Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) (8 page)

“There is a shop down the corner, we could go get some food,” Aira said
reading my mind, “If Hayden will find us anywhere it will be there. It’s a
Drok shop.” “Year lets just walk in place an order and be on our way,” I said
sarcastically, Aira replied, “Seriosuly, they will have food even if its not
cooked we can eat it raw.”

A few minutes passed as we made our way several blocks down towards
the shop. When we opened the door it was pitch black inside. As we walked
inside small motion sensors flashed and an automated lighting system turned
on. A little further up we saw what looked like a small food pantry space.
Besides that, a bar. We walked to the pantry, checking the expiration dates
for any salvageable food. Almost all of it was still good even the smoked meat
still sitting inside a cold locker.

“I bet Hayden will smell his way here,” I laughed. I had
finally given into
fatigue and hunger. I let the world around me float on by and I ate like I was
the king of mankind. I had my eyes closed and I was savoring the smoked
meat when we heard the door slam shut. I still had meat in my mouth when I
grabbed Aira and my M44 and moved us behind the bar. It wasn’t a runner
or a deserter, an Eek, a Pok, or even a Skrav. It was a Drok and we knew
him. It was one of Hayden’s kin. I vaguely recognized him. His lower jaw was
broken and slit open in several places. He was shirtless and covered in
tattoos. His skin was glowing red. His tattoos were his symbols of pride and
maturity. A part of me was ready to jump up and say “Surprise! Thank you
for rescuing us!” but there was something wrong. He was walking hunched
over. He had something strange on his back. I moved myself around the bar
to try and get a better look at him. When I did I must have made just enough
noise to get its attention. I heard a clicking sound. It was like the sound a tick
would make, click, click, click. It was getting more and more high pitch. The
clicking soon became so intense that I gave up trying to hide.

“DROK,” I yelled pointing my ri
fle at him. I was going to yell STOP but
it lounged itself at me over the bar. Aira pulled the trigger on her rifle and
saved my life. “This is the second time I’ve saved you from yourself,” she said.
She didn’t even drop a hint that she felt sick but after we walked out of the
restaurant her eyes filled with tears and she threw up every ration and every
chunk of meat we had just feasted on. I rubbed her back hoping to calm her
down. I knew there was nothing I could say - but I tried anyway.

“You ok,” I was continuing to rub her back.
“Yeah,” She answered. It was some time before her stomach settled. She
coughed out the last bit of vomit and rubbing the remained bits of vomit from
her mouth with her sleeve.
“Just never easy,” she said. “Killing someone.” I
asked. “Everything,” She answered without delay and I understood just what
she meant. The kingdom had fallen. This wasn’t a colony anymore.
A parasite that looked much like a giant tick crawled outside the shop
and followed us. It was at least a foot long. Aira was throwing chunks again. I
recognized it immediately. It was just like what I had caught a glimmer of on
the Drok's back. It was a parasite. I blasted it with my rifle before it was close
enough to us to attack. Was that the reason he attacked us. Where the hell
did this thing come from? This parasite wasn't natural to the environment on
Errikus. I picked up what was left of the parasite. My insides squirmed. Its
legs still kicked and reacted like it was alive but it had no face and the rest of
its body was bleeding on the ground. Aira had finally stopped long enough to
catch her breath but then she saw what I was holding and she was back in the
corner again. “It must have come from the creature,” she said. That made
sense. They lived with or on the leviathan. Like fleas on a dog. Maybe it was
even a larva of some kind. Ideas ran through my head. I set it on the ground
and poked it with a stick. Its insides were a mix of black and blue. I
wondered if it was sucking blood from the Drok. Whatever it was doing, it
had turned its host into a zombie.
“I wonder if that Drok was the one that killed the Eeks we saw?” I said.
“It would take more than one to put down a squad like that,” Aira was now
sitting back against a wall, drinking one of the waters she grabbed from the
store. “That means there must be more...” And that made me even more
afraid.
Size doesn't matter. What mattered were the screams we heard. Blasting
this Drok had drawn a crowd. There must have been dozens. A mix of Drok,
Eek, and human swarming around each other heading down the street
towards us. Each one under the control of that parasite. Each one a zombie. I
grabbed Aira’s hand and ran. “It’s my turn to rescue you now,” I said. Both
the Drok’s and Eek could run two to three times faster than a human. We
would never make it. We would never get out of here alive. We had to think
of something fast. I still had my M44 though Aira had ditched hers. I
switched the safety on mine off. The M44 used kinetic energy and radiation
to create a stream of energy that would fry your enemy. The fail safe
mechanism that would shut down the weapon if you held the trigger too long.
The fail safe off switch meant the M44 would become a bomb! I pointed my
rifle towards the sea of bodies swarming towards us and pulled down the
trigger, sticking it into position. It was like a flamethrower. Bodies began
melting in front of me while others that evaded the bombs blast too pushed
their way through the mass of blood and vile. I jammed the trigger. I could
barely see anymore. My own pain had caused me to sweat. I was having
trouble catching my breath. Then I let the trigger go and everything went
black. Just a few moments after I lost consciousness.
--------------------

