle mass liquefied, the bones then becoming brittle beneath the acidic embrace before cracking, then breaking, and then dissolving until all trace evidence completely disappeared.
There was nothing left of the massive creature, perhaps the greatest predator in its part of the galaxy.
Savage pulled her close. “It’s like acid,” he answered. “It devours everything.”
“We have to get out of here.”
Savage didn’t hesitate. When he made a move to take lead, he was quickly met by the point of Quasimodo’s assault weapon.
His thick lips were peeled back into a grin of malicious amusement. “Where do you think you’re going, sunshine?”
Savage reluctantly fell back to a sitting position.
The soldier then directed his attention to Alyssa, his smile becoming lewd and lascivious, and winked.
Alyssa immediately became offended by his manner. “You are the most disgusting creature I have ever seen. Stay away from me.”
His smile blossomed. “But I’m the entire package, Missy.”
“I swear to God, if you come anywhere near me, I’l
l kick you so hard in the nuts I guarantee you’ll go down faster than a hooker in a whore house.”
Quasi chortled. “Oh, I like you,” he said, directing his MP5 inches from her forehead. “I like you a lot.”
She didn’t flinch.
But Savage did, his body language hinting at an assault.
The barrel of the weapon quickly wheeled to him. “Let’s not be a hero, now,” he told him. “Unless you’d like to be a dead one, at which point I’d gladly assist you in your wish.”
The muscles in the back of Savage’s jaw worked.
“Yeah, I thought so.” Quasimodo never allowed his weapon to come off of the target of Savage’s skull, from a point between his eyes.
Whitaker and Maestro finally banded with them, each man taking glances over their shoulders to see if the Mist decided to give chase. It didn’t. The mass hanging idle in the air as boiling eddies always curling within itself, the lights within going off like bursts of countless embers.
Whitaker then noted the point of Quasimodo’s weapon directed at Savage. “Everything green?” he asked.
“Just fine,” he answered, his smile never wavering. He then turned to Alyssa and made eye contact. But when he spoke he did so to Whitaker. “Hey, Cap, can I keep her? I like this one.”
“When the time comes,” he told him, “you can do whatever you want.”
Quasimodo’s day had just been made.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
"And what about him?” Quasimodo asked, referring to Savage.
Whitaker took periodic glances at the Mist to ensure that it had not moved from its position. “I’d say that Mr. Savage’s time has finally come. What do you think?”
Quasimodo looked at the Mist. “It’s not moving off.”
“That’s because I think it knows we’re here.”
Boiling eddies of vapor rolled continuously within the vaporous mass, the lights going off in synaptic bursts of energy as the Mist hung several feet above the floor, floating dreamily.
“What the hell is it waiting for?” whispered Maestro.
“Maybe it knows we’re here, but can’t pinpoint our location.”
“Maybe,” said Whitaker.
Quasimodo returned his steely gaze on Savage. “Either way,” he began, “we can’t stay here forever. We’ve got to get to the sub.”
“I agree,” said Whitaker.
By way of osmosis, Savage could clearly read Quasimodo’s thoughts, could almost read his intentions as if they were spelled out across his forehead. Between his eyes, however, lies a dimple, a thought line, the delicate trace deep enough to tell Savage that he had walked the final leg of his journey. And that Quasimodo was going to be the man to take him out cleanly.
“So you’re going to kill me, is that it?” he asked the commando.
Quasimodo smiled maliciously. “I was thinking about it.”
Savage could feel Alyssa’s hand tightening around his. When he faced her, he could almost hear the sad measure of her unspoken words course through his mind.
I won’t leave you.
He feigned a smile. You have no choice. I won’t allow you to stay behind. Not with what’s out there.
Her grip tightened.
And the Mist hovered.
“It’s not moving an inch,” said Maestro. “I think it senses us. But I really don’t think it knows where we are.”
“And that is why Mr. Savage is going to help us.” The smile on Quasimodo’s face was gone, his appearance deadly serious. “Ain’t that right, Savage?”
Their eyes met in a show of testosterone-fueled fortitude.
And then: “I ain’t gonna kill you,” Quasimodo told him evenly. “That would only defeat the purpose, if that thing can truly perceive the living. And if that’s the case, then guess what? As long as you got a heartbeat, then I imagine the Mist will wait you out while the rest of us press forward.”
“And if you imagine incorrectly?”
“Then it wouldn’t be the first time that I was wrong.” He gave Savage a sarcastic wink. “And if I was, then I’m sure it would settle on you before it does on us. Either way, it gives us time.” He proffered another wink.
Savage shook his head disapprovingly. “Do you have a man crush on me or something? You keep winking at me.”
