“But we know how it lives.” The latest events had broken Alan and he had lost his habitual positive enthusiasm and energy. “It lives through the doubles and that’s how it affects us, don’t you think?”
“I suggest we destroy it by an explosion, while it’s not too late”, Norman interfered.
“I don’t believe they would let us do it”, Marcela said. “And I deeply doubt that this ‘thing’ is vulnerable to our weapons. You shouldn’t have brought it here.”
“To begin with, the Russians from the submarine shouldn’t have taken it from wherever they found it”, Hans added. “But it is here and we need to destroy it. I believe I can guess how.”
At this moment the lights went out and everybody froze in the darkness. It was quiet.
Like in a coffin.
All hell broke loose with the bang of a rock falling through the ceiling. Glass, people and metal mingled in a heap of rubble.
The ceiling of the dome collapsed in pieces over the heads of the group with monumental crash and the doubles rushed against them.
Two of the soldiers were instantly torn to pieces.
The monsters were silent assassins, they acted with perfect accuracy and precise movements, as if consuming the small space of the room. They did not utter a sound, probably they could not even talk, only the ferocious flames in their cannibal glances were an evidence that they were not machines, but alive creatures.
The Lieutenant was thrown onto the ground.
He was fighting one of the creatures, employing all the power of his short and sturdy limbs. Ivanov’s double, heavy as a roller machine, had pressed his chest with its knee and was just intending to bite his neck with those enormous sharp teeth, when Babyface caught with his right hand one of the tumbled down computers. With astonishing force he raised the heavy metal box and, using just his wrist, smashed it against the head of the creature. It stumbled and lost its balance for a moment. This second was enough for the Lieutenant, who jumped with quick thinking, grabbed he monster and pinned it to the ground. His right hand was holding its neck, stopping its ability to move its head and get oriented in space. The fingers of the Lieutenant’s left hand were feverishly fumbling for his pistol that had slipped from the holster and fallen on the floor. The creature was madly waving its limbs in the air, trying to free itself.
The double stretched in a way, impossible for a man, and kicked Babyface in the back so hard that the Lieutenant tumbled forward over his head. However, his left hand was now holding the gun. He fell on his face but managed to turn over quick as a lightning and fired at the head of his adversary, which was almost touching him.
The brain of the creature burst in thousands of small pieces and splashed some acidic liquid over the Lieutenant’s pleasant face. He got up, wiping his lips with his sleeve, and looked around for his companions.
Struggling bodies were rolling on the floor. The red lights in the eyes of the doubles were moving in the darkness like huge and fast fireflies.
The metal bar from the roof hit Marcela on the forehead and she almost lost consciousness. She saw only shadows, while her ears were ringing from the swish of bodies flying around. She thought she was dying. The surprising attack had left no room for fear and now she was conquered by some strange peace before death.
She had the feeling that the flash of the bullet moved towards her head for several seconds before the bang deafened her completely.
She thought of the lightnings. Her ears started ringing again and then deadly silence followed.
Marcela closed her eyes, waiting for her end and laid low on the floor. Alan threw himself over her to protect her. Shots were heard. Norman was firing at the red spots, moving around the room, careful not to shoot someone of his own group.
A second later the double of one of the soldiers threw itself against him and pushed the gun from his grip. Norman caught the creature, trying to throw it on the floor, then took out the knife from the sheath on his waist and without any hesitation dug it in the double’s head, between the eyes.
The Major felt the iron grip around his chest loosening and glanced around in search for more red eyes.
At the same time Alan, with Marcela cuddled beneath him, felt an enormous weight on his back as if a ton of sand was loaded on him. Something warm bit the back of his neck, he was overwhelmed by sharp pain and dizziness.
His first thought was to protect Marcela. He felt as if he was drunk, as if he was injected with poison and could not reason straight. Thinking only of her and how to save her from those beasts, he had no idea at all whether he himself was wounded or not.
His self-preservation instincts were off.
He turned over in order to relax the pressure on her and together with the creature, that had grabbed him, rolled over and crashed against the wall. It was completely dark and Alan could not see anything; he heard a shot and the noise of fighting in the room. He was not sure where the ceiling and where the floor were, and with his last remaining strength he managed to kick off the creature aside. The double was pushed away but at the last moment, like someone sinking under water, grabbed Alan’s leg. Alan knew there was no way for him to extract his limb from the pitiless iron vise. At this moment a pair of blood-red eyes lowered towards his face and he felt the sharp smell of carrion against his lips.
Then a dull blow came in his crotch, a body, thrusting against his own, some warm liquid squirted over his face and he tasted fresh blood in his mouth.
He felt sick but did not have the strength to throw up.
The pain was only momentous, but the sharpest he had ever felt. His leg hurt as if a thousand knives were stuck in his flesh.
Then he lost consciousness.
The Sergeant saw how most of the lights in the Base went out. The strong wind was blowing sand in the eyes and blurred his vision. He was ordered to keep his duty down on the ground because of the hurricane danger and, really, the forty five feet construction was moving like an overturned pendulum and hardly anyone would like to stand on its highest point at this moment. However, from his position in the base of the watchtower his zone of vision was too limited and he could barely distinguish the outlines of the camp. He felt a tap on his back, turned around and saw the Major.
“What are you doing here, Sir?”
Norman’s face was mostly covered. He had twisted some white cloth around his head like a true Bedouin. He approached the soldier and with a quick shot of his hand squeezed his throat, then grabbed his testicles. The man on duty was so shocked by the surprise attack, that stood frozen. He felt a stinging pain between his legs which crawled along his stomach and up towards the chest. Darkness fell before his eyes, his head felt heavy as lead, pulsating, and now he saw only the light, coming from a gloomy tunnel.
Norman’s double pushed the dead body among the crates under the shed of the watchtower and went away.
An explosion. Then another one.
The ammunition warehouses and the watchtower were in flames.
He saw shadows, moving slowly in the darkness of the room and in his ears a misaligned grinding device was screeching. The shadows were talking among each other, he was sure of that, but as much as he strained, he could not understand just what they were saying. He felt as if terribly drunk, it had happened to him once when he was a university student – he poisoned himself with different varieties of alcohol and his body surrendered on him. He was young and wild back then, and after the heavy drinking session his life was saved with lots of efforts in the emergency room. He was in a coma and was almost not going to make it, at least that was what he was told.