When I
finally woke up I could see the sun setting through a broken
window. Aira greeted me with a smile and even some tea she had scavenged.
“Go big or not at all,” She said at last as I slowly looked around. I knew what
I had done. I had killed all those people – even if they were infected by that
leech, who the hell am I to play God with their lives. We were all just walking
corpses waiting to die.

“After you blacked out. They didn’t stop coming. The ones that were
alive trampled over the dead. They didn’t care that they were crushing skulls
- they didn’t care whether their own bones were rotting away from radiation.
Their own flesh was burning. We were trapped and I couldn’t move you,” she
paused and took a drink.

“You saved my life. We’re almost even now,” she said.
Aira looked like she was glowing.
“Why are you smiling so much?” I asked.
“We’re all alive,” she said smiling larger then before.

“God, you are fucking lucky, I couldn’t even lift you and they were
almost on top of us when..” She stopped and smiled brighter, as if our current
crisis had come to an abrupt end. “Hayden came out of nowhere. He had two
of his families swords and he cut through the horde like they were nothing.
Like us he was making his way towards the factory hoping to grab a drop
ship and fly to the outskirts of the city. He was a mess to show for it but he
saved both of us.” “Hayden! He’s alive! Where is he?” I exclaimed.“Hayden
found us after all. I guess we stirred up a big enough mess to get his
attention,” I began to laugh in disbelief (with my rib still broken it hurt to
laugh, I felt like my lungs were full of sewage). Aira gave me a drink and told
me to swallow. “You have minor radiation poisoning, it’s from turning the
failsafe off. You risked everything to save us, a few more minutes and you
would have been toast,” she smiled again and this time leaned in and kissed
me on the lips. I felt my pain subside as I took in our moment of victory.

“Where is Hayden now?” I asked. “Fixing a drop ship. You’re sure you
can still fly one right?” she said. “Yeah,” I smiled and passed out back to bed
thinking ‘today is the day we find out whether or not the Aelita arrives’.

The sun seemed to shine through the broken window brighter than
usual. Maybe I just wasn’t use to the morning on this side of town. Hayden
had come back during the middle of the night. He had primed a drop ship
and had everything ready for us to leave. I owed him my life. I still couldn’t
believe it, the three of us united at last. Hayden was wearing Drok battle
armor above his normal clothes given to him by his parents. The armor was
made up of grey metal shoulder blades that extended upward, away from his
face. He had a matching chest plate and wrist braces. It seemed very
primitive but at the same time was very intimidating to look at. The Drok
must have been fierce warriors on their home world. If I remember right they
were like humans , always at war with each other and nature. Many Drok
came from different tribes. The Drok almost went to war with us but we had
hundreds of years of technology on them. They thought we were Gods. Now,
hundreds of years fighting beside each other we are equals.

