Chapter 2
Both Rayne and I pulled out our weapons and aimed them at the Karaak. Its legs jerked and twitched for a few moments, which made the rest of its body shake, but a couple of moments later it lay still. Rayne and I kept our guns trained on it a minute longer, even though the only sound we could hear was our own shallow, nervous breaths.
We stood there for a while with our muscles tensed and ready for the creature to move again. I was acutely aware of the beating of my own heart, the rise and fall of my chest, and the sharpness of my vision as I focused on the impaled alien lying on the rubble at my feet. Its long mess of a partially bionic body was mounted on the rocky collapsed ceiling by the metal rods. But, it didn’t move again.
“Is it… alive?” Rayne whispered.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Francine?”
“I am not detecting any signs of life,” the AI replied. “I would suggest to you that its movements were just post-mortem spasms.”
“Okay,” I said as I turned to Rayne. “It’s dead. It just had a spasm. Sometimes there can be movements after death while the body is shutting down.”
“Okay,” she said as she breathed a sigh of relief. “That was scary.”
She began to laugh nervously, and I did the same.
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Yeah, it was.”
“I thought it came alive,” she said. “I mean, with all that machinery in its body, we have no idea if it could come back to life at any moment.”
“Good point,” I replied. “Frankenstein, eat your heart out.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s an Earth thing.”
“I see,” she said. “Well, on Wildern, we call them Reanimates when they come back to life.”
“That’s a thing there?” I asked.
“You were only there for a couple of days,” she chuckled. “You may have seen the mutants and the bandits, but that’s just the beginning of the things that live on that planet. Thankfully, you helped me get away from all of that.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not terrible company,” I said.
“Wow, I’m so flattered,” she laughed, and then she looked back over at the body. “He’s not bad company, either. He’s a good listener.”
“He’s dead,” I said.
“Exactly,” she replied.
“Right,” I chuckled.
“I wanna take a closer look,” she said, and before I could advise her not to, she clambered over the rocks and crouched down beside it. “What? You got to have a look. Now it’s my turn.”
“Fair enough,” I replied.
I took a few steps closer and watched as Rayne looked over the body with wide-eyed excitement. She looked as though she was drinking in the sight of the Karaak’s body, and oddly enough, I could see the crinkles around her green eyes as she smiled at the corpse.
“Should I be worried about you smiling at a dead alien?” I asked.
“Sorry,” she laughed. “I’ve just never seen anything like this. The only alien I’ve ever seen is you, but you look exactly like I do, aside from the eyes, of course.”
I nodded as she made eye contact with me, and her neon green eyes met my deep, brown eyes for just a moment, but even that sent a flutter into my stomach. I cleared my throat and refocused on the Karaak’s body.
All around it was the black, tar-like blood, and now that I had a wider point of view from where I was standing, I could see the immense amount of it that had poured out of the creature’s body. It dripped down from brick to brick like stringy glue and covered a large area around the corpse. I looked at the rods that were sticking out of its chest, and then I took in the way its arms were stretched out on either side of its body.
As I looked closer, I saw a heavy rock in its gloved right hand. I took another step toward it, and that was when I noticed the crushed pieces of technology that were hidden under some of the rocks around it. They were all within arm’s reach of the Karaak, and I could see that pieces of its uniform and helmet were missing.
“Francine, can you tell if those rods are touching any major organs?” I asked. “If it has any, that is.”
“One moment,” the AI replied.
“What’re you thinking, Will?” Rayne asked.
“Just a second,” I said. “Francine’s checking something.”
“From what I can tell from my theory of its anatomy, I would suggest that no vital organs were affected by the metal rods,” Francine said after a moment. “Some of its vital organs have been replaced with artificial replacements, but the rods did not perforate anything vital, meaning--”
“Meaning it didn’t die straight away,” I said.
“Exactly,” Francine replied.
“What did you say?” Rayne asked.
“The rods didn’t hit anything major,” I said. “It didn’t die instantly. It bled out. See all the blood?”
I gestured to the dark stain around the corpse.
“Okay, I see it,” she replied. “But why are you so worked up about it? What’s the relevance?”
“It’s got a rock in his hand, and there are shattered pieces of tech all around it,” I said as I pointed out all of the smashed devices within the Karaak’s reach. “It didn’t die right away, and while it was dying, it destroyed everything that we could have used to learn more about it. These devices are unsalvageable, and they probably had information about the Karaak on them. But, I guess now we’ll never know what was on them.”
“Do you think those pieces of tech inside its body are there to keep it alive long enough to destroy evidence?” Rayne asked.
“I don’t know if that’s the only reason,” I said. “But I’d be willing to bet that it’s one of the reasons why it looks like a robot got mashed together with a body.”
“That’s annoying,” Rayne sighed.
“That’s an understatement,” I said. “We could have had an advantage if we had been able to access that information.”
