Fragment

SEPTEMBER 10
5:10 A.M.

Nell sat in the dark living room before the swollen blue eye of the TV.

A vague noise banged like thunder in the distance as she stared at the monster watching her through the glass.

Its two large eyes, twitching on stalks, locked onto hers. Each of their three pupils lined up vertically and it saw her six times simultaneously.

Nell suddenly realized she was awake, and her eyes were open!

She was not dreaming this…

A 1,200-pound spiger sat on the window over her bunk bed in Section Three.

The rush of adrenaline seized her chest. She couldn’t even scream as she recognized one of the things that had chased her on the beach.

She watched, petrified, as the creature cocked its head and raised its arms, preparing to strike.

A sound like a cannon shot boomed against the thick poly carbonate window as the creature slammed its arms down, sending a shock wave through the whole lab.

Dizzy from the concussion, Nell reached down. She yanked off one of her Adidas sneakers, having fallen asleep without removing them.

The beast glared through the window, its eyes toggling slowly from side to side. Its dark icicle teeth gnashed in its grinding vertical jaws, and its fur pulsed red, orange, and pink patterns, suggesting motion like a neon dragon, though it held perfectly still.

In a flash of anger, Nell shouted and hurled her shoe right at the creature’s face.

Instantly, its head recoiled and its eyes disappeared under a sharp chevron of brow ridges.

It reextended its neck. Its head tilted curiously at her as its eyestalks reemerged. The filigree of stripes on the spiger’s face rippled colors as a pair of panting nostrils on its chest stenciled colons of steam on the window.

Before Nell could break herself away from its gaze, it raised its arms again to each side of its head and smashed them down against the window, again and again, in a relentless assault on the quivering polycarbonate sheet.

Stunned by the sonic blasts, she barely noticed a swarm of flying creatures that had appeared, hovering over the beast.

They dive-bombed its back, causing it to twist its head upward at them and roar. Suddenly, in swift succession, three badger-sized animals slammed into its side.

The spiger shrieked like a train whistle as the “badgers” dug into its twisting torso. Then it catapulted backwards off its tail, gouging scratches in the window as it bit one of the smaller animals in half and shook off its other assailants in midair.

The window was empty-just blue sky. For an interminable moment after the animals fell from view, Nell stared at the sky. Three blue blood spatters dripped down the window, which had somehow withstood the assault.

Her ears were ringing but she could faintly hear Andy and Quentin open the hatch to the sleeping quarters, yelling.

“What was that?”

“Are you all right, Nell?”

Spiger

Pantherocaris rex

(after Binswanger-Duckworth and Echevarria,

Expeditionary Reports of the Trident Expedition, vol 2: 1-180)

“It sounded like gunshots!”

“You didn’t see it?” she asked.

“No.”

“What was it?” Quentin said.

She propped herself up on her elbows and swung her legs down over the edge of the bunk. Her hearing was still weak and tinny-her ears and head throbbed. “A nightmare.”

“Are you all right?”

She laughed nervously. “I’m glad NASA built this thing,” she said loudly over the continuing din in her ears.

She slid down and hugged Andy and hid her face on his shoulder for a quick, controlled sob, and Andy obliged, squaring his narrow shoulders and looking back at Quentin, protectively.

The NASA biologist was studying the deep gouges in the surface of the window. “Whatever it was, I hope it doesn’t come back. It must have spotted you through the roof like a lemon meringue pie at a lunch counter, Nell.”

“God damn it, Quentin,” Andy scolded.

“Sorry.”