Gorian slumps back into her chair, her belly hanging precariously over her knees. “I never thought I’d say this, but it’s time to pray to your gods.”
Theo appears from the kitchen. “Well, if this be our last meal, we might as well make it worth our while. I scored a cask of ale from storage. It’s wonderful. Let’s eat and drink to our health.”
“And long life,” Iggy adds.
Bets chuckles grimly.
We eat grimly, trying to ignore the eerie silence outside the lodge walls. Theo spoons some of the green goop that Iggy’s eating into his mouth. He grimaces. “How do you live on that stuff? It’s rank.”
Gorian muses looking nowhere in particular. “Grey loves Iggy’s food.” She sighs.
“Theo, this goop is similar to the algae that we eat on nauron. Nothing like it exists on earth. I very much miss the taste of the real stuff. Perhaps you will have an opportunity to try it someday if we can leave earth.” Iggy takes another bite.
“You mean if we make it out of here alive.” Bets finishes her glass of ale and pours another.
“Slow down there Bets my girl.” Theo puts his hand over his cup, gesturing for her to do the same. “We’re going to have to fight soon.”
“What’s the point?”
“Bets, you’ve never backed down. Ever. Don’t make me sad and disappointed.” He wrinkles his nose. “Have some faith.”
“In what, exactly? English had faith and it sucked him down a giant drain hole. We need to be realistic. They’re going to break down that door and tear us apart.”
Iggy sets down his spoon and looks intently at Bets with his dark, glossy eyes. “Even if they win, we’ll hurt them badly. However, it seems to me that we need to stop Thresh to prevail. Any thoughts?”
“Deep down she’s a coward,” I say. “She’ll stay back until every last one of her troops are dead, including Jonah, the man that was with her on Silius. She’ll never give us the opportunity for a fair fight. If she loses to us, she’ll walk away, regroup, and keep attacking until we give up.”
Sam speaks. “Excuse me. I regret that Iggy was correct. They are using four of the creatures — grubs as you call them — to carry a 10-meter-long log to the entrance. They will begin battering the door within moments.”
“Sam, please cut the outdoor lights. Also, dim the lights in here by ninety percent.”
“Certainly Gorian.” The lights dim.
“Well guys that should make things a bit awkward out there until they can start a fire for light. We need to be ready for them when they breach the door. I suggest we barrage them with suppressing fire as long as we can. When they finally break through our defense, we split up and disperse into the lodge. There are plenty of rooms in which to hide. Sam, open up the windows and doors at our request. Perhaps some of us might be able to wriggle out and escape into the back.”
“I will assist you the best I can.”
“Thanks my artificial friend. It was nice to know you.”
We position ourselves before the great doors and wait.
Time passes painfully slowly. Finally, the first hard thud hits the door, shaking the foundation of the building and shattering our confidence. The door holds tight. More hits follow and there’s no sign of damage. I begin to hope that the door’s stronger than Sam predicted. However, at the tenth thud, a slight dent appears, with the doorframe creaking in protest. Theo groans quietly in disappointment. At the twentieth impact, it’s quite clear that we’ll be fighting soon. We all lower our weapons in anticipation.
At the twenty-ninth knock, the doors fall forward in a cloud of dust and debris. We squint at the dark opening, waiting for the first grub to appear. Nothing happens.
“Oh Amy,” Thresh calls from outside in a friendly, sing-song lilt. “It wasn’t very nice of you to kill my messenger. She was my only sister, you know.”
Gorian looks at me and mouths, “What?”
“Amy, come out and join me and your beautiful daughter. Do this and your friends can go free. This is my last offer. Otherwise, I’m sending my children in to get you. I can’t guarantee you won’t get hurt.”
I glance at Theo who gives me the strangest look of longing, fear, and happiness. He shakes his head no. I yell, “Thresh, I’m going to kill you.”
“Amy. Have it your way.”
The doorway swells with human bodies dripping with brown ooze. We begin firing and the bodies pile up, plugging the doorway and stopping the animated dead ones behind them. Bets yells, “Thresh, you’re done plugged up. You didn’t think that through, did you honey?”
Thresh laughs, “Hello Bets. There’s room for you too. Come on out.”
With a sickening crunch, a shower of arms, legs, heads, and torsos bursts into the entrance hall with a spray of brown fluid as a small grub forces its way into the gap. Its enormous teeth gnash at us as we unload gleaming plasma into its snout. It slowly advances.
I glance at Gorian, who looks terrible. She says, “Not now.”
“The baby?” I shout.
She’s in her own world, oblivious to me. She may be riddled with pain but she pushes through it, concentrating on killing the writhing creature in the entryway.
“Run and hide Gorian,” I yell.
She looks at me uncertainly, winces, and then backs away, continuing to fire. I turn to look at the monster, glance back to my side, and find that Gorian’s vanished. With one less defender, the grub advances more quickly and we back off.
“I think it may be time to scatter,” Theo yells.
We fire one more time and then retreat into the warm darkness that has been our home for months. I don’t look back but from the sound, the grub and its friends have broken through and are tearing the interior of the lodge to pieces. I run through the dark corridor where I kissed Theo. I should be thinking about how to save my life. Rather, I feel a poignant regret that I didn’t follow through, telling him how I really felt about him. I’m about to die and lose everything — my daughter to that fiend and the man I love to caution and loyalty.
I turn a corner and stop to rest, my chest heaving. A couple of shots ring out in one of the other wings. I hope that my friends are faring well, although I know that’s doubtful. An image of poor Gorian on the floor in the throes of labor being torn to pieces by a grub is too much for me to handle. I lose my dinner on the floor. As I wipe my mouth, something scurries toward me. It’s a live ground squirrel and somehow I know that I must follow it. It leads me into a small closet that I’d never noticed before. On the back wall behind a pile of rubbish is a door leading to a stairway. I take it down into a cramped cellar attached to a dimly lit tunnel.
The squirrel and I proceed through the passageway into a large room. Gorian’s sitting there panting. Iggy stands next to small box, not unlike Troll’s brain. “I’m so glad you found us. The squirrel brought us here. We thought it was you possessing another animal,” Iggy exclaims. “From the look of surprise on your face, the squirrel is not your idea. Welcome to Sam’s central processing unit.”
“Hi Amy,” Sam says.
I examine the squirrel closely, detecting a wisp of intelligence in its eyes. Fromer’s staring back at me. The squirrel scampers back up the stairs and is gone.
We tap into Sam’s surveillance system. The lodge is filled with creatures both dead and alive looking for us. We’ve seen no sign of Theo and Bets and hope that they’re hiding safely, like us. Thresh is angry, throwing furniture and cursing. Jonah sits at the kitchen table enjoying a mug of our delicious ale. He looks serenely happy. Thresh orders the grubs outside to search the perimeter and prevent us from escaping, although all the windows and doors are still shuttered.