“BULLETS,” Elvis yelled again. “I need those fucking bullets now.”
Elvis struck out with his legs, trying to push himself along the ground away from the alien.
Bower couldn’t take her eyes off the creature. She was terrified. Her hands continued to run over the debris on the floor, but she never looked down. Then, under the fingers of her left hand, she felt the smooth cylindrical shape of a cartridge. Her fingers picked up the shell and felt for the bullet at its tip to ensure this was not an empty brass case.
“I’ve got it,” she proclaimed, as though merely finding the bullet had solved their problems.
Elvis backed up next to her, sweat dripping from his brow.
The creature seemed wary of leaving the cover of darkness. Could it be that the alien was light-sensitive? Probably not, she figured. More than likely, its behavior was to avoid the rebels taking pot-shots.
With one hand, Elvis opened the revolver, pushing on the main cylinder so it swiveled out to one side of the Magnum. Elvis pushed the ejection rod against his knee, knocking the spent brass casing out of the gun.
His hand was shaking. He held the revolver so Bower could feed the lone bullet into one of the empty chambers within the cylinder block, but she struggled to get the bullet into the revolver. Although it only took fractions of a second, she felt like she was fumbling for upwards of a minute.
Elvis had his back up against one of the mattresses. His head rolled lazily to one side as he flicked the chamber back into the Magnum. He rested the gun on his chest and moved the cylinder so the bullet was in place, ready to fire. Bower hadn’t thought about it, but it was only then she realized she should have placed the bullet in the upper chamber. She was horrified to think she’d slowed the whole process.
While they were preoccupied, the monster retreated into the shadows, apparently sensing the gun was now loaded. Bower could see the alien understood the danger represented by this weapon, even with only a single bullet.
“Three minutes,” one of the rebels yelled out above her. Although to Bower it felt like three hours. Sweat dripped from her forehead, running down her neck. Her hands were shaking, but she knew what she had to do.
Bower scrambled up the pile of mattresses as Elvis called out, “Find the other bullet.”
She was already on it.
From the spongy mattress top, Bower could see the creature moving around behind Elvis, forcing him to turn. Elvis had no strength left; she could see that. He struggled to turn himself, putting the revolver down and pulling with his one good hand as his boots slipped on the bloodied concrete. He was exhausted. He couldn’t turn to face the alien.
Above them, General Adan laughed and cried out with glee, enjoying the spectacle. The creature was almost directly below the general, but he was safe, well back from the edge, with just his upper torso visible from the ground floor.
Bower pulled herself away from staring at the creature, her eyes scanned the floor for the second bullet. It was impossible. There was too much debris. She could see several spent shell casings, any one of them could have been the second bullet, but from where she was, she couldn’t tell for sure. She went to jump down the other side of the mattresses and start searching, but she was aware the creature was moving in to kill Elvis. She couldn’t leave him. She couldn’t abandon him when he was helpless.
For his part, Elvis had rolled over onto his stomach. He had both arms out in front of him, even though one had been torn off and was little more than a bloody stump. He was trying to bring the gun to bear on this creature from another world.
This was wrong, so wrong. Ever since the aliens had arrived, Bower had visions of a peaceful encounter, a sharing of knowledge and of culture, of art and music. How had mankind’s first encounter with another intelligent sentient being come to enmity and warfare? Intelligence should be about caring, not fighting. Reason should rule, not base survival instincts. Her heart sank at the bitter reality that faced her.
Bower slid down the mattresses, landing by Elvis.
The gun was shaking so violently in his hand he couldn’t have hit the side of a barn.
Bower pulled the gun from his feeble fingers and his arm collapsed, falling to the concrete.
The hammer on the Magnum was cocked, ready to fire.
Bower had one shot. She had to make it count, but how? She had no idea how many people Adan had sentenced to death in his so-called colosseum, but that none of them had stood a chance against this monster was plain to see.
The alien braced itself, drawing its tentacles in, protecting its central core. Although Bower hadn’t seen what the creature had done to protect itself when Bosco fired, she had seen what happened next. One bullet wouldn’t make a difference. She knew what to expect. Her hand trembled, shaking as she tried to gain some composure. Sweat dripped from her forehead, stinging her eyes. Her fingers shook. The gun felt so heavy, as though it had a will of its own and wanted to fall back to the floor.
Adan was laughing. His white teeth glistened in the low light.
Bower raised the gun.
Gripping the stock with both hands, she breathed deeply, calming her nerves. Her index finger squeezed the trigger. The sudden crack surprised her, while the recoil from the Magnum threw her hands up over her head and she lost her grip on the revolver. The gun clattered across the concrete somewhere behind her.
Whip-like tentacles lashed out before her, a blaze of deep-red knives slashing through the air.
Bower sank to her knees, grimacing, waiting for the inevitable.
Above them, Adan reeled to one side, having been struck by the bullet in the chest. Bower caught sight of blood spraying through the air as he fell from sight.
She closed her eyes, not wanting to see what happened next. Although she could hear voices calling to each other on the upper floor, the yelling and cheering of the rebels had stopped. Those voices she could hear sounded muted and distant. Silence followed her thunderclap of violence.
She couldn’t kill the alien creature and she knew it, but then she didn’t want to kill something from another world. Perhaps it was misplaced idealism, but she wanted to think that two intelligent species from different parts of the universe could meet as intellectual equals, regardless of their technology and background. And perhaps, just perhaps, she would have her revenge on Adan for murdering Bosco.
She’d struck Adan in the chest, of that she was sure, but quite where was difficult to tell. She had to have caught one of the lungs, but she doubted whether she had hit his heart. If anything, she was surprised she’d hit him at all. Would he have a medical team skilled enough to save him from such major trauma to the torso? She doubted that.
Bower could hear the alien moving toward her. She grimaced, keeping her eyelids pressed shut, not wanting to watch the horror unfold. Loose stones and debris crunched under the creature’s tentacles as it edged forward. Bower huddled, making herself as small as possible. Warm tentacles ran over her face, through her hair, across her shoulders and down her body. She was shaking violently with fear, resigned to her fate, but slowly, the alien withdrew, leaving her kneeling in a puddle of her own urine.
After what seemed like an age, Bower opened her eyes. The alien was gone. She looked up at the shattered concrete lining the hole above. No one was there.
Elvis was unconscious.
Bower felt alone, and yet something watched her from the shadows.
Chapter 10: Water
Night fell. Dark shadows crept across the floor. Moonlight shone through the gaping hole in the roof above the shattered upper floor.