The Menagerie 2 (Eden) (19 page)

Savage shook his head disapprovingly. “Do you have a man crush on me or something? You keep winking at me.”

Savage had apparently hit a nerve. Quasimodo’s face quickly twisted into something mean and cruel, his eyes narrowing. And then he raised the stock end of his assault weapon and drove it forward, striking Savage in the head and rendering him unconscious.

Savage never saw it coming.

#

The Hominid was
a master of stealth, its way of life depending on it. 

From its point of concealment it could see the Mist maintaining its position. It could also see Whitaker and his unit hunkering behind upturned tables, the team obviously deducing the incalculable power of the Mist.

Like any creature, self-preservation was a common wiring in all species. The Mist, however, did not appear to have such an inkling, since it had no obvious equal. Whereas the Mist moved by a nature that lacked any level of passion, but by its emotionless design to feed and grow and take new ground, the species in hiding appeared cruel and sadistic.

The Hominid bore witness as he watched Quasimodo raise his weapon and strike another of its kind, rendering the creature powerless.

The female of the pack screamed and fought back right up to the moment another withdrew a knife and placed its edge against the downed man’s throat, the one wielding the weapon obviously offering the commitment to drive it across the creature’s throat if the female did not stay her cries, which she did. 

The Mist did not react, however, the whorls of its mass continuing to flow within and over itself, as if constrained by restrictions only it could recognize. The Hominid was stymied by this vaporous creature, almost enamored by it. But it also knew the Tally-Whackers well and was disgusted by them. He had seen creatures of their mindset before.

They were a vicious and cruel species set on self-gratification. They were also a species of entitlement, believing that everything owed them should come with the purchase price heaved upon another, rather than by the achievement of personal fortitude. Life apparently had little meaning to them as well, this particular species having the penchant to hunt for sport rather than sustenance. Their way of life was not a unique approach to maintaining a civil culture, either. The history of its kind ran similar with ruin—with similar accounts memorialized on ancient tablets that were handed down by tribal scribes.

What had been given the tools of an ascending species was now beginning to falter. And like his kind, they would fall into a maelstrom of descent until one, like itself, would be the last of its kind.

The Hominid’s eyes turned a deep shade of gray, sensing an overwhelming sadness creep over it.

Allowing the wounded male to stay behind, the rest of the pack moved on.

The Mist, however, remained.

The Hominid cocked its head.
Odd.

And like the Mist it waited, holding a keen eye to the creature that lie impotent upon the floor.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The Tally-Whackers moved quickly with Alyssa in tow, the cryptanalyst fighting futilely against Quasimodo’s grasp.

They moved forward through the Menagerie with zero conflict, the creatures once locked within the containment cells now lying dead the moment they were introduced to a venomous environment. If anything survived at all, if anything remained alive, then they either slipped away to far reaches of the ship or fell victim to something deadlier. Either way, it was incentive enough to move quickly.

With caution cast to the wind and time running low, the team maneuvered to the fore of the remnant. The walls around them continued to glow a phosphorous green. The pulsation, however, beating at a much slower rate, like the fading heartbeat working down to its last pump.

The light was growing feeble as well, the ship dying.

And the Tally-Whackers went forward and upward, toward the awaiting sub.

Whitaker remained cognizant of the two flash drives neatly fitted in the hidden grooves cut into the heel of his boot.

Internally he was smiling.

Because they were almost home.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The Mist never moved because the lights acted as senses, picking up life forces within its circular range. What it surmised was an impending danger not from the creatures in hiding, but from something rapidly approaching from the rear with a high degree of quickness and agility.

The mystery of what it was zigzagged through the Compound between ruined stations and makeshift labs, which provided no obstacles to the creature as the gap between them closed at breakneck speed.

The Mist began to boil quicker, the vapor turning a deeper shade of purple; the energy bursts shooting off in a dazzling display of fireworks as it began to drift towards the aggressor, sensing a confrontation.

From its vantage point the Hominid watched it glide toward the rear of the ship and away from the creature lying supine on the floor.

It moved gracefully as if windswept, the Mist morphing into a more aerodynamically shaped torpedo designed to move at a much faster rate through space.

The Hominid stood idle, watching the man and the Mist at the same time.

In the distance and drawing closer came the cry of something savage.

And the Hominid could do nothing but take a ringside seat.

#

The Mist had
gone as far as it could, expanding upward and outward like the billowing sail of a Tall Ship, the vapor diluting itself into a wider, thinner mass, but potent nonetheless. It was serving as a trap to snare its prey, a vaporous backdrop to allow the creature to run right into its clutches, so the Mist could wrap its wispy tendrils around it and consume it whole. But this was not the case as the creature raced from the shadows with its jaws snapping and tail whipping, giving the Mist a wide berth before circling it, and then appraising it.

The male raptor was alone. And hostile. Its monogamous half lying dead in the ship’s aft, the creature feeling a painful, remorseful loss. It also felt the need to lash out and kill for the sake of killing, the act perhaps a catharsis to appease its immeasurable pain and anger.

It circled the Mist, snapping at open air, its tail whipping above its head like an angler’s line, smooth and even, back and forth, back and forth.

The Mist hovered with its vapor boils rolling within, the spangle-sized lights flaring as a defense mechanism, pops and flashes.

And then the distance between them reduced as the fighters sought for a weakness in the other.

The Mist lashed out with a misty appendage, a quick lapping of the air close to the raptor, the act causing the beast to fade back to reassess the situation, its jaws snapping back in disapproval.

Not too far away, in the clutches of a vanishing green light, and with the shadows growing deeper and longer, John Savage was coming to.

#

The lengthening shadows.

