Read Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) Online
Authors: David Coy
Tags: #dystopian, #space, #series, #contagion, #infections, #fiction, #alien, #science fiction, #space opera, #outbreak
It was a
nightmare of course, a hideous, horrible nightmare. He smiled at how finely
detailed the nightmare was.
When he
opened his eyes, the dark walls of the tunnel flushed the dream-feel from his
mind and slapped him to clear awareness. The palpable shock of those vivid
memories were like a blow from a heavy pipe that caused him to stagger until he
caught his balance against the black walls.
He let
the water rain on him as if it could thin those evil memories or leach them out
altogether.
Slowly,
surely, he regained his composure and wiped what was left of the fluid from his
face and legs and watched it float away.
He stood
at the pile of clothes in the center of the chamber and considered it. What
was the point? Clothing wasn’t just body covering to shield one from the
elements, he knew. Clothing provided comfort and confidence, and furnished
some measure of well-being to the wearer. It was almost always better and more
comfortable than being completely naked, even if the ambient temperature was
over seventy.
He picked
through the clothes; and after a minute or two, found his own shirt and jeans.
Encouraged by that, he dug around some more and found one, then the other, of
his pull-on boots.
“Nobody
much cares whose clothes you put on,” the weak voice behind him said.
He turned
around sharply and saw a man walking out of the wet tunnel behind him. The eyes
in his head had that sunken hollow look that starvation victims have, although
he looked well-fed enough. His body was a roadmap of scars, and Phil had a
difficulty discerning just where the man had any more than a square inch of
un-scarred skin on his body. He couldn’t imagine going through what he’d just
gone through more than once, yet this person had obviously gone through it many
times.
“How long
have you been here?” Phil asked. He tried to put enough compassion in his
voice, but he really wanted answers and sounded impatient.
“Months.
Maybe. Feels like months,” the man said.
Phil
detected a hint of an accent in his voice, perhaps British or Australian. The
man moved stiffly to the pile of clothes and looked down at it.
Phil had
seen the look and heard the voice before. It had that detached, flattened
effect of a schizophrenic. The man was a walking dead—any meaningful, human
emotion had been bled out of him.
“Where,
or what, is this place we’re in?” Phil asked.
“Ship.
Alien ship in orbit.”
“How many
humans on board.”
“Don’t
know. Don’t care,” he said and started sifting through the clothes.
“What’s
your name?”
“Fred
something. Don’t matter.”
“Where
are the other people?”
“Down the
tube that way,” he said pointing. “In the holes, waitin’ to die.” He grinned
stupidly and chillingly at Phil.
This is
hopeless,
Phil thought.
The poor
son of a bitch is gone, beyond pain, beyond shock and beyond reason.
“Can you
take me to them? I need to talk to them.”
Fred just
looked blankly back at Phil. It was the blankest, deadest look he’d ever seen
in a person who was still breathing.
“Don’t
want to. Just walk that way,” he said and pointed again. “I’m going take a nap
here on these clothes.” With that, he sat down gently on the pile of shirts and
slacks and sweatshirts and blouses, and fell slowly over.
A moment
later he closed his eyes.
Phil
watched him for a minute more and knew he was looking at a man whose reference
to a nap on a pile of clothes was probably his last pathetic utterance. He had
completely lost the will to live.
He
thought about trying to get the man on his feet, but thought better of it since
he wouldn’t have had a clue about what he should do with him or tell him if he
had.
4
Buddy
Davis pulled his 1976 Cadillac El Dorado off Interstate 75 at RR 312 in
northern Tennessee just as the sun was going down. He had to piss and he didn’t
want to wait until the next damn gas station. Besides, he had that other
business to take care of, and he knew just the place for that. He looked over
at Gail and she was asleep with a half drunk beer stuck between her legs. He
reached over and snatched the beer from between her thighs and that woke her
up.
“Hey . . . that’s mine,” she said, rising out of her stupor.
“Not anymore,” he said and swilled it down with one long pull.
Gail looked at his big
‘ol arm
while he
chugged down the beer and liked what she saw. At least she liked it now when he
wasn’t using it to propel his big ‘ol fist at her head. His tattoos made him
look dangerous, at least that’s what her girlfriend Peggy said.
Peggy
would like to get her hands on them tattoos and everything else,
Gail thought.
He flung
the bottle out the window and floored the Cadillac down the gray two-lane. A
cloud of dark smoke trailed after it.
He
charged up to a dirt road cut-off about a mile down, no more than two tire
tracks going off into the woods, braked hard, and turned onto it.
“Where we
goin’?” Gail asked. She straightened herself in the seat and looked around. She
spread her legs wide and stretched up onto the dash. The Cadillac rolled its
length over the up-and-down road like a snake.
“We
shouldn’t be in here, Buddy. We don’t know whose property this is,” she said.