Savage had apparently hit a nerve. Quasimodo’s face quickly twisted into something mean and cruel, his eyes narrowing. And then he raised the stock end of his assault weapon and drove it forward, striking Savage in the head and rendering him unconscious.
Savage never saw it coming.
#
The Hominid was a master of stealth, its way of life depending on it.
From its point of concealment it could see the Mist maintaining its position. It could also see Whitaker and his unit hunkering behind upturned tables, the team obviously deducing the incalculable power of the Mist.
Like any creature, self-preservation was a common wiring in all species. The Mist, however, did not appear to have such an inkling, since it had no obvious equal. Whereas the Mist moved by a nature that lacked any level of passion, but by its emotionless design to feed and grow and take new ground, the species in hiding appeared cruel and sadistic.
The Hominid bore witness as he watched Quasimodo raise his weapon and strike another of its kind, rendering the creature powerless.
The female of the pack screamed and fought back right up to the moment another withdrew a knife and placed its edge against the downed man’s throat, the one wielding the weapon obviously offering the commitment to drive it across the creature’s throat if the female did not stay her cries, which she did.
The Mist did not react, however, the whorls of its mass continuing to flow within and over itself, as if constrained by restrictions only it could recognize. The Hominid was stymied by this vaporous creature, almost enamored by it. But it also knew the Tally-Whackers well and was disgusted by them. He had seen creatures of their mindset before.
They were a vicious and cruel species set on self-gratification. They were also a species of entitlement, believing that everything owed them should come with the purchase price heaved upon another, rather than by the achievement of personal fortitude. Life apparently had little meaning to them as well, this particular species having the penchant to hunt for sport rather than sustenance. Their way of life was not a unique approach to maintaining a civil culture, either. The history of its kind ran similar with ruin—with similar accounts memorialized on ancient tablets that were handed down by tribal scribes.
What had been given the tools of an ascending species was now beginning to falter. And like his kind, they would fall into a maelstrom of descent until one, like itself, would be the last of its kind.
The Hominid’s eyes turned a deep shade of gray, sensing an overwhelming sadness creep over it.
Allowing the wounded male to stay behind, the rest of the pack moved on.
The Mist, however, remained.
The Hominid cocked its head. Odd.
And like the Mist it waited, holding a keen eye to the creature that lie impotent upon the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Tally-Whackers moved quickly with Alyssa in tow, the cryptanalyst fighting futilely against Quasimodo’s grasp.
They moved forward through the Menagerie with zero conflict, the creatures once locked within the containment cells now lying dead the moment they were introduced to a venomous environment. If anything survived at all, if anything remained alive, then they either slipped away to far reaches of the ship or fell victim to something deadlier. Either way, it was incentive enough to move quickly.
With caution cast to the wind and time running low, the team maneuvered to the fore of the remnant. The walls around them continued to glow a phosphorous green. The pulsation, however, beating at a much slower rate, like the fading heartbeat working down to its last pump.
The light was growing feeble as well, the ship dying.
And the Tally-Whackers went
forward and upward, toward the awaiting sub.
Whitaker remained cognizant of the two flash drives neatly fitted in the hidden grooves cut into the heel of his boot.
Internally he was smiling.
Because they were almost home.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Mist never moved because the lights acted as senses, picking up life forces within its circular range. What it surmised was an impending danger not from the creatures in hiding, but from something rapidly approaching from the rear with a high degree of quickness and agility.
The mystery of what it was zigzagged through the Compound between ruined stations and makeshift labs, which provided no obstacles to the creature as the gap between them closed at breakneck speed.
The Mist began to boil quicker, the vapor turning a deeper shade of purple; the energy bursts shooting off in a dazzling display of fireworks as it began to drift towards the aggressor, sensing a confrontation.
From its vantage point the Hominid watched it glide toward the rear of the ship and away from the creature lying supine on the floor.
It moved gracefully as if windswept, the Mist morphing into a more aerodynamically shaped torpedo designed to move at a much faster rate through space.
The Hominid stood idle, watching the man and the Mist at the same time.
In the distance and drawing closer came the cry of something savage.
And the Hominid could do nothing but take a ringside seat.
#
The Mist had gone as far as it could, expanding upward and outward like the billowing sail of a Tall Ship, the vapor diluting itself into a wider, thinner mass, but potent nonetheless. It was serving as a trap to snare its prey, a vaporous backdrop to allow the creature to run right into its clutches, so the Mist could wrap its wispy tendrils around it and consume it whole. But this was not the case as the creature raced from the shadows with its jaws snapping and tail whipping, giving the Mist a wide berth before circling it, and then appraising it.
