Eric Brown - The Kraken Rises

Wheezing like an emphysema patient, Craven tried with everything he had to outrun his bloodthirsty pursuers. Alongside his original test-subjects, many of them were former colleagues, all now transformed into something barely recognizable as human. The ageing man’s breathing was short and sharp, his lungs burning as they struggled to suck in a proper breath and hold it. He could feel his energy being sapped with each second that passed by. Craven felt about inside his pockets, searching for his asthma inhaler, but he couldn’t find it in any of his myriad pouches. He realized then he had probably left it back in his stateroom. The black-grey smoke wafting into the hallway was choking him, causing the doctor to hack violently, and cough up smarmy globules of green-yellow gunk.

Behind the figure of the winded doctor, phantom-like shapes shambled after him, some of them even wielding makeshift weapons in their scabbed and purulent hands. They snarled and screeched like minions shat from the bowels of Hell, their ghastly shrieks echoing off the metal walls. Their inhuman cries curdled Craven’s blood, sending a creeping chill up his gnarled spine, each one making him regret his decision to unleash them that bit more. Beyond the ghoulish horde at his rear, a fire continued to rage back inside the ransacked laboratory. Golden light from the relatively small conflagration seeped out into the tight corridor, casting gruesome shadows along its walls. Spider-like limbs and fingers danced along the corridor’s smooth surfaces, seemingly reaching out after the fleeing figure of Dr. Craven. Occasionally, William heard a member of the ship’s security detail fire their sidearm; the weapon issuing a distinctive pop! which caused him to jump with fright every time it sounded.

Through his hazed vision, William thought he could make out an opening ahead of him – a doorway perhaps. This sent a rush of adrenaline coursing through his flagging system; something that the exhausted doctor desperately needed if he was going to make it out alive. By this point, Craven could feel fluid building up inside his lungs, making it harder to breathe than it already was. Still, he fought on, desperate to make it to – what appeared to be – a flight of stairs lying in wait a little further up in front of him. If he managed to climb the stairs before the vile things chasing after him caught up, Craven knew he might be able to seal off the entry and lock them in – the rest of the crew be damned.

Traitorous bastards.

One of the lanky, trundling figures eventually found its stride, breaking into a kind of awkward jog. Others soon followed, traipsing after their cohort at a similar pace. Howling insanely, the inhuman things tried to catch up with their would-be prey, increasing their speed. Gnashing teeth and flailing emaciated limbs, their rising bloodlust continued to entice the throng of monsters, riling them on.

Without warning, a deep animalistic bellow tore through the confines of the corridor, reverberating off the high, metallic walls. It sounded like a cross between a bear and a lion, or so the petrified doctor thought to himself. The hellish noise came from somewhere inside the flaming laboratory. William noted this cry was different to that of the others. The creature making this clamour was something else entirely, much fiercer – and larger – than the other things wandering about the lower reaches of the facility. He knew exactly what the cries belonged to… PROJECT: CARCHARIS. Craven’s pet creature was coming for him, apparently finished with making examples of the doctor’s dissenters.

No! It isn’t supposed to be like this!

Craven was almost at the base of the stairwell when he heard the thundering footsteps of his greatest creation bounding down the hallway. Looking over his shoulder, the doctor could only make out blurred stick-figure-like silhouettes. Then something significantly larger than all the others appeared at the far end of the smoke-filled corridor, its head and neck obscured by a cloud of dense smoke hanging over the chaotic scene. The dark figure charged furiously in line-backer fashion up the linear hallway. The hulking shape broke through the black-grey fog, shouldering and swatting the smaller forms out of its way, treating them as if they were nothing more than bothersome flies. William could only listen as the bodies of his lesser creations were splattered against the surface of the vessel’s walls. He heard bones crunching and breaking as the big brute bowled down the hallway trailing after him, grunting like an incensed gorilla.

Dr. William Craven hadn’t expected to die this way. He always thought he would go out a little more peacefully, during his sleep perhaps. Once he had retired and completed his research, of course. For a second, Craven pondered the poetic justice of it all: the thing which he had given life to was about to take his away from him. Fate was a funny thing.

Despite the seeming inevitability of his demise, William struggled on, desperate to escape. He wasn’t prepared to admit defeat just yet. The man’s survival instinct wouldn’t let him. He had worked too damn hard to let that happen. So, on rickety legs, the doctor made for the stairwell, adrenaline pumping vigorously through his veins and fuelling his hurried retreat. Craven set foot on the bottom rung and prepared to launch off—

—as he felt something connect with his back. Working like a battering ram, the article – at first, he wasn’t sure what it was – punched its way into the man’s back. Skewering him, the piercing object went through flesh first, followed by the bones in his ribcage, before emerging out the other side. The ageing gentleman cried out in agony as he felt his flesh being penetrated and his body lifted up off the ground.

Craven hovered in the air, completely amazed he was still breathing. Head lolling, he looked down at the gaping wound in his torso. At this distance, the doctor’s old eyes were just able to make out the thick forearm and clawed, webbed hand that had smashed its way through his frail, liver-spotted flesh. Grey-blue in colouration, and lined by the occasional tract of darkened veins, the muscular limb held him aloft for a few moments longer, the doctor’s assailant seemingly admiring its handiwork. The clawed digits at the end of the powerful limb flexed and contracted, gore dribbling off them like strands of falling treacle. Behind him, lingering just by his right ear, William could hear his finest achievement sniffing as its teeth chattered feverishly. The beast was breathing in the doctor’s scent, ostensibly revelling in the moment and relishing its victory over him.

“Papa…” came a guttural voice.

Then suddenly, Craven was falling through the air. It was a short fall in any event. Retracting its mighty limb from the gore-rimmed cavity, Carcharis let the doctor plummet unceremoniously to the floor. With a heavy and sickening splat! the doctor’s body impacted with the cold, metal flooring. Still, Dr. Craven wasn’t dead just yet. He lay there flush against the chilly surface, quivering and sniffling, his fingers twitching involuntarily as blood pooled around him. Unable to do anything else, Craven simply waited for the end to come.

It didn’t take long. Carcharis made sure of that.

Lightning-quick, William felt fingers take a hold of his egg-shaped cranium. The pressure exacted by the collection of digits was phenomenal, pain inching over the top of his skull while the hand holding him squeezed tighter. A split second after this, Craven’s head was flicked left then right in swift succession, causing bones to snap and cartilage to crack with the sharpness of the action. The light went out in the old man’s grey eyes then. Next, the doctor’s killer wrenched his slumping head backwards, tearing it away from the rest of his lifeless body. The elderly victim’s spinal column came with it, pink-red tendrils of ragged flesh hanging loosely from several portions of the serpentine-like vertebrae.