Alien, page 11
Hank tried to explain some of those things to Kira that night—the good things, at least. He reminded her of what she could do and be on the new world, all the things she’d get to see. Finally, he convinced her to snuggle down underneath the blankets and close her eyes. Then he tucked her in, kissed her good night, and met Vickie down the hall in the kitchen for a glass of wine.
That glass turned into two and then three, and still, that night, Hank couldn’t sleep.
Hank had never been a spiritual man. He didn’t believe in a god any more than he believed in the monsters Kira was afraid were under her bed or in her closet. He’d seen enough throughout the galaxy to be both awed by its majesty and convinced that it was a combination of chaos and coincidence that had put together such a vast and savage universe. There was complexity, sure, but there was contradiction: a mindless force of inexplicable violence and destruction in the midst of what passed for order and even supposedly civilized sentience that suggested the human race—even at its pinnacle of scientific and medical achievement—was completely on its own.
Mostly, Hank was okay with that, with the idea that humanity was hurtling around space, clinging on for dear life, without a co-pilot, let alone a Force of Great Omniscience to oversee everything. However, it wasn’t a terribly comforting philosophy, especially on nights when it was hard to sleep and the storms lit up the sky outside the windows and the land beneath him ground away, threatening to pull itself apart.
* * *
Before the sun came up, he was out of bed and padding to the kitchen to make coffee. They would be leaving that coffee pot behind, too, and there was an irony in it that made Hank a little sad. It had been a trusty friend, in a sense; a thing he’d relied on every morning.
They’d bought it in the customs shop before boarding the ship that brought them to BG-791, and it had survived multiple washings and even a tumble off the counter. It provided them with such an important part of their morning ritual that Hank and Victoria knew they’d need it one more time, and so it hadn’t been packed, and wouldn’t be making the trip with them. It was going to be sacrificed to the moon just to give them one more cup of coffee.
As he waited for it to finish percolating, he looked around at the things which had provided comfort for years, things that had made this nearly empty house a home for over a decade. It felt to him then as if he was leaving little pieces of himself behind, in the path of that mindless destructive force that would tear them apart, pulverize and burn them.
The thought left him unsettled.
He’d nearly finished the small pot of coffee in that heavy haze of disquiet when Victoria shuffled into the kitchen in her robe and slippers. Her hair was delightfully wild in the mornings, even though she’d cut it short three years ago. She was self-conscious about it, but he found it sexy.
“Coffee’s almost gone?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
Surprised, he turned to the coffee pot and frowned.
“Oh, I guess so! I’m sorry—I wasn’t thinking. I think there’s still one bag left downstairs. I’ll go get it.”
She put a hand on his arm to stop him. “I’ll get it. I want to see if I left a sweater down there.” She turned and said over her shoulder, “Be right back.”
“I’d use the inside door, if you’re going to the basement,” he said. “Those clouds are looking pretty angry up there, and the ground’s been shaking something fierce since last night.”
Victoria nodded, blowing him a kiss as her slippers shushed their way to the basement door. She paused, her hand on the jamb.
“I’ll be glad when we’re all safely on the ship.”
He offered her a tired smile. “Me too.”
She returned it, then slipped around the basement door.
Hank turned back to the kitchen window, thinking about the evacuation. It was still too early to wake Kira; better that she get some sleep so she wouldn’t be tired for the trip. The overnight bags sat by the front door, and the rest of their belongings sat in moving crates in the USCMC barracks. They were ready. All they had to do was wait for the ship. Just a few hours, and then the tightness in his chest could ease again. He and his family could, this time, dodge the fury of that mindless destruction.
When Hank heard Victoria’s scream from the basement, his first thought was that she had fallen. Maybe the small quakes in the night had opened a crack in the floor, set the concrete polymer down on some uneven edge. He dropped his coffee mug onto the counter and dove for the stairs, shouldering the door open the rest of the way.
