He pauses at Justin’s doorway, surveying the scene.
His nephew lies face-down in the middle of the room. Nothing else is amiss, but that’s not saying much. There’s really nothing to be amiss. Justin has been sleeping on his bare cot. He never even took his bedding out of storage. The only conspicuous object is the photograph lying by his head. With a start, Jack wonders if the kid killed himself.
He rushes in and turns him over. Immediate relief. A purple knot rises from Justin’s temple, a spot of blood down his cheek. His chest moves up and down. He snores.
Jack sighs and sits back. He transmits to Lana, whispering, “Justin’s fine. Looks like he knocked himself out.”
She knows better than to respond. Any noise could stir the creatures.
He flips the photograph over. In it, a young Justin tips a birthday cake to the camera. Jack counts eight candles. Justin’s missing both of his front teeth, grinning like he means it. His parents squat on either side, a little awkwardly, their hands on his shoulders. Jack’s brother, Terry, has a twinkle in his eye. His sister-in-law has been caught mid-blink. A happy moment. Genuine. Jack feels a wave of sorrow rising. His brother’s son. His own nephew. Look at all Jack has done for him.
Focus.
They need to get to the pod.
He tucks the photo into Justin’s front pocket and grips his shirt and shakes him. “Wake up, kiddo.”
Nothing. Not even a groan.
Jack raises a hand for a hard slap, but stops.
He slides his arms under Justin’s torso and struggles to scoop him up. For a skinny kid, he weighs a hell of a lot. His head lolls back like a baby’s, then he snorts and jerks upright and screams, pounding fists on Jack’s back and head. “Got me!” he howls. “Help! Got me! Heeelp!”
Jack drops him hard and tries to shut him up. “It’s me, Justin! Uncle Jack!” But he’s beyond consolation, eyes wild, practically frothing at the mouth. He backs against his wardrobe still throwing his fists and doesn’t stop until Jack jumps him and claps a hand over his mouth and tells him to shut the goddamn fucking hell up before he gets them killed.
“Jack,” Belinda calls. “Get out of there. Right now.”
Movement in Justin’s room. Hard to tell what’s going on. The cameras don’t pick up sound. It looks like Justin is awake. That’s a good thing. Maybe.
“Switch to the kitchen,” Lana says.
Utensils lie scattered across the floor, and one of the stoves has been flipped. Wires stick up jagged from cracks in the tile. The metal legs have been snapped in half. The creature is nowhere in sight.
“What the hell,” Stetson says.
“Hallway,” Lana says.
“Oh no.”
The dining room door is mangled, a hole torn through its center. Shards of jagged metal cling to the walls and ceiling. Stetson swivels the camera 180 degrees and there is the creature, bounding on thick legs, its movements fluid, each stride covering its full body length.
Hunter lifts her portable. “Belinda, hit that fucker.”
“I am. Look.”
Stetson changes to a camera down the hall. The thing charges ahead. The laser is invisible, but they can see its effect, or lack thereof. The creature unzips down the middle, but the two halves throw tentacles against the wall and ceiling, grip handles and swing forward to keep from falling. The halves reach for each other and seal together as if nothing happened, legs still moving below it. The turret, which can cut through bone like butter, is useless.
“Faster, goddammit!”
They near the doors to the forward grav-shaft, Justin unsteady, Jack shoving him in the back. The creature slams through doors behind them, one after another. Simple, thin, poorly made doors. Little more than partitions. They hardly slow the creature. It thumps and slithers after them.
Bel opens the landing doors. Jack and Justin leap across the shaft, buoyed by Zero-G. They flash through the next set. Before they’re out, the creature crashes against the previous set, stressing the hinges.
The panic pod is fifteen paces away. Closed.
“Lana, the door!”
The panic pod opens and a figure steps out, backlit by white light.
Dino, a goddamn guardian angel. He comes nearer and Jack waves him back.
Bang.
The creature hits the final door. All that stands between them and it.
Bang.
He is just ten feet from the pod.
Justin makes it. Dino grips his arm and whips him inside.
Crunch.
The thing pours into the hall. Cla-bump, cla-bump, cla-bump, it lopes like a horse on python legs.
Dino spots it. His eyes go huge.
Jack’s body is electric, hairs on end, skin rippled with gooseflesh.
He is a field mouse with a hawk swooping in. It is no contest.
Dino grips his wrist and gives him a yank and shove. Jack trips across the threshold into the arms of friends.
Dino comes in after him. Hunter pulls the lever.
Too slow.
It happens in a fraction of a second. The creature punches a single ropy appendance through the shrinking gap between the doors, aiming for Dino’s face. Dino reacts. With his right hand, he takes a mighty swing at the incoming tentacle, thrusting his arm through the doorway. Upon impact, the creature’s limb blooms like a wireframe flower, wrapping Dino’s forearm. The doors clamp shut, two sheets of reinforced alloy that crush Dino’s arm just below the elbow. He falls back without so much as a grunt, the flesh severed cleanly, blood spurting across the walls and the ceiling and Jack. Dino falls against him. They lose their footing and go down. Lana lunges, producing a rubber tourniquet from a pocket like a magic trick, then jumps back, gaping at the end of Dino’s stump.
Jack leaps to his feet.
Dandy and his men scatter.
A mass of brown maggots burrows into the folds of Dino’s shattered limb. They eat fast and efficiently, doubling and tripling in length as the bone and flesh vanish.
Those aren’t maggots.
“Hunter!” Lana screams. “Rifle!”
Dino stares at the stump in disbelief, holding it as far from the rest of his body as he can, as if he might just cast it away. He releases a sorrowful moan and kicks and slaps the floor. Hunter steps up with a rifle. Lana kneels on Dino’s ankles to keep him still. Jack, realizing what is about to happen, drops onto Dino’s good arm. Dino’s muscles ripple and Jack wonders if it isn’t already too late. The creature could be inside him, licking through his body, preparing to burst.
Hunter takes careful aim just below the ball of his shoulder and fires a steady beam, her teeth clamped tight. The flesh hisses and the bloody stump drops free, the wound flash-cauterized and black. Jack and Stetson and Justin drag Dino across the tile, away from the severed limb. Everyone gives it a wide berth. Because it is no longer a severed limb.
A slug-like mass about the size of a grapefruit sits on the floor, a miniature version of the thing in the hallway. A scrap of fabric lies next to it—what remains of Dino’s shirt. A network of tentacles tests the air.
No one moves until it jumps at the nearest set of legs. Hunter’s.
She dodges. The glob slaps against the wall and stays there.
Hunter fiddles with her rifle settings, adjusting the laser, steps away and shoots the thing right in the center.
The cut heals instantly. No blood.
“No fucking way!” Justin screams.
“Cover it with some a thing!” screams the merc with the scar.