It wasn’t long after meeting the Drok the Skrav followed. We took as
many of them with us as we could and like our people who watched our own
world burn, they too watched the Skrav destroy their world. It must have
been a nightmare. What did we do that was so wrong that the Skrav feel the
need to destroy an entire civilization? Why would they sacrifice so many of
their own to try and defeat us? We already lost. At the most we were a
species now numbering in the thousands, running for our lives. How the hell
did they still consider us a threat? Hayden’s blades were made from black
stone, carved from an element similar to a diamond but something only found
on their original home world. His blades would sell for millions on the black
market. They were lethal enough to be considered ‘weapons of war’ and were
only to be used at such time. Hayden’s parents had trained his daily in handto-hand combat and with kendo sticks but this was the first time Hayden had
ever touched a real blade. Discipline and honor, those were the two most
important attributes for a Drok to have. In many ways their culture was
similar to that of the samurai.

“Where are your parents? Shouldn’t we be meeting up with them?” I
asked. Aira walked out of the room. I had never seen such a look on Hayden’s
face. I knew then as Hayden began to speak that I had said something
horribly wrong.

“The three of us went searching for survivors. We weren’t just searching
for the two of you, though you were the highest priority on my list. We were
searching for anyone we could find. We opened an underground shelter. The
monster was so far away that it seemed like a good idea - we couldn’t imagine
those people starving or suffocating. We knew our actions would be justified.
We just didn’t know that when we opened it everyone inside would already
be dead. Those that were still walking around had been infected by those tick
things and they were mutating. Eek and humans had sprouted limbs that
looked like wings and smaller limbs that covered their faces and bodies. The
ticks were deep inside their bodies, tapped into their spines and chests. We
killed them. We killed them all adn when it was over.. When the final body
fell my mother and father were gone.” Hayden paused. He was too strong to
cry. Hayden knew I was here but he didn’t need nor want any of my
sympathy, that was a part of the Drok way. His parents had died honorably.

Hayden had searched for hours in the underground shelter crawling
through piles of the dead trying to find his parents but they were nowhere.
The worst kinds of thoughts crossed his mind. What if they had mutated?
What if they were buried under rubble? What if he himself had killed them
during the battle? Hayden ran. He ran away from the shelter as fast as he
could and towards the side of the city that he knew we would be or at least
where he thought we would be. Had he arrived a moment too late he would
have been mourning both his parents and two best friends.

Aira described to me how Hayden dropped down from the side of a
building just like a superhero swinging his swords and protecting the two of
us. “We’re all orphans now,” I said. Hayden and Aira shook their heads. Even
though Aira knew she still had a father he was an elder and she knew little to
nothing about him aside from the fact that his duties onboard the ship would
prevent him from raising her as his own.

The drop ship Hayden found was in relatively good shape. It was exactly
like the ones I had flown in the simulator. We were a perfect match. It was
meant to carry six to eight passengers which meant it would be easy for the
three of us to crawl inside the cockpit together. The ship itself resembled a
grey phoenix. It had two great wings, a nose, and a tail that was as long as the
ship was wide. It used anti-gravity technology to lift itself into the air. I was
almost sad we couldn’t just take the ship and leave the planet – only the more
exotic drop ships could handle atmospheric flight and even if we could I was
nowhere near ready for that kind of flying.

We took off with no problems, it was just like the simulations had been
aside from an oil like smell. When we hit the sky and clouds we could see the
leviathan in the distance. It had begun to change form. Its arms and tentacles
had stretched out to massive wings; four, maybe five in all and its body had
grown more and more slender. It was as if it was taking the form of an
asymmetrical human angel. Its tumors were gone. I wondered if they carried
the ticks. My brain was trying to come up with theories. I began wondering if
it was adapting to the world or maybe it was taking the persona of the people
it had killed. It was using it's own mass to reconstruct itself. It was adapting.

I felt empathy for the creature. I felt remorse. It seemed like a child, a
300 foot child crying out in anger and pain because it was far away from its
home. Like us it too was an orphan. If the Tritan was the cause - if they did
pull this creature from the immer with them were we not to blame for all of
this death and destruction? At the same time I hated it. I hoped that the more
it reformed its body it felt more pain.