This is a sci-fi piece I wrote in January. I wanted to see if I could write a scary story in the same way that the movie Alien has always scared the crap out of me, and I’m not sure about the result. Let me know what you guys think and if you know any good books or stories I should check out as examples of a creature feature in prose form.

Indemnity

The familiar touch of the bed sheets against Rogers’ skin comforted him.  It’ll be just like going to sleep, he thought.  Rogers sat on a chair in the center of his bedroom.  The bed sheets were around his neck.  He’d tied them to an exposed pipe on the ceiling.  He planned to hang himself.

Looking into the abyss, he had no real regrets for anything he left behind.  Maybe he’d leave Burnham and the others shorthanded while the company replaced him, but he could live with that.  Well, that’s the beauty of it, he thought.  I don’t have to.  He stood up on the chair and began to tie the slack around the pipes.

“Hey, Rogers.  You in there?”

It’s Burnham, Rogers thought.  He scrambled to sit back down but forgot he’d cut the slack.  He choked and his legs kicked the chair out from under him.

The old door scraped open in its tracks.  “Rogers, you son of a bitch!”  Burnham rushed beneath the hanging man and grabbed him around the hips.  He lifted up as hard as he could.  Rogers choked down oxygen as his throat opened up.  Burnham reached for the toppled chair and set it back up beneath his friend.  Rogers found his footing and stood up on the chair, gasping raggedly.

“Get that shit off your head,” Burnham huffed.  “What the hell you think you’re doing?”

Rogers loosened the knot and pulled the sheets up around his head.  “It was an accident.”

Burnham picked up the noose.  “Some accident.”

Rogers looked up at him soberly.  “I want out, Burnham.”

“Yeah, well,” Burnham said, “not as long as my old ass is around to stop you.  Besides, you live or die, that hasn’t been your decision for a long time.  You a company man.”

Rogers rubbed at his neck, which had begun to bruise.  “Did you know tomorrow is my birthday?”

“No, Rogers, I didn’t know tomorrow’s your birthday.  Happy birthday.”

“I’ll be forty.  That’s twenty years we’ve been wasting away on this fucking rock.”  Rogers paused.  “After tomorrow, I’ll have been a prisoner longer than I was a free man.”

Burnham thought very hard before replying.  “You think we’re here for a reason?”

“We’re here because we’re criminals, Burnham.  We’re here because we’re human waste, and society shit us out.”

“I don’t mean why man put us here.”

“Fuck, don’t start.”

“Come pray with us, just once.  Soto was like you before I helped him find His plan.  Angry, afraid.”

“I’ve lived on this lifeless rock eating snot every day for twenty years, Burnham.  I’ve got nothing left to fear.”

“You’d be surprised what a man has to fear.”

An alarm squawked from the next room.

“Proximity warning?  They’re early.  Supplies ain’t due in ‘til morning.”  The base needed restocking with food and oxygen every six months.  Burnham stepped into the living quarters and called back, “We’ll finish talking later.”

Rogers hurried after him.  “No, we won’t.”

The living quarters led to each of the four prisoners’ bedrooms.  There was also a door for the tunnel to the atmosphere processor and a door for the airlock to the moon’s surface.  The main room contained a kitchen, which was a kitchen only in name, as all their food came from vats of processed protein supplement.  There were also various computers around the room.

Burnham was at the communication console.  He was trying to zero in on what tripped the alarm. “No company beacon anywhere near us.  It ain’t our guys.”

“Who else would be way the fuck out here?” Rogers said, leaning over Burnham’s shoulder.  “It’s probably just a meteor or something.”

“No, too big for that.  Got it.  Crashed down two miles north of here.”

“Okay, so what?” Rogers said.

“We got to go check it out.  That’s what.”  Burnham opened a line to Hunt over in the processor.  “Hey Hunt, we’re going to go check something out.  Keep an eye on the place.”

Hunt’s voice crackled over the radio, “Not going anywhere.  Do what you want.”  He closed the line.

“I hate that man.”  Burnham stood and headed for Soto’s room.

Rogers intercepted him.  “You go check this out.  I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the processor.”

“Nope.  Hunt can do that.  You and Soto are coming with me.  I’m not letting you out my sight ‘til I’m sure you won’t go trying to choke yourself again.”

“Burnham…”

“Nope.”

*                      *                      *

Burnham, Soto, and Rogers trekked north across the moon’s barren landscape.  The wind whipped the soupy atmosphere up in waves of impenetrable fog.  The processor had been running long enough that the men no longer required suits, but they did have to wear breathers.

Rogers trudged along over the black rock.  It was still dark out, and the wind’s banshee howl was the only sound above the rhythmic breathing in his mask.  He pushed a cart in front of him in case they found anything worth salvaging.

The four men who lived on the moon PL 337-1 were legally dead.  After being tried for their crimes on Earth, a court of law had sentenced each to death.  In accordance with the Right to Life Act of 2115, the convicts were given the chance to opt out of the death penalty by forfeiting their lives to the Terra Nova Corporation.  Terra Nova paid the United States a pittance for every prisoner who entered their service.  The convicts lived out the rest of their lives on some colony at the fringe end of known space.  In exchange for their lives, they maintained the company’s atmosphere processors that terraformed planets and moons for future habitation.  In the words of a lobbyist for Terra Nova, “In reparation for making our world a worse place to live, these men will go and make another world better.”  They called it “The Indemnity Program.”

An electrical storm was forming above.  Burnham’s voice crackled over the radio. “It’s not far now.  We’re libel to trip over the damn thing before we see it in all this fog.”

“I think I can make something out.”  Soto pointed to a dark shape in the mist.  “There.”

They entered a clearing where fire burned across scattered debris and ate away the fog.  They could see the crashed shuttle.  Bits and pieces had been ripped from the hull, but the frame of the ship was still intact.  It bore a corporate logo.  Orion: You’re Safe in Our Hands.

“Orion?  Any idea what that is?”  Rogers asked.

“Yeah,” Soto said.  “I heard of them back on Earth.  They’re some military defense contractor.  Soldiers for hire, secret weapons research, that kind of black ops shit.”

