Savage (37 page)

Unnatural.

Every instinct, every primitive part of her, was screaming for her to run, to turn around, grab her friends, and run as fast and as far away as they could.

It rested within a nest of rock.

Sidney searched for the proper words as she looked at it, settling on something that was merely adequate, for there had never been anything, as far as she knew, like this before.

Its flesh was pale, translucent, pulsing with an eerie inner light.

She felt herself drawn closer, moving to the edge of the rock ledge to gaze down at the sight that filled her with such horror and, she hated to admit it, fascination.

It was practically screaming,
Come look at me
.

Perhaps it was the friends at her back that gave her this courage to confront the unknown, or perhaps it was just stupidity, but Sidney squatted at the edge of the cliff and peered down into what was nestled in the bowl of the cave.

It looked like some sort of enormous internal organ. Her thoughts immediately flashed back to the countless videos of surgeries she'd watched throughout the years at the clinic. Its gelatinous surface was covered in thick, hairlike tendrils. The long black appendages reached out, swaying in the air like the tendrils of some sort of undersea life form moved by the current, what looked to be flashes of electricity crackling from the tips of each of the hairs. Electrical flashes discharged into the ether.

“I . . . I think we should go,” whispered a voice that wrenched her from her current reality. She turned to look at a terrified Cody, wide eyed and sickly looking in the greenish glow emitted by the organism below. Rich furiously nodded in agreement. Snowy looked skittish as well, ready to bolt, the thick hair on the back of her neck and running along her spine standing on end.

Sidney knew they were right. This was far too much for them to comprehend, never mind deal with, but they needed to find their friend.

“We have to find Isaac,” she said, turning back for one last look, her eyes taking in the secrets of the underground chamber. Thick cords of flesh, like roots, spread out from beneath the organism across the rocky floor to flow up the sides of the damp stone walls. From this network of veins, large, fleshy sacks like strange clusters of perverted fruit dangled down from the ceiling.

The sacks moved, the skin languidly stretching taut as something shifted within.

“Sidney, please,” she heard Cody say. His voice was trembling. “I'm really, really scared and—”

Isaac's scream cut through the silence of the cave like a knife.

Sidney froze as her eyes searched for her friend. She found him at the far end of the cavern, wedged deeply into a corner, cowering and crying as something attacked him.

“We've got to do something,” she said, looking for a way down onto the chamber floor.

“Are you nuts?” Rich asked, already moving to go. “We need to get the hell out of here and tell somebody about—”

Isaac cried out again, and she was on the move.

“Sidney, no!” Cody hissed.

She climbed over the edge of the cliff, finding enough hand- and footholds in the rock to allow her to begin to descend to the cave floor without too much trouble.

Cody watched her with absolute panic.

“She's going to get us killed—or worse,” she heard Rich say, and she couldn't say that he was wrong, but she couldn't leave her friend.

She wasn't too far from the floor of the chamber when a section of the rock face crumbled away beneath her foot. She lost her hold and fell from the wall.

“Sidney!” Cody screamed.

Snowy had started to bark like crazy, the sound reverberating throughout the chamber.

So much for stealth,
she thought just before landing on her back. She lay there stunned for a moment, looking up at the cave ceiling going in and out of focus, noticing the multiple fleshy sacks of varying sizes hanging above her, throbbing with life.

She managed to push herself up, rolling onto her side and crawling to her feet. Her spine felt bruised, but she didn't think she was hurt in any other way as she started across to where she'd seen her friend.

Isaac had been wedged into a corner, and one of the thick, fleshy roots that emerged from beneath the organism had attached itself to his lower half, a viscous liquid flowing from the veined appendage to cover him. Taking in the disturbing sight, she believed she now understood the origins of the sacklike objects that hung around them and found herself wondering what the others contained.

Isaac had gone eerily silent, the liquid skin solidifying as it flowed onto his body, cocooning him.

