The Awakening, page 29
part #1 of Eve Series
Jason watched helplessly as the creature wrapped his arm around her,
shielding himself with her body and tugging at her hair. She looked back at Jason.
“Do it,” she demanded. “Melt him. Blow him away.”
“I can’t,” Jason answered, his eyes darting back and forth from Eve to the Interloper. “If I melt him, I melt you.”
“Do it anyway.”
“I’ll hurt you.”
“Do it anyway.”
“I will not kill her—not yet.” The creature smiled, stroking Eve’s chin with a
single talon. “Fairon needs her alive.”
Abruptly, the Interloper pounded Eve’s skull into the wall, knocking her
unconscious. As he let her body collapse to the floor, Jason barreled toward him and swung at his face, beating him with his bloodied fists and toppling the
alien face-first to the ground. Powered by aggression, Jason pounced atop the
Interloper ’s back, but the creature quickly expanded his wings and sent Jason
flying across the room.
The alien jumped to his feet, cracking the floorboards with his jagged
talons, but before he could make another move, Percy and Sancho hurtled
toward him and forced him to the ground. The two boys fanned across his
flailing body, each securing a wing to the floor with their weight, though they
knew they could only hold him for a moment.
Just as the wings began to slip from their grasp, Jason leapt onto the
Interloper and shoved him against the floor, pinning his writhing body with his
legs and clasping his hands around the alien’s neck. He squeezed the creature’s
throat until his fingernails dug into the grey flesh, creating moon-shaped punctures that oozed yellow pus. Jason’s veins bulged from his arms as a raw
hatred pulsed through him, and with each movement the Interloper made, Jason
tightened his grip even more. The Interloper gasped, choking on nothing as all
three boys held his gaunt body to the ground.
Finally, the thrashing stopped; the alien went limp, and his wings slapped
against the floor with two loud thuds.
Jason gave the creature’s neck one last, firm squeeze before dropping it to
the floor. He took a step back, his breathing laborious. The body was still, its
lips slightly parted, its eyes empty. Percy and Sancho got to their feet and stared down at the body in silence.
Suddenly, as if awakened from a trance, Jason turned to Eve, who remained
on the floor in the corner of the room where the Interloper had left her.
“Eve! ” he gasped. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her frantically.
Her eyes opened—just barely. Her vision was hazy, and a horrible ache
pulsated behind her temple. She glanced at her surroundings—at Jason sitting
before her, at Percy and Sancho standing by his side, at the pieces of plywood
and drywall that littered the floor, at the gaping holes in the walls and ceiling.
She cradled her head in her hands, still struggling to focus, and suddenly her
eyes widened. She looked at Jason, through Jason, and in an instant she was awake.
“Eve, please, say something.”
“Duck,” she answered.
“What?”
“DUCK!”
Behind Jason stood the Interloper, his gut dripping with pus and his body
fueled with a newfound strength. Just as Jason dropped to the ground, the crowbar exploded from the floor and shot through the air like a missile. It was
aimed to kill—Eve made sure of it, as she couldn’t risk failure, not now. In the
blink of an eye, the tool hurtled straight for its target, piercing the alien right between the eyes and lodging itself deep within his skull. The room quaked as
the creature fell to the ground with a loud boom, the sound of defeat—of death.
The foursome hovered over the body, staring in shock at the alien, at the hole
in his stomach and the crowbar jutting from his face. Eve grabbed the tool
and ripped it from the Interloper ’s head.
“What are you doing?” Jason asked.
Without hesitating, Eve slammed the crowbar back into the creature’s face,
creating a second, though equally vile, gushing hole.
“I’m making sure the little shit is dead this time.”
“That was NOT a little shit,” Sancho asserted. “That was an ALIEN. A giant, ugly, ALIEN.”
“You invited him here,” Percy snapped. “Brilliant idea, by the way.”
“Shut up, both of you,” Jason ordered. “We’re all right—that’s what
matters.”
“I can’t believe it,” Sancho muttered. “An Interloper. We killed an Interloper.
And what you did, Eve,” he stammered, staring at her with awestruck eyes,
“sending him flying like that—God, you’re like a superhero!”
Eve didn’t respond; her eyes were still fixed on the Interloper ’s lifeless body.
Jason tried to steer her away from the corpse, but she remained rooted to the spot, completely unwilling to leave the creature’s side.
“Eve,” Jason began, “are you okay?”
“I just…” she stuttered, still staring at the remains. “I just can’t get over it.”
“Get over what?”
The words were so hard to utter, and yet she couldn’t stop herself. Nothing
could have prepared her for this—it was worse than she had ever imagined,
even in her darkest nightmares.
“Interlopers,” she mumbled, finally looking back at Jason. “They’re
people.”
CHAPTER 9: THE LIST
“Thanks for helping us out on such short notice,” Eve cooed, giving
Armaan’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. She could feel him shaking and
wondered if he was frightened or excited.
