Jon Merz - Prey

“It’s huge,” said Mick. “Took me hours to figure my way around it, and that was only using the main corridors. They’ll have those cordoned off somehow.”

“And you don’t know any other ways off this thing?”

Mick grimaced. “Shit that hurts.” He looked at her. “No. My AAA membership didn’t have a map for this place.”

“Don’t be sarcastic.” Julia glanced around. Two doors. One or the other. One might lead them off this ship and back into the cold of Antarctica or it might lead them deeper into the spaceship.

Some choice.

Behind them, a sudden flurry of noise sounded beyond the door they’d come in through. Mick pointed at the control box next to the door. “Better fry that thing or we’ll have company real soon.”

Julia shot the panel and watched the circuitry pop and fizzle. She turned back to Mick. “I don’t know which one to choose.”

“There’s another reason we have to get off this thing,” said Mick.

“Why’s that?”

“Because if they feel we’re too much of as threat, they might simply lift this thing off and take us home with them.”

“Home?”

“As in other planet.”

Julia pulled Mick to his feet. “I’ve already got a home. And I want to get the hell back there.”

“Which one?” asked Mick.

Julia looked at the two doors. Both of them looked the same. Which one to choose?

More activity behind them made her yank Mick toward one of them. She held him up. “You trust me?”

He smirked. “Only a little bit.”

“That’s enough,” she said.

And then pressed the button to trigger the door on he right.

It slid up and she pushed them both through it, praying it was the right choice.

Darkness enveloped them.

“I can’t see a damned thing,” said Mick.

Julia shushed him. Something felt odd about the room. There seemed to be some sense of foreboding about the place, even if she couldn’t actively figure out why that was.

“You hear something?”

Julia listened. Breathing? There seemed to be long inhalations coming from somewhere over on her right side. Should she go to it and see what it was? Maybe she should just shoot the laser rifle and see if that lit anything up.

“J-Julia?”

The voice sounded like a sick whisper. Low. Gravelly. As if someone had coated the speaker’s vocal chords with thick syrup.

“Who’s that?”

Mick tensed next to her. Julia could feel his muscles harden. His hand gripped hers.

“Wilkins.”

Jesus Christ, she’d forgotten all about him in the attempt to escape. But wait — where had Wilkins disappeared to? When Mick rescued her, Wilkins wasn’t in the room anymore. He wasn’t held in the cylindrical tube. Had the visitors removed him? What had happened to him?

And now he was here? In this room? But why?

“Are you okay? I lost track of you when Mick rescued me.”

Wilkins voice sounded stronger now that he realized friends were in the room with him. “They took me out when they started doing things to you. I thought they were going to let me rest or something.”

“They brought you here?”

“Not at first. But eventually.” Wilkins cleared his throat. “Is Mick with you?”

“I’m here,” said Mick.

“Glad you made it.”

“Me, too. Are there any lights in this place? We can’t see shit.”

“I don’t know. I’m strapped down on some kind of table. I can’t move. I can’t see anything, either.”

“But you knew it was us?”

“I…smelled something that reminded me of Julia. Then I heard the voices. I don’t know, I guessed. Hoped I was right.”

“Hang on, pal,” said Mick. “We’ll find some lights and figure out a way to get you out of here.”

“We don’t have a lot of time,” said Julia. “Did you see anything about this room when they brought you in here?”

“I think I was unconscious,” said Wilkins. “When they took me out of your room, I felt light headed all of a sudden. I saw all these memories flash before my eyes. I started…reliving them, I think. It felt so good to be back in them. So far away from this place. So calm and inviting. I don’t know. Then I woke up in here. It’s been dark the entire time.”

“Okay, we’ll find the lights somehow,” said Julia. Obviously, the visitors had used the mental manipulation on Wilkins as well. But what for? What had they done to him?

“Feel so strange,” said Wilkins.

“Keep your voice down,” said Mick. “Those dinocreatures will be looking for us and I’d rather them not know we’re in here with you.”

“..so weird…”

Julia nudged Mick. “Can you take the left side of the room? I’ll search the other.”

“Yeah.” Mick grunted. “Damned shoulder.”

“Don’t lean on it. Just do your best.”

“Yeah.”

Julia pushed off from him and put her hands out in front of her. She walked into a machine of some sort, its hard edges bit into her thigh and she yelped slightly. “Damn.”

“You okay?” Mick’s voice came at her from the other side of the room.

“Bumped into something. I’m okay.”

“I’m at the wall.”

Julia put her hands back up. It felt like she was back home playing two minutes in the closet with Tommy Wilson at the first boy-girl party she’d ever gone to when she was twelve. The way she’d reached out in the darkness for him. The way his hands had groped at her, fumbling in the dark. The way she’d inadvertently poked him in the eye resulting in his running from the closet to the bathroom with a dislodged contact lens.

She touched wall.

“Julia?” Wilkins was talking again.

“What?”

“Did you…did you find Nung?”

“No. I found Kendall instead.”

“Kendall? They didn’t get him?”

Mick’s voice sounded loud. “What about Kendall?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” said Julia. “Turns out he masterminded this whole thing. This whole expedition and everything that’s befallen us was one of his little tricks.”

“How is that possible?” asked Wilkins.

Julia found a panel on the wall. There were knobs and buttons. She stared pressing them hoping that none of them were some type of alarm or location device that would bring hoards of those dinocreatures coming for them.

“We’re all abductees,” she said.

“Abduct-you mean like aliens?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” said Julia. “Only Kendall figured it out long before any of us. And he made himself genuinely indispensable to our intriguing hosts.”

“How so?” asked Mick.

“He offered them us in exchange for some of their mental power.”

“Mental power?”

“Yeah. They communicate telepathically. Kendall can do that. I think he can do more, too, but he wasn’t exactly into detailing his newfound abilities. He was too busy staring at me naked.”

“Lucky you,” said Wilkins.

Julia sniffed. “Is that luck?” She kept pressing some more buttons. Nothing seemed to be working. “I found a panel over here Mick but I can’t make of these things work the lights.”

“I haven’t found shit over here,” said Mick. “Keep trying.”

“So,” said Wilkins, “if we’re all abductees, then what’s the purpose of this whole affair? To take us forever or something?”

“Near as I can figure,” said Julia, “they want to cross-breed us with members of their race. An alien-human hybrid.”

“How clichZ,” said Wilkins. “That’s been done to death already. Couldn’t they figure out something original?

Julia laughed. “Good to see you’ve still got your sense of humor, Wilkins. We might need some more of it before too long.”