Inseminoid (16 page)

“You’re the boss,” Mark said. He still wasn’t at all happy about Holly, She was always making hysterical decisions.

Barbra was in the bathroom sitting on the seat of one of the half-dozen toilets when the alarm sounded. She’d shampooed her hair and was towelling it dry. She wanted to always look good for Mitch, though she was sure he never noticed. He was always too absorbed in his work. Though if he wanted a bit of distraction she’d be ever ready. She was annoyed by the alarm because it interrupted her nice thoughts. She tried to block the noise from her mind but it wasn’t easy.

Barbra heard someone enter the bathroom and caught sight of Sandy through the corner of one eye. She’d pushed her way into the bathroom looking for refuge.

“Hey, what’s all the commotion about?” Barbra kept towelling her blonde hair while she spoke. “Is Holly into one of her power trips again? By the way, aren’t you supposed to be sick or something? Everybody’s either sick or dead on this dumb planet. No wonder everything’s become extinct. That’s what Mitch says. He says this is a jinxed planet. And believe me when I tell you that if anyone knows about those things, it’ll be Mitch.”

Sandy didn’t move a muscle while Barbra rambled. She just waited and listened.

“So, Sandy, tell me, what’s the big emergency?” Barbra looked up for the first time. “Hey, what do you think this is, a nudist colony? If you don’t get some clothes on you’ll get pneumonia on top of whatever else you’ve already got.”

Then the horror of it hit. “Oh Sandy, your body! What’s happened to it?” A look of anguish spread over Barbra’s face.

Sandy watched the woman carefully through eyes red as burning embers. Then she bared her teeth in a hideous and contemptuous smile. She never liked Barbra anyway. The bitch always going on about her fucking genius boyfriend. Sandy was convinced she was about to do everyone a big favor.

“Hey, Sandy, what’s wrong with you? What are you doing?”

Sandy’s reply left no room for even the naïve Barbra to misinterpret. The crazed woman foamed at the mouth and let out a spine-chilling shriek.

Barbra’s scream came too late because Sandy was on her. Barbra pulled away and broke for the door. She had a foot into the corridor but Sandy was far too quick and pulled her back inside the bathroom.

The two women fought tooth and nail. Barbra put up a fierce struggle. She knew her very existence was at stake—hers and that of the secret child she was carrying. For Barbra
had
taken the antidote which negated the contraceptive injection. It was not only for herself that she fought but for Mitch and their unborn baby.

However, all the desire and reason in the universe could not hold off Sandy’s savage attack for long. She grabbed Barbra’s partly-dried hair and dragged her across the cold floor to the toilet. There, she swung Barbra’s head against the side of the ceramic bowl. She slammed Barbra’s skull against it over and over again, each time crushing it more.

Soon, blood began to spurt from the side of Barbra’s head, from her mouth, her nose and her ears. Still holding her by the hair, Sandy propped up the unconscious, half-dead woman and dropped the bloodied head into the toilet. The chemical solution inside the bowl went deep red. Barbra made a low gurgling noise and when the sound had stopped, Sandy knew she was dead.

As if she hadn’t done enough already, Sandy had more in store for Barbra. She dragged her lifeless body across the bathroom floor. With a jagged piece of broken mirror Sandy sliced into the dead woman. Ripping the shredded and blood-soaked blouse from the body, she brought the glass down, nearly severing Barbra’s left breast. Only a tag of skin kept the fleshy mound from falling on to the floor.

Sandy’s insatiable hunger had returned. She pushed the breast out of the way and bit into the woman’s chest cavity. The fresh, salty human meat was just what she needed. Just what the life within her needed.

The nourishment gave Sandy new strength. She no longer relied on thought process. She was guided by a stronger force.

The crew fanned out through the complex in their search, but it was Holly who happened on the gruesome scene. Sandy was hovering over the body and blood was dripping from her mouth. When the meaning registered, Holly screamed at the top of her lungs.

Sandy was up in a flash and pushed Holly against the wall. The crazed woman moved in for the kill and only the commander’s quick reflexes saved her from sharing Barbra’s hideous fate. Holly slid under Sandy’s punch and scrambled for the door. She knew she’d only be safe behind the locked doors of the control room and it was there she headed.

