Extinction Point (30 page)

She began pushing the bike around the edge of the clearing. It was easier said than done because the loose earth grabbed at her sneakers and the tires of her bike, slowing her progress.

As Emily walked she began to feel a sense of unease settle over her like a dark cloud. Whatever was inside the orbs made her
very
uneasy. It felt like waves of anxiety washing over her, and Emily was sure the cause was the orbs and whatever was growing within them. Try as she might, she simply could not drag her eyes away from the cluster of strange fruit suspended from the alien tree, and the closer she got to them, the stronger her disquiet became.

By the time she had finally crossed the empty space and reached the opposite edge of the clearing, Emily’s nerves were singing with anxiety. She felt ready to explode. It was a miracle she had made it this far. Her instinctual flight-or-fight gauge had quickly fixed firmly on flight soon after she spotted the orbs, and it took all of her self-control not to abandon the bike and her precious supplies and run as fast as she could away from that perplexing, terrifying stretch of open land. She felt like a little kid trapped in a haunted house. She didn’t know why she was so unnerved but she knew the source of it was that bizarre cluster of things in the center of the clearing.

Finally, she reached the opposite side and pushed through the high plants growing along the border of the remainder of the forest. As soon as the clearing was behind her and obscured by the tall vegetation Emily let the bike slip to the ground, leaned one hand against the nearest trunk of a tree and vomited, violently emptying her stomach of the remainder of her breakfast onto a large clump of the red moss and her sneakers. She wiped her mouth with her hand, picked up her bike and immediately began pushing it through the forest again, her desire to place as much space between her and the clearing superseding any thought of cleaning up her shoes.

Thirty minutes later, with her panic now just a tingle in her spine, Emily spotted light breaking through the tree line about a quarter mile ahead of her. She let out a long sigh, slowing her pace a little as her fear was replaced with relief.

That was when she heard something moving through the undergrowth.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

The sound of something big moving through the bushes off to her right froze Emily mid-step. Whatever was in there had effectively blocked her route out of this godforsaken place. She lowered the bike as gently to the ground as she could, trying not to make any sudden movements, then slowly reached around with her right hand to unsling the shotgun from her shoulder. She pushed the butt of the gun against her right shoulder and clasped the forestock with her left. The weight of the weapon in her hands made her feel a little more secure as she swung the barrel towards the clump of tall red plants where she last heard the sound of movement. The straps of the bergen pulled tight against her shoulders making it awkward for her to keep the weapon steady, her arms felt as though they wanted to spring apart as the bergen’s straps dug into her shoulder muscles. Of course, that was the least of her concerns because her hands, trembling with either fear or adrenalin, she wasn’t sure which, made the barrel of the Mossberg sway back and forth like a pendulum.

It’s okay
, she reassured herself.
You don’t have to hit it, you just need to scare the fuck out of it.

Emily sucked in a huge lungful of air and concentrated on calming her nerves. She tried to focus on relaxing her hands; they gripped the shotgun so tightly her knuckles had turned white. She spread her feet wide apart and with the front sight of the shotgun, drew a bead on the spot where she thought the sound was coming from.

The rustle of movement and the sway of a tall clutch of red fronds, about ten feet to the left of where she had first noticed movement, grabbed Emily’s attention. Whatever was moving through the vegetation was circling her, stalking her like a predator eyeing its prey. She swung the shotgun to point in the direction of the still swaying plants as sweat popped on her forehead, trickling down into her eyes. Immediately, her eyes began to sting.

Emily pushed the stock of the shotgun tightly into her shoulder with the hand holding the forestock, using it to support the weight of the weapon. She released the pistol-grip and used her freehand to wipe the sweat from her watering eyes, then across her forehead to halt the rest of the sweat gathering there. Her hand was travelling back to the shotgun’s grip when a huge shape exploded into the air from the grass, landing with a loud
crash
less than ten feet from her.

She staggered backward in surprise, the heel of her left foot clipped one of the roots of a tree and she stumbled, falling flat on her back. Her arms windmilled as they flailed desperately in a vain effort to try to steady herself, but there was nothing to grab hold of and she dropped hard toward the floor of the forest. The second between her falling and hitting the ground felt like it stretched out into a minute, and in that extended moment, Emily saw the creature that stalked her.

It bore little resemblance to the alien-spider creatures she had already encountered; this thing looked more like a regular animal than an insect. It was six-feet long and walked on four muscular legs. Each leg terminated in a four-toed paw tipped with wicked six-inch long talons. Its body, covered in long spines that stretched backwards from the tip of its neck, looked muscular and powerful, like a tiger. The spines were colored varying shades of red that gave the creature a striped camouflage of sorts and allowed it to blend in with the alien flora sprouting up around her. Instead of a head, there was a mass of articulated blood-red tentacles as long as her arm. Each pencil-thin tentacle moved independently and stretched out towards Emily, writhing and twisting like a pit of snakes, as though sensing the air for her body heat or smell. At the center of the mass of flailing tentacles was a long muzzle that, as Emily watched in terrified astonishment, opened wide to reveal row upon row of serrated teeth. It had no eyes that Emily could see, but the creature’s ‘head’ swung directly at her. It bobbed back and forth excitedly as it tracked her movement while she scrambled backwards across the ground until she felt the bergen connect with the base of one of the tree trunks.

The creature opened its mouth wider and Emily could see a pink tongue flicking back and forth between the rows of teeth. The air was split by a sudden wavering ululation emanating from the creature. It sounded like a high-pitched growl and ended with a trilling warble.

