A sick feeling rises in my gut as I scan my surroundings. Another couple of lumps lie in the distance—more bodies. They are everywhere.
A gasp of wind rushes past, chilling me even through my spacesuit. I pause for a moment, listening for the sound of those monsters. If any of them are still around, I don't want to take another step closer and risk letting them hear me.
I lower myself to a squatting position, and I wait. I keep most of my weight on my good ankle, but I stay on my toes, ready to run if I see anything.
The next ten minutes drag on for what feels like an hour. I watch the clock in the display of my helmet, listening to nothing but the sound of my own heart pounding against my ribs and the occasional gust of wind roaring across the wasteland. I can't wait here forever. I need to get moving.
"Hello?" I finally call in a shaking voice, rising to my feet. If anything is alive out there, I don't want to be startled by it. I want to know it's there before going in.
"Is anyone there?" My voice echoes through the void. I keep my eyes trained on the starship, waiting for something to move, but everything is still.
A breeze gusts through the clearing, kicking up a rust-red dust. A chill shudders through my entire body.
I'm alone.
It's now or never.
My legs shake as I approach the spaceship. I make my way around the first body, holding my breath like I'm afraid my breathing will disturb the lifeless corpse.
The man lays on his front with his arms stretched out in front of him, like he was crawl to get away from something. Blood congeals around a massive bite on his right thigh. His left leg is missing from the knee down. Tiny, white maggots crawl within the remaining flesh, like rotten meat left in a dumpster. A few yards behind him, I spot the rest of his leg . . . or at least what is left of it. It's now nothing but a boney stump in a boot. Parasites pick away at the few remaining traces of muscle and skin.
The man's mouth gapes in a permanent scream. I know I must have met him during the orientation, but for the life of me I can't remember his name. His eyes are open—two pale blue irises blindly staring into the world. A single worm scurries across the surface of one of them before crawling beneath his lower eyelid. My stomach rolls with sickness.
His death must have been excruciating. I can only pray that it was quick.
At least he actually died, a haunting voice at the back of my head reminds me. He didn't have to go through the horror that Devin did—changing like that. What must it have felt like for Devin? I'm sure the physical pain was unbearable, but he lost his mind, too. What was that like? What did it feel like to suddenly have your soul and sanity stripped away?
I push the thoughts from my head as I pass the second body. The back of her spacesuit is torn open, revealing bite wounds where chunks have been ripped out of her flesh. Her rib bones and spine are exposed in a few places. Worms crawl across them, picking the flesh from the bone and devouring it. In just a few days, she'll be nothing but a skeleton.
As I inch my way around her, I get a look at her face. Blood and dirt cake her dark hair, and her cheeks are splotched with red. Her eyes are closed, but something moves beneath the lids—squirming. Even through the dirt, I know I recognize her face, but as with the man, I can't recall her name.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper.
Her right eye twitches, oozing a dozen maggots onto her cheek. I choke back a scream as one of them crawls into her nose.
I don't want to see anymore. I turn on my heels and jog the rest of the way to the starship. Between me and the stairs, a third corpse is decaying in a puddle of bloody dirt. I try not to look, but I can't help but see his mangled body out of the corners of my eyes—another crew mate I wish I could remember the name of. Now, he's just another one of these nameless bodies rotting in the depths of space—the depths of Hell.
I grind my teeth together. I can't let this happen again. I can't let another starship full of people land on this planet to suffer the horrors we have. I have to send the warning message.
I pick up my pace as I step around the third body, determined and set on my mission. When I'm a dozen yards from the stairs, the sound of something cracking echoes through the air. I freeze, chills rushing through me. The ground vibrates beneath my feet.
"Shit," I whisper to myself. I turn to my right. In the distance, the ground ripples like a miniature quake is tearing through it.
My entire body shakes as the dirt splits open in a chasm. Rocks tumble to the side and dust flies into the air. From where the ground has split, a massive worm storms out, shaking debris and dirt from its body. It's smaller than the worm swimming in the pond in the massive cavern and the worm we found digging out the tunnel, but it still must be at least five times my size. It opens its mouth, revealing a ring of sharp teeth, and emits a groaning croak.