Sandy spun around and was after Holly. She was gaining on her. Holly didn’t have far to go but at the short flight of steps leading to the control room, she slipped. That misstep was all Sandy needed. She reached out and grabbed hold of Holly’s foot. Holly wasn’t playing games. She’d seen what Sandy had done to Barbra and if she didn’t break away at that second, the writing would be on the wall for her, too.

The commander threw all her power and strength into a karate kick and struck Sandy on the side of her head with her heavy boot. The attacker tumbled on to her back giving Holly the only chance she had. She used it to climb up the stairs on her hands and knees and make it safely inside, no more than a half-step ahead of Sandy.

Holly slammed the door shut and bolted it from the inside. The rest of the crew were waiting for her.

Sharon was behind the console. “What the hell happened?” she asked.

“Sandy’s gone completely crazy! Insane, I tell you!” Holly couldn’t control her trembling.

“What do you mean, insane?” Karl wanted to know. “What’s going on? Try to calm down.”

Holly began to relate what she’d seen but it wasn’t easy. “I was looking for Sandy, just like the rest of you. I didn’t think she’d be there but I checked the bathroom anyway.”

“And she was there?” Mark asked.

Holly nodded her head. “She was next to Barbra.”

At the sound of the name Mitch looked up. “Barbra? Did Sandy do anything to her?”

Sadness flowed from Holly’s eyes as they met Mitch’s. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

That Mitch was hurt badly was obvious to all in the room. His voice went very soft. “Tell me what happened. Leave nothing out.”

“It isn’t nice,” Holly protested.

“I want to know. I have to know.”

And so Holly told what she’d seen and what Sandy tried to do to her. It was painful to talk about but that paled in comparison to the anguish Mitch was experiencing. Everyone was aware how much in love they were. Holly had even rigged rotation so they could be together. No one had known about that, not even Barbra or Mitch.

After Holly was finished, Mitch hung his head in his hands and cried. Finally, he wiped his eyes and asked anyone who might be able to give him an answer: “Just tell me, why Barbra? She never hurt Sandy—never hurt anybody. She was so gentle.”

Karl put his arm around the professor. “There’s no logic behind any of this. At least none within our realm of knowledge.”

But Mitch wasn’t listening to the words of consolation. “It’s all my fault. I pushed for this expedition. I talked her into coming. She would have stayed behind if I hadn’t made her come along.” He pulled at his curly hair. “Why? Why? Why!”

He was losing control. Holly couldn’t allow that to happen. “Shut up Mitch!”

“But it’s all my fault,” he continued. He hadn’t even heard Holly. “Oh, Barbra.”

Holly slapped Mitch hard across the face. The blow stunned him. Mitch brought his head up slowly, then moved off by himself to the corner of the room.

“Okay, so what do we do now?” Mark asked. He had his own ideas, but damn it Holly was still running the show.

“Yeah, Holly, what now?” Gary chimed in.

“Gotta tell Nova about the situation and get a shuttle here as fast as they can.” Holly made the decision at last.

“Glory Hallelujah,” Mark mumbled under his breath.

Holly ignored the remark and turned her attention to Sharon. “Is Nova’s sun shield down yet?”

Sharon checked the time. “Two more hours.”

“Shit!” Holly cursed.

Mark was ready to dig in the knife and turn it. “If you’d done it when I told you, we could be out of this God-forsaken place by now. But no, you had to play big commander. Show your authority. The responsibility for all this is yours.”

Holly’s face lost all color. She looked Mark in the eye and began to feel sick to her stomach. “I called them as I saw them. There can’t be two decision-makers on a mission. If you didn’t trust my judgement, you should have requested a different assignment.”

“I came along particularly because I didn’t trust your judgement. I figured someone had to keep you straight. But you wouldn’t listen to anything I said. You kept telling yourself it was professional jealousy. But you were full of shit, Holly McKay!”

That was more than Holly could handle. She lunged at Mark but he was waiting for her and buried his fist in her gut.

At once, Karl and Gary were pulling them apart.

“That’s enough!” Karl shouted. “That’s not what we need right now. When we get back to the space station you two can fight it out all you want. Right now we’ve got a job to do.”

