Pets in Space® 4

by S. E. Smith

  A heavy silence met my words. I swallowed painfully and headed for the slightly worn-out couch across from the giant screen TV. Andy, one of my fellow doctors, showed me the plate he was filling at the small buffet laid out on the counter, silently asking if I wanted him to make me one. I nodded gratefully, though I wondered if, despite my hunger, I’d be able to stomach anything.

  “What if this is our last chance to see each other?” Mother asked at last.

  My heart skipped a beat, and I pulled the phone away from my ear to stare at it, disbelieving. I plopped myself onto the couch, refusing to admit to myself that the same thought had been plaguing me for the past two days.

  “Mom, we cannot let ‘what ifs’ dictate our lives. Que sera, sera. What if I come home, nothing bad happens with the aliens, but twenty patients die who I could have saved if I’d stayed? What if I get injured on my way home because of rioters or stray bullets? What if some desperate folks force me out of my car and steal it?”

  I exhaled a shuddering breath and blinked furiously, swallowing back the tears that threatened to spill out. Andy came by and placed a full plate with utensils on the coffee table in front of me. Sympathy shone in his pale blue eyes as he gazed upon my face. With a sad smile, he squeezed my shoulder in encouragement and walked away. I couldn’t even see the contents of my plate and could feel my already frayed nerves nearing their breaking point.

  “I’m scared, Mom. I’m terrified,” I whispered so the others wouldn’t hear. They didn’t need my burdens added to theirs. “I wish I were home with you hugging me and Dad telling me everything will be fine like he used to when I was a little girl. But I’m stuck here right now. And I need you to help me be strong.”

  “My baby …” Mom said, guilt and love filling her soft, slightly throaty voice. “I’m so sorry. You know I’ll always be there for you. I love you so much. Your father and I love you so very much.”

  “I love you, too, Mom.”

  “Hey, pumpkin,” my father’s voice said, having taken the phone from my mom. “I hear you’re out there saving all those rioting knuckleheads. A good night’s sleep, without painkillers, might help get their heads screwed on right.”

  I laughed through the tears that had managed to slip down my freckled face.

  “You have no idea how many of them I wanted to stab with a spinal tap needle tonight,” I said, wiping my face with the back of my hand.

  “We’re proud of you, baby girl,” Dad said, sobering. “We love you, okay? Come home as soon as you safely can. In the meantime, continue to be the superhero you’ve always been.”

  “I love you, Dad. Pull Liz’s braid for me when she shows up.”

  “Promise. We’ll talk to you soon, all right?”

  “All right. Bye, Dad. Love you.”

  I stared at my phone and then pressed it to my chest as if it were my parents. Heaving a sigh, I shoved it back into my pocket and reached half-heartedly for my plate. Andy had given me a mountain of chicken Alfredo pasta, a side salad, and a thick, half-roll of cheesy garlic bread. I twisted some of the fettucine onto my fork and shoved a huge mouthful past my lips. It tasted good: the ‘I’m-gonna-sit-on-your-ass-and-hips-forever’ kind of good. But at twenty-eight, and as a bit of a fitness freak, I could handle it. Still, I chewed with little enthusiasm, tuning out the TV news anchors repeating the same depressing reports that had been playing in a loop for the past forty-eight hours.

  Halfway through my meal, a high-pitched sound resonated from the TV, causing me to gasp and nearly choke on some chicken. The screen went dark, only displaying a weird, Cyrillic-looking symbol. Coughing, I kept my eyes glued to the screen, the image blurry through the tears.

  My colleagues in the break room approached the TV, all conversations having stopped. A bright light flashed from the screen, forcing me to close my eyes. I reopened them to dark blotches dancing before me while I recovered from the photo-bleaching. When my vision cleared, I wished it would blur again.

  “God have mercy …” whispered a voice that sounded like Laeticia’s, one of the nurses.