Burnham considered this.  “Boys, this might just be the first spell of good luck we’ve had on this rock.  Let’s go and see what the Good Lord deemed fit to drop in our laps.”

The three men spread out around the shuttle.  Rogers pushed the salvage cart up against the other side of craft’s hull.  “Over here,” he called.  A jagged gash wide went up the side of the ship wide enough to fit a man.  If there were weapons on board, and they could get the jump on the pilot of the supply ship tomorrow…

“What do you think’s inside?” Rogers asked.

“Only one way to find out,” Burnham said.  “Lead the way, Soto.”

Soto looked at Burnham as if to argue.  A fatherly eyebrow raise by Burnham got Soto into the ship.

“You’re not going to be happy,” he called out, “but come on in.”

Burnham and Rogers climbed inside.  Soto’s headlamp sliced through the veil of darkness, and the other men switched on their own.  They found themselves in a cramped room lined with life support machines, oxygen scrubbers, and automated navigation computers.  The tiny cockpit’s console had been fried, and its blast shield had been cracked beyond repair.  The only object in the room that looked functional was the fortified hyper-sleep tube.

“It’s a fucking escape pod.”  Soto kicked the damaged oxygen scrubbers.

“So much for top secret weapons,” Rogers said.  “This thing is scrapped.  Let’s just get out of here before the storm gets any worse.” He braced himself on the sides of the hull breech and noticed something peculiar: the metal had buckled outward from the inside.

Burnham wiped condensation away from the hyper-sleep chamber.  “Wait, there’s a little girl inside.  I think she’s still alive.”

Soto went over to get a look.  “Great.  What are we supposed to do with a kid?  The base ain’t exactly a daycare center.”

“Well we can’t just leave her, can we?” Burnham asked.

Rogers hovered by the exit.  “Sure we can.  She’s not our problem.”

Burnham located the emergency supply case and bashed the glass in with his elbow.  He pulled out an oxygen mask.  “When the supply man comes, she can be his problem.  ‘Til then, she’s our problem.  Now help me get this thing open, tough guy.”

The old man had a way of bringing out the best in people; Rogers gave him that.  “If Soto is right about Orion, then this shuttle should be state of the art.  That should include a back-up generator on this pod for just such an emergency.”  Rogers knelt down by the tube and felt around its sides.  His fingers brushed over a rectangular button.  “Here we go,” he said and pushed it.

The hum of electricity echoed through the tiny craft as the hyper-sleep chamber whirred on.  Lights blinked on and off across the front panel as it ran through its waking procedure.  The pod opened and the trapped oxygen hissed out of it.  Burnham strapped the spare mask onto the little girl.  “There you go, little lady.  She’ll be out for awhile still.”  He laid a hand on Rogers’ shoulder.  “Make yourself useful and lay our guest on your cart for the trip back.”

“Whatever you say, Burnham.”  Rogers lifted the little girl out of the chamber.  She wore tiny sneakers, jeans, and a purple t-shirt.  Her softness surprised him more than her lightness.  He’d never cradled a child before, but it felt natural to him as he carried her through the gash in the hull, careful not to bang her head against the sharp metal.  He laid her down on the cart. She looked so fragile.  His first thought was that he had nothing to put beneath her as a pillow.  He shook off the sentiment and began pushing the cart back to the base.

Soto caught up with him shortly.   “Hey, how’d you know about that generator stuff?  I’ve never heard of that.”

Rogers scanned the rocky surface ahead.  “I wasn’t always a slave, you know.”  There was nothing else to say on the way back.

The little girl lay in Burnham’s bed, still unconscious.  Burnham was at the communication console with Rogers and Soto.  Neither of them felt comfortable alone with the girl.

“You there, Hunt?” Burnham spoke into the console.  There was no answer.  Burnham let go of the transmit key.  “Where are you, you lazy bastard?”

“Who cares?  I hardly even see the guy,” Rogers said.  “Chances are the girl’ll be out of here before Hunt even realizes she exists.  Why bother telling him?”

Burnham turned away from the console.  “Because I don’t trust him far as I can throw him, that’s why.  Go find him, Soto.  Tell the fool to get over here, but don’t mention our guest.  We got to watch him around her, okay?”

“Sure, Burnham.  You got it.”  Soto set out down the tunnel to the processor.

Burnham walked into the kitchen and began to rummage through dusty containers.  “There’s an old med kit in one of these storage units.  I’m going to dig it up, just in case.”

“Yeah.”  Rogers glanced into Burnham’s room.  “Why are you so worried about Hunt and the girl?”

Burnham stopped what he was doing and looked up.  “How you think that son of a bitch got here?”

Rogers nodded and stepped into the bedroom.  The bed was empty.  His heart seized up for one dreadful instant.  “Burnham!  She’s gone!”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“I don’t know, get in here!”  Rogers swept his eyes across the room, but there was no sign of her.  Where would a scared kid go?  What’s safe? He knelt down at the foot of the bed and lifted the sheets dangling over the end.

She dashed out from under the bed and slammed right into him.  He fell flat on his back with her on top.  He tried to restrain her, but then he realized she wasn’t struggling.  Her heart was beating so fast he could feel it hammer against his chest.  She clung to him so tightly he had to strain to breathe.

“Don’t let it come.  We have to go.  We have to go now, please.  Don’t let it come again.”  Her words were muffled against Rogers’ jumpsuit.

Burnham entered the room, and Rogers looked up at him.  The old man spoke in his sweet, southern voice.  “Slow down, honey.  What are you afraid of?  What’s coming?”

“The bad thing,” she said.  She began to cry.

*                      *                      *

The atmosphere processor had always given Soto the creeps.  There were no windows and very few lights, and the humidity suffocated him every time he stepped through the door.  And then there was the constant stink of ozone.  He didn’t know how Hunt spent days at a time over there.  Soto didn’t mind, though.  Hunt took care of what little physical maintenance there was for the processor.  That meant Soto rarely had to trudge over there.  Except there he was now, standing in the open doorway like a frightened child.

