Parasite, p.8
Parasite, page 8
“Good,” Vivian said, a hiss of triumph in her voice as she dropped her gun and began gathering the half-dozen flamethrowers. “Carry these, Holcroft, and grab some grenades, as well.”
“We’re not going to leave some here?”
“No, we’re going to take them and pass them out to anyone we see in the hallways.” More gunfire came from farther in the building, followed by the sound of something large being smashed. “Hurry, we don’t have time.”
Kala stuffed her pockets with grenades and fumbled to hold the five flamethrowers Vivian thrust into her arms. “Aren’t you carrying any?”
“Just one.” Vivian’s eyes were severe as she pulled the straps of the backpack over her shoulders and hoisted the gun in her right hand. “Your job is to get to the comm box. My job is to keep you alive. Deal?”
“Deal,” Kala said.
Then they were running again, down the same passageway, leaping over Denise’s bloodied body, and heading back to the heart of the building.
Vivian hesitated, glancing up and down the hallways. “Nearest unit would be…”
“The kitchen,” Kala suggested, but Vivian shook her head.
“I’d just come from there when I found you. The whole room’s been decimated. I doubt the unit is intact.”
“What about the meeting room?”
“Yes, that would work. Let’s go.”
They turned left, Vivian in the lead while Kala tried to keep pace without dropping her armful of flamethrowers. Down the hallway, frantic arguing came from one of the rooms. Vivian held up her hand to stop Kala then rapped on the door while yelling, “We’re friends; don’t shoot.”
The voices inside fell silent. Then the door opened, and two guns were pointed at Vivian’s face.
“How do we know you’re not one of them?” a taller, thick-set man barked.
Vivian glowered at him. “They don’t exactly stop for pleasantries, do they?”
The tall man glanced at his younger companion, who nodded. “We’re going to make a break for the ships. Want to join us?”
“Can’t,” Vivian said, “but we have something to help. Bullets won’t stop them, but according to our scientist, fire will.”
She inclined her head towards Kala, who unloaded two of the flamethrowers and a handful of grenades. “Spread the word.”
Vivian didn’t even give the men a chance to thank them before she returned to jogging down the hallway. The flamethrowers were heavy, and Kala struggled to keep up. Vivian quickly found another band of survivors, and they unloaded two of the remaining three flamethrowers.
A stitch was developing in Kala’s side, but she managed to keep pace with her lanky companion as they approached the meeting room. Gunfire, loud and persistent, came from the inside. Vivian motioned for Kala to keep her head down, then she shoved through the doors.
At first, the scene in front of her didn’t make any sense. She felt as though she’d stepped into a modern-art house, where everything was calculated to subtly disturb the viewer. Sculptures of familiar objects, changed to be not quite right, filled the space, and the music piped through the room was the steady tat-tat-tat of automatic fire.
She blinked, and reality filtered through to her.
The chairs, normally arranged in neat rows in the centre of the room, had been tossed about like children’s toys. They cluttered the floor like little landmines, and piles of them had collected at the edges of the room. To her right was the heavy wooden table their superiors had stood behind when making announcements to the station’s crew. It was turned on its side, and three people huddled behind it; two had guns and were bobbing up and down, taking potshots at the thing on the other side of the room.
The inky creature, a dozen tendrils waving outwards from its base, sent a shock of terror through Kala. It towered over her, and suspended from its top was the body of one of the middle-aged women who had returned with Stanos. The body hung limply, arms and legs swinging like a ragdoll’s as the creature moved. Only her head seemed alive; it was held upright and was twitching from side to side, following the action of the room.
The creatures need our eyes to see, Kala realised. That’s why the monster inside Stanos wasn’t able to follow me out of the lab—he’d destroyed Stanos’s human body and couldn’t see.
The corpse’s head rotated to look at them, the blank eyes wide and unblinking as the lips curled into a sneer.
