Chapter 8: DARKNESS CRAWLS
The boarding party forced their way through the breach in the aft hull only to be greeted by a stifling darkness. It filled the icy, lifeless interior with a foreboding sense of impending dread. The small contingent of Necromonger elites switched on the flashlights fastened to the ends of their rifle barrels. The pallid illumination did little to chase away the feeling none of them belonged there.
A lone, cloaked figure sat cross legs on the med bay floor. Total darkness surrounded the frozen body. The battle hardened team circled their unarmed target, pointing their gravity rifles at a lifeless corpse.
"He's dead." The heavily armed squad leader said, jabbing the figure with the end of his barrel. The corpse fell over.
"Did he land that way?" another asked, taking a half step away from the body laying on the floor. "Because it looks like, he just sat down and waited to die."
"Darkness got you spooked?"
The soldier laughed weakly, flipped his safety to fire and said, "Guess the little fucker just gave up, huh, sarge?"
"Might as well have," the squad leader replied, using the end of his barrel to push the cloak out of the dead man's face. "Sorry son of a bitch isn't even wearing any life support. Look at him. Fucker's freeze dried."
"Hey," a voice whispered out of the darkness, and everyone reeled around. Each man heard the voice as if it came from behind him. "Over here." it said, and they all threw their buttstocks on their shoulders searching for an elusive shadow lurking in the darkness. But there was no target, no bogeyman, no enemy to find. There was only growing fear and ever watching eyes hiding in the constricting darkness.
A shrill cackle filled their comms, and 7 men reeled toward the open hatch leading into the cargo hold. "It came from there." The squad leader said, sighting down on the gaping black hole leading deeper into the ship. After a few minutes, nothing emerged, and he lowered his weapon. But he kept his finger on the trigger. "Let's move," he said, expecting his men to follow.
They did not.
"Where'd he go?" a guard blurted, shining his light on the spot where the cloaked figure had been laying. Before the others turned to see, he searched the compartment with his tiny light, trying to locate the body.
When the team turned back to the center of the room, the only things remaining were a pair of black leather gloves perched atop a neatly folded cloak balanced precariously on a pair of worn combat boots. The figure inside had vanished and unbeknownst to the boarding party, their number had diminished by one.
"Where's Rumson?" The same guard asked, shining his light on his comrades' heavy protective gear. It lay discarded on the floor next to the breach in the hull. "He was right here just a second ago." The guard said, voice cracking as his tone grew steadily higher with each word.
In a panic, the six remaining men swirled around each other, desperately searching the darkness with the insufficient lights affixed to the ends of their barrels. Their hurried efforts were for not; they found no clues. Their missing comrade vanished without a trace.
"He's in there." the squad leader said, gesturing towards the door leading into the cargo bay. "He must have gone in there." His remaining men looked at one another, shaking their heads no. Although each of them trained their weapons in the darkness, filling the unknown compartments beyond.
"But Sarge, there's no way he could have stripped off his life-support and strolled past us with none of us noticing."
The squad leader glared, scowling at the mouthy soldier. He gestured to the open hatch and said, "Point man."
Still. No one moved. Their metal boots seemed welded to the floor.
The squad leader kicked the man toward the next compartment and snarled, "I said point man, Corporal Bevens! Now move your ass!"
Bevens moved as slowly as possible. As did the remaining squad members, who proceeded, one by one, in a single file line, following him into the darkness. Each man paused at the opening leading into the cargo hold, took a deep, fortifying breath and then stepped inside wishing he hadn't come on this mission.
"Monitor one another." The squad leader ordered in a raspy whisper. He stood at the center of his men, protected on all sides. The extra layer of protection did little to bolster his sense of security.
As soon as the last man stepped through the opening, something scurried in the blackness at the opposite end of the cargo hold. It shambled around them like a wretched, stinking corpse looming in the darkness. Bevens screamed as his muzzle blast cast a grotesque shadow on the wall for everyone to see. They were not alone. It was in here with them. He fired wildly into the eerie darkness. But nothing fell. The creature fled into the unknown recesses of the cavernous cargo hold.
"Cease fire, god dammit!" the squad leader ordered, knocking the barrel of Bevens' rifle high in the air. "Kowalski, what did you see?" he asked the man behind him.
Kowalski kept his rifle on his shoulder, searching through the darkness in front of him. His ragged breathing filled his bulky helmet, and he stammered, "I don't… I don't know, Sergeant. But whatever it was... It was..."
"It was what?" he demanded, grabbing the back of his armor and spinning him around to look into the trembling man's eyes.
Kowalski's eyes were wide and bloodshot. "Dead, sarge. Whatever it was. It looked dead." Kowalski spun around to check every corner for signs of movement, as did Bevens and the others, but whatever took their comrade in the outer room had vanished without a trace. The thing was smoke and vapor.
The dwindling squad crept further into the cargo hold, one after another, scanning the blackness with their rifles on their shoulders. "Hold up." the squad leader said. "I want a weapons check and sit-rep from each of you before we proceed any further."