“Hey Hunt, you in there?”  Soto called.  Blackness, dense air, and the pulsing throb of machinery were the only reply from the gaping maw before him.  “Shit,” Soto whispered.  He hadn’t remembered to bring a flashlight.  He stepped through the door, and the oppressive haze struck him. He didn’t have the heart to close the door behind him.

He shuffled forward as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.  He’d already broken out in a heavy sweat.  The main floor of the processor was a tall, domed chamber whose upper reaches disappeared into shadow.  Various ladders led up to maintenance walkways, but Soto had never been up one.  In the center of the room, a stairwell led down to the machinery.  Around the room’s edges, six industrial fans blew processed air up through the floor.  Their rhythmic hum had a hypnotic effect on Soto.  He shook his head and snapped out of it.

“Hunt, where the fuck are you?  This ain’t funny.”

A wet scuttling and the clinking of metal on metal echoed up from the bottom floor.  Soto’s breath caught in his throat.  “Hunt?” he managed in a strained voice.

He descended the stairs to the lower level and clung to the railing as it wrapped around one flight and then another.  In the room before him, a labyrinth of machines sprawled out in every direction.  Soto had very little idea what function any of them served.  “Hunt, I swear to God, if you’re fucking with me, I’ll beat the ever-living shit out of you.”

Soto picked a path at random and waded into the sea of consoles and circuitry.  As he turned each corner, he tried to remember the way back to the stairs, but he gave up after the fourth twist.  Then he heard the whispering shuffle again.  It came from overhead this time.  “What the fuck…”

Something pulled him back around the corner.  The first note of Soto’s terrified scream escaped his mouth, but then a hand muffled it.  “Shh,” somebody whispered into his ear.  Soto’s eyes struggled to see sideways.  It was Hunt.  He put one finger to his lips and pointed at the shadows draped across the ceiling.  Soto looked up into the blackness, and he saw the outline of something.  It froze for a second then skittered out of sight.

Hunt lowered his hand from Soto’s mouth.  “What the fuck was that?” Soto whispered.

Hunt shook his head.  “Don’t know.  Heard strange noise; came down to investigate.  Been circling me ever since.”

“How’d it get in?  The only entrance is from the living quarters.”

“Steam vents maybe.  Figure it out later.  Must go now.”

“But what the hell is it?”  Soto repeated.  Hunt stared at him blankly and shrugged.  Soto scanned the shadows for another glimpse of whatever he had seen.  It had vaguely resembled a man.  “Yeah.  Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Hunt started back to the stairwell, and Soto followed blindly.  He heard nothing above the deafening pounding of his heart.  They cleared a wall of machines, and the stairwell to the main floor appeared in front of them.  Hunt walked toward it, and Soto gave chase when a meaty weight slammed across his chest.  He found himself sprawled out on his back amongst the corridor of electronics.

“Hunt, wait!”  Soto rasped.  Pain tore through his abdomen as the words crept out of his throat.  Whatever hit him had broken his ribs.  He struggled to sit up and looked for Hunt.  He stood deathly still in front of the stairwell, eyes locked behind Soto.

Soto felt the hot breath on the back of his neck.  He’d mistaken its throaty breathing for his own.  He turned his head, and a rattled whimper quivered over his lips when he saw the thing that loomed over him.  Its veiny hide was stretched too tightly across lithe muscles.  Its strong, serrated tail slithered around Soto’s chest.  It placed its terrible hands on his shoulders, and without exerting any force, its talons drew blood.

Soto extended an arm toward Hunt.  “Please,” he whispered.  Hunt turned and sprinted up the steps.  “Don’t leave me!”  Soto cried.  By the time Hunt made it to the tunnel and sealed the door behind him, Soto’s screams had become broken squeals.

*                      *                      *

Her name was Cali.  Her mommy and daddy were scientists at Orion.  They made the bad thing, and they were dead now.  It killed them.  That was all Rogers and Burnham had coaxed out of the little girl.  She’d latched onto Rogers a half hour before and not let go since.

Burnham leaned down to speak to her face to face.  “Cali, sweetie, I’ve got to talk to Rogers alone for a minute.”  Cali tightened her grip.  “It’s okay.  I promise I’ll bring him right back.”

Cali let go, and Rogers set her on the bed beside him.  He stood and followed Burnham out of the bedroom.

Burnham lowered his voice.  “Something’s wrong.  Soto should’ve been back by now.  We got to prepare for the worst.”

“Prepare for what?  A monster?  The kid’s clearly in shock.”

“Maybe.  But I told you, He put us here for a reason.  Protecting that little girl might just be it.”

“I’m here because I murdered two people, Burnham.”  Rogers had stopped whispering.  “You can pretend you’re innocent, or that God has forgiven you, or whatever the hell else you want, but leave me out of it.  Got it?  I’m not one of the good guys.”

“She seems to disagree,” Burnham said.  Cali lingered in the doorway behind Rogers.  Her tiny hands clutched its frame.

The door to the processor tunnel hissed open.  Hunt spilled through into the living quarters and slammed the door behind him.

“Where’s Soto?” Burnham demanded.

“Gone, gone, gone,” Hunt said.  His eyes darted around the room and then locked onto Cali.  A liquid calm bubbled up into them.  “Where’d she come from?”

Rogers put his arm around her shoulders.  “Shuttle crash.  She was the only survivor.”

“Not the only survivor.” Hunt said.  He walked toward his own bedroom, but he peered back at Cali before he stepped inside.

Burnham locked eyes with Rogers.  “What do you mean not the only survivor?  Where’s Soto gone?”

Hunt poked around the corner.  He had a toolkit in his hand.  “Thought I was clear.  Something in the processor.  Took Soto.  Likely dead.  Sounded messy.”  He sprung back into his room.

Rogers felt Cali’s grip tighten.  “It’s here.  It’s going to kill everyone, just like before.”

Hunt emerged with a blowtorch.  “She’s likely right.”  He handed Rogers a hammer and Burnham a screwdriver.  “All I could find.  Sorry.”