Chapter Sixteen
Vivian swore as one of the tendrils shot towards them. It was fast, but Vivian’s reflexes were faster. She’d already raised the nozzle of her flamethrower and pulled the trigger. Fire spurted from its tip, shooting fifteen feet forward before licking upwards in a plume of black smoke. The tendril hit the flame, and a noxious odour and an ear-splitting shriek filled the room.
The limp body’s mouth had opened wide to emit the wail. The partly human scream also held something very, very unnatural—deep, harsh, and gutturally horrible.
Kala felt her trance break. She dove towards the three people behind the table and pressed her remaining flamethrower into the closet one’s hands. “Guns won’t hurt it,” she gasped, pulling grenades out of her pockets and passing them to the other two people. “Fire will.”
Vivian was slowly advancing on the creature, swivelling her flame to hit any tendrils that tried to reach her. The scream was increasing in volume and pitch as more and more of the arms were burnt, and while the rest of the woman’s body hung limp on its black master, the face was twisted into a snarl of pure fury. Kala couldn’t understand why Vivian was trying to get closer to the beast until she saw the small white box attached to the wall behind it.
“Ah,” she said, feeling dread and horror build in her as she stared at the communication unit. “Crap.”
“What?” the woman beside her asked.
Kala thought her face was slightly familiar. Had they eaten breakfast together one morning? Wasn’t her name Julie or Julia or something similar?
“I need to get to the comm box.”
The woman glanced at where Kala indicated and nodded. She was pale, but she slung the flamethrower’s backpack over her shoulders. “Right. Let’s go.”
She leapt out from the shelter of the table and moved to stand beside Vivian. Kala followed, feeling incredibly vulnerable with empty hands, and hung just behind the two women as they advanced on the creature.
Its arms moved with terrific speed, smashing chairs across the room and smacking indents into the walls. Kala ducked as the leg of a flying chair grazed her back. The two women in front of her kept moving forward, getting closer to the monster’s body.
The creature began to retreat, and fear showed on the corpse’s face as it drew away to one of the corners. Kala saw her chance and ran towards the communication unit. Vivian sidestepped to keep herself between Kala and the creature, while the other woman continued to march forward, anger marking deep lines on her sweaty face.
The stench was so foul that Kala felt like she was choking. She hit the wall next to the comm unit, pulled the microphone out of its holder, and pressed the button. An echo of the creature’s wail filled the room as the noise was broadcast back to them.
“They’re vulnerable to fire,” Kala said, talking quickly, aware that she had seconds, at most, before the monster tried to stop her. “Bullets won’t hurt them, but fire will. You can kill them with fire.”
The creature roared, the unnaturally loud sound spewing out from its twisted human lips, and lunged towards Kala. Vivian raised her flamethrower, but the other woman leapt in first, directing her flame at the advancing body. Kala saw the black flesh bubble and blister under the heat, but the monster was too enraged be deterred again. A tendril shot forward, breaking through the woman’s fire and spearing her through the chest.
Vivian took her finger off her trigger then turned and pushed Kala. They both hit the floor just in time to avoid two arms aimed at their heads. Kala rolled onto her back and began to scramble away from the monster. Julie or Julia, or whoever she had been, had managed to burn the corpse’s face. The skin had melted and puckered, and both eyes had turned grey-white as they’d cooked inside her head. They swivelled uselessly in their sockets, but even as she tried to draw enough breath into her lungs to power her limbs, Kala saw the burnt flesh begin to repair itself.
“It’s blind,” she hissed to Vivian. “But it won’t be for long. We need to get out of here.”
“I’ll cover your back.”
Kala had nearly gained her feet when a deafening boom assaulted her eardrums. The floor buckled and shuddered, sending vibrations through her body and jarring her teeth.
A harsh bark of laughter came from Vivian. “Sounds like someone found the propane tanks! Hurry, Holcroft!”
