| |
Smith, Tashon, Rosa and Doran sped through the forest on the med bikes. They could see the ship a few hundred yards off, but no one was in sight. No lookouts on top, no guards at the working airlocks.
“What the hell?” Rosa spoke quietly as the group brought the bikes to a stop.
Silence, save for the whistling of a chill wind.
“Pieces of shit!” a voice rang out.
Tashon jerked his head to the left. “That’s Bodhi.”
“Then let’s go.” Smith revved the bike into motion and flew toward the stand, hoping Abe was somewhere amid the quiet emptiness.
Trees blew past him as he neared the ship, eyes searching the darkness for any sign of people. A scream burst from an invisible source. Smith knew whose it was immediately. Abe. The last time Smith had heard his son scream like that had been when Abe had broken his leg playing in the low-grav playground on the ship. It had broken in two places and took three surgeries to reset it properly.
“I see them!” Tashon called.
Fourth forms ran through the clearing between the two halves of the ship, a massive horde chasing them, a tangle of bodies and dark ghosts that moved closer to their prey with every passing moment. Smith had heard Tashon talk of the shadow and its synthesis with Aleron, but somehow it had attracted dozens more appendages, dark forms that seemed to emanate a sort of visible cold.
Smith looked back at the runners. Johann and Bodhi were in front, and Abe trailed behind, someone supporting him as they ran. Something was wrong with the boy’s arm, but Smith couldn’t tell what.
Smith turned the bike and headed straight to his son. Something had happened to him, and Smith hadn’t been there. He had been off in the forest, pulled down by the weight of those he’d lost, forgetting about what he had left. He pulled up to Abe’s side and called his name.
“Dad!” Abe cried the name as if he were a child again. “Dad.”
Smith looked at his son, then at his arm. Gone. Jonstin helped the boy onto the back of Smith’s bike.
Smith gasped. “Jonstin? Johann?”
“Talk later, Smith.” Jonstin slapped Smith’s shoulder and jumped onto Rosa’s bike.
“I’m okay, Dad,” Abe said from behind Smith.
Johann rode behind Tashon. “Glad you’re all right, farmer.”
Behind them, the beast continued to close in.
“We need to lure it into the engine side of the ship,” Bodhi yelled as he got behind Tashon. “Go!”
Tashon pulled the throttle and the others followed, increasing the distance between them and the shadows. Smith felt Abe’s arm wrapped around him, the stump of the other bouncing against his side. All he wanted was to stop running, to lift his son in his arms, to tell him it was all going to be okay. To tell Abe how sorry he was for everything.
“Shit!” Doran swore from next to Smith.
He looked over. A dark tentacle hovered just behind the cook’s head, as if relishing in the fear that seeped from the man’s sweat glands. Doran pumped his hand back and forth in a vain effort to make the bike go faster than its small electric engine would allow. The tendril drew a circle around his head and stopped, pointing between his eyes. It hovered. And in one motion whipped back around and struck him through the base of his head and burst out of his throat in a splatter of blood. His body was ripped from the bike, which slammed into a tree and fell to the ground.
A smear of Doran’s blood dripped down the side of Smith’s face. A sob bubbled up inside of him but stuck in his throat. He took a quick glance back to see roots expanding out of Doran’s floating bloody. The beast had ceased its chase as it converted another soul into a lifeless puppet.
They broke into the clearing between the two ships, increasing their distance from the now unmoving shadows. But Bodhi had said they needed to lure the bodies into the ship. Were they supposed to let that thing keep chasing them? Smith knew why. The engine was there, and if the shadow had come from the Fourth, Bodhi was going to try to send it back. With the engine damaged, it would likely be a one-way trip, if it worked at all. The shadows would not be able to come back, but neither would anyone who traveled there with them.
And Smith wasn’t willing to make that sacrifice. After everything, he wanted to see his son grow up. See how the planet would grow and evolve. Learn more about the natives. Perhaps find some of them alive. For the first time since they had crashed on the planet, he was not okay with the idea of dying.
***
Tashon stood with the others just inside the ship, the angle of the floor and walls reminding him of the agonizing trip he had made down with Johann and Bodhi after the crash. Now they were going to have to make the same trek, only up. And from three stories farther down than where they had climbed out. He realized he hadn’t seen Johann. But if he wasn’t hooked up with the shadows, he should still be alive.
Back outside, Doran’s shadow was complete. Aleron jerked forward and quickly accelerated, the black leashes pulling his crowd behind him. Tashon looked at Smith, his shirt off, using it to wrap Abe’s arm. Abe’s eyes flicked open and closed, his face pale and soaked with sweat. There was no way Abe would make it to the engine. And no way Smith would leave him.