She stepped closer, and his eyes widened with recognition.

“Don't worry, Isaac,” she said, trying to figure out what she would do next. “I'm going to get you out of this.”

There was a noise behind her, and she turned to see Cody coming down the wall, Rich following closely. Snowy remained on the ledge, barking and pacing as she tried to figure out how she too could join them. Sidney was glad that she was up there, not wanting to see her hurt in any way.

“What's it doing to him?” Rich asked as he and Cody came to stand beside her, looking at poor Isaac.

“That,” she said pointing out the hanging sacks. “We have to get him free.”

She had no desire to come in contact with the vein but knew that there wasn't any other way. Reaching to her belt, she removed the knife.

“What the hell are you doing?” Cody asked, eyes darting around.

“What does it look like?” She was ready to cut into the fleshy root.

“You can't do that,” he hissed, grabbing her arm.

Sidney looked at him, and he must have seen the determination in her eyes.

“But what if it . . . ,” he started, turning to look at the alien organism as it pulsed and writhed within its nest of rock.

“We have no idea what it will do,” she said, freeing her arm from him.

“And is that a good thing?” Rich asked.

“Well we can't leave him like this,” Sidney said, looking to Isaac, his body now almost completely cocooned within the viscous fluid secreted from the puckered end of the appendage.

Without further interruption, Sidney went to work, sinking the blade of the sharp kitchen knife into the rubbery flesh of the vein. Thick, black, foul-smelling fluid spurted up from the wound as she hacked and cut. It was disgusting, and she wanted so badly to vomit, but she decided that she could throw up later when Isaac was free.

“Sid,” she heard Cody say from behind her.

“I'm busy,” she said, grunting as she continued to cut through the thick muscle and fat. It was like cutting into an enormous earthworm.

“Sid, something's wrong,” Cody said more forcefully, and she took a moment to see what he was talking about.

Something was most definitely wrong.

The organism was throbbing and pulsating even faster now, and the greenish light it emitted had changed to an angry red. The end that she'd cut suddenly recoiled, spewing gouts of fluid as it was drawn back beneath the undulating mass.

“I think it's pissed,” Rich said, and Sidney had to agree.

The organism had started to expand and then quickly contract, all the while growing darker and darker in color. It now resembled an enormous clot of blood as it quaked.

Sidney returned her attention to Isaac, tearing away the solidifying flesh that covered his body.

“You all right?” she asked him as she peeled the rubbery skin away.

Isaac stared at her blankly, his mouth moving, though no sound came out. It was as if he was in shock.

“We're going to get you out of here,” she reassured him. “Can you stand up?”

She tried to help him stand with Cody's help, and then things went from bad to worse.

“Oh shit,” Rich said. “Guys.”

They all looked up and watched as the multiple fleshy sacks hanging from the walls and ceiling began to react, each of them splitting open, what was inside splashing to the cave floor.

From the viscous puddles on the cave floor, animals emerged, but they were animals the likes of which had never been seen before.

They were like the twisted thing that had attacked them in the tunnels—horrible mixes of pre-existing animal life that made up what was best described as monsters.

“The bad radio,” Isaac said, his voice slurring as if drunk. “The bad radio is angry.”

“No kidding,” Sidney said, pushing the stumbling youth as gently as she could toward the end of the cave where they would, hopefully, make their escape from the cavern floor.

Hopefully.

The monsters came at them silently, their silver right eyes reflecting red in the pulsing light of the alien organism.

Something undulated across the cave floor, and Sidney was certain it had once been partially a seal. Its mouth opened wider and wider as it came at them, lobsterlike appendages erupting from its fleshy gray sides helping to move its smooth body over the rocks.

Cody was the first to react. He charged toward the twisted thing with a yell, meeting it halfway and jamming his spear into its sausage-shaped body. The thing did not even scream as the carving fork pierced its monstrous flesh.

There were others converging now.