My eyelids stretch as the sound pierces the air. The monster's wings vibrate as it pulls itself into the sky, dragging its heavy body out of the ground behind it. It smacks its tail and tentacles onto the ground around it, kicking up clouds of dust in tiny tornadoes.
Without a second thought, I run. The monster releases a spew of caws, searching blindly through the night. I dash to the entrance of the starship. The metal stairs click beneath my boots as I climb them two at a time, gripping the handrails with both hands to support myself. My fingers slip over the buttons as I punch in the code to open the door.
"Come on, come on," I mutter to myself. My fingers slip, and I type the code in wrong. A red light flashes in warning.
"Shit!" Why does this door even have a lock? I glance over my shoulder. The monster has taken flight. Its massive bat-like wings flap, struggling to hoist its heavy body into the air. With a rasping caw, it sends its beacon of sonar out into the air.
Finally, the light stops flashing, and I type the code in again, slowly and carefully. I don't have time to mess it up again. My fingers shake as I put in the last number.
I let out a gasp of relief as the light flashes green. The door creaks and groans before slowly beginning to rise—too slowly. The beating of the creature's wings grows louder as it closes in on me.
I don't waste a second. As soon as the door is high enough for me to fit under, I dive to my stomach and rush beneath it, crawling like a spider into the starship. The top of the door grazes my back as I scamper to my feet on the other side. I turn and slam my palm onto the shut button. Like a garage door, it shudders in place before descending to the base of the frame, and I hit the red lock button.
I thunder to the top of the fiberglass stairs that lead out of the airlock. I pause for a moment when I reach the top. The containment door that opens into the main part of the starship is open. That's against protocol. Someone must have left it like that when the attack happened. They must have come out to see what was going on and forgotten to close it.
I run my hand along the sleek metal of the doorframe as I take the turn into the corridor that leads to the pilothouse. Right as I'm depressing the button to close the airlock behind me, a thump vibrates through the frame of the starship. A second one follows, everything shaking around me. I grip the chrome-coated grab bar that runs the length of the corridor to keep myself from falling over.
The alien has reached the door. Even though there are no windows in the corridor, I can tell it's banging against the metal structure. This starship was designed to travel through space. The door will hold it back, but for how long?
"America, you better have put a hell of a fucking safety factor on the design of that door," I mutter under my breath as I make my way down the corridor. The floor shakes beneath me as the monster slams into the hull of the ship, a bit further down this time, then again, even further down.
Chills rush over my arms. It's methodical. Like it's trying to find the weak point.
The sister ship we found was covered in webs and algae—filled with the parasite. They got into that ship somehow—they'll find their way into this one.
As I pass the entrance to the galley, the ship shakes again, and the door swings open. I leap back, narrowly avoiding being struck with it. I bite down on my tongue, my heart racing. Why was it left open? The doors are all supposed to be latched shut when not being used. I grip the handle to it, holding it back to keep it from hitting me as I pass.
Before clearing the door, I pause. The sound of something creaking down the empty hall. Further down, another door has been left open—the door to the chamber with the icing pods. The starship shudders as the monster slams into it again, and the door screeches on its hinges, swinging back and forth.
As I brace for the next impact, a clicking sound rings out from behind the door up ahead. This sound isn't coming from the door. It's coming from inside the room.
Tap, tap, tap.
Like boots against metal—footsteps.
Chills run from the tip of my spine all the way to the base of my skull.
"Hello?" I whisper. I swallow a lump in my throat. "Is somebody there?"
Could someone have survived the first attack? Did they make it onto the ship and hide?
Click, click, click. More footsteps.
Everything is silent for a moment.
Then, a pale, dirty hand shoots out from within the icing pod room. Four fingers curl around the side of the door, grabbing it and pushing it the rest of the way open. It swings out towards me, hiding the person behind it.
Finally, the face peeks around. My heart stops in my chest. Two black, empty eyes meet mine, a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth opens into a grimacing grin, and I scream.