Species II (32 page)

“Oh,
shit!”
Press exclaimed, but he was far too slow to gain his footing and flee from the creature that pulled itself from the slit. Press gaped up at it, speechless, scared beyond anything he’d ever known or expected. He’d thought he knew so much, but the male alien was
different
—a quadrupedal nightmare that chittered and screeched and literally
towered
over him when it rose on its hind legs, so much more deadly and so much
larger
than Sil or Eve or anything Press had ever envisioned. He remembered that shiny brown-gold skin of Sil’s, the huge, vaguely reptilian eyes and sinewy, long-limbed movements, but the rest of Patrick—the rest of
it
—was new, and completely terrifying: multi-jointed legs—it walked on all fours—below a long, flexible neck and winding body out of which sprang a dozen Medusa-like tentacles.

And the whole hideous thing was looming over him and closing in for the kill.

Press yanked the Glock 26 from its holster and emptied the clip straight into the monster.

Ten shots using hollow-point bullets that should have sent the bastard halfway to hell, and they didn’t make a damned bit of difference.

The Patrick-alien gave a low growl of rage and started to reach for Press. He cringed away, expecting agony, but a full-throated hiss to its right made the alien pause and swing its head toward the sound. When Press looked, he saw that Eve had emerged from the nest and was striding toward him and her dreadful-looking lover. She was just like Press remembered Sil as being—a fantastic breed somewhere between human, reptile, insect and octopus, all constant, flowing movement. Deformed but oddly beautiful, weirdly sensuous in the way everything about her came together and just . . .
fit,
like something out of some dark, erotic nightmare. And so very, very dangerous as she stepped between her alien mate and Press and hissed again, volunteering to deliver the lethal blow.

There was nowhere to run, no way to escape. All Press could do was stare into the cold color of Eve’s enormous glistening eyes and wait for her to strike. He might be defeated and have nothing left with which to fight her, and he might be frightened nearly witless . . . but he would
not
go down silent.

“Oh, yeah, Laura,” he said scornfully as Eve leaned toward him. “Tell me again how Eve’s
human,
too.”

Incredibly, Eve hesitated. The Patrick-alien made a rough chattering noise and gestured impatiently—
Do it!
—and if nothing else, Press thought that when Eve raised a gnarled hand to strike, she might’ve seemed just a little reluctant. Her mate, however, came forward in anticipation, crowding in as she was about to strike—

—and was impaled on five spikes of dark, bony columns that burst from Eve’s back.

The Patrick-alien bellowed in pain and wrenched itself free. It tripped backward and nearly fell, then crouched as Eve spun to face it, planting herself bodily between her former consort and Press. She hissed wildly, then launched herself at it and the two aliens came together in midair . . .

And the true battle began.

Instantly it was impossible to distinguish one from the other. The noise was indescribable—a sort of ongoing echoing bellows, and the force of their blows was enough to shake the floor beneath Press as, forgotten for the moment, he scrambled sideways to get out of their range. The two creatures rolled and thrashed, then split apart and circled each other, but Eve’s next offensive was cut pitifully short when one of Patrick’s limbs whipped forward and backslapped her with incredible strength. The impact sent her flying and she hit the far wall of the loft nearly twenty feet away; dazed, she slid down and slumped against the floor.

The Patrick-alien swung its head toward Press for a moment, then dismissed him, apparently convinced that the lowly human no longer posed a threat. Instead, it stalked across the loft and pawed at the nearly senseless Eve until it had turned her body face-up; without preamble, it mounted her, intent on finishing the mating, howling like a victorious hyena the entire time.

Stunned but not conquered, Eve’s eyes opened and she stared at Patrick with nothing less than undiluted loathing. Held in place and unable to move, Press blinked, unable to believe it when he thought he saw her smile.

Then he realized why.

A thick, muscular-looking tentacle unfurled from each of Eve’s breasts with blurring speed, rising up and encircling Patrick’s neck in a viciously tight grip before the huge male alien could do anything to stop them or pull away. With both of them oozing alien blood from a dozen scrapes, the gnarled appendages that served as Patrick’s hands released their hold on Eve as he threw himself backward and instinctively clawed at his neck, trying to break the choke hold.

