The Saga Of Tom Stinson (Book 1): Summer School Zombocalypse (17 page)

Anidea regained consciousness to the buzz and pop of electrical shorts. The sparks of electricity almost blinded her in the pitch black of the escape capsule. Her skin crawled with pin pricks; something was on her. In the light of a flash she screamed; miniature spider-crabs crawled over her body. They scurried away as she struggled to free herself from the chair’s restraints.

Winston was strapped in a seat across from her, his shirt was caked with blood. “Winston, help me,” she said, but he was unconscious.

She rolled her head to the left, and a sharp pain shot down her spine. Emmett was on the other side of her. He was alive and breathing. “Wake up Emmett. Winston.”

Something skittered across her hand, and she pulled it away in surprise. A mini spider-crab flew up in the air and landed on her head. She screamed again, unable to shake her head because of the pain in her back.

The spider-crab dangled down in front of her face, holding onto a twist of her hair. A tiny needle slid out from its claw arm. Her eyes widened as she pushed past the pain and shook her head to get it off her, but it held on tightly.

It climbed up over her head and out of sight. She could feel it moving on the back of her head. Terrified, by what it was going to do with the needle, she yelled, “Don’t stick me!”

The needle pushed into her skin, it hurt like a bee sting. Seconds later her pain melted away and she felt warm and comfortable.

“
Whoa,” she mumbled, “This is better than laughing gas at the dentist. Maybe you’re trying to help me little spider-crab, maybe you’re like a first aid kit. It’s okay you can come back out, little crabs. Where’s Tom, little crabs?”

More spider-crabs emerged from small ports on the pod walls and formed a mound on the floor. Tom was there, and he was covered in them. They moved over his body, clicking and clacking and flashing little lights.

Emmett groaned and Anidea muttered. “Emmett, are you alright?”

The lights came on and Anidea gasped

“
Alright?” he said. “The lizardman bit me, and I couldn’t stay awake. What happened?”

“
OMG,” Anidea felt her face. “Get me a mirror. You have scales on your face. Tell me. Wait. No don’t. What do I look like?”

“
What are you talking about, Anidea?”

“
What have those little spider-crabs done to us? On your face where the gashes were, you have gray scales and your eye looks like a lizard eye.”

Emmett felt his face. “What could do that?”

“
And in the center of your forehead is a small diamond shaped lens and retina.”

“
Cool,” Emmett said, “The robots must only know how to treat lizard people and they did their programed job.”

“
I feel sick,” Anidea said.

Tom sat up, and the spider-crabs retreated back into their holes. “Am I alive? Did we land?”

“
Tom?” Anidea gasped, startling him. Tom was covered in scales. He looked like himself, but green.

“
What?” he said as he saw her and gasped himself. “Y-you look like a lizard. How?”

“
No!” She shouted, her worst fears realized. “The spider-crabs changed ME?”

“
What spider-crabs?” Tom questioned, not seeing any.

“
The ones that fixed us. The ones that ruined my life. I look like a lizard now,” Anidea sobbed.

“
Stop freaking out, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Tom tried to calm her. “I feel fine, actually, quite good. So whatever the spider-crabs have done, they made us better.”

Winston woke and screamed at the sight of Tom and Anidea. “Your skin!”

“
Wow, cool,” Emmett said, smiling a scaly smile as he wiggled his fingers and hands.

“
Oh no, we didn’t land,” Winston said, as he unbuckled himself from his chair and started to float a little above it.

Together they crowded at odd angles around the viewport in the zero gravity.

“
Where’s the Earth?” Anidea asked. “That’s not Earth. It’s red.”

“
That’s Mars,” Emmett gleamed. “This must be where they are from. And when the escape pod was activated, it acted like a homing pigeon and brought us here.”

“
Mars is, like a long way away. How did we get here?” Anidea asked.

“
I don’t know, but it looks like we are going to land,” Emmett said.

“
What’s going to happen to us now? Anidea fretted.

“
We’re going to land,” Emmett said.

Tom went to the viewport and studied the Martian landscape for a moment. “Then, we are going to find our way back home.”

An alarm beeped frantically and lights flashed. Panicked, Tom searched for what was wrong, “What now?”

Retro-rockets fired, pinning them to the pod walls, then sputtered and cut out after several seconds.

Anidea gritted her teeth in anticipation of what was to come. “That can’t be good. Everything has been bad so far.”

“
It could get worse,” Emmett said.

Anidea felt her face and shouted at him.“I look like a lizard.”

“
If the transformation completes, it will be an improvement.”

