Flames crept across a glowing carpet of alien mold where the beast had stood, turning its bluish green tendrils to ash. Cole still clutched the hellfire flame thrower as the guttaral roars of the abomination revetebrated down the steel hull of the stations corridor, it’s heavy footfalls echoing into the distance. And then there was silence.
‘What the f*** was that thing!’ he turned to the rest of the survivors for explanation but there faces were wide eyed with fear.
‘I don’t know,’ Jared pushed past coles shoulder, his armoured suit powering him forwards as the electronic whirring of motor assisted limbs filled the silence left by the abominations screams, ‘and I don’t want to find out.’ Without hesitation he strode out past the corner and into the T junction, his shock maul raised high as his armoured boots stomped down upon the ashen mould, extinguishing the flames beneath his feet. ‘We should move, before that thing comes back.’
‘Roger’ Baraka checked the rounds left in her magazine and then marched forwards, ‘follow me to the airlock. A retrieval boat will pick us up outside.’
‘I’ll just be a moment, I need to restore emergency power for us to get the airlock working’. Mitsuki plugged her handheld computer into a a terminal which linked to the entire bases electrical systems. She nodded to the rest of the squad and to Jared who’s helmet stared in her direction, ‘don’t worry, I’ll catch up.’
***
Mitsuki hadn’t noticed that she could no longer hear her squads footsteps, or the barking of Jareds commands. Only the electrical hum of the terminal she’d plugged into filled her senses along with endless data streaming from the blue glow of its screen. A large clattering sound that shook her from her work, pulling her eyes away from the screen she felt the darkness encroaching all around her. As the stations generator failed so too had the lights, and now she stood alone, enveloped within an inky blackness she stared into the abyss, not knowing what might be staring back. Her fingers quickly fumbled for her flash light which shed back some of the darkness, casting the corridor from which they’d came in a ghostly white, where shadows danced like phantoms around it’s edges.
‘Squad do you copy’ she voiced through her comm bead, trying to control the nerve in her voice.
‘Awaiting you at the airlock. Over’ Jareds voice came through in a burst of static.
‘Copied. I’m on my way. Out’
A metallic thud echoed from around the corner as though a large steel object had dropped to the floor. She gripped her pistol in shaking fists, stepping closer to the junction, each foot step feeling heavier as she approach the turn, mind racing at what may lay in wait.
She reached the corner and darted round, staring in the direction of the sound. For a moment there was nothing. A stygian darkness encroached her on all sides, consuming the world around her, shadows clawed at the corners of vision where her flash light failed to illuminate. In the darkness beyond the flash lights reach she could hear something heavy moving towards her. She raised her pistol, quivering at the sound of lumbering footfalls getting closer.
The stations emergency lighting kicked in, flooding the corridor with a sickly orange glow that revealed the monster towering before her. She no longer stared into an abyss, for that had been torn away by a towering bulk of grey flesh, pockmarked with pustules of foetid growths oozing with decay. The beast looked upon her and roared, raising clawed hands and razor barbed tentacles of pink and purple flesh stained in crimson blood.
Mitsuki’s shaking hand levelled the SMG at the Abomination and with frantic fingers squeezing the trigger she emptied her magazine into its flesh. The beast didn’t move. It didn’t scream or roar in anger. It stood for a moment, alien eyes staring at her from above a gaping maw. And then it charged.
Mitsuki froze, her limbs locked in place by the terror grip of fear itself. She managed to scream but was cut short as the abominations enormous tentacle ripped through her abdomen, cleaving her in two. Razor barbs clung to her upper torso smashing it repeatedly against the metallic hull as chunks of flesh and bone fragments burst from her in fountains of gore. She blinked from existence, left as nothing more than hot blood pooling out across the cold steel floor.
The abomination stood motionless. The tempest of its violent fury contained for a moment as it turned its attention from the bloodied carcass and listened. It could hear breathing, the wet sounds of multiple creatures drawing breath somewhere in the shadows ahead. It’s claws flexed as it strode across Mitsuki’s bloodied ruin, and moved towards the sound of prey.
The Home Front 