But Eve only pulled Patrick back, nearly shaking him as she put everything she had into this last assault and her would-be lover’s strange face finally began to darken.

“T
hey’ve been in there long enough,” Burgess said. “Set her down as close as you can get.”

The Huey pilot nodded and brought the chopper to an expert touchdown in the field adjacent to the old barn into which Press Lennox, Dr. Baker and Dennis Gamble had followed the alien Eve. Colonel Burgess unclasped his seat belt, then unhurriedly pulled his bottle of Visine from one breast pocket and gave his good eye a generous drop of the stuff.

That done, he pocketed the Visine and retrieved a small brown case from beneath his seat and opened it. Inside was his personal choice of a weapon: a Mauser-Werke HSC 7.65 pistol and a finely crafted laser scope. This baby dated back to 1941 and with a serial number in the early 700,000 range, it was a collector’s item. It took Burgess only a few seconds to snap the custom-made scope on and hold up the gun. The expression on his face was one of savage anticipation.

“Let’s hope Lennox is as good as I think he is.”

He left the pilot there to wait in the darkness.

L
aura didn’t know who was screaming louder—she or Dennis—as his head disappeared into the long, moist crack in the chrysalis.

The machete was clearly useless—if she tried to stab at the cocoon she risked cutting Dennis, or worse. She flung it aside then spied Dennis’s canister of toxin where it had dropped at his feet when he’d been grabbed by the first tentacle. Laura’s fingers were slick with fear-sweat as she scurried over and grabbed at it, finally aiming the nozzle at the point where Dennis’s head had vanished into the disgusting pod and squeezing off a cloud of the fine, blue mist. There was no sense standing and waiting for it to work—it either did or didn’t—so she dropped the canister and threw her arms around Dennis’s waist, putting all her weight into a downward pull, determined to haul him out of the dripping cavity.

The alien cocoon convulsed, expelling Dennis like an unwanted olive pit. The two of them tumbled to the floor, then Laura was up and dragging him bodily out of reach of any more questing appendages.

But there was no need. A second later, the now-familiar burnt-umber glow swept over the chrysalis, followed immediately by the escalating shuddering of disease. No display of flailing tentacles this time—with the side of the pod fractured, the DNA-based toxin was clearly absorbed at twice the rate. Before Dennis could finish wiping the birth slime from his face, the cocoon caved in on itself with a
pop!,
then sagged.

“Thanks,” Dennis managed. He staggered to his feet and held on to the wall for a second. “Thought I was baby food there for a minute.”

Laura couldn’t resist an impish smile. “Actually, I didn’t really do anything, and you’d never have given it a good first meal. The hatchling needed food, but you’d’ve still been indigestible to it. It would’ve spit you out anyway.”

“Gee, thanks,” Dennis said sarcastically, but there was no denying the measure of relief in his voice.

“We need to check on Press,” Laura said. “He’s been up there by himself for an awfully long time.”

“Yeah, and there’ve been some God-awful noises coming from up there,” Dennis said. His gaze flicked to the sagging pods around the walls. “We’ve just escaped death—hey, let’s go do it again!”

Laura grabbed up the canister pack. “Let’s hope the third floor isn’t as full,” she said. “There isn’t much left.” Dennis nodded then took a quick two steps and retrieved the machete. He and Laura headed up the stairs, taking the risers two at a time and convinced they’d be met by a swarm of alien offspring. But this time luck was with them—only half a dozen or so chrysalises were positioned around the spacious third level and Laura waited impatiently as Dennis sprayed them as quickly as he could. When he came to the last one, the deadly dosage was there but it sputtered alarmingly at the end. Their toxin supply was almost out.

“We’d better hope this is it,” he said as the last of the cocoons went into its unearthly pre-death glow, “or we could be into some really deep shit.”

“We’ll have enough.” Laura motioned at him, her gesture nearly frantic.
“Come on.”

“We’ll have enough,” Dennis echoed as he shouldered the canister and hurried after her. “Provided the next floor isn’t full of them, too. We should check down here one more time—”

Something howled horribly upstairs and obliterated his train of thought. He and Laura bolted up the final flight of stairs—

—and never noticed the mild pulse of a golden-brown chrysalis deep in the rafter shadows above their head.