The phosphorous green light, now fading.

The pulsation of that light, now slowing to a swan song.

And the continuous hammering against the wall of his skull.

John Savage got to a sitting position, the world caught within a colorful haze, but a haze nonetheless.

When he got to his feet he staggered, the floor beneath him seemingly unstable. And then he focused, his surroundings becoming more defined, more focused.

About 100 meters toward the midsection of the Menagerie, he could see the Mist becoming the centerpiece of a raptor’s attention.

And then he looked forward, toward the direction Whitaker and the rest of his team took Alyssa. Finding his spirit suddenly resilient, with Alyssa first and foremost on his thoughts, Savage hunkered low and made his way back to where Goliath lie, the ex-SEAL keeping a steady eye on the apex predators, as they continued to size each other up.

Goliath lay there in two sections, his upper and lower halves. If Savage could see the dead man’s eyes, he’d be able to see the beginnings of a milky sheen to them.

Behind him the raptor roared.

So Savage galvanized himself to action.

He lifted the pieces of the assault weapon, useless. And gently laid them down. He then went to the big man’s lower region and removed the combat knife from a sheath strapped to the man’s thigh. He then rolled the lower half over, to the other hip. There was no holster, no firearm. All he had was the knife.

He held the weapon in a tight grasp to feel its balance and heft. A top-of-the-line weapon, he considered, then placed it in the waistband behind him.

Savage then took note of Goliath’s helmet, at the NVG gear, and carefully removed the helmet from the dead man’s head. Putting on the helmet and lowering the NVG monocular, the world became remarkably brighter, and the shadows were no longer. He now had a clear path without obstacles to Whitaker’s team.

Looking at the predators circle before the impending engagement, Savage slowly backpedaled until he thought he was far from the caring of the predators, turned, and ran as fast as he could to close the distance between him and Whitaker’s team.

Removing the knife from his waistband and keeping the point forward, John Savage ran like a man on a mission.

So resilient was the human spirit.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Every creature, like most creatures, though driven to feed or reproduce in different ways, share the common bond of possessing emotional ties, with the exception of the Mist.

The raptor mourned and followed through the emotional steps of loss, the sense of aloneness and abandonment, the feeling of indescribable anger. It circled the Mist but could not find an opening or weakness, the Mist appearing the same from one angle as the next.

So with its whiptail it lashed out at its quarry, a killing blow, a severing cut. But the tail seemed to have passed through something hot and scalding, the tough scales of its hide coming out of the Mist steaming, the chain of connecting bones underneath clearly seen.

The raptor cried out in pain that was deafening, its head raised, the tail suddenly useless.

In an encompassing motion, the Mist gathered the raptor into an embrace and began to smother it with acidic vapor, breaking the animal down to cartilage and bone, to muscle and entrails.

But through it all the raptor did not mind as it saw the Light.

The Glorious Light.

And then its mind began to drift.

And in the end it did not matter.

There was no more pain.

#

There was nothing
left of the raptor. Not even a molecule. So the Mist went off in a series of ember bursts, the synapses going off trying to pick up its last quarry.

During its fray with the raptor the other had taken flight, making its way to the front of the ship. Morphing from a boiling cloud to the design of an arrowhead, the Mist gave chase, moving to the ship’s fore like locust to a harvest.

Never once did it slow down.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Whitaker, Alyssa and the rest of the team made it to the teardrop-shaped doorway, the upside down Ankh.

Whitaker and Maestro ducked to fit through the passageway. Alyssa had to be forced through by Quasimodo, the young woman fighting him all the way.

On the other side of the doorway they noted the archaic script within the symbol’s framework: ALL LIFE UNDER ONE.

It had served as the entryway to the Menagerie. Now they were within a short distance from the Umbilical collar.

Alyssa continued to struggle against Quasimodo’s grasp. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” he told her.

“Let me go!”

Quasimodo grabbed her by the hair and forced her to her knees. “You’re starting to piss me off.”

“Good.” She slapped his hand.

“Little spitfire, aren’t you?”

She continued to fight back.

Quasimodo struggled to maintain control. “Hey, Cap, is she my toy to play with now?”

“Don’t kill her. Just bleed her out slowly. Leave something for whatever’s left on the other side of that Ankh.”

Quasimodo withdrew his knife, the blade sliding neatly from its scabbard. He looked down at her with a savage smile. In the quasi-darkness she became overwhelmed by the discolorations of the multiple patchwork of grafted skin that pieced his face together, giving him a truly horrific appearance. So she screamed, striking his clutching hand with a flurry. The blows, however, were insignificant.

He leaned closer. His face inches from hers. “How about a smooch?” In the other hand the knife was beginning to raise, the blade glinting with a chrome polish. He puckered his lips. “Give me a smooch.”

“Hurry it up, Quasi, and meet us at the collar.” Whitaker turned, as did Maestro, and left the area. Whitaker called over his shoulder. “You got two minutes! Or we leave without you!”

Quasimodo called after them. “Two minutes? That ain’t nuttin’, Cap!” He didn’t get a response.

Alyssa continued to cry out, a fusion of anger and fear, while her hands continued to battle against Quasimodo’s hold with futility. The blade came up to its highest point above his head, out of Alyssa’s line of sight.

“Just a kiss, sweetheart. That’s all I want. Just close your eyes and give me a kiss.”

“Get away from me!”

And then she surrendered, her arms going limp, the power behind them gone.

“That’s my girl,” said Quasimodo, leaning in.

In the doorway sitting on its haunches, a shape silhouetted against the backdrop of green light, watched everything. Alyssa saw it clearly.
Is this how it ends?
she asked herself.
As feed for something otherworldly?