She didn’t hesitate. The propane tanks kept in the lower storage level were huge; if the whole stack had been lit, they could easily destroy most of the building. Kala clambered to her feet and started running towards the door. A burst of flame just behind her told her a tendril had tried to follow the sound of her feet.
The two other people who had been hiding behind the table were already gone. Another explosion rocked the building as Kala tried to get through the doorway, and she hit the wall and held on to it to steady herself, blinking through the smoke to see into the hallway. More screams mingled with people yelling for each other and the sounds of feet slapping on the concrete floors. A burst of warm light to her left told her the flamethrowers she’d given out were being put to good use.
She took off in the opposite direction, towards the hangars. The smoke choked her, so she bent down and held the sleeve of her suit over her nose.
Screams and calls for help echoed through the hall, and then a cluster of people raced out of a corridor behind Kala, catching her in their midst. Someone shoved her from behind, and she picked up her pace. Most of the people surrounding her were coated in splashes of blood; one was hysterical, and strange hiccups of laughter broke through her wails as she scratched at her face with bloodied hands. Another was yelling and pushing at his companions, telling them to split up and stop running in a group. A second later, Kala saw why: one of the creatures spilled out of the hallway behind them, dragging its bulk towards them, arms lashing out to grab at the stragglers, its own deflated human host swaying limply on its back.
Kala twisted around, trying to catch a glimpse of Vivian, hoping her companion wasn’t trapped on the creature’s other side. Someone shoved her, and she hit the floor hard, gasping as her lip split and blood flooded her mouth.
One of the black arms shot forward and speared through the chest of a man who had been directly in front of her. He screamed, and Kala shielded her face against the spray of his blood.
She couldn’t think, or even breathe, but she scrambled in her pockets for a weapon. Her hand closed over a hard, cool, round object—her last grenade. She pulled it out, tugged the ring free, and hurled it at the black beast.
Kala didn’t stop to watch where it landed but gained her feet awkwardly, ignoring the pain in her lip and the ache of her knees and palms where the concrete had sliced through her suit. Pressing both hands over her ears, she ran as fast as she could.
Chapter Seventeen
The explosion travelled through her like a shockwave. The hollow inside of her chest vibrated, but she managed to keep her feet this time, squinting against the smoke and throwing the weight of her body forward to maintain momentum. The group that had swelled around her dispersed. Some veered off towards the living quarters, others towards the kitchen. She turned left, taking the detour that led to the hangar and the labs. Scorch marks marred the walls, and two bodies lay on the ground. She recognised them as the men she’d given two of the flamethrowers to.
They probably met Stanos while they were trying to escape.
The hallway overlooking the hangar was empty. As the door shut behind her, the sounds of fighting died into gentle background noise. Even an explosion didn’t do much except shake the ground beneath her feet.
She could see the ship Stanos had arrived on, still connected to the extendable walkway. The fighting must have started before the hangar workers could refuel, clean, and settle the ship into its usual docking place. That was good news for her.
She counted the offshoots in the walkway until she found the one she remembered Stanos coming out of and followed it down towards the ship. The passageway was refreshingly clean and calm. Kala could almost believe the last hour had been a particularly traumatic movie, and she was now exiting the theatre and returning to the real world. What a good show. The special effects were really something, weren’t they?
She stifled a hysterical laugh as she reached the end of the hall and punched the button to open the ship’s door. It was compact but orderly inside. She thought about Stanos and his two co-pilots, navigating the ship home with borrowed memories, hiding their true, monstrous insides behind respectable human suits.
Kala glanced up the walkway towards the observation area. She could just barely see the doors leading to the living quarters, hiding unspeakable horrors. Vivian hadn’t followed. She wanted to wait and watch the doors, hoping Vivian would come through them whole and unhurt, but Kala knew the odds were abysmal. Even with the flamethrowers, the fight had been a massacre. The station was as good as lost; Kala had done her best to give the occupants the knowledge of how to fight the monsters, but she needed to get out and warn the other stations. How many mysterious calls for help had come in over the past ten days? Forty-five? Were all of those returning ships going to cause a repeat of Station 333?