  A nightmare straight out of a David Cronenberg movie filled the screen. The insect-like humanoid, a being I took to be male owing to the broadness of his shoulders and hardness of his facial features, stared directly into the camera. The upper part of his head, shaped like a helmet, reminded me of a rhinoceros beetle, with horn-like spikes around the forehead. His oversized, multifaceted eyes resembled the insect version of the little grey men that filled our alien lore. Large mandibles protruded on each side of his otherwise oddly human mouth. Thick, black, chitin plates covered his muscular body, which was inhumanly narrow at the waist. His hands, also armored, possessed five fingers with vicious claws. To complete the frightening image, his legs consisted of three segments, which I assumed gave him the ability to jump quite high.

  His mandibles snapped a few times. Although his multifaceted eyes made it impossible to guess what he was feeling, I viscerally sensed malice and evil intent from him. His lips parted in the creepiest of grins, displaying needle-sharp teeth that had my stomach sinking to my feet. I was too shocked, too petrified to run, scream, or otherwise react. I gaped in morbid fascination at the first sentient being from the stars to have made himself known to us.

  “Hello, humans,” the alien said in a grating voice filled with clicking sounds. “I am General Khutu, leader of the Kryptid military forces. We have come a long way to see you. Prepare to bow to your new masters.”

  Seconds later, the city’s emergency sirens resounded, and screams filled the hallways as people undoubtedly stampeded towards the exits. I stared numbly at the screen. The General’s lips continued to move, but I no longer heard him. A single thought played in a loop in my head.

  I should have gone home.

  Chapter One

  Victoria

  More empty shelves greeted us as we entered the supermarket. The moldy scent of rot from the rare produce that hadn’t found any takers had increased since our last visit. The crunching sound of spilled cereals and other debris beneath our feet was deafening in the otherwise eerie silence. Scavenging for food and drinks with the sun at its zenith spoke of desperation, if not outright recklessness. We weren’t at that stage yet, but unless something changed, in a matter of days, rationing would no longer suffice.

  Two weeks after the Kryptids’ arrival, our quaint, little city of Juniper resembled a ghost town. It had never suffered from major traffic issues, or overpopulation. But now that most of its people had fled to the mountains or scattered into the sprawling rural areas outside town, it felt desolate and creepy.

  I followed Andy as he made a beeline for the back of the store where we’d been lucky in the past. For some reason, most people didn’t seem to think of the storage room used to restock merchandise. They’d turn around the minute they saw the empty shelves, half of them toppled over.

  That suited us just fine.

  Andy carefully opened the door. Soft voices and rummaging sounds alerted us to the presence of other people. Thankfully, they were human voices and not the grating clicking of the Kryptid speech. Still, one couldn’t be too careful. When it came to their survival, humans easily turned into rabid animals. With the growing scarcity of food and water, it was always a coin toss whether the better or uglier side of people would rear its head.

  Gun in hand but held low, Andy led the way inside. Judging by the storage room’s depleted state, others had discovered it as well, or the same handful who knew of it had been diligently plundering it. The voices suddenly stopped. My pulse picked up, my chest feeling too compressed to breathe. The same tension knotting the muscles in my neck had Andy’s back stiffening.

  “We’re not here to cause trouble.” Andy spoke loudly enough to be heard, using his least threatening voice. “We’re just here for some food and water for the makeshift clinic, then we’ll be on our way. If any of you are hurt or ill, we’ll be happy to offer assistance. We’re doctors.”

  I couldn’t
quite hear what they were saying, but I distinctly heard the word ‘humans.’ Of course, we’d been quiet and remained under cover. They couldn’t know we weren’t Kryptids looking for prey.

  “I’m with my wife and son,” a man shouted back. “You don’t cause trouble, we won’t either. We’ve got weapons that we’d rather save for those damn bugs.”

  “Agreed,” Andy responded, putting away his weapon. “My female partner and I are coming in.”