“Bodhi, sir, you need to get to the engine room.” Tashon looked him in the eye. “I’ll go with you.”
“Me, too,” Johann said.
“I’ll make sure it gets in the ship.” Jonstin glared in the direction of the beast. “Smith, you and Abe should go now and lay low.”
“I’m with you, Jonstin,” Rosa said. “Let’s send this thing back to hell.”
Tashon thought for a moment to protest the statement. He had been to where the shadow came from. It was, of course, the Fourth. But, for Tashon, the Fourth had become something entirely different than what he’d imagined. It wasn’t a heaven or a hell. It felt to Tashon like it was an after that encompassed good, evil and everything in between. All in a plane that was higher than the one he inhabited. Was it a purgatory? Or just the next stage of being? Perhaps life after this one is not a final state, Tashon thought, but just the next stage of being. Tashon found some comfort in that idea.
But he kept this all to himself, for the monster approached. Smith and Abe dashed through a door looking for a place to hide. Jonstin and Rosa stepped back into open air, awaiting Aleron. Tashon turned to Bodhi, and they went through a doorway and began their ascent.
It was steep, and Tashon had to lean forward and grip the handrails to stay on his feet. Outwardly, it was slow and monotonous, but Tashon kept looking behind him. Expecting to see Aleron and his shadows floating behind him, ready to claim their next victim. His heart jumping at the smallest noise.
But they moved silently, as if talking alone would bring the shadowy possession upon them. Tashon had to focus on what lay ahead, no matter what it might be. Just get to that door. Make it to the next hallway.
The turns provided a short time of physical rest, at least. Anytime they moved sideways across a hallway Tashon breathed a sigh of relief, the short reprieve giving him just a few moments of clarity to keep going.
Soon, they made it to the engine room. Nothing followed them. No sign that their plan would fail.
“Let’s just hope Jonstin and Rosa keep those bastards in the ship.” Bodhi grimaced as he got to work on the engine.
***
Jonstin sprinted down an angled hallway, Rosa a few feet in front of him. The shadows not far behind. Broken pipes and exposed wires stuck out of the walls and hung from the ceiling. A few emergency lights lit their way, casting soft light into the darkened ship. Just enough to see a few dozen feet in either direction. They ducked down a new hallway and stopped to catch their breath. Waited to feel the ship shiver and burst into the Fourth. But when it did, would the engine be able to make the jump back? Jonstin knew that he would probably be stuck in the Fourth for the rest of his life. If the engine could make the jump at all. But it had to. If it didn’t, the shadows would continue slowly engulfing what remained of the survivors.
“Bodhi better get the engine to work,” he whispered.
“Shut up,” Rosa said. “He will.”
The thudding of bodies on walls grew closer. Jonstin stepped from behind their corner and stood in front of the beast. He screamed, then ran down a horizontal hallway behind Rosa, glancing back until he was sure the shadows were following.
They were, and he was sure they would continue to follow him, Rosa, Tashon and any human or living creature until the end of everything. It would not stop. He could see it in the way it moved. Steady. Not fast. Not slow. And the complete lack of emotion emanating from it. No love, of course. But there was no hate. No want. As Jonstin saw it, an apathetic journey slowly acquiring body after body.
What drove the shadow? Shadows? Had existing in the Third driven it insane? Or was there intent behind its actions?
Jonstin looked behind again, and caught a glimpse of Cosima’s empty body bouncing off a wall, being dragged by the countless black snakes that surrounded her. He turned back, pumping his legs harder.
Cosima. In the short time he’d known her, she lived with intent. Died with intent. What had Jonstin ever done that wasn’t for himself?
A mechanical voice buzzed above their heads. “Attention. Five minutes to next jump into the Fourth.”
Jonstin smiled at Rosa, nodded and then jumped back into Aleron’s view. The leading body and its dozens of appendages shook violently, sending a soundless vibration at Jonstin. It stunned him, and he felt an intense anger pierce into him. Did the shadows sense they were being sent back?
Aleron leapt forward, clearing nearly ten feet of space in an instant, yanking the bodies behind him. The body of the former terrorist stood a mere yard in front of Jonstin. The pilot grabbed Rosa’s hand and ran as a new tendril slid out of Aleron’s left nostril.