“Victoria?” He bounded down the stairs. “Victoria! Are you o—”
He skidded to a stop a few steps from the bottom, his attention immediately caught by the impossible nightmare scene unfolding across the basement by the storage shelves.
The thing which had its claws wrapped around his wife’s neck had hoisted her off the ground. Her cries were coming out as strangled whimpers as she slapped at the massive hand which held her.
The monster stood on two feet like a person, but there was otherwise nothing human about it. It was tall, a good seven or eight feet at least, with a curved, elongated head, an almost metallic sheen of exoskeleton over a jointed, bony body, and a long, segmented tail. Every part of it looked painfully sharp and deadly. It didn’t seem to have any eyes, but nevertheless, it appeared to be inspecting Victoria with a second, smaller mouth dripping glistening saliva. This extended from the depths of its larger one.
Hank leapt the last few steps, intent on freeing his wife from the monstrous thing, but the creature buried the claws of its free hand into Victoria’s stomach. When it wrenched those claws free again, Hank saw her bottom half twist and then stretch in a terribly wrong way. There was a fierce cracking sound, and then her hips and legs dropped to the floor in a spray of blood.
Hank cried out. His first instinct was to run to help her, even as her eyes glazed over and her chest shuddered, and what was left of her slumped in the thing’s grasp. When it dropped her to the ground, though, he saw Kira in his mind. Shutting the door, he dove for the stairs again and took them as fast as he could.
The hallway was a blur. His thoughts were swimming, his vision smeared by tears and panic. He threw open Kira’s door and crossed the room in two strides, scooping her up and putting her on her feet before her eyes were even open.
“Grandpa?”
“We gotta go, conejita.”
“Is the ship here?”
“It will be. We have to go now, though.”
“Don’t I need to get dressed?”
Hank took her hand and tugged her gently out of the room without answering. He didn’t want to scare her, not any more than he had to, but he needed her to know that he meant business.
“Stay close,” he told her in a low, firm voice.
“Where’s Grandma?” She looked around, the sleepiness finally giving way to alertness and then the beginnings of panic. Hank’s chest tightened. He sniffed, then passed his sleeve over his eyes to clear his vision.
“I’ll explain everything when we’re outside,” he said. “Remember, stick close to me, and keep quiet.”
He could sense her frightened gaze on his back, could feel the tremble in her hands, but he pushed on. First he led her to the gun safe in the cloakroom, where he punched in the number code to open it, relieved that he could remember it after all these years. Hank had kept his old service weapon from his time in the USCMC.
It was a VP70. He pulled it out now and tucked it into the waistband of his pants. Then he took Kira by the hand and led her to the door. From somewhere in the basement, he heard a sound like a squeal and a roar. It made the hairs on his arms stand on end.
Kira froze, but he pulled her along.
Hank thought of his neighbors. There was no telling if there were more of those things or if they had made it to other pods. He couldn’t worry about them now, though—he had to think of Kira. They had to get to the main lab.
Hank’s hand shook as he tapped the panel to open an exterior door. For a single moment he held his breath, afraid it wouldn’t open, that somehow the monster in the basement had cut the power. Then the hatch slid to the side and Hank tugged his granddaughter out into the blue hours of early morning.
“Where are we going, Grandpa?” Kira’s little legs hurried to keep up with him. Her hand felt fragile in his.
“To the labs, honey. Your grandma’s hurt. We need to get help.”
The girl was silent for several minutes. Hank listened for sounds of the thing from the basement following them—that horrible screeching that he thought might echo in his head forever—but the moonscape around them swallowed all sound except the muted crunch of the ground beneath their feet.
“Grandpa?” Kira’s voice sounded small.
“Yes?”
“Are we going to leave this moon? All of us?”
Hank did his best to hide the pain in his eyes.
“You bet we are, baby.”
“How did Grandma get hurt?”
Hank didn’t answer.
“Grandpa?”
“Yeah?”
“Are there monsters on this moon?”
Hank faltered, nearly tripping, but caught himself. “What do you mean, Kira? Why would you ask that?”