“We're not going to make it out of here,” Rich said breathlessly, standing beside her. Sidney still held the knife, which was covered in the blood of the thing that she believed was somehow responsible for all that had happened to her friends, to her family.

To her home and island.

She had hurt the thing that pulsed and jiggled and shot sparks into the air; her hand was covered with its blood. And as the swarm of monsters came toward them, she swore she would hurt it again. She would make it so this thing remembered her.

She would kill it if she could.

What might have once been a muskrat, now with multiple pairs of dragonfly-type wings, flew at them from across the cave, and she tensed, ready to fight. Holding out her knife, she watched as it circled them from above and then dropped down. The thing was awkward in flight, heavy, as it landed on her shoulder, its multiple, vein-covered, cellophane-like wings fluttering noisily like crinkling paper as it attempted to maintain its purchase upon her. She grabbed the thing in her hand, its thickness disgusting to the touch, and brought it to the ground, pinning it and stabbing it repeatedly.

“We're going to fight,” Sidney said loudly and strongly enough for her friends to hear and, hopefully, be inspired. “We're going to fight for as long as we can, and then we're getting out of here.”

“It's good to have goals,” Rich said, hefting both his meat tenderizer and homemade knife-sword.

Cody was still out in front of them, his spear flashing in the red light of the alien mass as the twisted bodies piled up in a ring around him.

They could hear the sounds of more life forms—monsters—being birthed from the leathery sacks, the tearing noise followed by the disgusting sound of new life landing upon the cave floor with a wet plop.

And the scarlet-hued organism continued to beat and writhe, bolts of crackling energy traveling up the ends of the thick black hairs to shoot off into space. Sidney knew that meant something, and if she was able to stop it—

“Sidney, watch out!” Rich screamed as a hairless dog with the face of a snapping turtle charged her like a bull. He threw himself in front of her and Isaac, his metal meat hammer coming down hard on the side of the turtlelike head with a horrible squishing sound. The creature's head exploded as its muscular body thrashed upon the ground. Rich kicked it aside, ready for whatever was coming next.

They were making slow progress across the cave, keeping the jagged walls of the chamber to their backs. Sidney watched her dog from a distance, the white German shepherd still crazily pacing upon the rock ledge, desperate to come down to them, but each and every time the dog would look at her, Sidney was sure to show her the hand signal to stay.

Stay. Do not come down here.
She did not want to see her baby, her best friend, hurt in any way.

Stay.

The number of animals attacking them continued to grow. For every one they bludgeoned, stabbed, or speared, three more twisted things seemed to emerge to take their place.

And they killed those as well.

Even Isaac had gotten into the game, using large rocks as his weapons, throwing the stones with incredible force or slamming them down upon soft, hairless bodies.

But how long can we keep this up?
Sidney wondered, feeling her exhaustion beginning to take hold. She wasn't moving as fast now; the monsters were able to get closer before she could strike them down.

Sidney pushed the thought from her mind as they got close to an area where it looked as though they might be able to climb up onto the ledge. This was where they would make their stand, she decided, where they would either escape or meet their end. It sounded like an action movie cliché, but at that moment, as they watched the malformed life forms attacking them, she was amazed, and a little bit amused, at how true it was.

The animals were becoming faster, even more aggressive, if that was possible. It was almost as if the pulsating red thing in the center of the room sensed that they might actually escape and had no intention of letting them do so.

“We've got to start climbing,” Sidney said. She'd taken Rich's short spear-sword and was slashing and jabbing to keep the latest wave of creatures back. Cody darted forward, stabbing with the longer spear, then returning to where they stood before darting forward again.

“You start,” he said.

“No way,” Sidney answered. “You and Rich help Isaac,” she said, pausing for a moment to plunge the end of Rich's short, bladed weapon into the eye of something that had once been a dog, though now she had no idea what it was.

“Help Isaac, get up onto the ledge, and then you can help me.”