“Are you kidding me?” Armaan chirped beneath his surgical mask. “This is
huge—bigger than huge, actually. This is monumental.”
Sancho glanced nervously back and forth across the room. “Are you sure we
should still be here?”
“The alien’s dead, Sanch. God, of all people, you’d think the guy who builds
pipe bombs would have a little backbone.”
“It wasn’t a pipe bomb, Percy, it was a highly sophisticated—”
“WE KNOW.”
“Will you both be quiet?” Jason hissed. “Armaan is trying to concentrate.”
The five bodies hovered around the makeshift operating table—a line of
desks, stolen from a nearby classroom and pushed together in the center of the
room. The entire space was a shambles, as the walls were littered with gaping
holes, and scraps of plywood were strewn across the floor. Armaan paid no
mind to the destruction and fiddled anxiously with his tools: a few shoddy instruments from a pilfered fetal pig dissection kit. The air stank of seething adrenaline and rotting flesh—the flesh of the dead Interloper that lay on
Armaan’s table.
Percy elbowed Eve in the ribs. “Who is this guy, again?”
“He’s my friend,” she answered, trying her best to breathe through her
mouth. “He knows what he’s doing. He’s a medical student.”
“Actually, I’m not,” Armaan muttered.
“What? What happened to your interview?”
“They rejected me. Some guy named Lionel Vandeveld got the spot.”
“Lionel Vandeveld?” Eve scowled. “Who the hell is that?”
Armaan shrugged. “His parents are friends with one of the deans. I never
stood a chance.”
Eve sighed. “That’s not fair.”
“Whatever. I bet Lionel isn’t dissecting an alien right now.” Armaan smirked.
“You win some, you lose some.”
“All right, can our mad scientist explain what we’re looking at?” Percy cut in, gagging at the horrible stench. “Because all I see are soggy alien parts.”
Armaan gazed up at the foursome, his eyes wide and eager. “Its fascinating,
really. I mean, there are similarities to humans, definitely, but they’re so…
different.”
Eve strained her neck over the body. “Can you tell us anything important?
Anything of value?”
“I most certainly can. At least, I think so. Probably.”
“Loving the confidence, Armaan.”
Armaan ignored Percy’s retort. “Let’s start with the second skin,” he began,
pointing to a tray filled with leftover, slimy flesh. “It’s a liquid coating that hardens to form the appearance of the human epidermis. It’s nothing more than
a disguise, really—a very convincing disguise. I think they can control it—
though how, I’m not sure.” He spun his gloved finger in the mixture. “The craziest part is what the fluid does. When applied, it can reshape the
Interloper ’s body. Basically, it acts as kind of a shrink-wrap. Whatever shape
the Interloper wants to take, this stuff will do it.”
“So, what you’re saying is, anyone could be an Interloper?” Eve asked.
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
The room became oddly still. Eve’s eyes wandered to Jason, who was
staring at the dead body, his face twisted with disgust.
Sancho looked back and forth at his friends. “What if someone in this room
is an Interloper?” he whispered.
“Oh, for God’s sake, no one here is an alien,” Percy groaned.
“That sounds like something an alien would say…”
“Okay, let’s cut to the chase,” Eve interrupted. “How do we kill these
things?”
“A great question. But in order to answer it, you first need to know what doesn’t kill them.” Armaan plunged his hands deep into the creature’s abdomen, stirring up new, foul aromas. “This is where you initially stabbed him, right in the stomach—or, at least, where one would assume the stomach would be.” He pulled apart the grey flaps of flesh, revealing a pit filled with pulpy film.
Eve wrinkled her brow. “There’s nothing there. Well, nothing but… mush.”
“Exactly—they don’t have stomachs. Their digestive tract is up here.” He
pulled at a long pink tube that ran from the neck through the abdomen. “This
tube—it looks more like a filtration system than anything else.” With a scalpel,
he sliced a small tear alongside it, sending a thick, reddish-brown liquid
pouring into his cupped hand. “See this stuff? It’s mostly blood. Chimera
blood.”
“Jesus,” Jason muttered.
“Holy balls,” Sancho gasped. “They’re vampires.”
Percy rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a dick-squeeze. Vampires aren’t real. They
only exist in teenage romance novels.”
“Oh, so you’re telling me aliens exist, but vampires are too farfetched?”
“They’re not vampires,” Armaan corrected. “They just can’t digest solid foods. They feed off of liquids. They drink whatever they can get, whatever is… drinkable.”
“Chimera blood,” Jason growled. “That explains why the one who cut me
open was licking his claws.” He turned away, cursing under his breath.