“I dunno,” she mumbled. “I just… I thought I heard a noise.”
Hank set his jaw and plowed forward, his gaze focused on the lights of the Seegson lab about three-quarters of a mile away. He wasn’t sure how to answer her question. He’d never believed in lying to children, but he didn’t want to scare her. She’d been through so much already. The irony was that an hour before, telling her there were no such things as monsters would have been an easy truth. It wasn’t now, though.
He thought of Victoria’s upper half hanging limply from the claws of the creature in his basement. What the hell was that thing? Where had it come from? And why his Victoria? Why now?
There were monsters on that moon… and monsters that had put him and his family there, right in their path. He wasn’t going to forget that, even if he wasn’t about to tell his granddaughter about them.
“The moon’s full of weird noises,” he finally managed. “You know—storms and tremors and stuff. That’s probably what you heard.”
“I guess,” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced.
“Don’t you worry,” he told her, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. “We’ll be out of here, soon. You and me and Mr. Bones.”
“And Grandma,” she added.
That tightness in his chest threatened to force tears again.
“And Grandma,” he added softly.
13
The Seegson residential section—pods built to house research scientists, assistants, volunteers, and their families—was a series of apartment suites connected by long hallways. Each suite had a kitchen, one or two bedrooms, a living room, and a bathroom on one floor, and a basement for storage and maintenance. There was also a small plot of land behind each one, generally used as a vegetable or herb garden.
Many of the apartments now stood vacant, abandoned by non-essential personnel in the months prior to the final evacuation. About a mile down a gentle slope away from the lab facility, the residential area stood on the edge of the Gatelands oasis, surrounded on three sides by small, rocky cliffs. Over time, the lab’s greenhouses had closed some of the gap between lab and residence, yet to Siobhan, the residential pods felt very far away.
It was still dark out, but the night had faded to a dull blue that muted the landscape. Roots and Elkins led the party, flashlights attached to their rifles, and were followed by Siobhan and Dr. Fowler. Alec brought up the rear. Camilla, they had decided, would wait at the lab, just in case they missed any residents who had made their way from the living quarters.
Upon leaving the facility they had discovered a vent cover, twisted and bent, on the ground near the west wall. Something had forced it outward, crumpling it like polymer foil. The sight made Siobhan’s heart sink. The ground beneath the vent was loose and powdery, and she could see tracks—large prints with two long central toes and two end-capping shorter ones, each ending in claws. The tracks led away from the building and down the hill before the rocky landscape obscured them.
The path through the greenhouse buildings disappeared into the dark between them. If something was hiding there, waiting for a chance to strike from atop one of the shadowed buildings or down some narrow alley, it would be on them before Siobhan and the others ever saw it. The long way, skirting the greenhouses, seemed like a safer option. They would be out in the open there, but then, so would anything looking to attack.
“Looks dark down there,” Elkins muttered, though it was hard to say if he was talking to himself or the others.
“Maybe they’re all sleeping,” Roots replied.
“Aren’t they the lucky ones,” Dr. Fowler added sarcastically.
Siobhan bit her tongue. She wanted to tell Dr. Fowler that they might all be asleep at the moment, if he hadn’t been making bloodthirsty monsters in his lab, but she didn’t. She simply squeezed the handle of the medkit she was carrying and focused on the silhouette of the residential pods below.
The wind picked up, lifting her hair and gliding along her exposed skin to raise goosebumps on her arms. The air nowadays always seemed heavy, like before a rain, even when no rains were coming.
As they moved past, putting the greenhouses on their left, the wind changed timbre and pitch. Its low whistle became a high, thin, keening whine, almost like a squeal. Siobhan gave the cluster of buildings a wary look. She knew there was a laser scalpel in the medkit, but it wouldn’t serve as a very good weapon. The blood of those things might spray into her face or run down her hand and arm. The same problem might happen with the cauterizer, too, she suspected. And the hypodermics wouldn’t be strong enough to pierce the creature’s exoskeleton.
