The Devils Harvest: The End of All Flesh. (42 page)

I moved closer to the walls, trying to work out what the substance was.
Maybe a type of gas?
Then I received a mind numbing shock. The tanks were full of souls: souls being the only word I could think of to describe what I was witnessing.

I stood no more than a meter away, eyes transfixed on the churning images inside the closest tank. Wispy images of people, adults and children pushed up against the glass. Ghostly hands slapping, fingers spread with palms flat against the surface. An elongated face pressed up tight, which then disappeared back into the churning green haze, quickly replaced by another. They seemed to register my presences, because hollow eyes swivelled in my direction. Mouths opening wide, but with no discernable sounds emerged.

I ran to the next pod. This one was filled with the same substance, but these seemed to be all animals. A wing spread against the tank. Then what looked like a dog’s blurry face. Its ears pricked up, it had registered I was there.

I spun around. Hundreds of tanks lined the walls.
How many more chambers were there?

I had found the
harvest
.

I ran back to the doorway, standing in the darkness of the tunnel. The lights having died as they did before. They reappeared running along the floor. I found seven more chambers along the same tunnel. So much for eight being a lucky number.

The tunnel eventually ended with one last doorway. I expected more tanks full of souls, spirits – whatever you would call them – but this room was unlike the others, it held something different, something dangerous. Something otherworldly.

The Floaters

T
he lights didn’t illuminate the whole chamber, but from what I could see it was much smaller than the others.

I was cautious, expecting any minute for alarm bells to ring out, or a large green hand to clamp onto the back of my neck.

I wandered between smaller black pods that rested half embedded in the floor, with snaking tubes coming from them and disappearing into the darkness ahead. I could also hear a rhythmic humming, almost hypnotic in sound, coming from the direction the tubes disappeared.

I waited. No more lights winked on. The center of the room was shrouded in darkness.

I walked to the nearest wall, where the small glowing symbols sat at the bottom of. I made my way around the perimeter, car-jack raised ahead of me, ready to come crashing down.

The walls were covered in screens. Strange alien ones, with weird shaped monitors, and indented – what looked like – keypads. The screens were showing the same alien symbols. Lights flickered all around the walls, a kaleidoscope of colour and activity. But nothing I could recognize or understand. A completely alien environment.

I had circled the complete room. Only the center was left unchecked. I headed out into the dimness. The tubes all ran in the same direction, then divided into four sections. I was getting a bad feeling about this.

I followed the closest. It ended at the base of a large oval vat that then ran straight up and joined to the ceiling. But inside floated something far more menacing than that of the other tanks I had seen. Each held what I could only describe as an alien life form.

A murky liquid bubbled around it, similar to what you see in all the Sci-Fi films. Tubes joined to it in various locations. One inserted into possibly a foot. Three tubes into the chest. One thick tube below the base of the head. Many along the knobbly spine. It was hard to tell what the appendages were. The vat was almost too small to accommodate the creature; it had to curl up like a baby in the womb. Its head was the largest part of the body, bulbous.

I now understood the strange shape of the four seats.

There was a small chin that flared out as it went up, creating a huge swollen cranium, which had thick veins protruding all over it. Large oval thyroid eyes rested equally spaced apart, which remained closed. No nose or ears that I could discern. A thin neck that didn’t look like it would support such a large head that joined to thin weak looking shoulders.

Possibly it came from a world or dimension with a lighter gravity than ours, creating taller, thinner creatures.

It had two long-articulated arms that looked like they had four, possibly more, joints in them. Also too weak looking legs, the same size as the arms and just as thin. Other lumps protruded from different areas, below the arms and on the thighs. It had a small stump which could have been the start of a tail, but never achieved anything.

I could tell it was alive. Veins throbbed in its swollen forehead. Its chest didn’t rise and fall in breathing; rather one section on either side of its large head did, as if its lungs were around its brain. It leisurely bumped against the vat, then slowly turned around facing the over direction, before bumping once again.

Were these growing vats? Or sleeping chambers? Were they wounded in the crash?
The ship didn’t look damaged in anyway, but hadn’t Smoker said it had been damaged?

Suddenly the lights flashed around the rim of the doorway. Someone was coming in.

I ducked down behind the closest vat. Resting on my haunches ready to leap forward and strike out if the need required. I held the car-jack firmly in my sweating hand.

The door swished open, admitting a single figure. It was one of the small oriental looking beings. He had something in his long fingered hand and was heading towards the vat I was crouched behind.

He got closer. I could see him approaching by looking through the vat the creature was bobbing around inside. The image of the little being was blurred but recognizable. He headed in my direction, eyes down reading from something. Then at the last possible moment he veered away, heading towards a bank of flickering screens on one section of the wall. He finished what he was doing, and started to make his way around the chamber. I had to shuffle around the tank, so he wouldn’t see me.

I started to shiver. I was drenched from the rain and wet muddy ground.
Oh shit!
I looked down. A muddy puddle. Watery footprints were all over the metal decking. Luckily the small being had been reading and was now engrossed in something else, he hadn’t noticed the muddy footprints.

He then turned and headed back towards me.

I stared through the murky liquid at the approaching figure. I was about to jump out, fly at it with the car-jack, when suddenly the floating alien opened its large eyes and focused on me crouching beside it.

Feeding Time

I
tumbled backwards with a start, with a small yelp escaping my lips. My heart was pounding like a bass drum.

The figure in the vat slowly bobbed around to face the other direction, its eyes slowly closing again. Seemingly uncaring.

Fuck!