***
Tashon laughed and slapped Bodhi’s shoulder. They had gotten the engine to work. Barely. But would it be enough for one last jump to the Fourth? Enough to get rid of the possessed Aleron and his followers? Enough, perhaps, to atone for the countless deaths Tashon had caused? No, Tashon realized, he could never atone for such devastation at his own hands. But he hoped this was one step toward forgiving himself.
“We need to get out, Tashon.” Bodhi turned and threw himself down the steep hallway, sliding to a stop on the wall below.
Tashon quickly followed, glad that he didn’t have to maneuver Bodhi’s dead weight down and across the disorienting hallways. They continued at a steady pace, the speaker announcing each minute that they were closer to jumping to the Fourth.
Sometime between the three- and two-minute announcements, Tashon and Bodhi bolted around a corner to find Smith and Abe hobbling toward a partially opened airlock. Smith had an arm wrapped around Abe’s shoulders, keeping the boy upright. Blood dropped from Abe’s arm. His skin was pale, sweat pouring down his face. His legs trembled beneath him.
“Two minutes until next jump to the Fourth.”
***
Smith ran beside Abe, doing his best to push aside the fear that he would lose his son to the beast. There was no reason to fear that. The airlock was right there, and the beast was nowhere to be seen. But what if the airlock didn’t open? With two minutes left, Bodhi, Johann and Tashon ran from another hallway and joined them. Smith looked past to Tashon, making no effort to hide his fear. Less than an hour earlier, he had hoped with certainty that Abe would make it. The first time he’d felt any hope in days. Did he hope in vain? He tried to take one step, then another, then another. He kept his eyes focused on the airlock, telling himself it would open. Bodhi typed a code into the keypad on the wall. It swished open with a gentle squeak.
Footsteps, echoing off the slanted walls, pounded toward them from a hallway to their left. Smith turned around. Rosa, followed by Jonstin, followed by Aleron and his floating corpses.
“Shit!”
“Damn it!”
They pushed harder, moved faster. Abe’s foot caught on a broken pipe, and he flew headfirst at the inclined floor. His temple cracked against the cool metal and his body went limp, unconscious. Their pursuer came at them from around the corner.
“One minute until next jump to the Fourth.”
As if angered by the announcement, the shadows vibrated, pulsed. An invisible vibrating wave hit everyone, dropping them to the floor. Disoriented, Smith pushed himself up and looked for Abe. The boy lay on his stomach, his head closest to the shadows, which stopped. All heads focused directly on Smith’s unconscious son.
A new snake burst from Aleron’s abdomen and moved straight for Abe. Smith cursed and jumped to save him but slipped and smacked his head on the floor. His ears rang and his head spun. The tentacle swung up then down, pointing straight to the base of Abe’s skull. Just before it made contact, his body was pulled away and the tendril hit the floor, leaving a dark hole.
Smith blinked and realized Jonstin had gotten hold of Abe’s legs and ripped him from harm. Jonstin pulled Abe up and handed him to Tashon. Smith forced himself to stand and run to his son. The tentacle swung back into the air.
“Go!” Jonstin screamed.
He turned his back toward the tentacle.
“Jonstin!” Smith yelled.
“Just g—”
The tentacle stabbed into the pilot’s brain stem. His body went limp. Smith, knowing they needed to take advantage of the time Jonstin had bought them, turned and moved as fast as possible to the airlock. With wet eyes, he looked through the open door into the blinding light of a rising sun.
They were three stories from the ground below.
***
Jonstin felt the dark finger—he knew now that it was a finger—penetrate his skin and latch onto his brain stem. A cold, yet burning, pain passed through every nerve in his body. He went limp. Watched the other five standing by the airlock. Why weren’t they leaving the ship?
On his left shoulder blade, a hole opened up as his skin peeled outward, making room for a new finger to grow. All over his body, his skin peeled back. Finger after finger grew. He felt the frozen burn pierce outward each time, yet it didn’t bother him. It was how it was meant to end for him, he realized. Knew, somehow. As the shadow formed behind him, his vision started to change. His perspective shifted.
In part, he still only saw the airlock, his friends standing inside of it, stupidly waiting to get out of the ship. But he saw the mind of the shadow, too. And it was only one. The one behind Aleron. Everything it had connected to, everything that had grown from it, was in its control. They had all become a part of it.
And Jonstin’s last realization was that he would be no different. Now that it had hold of him, he could do nothing to stop it. The darkness weaved its way deeper, freezing him. Burning him. It grabbed hold of the very essence of his being. His soul. And burned it. Turned it cold again. Burned it. His insides screamed.
The shadow finished forming behind him.
The pain stopped.
His mind went blank.