“
I’m tired,” Tom said sharply. “I’m sick and tired of you two not getting along. After everything we’ve been through.”

“
I couldn’t have said it better,” Winston said.

The escape pod tilted, bringing the viewport to face the planet’s surface again. Emmett tapped on the window, “Mars is so cool.”

“
The engine’s stopped, Emmett,” Anidea said, “and you don’t have a problem with this? You’re the glad to be here character in our adventure. I’m not glad one bit.”

“
You can see the polar cap. Come take a look,” he smiled.

“
What the hell we going to do with Mars?” Tom asked.

The pod picked up speed and tilted toward the surface.

“
How many layers are there in the Martian atmosphere?”

“
Three,” Emmett said. “Three very thin layers of terror.” Anidea pulled at her hair, Emmett continued. “We’re going to plummet through to our death.”

“
We could only be so lucky.”

“
There’s no use in us panicking,” Tom said. “It’s not like we can step out, and flap our wings.”

Anidea didn’t believe they could be joking. “Tom! We’re going too fast.”

Tom watched her. She couldn’t sit still. She acted like a trapped animal in a cage the way she clawed at her seat and fiddled with her hair, “Remember what I said about freaking out, Anidea?” His thoughts drifted to his neighbor’s Suburban and he smiled, “Just another tin can. Strap in, we are going to land.”

They fell to Mars.

The smooth ride of frictionless space ended. The capsule skipped like a rock across the tenuous eddies of the Martian thermosphere. Settling in, it shook and vibrated. The air smelled of ozone, and it started getting hot. “Great we’re going to burn up in the atmosphere,” Anidea said, “After all that we made it through. What a stupid way to die. Just call me a barbecued lizard.”

“
That’s not gonna happen,” Emmett said to Anidea between jolts. “Mars doesn’t have an atmosphere thick enough to burn up in. At 13,000 mph we’ll only heat up to 3800 degrees, give or take, and the pod should protect us from that. We will be through the atmosphere before there’s ever any chance of us bursting into flames. What’s going to happen is we’re going to make a new micro crater.”

Anidea glared at Emmett and growled. “Give or take? Micro crater?”

Tom closed his eyes and smiled. “What’s making you so smart, Emmett?”

The pod hurled through the atmosphere. Fire lit up the view port. Smoke filled the pod. Anidea and the twins held on, and Tom braced himself as best he could on the floor.

The pod bucked violently as it smashed through the atmosphere. Tom was bounced around the capsule like an egg in a tin can. Anidea grappled for his hand to hold him; Emmett and Winston grabbed on to his legs. It was a fiery free fall. They all screamed.

A bright green light enveloped the escape pod, and it recoiled like a bungee cord, bouncing to a dead stop. Tom thudded on the floor with an “Oof!”.

Emmett smiled. “Unless of course, we are saved by a fantastic alien technology.”

Tom held his head and sighed in relief. “Good call, Emmett.”

The pod was held high above the Martian desert in the grip of a beam. It was pulled across the land past dunes and ancient jetties of rock, finally coming to a stop over a deep crater. They marveled at the sights through the viewport.

“
Percival Lowell was right. Look, canals!” Emmett exclaimed.

The green light that held it in place changed color to blue and the pod descended into the crater. They landed softly, without a sound.

Seconds later, the pod jerked like a roller-coaster grabbing the chain on a lift hill and started to move.

“
Now what?” Anidea said, “Should we just stay strapped in for our safety?”

Smirking, Emmett said, “You should probably know that Mars doesn’t have an oxygen atmosphere. We won’t be able to breathe. If we get out of here”

“
No oxygen?” Anidea asked, “I’m not amused by your stupidity.”

“
We’ll figure something out,” Tom said. “What that something is, is going to be the difficult thing to figure out.”

“
I know your plans are good, Tom. But this is Mars. You can’t tell me you have a plan for this,” Anidea said.

Tom felt like an old man, every bone in his body ached. “I’m thinking.”

The pod bumped and stopped moving.

“
We are part lizard now,” Emmett pointed out and got out of his seat, “So why wouldn’t we be able to breath the carbon dioxide atmosphere? If that’s what the lizards breathe. Is this the door handle?”

“
No, don’t.” Anidea fumbled with her seat restraint.

Emmett’s hand was on the handle before she could unbuckle her harness to stop him. The air from the escape pod hissed out. She gulped a lung full of air and held her breath.

An indicator light above the access hatch turned from orange to blue and beeped once.

