Dimitri entered the laboratory and popped the light off from the side of the wall. The room went dark as Hanna arrived just a few paces behind Russell. Dimitri grabbed Hanna and pulled her down against the tiled wall below the window. Russell slid to his ass next to them. Pierce took cover behind a column a foot away from Dimitri and Hanna. Everyone waited helplessly and silently.
Still reeling from Pierce’s audacity, Dimitri held his gun outward and ready. His adrenaline was pumping. Hanna curled up in the fetal position. She did everything she could to sit as flat against the wall as possible. Her eyes rolled upward. The window ledge was less than a foot from the top of her head.
Everyone’s angst could be detected in the repetition of heavy breathing.
Russell grabbed the fabric of his sweater over his chest. I’m too old for this shit, he kept repeating to himself.
It had been less than a minute. The unsettling sound of a distant clamor gave a clue about the predators’ arrival nearby. It was the sound of heavy footsteps trudging toward them like an army of dysfunctional soldiers. The steps were loud and clumsy. Whatever these things were, they were not too worried about being stealthy.
An island cabinet sat in front of Hanna. The cheap wooden laminate was peeling away from the floor where there had been water damage probably some years prior. A red light from outside sliced across the cabinet and created a pattern. The light source was an emergency light near the entrance of the laboratory. The glass helped create the pattern through distortion.
Something cut across the light source from outside the window, disrupting the pattern. It moved in front of the window and stopped directly above Hanna. She slowly angled her head upward. Above her was the face of the creature. It was similar to the one she had encountered earlier. This one was different, however. It was much more developed. It was less agonized and seemed much more in control. It was menacing and on the hunt. The extraterrestrial was taller and appeared more coherent. It had long almond-shaped eyes that were vertical across the creature’s face. Its upper torso was exposed through the glass. It was fit and looked strong. Its head was less elongated than the one they had seen previously.
The creature leaned toward the glass of the window, peering in and scanning the room. Dimitri lifted his weapon.
Pierce noticed Dimitri’s movements. He was more concerned with Dimitri’s irrational behavior than the creature itself.
Dimitri tracked the creature with the gun as it slowly trod off and staggered toward the door. Everyone braced. The creature moved away from the door. Dimitri looked back at Hanna. There was a moment of silent rejoicing. A moment of calmness.
The door leading into the laboratory hallway shook from the outside. Everyone’s attention snapped in helpless worry. Dimitri aimed his gun toward the doorway, getting ready for the creature’s arrival. The door shook again. This time more violently.
Hanna braced herself for an attack. She slid her back up against the wall and lifted her fists into the ready position. Be ready, she thought. They were trapped. There was no place to escape.
Russell sat up to give himself some leverage.
Pierce looked back to Dimitri, waving his aim away. He wanted to delay gunfire.
The door shook a few more times before falling silent again. Dimitri dropped his aim and propped his head against the tile. He was thankful he didn’t have to use the gun.
Hanna sighed with relief and looked at the others with a sense of solidarity. She had forgotten the abandonment earlier in the hallway. Perhaps she understood Russell’s and Dimitri’s moment of fear. Perhaps she would have done the same herself.
The mood seemed to be slowly uplifted with each lingering moment of silence. Dimitri was still on alert and wasn’t so fast to breathe with victory. He slowly lifted himself from the floor and peeked over the ledge of the window. He gave it a moment. Everything seemed to be quiet outside the laboratory.
Hanna slid up against the column that Pierce had been hiding below. Dimitri moved his gun back into the ready position and slowly stepped toward the threshold of the hallway. He looked. He could see very little from his perspective. He was listening more than he was watching. The setting appeared calm outside the door. He turned back to the others and sighed.
Pierce rubbed the sweat from his face. He knew what was coming next.
Russell glanced around the room. His face soured with realization. Wait, something is off. He looked to the others with a discerning scowl. “Where’s Gail?”
The others took notice. They were almost embarrassed they had not observed she was missing first.
Hanna sat up in hurry. “Where is she?” she demanded.
Pierce sat quietly. He was contemplating his words carefully. He had been practicing his response for at least fifteen minutes.
“Hey! You hear what I just asked you?” Russell said in a judgmental tone.
“I don’t know,” Pierce replied from the side of his mouth, hoping it would be enough to satisfy.
“What the hell do you mean you don’t know?” Russell replied as he slid across the floor toward Pierce.
Hanna moved out of the way, creating a direct path to Pierce. There was nothing she could do to keep heads cool this time, and she could hardly care.
“I tried. OK? She flipped out,” Pierce explained, and he stood to his feet.
Russell mounted up from the floor and got into Pierce’s face, backing him up into the column. “I’m not going to ask you again.”
Dimitri angled back to the conversation, still covering the threshold of the hallway.
“You had one fucking job, man,” he asserted.
“Look. She flipped out. I couldn’t control her. What was I supposed to do?” Pierce continued.
“Keep her safe,” Hanna interjected.
The room went silent. Pierce knew his alibi was bad. The others weren’t buying his bullshit.
“I’m telling you. She’s sick. There’s something wrong with her. It’s better that she’s out of here and away,” Pierce replied.
Russell stepped up closer. Hanna saw his fists curling up with rage. This is going to be bad.
“There’s nothing you or I can do for her. She’s a lost cause,” Pierce concluded with a nonchalant shrug.
The man’s words seemed to trigger something in Russell. Perhaps it was the deeper racial dismissive meaning behind it. For Russell, it seemed personal. It felt racial. It felt as if he was quick to dismiss a black woman’s life. Russell responded in a blur, grabbing Pierce by the throat and shoving his head back against the tiled column. Pierce squirmed and gasped. There was no escape.
“What did you say, motherfucker?”
Dimitri stepped in to break up the fight. It was creating an unwanted ruckus. Maybe under different circumstances, he would have let Russell do his thing.
“Her name is Gail, you piece of shit,” Russell shouted over the commotion.
“Yeah, and she knows what she’s up against. She knows more than any of you,” replied Pierce.
Something about Pierce’s arrogant reply pulled at Hanna’s gut. The man spoke as if he stood on higher ground, both intellectually and morally. It was everything she could do to keep from knocking him off his figurative high horse. She knew more than any of them. She had been concealing her true reason for being on the base. She was, in fact, an auditor, but her job was much more than any of them gave her credit for. She wasn’t the type of woman who needed to prove anything, especially to a self-absorbed enlisted first shirt who was lucky he had survived as long as he had.
Hanna slowly sat up, regretting the words as they slid from her lips. “That’s not exactly true.”