“Yes,” Francine said. “But you did not have the information before, and you still do not have it now. So you have not lost anything.”
“Good point,” I said. “We’re exactly where we were a second ago. Always so wise, Francine.”
“Thank you, Will,” Francine replied.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Although I’m still a little pissed off that it destroyed everything.”
“So am I,” the AI replied, which made me laugh.
Rayne had turned her attention back to the rest of the corpse. She took one of the gloves off it to reveal a hand with four fingers, complete with thick, yellow, sharp nails on the ends of each of them. The fingers were double the length of mine or Rayne’s, and the skin around the bony appendages was burgundy and rough.
“You wouldn’t wanna give this guy a high five,” I said.
“Nope,” Francine chuckled.
“A what?” Rayne asked.
“Don’t worry,” I said.
Rayne looked over at its head for a second and fiddled with her blonde hair for a moment. She twisted it between her fingers, and I was sure that, if she didn’t have her mask on, then I would have seen her chewing her lip. She looked like she was weighing up options in her head, but it didn’t take long for her to make a decision.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I’m gonna take its helmet off,” she said.
“No,” I said.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because I want to do it,” I said with a mischievous grin as I hurried over to join her.
“No way, I want to do it,” she argued. “It was my idea.”
“So?” I asked.
“So, I get to do it,” she said and flashed me a look that said there was no way I was gonna win this battle.
“How about both of us do it?” I suggested.
“Whatever,” she laughed.
Slowly, she reached toward the helmet. She put her fingers under its chin on one side, and I put my fingers under it on the other. The helmet was cold to the touch and made of a smooth, black, hard material that I wasn’t familiar with. As I touched it, I tried to ignore the creature’s orange eyes that were staring up at us. I couldn’t imagine that it would be pleased if it knew that two aliens were unmasking it after it had died, but I decided to rely on the fact that it was never going to find out.
“Ready?” Rayne asked.
“Ready,” I replied with a nod.
Both of us lifted the helmet up over its face and away from its head, and both of us gasped when we saw the face underneath.
Its head was big, which suggested a large brain beneath its skull. But it was the creature’s face that was most disturbing.
“God, what the hell happened to it?” I muttered as I looked down at the terrifying abomination.
There had been a face there once, I was sure, but what we had just uncovered was the depressing, mutated, artificially altered remnants of one.
Its eyes glowed bright orange, but they were set deep into its swollen, scarred, burgundy skin. It looked as though the skin was permanently bruised, as there were dark purple undertones beneath the surface. A flap of its forehead had been removed, and I could see some metallic device sticking out from underneath some of the black blood that had pooled inside the wound. Wiry hairs stuck out around the edges of its face where eyebrows should have been.
I looked down at the bottom of its face. One of its cheeks was open and revealed a hydraulic cylinder that had been inserted into it and attached to its jaw. There was no nose and no holes where one could have been, either.
But it was the mouth that really caught my attention. There were long strips of skin from the sides of its face that covered it in a crisscrossed way, as though they were there to stop something inside of its mouth from escaping. There was blood all over it, where, I assumed, some of the blood had probably snuck its way out of the creature’s mouth as it died. The skin flaps were tightly secured over its jaw, but I was determined to find out what they were hiding.
I looked around and found two small metal sticks on the ground. I grabbed one with each hand and then turned back to the Karaak.
In the meantime, Rayne was studying the helmet with her keen eye. She fiddled around with some of the different layers and sections of it, and her brow was deeply furrowed as she worked. She glanced over at me for a second, and her eyes widened. I gave her an excited smile, and then I turned back to the Karaak’s face.
The first flap went from the corner of its jaw on the right-hand side, just underneath the hydraulic cylinder. I put the ends of the metal sticks underneath the edge of the flap and slowly peeled it back. The blood underneath it was still somewhat wet, which meant that as I peeled the flap back, the blood became stringy like melted mozzarella. The inner surface of the flap was like the inside of a lip, and as I let it fall away from the face, it flopped down with a squelch. I grimaced, and so did Rayne, and then I moved on to the next flap.
“Fascinating,” Francine said as I worked on the next flap.
“You can say that again,” I replied.
The next flap was more difficult to peel away. It appeared that there was definitely some muscle inside the flaps, which allowed the creature to open and close them, which made sense as it needed a way to consume food. But that worked against us now, since most of its muscles had gone rigid from the rigor mortis. I had to pry it open a bit harder with the sticks until it came away from the jaw and relaxed.
Now that I had taken away the top two flaps, I was able to see the smaller two underneath that covered the opening of its mouth. As I worked on them, I started to notice how elastic the skin around the creature’s mouth was. It had even creased slightly right around the two flaps I was prying open. I wondered why it was like that, and if the alterations that whatever crazy scientist had done to the Karaak creature’s face had affected the skin around them, but something was telling me that wasn’t the reason why it was so stretchy.