Breathing deeply, Emmett patted Anidea on the knee. “Yup it’s good. Quite pleasant with just a hint of cat box.”

She punched his arm. “You jerk.”

Emmett didn’t flinch. “Didn’t hurt. Either my scales protected me, or maybe you’re just weak.”

Tom pushed past Anidea and Emmett and stepped out of the pod. “Let’s get out of here.”

Outside, the pod was connected to a passageway lit by luminous orange moss that lined the walls. The passageway sloped down steeply. Hand rails were set every few feet for the walk down.

At the bottom of the ramp, the passageway opened up to a balcony on the wall of a domed canyon. The canyon was well lit; bright light shone through a giant arched skylight that went on for as far as the eye could see. Slowly, Tom stepped out of the passageway and gazed at the sight. He felt a sense of wonder.

No human had ever seen anything like this, he was the first. Chasing after him, Anidea emerged from the passageway. It was warm and nearly as humid as the space ship. “Is that water I smell?” she asked.

She stood next to Tom, stared down over the railing at the canyon's floor, and gasped. Fountains and pools of water flowed, filling channels that led off into the distance. Many of the same types of plants that they had seen outside the spaceship back on earth were gathered around the fountains. They appeared to be socializing by the way they swayed back and forth, turning from one to another and rubbing their tentacles together.

Arriving just after Anidea, Emmett and Winston said, “Whoa.”

“
It’s that plant,” Winston said, frightened.

“
No,” Emmett said, “this must be what happens to the fruit when it goes to seed and gets planted. How ingenious. Meat and vegetable all in one, the perfect food.”

“
We will get hungry sooner or later,” Tom said, “and if that’s the only food that we can find, we will have to eat one of those.”

“
What if one of those was a human?” Winston asked reflectively, “Would we be cannibals if we ate it? Like that one. It looks human.”

Anidea put her finger in her mouth and stuck out her tongue. "I’m not eating anything here.”

“
Wouldn’t they have more plants than this to feed an entire population?” Winston asked.

“
They would,” Emmett remarked. “This doesn’t look like a farm, more like a botanical garden. See all the different species of plants. They must travel to other worlds for different creatures to convert to food. Wait, not even a garden, it’s a sort of zoo.”

“
We’re not creatures or zoo animals,” Anidea made clawing motions with her hands.

“
To them we are,” Emmett said. “See the dome, how it acts as a sort of greenhouse. It magnifies the light and keeps the heat in. This explains a lot.”

“
You’ve gone off the deep end. This doesn’t explain anything more than that you know nothing about it.”

“
See those rib supports up there. Those are spaced about 500 feet apart. NASA has pictures of them from the outside.”

“
You’re saying the government knew about all of this?”

“
Yes and no. They would never admit it. Not intentionally. So they let the public look at their pictures and decide for themselves what they are looking at. This would be M0400291a.”

Anidea made a diving motion with her hand and clapped them together. “Ah splat. Yup, deep end. You’ve gone off the deep end, where there is no swimming allowed.”

Emmett kicked a rock at her. “Look around you, stupid.”

“
Tom,” Anidea took a step back. “You’re licking your eyeball. OMG. Just don’t tell me if I do that.”

He grinned and trilled his tongue at her. “Tastes like chicken. “Like I said, relax. We have to figure out how we are getting back to earth.”

Anidea put her face into her hands and laughed uncontrollably. “I can’t take this any more. I know you haven’t gotten us killed yet. We’ve been lucky so far. But I just can’t help thinking that this is it. We’re going to die here.”

Emmett kicked off his shoes and wiggled his toes. “Hey, our transformation is quickening. This is the coolest thing ever. We talked about what it would be like on Mars at space camp. I can’t believe we’re here. It’s real. We need to make the most of this. We’re going to be lizards. This is great!”

“
It’s not great, monkey-brain,” Anidea balled her fists up and wiped away her tears. “We’re trapped on another planet with no way home. How’s that cool? How’s that great?”

Emmett flexed his knees and hopped high in the air. “It is. That’s why.”

“
Up there,” Winston indicated, as large robots moved above suspended in auras of blue light. They looked like they tended to the garden’s needs. Their appendages had cutting and grabbing and digging attachments.

“
Ha!” Emmett said, “will you look at that? Any intelligent civilization knows to use robots for the little jobs. Unless they need to occupy their population. Then they have a real problem. When all people want is a fair and even chance to live their lives without worry. But modern civilization prevents that from happening, there just isn’t enough to go around for everyone. I’m going to take this technology back to Earth and make billions.”