W
ith Eve and Patrick’s attention focused on each other, Press grabbed at the opportunity to hustle in the opposite direction and find the tranquilizer gun. A search in his pockets gave him another loaded dart—it would’ve been just his luck to drop the entire supply in the fight—and he slammed it home, praying that the undersized specialty weapon wouldn’t jam when he needed it most.

Spinning back to view the battle, Press gasped as he saw the result of Eve’s choke hold on Patrick. The male alien’s face had gone almost completely black and had swollen until it looked ready to burst. For a moment it looked like Eve would take care of Patrick herself, then the inflated skin around Patrick’s skull abruptly
split.
A line of flesh that was long and repugnantly phallic shot from the center and rammed itself into Eve’s mouth, twisting and burrowing and
chewing
on the inside of her face. The tentacles around the Patrick-alien’s neck loosened and fell away and Eve’s hands beat ineffectively at her attacker as the shape of her face contorted and fell it on itself.

In far too short a time, Eve was still.

“Oh,
fuck,”
Press muttered. Patrick rose from Eve’s body and hovered there for a second, as though waiting to see if she would move. Before Press could bring up the dart gun, a noise from the stairwell—Dennis and Laura clambering into the loft—caught both his attention and the alien’s. They came over the last step and then Dennis and Laura stood frozen, their gazes tracking around the room to the Patrick-alien and Press, the deflated but still heaving nest in the corner, and finally, Eve’s crumpled figure.

“Shit!”
Dennis exclaimed. He put a hand out to stop Laura when she would have run forward.

The two halves of his head flapping, Patrick rose to his full height and snarled at them, the sound somewhere between a lion’s roar and a wolf’s threatening growl.

A
challenge.

Patrick brought up the tranq gun and fired, aiming intuitively. There was a
crack!
and the dart embedded itself in one of Patrick’s forearms. The alien jerked and stared down at it as though wondering why Press would shoot such a thing at him, then the skin around the small wound began to pucker and blanch, the alien’s normal amber-colored arm going the pallid, sickly white of infection. As the flesh shriveled and started to fester, Patrick let out a deep-throated groan.

Determined to get the best of the creature while it was weakened, Dennis took four steps and aimed the nozzle of the canister, then squeezed hard on the spray handle. A haze of blue mist erupted, but it was far too small and feeble—Patrick easily jerked backward and out of harm’s way. As the mist settled harmlessly to the floor, the alien vaulted forward and shoved Dennis as hard as he could. As Press struggled to load another dart into the gun, Dennis and his now empty canister setup sailed through the air and crashed to the floor fifteen feet away.

Patrick groaned again as the dart in his arm sent its contamination farther up his arm, then the creature cocked its head and held up its other hand. Too late Press saw the machete—Patrick had snatched it from Dennis’s belt before he’d struck. Press and Laura watched, thunderstruck, as Patrick swiveled the blade around and—

—severed his own arm at the elbow.

The alien screamed in agony and threw the machete to the side, but whatever pain it had was short-lived. Press, however, was caught off guard by the unspeakable deed for half a second too long—enough time for the Patrick-alien to take three enormous steps toward him, rip the tranquilizer gun from his hand and grab him. Press had a moment of vertigo that reminded him crazily of roller-coasters, then the alien slammed him to the floor using all of its inhuman strength. For Press, the lights damned near went out.

He didn’t know how he managed to hang on to consciousness; maybe it was hearing Laura’s scream that did it—

“Press!”

—or just knowing that things were headed downhill at locomotive speed and that if they didn’t find a way to stop Patrick, there wouldn’t be much left to wake up
to.
Press pulled himself upright and made it to his knees, and when he lifted his head he saw Patrick again, this time facing off with Laura. She’d snatched up the machete and was brandishing it like a pitchfork, but the multi-limbed creature advancing on her had no problem avoiding her jabs. She tried again but lost her hold on the blade when Patrick’s remaining hand zipped forward and twisted it out of her fingers. He flung it away and caught hold of her, intent on dragging the fighting and squirming Laura to that atrocious-looking dome of breathing alien flesh at the other end of the room.