"Affirmative," the man replied, unwilling to stop scanning the darkness.
"Brigham, you first." the sergeant ordered, gesturing to the third man through the door.
"I couldn't see shit from this vantage point, Sergeant." Brigham answered. "Just a… just a shadow running through Bevens' muzzle blast."
The sergeant turned to the man behind him and said, "Holloman, what did you see?"
Holloman was standing at the rear with an expression of terror on his face; his rifle light pointing at the sixth man's empty suit of armor. The sergeant wrenched him around, shook him forcefully, and demanded, "What happened to him? Where the hell did he go?"
"It's in here, Sarge." Holloman whispered, face turning pure white, bug eyes exploding with fear. "It came out of the darkness and it touched him. And… and he..."
"And he What? What touched him?"
Holloman spoke in a choppy, shrill babble, barely discernible. "And he vanished... and his… and his armor… it hit… it just hit the floor." Tears poured down his cheeks as he rambled on almost coherently. "It… it… it wasn't natural, Sarge. I just reached out and took him. He's gone. He's just gone."
"Calm down, god dammit!" The Sergeant screamed, grabbing him by the face shield and shaking him wildly. "Which way did it go?" he demanded, pointing at the open hatch.
Holloman froze; a statue of fear created by events too unbelievable to accept. He barely got out a stream of broken rants. "It... It didn't go... anywhere. It... disappeared."
"Form up. Get your backs together." The squad leader ordered. "It can only get us if we're alone. We're getting out of here. We'll blow this ship to shit when we get back."
The five men stood in the darkness with their backs touching, circling clockwise, moving steadily back towards the breach in the med-bay hull. All the while preparing for the attack they knew was coming.
Brigham screamed, "Over there." He fired through the airlock as everyone else reeled in the same direction. Every rifle erupted for what seemed like an eternity. When the blazing cargo hold went horribly dark once more, panic set in. No one was thinking straight. Chaos and babbling ensued. "It went back in there, sarge." Brigham said, backing away from the group. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and whatever was in the med-bay.
"Take one more step, soldier and it may be your last." the squad leader warned, sighting down on the open hatch.
"But, sarge. I know it's in there." Brigham said, placing his foot back, preparing to take a step further into the darkness. He was alone. The rest of the team still glared through the open hatch ten feet away from him.
"Do... do you think we... got it?" Kowalski stammered, shaking so badly he nearly dropped his rifle. They were ten feet away from the hatch, maybe fifty feet away from the hull breach. We can make it, they all thought. It's not that far.
A hair-raising whisper arose from somewhere in the darkness behind them. "Not likely."
The rest of the squad reeled just in time to see the Brigham armor shatter into pieces on the cargo hold floor. He was gone; like the others, without a trace. A victim of his own fear.
Kowalski screamed and raced through the black cargo hold, heading straight towards the cockpit door. In the darkness he misjudged the distance, bounced off the hatch and landed on his back, weapon clattering away in the darkness. He was unarmed and all alone. He circled in the darkness with no light, listening to his comrades racing up behind them. If I can get in the cockpit, I can lock myself in. It will be safe. Lights struck Kowalski. The cockpit hatch lit up, and the team watched him run to the closed hatch, grab the handle and twist it open.
"Don't open that!" the Sergeant yelled.
But it was too late. Kowalski had pried the door open a few inches, and a pallid arm reached out, gripping him around the throat before he could evade its touch. The squad watched as his terrified comrade's heavy armor hit the floor with an empty metal clang. One moment he was there; then the next, he was gone.
Two of the three remaining men seized the opportunity to escape in the opposite direction, only to bolt a few feet and then vanish in blazes of cowardice. They were gone.
"NO!" the sergeant screamed in terror.
Now alone in the ever-shrinking darkness of the cargo hold, he stood with his only remaining companions. An ineffective gravity rifle and the tiny light fixed to its barrel. Something skilled around him in the dark.
He fired wildly at the swirling shadow running through his muzzle blast until his weapon's power cell fried out. Completely exhausted and utterly spent, terror rolled down his cheeks as he stared wild-eyed around the empty mausoleum surrounded by the crushing darkness that foretold of his inevitable doom.
"WHO ARE YOU?" he screamed.
Mummified arms reached out from the empty blackness, coiled around him like constricting snakes, and swung him around, revealing the face of death. And death answered, "Your worst nightmare."
Then, as with everyone before him, the sergeant's empty armor hit the floor, and he found himself outside, freezing to death in the frigid choking void of space, centuries in the past.
Kearyn walked back to the med-bay to check Kyra's stasis pod. She's ok, he thought. I can still save her. I have to save her. As he redressed, beside the breach in the hull, he peered out at the 7 centuries old, petrified bodies floating in the distance and said, "But what if it's already here, Alexander?" Then he stepped into the void and made his way towards the airlock leading to the raging battle going on inside the Sheong- je."
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
-- Power
stone