“Thought you weren’t going to make it,” Razz said critically.
“It’s a long hallway, man,” Timothy snapped.
“Shut up, guys.” Harper’s brown eyes narrowed as he focused. Sweat had formed up on the hotdog shaped rolls of ebony skin on his neck, making them glisten. “The inner chamber is unsealed. Should be coming in here any minute.”
“We’re doing this in the hall?” the Sticker asked.
Razz checked his gun. “What’d you expect?”
A hiss of air released and a single blast of a horn sounded.
“Ready,” breathed Razz.
Everybody put their guns up.
The bodies rushing into the hall could have been a rolling wave of tree branches and knives. The Sticker couldn’t get a bead on what was what at first, not until Harper and Timothy fired their Fixer guns. These alien creatures, the Fanjlion, were humanoid, around five feet tall, rods of muscle over a small bone structure, skin with a mottled tree bark texture, like twig-men from some haunted forest. Each wore a tight white membranous material over their small heads. In the center of the latex-like mask, a square had been cut so a singular eye could stare outward, a radioactive pineapple slice.
“Don’t gawk, shoot!” yelled Razz. He kicked one of the aliens as it leapt for him. Before it hit the ground he fired into its face, the Fixer gun letting out a metallic cough. Golden blood burst like a water balloon from the pineapple eye.
The Sticker raised his weapon as a threesome of the Fanjlions sped toward him. He didn’t want to kill these things. He hated guns. Hated their sole purpose. Hated seeing kids under bloody sheets on the news. Hated… how after his mother left, his father went on a week-long hunger strike that he finally broke by eating a bullet from his Beretta.
The tallest creature of the lot charged out in front. The shiny black webbed hands that extended from the bundle of sticks that was its arm suddenly became blobs that elongated into blades. It flung the lethal points forward — the Sticker jumped back and opened fire on the group. The gun’s coughing sound played hell with his eardrums and the hardware grew colder in his hands with every shot. Taking the lead creature down dead in the chest, the other two aliens ended in a series of misplaced shots in the arms, legs and torso.
But they’re dead, is the point.
“The hell you doing?” shouted Harper, close to his side. “You’re wasting food. The heads, the heads, dummy!”
Or not.
“Well sorry!” he said, just as another group fell upon them.
Harper finished them: one and two and three and four, and number five’s head buckled back and it fell sideways on the pile of his companions.
“Shit,” the Sticker whispered.
“That’s how it’s done, buddy.” Harper flashed a deviant smile. “Come on, let’s back up Tim and Razz.”
The Sticker kept behind the broad shouldered man and rounded the corner where the two other Limbus employees waged a two-man war against a seething mass of Fanjlions. Harper took aim and began squeezing off shots into the crowd. The Sticker lifted his gun, but only for show. Harper must have had hawk eyes to make headshots from this distance.
Unconsciously Harper moved forward and the Sticker followed his lead. Over the sight of the gun, he attempted to track those red glowing pineapples — perfect bulls eyes when you considered them — but the alien gathering coalesced like a confused forest growing into itself and it was a tableau of chaos. The Sticker stuck out his gun, as though getting it marginally closer would help as well.
Then something warm and wet struck his elbow and his gun jumped out of his hand. The Sticker stepped back and realized that the warm and wet was him: he was bleeding from a deep slash down his elbow to the base of his pinkie, the material of his jumpsuit torn clean in half.
Harper took a few more shots and looked satisfied by them. He spared a glance at the Sticker. “What the shit? Did you lose your gun?”
“I—”
The next moment Harper’s head broke apart, first in a clump that took his right eye, then another that destroyed his jaw, the rest of the meat cascading gruesomely to the side and falling off. A single, thin jet of scarlet erupted from the neck just before the man’s body fell to the floor.
“Fuck!” the Sticker shouted.
The alien who had taken the Sticker’s gun took two steps closer, dipping its head as it walked. Its gloved hand around the gun mimicked a human hand, just as surely as it had mimicked a blade earlier. The gun discharged and the Sticker ducked and ran. He had no clue where, but he was running. The creature bounded after him. He could hear Timothy and Razz yelling, but he knew it would be deadly to look back.
The paneling of the ship changed suddenly. It was darker, with glowing red circuitry underneath. The Sticker took a left, charged up into the shadows and wheeled right. He could hear the Fanjlion thankfully fall for the trick and scamper into the opposite side of the room. In the dim light of this new hall, he saw his pursuer gallop up to the threshold. It touched a wall panel, made a circular motion with its hand, and a thick door slid over and locked with a hiss. It turned around and made an aggravated clicking sound, the Fixer gun poised over its head. No wonder it didn’t shoot me. It’s not coordinated enough to hit a moving target. Had Harper only known a few moments earlier…
The faces of Razz and Timothy filled the port hole in the door. They were speaking to each other, hopefully planning how to get him out. The Sticker’s body trembled. He was on the Fanjlion ship.
A bass trilling filled his skull as Fixer darts released right over his head. The Sticker swept down and ran, his every step only inches ahead of ensuing shots. The attack trailed him all the way across the room, where he was able to drop behind a narrow support structure.
Twenty-five hundred darts. Fifty unloading every second, likely. How many were left in the Fixer? At least three hundred outside… but after that last spread?
There was only one way to find out.
The Sticker shook his head once, idiot, and then hauled ass across the hallway. This time he counted, and hoped, god did he hope, that it wouldn’t be the last thing he did. Shots coughed after him, again, again, again. He made it to the other side and shielded himself around another support. Seven seconds. Another couple times and that should do it.
He made another run for it and immediately a dart grazed his hip. The Sticker slammed to the floor on one hand and groaned. Blood poured from his leg and filled up his work boot. Made him woozy. The Fanjlion’s feet scratched against the floor, somewhere in the shadows. The Sticker looked up and saw Timothy and Razz, mouths moving in silent shouts. They pointed to the wall. To the panel.
“Oh,” said the Sticker. He tried to stand. Hobbling left and right, he heard more shots ring out and impact sparks flung off a nearby support. He reached the panel and swiped his hand in a circle as he’d seen the alien do. A droning sound emitted and a light glowed behind it. Then died.
The alien lunged after him, firing what was left in the clip. The Sticker dropped to his knee from the pain in his hip, but it was good that he had — there was a clear path to that pineapple eye. The Sticker grabbed the eye and crushed it between his fingers. Oily blood ruptured over his knuckles and the Fanjlion made several husky burping sounds before collapsing on the floor, a column of gold running from its head down the dark paneled floor.
A minute later, the door opened and Timothy proclaimed, “That’s what I thought, override is always on the seventh panel.”
Razz immediately went down on a knee to help the Sticker. “You okay?”
“Yup.”
“Fucked up your new clothes, man.”
The jumpsuit was shredded, painted in glittering blood, of both red and gold variety. “Guess I did… that guy, Harper…”