Or at least not anymore.
Something lashed out of her mouth as she launched herself forward. The tentacle thing/tongue slammed into Sarah’s face with a sickening crack of bone that echoed loudly throughout the still night. I couldn’t move, couldn’t react as Sarah’s face caved in. That thing, which I now recognized as being eerily similar to the tentacles that came from the larger monsters that hunted us, slid down Sarah’s throat as the hideous girl knocked her to the ground with far more force than I would have expected from her small frame.
By the time Darnell recovered enough to open fire on the horrific creature, it was already too late for Sarah. The creature/girl bucked wildly as the bullets tore through her flesh. A strange hissing scream erupted from the thing, it fell back, its tentacle lashing wildly through the air before retreating swiftly into its mouth. Before us the girl/thing seemed to melt. Flesh and bone reshaped into something else, something far different, and yet strangely familiar as one of the ugly, deadly creatures we were more familiar with unfolded from what had once been the body of a young girl.
It was not as massive as some of the others we had encountered, but this one seemed even more monstrous, evil, and menacing than any of the far larger ones. For one thing, it seemed to be able to mimic a human being pretty damn freaking well. That was a trait that none of us had experienced before.
I didn’t realize I was pulling the trigger until I felt the recoil of the gun in my hands. I wanted to scream in horror, wanted to flee, but my darker instincts seemed to have taken over as I pulled the trigger over and over again, continuing to do so even long after the gun was empty. The edge of my mind, the reasonable, still slightly sane part, realized that I should stop shooting. It was pointless to continue to do so. But I could not bring myself to lower the empty gun until Bret grabbed hold of it and forcefully pushed it down.
I was ashamed by the shaking that rattled through me. My teeth chattered. I had lost my mother, I had lost Cade, I had seen far more of these things than I cared to recall, but for some strange reason I was shaking so badly I could hardly stand. What I had just witnessed had rattled me so much I was afraid I might actually piss my pants.
It had looked so human, so eerily childlike. And what it had done, well what it had done was pulverize Sarah’s pretty face with the most disgusting thing I had ever seen before. Even from my distant position I could see there was nothing left to her. Tears choked me as I realized that her own mother wouldn’t have been able to recognize the smashed mess before us.
“It’s ok Bethy.” Bret’s voice trembled as he spoke the words. I wondered briefly if he believed them. I didn’t. “It’s ok.”
I swallowed heavily, I wanted to sit. I couldn’t. I had to stay strong; I could not let them know how disturbed I had been by what had just happened. I had to stay on my feet. My hand shook as I slipped the gun back into the waistband of my jeans. I hated the cowardice that the trembling revealed, but I still did not have complete control over my body yet. “No,” I disagreed. “It’s not. It hasn’t been in a long time, and it never will be again.”
It was the first time I had ever expressed that thought out loud. The first time I had truly acknowledged my own growing doubts and fears to anyone else. As I met Bret’s clear green eyes I realized that the worst part was that ever optimistic, endearing, and loving Bret believed it too.
CHAPTER 2
Darnell nudged the edge of the dead thing with the toe of his boot. The girl it had pretended to be was completely gone. It was nearly opalescent again, almost the color of a jellyfish except for the blood it had managed to suck out of Sarah before dying. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Sarah’s ruined face again. She had been a pretty woman with a bright smile and dark hazel eyes. All of that was gone now, there was little left to identify her by. It was just too awful. It could have been any of us; Sarah had just had the misfortune of being nominated to go first.
The creature slumped back to the ground, the tentacle flopping uselessly back as Darnell dropped it. “We should get going,” Darnell said softly. “Private Price give me a hand with the body.”
Private Lloyd Price looked just as shaken and horrified as I felt. His smattering of reddish freckles was stark against the sharp pallor of his drained skin. His clear blue eyes were wide and rolling behind his glasses, his nearly orange hair was standing on end in a thousand different directions. He wasn’t much older than me, nineteen, twenty at most. And it was very obvious that he did not want to touch Sarah’s body; that this was not what the young private had signed up for when he enlisted. I didn’t blame him in the least. I didn’t want to leave her here but if Darnell had asked me to help him I probably would have thrown up.
“How did it do that?” Darnell’s dark eyes slid toward me; there was no answer in his hard gaze. My heart was hammering, my palms were sweating; I couldn’t believe I was about to say what I was going to say. “We should bring it back with us.”
“Are you crazy?” Bret demanded.
I held Darnell’s gaze, not at all eased by the growing admiration for me I saw blooming in his eyes. I didn’t want to touch either one of the dead bodies, but we couldn’t leave Sarah behind, and this was the first opportunity we’d had to be able to study one of these creatures. Dr. Bishop would be pissed if we didn’t seize it.
I glanced between the two broken bodies, but I couldn’t bring myself to go to Sarah. I couldn’t bring myself to touch her. She had been a good person, and now she was gone. Though the thought of touching the creature before me was repugnant, I simply could not touch Sarah.
Bending down I seized hold of the mess before me. I had expected it to be slimy or mushy; I was surprised that it was neither. It was solid beneath my hands, cool, and smooth. There was something about it that it reminded me of silver, hard and cold when cooled, yet liquid and pliable when heated. I was so caught up in that realization that I hadn’t noticed Bret had also grabbed hold of the creature until he nudged me gently.
“Come on Bethy let’s get the hell out of here.”
I swallowed heavily and managed a small nod. Though this creature was nowhere near as large as some of the others I had seen, it was still exceptionally difficult to maneuver through the woods with its bulky weight, flopping tentacle, and insect like legs. My legs burned from exertion as we struggled to slip through the trees as quietly as possible.
Before this war with the aliens I’d been reasonably fit, but I certainly wouldn’t have been able to handle hauling this thing through the woods. But then again, there were many things that I wouldn’t have been able to handle before, but could now. Like a gun or scuba gear or even walking over this rough terrain carrying at least a hundred pounds of monster. My legs hurt, but I wasn’t sweating overly much, and my breathing wasn’t labored. Or at least not yet anyway.