Lucy poked her head through the hole. The monster, though wounded, still lived and left a trail of green blood when it slithered away and sought refuge in the shadows. Her gaze around the gloom-ridden room revealed metal bars sectioned off a large alcove at one end and at the opposite end faint blue light shone through an open door from the corridor outside. The drop to the floor fifteen feet away would be a one way trip, but whatever lay below had to be preferable to remaining in the vent lacking an escape route if she was attacked by more of the monsters. She would stand no chance without the weapon she would have to retrieve. She hung from the opening and dropped softly to the floor of the room dimly lit by a single ceiling light.
Wondering if the barred area contained anything she could make use of―alien weaponry would be a godsend―Lucy took a wide berth around the tentacle monster’s position, given away by its ragged breathing, and approached the bars, but stopped a short distance away when she noticed something strange. Though the bars appeared to be metal that had a dull copper sheen, they intermittently shivered a rich, rusty orange. Believing it best she refrain from touching them, Lucy peered through the bars. A faint whirring came from inside a transparent container barely visible in the middle of the barred room. After she had moved around the edge of the bars she got a better look at what was contained within the glass prison. A fan at the top of the container swirled thick grey smoke around its inner sides. A four-inch tube connected to the side of the container led to a machine fixed to the wall with a smaller eighteen-high by twelve-inch-wide transparent container that had the appearance of a vacuum cleaner. Wondering what it was, Lucy stared at the trapped smoke. Though she thought she glimpsed eyes and a screaming mouth form briefly amidst the dirty grey fog before it was ripped apart by the turbulent wind, she assigned this to her present anxiety and nothing more than identifying shapes in natural cloud formations. When she turned away she noticed a door in the bars and a tiny green blinking light on the lock that secured it closed. An indication it might be a prison cell. But for what?
She glanced back at the swirling mist that had to be the reason for the excessive means of imprisonment. Whatever it was, if the spaceship’s crew thought it was dangerous enough to keep confined, she was glad it hadn’t gotten free. Lucy studied the sign fixed to the barred door. Though in alien text, Lucy’s mind tried to make sense of the strange symbols and formed images of an E, a V, a 1 and an L.
“Evil,” Lucy spoke aloud, shivering at the coincidence between the strange alien letters and the English word and hoped it wasn’t a forewarning of something worse to come.
Her gaze surveyed the rest of the room, but saw no more than she had seen from above. It was time to retrieve her weapon. With extreme caution, she approached the dark area that concealed the wounded creature, hoping to yank the spear out of its body and be gone. As she drew near she noticed it looked at her, its many eyes reflecting the room’s dim light. It moved. Something shot out of the darkness. Lucy glanced at the spear that slid loudly across the floor. It was a distraction. The monster sprung at her with its tentacles spread wide like a gruesome, living net to entrap its prey.
Lucy reacted quickly. She dropped to the floor and rolled beneath the creature. It flew over her and landed on the cell bars. Though the bars reacted with an increased brighter color shift where the monster’s flesh touched, the Tentacle Monster showed no indication it was affected by the change. Its vicious mouth and evil eyes melted through its body to face her. Momentarily stunned by the creature’s macabre and unexpected peculiarity, Lucy missed the chance to flee across the room and grab the spear before the room plunged into darkness.
The whirring drone of the fan slowed.
The green light on the cell’s lock turned red.
The click of the electronic mechanism was loud in the silence that had prevailed. Even the constant creaks and groans of the spaceship had ceased. It was as if the vessel held its breath. Lucy stared at the red light that flashed intermittently on the cell door.
A series of hisses emanated from the darkness within the cell.
Something groaned.
Whatever had been imprisoned inside the cage had awoken and was free.
Cloaked by the darkness, the Tentacle Monster attacked. Knocked off balance, Lucy fell to the floor. As the Tentacle Monster’s cold limbs wrapped around her body, Lucy lashed out with a fist. The monster screeched when the punch popped one of its eyes. She gripped the monster’s slimy head, her thumbs slipping in the gaps between its teeth, and kept its head at arm’s length. She rolled over when its tentacles slithered tighter around her arms, legs and body, clambered to her feet and rushed at the wall. The monster slammed against the bars of the cell. Caught off guard by the unexpected halt in the darkness, the momentum shot Lucy forward, stopping with her head only inches away from the monster’s snapping mouth. She jerked away, but it was a stalemate. The monster wasn’t going to release its grip on her and Lucy couldn’t or she would be killed.
When Lucy sensed movement in the cell, she leaned her head to the side so she could see around the monster and peered into the darkness. Suddenly the Tentacle Monster screeched as it was yanked backwards, dragging Lucy with it. Her head slammed into the bars, the blow cushioned by the Tentacle Monster’s thin body being pulled through a gap between the metal bars. She moved away when the tentacles released their hold upon her. Silence filled the void left by the ceasing of the Tentacle Monster’s screams.
As Lucy dashed across the room to retrieve the spear, she noticed a square of red light that hadn’t been there before. She rushed over to investigate. It was a cupboard and through the transparent door she saw objects bathed in the red glow that by their shape could only be weapons. She pulled the door open, snatched up the two weapons and fled through the exit.
The squeal of the cell door’s protesting hinges drifted along the dark corridor behind her.
EV1L stared at the open lock of the door trapping it in its cell. Though touching the bars would cause it pain, it was its only escape. It had been imprisoned for long enough. A smoke-formed hand reached out from its hazy mass. Oily darkness poured down the limb to solidify the hand when it gripped a bar and pushed open the door. The metal around its touch grew bright and seeped along its hand. A mouth formed amidst the smoke and let out a pained scream that only ended when its hand released its hold on the metal. Drained of the energy it had gained from the recent meal it had hungrily consumed, EV1L’s mass had shrunk and turned the wispy grey of early morning mist.
The strange two-legged creature that had escaped would have provided it with a little extra of the sustenance its mind and body desperately craved. As EV1L slowly exited its cell and floated across the room, wisps of its form drifted free and dissipated into nothingness. EV1L was dying. To survive it needed to find further sustenance quickly.
CHAPTER 24
A Sudden Change of Direction
SO FAR RICHARD and his two escorts’ journey towards the exit had gone without a hitch. No monsters had made an appearance and they had taken no wrong turns.