Burnham threw the tool to the ground.  “You mean to tell me you left Soto back there by himself?  You see him die?”

“No, didn’t see.  Heard.  Was running.”

“You cowardly bastard,” Burnham said.  He made for the tunnel door.

“Don’t advise going that way.”  Hunt did not move to stop him.

“Burnham, wait,” Rogers said.  “Hunt’s right.  You don’t know what’s back there.”

Burnham paused in front door.  “I can’t just leave Soto.  He might still be alive.”  He reached for the control, but the door slid open before he had the chance to push it.

Rogers couldn’t see all of the thing that stood in the doorway.  He could see it retract one of its hands from the control on the other side of the door.  Its fingers were long and graceful, and each of them came to a wicked point.  The creature stood on two legs like a man, but Rogers could see a tail coiled up in the air behind it.  It had the skin of a man as well, a uniform beige streaked with sickly blue veins.  Its face bore no resemblance to anything human, however, and Rogers would never be able to strike the image of its twisted countenance from his mind.  Its head was tall and thin, and it ended in a series of spikes and ridges.  Skin stretched so tautly across its skull that it looked as though the bones beneath were trying to cleave through.  The armored skull opened at the bottom, allowing for the creature’s nose and mouth to extend down independently.  Its nostrils were two pinholes in the slimy flesh, and its mouthful of razors was permanently fixed in a maddening smile − the one dreadful hint of humanity on its nightmare face.

Burnham didn’t have time to scream.  In one smooth motion, the beast whipped its tail around Burnham’s waist and slammed his head against the doorframe with one of its elegant hands.  The man went slack in the beast’s grip.  It flung him back into the tunnel and turned to face Cali and Rogers.

Time crawled between each breath.  The creature took a step into the room.  Rogers tried to move.  Cali screamed and dug her fingers into his thigh.  He looked to his left.  Hunt fumbled with the torch.  Forward again.  The creature was in the room.  Rogers peeled Cali from his leg and shoved her into Burnham’s bedroom.  He slammed the controls, and the door ground shut.

Hunt had the torch lit.  “Don’t just stand there.  Burn that fucker!”  Rogers yelled.

Hunt advanced on the beast.  It raised its tail, ready to strike.  As Hunt came into range, he twisted the valve on the torch’s tank, and flame erupted across the creature’s face.  It shrieked and stumbled backwards, arms raised to shield itself.  Rogers charged the monster.  He put his shoulder into its chest, and it fell backward into the tunnel.  Its tail snapped forward and sliced across Rogers’ shoulder.  He gasped in pain and grabbed at the wound.  Hunt ran to the door controls, shut it, and engaged the manual lock.

They could hear the beast try to open the door from the other side, but it was locked out.  It slammed itself against the door once, twice, three times.  Hunt and Rogers backed up, horrified that it might be strong enough to break through, but no more sound came from the tunnel.

Rogers doubled over, trying to catch his breath.  As the adrenaline wore off, pain flared through his shoulder.  He touched the wound.  There was a lot of blood.  “That thing’s real,” he gasped.

“Yes,” Hunt said, switching off the blow torch.  “Expended most of the fuel.  Running low.  Expected more on supply ship.”

“How’d it open the door?”

“Imagine by operating the controls.  Lock seems to have stopped it.  For now.”  Hunt stepped back into his own room and did not reemerge.

Rogers applied pressure to his bleeding shoulder.  The med kit was still in Burnham’s room.  Christ, Burnham, he thought.  That thing had him now.  Rogers hoped that Burnham had died from that first blow, for his sake.

He opened the door to Burnham’s room.  The med kit lay open on the bed, but Cali was nowhere in sight.  Rogers sat down on the bed and reached for the disinfectant.  He doused his shoulder with it, hissing with pain as it cleaned out the wound.  He wrapped it with gauze, and a tiny voice rose up from beneath the bed.

“Is it gone?”

“Yeah.” Rogers tied off the bandage.

“It’ll be back.”

“Yeah.”

Cali crawled out from under the bed.  “I’m scared.”

“Me too, kid.  The ship should be here soon, though.  If we can just hole up ‘til then, we can get out of here.”

Cali climbed up onto the bed.  “My daddy told me he made the bad thing to fight bad men, but it killed him.  Does that mean that he was bad, too?”

“I don’t know, Cali.”

She lay down on her side.  “I don’t think you’re a bad man, Rogers.”  She closed her eyes.

Rogers stood and dropped the med kit on the table beside the bed.  He took a chair and set it by the door.  She’s still doped up from the hyper-sleep, he thought.  He’d stand watch until the ship arrived.  Cali cradled herself as she fell deeper into sleep. Rogers stood, walked to the bed, and draped the covers over her.  Then, he sat back down by the door, and, despite his best efforts, fell asleep himself.

He woke later with no idea how much time had passed.  He cursed himself for being an old fool, and he saw that the bed was empty.

“Cali, people generally sleep on top of beds,” he said as he stood up.  He knelt down to check underneath.  He pulled up the dangling sheets and found no little girl under the bed.

“Cali?” he shouted.  No answer.  He rushed into the living quarters.  “Cali?” he cried again, louder this time.

“In here, Rogers,” replied her little voice.  It was coming from Hunt’s room.

“Christ, I was worried. I thought…” he began as he entered the other prisoner’s bedroom.  Cali sat in Hunt’s lap at his worktable.  Tools were spread over the desktop.  His hand was wrapped around the little girl’s waist.

“Mr. Hunt is showing me his tools,” Cali said.

“That’s right,” Hunt said.  “Handling them well. Aren’t you, honey?”  His hand slipped onto her leg.  He rubbed his thumb over her thigh in smooth circles.

“You sick piece of shit,” Rogers growled.  He marched across the room and grabbed Hunt by the collar.

“Rogers!” Cali tumbled to the floor and sat up against the wall.

“Now?  You’d do this, now?”  Rogers threw Hunt down to the floor, and he smacked his face.  Blood trickled from his lip.

“Don’t judge me.  Never hurt anyone.  You’re the murderer.”

