The Prize: Book One (22 page)

“Yes, Ma'am.”  Captain Carras designated two troopers to collect the camel packs while the rest stood guard in a protective circle, gratefully sucking on a canteen Ellis passed around.  They were happy to know they'd have water for a time.

"Spread out, but stay in contact with the person on each side of you," she ordered just as a zephyr of wind stirred the gossamer cobweb sheets and the Thrakee erupted out of the gloom.

"Shit!”  Ellis yelled, bringing her weapon up, only to discover that it wouldn't fire.

In fact none of their weapons worked.  The confusion cost three troopers their lives.  Class screamed at the men to drop their weapons, reversing his and using it as a club.  Soon they were battling, hand to hand for their lives in the vine-tangled gloom.  The moment the Thrakee appeared Penn exploded off the floor, both knives out, moving like a wraith between the struggling bodies.  As he moved, Thrakee fell, some screaming in agony while others just dropped, dead before they hit the ground.  As the screaming Thrakee came flying out of the darkness, and Penn let go and went into berserker mode, fighting like a man possessed.  More than once intercepting a Thrakee heading toward Ellis.  To Penn it felt as if time itself had slowed, and each move he made was slow and deliberate.  Each strike and cut perfectly executed, with no waste of motion.   For one stunned second, Ellis stood frozen when her weapon wouldn't fire before dropping it and following Penn's example.  With a primeval scream of rage, she pulled her combat knife she dived into the melee.  The Thrakee just seemed to keep coming, and they fought for what seemed like an eternity.  Then, just as suddenly as the attack began, it was over.  The remaining Thrakee fading back into the gloom among the vines.  Penn and Ellis stood shoulder to shoulder, covered in bloody gore, panting and looking around for more Thrakee to kill.  They had lost three troopers and two more suffered minor wounds.  The Thrakee lost eighteen dead, and an unknown number wounded.

"Now our frigging weapons don't work?  Ellis swore, “What the fuck else can go wrong?”  She panted, anger, fear and the adrenaline rush making her hand shake.

Penn relaxed his stomach muscles, breathing deep as he came down from combat mode, the feeling of exhilaration of combat still surging through his system.  He could feel the fading madness behind his eye and shook his head in disgust, wanting more.  He was like a junky, already craving his next fix and looking for any excuse to get it.  Sometime during the fight, Trooper Zinary became entangled in the vines, and the more she struggled, the more she became entangled, slashing at them angrily with her knife to free herself.

“How about a hand here, I'm stuck.”  No sooner were the words out of her mouth when she screamed.

The vines were now growing hooks that bit into her exposed flesh and clothing, and the more she fought, the deeper they dug in, screaming even louder as the vines lifted her off her feet.  They rushed to help, chopping at the impossibly tough vines, trying to pull her free to no avail as the vines gradually pulled her into the air out of their reach.  Now she hung face down, screaming in panic and begging for help as the quivering root mass appeared to come alive.  They watched, impotent as the snake like tendrils entered her clothing, now glittering wet with something that dissolving the tough material of her clothes as they did.  The men watched, some in horror, others in fascination as her clothes slowly fell away, until all that remained were a few tattered ruminants.  Her nude body now stretched out in a cross, her thrashing made the hooks dig in deeper, holding her even tighter in their sickening embrace, her skin gleaming with fear-sweat.  A long, soft pinkish tuber cut off her soul cutting screams as it wiggled its way into her mouth, expanding as it did.  She tried to bite as the obscene thing wiggled its way in, but it did no good.  In the end, Zinary was powerless to stop the fleshy tuber sliding deeper and deeper until it entered her throat.

Slowly, the vines tightened their immobilizing embrace around her nude body while others moved back and forth, faster and faster, as if blown by some unfelt wind.  As the vines tightened their embrace, Zinary's face scrunching up in pain as the tentacles dripped some kind of acid across her body.  Trooper Class jumped back, swearing when some of the liquid dripped on him.  Whatever it was, it left burning red trails across her white skin, like whip marks, startlingly red.  Repulsive looking, fleshy pink tubers wormed their way into her rectum and vagina, pulsing rhythmic in an obscene motion.  It wasn't long before the Zinary eyes glazed over and she began to shake as the rhythmic motion increased.  The torture didn't last long as Zinary started to convulse, eyes bulging from her head, heart pounding in her chest, veins and arteries distended from over pressure until, with one last convulsive spasm, she went limp.  The female troopers turned away, shuddering in disgust while the men just stood in open mouth amazement, unsure what they were seeing.  Penn knew.  The plant was raping her to death in a sadomasochist's dream come true.  There was no way they could tell if she was alive or dead, but somehow he suspected she was alive, maybe trapped forever in her own sadomasochist nightmare until she died.  Even so, the plant didn't stop pulsating as it slowly drew her limp body upwards, slowly vanishing from sight in the tangle gloom above.  Now she was totally out of their reach to rescue her, or put her out of her misery.  All they could do was stand and wonder what their own deaths might be like.

CHAPTER - TWENTY:              Fun House 

"Well, she went out with a bang,” Penn laughed.  Ellis spun, furious, slashing at him.  Penn skipped backward out of reach.

"You dirty frigging pervert!”

"That's it, Princess.  Keep thinking you want to kill me.”

"What?”  Ellis snarled.

"Come on!  Keep thinking about killing me.  That's all, nothing else.”  Penn called, beckoning her toward him with both hands.