  Relieved beyond words, I put my own gun back in its holster and hurried to fetch a cart. The couple in their mid-forties and their teenage son didn’t seem in too bad a shape. Their clothes, of good quality, could have used a wash. Their eyes reflected the same wariness we felt. We exchanged polite nods then got down to business.

  We filled two carts with as much non-perishable food as we could: water, juice, candles, batteries, matches, and whatever medical supplies were still lying around. Previous scavengers had long absconded with the good stuff, but we could use all the peroxide, bandages, and painkillers we could find. When we were halfway through filling the second cart, the family waved goodbye as they started heading out.

  The father paused, hesitated, then turned to look at us. “Just some friendly advice. You folks need to get out of town. We’re stocking up to hit the road. New spaceships arrived last night; a different race of yellow bugs. Last broadcast I heard, they’re moving towards us, fast.”

  “One of the broadcasts said they were fighting the dark bugs,” Andy said with a hesitant voice.

  “But why?” the father asked. “Are they here to help us, or are they just another dog fighting over the same bone?”

  A fair question I would love to have answered. “We have too many patients, and not enough means of transportation,” I said, the same anxiety knotting my insides.

  “Then take those with the best chance of survival and leave the rest,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not being cruel or heartless. I’m being realistic. We’re at war. There’s no time for pretty sentiments. If we survive this mess, those still alive will need doctors. Hell, our soldiers could probably use both of you right now while they’re trying to give us a future. Staying here to get yourselves killed for people who already have a foot in the grave makes no sense to me. My advice to you is to give them what supplies you can spare, take those able to travel without holding you back, and get the heck out. Good luck to you all.”

  He tipped his navy baseball cap, then walked away.

  I understood his words all too well. The same thoughts plagued me daily. My parents had spoken along the same lines when I’d decided to stay behind to care for the patients who couldn’t travel. Knowing they were safe in our cabin, with my sister and her husband to look after them, gave me some peace of mind. But they worried about me caring for people with little chance of making it, and who couldn’t help me fight if things got hairy.

  “Let’s load up what we’ve got so far,” Andy suggested, his troubled look echoing my inner turmoil.

  “Okay,” I mumbled, ashamed to even be considering that man’s words.

  Knowing I only had to say the word and Andy would hit the road with me made it even more difficult. Without flat out saying it, he’d hinted that we were uselessly prolonging the agony of doomed patients.

  In the first days of the invasion, before they’d managed to blow up most of our power grids and communication towers, the news reports had all shown footage of the bugs focusing their attacks on heavily populated areas, with hospitals being key targets. We didn’t know what they were doing, but they wanted people—the more vulnerable, the better. They weren’t killing us—or at least, not right away. All the videos merely showed them shooting people with a stun gun, and implanting something in everyone … except certain women.

  It took a while to realize they were all women of childbearing age.

  We could only speculate that the ones injected with implants would serve for experimentation or maybe as slave labor. But that they also targeted the elderly, the critically ill, and children made us fear they were being gathered as food instead. We only knew that they were dragging their victims into those hospitals in a continuous flow.

  Hence, we moved as many patients as possible out of Sacred Heart and into makeshift hospitals away from the city’s center. We’d set ours up in a state-of-the-art retirement home for the rich which had been scheduled to open in a few months. It possessed its own medical clinic in the basement and had fully furnished bedrooms.

  Only a handful of doctors and nurses had remained at the hospital to care for those too critical to be moved. I’d walked out when word of euthanasia had started circulating. I hadn’t studied all those years for that. And yet, with power out and no more pharmaceutical companies producing the drugs we desperately needed, did it make sense to ‘waste’ what supplies we had left prolonging the suffering of those who had little to no chance of making it, rather than saving it for those who did?

  How did it come to this in less than two weeks?

