The Signal
TMWWD S01E02: Made to hunt – Flash Fiction [#11]
The sound of sirens tore through the moonlit night, swallowed whole by the vast void surrounding the brooding compound, fenced off by tall concrete walls designed not to keep out but to confine.
The place was deserted, any signs of life long gone, and the deafening alarm blared its monotonous warning for no one. Deep underneath tons of rock and concrete, in a hall the size of a subway station, at the centre, there stood a black pyramid, no more than three meters wide and five meters tall, a sinister web of beehive cells.
Frozen circuits hummed, a turbine whined, colours blinked under an ice-covered console mounted next to the construct, and alongside, a row of metallic, upright, human-sized pods gleamed in the flashing red light, opaque glass concealing the lifeforms slumbering within.
An assortment of transparent pipes, like living tentacles, connected the pods and pyramid, pulsating with rushing liquid, sucking out the milky white from inside with the gurgle and gulping of someone trying to swallow and spit at the same time.
With a hiss, the glass lifted and slid back, releasing pale white wafts of unearthly odour, lingering, spreading, blanketing the whole steel-plated floor. A limb emerged from the middle pod. A moan. A rasp. A hand appeared, gripping the edge. A tall, naked, bipedal lifeform pulled itself up with great effort, coughed and stepped out of its bed, wavered, then collapsed onto the ground, milky fluid flowing from its mouth as it lay contorted in convulsive spasms.
A second creature, less tall but sturdier in build, emerged from the adjacent pod in a similar state, on its knees, retching and wheezing. The third container remained silent. The heaving shape pulled itself up with anguish and stumbled towards the motionless pod, hands reaching for the release hatch. The pod opened. A white haze weaved out of the yawning sockets of a skull as bones clattered to the ground.
The first creature, haggard and shaking, stumbled towards the console and wiped off the layer of frost with its bony hand, five thin, spidery fingers ending in long, lurid nails. Studying the lights and displays with grim determination, it let out a ghastly growl, at which its counterpart raised its head and barked guttural sounds of disbelief.
The alarm stopped.
Coughing up pod fluid, the creature spat and pointed at the glowing letters. “October 4th, 2942,” and next to it, “Signal Detected.” A red dot was blinking on the topographical map, half covered under a cracked film of ice. A few quick wipes revealed two blue circles and a cross at the edge of the map. Their location. Far away from the signal.
Tapping a sequence of lights, the slender figure mumbled under its breath and in response, the pyramid started a low rhythmic hum.
“Exosuits,” it rasped in a female voice, pointing at the pods.
They went and helped each other into the dark garments, the invigorating fabric adjusting and fitting itself to the wearer like a second skin, spreading across the neck and their bald heads, ending in a triangle shape above their foreheads, leaving only the face uncovered, ghostly white, shrivelled nose, thin, bloodless lips and dull, empty eyes.
She stepped up to the console, placed her hand over it, and a mesh of threads from the suit descended onto the glass. Blue bits of light started flowing from the instrument panel to her hand, a rapid stream of data, faster now, matching the pyramid’s high-pitched hum.
They nodded at each other and she broke the connection. The console went dark.
“Self-destruct sequence activated,” a mechanical voice announced.
They ran to the far side of the hall, opened the escape hatch, sealed it behind them and climbed up the vertical shaft towards the surface.
A deep rumble shook the earth. The shockwave flattened the whole compound, the air was ablaze, and for a moment, night turned to day before it fell into darkness again, leaving behind nothing but a pitch-black hole of smoke, fire and molten concrete.
At the edge of the crater, two dark figures were kneeling on the frost-covered ground, peering into the burning abyss.
“Do you think it’s gone?” The male voice wondered with a deep, rich timbre, the primal look of a hunter.
“Hard to say. We have more pressing matters.” She stood up, her eyes two black holes, scanning the stars in the sky.
“Where is he?” The man stood next to her, following her gaze.
“Too far. High altitude. Many days from here. We need transport and fast before he finds her.” She turned and marched towards the tree line in the distance, shimmering in dawn’s first light.
“Something’s off. We were not supposed to be activated so soon.” He followed her, stomping through the harsh snow.
“K is dead, and so is the rest of the crew. That leaves you and me. He… it is out there. It’s up to us to finish this.” She glared at him, her voice a mere whisper.
“Terminate with extreme prejudice. I get it. What if we have it all wrong? This wasn’t the plan. Look around. We’re on our own.”
“What do you suggest?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Find out what happened?”
“We know what happened. It’s called the Ice Age. Nothing has changed. The Maker dies, we win, the end.”
“That’s what we’ve been told. I’m not saying we don’t hunt the bastard down. I’m merely suggesting we weigh our options.”
“We disintegrate his ass and anyone else who stands in our way.”
“I thought a few hundred years on ice might have chilled you out.”
“We were made to hunt.”
He paused as the sun rose above the frozen canopy. “Will it ever end?”
“As long as there’s prey–”
“We hunt…”
In the snow-covered mountains, a storm rages, a fire flickers inside a hut, sheltered for the night, a blind man slips into a fevered sleep, a voice whispers in his dream.
Wake up, wake up. They are coming.
Author’s Note
This is a continuation of The Man Who Wouldn’t Die.
Initially, I had this idea for a longer story set in the far future, a story of survival during the next ice age. All I had was one sentence, based on a conversation overheard during lunch at the cantina. For years, it collected dust in my Scrivener Ideas folder, and now, here we are, 2000 words written!
What do you think about episode two? Should there be a third? Let me know in the comments below.
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Yes, please carry on (if it speaks to you as wel of course). Agree with Daniel that the grotesque elements are particularly well done in a Chuck Palahniuk kind of way. But then it’s sort of serene right at the end. I feel like there is some tension you can finish off on or build into something much longer.
(And the voiceover is working nicely!)
Exosuits … and keep going