Rogers lifted a boot, ready to cave in Hunt’s skull, when the room went black.  Dim red emergency bulbs flickered on a few seconds later.  “It cut the power,” Rogers whispered.  Hunt was no longer at his feet.

“Judge me?  Hurt me?” Hunt said from behind Rogers.  “Not smart, friend.”  He swung his toolbox down onto Rogers’ wounded shoulder, and his knees buckled from the pain.  Hunt brought the steel box back for another strike, aiming for the head, but Rogers rebounded back and jammed his skull into Hunt’s face, breaking his nose.

Hunt grabbed at his bloody face with one hand, and with the other, he fumbled for a screwdriver on the desk.  He aimed to stab Rogers with it, but Rogers caught his wrist.  He slammed his hand down onto the desktop, making him drop the tool.  Rogers lifted Hunt off his feat by the collar and smashed him into the wall.

“Stop!  Stop fighting!”  Cali screamed from the floor.

Rogers looked back at the little girl.  In that instant, Hunt was torn from his grasp.  A pair of long, graceful fingers sunk their talons into Hunt’s shoulders and heaved him into the air duct.  Rogers fell back from the force of it, and he found himself on the floor next to Cali.  Hunt screamed just once, and then a shower of blood fountained out of the vent and down the wall.

The vents, Rogers thought.  With no power, the fans aren’t spinning.  It came over in the vents.  The horror petrified him, but the sight of Hunt’s blood spreading down the wall drove him to action.  “Come on!” he said.  He dragged Cali to her feet and rushed out of the room.

Only one place left to go, Rogers thought.  He led Cali to the airlock.  With no power, he had to open the door the hard way.  He activated manual control and struggled with the heavy door.  Each second pounded away in his ears along with the door’s grinding gears.  He pushed Cali through as soon as she could fit, and he got himself in a second later.

He turned to shut the door behind him, but it was too late.  The thing’s awful face was right on the other side.  Its perverse grin slinked down out of its skull, and Rogers knew it was meant for him.  He retreated to the opposite wall and grabbed the breathers from their case.  He strapped one over Cali’s little face, and then put on his own.

The beast’s hands slipped through the crack in the doors.  It slammed them open with ease and advanced into the room.  The signal flares, Rogers thought.  They had to signal the supply ship to have any hope of escape.  The flares were in a crate by the outer door.

Cali was screaming, frozen where she stood.  Rogers grabbed her hand.  He’d never get the door open with that thing right on top of them.  He reached into the box of flares and stuffed a handful into his pocket.  The thing, as graceful as it was horrible, glided across the floor toward them.  “Close your eyes!”  Rogers shouted.  He lit a flare, dropped it into the box, and hurled it at the creature.  A furious light poured out of it, and it hissed like a crate of maddened serpents.  It crashed into the beast’s torso and dozens of smoldering flares cascaded down the creature’s body.

Rogers didn’t wait to see if his distraction worked.  The inhuman wails made him shiver, but they confirmed that he’d bought them some time.  He activated the manual door control and hauled it open with all his strength.

“Hurry, Rogers!” Cali cried, shaking his arm.  She grabbed onto the edge of the door and pushed with everything she had.  With the door just barely wide enough, they both squeezed through into the storm outside.

The freezing wind cut into them as they raced through the darkness.  Rogers had Cali by the hand.  He looked up at the raging electrical storm in the sky, and lightning crashed and forked across the atmosphere.

In the distance, he made out a steady source of light coming toward them.  I don’t believe it, he thought.  “Hang on to me!” he shouted over the baying wind.

He pulled two flares from his pocket and lit each.  He waved them in the air, two dazzling points of light against the moon’s ocean of shadow.  The supply ship’s engines roared as it approached.  It was slowing down.  Rogers held his hands over Cali’s ears, and the the fog churned around them as the dropship landed a few hundred feet away.  He put Cali’s arm around his neck and carried her for the final sprint to the ship.  He risked a glance back toward the base, but the fog was too thick.  He couldn’t see anything.

The dropship’s ramp was down by the time they reached it.  The pilot stepped out, pistol raised.

“Prisoner, you are not to enter this ship under any circumstance.  Put your hands in the air and… who the hell is that?”

“No time to explain.  We’ve got to dust off right now.”  Rogers took a step toward the pilot.

“You think I’m stupid?  Put the little girl down, and put your hands on the back of your head.”

“Listen to me!  We can’t…”

The pilot cocked his pistol.  “Do it now, asshole!”

Cali clung to Rogers’ neck.  “It’s okay, Cali.”  He set her down and put his hands behind his head.  He looked at the pilot with expectant eyes.

“Now turn around slowly, both of you.”  They did as he said.  “The three of us are going to the base, and we’ll see just what the hell is going on here.  Start walking.”

The pilot kept his gun aimed at the back of the prisoner’s head.  Rogers knew he couldn’t take the pilot from this distance.  He took his first forward when he heard the pilot’s high-pitched scream.

Rogers spun and saw the pilot lifted off his feet as blood spurted down onto the rocks beneath.  The tail of the creature exploded from the pilot’s stomach and raised him to its perch on top of the ship.  The pistol clattered to the ground.

Rogers hauled Cali onto his shoulder and put his hand over her eyes.  He charged up the ramp to the ship, scooping up the gun on the way.  The pilot was still crying in pain as Rogers raced through the hold and into the cockpit.  He shut the cockpit door, and he strapped Cali into her seat before taking his own.  Instinct and memory took over as his hands glided across the ship’s controls, pushing buttons and flipping switches he hadn’t operated in twenty years.

“Can you fly this?” Cali asked.

“I used to,” he said as the engines revved up.

As the ship lifted off, a hollow thud resounded through the cockpit, then another.  Rogers turned and saw the cockpit door buckling in behind them.  It was inside the hold.

He jammed the button to open the ramp, and he pulled back the yoke to put the ship vertical.  He could blow it out the back, but if the hold was open when they hit vacuum, they were all dead.