Hell, if it came down to it, she supposed she could wield the kit itself like a hammer. Once again, though, she wished she was better armed.
They put the greenhouses behind them. It should have been a relief, but Siobhan couldn’t help feeling watched, as if something as-yet-hidden from the faint first rays of the early morning sun was waiting for them to turn their backs.
“We’ve got company, Sarge,” Elkins reported. “One adult male, one child.”
Turning her attention forward again, she noticed two figures in the distance, heading their way.
“That’s Hank Hernandez and Kira!” Siobhan exclaimed, hurrying down the hill. Alec caught up to her and gently took her arm. She turned to him, confused.
He smiled at her. “Just in case,” he said, and that was all he needed to say. Siobhan understood. Caution was a good idea for many reasons, not least of which was that one or both of them might be infected. She nodded slowly, a little sad at the possibility, and fell in behind Alec and his men.
Hank waved at them, and Siobhan waved back. As they drew closer, she could see their eyes.
Something had happened, something bad.
It occurred to her then that Victoria, Hank’s wife, wasn’t with them, and a cold lump of dread settled in Siobhan’s stomach.
“Hey!” Hank called when they got within earshot. His eyes were red. “Hey there! We need help.”
“What happened?” Alec called. Siobhan could see the muscles tense in his shoulders and forearms. He didn’t want to train the gun on Hank, but he was thinking about it.
Hank glanced at Kira, then looked at Alec. “It’s my wife. Something… something attacked her in our basement. I couldn’t… there was nothing I could do. We had to get out of the house.” While one of his hands held Kira’s, Siobhan saw, the other held a gun. That hand was shaking.
Alec saw it, too. His gaze moved from gun to little girl before he met Hank’s eyes.
“Is she…?”
Hank nodded.
“Did you see any other survivors?”
“No one,” Hank replied, glancing back. “Although, to be honest, I didn’t really stick around to look.”
“The thing that attacked your wife,” Dr. Fowler said. “What happened to it? Where did it go?” Hank looked at him as if he had just materialized out of thin air.
“I don’t know. I didn’t stick around to see what it would do after tearing—” He stopped, glancing again at his granddaughter. He shook his head. “What was it? What did that to her?”
“A Xenomorph,” Alec said. “Weyland-Yutani born and bred.”
For several seconds, Hank stared in silence. Kira, who had been very quiet, stared up at her grandfather with unspilled tears in her eyes.
“A monster hurt Grandma?” she whispered. Her little voice broke Siobhan’s heart.
“Yes,” Hank said finally. “I’m sorry, baby. She’s with your mom and dad now. I’m… I’m so sorry.”
Kira nodded, the tears trailing down her cheeks.
Hank’s gaze slid to Dr. Fowler. “Your monster?”
Dr. Fowler didn’t reply. Hank turned to Alec again. The grip on his gun was tighter now; its muzzle trembled.
“Can you protect my granddaughter?”
Alec looked him in the eye. “We can certainly try. We need to confirm the status of the other residents, but our synthetic is at the lab now. Roots and Elkins here can take Kira back there to await the evac ship. I’ll go do a lap through the residential pods and see what’s going on.”
“I’m coming with you,” Siobhan said.
“Siobhan—”
“Those people are my responsibility. I’m not going anywhere or doing anything until I see to it that our people are safe.”
From Alec’s expression, it seemed as if he was considering arguing further. He must have seen something in Siobhan’s expression, though, because he sighed and then nodded.
“Okay.” To Kira, he said, “Honey, are you okay to go with my men here and stay in the lab with Camilla?” The girl had often spent time in the lab with Siobhan and Camilla, practicing math or spelling that Victoria had given her earlier that day, and she liked Camilla. She had, in fact, taken to the synthetic very quickly as a kind of “auntie with superpowers,” as she had put it. Siobhan hoped the girl saw Camilla as a family member who wouldn’t die. Given her life up to that point, maybe that was what she needed.