“Shut up.
I know what I’m a doin’.”
Buddy
looked over at her tits in the thin, stretchy top she had on, and nasty
inspiration struck him like a wet tongue.
“Get me
another beer.”
“Ohh . .
. ho..ho . . . yer gettin’ drunk,” Gail said with a drunken smile.
“I ain’t
drunk.”
He kept
driving until he thought he was in far enough and stopped the car. He jumped
out, took a staggering step or two away and started to relieve himself.
“When I
turn around, I want you nekked,” he said over his shoulder.
She
smashed a mosquito that landed on her bare arm with a quick slap, then looked
behind at the hole in the convertible top where the back window should have
been. The side windows were gone, too. The only thing that remained of them
were some little square pieces of glass she hadn’t gotten up off the floor.
“Honey,
there’s skeeters in these woods . . .”
“Hell
with the skeeters. Do what I said do.”
Gail knew
that tone of voice. It was his mean voice, not his real hateful voice; but she
knew what she’d be in for if she didn’t do what Buddy wanted. He’d get his way
one way or another. She wasn’t exactly all hot to do it at the moment, but it
might be okay. She reached behind the seat and pulled two more beers up out of
the bag, twisted off the caps then pulled off her top. A skeeter buzzed her ear
before she took her first drink and she slapped at it.
She
didn’t enjoy the sex because the skeeters bit her ass and the backs of her arms
while Buddy pumped her. He wanted it too bad to mind the skeeters but they were
driving her nuts.
“Buddy .
. . Buddy, honey these damned things are eating me alive.”
“Shut up
. . .”
Gail
slapped and slapped at the skeeters on her legs and butt and when one landed on
Buddy’s neck, she slapped that one, too.
“God damn
you!” he said. He jumped up and slapped her so hard and so fast she saw stars
and yelped like a puppy. “Don’t you ever hit at me!”
“But it
was a . . . was a skeeter Buddy . . . ” she whimpered, trying to cover up for
the next blow.
“Shut
up!” he yelled and slapped hard at the hands covering her face. The attack
stopped as quickly as it started.
“Aw shit!
Git dressed!” he yelled so loud it hurt.
He
climbed off her and standing outside the car, pulled up his pants, hissing and
puffing like an adder.
“Git me
another damn beer,” he said.
He pulled
the flattened remainder of a pack of Camels out of his pants pocket and lit one
up. He spit the first puff of smoke out his mouth with a speck of tobacco and
when a skeeter landed on his neck, he slapped it hard.
After she
got her clothes back on, Gail curled up tight against the passenger’s door and
sulked, smacking an occasional skeeter. She wished she had one of those little
portable phones so she could call her mama. She’d asked Buddy to buy her one in
the mall in Lexington, but he said they needed one of those like another
asshole.
It was
dark now, but she could see Buddy pacing slowly up and back and caught the
smell of his cigarette from time to time. She couldn’t see him do it, but she
knew he was running his free fingers through his black hair with his cigarette
hand. She heard the little grunt when he threw it and then the sound of the
empty beer bottle flying through the brush and hitting something with a hollow
ponk
.
“Want
another beer, honey?” she asked, and reached into the bag behind the seat.
“Git me
another beer,” he said.
“We gonna
spent the night here, honey?”
“Shut
up.”
Gail let him
take a few more swigs and a few more puffs.
“Well,
are we?” she asked again as nice as she could.
She was
used to Buddy not answering her right away and she wasn’t surprised when he
unzipped his fly and started to pee instead of answering right then. He got
back in the car and handed the beer to her.
“Hol’
‘iss. We gotta git further in off the road.”
He pumped
the gas pedal once’d and turned the key. The engine turned over several times
but didn’t start. He closed his eyes and Gail knew he was building up steam. He
turned the key again. Gail could hear the starter as it wound down.
“God damn
piece of god damned shit,” he said to the windshield. “I oughta blow you to
pieces.” He reached under the seat and got out the gun then he got out of the
car and slammed the door so hard the door handle popped right off it.
“Get out
of the god damn car, Gail!” he hollered.
Before
she could get out of the car, she heard the clicking sound of the big pistol as
he checked to make sure it was loaded. She hurried around the car and up behind
him with quick little mincing steps and hunkered there. It wasn’t a good idea
to be between the car and the gun when Buddy was shooting the car.
“God damn
piece of god damn dog turd,” he said lifting the gun and cocking the hammer.
Gail
pressed her palms hard against her ears to block the blast of the huge pistol.
When it went off she felt the concussion pop her in the face even where she
was. Buddy shot the doors this time and when the bullets hit, pieces of body
patching dropped off the holes that were already there. He was careful never
to shoot the windshield or the engine compartment because he didn’t want to
cause himself any problems that he’d have to spend money on. It didn’t matter
much if he shot the doors or the trunk—they were already filled with
thumb-sized bullet holes.
