Colony by Benjamin Cross (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

grey billowing from the massive laceration. His knees began to tremble before he sagged down onto them, gasping with shock.

Koikov rushed forward to try and catch him. As he did so, Yudina’s expression changed. For a split second, Koikov wondered whether it was because he was kneeling on the man’s guts; at the back of his mind he was conscious of the swollen mass warm against his groin. But Yudina’s gaze no longer met with his. Instead he was staring back across Koikov’s shoulder.

His eyes opened wider. His entire face began to shake.

4

Koikov turned his head.

The creature was behind him. It was the same impossible, stinking creature that had killed Dolgonosov and Sharova. Silent, still, it had craned its neck down until its face was within an inch of Koikov’s. The reek of its breath was like nothing he could describe. It vocalised a sequence of alien clicks and gurgles that would not have been audible were its snout not so horrifyingly close. It sniffed gently at his collar. Then it cocked its head and stared at him through enormous empty eyes.

Koikov froze. He had come face to face with death many times before, but this was an encounter like no other. His mind read like a military training manual. His saving grace had often been his ability to flick straight to the relevant page. But there was no page for this. The closest thing that he could draw on now was his instruction on surviving shark attacks… deliver a hard blow to the nose… attempt to crush the eyes… insert your hand(s) into the gills and damage the internal organs… manoeuvre on top of the shark, hold tight around the body and bear-hug… But punching that nose would be pointless and crushing those eyes would be impossible and it had no gills and a bear-hug was out of the question and anyway it wasn’t a motherfucking shark! It was a… a thing. It was a…

Still the creature stood motionless, staring. A frenzy of new thoughts crowded Koikov’s mind: Why doesn’t it attack? Why am I still in one piece? Could it be scared as well? Is it waiting for me to make the next move?

The creature jerked its head downwards suddenly and sniffed at the tracker dangling around Koikov’s neck. Only now did he realise that it was emitting a frantic beep, the red dot reflecting directly in the centre of the creature’s eye.

It nuzzled at the handset until its breath had fogged up the screen. Then it took a step backwards. It raised its head and threw it forward again as if choking. Strings of thick yellow mucus stretched from its jaws to the floor as it retched, and it chomped its teeth together, breaking them off.

When it eventually reared back up, Koikov could see that it had regurgitated something, and even through the coating of sputum it was clear what that something was. It was a partially digested hand. Attached to the wrist, still blinking, was Doctor Semyonov’s emergency locator.

The creature bobbed its head as if satisfied and made a low, rasping sound. In that moment, something frighteningly like a grin emerged on its face. In blind terror, Koikov flung his rifle around and aimed it at the creature. But before he could fire off a shot, it had lashed out with one of its hind legs and knocked him to the ground.

Through his new delirium Koikov could feel a crushing pain in his chest. Perhaps it was the heart attack that would put him out of his misery. But as the cave swam back into focus, he could see that it was the creature’s hind foot stamped across his sternum. It was pinning him, helpless, onto his back; just as it had pinned Sharova as he and Yudina had watched on in stunned disbelief, unable to fire off a single shot before it was too late. It reared its head once again, this time opening its beak-like mouth to display its teeth.

This is it, Koikov thought. My turn.

He held his breath.

As the creature brought its head back down, there was a loud bang and its bottom jaw exploded. It crowed out in surprise. Another bang sounded, and this time a large chunk of its neck disintegrated, throwing a shower of vermillion droplets up into the air and across Koikov’s face. The intermittent bangs then became a frenzy of rattling as the creature appeared to self-destruct before him.

It staggered backwards. The feathers covering its body seemed to shimmer from white to black and back again, over and over. Its legs and torso were now riddled with holes oozing blood, and the eye that had stared so hard at Koikov had disappeared back into its skull.

With a final screech, it slumped down onto the floor, hammering its tail at the rock.

Koikov pulled himself to his feet, still disoriented, and felt hands reach out to steady him.

“Are you okay, Starshyna?” It was Marchenko.

“I’m fine,” Koikov replied, “but Private Yudina—”

“He’s dead,” a different voice called out.

Koikov looked over to see two medics and Lungkaju knelt down beside Yudina’s body. Yudina was on his back now, his face pale. His eyes closed.

“I am sorry,” the older of the two medics said, “but there is nothing anybody can do for him.”

“Starshyna Koikov, we are all in great danger,” Lungkaju said, rising to his feet. Trails of smoke spiralled from the barrels of the shotgun in his hands. “We should leave now.”

“We’ll leave when I say we leave!” Koikov bellowed.

“No, he’s right,” Marchenko said. “I don’t know how many more of those things there are in here and I’m fucked if we’re hanging around to find out!”

“Look, Marchenko—”

A loud screech emanated from deep within the cave. It was followed by another, then by several more in quick succession, until the interior of the cave was alive with screeches and other terrifying echoes.

Koikov snatched up his rifle. “Okay, everybody back to the Kamov now!”

As the team obeyed his order and fled, he unloaded a