Despite the hold becoming a wind tunnel, the creature continued to savage the cockpit door.  Its fingers sliced into the opening it had made and pried the doors open.  It looked into the cockpit and stabbed an arm inside.  It swiped back and forth, grasping for Cali.

Rogers pulled the gun from his belt, and the beast squeezed further into the cockpit, gnashing its jaws.  He thrust the pistol into the creature’s hideous grin and pulled the trigger.  It screeched and fell back through the hold and down the ramp, plummeting to the moon’s surface below.

Rogers dropped the pistol and punched the button to close the hold.  They had just a few seconds before leaving the atmosphere.  He heard the hydraulic hiss of the ramp seal from the next room, and he exhaled slowly.  They’d made it.

Infinite, open space materialized before them as the atmosphere gave way to vacuum.  Stars pierced the darkness in every direction.  After spending half of his life a prisoner, Rogers was a free man once more.

“Hey,” he said.  “It’s my birthday today.”

“Happy birthday.”  Cali leaned over and hugged Rogers’ arm.  “Where do we go now?” she said.

He beamed down at her. “Anywhere we want.”

The Zinger

Paul and Stacy sat in the waiting room. Someone had scattered issues of Technology Today and Sailing Monthly, among other generic titles, across each of the three tables. Paul had thumbed through a few of them already and had moved on to twitching his leg up and down compulsively. Stacy kept busy going over various documents from her law office.

“Mr. and Mrs. Roper? Dr. Proley will see you now.”

Paul and Stacy exchanged glances as they stood: both hopeful but worried. Stacy rested her palm on Paul’s forearm, and it was enough to draw a smile as he squeezed back.

After being led down a narrow hall, they found themselves sitting in the doctor’s office. It smelled of leather and peroxide. Paul imagined that the sterile hospital smell he hated so much must completely settle into everything it touched, becoming part of it forever. Dr. Proley joined them after a few minutes of anxious waiting, and uncomfortable pleasantries were exchanged as each of them shook his hand. They sat.

“I’m very glad you two decided to come in. Assuming an active role is an excellent quality in future parents.”

Paul and Stacy smiled thinly as they held hands.

“Now, I see you came here today because you have been trying to conceive for several months now, to no avail.”

“Yes, doctor. We’ve paid very close attention to my cycle, been sure to… attempt conception” – Stacy blushed as Paul grinned wryly at her – “during the right times of the month. We weren’t entirely sure what we could be doing wrong.”

“Well, it’s very rare for a couple to ‘do something wrong,’” he said with a smile, “but I’ve got both good news and bad news. The good news is, after running some tests, we’ve been able to diagnose what is coming in the way of conception.”

Stacy squeezed Paul’s hand.

“And that is where the bad news comes in. I’m afraid your sperm count is incredibly low, Paul. More than likely, the problem originates from a lesion that appeared at a young age and has gone untreated for years.”

Dr. Proley swiveled in his chair and pulled the string of a rolled-up chart on the wall. It was a cross-section of the male genitals. Had Paul not felt so numb, the idea of a map of the US from grade school rolling down to reveal a penis instead would have made him chuckle.

Stacy peered into Paul’s glazed eyes. His hand, which felt so warm and comforting moments before, had turned cold around hers. She began to speak, wanting terribly to comfort her husband, but unsure of what she could say or do.

“Is there anything you can do, doctor?” she said.

Paul noticed Dr. Proley had a very nice, thick, white goatee. Why hadn’t he noticed that when he first walked in?

“Naturally? No, I’m afraid the damage has already been done. Now, there are alternative methods of conception…”

Paul drowned out the rest. He nodded when he was supposed to and thanked the doctor when he left.

Paul stood in the doorway of what was supposed to be his future son or daughter’s room. He was just a humble writer. A few good projects were on the horizon, but he did not kid himself, it was Stacy who brought home the money. Now in her late twenties, she had become a wildly successful lawyer at her firm. It was her job that allowed them to own a house like this.

As he leaned in the doorway, he turned a brown teddy bear over and over in his hands. He had won it for Stacy at a carnival on the night that he told her he was ready to have a baby. She had been hinting at it for a year. He told her they would start trying that very night, and that this stuffed animal would be the first gift for the little human being they would make together. She had cried.

He looked down at the bear. The threads of its left eye were coming loose.

“Baby?”

Stacy wrapped her arms around Paul from behind, resting her chin on his shoulder. Paul’s gaze remained fixed on the teddy bear.

“It’s going to be okay. You know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“We have plenty of options outside of natural conception. With the places I’m going at work, money won’t be an issue. And even if all that fails, there are plenty of children in the world that need good parents, we could adopt.”

“Yeah.”

Stacy squeezed his shoulder but received no further response from her husband. She frowned and took her arm from around his neck. She went to get ready for bed.

Paul stepped into the room. It sapped any energy he had left in his bones just to cross the threshold. They had even bought a crib. He set the bear to rest where a child of his own never would.

* * *

“Could it be the same problem? The lesion?”

“I don’t know,” Paul said.

A week later, he lay in bed next to Stacy, staring straight at the ceiling. For the first time in his life, he couldn’t perform.

“We can call the doctor tomorrow. He didn’t say anything like this would happen. Do you want me to be with you when you call? I’ve got a meeting with clients until twelve, but I could come back home during my lunch hour to call with you.”

“No, I can call myself.”

Stacy clenched the sheet covering her naked body. The silence that followed seemed to stretch on forever.

“Is there anything you want to talk about?” she asked after a long while.

“I just want to go to sleep.”

Stacy reached for him, but he rolled over to the edge of the bed and closed his eyes.

The next day, Paul couldn’t stand the thought of spending another entire afternoon sitting in front of that infernal machine in his cramped office. Usually he and Stacy woke up early in the morning, had breakfast together, and he would see her off to work before settling down to write. Lately his nights had been long and restless in front of the typewriter, so he began sleeping later. She was gone by the time he woke up, so he just grabbed his car keys and headed for the mall.

He had a burger for lunch, rare. The juiciness of it pleased him.

