‘Don’t come any closer!’ he warned.
Chris halted. ‘Hey Paul,’ she said with a tired smile, ‘take it easy. It’s me…’
‘Sure. And I’m Harrison Ford. We know the real Chris got taken by that thing. Right Linda?’
‘That’s what Alex said,’ Linda agreed, staring at Chris with horrified fascination. It was almost impossible to believe that this wasn’t Chris. She — it — looked so real.
‘Alex was lying. You know what he’s like. I got away from him but of course he’d never admit that.’
‘No,’ said Linda slowly. ‘I think he was telling the truth. He gave details… said you were already dead by the time it got you… that only bits of your personality survived…’ ‘This is ridiculous,’ said Chris. ‘How can I convince you of the truth?’ She looked imploringly at Mark who was still doubled-over, trying to recover his breath. ‘Mark, make them understand. This is me.’
Paul raised the gun. ‘I’m sorry but we can’t take the chance…’ But before he could pull the trigger Mark leapt up with a wild cry and flung himself on Paul, knocking him over. The M16 clattered to the floor. Linda saw a gleam of triumph in Chris’s eyes as she started forward again.
Hoping with all her being that she was doing the right thing Linda ran to the gun and scooped it up with her right hand. Then, resting it awkwardly on her stiff left arm, she fired blindly at Chris. Chris was less than four feet away and the stream of 5-63 bullets almost cut her in half. Her body was flung violently backwards as if pulled on invisible wires. ‘No!’
The scream came from Mark. Leaving Paul he ran to Chris’s body. ‘You’ve killed her!’
But Paul was already up and-after him. He managed to grab Mark before he could fling himself on Chris and pulled him away.
‘That’s not Chris, you idiot!’ he yelled as he struggled with Mark. ‘Look at her!’
From her open mouth a black, shiny tendril had emerged, rising up like the head of an inquisitive snake. Linda felt a wave of repugnance go through her as she watched.
Mark stopped struggling. He gave a low moan of despair as Chris’s body began to collapse in upon itself.
‘Quick!’ said Paul urgently. ‘Move yourselves! Before it can attack!’ Hustling Mark ahead of him, Paul ran to the discarded flame-thrower and picked it up, then ordered Mark to grab a lamp and a flashlight. ‘Out the other door, hurry!’ he cried. ‘Linda!’
For several seconds Linda watched, almost hypnotised, as the tendrils of black slime flowed out from the rapidly disintegrating shell of Chris’s body. Then, as one of them began to pick up speed in her direction, she came to her senses and ran.
Again she found herself running down a dark corridor but at least this time she was not alone…
When they’d put about fifty yards between themselves and the kitchen Paul called a halt. Panting he lit the burner on the flame-thrower then shot a brief jet of fire down the corridor behind them. The harsh red glare revealed no sign of the creature.
‘Okay,’ said Paul, ‘now we follow my original plan. We’ll try and get outside and head for the roof…’ He turned to Linda. ‘How are you feeling? Do you think you can make it?’
All Linda really wanted to do was lie down and sleep for a hundred years but she nodded and said, ‘I’ll be fine… look outP
Her warning came to late. Mark brought down the heavy flashlight and Paul staggered as the blow caught him on the side of the head.
As Linda rushed to help him Mark whirled round and ran off into the darkness.
It was too much for him to bear. There was no way to avoid the truth. Chris was gone — and he was responsible. He couldn’t live with that knowledge, not without a fix. A big one…
He headed for Alex’s cabin. Paul had taken the three packets of heroin from him earlier so he was making for the remainder of the supply stored in the money belt. He hoped it was still under the mattress where he’d left it. If it wasn’t he didn’t know what he’d do.
He ran through the corridors without making any attempt at stealth. He didn’t care about the creature. He didn’t care about anything. Only the fix he was going to give himself soon. The fix that would banish all the demons that plagued him. The fix that would provide an entrance into a world where nothing mattered…
He found his way back to Alex’s cabin almost by chance. He shone the torch briefly around the interior, stifling the painful realisation that this was where Chris had been killed by the thing, and then tore the mattress off the bunk. The money belt was still there.
Next he went to his cabin and picked up the hypodermic and spoon he’d hidden in a cupboard. His final destination was the bathroom. It was a big room with several separate shower cubicles and a long row of sinks. He set up the lamp on the shelf above the sinks and quickly prepared the heroin. He diluted some of the white powder with water in the spoon, heating it up with a cigarette lighter. Then he filled the hypodermic and rolled up his sleeve. After wrapping his belt tightly around his right arm to cut off the circulation and make the veins stand out he drove the needle, into the biggest vein he could locate on his inner forearm.
He pushed the plunger all the way down then loosened the belt. Almost immediately his body was suffused with the unmistakable sensation of the heroin spreading through him — a kind of glorious numbness that blotted out everything and left nothing but a feeling of blank well-being. It was the ultimate anaesthetic…
Mark let his breath out in a long sigh and leaned his head back, eyes closed. Already the unbearable fact of Chris’s death and his guilt over it had been reduced to a barely troublesome pinpoint in his mind. The hypodermic fell from his hand and clattered onto the flopr.
The noise made him open his eyes. That’s when he saw it.
He could just make it out — a long black stain on the ceiling. It stretched all the way across from a ventilator grill and ended dircctjy above his head.
It took him awhile to work out what it was. He opened his mouth to scream but as he did so the black slime dropped down on him. It covered his head and face completely, filling his nostrils and slithering down his throat.
And as the creature invaded his body, breaking it down to its basic chemical compounds, his mind was similarly penetrated by a psychic presence that felt icy cold and unspeakably evil. Mark had a mental impression of something white and slimy lurking in the blackness that had enveloped him. Then he screamed as it began to rip and tear at his unprotected self…
But he was already lost in a different universe and his scream was a feeble mental flicker against an infinite ocean of darkness as the Beast consumed him…
‘It’s useless,’ said Paul impatiently, ‘we’ll never find him. Let’s go topside. We did our best.’
‘But we can’t just leave him,’ protested Linda.
7 can. Besides, it’s probably too late to help him by now. We’ve risked our lives for him long enough. I’m tired and I’m about to drop. I want to get out of here.’
They had been searching for Mark for about twenty minutes. They had checked his cabin and several other rooms but without success.
‘He’s your best friend, Paul,’ persisted Linda. ‘You can’t abandon him to that creature…’