She pondered letting go of the ladder and hoping the fall would break her neck, offering a less painful end. She pushed the defeatist thought away. She wasn’t ready to give up yet.
When a faint distant shriek drifted up the chute, the clacking of the creature’s footfalls suddenly ceased. Krisztina glanced down. The insect had stopped with its vicious head turned below. Sensing the creature’s halt was connected to the call she assumed was from the original Black alien, she wasn’t going to waste the slim chance it presented and continued climbing.
EV1L 2.0 halted at the call for assistance from its queen and pondered its dilemma. Go to its queen or disobey and continue its pursuit of the human? It looked up at the fleeing female. Desperate for the nourishment she would supply, it ignored its queen’s second call and scuttled after her.
The restarted click-clacking signaled the creature’s continued pursuit. Moving her tired limbs from rung to rung as fast as she was able, Krisztina looked up at the hatch set in the roof of the chute now barely ten meters away. Not far now. I can do this. Get to the hatch. Turn the wheel to open it. Climb out, slam it shut and lock it. Then find something to jam the wheel to stop the cleverly adaptive creature from following.
Her hand grabbed at the wheel as soon as she was within reach. Her arm, tired from the climb, failed to turn the stiff mechanism. Ignoring the scuttling clacks that seemed to have increased in speed, she climbed one rung higher, grabbed one of the wheel’s spokes and pulled with all her remaining strength. The extra leverage worked, rewarding her with the metal screech from parts long dormant forced into motion. As she readjusted her grip and turned the wheel again, she looked down at the creature now almost upon her. When it grew level with her feet, it pulled back its head in preparation to strike. Its head darted forward with pincers opened wide to receive her ankle.
Krisztina yanked her feet away. The creature’s hard-shelled head clanged on the ladder. With one hand gripping a rung and the other the wheel, Krisztina dangled above the long drop. Hoping her foot would find something solid and not sink into the Black, she kicked out at the creature, striking a hard blow to its—for now—solid head.
Unprepared for the surprise attack, EV1L 2.0’s many footed grip slipped from the wall. As it fell, its legs became tentacles that grabbed at the ladder. With its plummet halted, the tentacles pulled it up the ladder.
Aware she only had seconds before the creature was upon her and doubting kicking it again would prove successful now it had tentacles, Krisztina was on the verge of panicking. Sobbing fearfully, she spun the wheel. The slithering of the creature’s latest limbs grew ever nearer. Her legs began trembling violently, almost slipping her feet from their tenuous perch. Her bladder threatened to empty its contents when it began clicking its sharp mandibles together, now too close to be of comfort. Don’t panic! Don’t panic! Don’t panic! she urged herself, not daring to look down for fear she would freeze in terror.
When the multiple locking pins clunked open, she heaved the door open. Escaping air rushed past her as she scrambled out. As soon as she was clear, she gripped the top of the open hatch and slammed it shut. She heard the creature’s frustrated screech and glimpsed the tentacle it stretched towards her, a last desperate attempt to seize its escaping prey. The satisfying clash of the hatch landing in its frame echoed around the room as Krisztina spun the wheel. Aware of the creature’s incredible ability to split apart and form separate creatures, she examined the edges of the hatch for the slightest sign that part of the Black had made it through.
Thankfully there was none. Her glance around the room revealed it to be a janitorial and maintenance storage closet. Cleaning chemicals and materials, brooms, mops, a floor polishing machine, boxes of spare lightbulbs, a large box of tools on castors for easy maneuverability, and tins of paints of the few basic colors used throughout the facility, most with drips running down the edges, lay on the shelving racks covering three of the four walls forming the small room.
Krisztina’s gaze shot at the hatch when the wheel began to turn. She grabbed a mop, knelt beside the hatch and tugged the wheel closed again. Holding it with one hand to prevent the creature from turning it, she slid the mop handle between two spokes and jammed it against the leg of a shelf unit. She released her grip on the wheel and observed it juddering as the creature below tried to turn it. To double ensure the wheel couldn’t be turned and remained locked, Krisztina enforced the first prop with a broom handle jammed through the wheel in a similar fashion. Satisfied the creature couldn’t follow her, she let relief sweep over her.
Though she would have liked to lay on the floor and rest, she needed to warn her superiors of what had happened and leave the complex before the Black creatures made their way to the upper levels. She crossed to the door and exited the room.
Failing in its attempts to open the hatch the human had fled through, EV1L 2.0 unwrapped its tentacles from around the wheel, withdrew them into its form and scuttled down the chute to find out what its queen required of it.
Aware more humans had entered the complex and fearing they would again attempt to kill it by using the loud explosive weapons that had nearly brought about its demise previously, EV1L initiated its birthing phase and became female, a queen. Normally she would produce a few offspring as guardians to protect her during the pregnancy cycle, but with the humans making their way down through the levels, she didn’t have the time.
She raised her head and let out a long piercing scream to call her single offspring to her. It would guard her until the process was complete. Then her small formidable army would hunt down the humans and absorb their nutrition.
As her mass began making the changes required for the process, she walked through the chamber she had selected to bear her brood and smashed the lights that aided the humans’ weak sight. She reached for the iron girder stretching the width of the room and hoisted her bulging body off the floor. As her form morphed into a cocoon, tentacles shot out and anchored her to the ceiling.
When EV1L 2.0 arrived at the dark chamber, it stared at the bulging, pulsating cocoon hanging from the ceiling. Instincts it couldn’t disobey now guided its actions. It took sentry by the end of the corridor leading to the birthing chamber, and ready to give up its life in defense of its vulnerable queen, it waited for the younglings to be born.
CHAPTER 19
Early Delivery
Two Russian soldiers at Checkpoint Siberia 2 stepped from their warm hut into the cold air. Moving to the barrier across the track, they aimed their rifles at the approaching headlights. Dazzled by the glare, they followed protocol and waited for the arrival of the vehicle Siberia Check point 1 had informed them was coming.
The driver peered out through the windborne snow splattering his windscreen and studied the armed soldiers. He slowed the truck with a loud hissing of air brakes and halted a short distance from the barrier. He wound down the window when one of the soldiers approached and handed him his official documents.
The soldier took the papers and lazily flicked through them. Though the tanker truck was a day early, it was on their official list, a diesel delivery to the facility at the end of the road. Even out here in the middle of nowhere procedure had to be observed, especially with all the recent activity. He handed the papers back, and hoisting himself up onto the step, he glanced around the cab. Scrunching his nose at the foul stench of body odor wafting over him, he stepped down. Unaware of the alien infestation in the facility the man was headed for, he waved the driver on.