After eating, he strolled around the stores aimlessly. Outside of an arcade, he saw a little boy riding in a fire truck with Big Bird. His mother and father were watching him from a bench and feeding quarters into the fire truck whenever it stopped rocking back and forth. Paul pretended to browse through the selection at a cell phone kiosk as he watched on from a distance.

He ended up in a sporting goods store, which he found ironic, having never played a sport in his life outside of golf once with Stacy’s father while he was courting her. He wasn’t sure you could call what he’d done on the course “playing” though.

He stopped at a row of baseball bats hung up on a shelf in one corner of the store. He had never played baseball before. He had bad asthma as a child, and when he grew out of it, the interest had passed. Right now, however, he felt like he wanted to hold one of these bats more than he’d ever wanted anything. He picked one up. The weight of it felt good. He turned it in his hands. Emblazoned on the side of the bat was The Zinger.

He didn’t have any cash on him, so he charged it. The lady at the register asked if he wanted a bag. He said no. He carried it to his car.

“Jason approached the door timidly extending his finger tips to touch the cold knob.”

Too wordy.

“Jason walked toward the door, scared. He reached for the cold knob.”

Too broken up.

“Jason walked toward the door, reaching for the cold knob, scared.”

Is Jason even a good name for this character?

Paul blew out an exasperated breath as he tore another page from the typewriter. He had been working at this damn thing for days. His laptop sat unused on the floor. This was an old trick he had learned just after college. When you have trouble getting into a story, change how you approach it. Whenever he was stuck, he would pull out his grandfather’s old typewriter. Something about the clicking of the keys and the smell of the ink on fresh paper usually got his creative juices flowing. Usually.

When he had visited the doctor, Paul was in the middle of a novel he had pitched to a publisher. They loved the idea, and he was contracted to finish it within the year. Such deals could be very rare, and the prospect of having a big hit had driven Paul to finish it as soon as possible. But now, writer’s block.

He laid his head back and spun around in the desk chair. His feet scraped against the discarded drafts and failed sentences littering the floor. The Zinger leaned against the side of his desk. He reached over and picked up the weighty wooden instrument. He kicked back from the desk and just sat, holding The Zinger and thinking.

After a while, the phone rang, and he took his time answering it.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Roper? Please hold for Dr. Proley.”

The doctor told him the problem he had should have no such side effects. Sterility, in his case, should have no relation to erectile dysfunction. Paul thanked him and clicked off the phone before he was done speaking. He rolled The Zinger around in his palms a moment, and then he propped it back up next to his desk.

“Jason tiptoed toward the door, clearly afraid, but nonetheless reached for the cold, brass knob.”

Better.

The next day, after another unproductive early afternoon at the typewriter, Paul felt like going out. He grabbed his car keys and got up from his desk, heading for the door. Then he thought better and grabbed The Zinger. He had grown accustomed to carrying it with him wherever he went, and why should that be limited to the house?

He drove around for a bit and ended up at the grocery store. The Zinger rolled back and forth in the passenger seat as he pulled into a parking spot. Nobody in the parking lot or the store gave him more than a glance – there could be all kinds of reasons for a man to be carrying a bat in a grocery store.

He wandered through the aisle with the shampoo and soaps, then through the bread aisle, finally to the snacks. He paused in front of a box of Oatmeal cream pies. He looked around, and then looked down at The Zinger.

Who’s gonna know?

He opened one of the boxes of cream pies and grabbed one of the individually wrapped confections, stuffing it in his pocket. He resealed the box and put it behind a new one.

Stepping out of the aisle, he pulled the cream pie out of his pocket and unwrapped it. He took huge bites, stuffing his face as he strolled into the produce aisle. Cantaloupes. That’s what Paul wanted, and that’s why he came here. He walked to the front of the store, grabbed a cart, and wheeled it back to the aisle with the melons. He dumped ten ripe, round cantaloupes into the cart and brought it to the pimply faced teenage kid at the check out counter.

“What are you going to do with all these melons, man?”

“I’m gonna smash each of them with this baseball bat in my back yard. What do you think I’m gonna do with them?”

The kid laughed, and so did Paul.

* * *

Stacy got home that night and found papers scattered all over the floor, spilling out of Paul’s office.

“Paul?” she called. No answer.

She opened the door and a small avalanche of crumpled up paper spilled through the crack. A chilling breeze wafted through the doorway – the door to the backyard must be open, she thought. The backyard was nothing special, just a cement stoop leading down from the door. The rest of the yard was just plain grass with one tree and a picket fence walling off the neighbors’ yards.

She stepped out onto the stoop and found Paul on the lawn mid-swing. It was freezing outside, but he seemed unfazed by it. He had pushed two concrete blocks together at the base of their willow tree. A pile of melons was lying beside the blocks. With a thick smack, the baseball bat in his hands crushed the melon. Seeds and juice burst all over the sterile concrete.

“Oh, hi honey,” Paul said.

“What are you doing?”

He began setting up another melon on the slab he had built under the skeleton branches of the willow tree.

“Oh, you know, nothing.”

He lifted the bat high overhead and brought it down again with the same results. The fruit shot everywhere: sticky clumps of it stuck to the concrete, to Paul, to the tree.

Paul hadn’t shaved in a few days. Stacy couldn’t tell if he’d been skipping showers too, but he’d been wearing the same clothes all week. She wondered if he’d change now that melon had been smattered up and down his shirt and pants.

“Sweetie, I know that what you’re going through is tough, but I –“

“You don’t know shit. Okay,” he breathed, “Sweetie?”

Paul didn’t turn around to say this, but he paused from his task long enough to glance over his shoulder. The look he gave her nearly knocked her down. Her throat clenched tight. Her chest swelled.

“This isn’t hard just on you, so don’t take it out on me, goddamn it!”

Paul stood calmly for an instant, shadows dancing across his face as the willow branches overhead rustled in the wind, and then he bent down to grab another melon. He placed it on the block and brought his bat down again. He did this two more times before Stacy stumbled inside, no longer able to hold back her tears.

