She lay there in a heap, almost upside-down, stunned and helpless. She couldn’t even move as Alex lurched across and stood menacingly over her. In the dim light from the torch she saw his face was covered with large white and yellow blisters from the acid. Both his eyes had been closed up by the burns but, incredibly, a third eye, a rudimentary one, glared down at her from the centre of his forehead.
‘Fucking bitch,’ he rumbled. ‘For that I’m gonna peel your skin off in long strips and make you eat it.’ He bent down, his huge hands reaching out for her. A sick despair filled her. She’d almost made it, but now…
Then, unexpectedly, he stepped back from her. He began to make a thin, wailing sound, like a terrified child, then fell to his knees in front of her and cried, ‘Oh God, it’s back! It’s here.. it’s hurting me… No! It’s eating me! Eating my mindV
Alex screamed and covered his ruined face with his hands. Linda saw that his body was starting to pulsate, as if something inside was trying to get out…
He took his hands away and the single, unfinished eye stared at her imploringly. ‘Linda, help me! Don’t let it pull me back down there again! I want to stay up here, in the light! Oh Jesus, it’s tearing me to pieces…’
His face started to change. The mouth closed up and vanished, as did the eye, and the head became more elon* gated. Whether he wanted to or not Alex was going.
Linda seized her opportunity. The thing was blind now, and presumably deaf, so she twisted round on her hands and knees and began to crawl past it towards the door. But moving at all was difficult; her body didn’t want to obey her commands and the pain in her left arm was excruciating.
Finally she reached the door and stood up. She felt dizzy, as if she was about to pass out. Do that and you’re dead, she told herself angrily.
She glanced back over her shoulder and saw that no trace of Alex remained. The creature resembled some kind of huge, fish-like foetus. Its skin was now a dead-white colour and looked wet and slimy. The head was long and very narrow and completely smooth except for the two large, round fish eyes…
Eyes. It had eyes again. And it was looking straight at her. It started to get up.
Linda screamed and desperately tried to open the door. It seemed to be jammed, then she realised it opened inwardly but in her panic she was trying to open it outwards.
At last she was outside. She hurled herself into the pitch darkness of the corridor and ran for her life, not caring where she was going just as long as it was away from that thing.
She kept running, trying to ignore the explosion of pain in her broken arm that came with every jarring step, until she collided with the wall at the first turning in the corridor.
She bounced off it and landed hard on her backside on the floor. This caused an even greater burst of agony in her bad arm.
Idiot, she told herself. She struggled to get up again, gritting her teeth as she felt the two ends of the broken bone grind together. Then, behind her in the darkness, she heard a distinct/^ plop sound. It was if someone was trying to run in flippers…
It was after her.
She ran blindly, not even sure if she was running in the right direction. For all she knew she could be heading straight towards it. But she knew that if she should run into the arms of that white, slimy horror her mind was going to snap instantly.
No, thank God. It was still behind her. She could hear the wet sounds of its footsteps.
She whimpered to herself as she ran. She held her right arm out in front — she didn’t want to hit another wall. If she knocked herself off her feet again she knew it would reach her before she could get up.
On and on she ran. Her chest began to hurt with each breath. Coloured lights danced in the blackness. How long could she keep going before she collapsed from exhaustion? Was there ever going to be an end to this nightmare or was she already dead and in hell? When the yacht sunk had they all died without realising it?
One of the lights dancing in front of her eyes suddenly became brighter. Then, as it blinded her with its intensity, she skidded to a stop, confused… Behind came the remorseless plip plop footsteps of the creature.
A voice cried out, urgently, ‘Linda, this way! Quickly!’
It was Paul.
She ran forward. Someone grabbed her in the darkness and pulled her to one side of the corridor. There was a roaring noise. She turned and saw Paul firing the flame-thrower at the approaching creature. A great gout of flame — so bright it hurt the eye to look at it — hurtled down the corridor and enveloped the thing.
For a moment Linda thought it was going to keep on coming but after a couple more steps the creature halted and started to scream. It was a hideous sound — as if a houseful of tomcats were being burned to death.
Paul kept the jet of burning liquid on it, advancing slowly towards it as he did so. The thing’s torso was completely alight now, the white flesh sizzling and emitting a ghastly smell…
The awful squealing got more high-pitched and then the thing turned and tried to run. It didn’t get very far. It collapsed to the floor and lay there writhing as the flames grew fiercer around if. Finally the screaming stopped and it was still.
The person holding her said, ‘It’s dead! We got it!’ She realised it was Mark. He let go of her and joined Paul. The flame-thrower sputtered out and darkness briefly closed in but then Mark switched on a powerful flashlight and shone it over the blackened remains of the creature.
Linda wanted to cry out: ‘Don’t go near it! It’s not dead! It’s a trick!’ But she couldn’t make her voice work. All she could do was lean up against the wall and fight the waves of unconsciousness that were lapping at her mind.
‘Look out… it’s still moving!’ warned Paul. He and Mark took a quick step backwards. But the horror wasn’t getting to its feet, as Linda feared it might be, instead it was shifting and bubbling — collapsing in upon itself. All three of them watched in silent awe as the creature’s body dissolved rapidly into a pool of black slime, hissing like a leaky radiator. Then the slime began to move…
Towards them.
Paul switched on the flame-thrower again. The liquid fire poured out over the moving mass of slime. It recoiled but it didn’t bum. Then, slowly, it formed itself into a long tendril that began to stretch out along the floor, away from them. Soon the bulk of the ‘body’ was trailing its way down the corridor and a short time later vanished from sight.
‘Well, at least we’ve given it something to think about,’ said Paul, shakily. ‘But keep sweeping the floor with the light, Mark, in case it doubles back.’ He switched the flame-thrower off and came over to her. ‘Are you okay? What happened? Where are the others?’
‘In hell,’ she whispered. She started to fall and remembered nothing else.
Fourteen
Shelley was floating at the bottom of a black sea of infinite proportions. He was hiding. It was looking for him.