Patterson rushed into Crew’s Mess. She had buttoned her coat for decency but knew they would notice her torn shirt. She breathed uneasily when she saw the crew; only half were present. And both the Fuller-creature and its father stalked the halls. The crew present didn’t appear to be aware of the threat.
“Is Command Gate sealed off?”
“Yeah,” Holly said. She looked at her torn clothes with shock. The others did too. “What…”
“Sound repel boarders, Crew’s Mess.”
“What’s happening?” Holly asked. Ginting nervously stood up.
“TURING, sound repel boarders, Crew’s Mess!”
The ship’s alarm system activated immediately. TURING was dependable, and always did what it was directed to do. “All hands, repel boarders on Crew’s Mess! Repel boarders on Crew’s Mess!”
Holly and Ginting shouted at her for explanation. Nieves looked scared and Garvey stared at her with expressionless eyes, his skin was discolored and glistened with sweat. She studied him for a moment. She had known Qureshi was sick but nobody had told her it was spreading. Her stomach tightened as she thought about what it was. She looked back at the hallway and it was still clear.
Where is the other one?
The Captain yelled over comms. “Holly, keep everyone together; we’re coming from the Workshops!”
Holly beckoned her over while she opened an overhead bin to get improvised weapons. “What’s going on?”
“There’s more than one creature now. Pazuzu’s mutating our dead into new creatures. They’re fast and strong. Stocky is fighting two of them near Berthing.”
Holly’s eyes widened. “Is he managing?”
“Yeah. But we need to hunt the others.”
Holly relaxed a bit while tucking a knife in her belt. She maintained a calm, authoritative voice. “The others are together and armed so maybe we’ll be alright.” She looked around and saw Garvey still sitting at the table with a blank stare. “Get up, Garvey, we’re going to the arms locker!” She tossed a fire axe on the table in front of him.
Garvey didn’t move. He stared in a seeming trance until hunching over with a spasm of wet, hacking coughs. A frightening realization now overcame Patterson. Containment had been breached hours ago. And the Pazuzu infections spread by transmission of bodily fluids.
The entry door on the other side of the Mess opened. Qureshi walked in crying. She looked horrible – puffy, discolored, and covered in sweat. Blisters covered her skin and she moved as if in pain. They all turned toward her and asked what was wrong. Nieves was closest and went over to help. She froze, however, when a monstrously transformed Fuller came in behind her.
The monsters attacked with sick grace. The Qureshi-thing hurled Nieves against the wall, bumping her head with a loud thud. The Fuller-thing raced to Garvey, still sitting at the table, and mercilessly gouged out his eyes with its thumbs. Garvey’s blood streamed down his face and his cry drowned everyone’s shouting. And then the creature vomited a vile, gelatinous substance all over his face and in his mouth.
Patterson rushed around the table to help Garvey but the Fuller-creature saw her coming. It shouted in rage while it pulled out the knife Fuller had taken into System’s Access. “You left me to die!” It’s bulging eyes, surrounded by postulant blisters, widened with glee.
It grinned evilly with deep, growling breaths, while it slashed its folding utility knife with wild, wide motions. Patterson easily ducked its strikes, and she was glad that it seemed unaware of her cut resistant skin. Kilograms of breast tissue made an unwanted dance on her chest from momentum while she worked to keep spacing. I have to kill this. It’s not Fuller and I have to kill this.
She caught an upward slash and directed the knife into a line of overhead flex conduit supplying lighting fixtures. She knew the electric current would have to pass through the knife handle, its skin twice, and hers once. That would be plenty of electrical resistance and, at most, she’d feel a buzz.
Fully exerting her muscles, she drove the blade in deep and the lights died. Dim backup lighting kicked in at the corners of the room. The Fuller-creature released the knife and screamed, its bloodshot eyes wide with shock.
Ginting was now screaming for help. She saw him holding his face and neck with blood streaming between his fingers. The aquarium had been smashed. Holly was crying and futilely fighting the Qureshi-thing with her knife, her slashing too slow to catch the monster. At least the Qureshi-thing was no longer armed.
She was experiencing a strange sensation of pain – her skin and eyes burned for unknown reasons. The knife remained wedged into the ceiling and the monster reached for it again. She ducked low and swung her fist into its ribcage – delivering a perfect liver shot. She knew its inelastic tissue would suffer severe trauma. And the many connections to the nearby vagus nerve would carry the multitude of cries of damage (expressed in pain) to the brain. The Pazuzu mutation certainly hadn’t cut them all.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The creature hunched over with a guttural grunt. It balanced itself to keep from falling. It was now vulnerable.
Patterson had very thick and dense bone and connective tissues from generations of targeted genetic selection and metabolic refinement. She grabbed the creature’s head and put all of her mass into hurling its face into the edge of the table. The nearby cups and equipment poles bounced from the violent impact and splats of blood and chipped teeth flew across the room. More teeth fell out of its broken mouth as it collapsed onto the deck in a bloody spectacle. She kicked the monstrosity away in contempt.