This thing could have been stalking her the entire time she was walking through the forest, Emily realized through a mind hazy with fear. It was too small to have come from one of the red orbs she had seen growing in the clearing, so this must be something else again. Maybe something created to protect whatever was gestating in the orbs?

The creature moved closer to her, its head dipping low then back up again in a shoveling movement with each step it took. Emily’s feet refused to move. This time, she knew she was going to die. There was no escape, nowhere to run, and even if she did manage to command her legs to move, this thing looked more than capable of running her to ground in a heartbeat.

This was it
, she thought, as the creature stalked closer.
Game over
.
The end
.

And then she realized she still held the shotgun in her left hand. Blinded by her fear she had forgotten the weapon, but now she grabbed hold of the pistol grip and swung the muzzle of the weapon to point directly at the advancing animal. It must have sensed her aggression because the spines covering its body vibrated loudly, giving off a threatening rattle as it dropped back on its haunches and launched itself at her, jaws wide open, tentacles striking as it soared through the air.

Emily closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger.

She heard the
boom
of the shot and felt the butt of the weapon buck violently back into her still recovering shoulder, sending searing pain down her arm. She heard the creature let out a grunt that turned into a squeal of pain. There was a heavy thump as the creature hit the ground.

When she finally opened her eyes, she saw the creature lying on its side at her feet. It was still alive; the round from the shotgun had caught it just above the right shoulder blade. A gaping wound leaked green fluid and the thing’s right leg hung loosely at its side while the remaining three legs spasmed as the monster—and that
was
what this thing was—tried to right itself. The creature’s jaws were inches from her feet, snapping angrily at her as its tentacles writhed and jerked. Emily knew that if she didn’t force herself to get up and finish this thing right now, it was still more than capable of killing her even in its debilitated state.

Pulling her toes clear of the snapping jaws, Emily pushed herself to her feet, careful to stay out of range of the tentacles and teeth of the creature. She racked another round into the shotgun’s chamber and aimed at the monster’s head. It must have sensed its own demise because as her finger tightened on the trigger, the creature let out another of its mesmerizing ululations, only to fall silent as the shotgun blast splattered its head into mush.

Emily stood over the motionless body of the dead creature, her chest heaving as she sucked in huge gulps of wet air. As the boom of the shotgun blast finally faded from her ears, she heard first one, then another and another trilling ululation, as somewhere off in the dense undergrowth of the forest, more creatures answered the call of their dead comrade.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

The three alien creatures appeared within a few seconds of Emily hearing their answering calls.

She was already running towards the edge of the forest when she heard their approach as they crashed through the canopy overhead like a troop of monkeys. She risked a glance over her shoulder; two were already on the ground, closing in on the corpse of the animal Emily had killed. A third was clambering down the side of a tree trunk, the muscles in its legs bulging as it swiftly lowered its body down step by step till it almost reached the ground. It leapt the last fifteen feet and joined the two others, their tentacles playing over the body of the dead creature. As one, all three of the creatures let out one of their startling cries, then turned in her direction and began pounding after her.

“Shit,” Emily hissed, and continued sprinting as fast as she could towards the edge of the forest, pushing her bike alongside her. Behind her, she heard the pounding of the aliens’ feet as they chased her down like foxes after a rabbit.

A very, very slow rabbit,
she thought.

If she could just make it out into the open field beyond the tree line, she was sure she would stand a chance. She just needed to get out of here and on her bike, then she could put some space between herself and those things. She doubted they would follow her outside the perimeter of the forest … she hoped she was right.

Through the spaces between the trees, Emily could see the green of a field beyond the perimeter of the forest, and she decided to just run in a straight line for the closest gap, choosing to clamber over the tangles of tree roots where she could rather than skirting around them.

Emily’s heart pounded in her ears, a counterpoint to the rapid breathing and grunts of exertion she made as she sprinted towards the opening, leaping over the outcropping roots of trees, her momentum pulling the bike over with her. Just thirty feet remained between her and freedom when one of the creatures leaped from the trunk of a tree in front of her.

These things were faster than she had given them credit for.
How the hell had one of them managed to get in front of her
? Emily’s brain had time to think before she dug her heels deep into the ground and released her grip on the bike, which clattered unceremoniously away to her left. Emily hoped nothing on the bike or in the panniers was damaged as it crashed to the ground, but she would worry about that once she was out of this situation …
if
she made it out alive, that was.

In one smooth motion, Emily unslung the Mossberg from her shoulder, aimed at the creature and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

“Shit! Fuck! Shit!” she hissed as she realized she hadn’t racked a new round into the shotgun. She quickly rectified her mistake and pumped a shell into the chamber with a satisfying
cha-chink
, aimed again at the creature in front of her and squeezed the trigger. The shotgun blast caught it square in the neck just as it began to advance toward her, sending the head spiraling into the air trailed by a spray of green liquid. The tentacles on the beast’s severed head flailed limply. It landed with a wet thump and rolled into a clump of red grass about the same time the decapitated body hit the ground.

One down
, she thought, and spun around to face the remaining two attackers as she automatically ratcheted another round into the shotgun’s chamber.

They were gone, disappeared back into the foliage and trees.

Emily swept the barrel of the shotgun back and forth, looking for any sign of the remaining attackers. She was soaked through with sweat and covered in dirt from her mad scramble. Red juice from the plants she had crushed as she rushed headlong through the forest smeared her clothes and skin. It stank of ammonia.