The small oriental looking figure stood stock-still, its eyes bulging wide, not comprehending seeing a human laying on the floor. The small electronic pad it had been reading from lay on the metal decking. Its hands were held away from its body, fingers spread to there limit.

I slowly climbed to my feet, gripping the metal car-jack.

I kept my gaze locked on to its staring eyes.

The small figure just stared as if in shock, like a rabbit held fast in oncoming car lights.

I started to move slowly towards it.

It took a small step back. Then in a flash it turned and headed for the panel of lights on the closest wall.
It was going to hit an alarm button
, my mind was screaming. Also it had taken me by surprise, sprinting away so fast. It took me a couple of seconds to put my brain in gear and chase after it.

I knew I had no chance of stopping the small being; it was like a hare being chased by greyhounds. So I done the only thing I could, I tossed the metal bar at it.

In secondary school I was on the baseball team. A natural pitcher, I was told. It came in handy now, as the bar shot towards the beings head. It hit with bone crunching force. Slamming the small humanoid against the panelling, the back of his head now a mushy red mess. In slow motion the little figure slid down the panel, leaving a bloody wet smear in the process.

I walked over and stood above it, looking down. Red blood. What colour did I expect?

I looked around this side of the room. There was no door.

Then a thunderous bubbling sound startled me. It sounded like many tubes being unpopped under water. Then a gush of milky liquid rushed towards me, spilling all around the metal decking, washing up over my muddy trainers.

Then there echoed a loud wet slapping sound that put my teeth on edge.

A figure emerged from the darkness and started to head towards me. It was possibly the figure that I had awoken.

It stood impressively tall, almost touching the twelve foot ceiling. Legs that seemed too weak to support it were doing a great job. Muscles were bunched together like melons in a sack. One articulated foot moved and slapped down, taking a long stride forward, covering meters at a time. Milky coloured liquid dripped from its glistening grey body.

The sacks on the side of its bulbous head inflating and deflating like car air bags. Long reaching arms, with numerous elbows, unfolded from its chest, like a preying mantis. I then noticed it had four hands, two arms to each side, both protruding from one elbow. It had three long multi-jointed fingers and two thumbs to each grasping hand, all folded up.

The small lumps on its back and on its thigh sprung to life, long tentacles growing from them, like an octopus leg squeezing from a bottle. These then fanned out into large rippling, roundish, sails, which seemed to flutter in the stagnant air behind the alien, each one a good two meters square. It had just doubled its size.

I reached down and pulled the bar from the small figures skull. I stood holding it like a baseball bat. A pitiful weapon against such a weird towering alien life form.

Another foot thumped hard onto the decking. Suddenly one long twisted double arm reached out to grab me.

I flung myself against the panelling, almost slipping on the blood. I swung the bar at the same time.

The creature snapped its arm back, eyes wide and penetrating. Two small slits opened below its eyes and murky water was spat out. It reminded me of the marine iguanas on the Galapagos Islands, when they expelled excess salt from nasal glands.

Then in a flash a floating sail flattened back in to a tentacle and lashed out, missing me by mere inches, but latching onto the dead figure on the floor, then spreading out, completely encompassing him, as if he had a blanket tossed over him. The small body was hoisted into the air, blood running from its open wound; it swung in the air like a toy Action Man figure.

The alien then pulled the small limp body towards itself, but instead of towards the head, a sticky slit open up vertically down its chest. Wet separating lips, with mucus parting between thousands of small serrated teeth.

The body was whipped into the open maw. The skin on the chest stretched, to encompass the meal. It closed quickly, now just a large protrusion on the chest and stomach area, making it look pregnant. Popping and crunching sounds issued from the dripping opening, bubbling skin, like a small furnace at work beneath. Its skin rolling around like a large bag of marbles.

I stood transfixed. It was covering the exit. I hoped it would sulk back towards its pod now that it had eaten.

But no such luck.

Its tentacles were whipping around, almost sailing majestically behind it. Its arms tucked back up, with its feet planted firmly apart, ready to strike again. The first meal was just an appetizer. It looked as if it was studying me. Large eyes unblinking. It stood poised, air bags filling and deflating, sounding like bellows.

Air bags!

I put one foot forward.

It moved one foot to counter. It was now turned slightly to one side. Arms twitching. The sails spread even wider.

I tossed the bar, while lunging sideways, trying to take its attention away from the object shooting towards it.

A tentacle shoot out just as fast and wrapped around my lower body, tipping me sideways to the decking, landing in the pool of congealing blood. The back of my hand slapping the blood hard, splattering my face. Luckily the bag on my back cushioned most of my impact. I had forgotten it was even there.

At the same instant the car-jack hit the alien in the side of its bulbous head, ripping through the membrane of one of its large inflated lungs.

The noise it made was deafening, like a child crying a thousand fold.

I was released. I scuttled backwards towards the exit. Behind I could see the creature lashing out with its arms and tentacles. Screaming even louder. It vomited the small body from its wet slit. The corpse splashed to the floor in a wet waterfall of skin, bones and bodily fluids, half digested already.

The door swished open, I turned and dived through.

Behind me I heard one more high-pitched scream, as the door silently shut.

The corridor was eerily silent after the noise that had just assaulted my ears. I stared up its length. The only way back was past all the soul tank holding rooms. I climbed to my unsteady feet, wiping blood from my face.

I realized I had no weapon.

I repositioned the bag on my back and looked up to start heading down the blue glowing corridor.

A figure stood blocking the way. Smoke trailing out from the slit in his putrid greenish-grey neck.
Why hadn’t I noticed his presences?

“Having fun, are we?” he asked through a cloud of smoke. He raised his hand and I was thrown backwards.