Burning pain seized her hand after touching the creature. She looked at it and saw large hives starting to form. She could see them even with her now blurred vision. Snot began to trickle from her nose, and she knew the alien creatures had contaminated the air. She hurriedly opened a damage control overhead storage bin and grabbed a hatchet and an EAB (emergency air breather). She rushed to put it on while going around the table to help Holly, who was now down on the deck. Ginting was clearly dead (covered in blood), and she couldn’t see Nieves. She wouldn’t have a good seal with her hair down and needed to get everyone out.
The Qureshi-thing now had the hatchet from the table and attacked. Patterson blocked its swing with her own weapon. Then she stepped out and kicked the creature square in the middle of the tibia (where little protective flesh covers the bone). It’s leg unnaturally bent forward with a terrific pop and the alien hybrid collapsed onto the deck, howling.
Patterson swung her hatchet down with one hand as she leaped around her fallen enemy. The blade struck its mark and sank deep. A loud crack confirmed that she had severed the cervical spine. She would kill the other one too after getting her friends out. Blood gushed from the laceration when she pulled out the axe head. The wound opened wide as the monster’s head twisted unnaturally.
Holly lay in an awkward pose against the bulkhead. Patterson’s vision was now too blurry to tell if she was breathing. But once she got close she saw that Holly’s skin was covered in bumpy patches of inflammation too. She lifted Holly up and heard a roar from behind.
She was struck on the shoulder before she could turn to the threat. Hoping to defend herself, she rolled onto her back after falling. The Fuller creature immediately leaped on her. Its hands wrapped around her neck and constricted her airway; blood dripped from its mouth onto the visor of her EAB. She fought to loosen its grip, and then she remembered her hatchet. She stretched and grabbed it but then the Qureshi-thing caught her swing and tried to tear it from her hand. It grinned triumphantly while its head lolled on its broken stump, blood soaking the front of its shirt.
The skin on her neck and hands itched and burned intolerably. The blisters may have progressed to open wounds. She tried to remember the effects of mustard gas, although she wasn’t sure which toxin afflicted them. And the torment obstructed her thinking. The monster tightened its grip as if to mock her. She squeezed the hatchet’s handle with her sweating hands. I can hold until the Captain arrives.
And she knew she could. De Silva was two minutes away at most. She relaxed her body to lower oxygen consumption. But she held the hatchet tight. And she felt the strength of anger welling up within her. And the pain only boosted it.
Nieves screamed out of sight and the Qureshi-thing let go. Its head bobbling horrifically as it drew back. She swung the hatchet at the remaining monster. It deflected the swing. She lifted a leg and kicked it in the chest before it had good footing. Its ribs audibly cracked and it crashed backward, and she was free.
She got up and wiped her visor amidst screaming from all around, Nieves’ voice shouting “Go.” Nieves had pulled Holly up. Patterson threw one of the NAV’s arms around her shoulder to help carry her. The Fuller-thing stood opposing them. She tightened her grip on the hatchet. She now knew these things didn’t die easily and she would have to cut it into pieces. But it fled as the they raced to the Galley together.
They darted through the open door and then sealed it. They were all crying and had strings of snot coming out of their noses. Patterson immediately went to the sink, set her weapon down, and took her mask off. She began to wash her hands and then other exposed skin. The injuries did not look as bad as she had imagined. But the pain was the worst she had ever felt, and with the fear gone she felt all of it. She wet several towels with cold water while sobbing. She needed to remove whatever poison they had used with gentle scrubbing.
“What are those things?” Nieves screamed with agony. “Did those monsters kill them?” She rubbed her visibly inflamed skin in obvious pain. She blew her nose on a shirt sleeve but still struggled to breathe.
“I don’t know.” Those monsters may have been something that looked like Qureshi and Fuller or they may have actually been what was left of them. She wiped her face with the towel and then began to clean up her neck, which had been exposed for longer and had considerably more patches. She had to get rid of whatever the monstrosities that had once been her crew had used against her. She had to be ready to fight on – even though De Silva could handle the new alien creatures.
“Do you know what they did to us?” Nieves asked. Holly was now screaming and coughing.
“It’s some kind of poison gas. Come and wash.” She looked again at the bumps forming on her hands. The patches of hives were growing.
Nieves looked at her terrified. “Is it going to turn us into those things?”
“No!” It was the only appropriate answer to avoid panic. And it shouldn’t. She looked at Holly curled up and screaming. Tears and snot ran down her face. She had inflamed bumpy patches all over her. “Let’s get her over here too.” She wetted more towels and then helped Nieves drag the NAV to the sink.
The monsters outside pounded on the door. They would hit and kick and then go quiet for several seconds, and then beat on the door again.
“Do you think they’ll get in?” Nieves asked.
“The Captain will be here in a minute,” she reminded. “You have a weapon?”
Nieves held up the chef knife she used to scare them off with a shaking hand. “I got the biggest one but there are more in the drawers.” She bent over in a fit of coughing. A large mass of snot and some spit fell on the deck.
“I’ll keep my hatchet.” Patterson stripped down to her undergarments and wiped off her skin with a wet towel. Nieves stripped in imitation. Patterson nodded in approval. “Discard everything they may have touched.” She started patting Holly’s face with a towel. “Clean yourself. Then help me help her.”
Nieves nodded and grabbed one of the wet towels.