Kala locked the doors. Anger and grief tasted bitter on her tongue as she settled into the padded pilot’s chair and began powering up the ship. Focus. Get off the planet and send a signal to Central. People need to be told about this. Do your job.
The Delta Shock hummed into life. Kala took two deep, stabilising breaths, relishing the clean air of the cockpit, as she prepared to launch.
A flash of motion in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Kala looked up and felt a cold chill sweep over her body as she saw Vivian tearing along the viewing deck towards the walkway. Her right arm was blackened with soot, and drying blood painted the front of her suit. She unhooked and dropped the flamethrower as she ran.
Kala rose out of her chair, hope and fear battling inside her, as one of the beasts burst through the door behind Vivian.
“No,” Kala muttered as she realised the impossible choice she had to make. Is it Vivian? Or is it a monster wearing Vivian’s body? If she wasn’t being chased, I could keep her outside until I was sure…
Vivian would reach the door in seconds, and only seconds after that, the creature would catch up.
You can’t risk it. You need to alert Central. Her life is a small price to pay to get an early warning out. But Vivian saved you. Can you live with yourself if you don’t open those doors?
Vivian was nearly at the end of the extendable walkway, fear painted across her face. Even though Kala couldn’t hear her, she could easily read her lips: Open the door!
Kala made up her mind in a split second and slammed her hand onto the button. The door drew open, Vivian barrelled through, and Kala pressed a second button, snapping the door closed and unsealing the walkway. The monster was moving quickly—too quickly to stop itself in time as the walkway retracted—and it tumbled from the edge. Its multitude of limbs flailed uselessly as it fell to splatter itself on the concrete hangar floor.
Kala didn’t wait to see if the fall had killed the monster or if it was already repairing itself. Instead, she pushed on the ship’s accelerator, directing it towards the open hatchway above them.
Neither woman spoke as the ship rose and exited the hangar. Kala gave the shuttle a burst of energy to escape the planet’s weak atmosphere. Vivian took the co-pilot’s seat, scratching at the flaky grime on her forearm. She smelt like smoke, blood, and sweat.
“You let me in,” she said simply.
“Yeah.”
“Are you an idiot? I wouldn’t have let me in.”
“Huh?”
Vivian scowled at her. The expression was comfortingly familiar. “I could be one of the monsters. What if I was just pretending to be chased to get you to open the doors?”
“You weren’t.” Kala gave her companion a weary smile. “Earlier, when we first bumped into each other, I was amazed at how… determined and angry you looked. Then, when you were running for my ship, you actually looked frightened. I’ve never seen either of those expressions on you before. That’s how I knew you were human.”
Vivian raised her eyebrow.
“Stanos—and the other monsters—mimicked their hosts to gain our trust. If you were one of them, you’d have worn an expression I was used to.”
Vivian blinked at her then nodded slowly.
A noise, strangely muffled and deep, made them both jump. Kala turned back to the ship’s screen and gasped. Station 333 was exploding. Billows of reds and yellows consumed the grey buildings, spewing black smoke.
“Looks like someone finally unlocked and lit the propane store,” Vivian said.
They sat in silence, watching as their home burned. The fiery lights gradually died down, and the thick black smoke that rose into the planet’s atmosphere dulled the glow.
“Will that be enough to kill them all?” Vivian asked.
“The creatures? It should get most of them, I guess.”
The monsters weren’t the only living beings to die, though. Kala couldn’t stand watching the burning station. She turned off the screen so that the cockpit was nearly black, illuminated only by the panel’s display screens. She hoped it was too dark for Vivian to see the tear tracks on her face.
“You’re not an idiot,” Vivian said after a pause. “It was wrong of me to call you one.”
Kala blinked in surprise. “Oh. Thanks.” She cleared her throat. “And thanks for looking out for me back there. I don’t know where I’d be without your help.”