"What the hell are you talking about?”  She screamed, slashing at him again.

"Don't you get it?  It's this place!  It gives you what you want, or what you fear the most!"

"That's insane!"

"Is it?  Here…”  He pulling out a canteen and thrust it toward her.

"I don't want a frigging drink you fucking asshole…”

"Take it!”  Ellis tried to slap the canteen out of his hands, but Penn pulled it back out of reach.

"Drink damn you!”  Penn yelled.  By this time the rest of the troopers had gathered around, half-grinning, half shocked at the unfolding argument.  Something in Penn's voice made Ellis pause.  She took the canteen and hesitantly took a swig.  She expected water, but what she got was wine.

"What the hell?...”

"I told you, I want a vintage '67 Chateau Montelena, and that what I got.”

Ellis took a longer sip, savoring the taste.  She was no connoisseur, but this was good, very good, and chilled to perfection.  Wiping her lips with the back of her hand, she gave the canteen back to Penn, an odd look on her face.  Overhead, the girl limp body still hung from the vines like some kind of gruesome, perverse fruit, a counter point to Penn argument.  Ellis tried to remain clear-headed, but the body haunted her.  It brought back too many horrible memories she fought to suppress.  Memories of violent, perverse sexual scenes from her childhood flooding her mind.

“If you don't believe me, tell me where the Thrakee bodies went?”  Penn declared.  Everyone looked around.  All eighteen bodies were gone.

“What…the…fuck?”  Class stammered.  ”Where the hell did they go?”

“It's not a question of where they went,” Penn said, “but were they real in the first place.”

“That's crazy, Penn.  Look at the wounded, look at the dead.  They were real!”

“True, but we stood here in this room expecting Thrakee, stood here waiting for them to attack, and they did.”

“Hold Mother of the Prophet!  That's not possible,” Carras muttered.

“When we saw that group of them running through the town, I counted no less than sixteen.  Five died in that pit trap.  That left eleven remaining to enter the building.  Class killed two outside, which left nine.  We had no less than eighteen dead here and another seven of eight run away.” Penn spoke slowly, Ellis counting in her head.  ”But, more importantly, when did you hear of the Thrakee running away from a fight?”

“Never.  They just keep coming until you, or they are all dead,” she admitted.  ”Do you think the building created them?”

“I think this building controls the whole damn planet as well as the exclusion zone around.  But knowing that won't do you a damn bit of good.”  He looked up at the body and shook his head.

”A fantasy can kill you just as dead as the real thing, and just as quick.  Let's just hope none of you Girl Scouts gets a fixation about another attack.”  Penn looked at the three dead troopers lying on the floor.  He'd made his point, and he just hoped they'd remember it.  Thinking about it a little deeper, it also answered the question of what the pyramid did with all that power it collected.

"What do we do now?” someone asked.

"Think about elephants, small, fuzzy, harmless pink elephants and let's get the fuck out of here!”  Penn let out a long shuddering breath, looking with haunted eyes at Ellis.  What he feared he could not, dare not, put into words.  Ellis took a deep breath, and pulled herself together, nodding in agreement.

“Spread out and see if you can find a way up out of this room.”  She snapped, suppressing a shudder as she caught sight of Trooper Zinary out the corner of her eye.

"Yes, Major.”  The Captain dragged his eyes away from the dangling vines and turned to pass the order to the reluctant troopers.

"I meant out of this building!”  Penn said as he watched Carras gather up the troopers and began a search.

"I know you did,” she murmured, “but I have my orders.”

"That includes getting yourself killed?  Maybe like that?”  Penn murmured softly, pointing over his shoulder.  ”Or worse?”

"I'll try not to.”  Ellis didn't want to think about what she wanted the most.  If Penn was right, it was a very dangerous road to go down.

"Damn it woman, I don't want you to get killed!”  Penn blushed.  He'd never meant to say those words out loud.  A voice cut her off before she could respond.

"Major!  We've found a way up, and it looks clear.”

"On my way.”  She replied, looking over her shoulder at Penn for a moment, trying to see behind his words.  His impassive face gave no clues as to what he was thinking.  Penn shook his head and turned away.

"Thanks a lot.  You were a great help."  He sighed, looking up at the unseen ceiling as he gathered up his belongings. 

He silently cursed his big mouth.  He never in his wildest dreams thought he'd ever say something like that to her.  Shaking his head, he tested the water once more, finding it clean, and free of alien microorganisms.  Now it was just water, and nothing else.  Any thoughts he'd had about leaving vanished when he realized the sunlight streaming through the open door had slowly dimmed without anyone noticing.  The entrance, or exit no longer existed.

"Figures.”  He shook his head and follow Ellis through the vine forest.  He found her at last in a heated conversation with two female troopers near the top of a ramp.  The look they gave him wasn't friendly. 

”What's up?" he asked.

"They want out, and I can't say I blame them.”

"Forget it.  The front door is closed.  The only way out is up.”  The younger, trooper Callis quietly burst into tears.

Vanira put her arm around the younger woman's shoulders, and led her back to the others, whispering to her.  Penn wondered what their deaths would be like.  Would it be like the girl below, or something worse?  It hurt him to realize that there was no way he could change their fates.

"Remember those two Thrakee outside?”  He said softly to Ellis.  ”Now you know why they were there.”

“Scared spitless,” she said.

“That would be my guess, and it takes a lot to scare a Thrakee.”