Authors note:
That’s right! Another chapter, but this time without a one month wait.
For those of you who haven’t read any of the Journey Of St. Laurent before: You are now reading an online serial pulp novel. If you didn’t start at the beginning, you may want to do so. Chapter 1: Down By The Bay. This serial is the sequel to my first novel,Oasis.
Thanks to Darknyt for the typo alerts on last chapter.
And a thanks to everybody who reads my scribblings. And another thanks to those who tell their friends about me.
Chapter 46: Wreckage
The corridor smelled like old cabbage and rot. One of those musty smells that you swear you can see when you squint.
It didn’t smell like that when we went in there. What happened?
Splotches of blood from the infected alien’s retreat dotted the floor and led the way to the answer. The skirmish that had taken place may have been short, but it must have been furious.
Wreckage was everywhere. Something big had crashed into the wall of alien pods and completely taken out twelve or fifteen of them. Gunfire had shattered dozens more. Glass, twisted metal, and bodies sat in a giant puddle of who-knows-what-alien-growing-goo.
And there was noise too. A distant grinding of machinery, steady dripping, a disconcerting hissing, and even some echoed yelling all set against the throbbing backdrop of humming power.
It all added up to a distinct impression that the corridor was alive – and violently ill.
The whole base must be going completely crazy.
Rhett was obviously dizzy from his head injury, but the more we walked the more sure his footing became.
The lights in the hall flashed faster than they had before and in a chasing pattern that led down the hall and straight toward the crash site.
I pointed up at the lights. “Those would be cool if they weren’t leading them straight to us.”
But there was no way for the aliens not to know we were there, anyway. It’s not like we had sneaked in quietly. They knew we were in the base, and they had to be mobilizing some kind of response. Of course, they probably hadn’t been ready for a direct attack on their base like this. Especially from the inside. Maybe they thought they could just bully the nation’s politicians into protecting them until they had fully grown their green army. If that were the case, then we had forced their hand before they were ready. The ragtag band of survivalists might have presented the most effective response possible. We had taken the fight directly to the alien menace in a way where we were on as even terms as we were going to get.
We followed the blood drops down the hall. Rhett favored his infected leg and occasionally reached down to rub it with the palm of his hand.
The drips of blood soon became faint clouds in the puddles of acrid fluid.
In a heartbeat we came upon the wreckage. Corpses of several naked aliens in various growth stages had been tossed from the broken pods.
The “something big” that had crashed appeared to be some kind of personnel transport. Around the main body of the wreck, the the floor was covered wall to wall in one giant, foul-smelling puddle.
We came upon the mangled corpse of one of the army soldiers. It was unnaturally twisted and bent backwards almost in half. He lay a good fifteen feet away from the craft.
It must have hit him pretty hard before it crashed.
London kept her eyes glues straight ahead down the corridor. I couldn’t tell if it was because she was focused on what might be coming down the hall, or because she just didn’t want to see the horrors strewn at our feet.
Rhett’s eyes were kind of glazed over and his mind must have been far, far away.
Up ahead I could see the bodies of two more fully grown and black-clad aliens who had fallen from the craft.
The craft itself looked like it was a long and heavy alien version of one of those golf carts they use in airports. It was on its side and smashed against the wall of pods. Sandwiched between the craft, the wall, and that mangled stack of pods was the fourth and final army soldier. His leg was caught under the craft, starting at the top of his left hip. His head bobbed and with a groan his eyes opened.
I stopped cold. “He’s alive.”
London gasped and looked over. “Can we help him?”
I ran over to the trapped man.
Rhett just kept staring straight ahead and walking.
“London, you just stay with Rhett. I’ll catch up.”
As I approached, the soldier’s hands fumbled for his rifle. It was too far away for him to reach, and he didn’t appear to have much strength.
He looked pretty bad.
I stepped around a bit of wreckage, pulled away a large metal chunk from a pod, and squatted down beside him. “It’s okay. I’m a nurse.”
He raised his head and squinted at me. “Power station. So close.”
I felt his pulse. It was weak.
“It’s all right. I’m going to help you.”
“No use. No time.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Still, I-”
“Power station.” He pointed down the corridor. “First left, second right then a ways down.” He coughed some blood. “A room on the left. Leave me. Go.”
He was right. I had to leave.
Even if I could lift it off his leg, it would probably cause him to bleed to death. And realistically speaking, if I stayed much longer, I’d have to deal with whatever security the aliens were sending to the site. Still, it felt terribly wrong to leave a man to die alone in this stinking pit.
I motioned down the corridor. “Is that where you were headed? The power station?”
He nodded. “Go.”
The soldier’s rifle didn’t appear to be in too bad shape. I pulled it out from under a large chunk of glass and handed it to the man. “If any more aliens come down that hall, you just pull the trigger until you can’t squeeze anymore.”
He nodded and half-smiled. “Thanks.”
London and Rhett had only made thirty paces or so.
As I stepped around the wreck, I nearly stepped on the body of another alien. Its chest moved. I think this one’s still alive.
I didn’t even think. I just pulled out the electro-knife thing and pushed up and in on the flat button on the back of the handle.
The glowing arc snapped to life and made a loud sizzling sound.
London spun around at the noise. “Corbin, what are you doing?”
“Finishing what I came here to do.”
I pressed the blade to the skin of the black alien suit, but not too deep. The black fabric that had proved time and again to be bulletproof practically leaped out of the way of my stolen cutter. I sliced a line that was about a foot long and about a quarter inch deep into its green skin.
The alien sucked in a raspy breath, opened its huge eyes and snapped head up off the ground.
I released the thumb switch and brought my palm crashing down onto the green creature’s tiny nose. The bald head splashed back down onto the stone floor. Its eyes fluttered, and the alien was out once more.
The bleeding from the cut I had made was not bad. The strange blade had cauterized much of it. There were still enough open blood vessels to get the job done.
I reached into my pocket and brought out the vial with the virus.
London shouted from up ahead. “I think something’s coming.”
I unstopped the vial and emptied the rest of its contents into the freshly-carved wound.
In a moment, I knew she was right. I could hear it, too. A kind of mechanical whirring noise, and getting louder.
I ran and caught up with them in no time.
We had no way of knowing how close the noise was or what the noise was. All we knew was that it kept getting louder. Just ahead there was a smaller hallway that branched off to the left.
London grabbed Rhett’s arm. “Come on, we have to move.”
Rhett snapped out of whatever thought stupor he was in and broke into a limping run.
I was gasping by the time we made the turn. “The soldier back there said there’s some kind of power station down here.”
About every third step I turned back over my shoulder to see if the source of the noise would turn after us.
Within fifteen seconds of making the turn, several large objects whizzed by. I couldn’t be sure, but I could have sworn it was a train of those avocado hovercraft things that we had seen several times before.
London turned and touched my chest. “Did they see us?”
I was afraid to answer. “I hope not.”
How long before they search down this hall? I knew it couldn’t be long.
Keep Reading! Chapter 47 is here.