I got flap number three out of the way and then moved on to the fourth and smallest of them. This one was a lot more fleshy and less covered in skin than the others. The flesh had yellow bumps along it, and it sort of resembled a human tongue, only it was thinner and horizontal across the creature’s face, rather than inside its mouth.
“Hey, Will?” Rayne said.
“One second…” I said as I pushed the metal sticks beneath the flap.
“Will, look at this,” she pressed.
I glanced up at Rayne and then moved my focus to the helmet. She held it up so that I could see it, and then she pulled the bottom half of it down. It was on some kind of hinge, so the bottom of the mask swung down and back to create a mouth hole that was the width of the monster’s face.
“What the…” I muttered.
I looked down at the behemoth below me and wrenched the final flap away from the mouth.
The mouth itself was wide, almost the entire width of the Karaak’s face. Its jaw was clamped closed, but I planted one hand on its chin and pried it open. There was a quiet crack, and then the jaw swung open beneath my hand fairly easily.
Only, it didn’t stop where my or Rayne’s mouth would have. Instead, the creature’s jaw stretched open all the way down to its neck. I lifted it up by the shoulders and allowed its head to flop backward, but the jaw just kept on opening. The hydraulic pole inside its cheek kept on extending, and now I understood why the skin was so stretchy. In the end, its head was practically touching its back, and the jaw was wide open.
“Whoa,” Francine said.
“Whoa,” Rayne whispered.
“Whoa,” I said with a nod.
I brought its head back up and laid the creature back down. Then, I took a closer look inside of its mouth.
The inside of the mouth was enormous and lined with rows upon rows of jagged teeth. A couple were missing, but the teeth jutted out from the entire circumference of the mouth. This thing’s jaw could open wide enough to swallow my entire head and shoulders if it wanted to, although I wasn’t sure that swallowing was the goal. This alien was a hunter, and whoever had altered its body had made sure that it could rip the head of its victims clean off. I reached in with the metal sticks and pulled its long, pale tongue out of its mouth. It was almost as long as my arm, and as I pulled it out, more black blood dribbled down the muscle like dyed saliva.
“The tongue looks long enough and strong enough to wrap around its prey and hold it still while its jaws rip it apart,” Francine observed.
“How pleasant,” I said.
“What is?” Rayne asked.
“Apparently, it uses its tongue to catch some unlucky bastard, and then it could bite its head off,” I said.
“Gross,” she said. “I wonder what else this thing can do.”
“To be honest, I’m not sure I wanna find out firsthand,” I said. “But at least I know to keep my head well away from its mouth.”
“Yep, that’s always good to know,” she replied. “I quite like my head being on my shoulders.”
“So do I,” I chuckled.
“Well, as beautiful as our new friend is, I’m going to keep looking for survivors,” Rayne said as she put the helmet down and stood up.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll finish up here, and then I’ll catch up.”
Rayne nodded and walked away. She bent down every so often to check for a pulse or a sign of life, but I could tell from how quickly she was moving that she wasn’t having much luck at all.
I looked down at the Karaak’s face and grimaced. I wondered how many poor souls had looked at this monster right before they died. How much blood had been spilled inside its mouth? How many lives had it taken? It was part of a genocidal race intent on murdering billions, and so when I looked down at its dead body, I felt no remorse or empathy whatsoever. I could usually find something about a creature or person that I could sympathize with, but not this time. This time, I felt nothing but relief that it was dead, since it meant that there was one less of them out there for me to kill.
I roughly replaced the skin flaps and then I stood up and looked down at the corpse. Its finger twitched, but this time I didn’t jump. Its brain was sending the final signals while its muscles were slowly shutting down.
“Good riddance,” I said.
I looked over in the direction that Rayne had walked off in, and I saw that she had almost made it to the other end of the room. She had moved pretty fast, so I assumed she intended to go to the end and work her way back to the exit, where we had first entered the room.
Then, I became aware of a very faint sound of rushing air. I looked around, expecting to see a broken pipe with a gas leaking out of it, but I couldn’t see anything that would be a source of the noise. I frowned and looked at the wall in front of me, although I wasn’t really seeing anything. Instead, I listened to the sound while I tried to pinpoint the source, and I realized that it was getting louder by the second.
Slowly, I raised my head until I was looking up at the sky. I could see the crumbling tops of the walls, the ash floating down from the smoke-filled sky, and the faintest hint of the blue sky beyond. But, I knew that the sound was definitely coming from there.
I moved to a better vantage point in the center of the room, away from the walls that were blocking my view. The sound got louder, and it sounded as though something was falling toward us, and fast.
That was when I saw it.
“Rayne, run!” I shouted.
“What?” she called out from the back of the room.
“Run!” I shouted.
Suddenly, a giant ball of burning rock shot out of the sky and crashed into the room next to the one we were in. I was thrown off my feet, and I saw the walls start to crumble as I flew through the air.