“Wait,” Eve interjected. “If they can’t eat solid food, then why do they have
—”
“Teeth?” Armaan smiled. “I was wondering the same thing.” He parted the
Interloper ’s lips, exposing countless fangs. “These teeth look more like
bayonets than anything else. They’re not designed for chewing—they’re
weapons. Look.” He yanked at a tooth, breaking it off at the root and revealing
a silver bud growing beneath it. “There’s another fang ready to take its place. It looks like they shed their teeth as easily as animals shed fur. It’s a never-ending supply of weaponry.”
“But why would they need such heavy-duty hardware in their mouths, of all
places? For combat? For intimidation?”
“That, and protection.” Armaan grinned. “This is the best part.”
He tugged at the Interloper ’s jaw and shined a small flashlight down its
throat. A pale pink pouch protruded from the back wall of the creature’s mouth,
directly above the esophagus. The fleshy sack was covered in hundreds of tiny
tubules, each one branching across the mouth and throat like a spider ’s web.
“You’re looking at kill zone number one: an Interloper heart.”
“That’s a heart?” Jason asked.
“Well, maybe not a heart per se—a heart is the closest human equivalent I can
think of. But it’s the central hub in their anatomy—their life source, if you
will. Those tubes branch across their entire body, stretching to every limb and
every organ, like veins or arteries.” Armaan made a tiny incision in the center
of the sack, and a stream of yellow fluid oozed from the cut. “Interloper blood,” he said.
“God, the smell,” Percy gagged.
“So, let me get this straight,” Sancho said. “You’re telling us that this thing’s
heart is in its mouth?”
“Well, the back of the throat if you want to be precise, but, yes, basically.”
Armaan casually closed the creature’s mouth. “If you think about it, it actually
makes sense. The teeth act as a shield—just as our ribs enclose our heart, their
teeth protect their life source. The good news is, the heart is fragile, so you can probably kill these guys with one laceration. The bad news is, you have a forest
of fangs to fight through first, as Jason has already discovered.”
Eve looked down at Jason’s tattered hand—it was bandaged in thick surgical
cloth and spotted with patches of blood.
“Is there any other way?” she asked. “I mean, not to be pessimistic, but
there’s a hell of a lot of teeth to dodge.”
“That brings me to kill zone number two: the brain.” Armaan fumbled with
the Interloper ’s head, pulling the skin back to reveal a thick, black skull that was cracked down the center. He delicately removed the pieces of bone and
pulled out a small grey sphere; it was spongy and light, covered in dimples and
craters, and it fit easily in his hand.
Eve studied the brain, curiously. “It’s so… small,” she mumbled.
“Size doesn’t matter,” said Armaan.
“That’s not what I’ve been told,” Percy smirked.
Armaan spun the sphere in his hands. “There’s really no way for me to
analyze this. There are too many differences. I mean, the size is different, the
color, the texture, not to mention the hemispheres: we have two, they only have
one.”
“Which hemisphere houses all of the crazy? Because that’s the one the
Interlopers got stuck with,” Percy quipped, chuckling at his own joke.
“What I can tell you is that perforating its brain will kill it. And I know that, because that’s how this one died.” He turned the brain around, exposing a pit in the spongy wall. “See? A hole, right through the center of the brain.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” Eve asked. “Stab the brain. Sounds easy
enough.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not.” Armaan plopped the brain back into its cavity and
pulled out a large slab of bone. “The problem is getting through the skull. This
stuff is practically impenetrable. It could be a weapon all on its own.”
“But it’s in pieces right now. That means something broke it,” Sancho added.
“Yeah, and I still can’t figure that one out.” Armaan fitted the bone slabs together like pieces of a puzzle. “His skull—and brain—was perforated by this
crowbar.” He held up the tool, examining it as if it were more alien to him than
the specimen on his table. “This shouldn’t have done the trick—not unless some epic force was used, or it was moving really, really fast. I’m talking lightning speed.”
Jason, Sancho, and Percy turned to look at Eve; she was the one who had
maneuvered the rod. She was the one who had killed the Interloper.
“Well, I melted it as fast as I could,” she explained. She turned to Jason.
“There wasn’t a lot of time. He was right behind you.”
Sancho looked back at Armaan, his eyes bulging excitedly. “You should’ve
seen it. It was like a rocket,” he gushed. “So dynamic.”
“Well, you’d better hope that every single blow is rocket-fueled, because
that’s the only way you’re getting past this bone.” He folded the Interloper ’s skin back over its skull and reopened its chest. “Which brings us to the final kill zone: the spine.”
Armaan waded through the creature’s chest with his hands, pushing clumps
of pulp to the sides and revealing a long, angular structure: black and glossy,
crooked like the trunk of an old tree. Skinny, twisted bones jutted out from it,
reaching up the neck and down to the abdomen like knotted branches.
“That’s one gnarly spine,” Percy mumbled. “Guy must’ve had scoliosis.”
“It doesn’t look like ours, but it appears to serve the same purpose. It’s just
as thick and sturdy as the skull, and equally hard to penetrate, but—”
“Break it,” Eve interrupted, her eyes still fixed on the spidery branches.