Gary held the angry woman tightly. “Let go of me,” Holly ordered him. Then she turned to Mark. “I’ll have your stripes for this. I’ll see to it that you’re never on another mission as long as you live!”

Sarcasm seemed to drip from the corner of Mark’s mouth. “If you make the decisions, none of us’ll live very long.”

It was falling apart. Somebody had to do something and fast. It was left up to Karl. “It’s Sandy we’re fighting, not each other. Holly, are you still commander or not?”

“I give the orders.”

“Then get a hold of yourself. Both of you. We’re doing Sandy’s work for her. All she has to do is wait us out and we’ll end up killing each other.” Karl paused. “Okay, the question is, how do we apprehend Sandy without killing her?”

Holly wiped the sweat from her forehead. “We must keep Sandy under observation. That means putting all the cameras on her and keeping the monitors going. If we know where she is, we’ll be that one important step ahead of her.”

Sharon punched up a dozen cameras until Sandy showed up on a monitor. “She’s in corridor four at the moment.”

“Oh God!” Gary said aloud. “The explosives room is in number four. If she gets into that we’ll have no way to defend ourselves.”

“There are only very low-yield explosives,” Mark told him. “Although some of those charges do pack a powerful punch.”

“Then we’ve got to get to her before she gets to them,” Holly said. She took a deep breath before continuing. “Any action we take will be planned and orderly.”

“Wait a second. Sandy’s moving away from the explosives room,” Sharon reported.

“She hasn’t thought of it yet,” Karl remarked.

“Thank God for something,” Gary said.

All of a sudden, the screen that held Sandy’s picture went black. “Get it back!” Holly ordered.

Sharon kept punching the button that would activate that particular camera but nothing happened. The monitor was still black. “Holly, the malfunction doesn’t emanate from here. Something must be wrong in the camera.”

“What a bitch of a time for it to happen!” Holly pounded her balled-up fist against the wall.

Then the picture on a second monitor screen dissolved. Holly looked down at the control console. “Are you sure the malfunction isn’t here?”

“I’m sure. Look.”

Sandy was on one of the remaining functioning screens. She carried in her hand, a long narrow length of metal tubing. Sandy faced the camera. She knew she was being watched. She smiled, revealing her ugly set of razor-sharp teeth for all to see.

“She’s goading us,” Karl said. “She’s showing us who’s really in control.”

“Look!” Mark shouted. “She’s about to smash the camera.”

He hadn’t even finished the sentence when that camera joined the others. Then, in rapid succession every camera in that wing of the complex met the same fate.

“Well, I suppose we’ve just lost our advantage,” Gary remarked.

“We never had one,” Mark added, caustically.

Holly thought for a moment. They had to try to overpower Sandy with their numbers. That was the only way, short of killing her. And that was something no one yet had the courage to suggest.

Sandy was becoming larger by the hour. She was so weighed down by the life she was carrying it was impossible to move quickly. Eventually she made her way to the explosives store room. The door was locked but that wasn’t a problem for Sandy. She still had her metal pipe and used it to pound through the lock. She’d become so strong that the door flew off its hinges after being struck only once.

Sandy gathered up as many of the small button-like charges as she could carry with her—and one grenade. She had a plan. She left the supply room and walked to the opposite end of the corridor. There, she balanced herself precariously on a narrow trellis and reached across a railing. She’d just about make it to the mouth of the shaft. The shaft led to the bowels of the complex.

Without waiting, Sandy dropped the explosives into the shaft.

Sharon’s eyes darted to the digital clock every few seconds. It was getting close to the time when contact could be re-established with Nova. Only six minutes remained. Silence filled the room. Everyone waited for the time to run down. They were desperately aware that they had to escape from this terrible planet. The flashing numbers on the clock were hypnotical; all eyes were on them.

They had only twenty-six seconds more to wait when the explosion shook the complex.

“It looks like she’s found the explosives,” Karl said bitterly.

Then the clock hit zero. “All right,” Holly shouted to Sharon. “Get the space station!”

Sharon set the frequency and sent out the signal. “Nova, this is archaeology team seven. Do you read?”

There was nothing. No response at all. Sharon tried again. “Nova, this is Archaeology team seven. Do you read me? Are you there? Please answer.” She was begging for a reply.

Holly shoved forward and gave it a try but the result was the same.