As he reached for another melon, he heard the cawing of a crow overhead. A large black bird perched in the tree above him. He paused for just one moment to look up at it. It looked back down at him. He wouldn’t remember this later.

He slept at the desk in his office that night. He couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping in bed with that prying bitch. All he wanted was some peace and quiet. He just had to finish this novel, and his career would take off. Maybe enough that he wouldn’t even need her anymore. He just needed an ending. So close to finishing, but still no ending. He really thought he was getting somewhere in the yard, but then she went and interrupted his train of thought.

Support group, psychoanalytical, pussy, bullshit is what it is, he thought. If she really wanted to help him, she’d just pay the bills and leave him alone.

The next day, she went to work again without waking him. He opened his eyes and immediately began typing. Page after page was wasted and ripped from the typewriter, crumpled up, and thrown away. The piles on the floor were beginning to achieve true depth. The Zinger leaned against the side of the desk, mucked with red goop.

After a few hours of typing, Paul wandered out into the kitchen, commenting on what a fucking mess this place was becoming, and pulled the radio out its socket below the microwave. He holed himself back up in his office and plugged it in. Maybe some music would help stir the imagination. Amid the songs on the various stations, he heard a report of a blizzard coming that night. It was supposed to be pretty bad. Another shitty song came on after that, and he just turned the radio to a random station filled with static. It was oddly soothing. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, allowing the white noise to cleanse his troubled mind.

Stacy.

The phone rang. Eyes still pressed shut, he answered.

“What’s up, buddy?”

A shocked silence staggered the other end of the call.

“Is, ah, Paul there?”

“You got him. What do you want from him?”

“Paul, it’s Roger Klein, from Arklay Book Publishers. We haven’t heard from you for some time now. I was just calling to see how the book was coming along – I’m just trying to get some idea of when I’ll be able to start the editing process.”

“Oh, it’s coming just swell, Roger. Boy let me tell you, it’s a real hoot.”

“Paul, if this is some kind of joke, it’s not funny. The people writing your checks are getting antsy. What am I supposed to tell them?”

“Well, I tell you what, Roger. If you’re so anxious to have this book done, why don’t you come on down here and pick one of these endings I have lying around on my floor? It’ll be like those choose-your-own-fucking-adventure books from when we were kids!” Paul began grabbing the crumpled up papers from the floor, “Here’s one: Jason gets hooked on smack and gets HIV turning tricks in bus station bathrooms! Oh! Another good one: Jason picks up an electric guitar and plays lead for Jesus and the second coming. I’m a fan of that one, but if you don’t dig either of those, I could write up a new one for you. ‘Jason marches down to Arklay Book Publishers and shoves Paul’s king-sized typewriter right up Roger Klein’s gaping asshole.’ Do you like that one?”

The other party had hung up long before Paul finished speaking. He clicked off the phone and turned the static back up.

She found him in the backyard again when she got home from work. The sun was beginning to set, and the temperature was below freezing. He wore the same, sticky clothes he had worn the day before. He must have run out of melons, because new victims had been crushed on his altar below the willow. Among the broken pieces, Stacy could make out what looked like a lamp from the living room, the home phone, and Paul’s laptop. Next up on the block was Paul’s old typewriter.

“Roger Klein called me at work today and told me about your phone conversation. Are you crazy, Paul? He’s trying to help you! Your book is never going to see the light of day at this rate, if you even finish it. I told him I was sorry for what you said.”

“You are pretty sorry, aren’t you Stacy?” Paul said, turning around and resting both arms on the tip of the bat planted in the ground in front of him.

“Paul, why are you doing this? I expected the news from the doctor to get to you, but not like this. How could it change you like this? I know deep down, under all that pain and fear and anger, you’re still the man I love. The man that loves me.”

“You are so wrong!” Paul shouted. He punctuated each word with a swipe at the typewriter, bashing it to bits. Stacy screamed and winced at each strike, tears welling in her eyes.

“You’re scaring me, Paul!”

“Scaring you? I’m just taking out a little frustration on an inanimate object, honey. If I wanted to scare you, I’d do this.”

He reached back, poised to strike Stacy, but stopped at the last moment, laughing.

“Just kidding!”

Stacy stared wide-eyed at the man she once loved, horrified. She realized that the stuffed bear he had won for her at the carnival so long ago was among the pile of things he was planning to smash. She began to gag and turned to run inside.

“Come on!” he shouted after her, “Can’t you take a joke? Goddamn it!”

Paul stormed over to his pile and thrust the bear onto the concrete blocks. He lifted The Zinger high above his head and brought it down repeatedly on the stuffed animal. It just bounced around limply and then fell off the blocks onto the grass.

“Piece of shit,” he grunted, putting it back up onto the concrete amid the melons’ remains.

He brought the bat down again and again, but the bear wouldn’t break like the rest of the things Paul had done. He cursed and spat, and finally he picked up the bear and hurled it over the fence into the next yard. His face was covered in sweat and an ugly shade of purple. Chest heaving, he stumbled back into the house with The Zinger and collapsed into his chair, turning the static back on.

“Paul, I’m leaving. You need help. I can’t be around you like this. If you manage to become yourself again, maybe there will be enough of us left to salvage. Goodbye.”

Stacy stood in the doorway to Paul’s office, suitcase shaking in her hand. Paul was reclining in his office chair. The static coming from the radio was loud enough it almost drowned Stacy’s voice out completely. After a final sob, Stacy wiped at her nose and turned around, heading for the front door.

After she left the room, Paul leaned forward in his seat and clicked off the radio. He heard the front door open.

“Stacy! Wait! You’re right – I’m so sorry, baby, I do need help! Please don’t leave me here alone!” The panicked crack in his voice contrasted with the dead calmness of his face.

He listened, picturing her lingering in the foyer, unsure whether her husband’s words were sincere. She called his name, her voice trembling.

Paul stood up and began to whistle quietly to himself. He grabbed The Zinger from its place next to the desk and gave it a few good practice swings through the air in front of him. He patted the bat against his open palm and headed for the door leading to his wife, still whistling. The weight of it felt good.