Buddy’d
been in jail on and off his whole life and Gail knew it was because of his
temper mostly. He’d robbed a liquor store or two in his day and he shot that
boy in the gas station once, but it was his temper that landed him in jail.
When he lost his temper, he’d do stupid, reckless things like this or punch
somebody over nothin’. Buddy was kinda big and when he hit somebody with his
fist, he’d hurt ‘em bad.
Buddy
shot all six shots into the door and the front seat then ran up and kicked the
door once just for good measure. Gail never could understand why Buddy would
want to murder his own car so much. He’d got it from his mother when she passed
on and it was in good shape then. He’d just neglected it and tried to kill it
once in a while ever since he got it. The only thing she’d ever seen him do to
it to improve its appearance was slap some body putty on the bullet holes with
a flat stick. It used to be such a pretty car.
Buddy
shook the empty bullet shells out of the gun then pitched the gun into the
trunk. “Git in, Gail.”
When he turned the key
this time, the car started right up.
.
“You’d
better
start you
sonofabitch,” Buddy said to it.
“Guess
you showed it a thing or two,” Gail said.
“Shut up,
Gail.”
He put
the car in gear and when he pressed down on the gas pedal, it lurched forward a
foot or two then stalled.
“Well
I’ll be a god damned son . . . of . . . a . . . bitch!”
Buddy
turned the key again and the car cranked a time or two then started, saving much
time and anger.
“Man o
man,” Buddy said. “I hate this fuckin’ car . . .”
When she
heard the smack, she thought at first that Buddy had smacked a mosquito, but
Buddy said “Ohh . . .” like he’d just stubbed his toe or bumped his funny bone
hard.
He reached
up and felt the sharp spines of the burr and a shock of horror went through
him. He turned on the interior lights real fast then turned his face to Gail
and reached up and turned the mirror so he could see at the same time.
“What is
this on me, Gail.” His voice had a scared, shaky sound to it.
When Gail saw it, her brow
knitted tight and her face scrunched up as if she’d just seen a toad with three
heads.
“I don’t know what it is,
Buddy!” she said, “What the hell is it, Buddy!”
“That’s what I said, goddamm
it! Pull it off me!”
He looked in the mirror
and tried to take hold of the sharp spines. As he tugged gently with his thumb
and forefinger, he suddenly slumped forward onto the steering wheel like a
corpse. She’d studied for a while to be a nurse’s aide until Buddy’d told her
it was a waste of both of their time. She’d stayed with it long enough to learn
how to take a pulse, though; and she reached over and checked his now. It was
strong and fast and she couldn’t quite figure why a big man like Buddy’d faint
like that.
When she saw the big
monster lumber into the car’s headlights, she thought at first it was a man in
some kind of monster suit. When she realized it was a real monster, all she
could think about was getting away from it. She screamed and jumped out of the
car and ran about two steps when she felt the sharp sting on her back; a step
later, she felt another. She made it maybe fifty feet down the road, then,
unable to move her legs another step, fell on her face.
She hoped if when the cops came they wouldn’t find the body of the
old woman Buddy’d robbed and killed.
Her
body was still in the trunk. They’d put him in jail for sure for that.
*
*
*
It was
deathly quiet in the tunnel. The twenty or so holes along its length gave him
the feeling he was inside a flute.
“Hello!”
he said.
No voice
came back to him. The rubbery walls sucked up his sound like thick felt. He
heard the faint, dampened sound of a cough coming from one of the closer
holes, and moved near it. He cocked his head to hear better, but heard nothing
more. He leaned against the sides of the opening and peered in.
The man
inside was about thirty years old and so black in complexion it was hard to see
him against the background of the walls at first. He was lying on his side on a
pile of blankets, unmoving. He stared blankly out at Phil with the same dead,
lifeless eyes of Fred “something” in the other chamber.
“How long
have you been here?” Phil asked.
The man
just stared at him.
“Do you speak
English?”
The man
only stared then finally replied, “No. No English.” His voice was soft,
musical and so low in volume, Phil barely heard it. The accent was African.
Phil
moved down the tunnel and picked another hole at random. The woman inside had the
same lifeless, used up look as the other abductees he’d seen. She was asleep
and Phil thought better of waking her up.
He
continued down and stopped at the tunnel’s dead end. The wall at the tunnel’s
end had an irregular seam down the center of it running top to bottom and the
composition was different than the rest of the tunnel, much lighter in color
and striated vertically. There were two raised, circular patches about the
size of dinner plates on either side of it. Phil reached out and touched one
and although he couldn’t be certain, he thought the wall moved or twitched. He
tried to replicate the effect by touching the spot again but couldn’t.
“It’s a
door,” the strong woman’s voice behind him said, “and there’s no way humans can
open it.”