  We stuffed our loot in the back of our van next to the medical supplies we’d scavenged from a couple of pharmacies en route. There was still a bit more room, which I wanted to fill while we were out and supplies were still to be found. But as we approached the back entrance, loud, masculine voices stopped us dead in our tracks. Andy and I exchanged a look. These guys could be peaceful like the family we’d run into, but they also might not. We had enough to last us a few days. It wasn’t worth the risk. More importantly, we couldn’t afford to lose our vehicle and all the supplies.

  I shook my head at Andy who didn’t hide his relief. We hurried back to the van and started the engine. Angry shouts from inside reached us immediately.

  “Step on it,” I urged Andy, while putting my seatbelt on.

  I couldn’t make out what the men said, but it made me think of a predator angered at prey slipping through its claws.

  The tires screeched as Andy slammed his foot on the gas. In the rearview mirror, I saw three men storming out through the back door. They looked rough, with patches of blood on their clothes, and a few bruises testifying to brutal encounters. Two of them cursed, but the one who appeared to be their leader aimed a long rifle at us and fired just as we turned the corner into the parking lot.

  I screamed, immediately feeling embarrassed. The bullet had missed, but it had freaked me out.

  “What the fuck is wrong with these people?” Andy asked, visibly shaken.

  I could think of a million different things. But in the parking lot, a banged-up car I hadn’t seen upon our arrival sat near the front entrance. Our van would have been a major upgrade for them, not to mention our loot, which is why we’d parked in the back.

  “Let’s just go back,” I said with a trembling voice. “Anyway, we shouldn’t still be out.”

  “Right,” he mumbled, maneuvering swiftly around the debris littering the streets.

  I turned on the radio, one of our last means of staying in touch with the rest of the world. The same depressing reports trickled in, listing the names of the fallen cities and the direction in which the bug armies were marching. In between the gloomy stuff, they shared pearls of wisdom from the kind of water that was safe to drink, to smart places to hide, to basic security measures when scavenging or traveling.

  At least one good bit of news came through. In multiple regions, with the bugs and the golden aliens busy fighting each other, many of the locals had seized the opportunity to flee to safer areas. With luck, both species would obliterate each other, and we could start rebuilding our world before it was completely destroyed.

  We drove past a few lurking people, some going in and out of abandoned houses looking for who-knew-what. The hardest to ignore were people lying in the streets. They were few and far between, but before the invaders had taken out our communication towers, we’d been warned, by too many in our little underground medical network, of people faking injuries to hijack vehicles the minute people got out
to help.

  A sudden explosion, far to our left, had me nearly jumping out of my skin. Another series of explosions detonated in quick succession in a straight line from the first one. We couldn’t see what had triggered them. Then square holes started appearing in the sky above small buildings.

  “Oh God, help us,” I whispered, my blood turning to ice in my veins.

  At least two dozen Kryptid ships in stealth mode had gathered above the city. The gaping holes gave us a glimpse into the otherwise camouflaged ships. In seconds, like a swarm of locusts, hundreds of Kryptids jumped out of the ships. They dropped from at least thirty feet high, without parachutes, their three-segmented legs allowing them to land effortlessly atop the buildings. Running to the edge of the roof, they jumped down to the ground with the graceful ease and assurance of cats.

  Andy sped up, taking a detour to avoid the area where the majority of them had disembarked. There were few vessels near us, most of them appearing over the area by Sacred Heart. My throat tightened at the thought of all the people there, some of whom I had cared for, and the fate that awaited them. For the first time, I hoped whoever stayed behind would help them go peacefully.

  “I’m not sure we can make it back to the hospital,” Andy said, his voice strained with tension.

  My heart sank. Guilt and sorrow ate at me, but as more Kryptids continued to drop from the sky, I had to face some harsh realities.

  “We have to go down Fourth Avenue, anyway,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. “If we can get to them, great. Otherwise, we’ll just have to get the heck out of Dodge.”

  Andy’s relief was palpable. He didn’t want to abandon our patients any more than I did. But he also didn’t want to die needlessly. Funny how he let me call the shots when I was just out of residency, and he’d been practicing for a few years already.