Francesco Mazzotta - Cellular Activity

A second burst of Ironside hits the creature on one of its two heads and opens large holes in the flesh and in the underlying bone structure. However, this fails to slow it down. Instead, the blows have the effect to upset it even further.

“Go away! Run away!”, Macready shouts, aware of the imminent end.

Ironside and Moore don’t listen to him. The man keeps shooting at the creature, with the only result to open momentary gashes in his flesh and further unleash his rage.

Come on…

I can do it…

Moore suddenly starts running, moving rapidly toward Macready.

For a moment Ironside thinks that the woman is crazy, unsure why she runs to her death in that way.

“No! Run!”, Macready screams, seeing the woman rushing towards him awkwardly, clutching something bulky to her chest. The creature is coming at a gallop, a little more than a dozen meters behind him.

The woman goes on and runs another few meters. Then she leaves the object that she brought with her on the ground, immediately turning to flee back to the armored vehicle.

Only then, looking at what Moore has laid on the ground, Ironside understands her plan.

One of the plastic canisters with incendiary mixture.

Moore isn’t physically trained and, despite the adrenaline, she feels fatigue and her limbs become heavy. The short rush, with a one-gallon full can in her lap, has put her to the test.

Macready joins her, grabbing her by her right hand and yanking on.

Behind them other thuds of the creature make the terrain tremble, accompanied by shots fired from Ironside.

The abomination has almost reached the incendiary canister, when machine-gun fire centers the articulation of one of the legs. The sound of shattered bones is loud, and the monstrosity stumbles, crumbling to the ground. While keeping firing, Ironside lowers his aim, directing another burst onto the explosive, which detonates with a loud roar.

The creature swoops down in a devastating fire barrier that completely surrounds it. The surrogate of napalm sticks like a gel on its body, burning violently.

A hellish roar echoes in the desert, as the monster burns.

This is not enough to stop the creature. Its broken leg recovers soon part of its functionality, and the burning monster takes on a ramshackle march towards the armored vehicle, now at less than twenty meters.

Macready and Moore reach the vehicle. With some agility despite her bandaged left hand, she gets inside and quickly hands to the soldier two incendiary canisters taken from the interior. Macready grabs them on the fly, moving to the front of the vehicle to throw them to the abomination that keeps approaching. From the chest of the flaming creature emerge new tentacular appendages, which detach from the main mass and fall writhing to the ground. The newly formed creatures then develop crude insect limbs, with which they begin to move snaking on the ground, heading for the vehicle with the three survivors.

Ironside fires a barrage at the main body, hitting one of its big forelimbs. This one breaks, collapsing the entire creature to the ground. The mass of screaming flesh stirs in the flames for some long moments, then it stands still, keeping burning.

The two yellow plastic containers launched by Macready fall a few meters in front of the vehicle, but the soldier is already back in the car, attempting to start it.

After a few moments that seem eternal, the armored vehicle has a start and begins to move backward.

Creatures like giant centipedes move zigzagging on the ground, getting near the two canisters.

Almost sensing the danger, the monstrosities stop their run, then move sideways.

Suddenly the machine gun jams.

“Shoot the cans!”, Macready shouts, stopping the vehicle.

“The machine-gun is jammed. I think it has overheated,” Ironside answers from outside.

“Holy Christ,” Macready curses between his clenched teeth.

Ironside looks at the movements of the creatures. They have stopped their run a few meters from the cans with the incendiary mixture.

Those that appear as horrific centipedes, but as big as a large boa, approach each other. A pattern of protoplasmic offshoots protrudes from the surface of each of them, intertwining to form new tissue.

The creatures begins a rapid melting process.

“Something’s happening!”, Ironside exclaims. “They have stopped a few steps from the cans. I think they’re turning into something else.”

Macready mutters an obscenity, then he shoulders his assault rifle and checks the magazine, leaving the vehicle.

“Where are you going?”, Moore shouts after him.

“It’s a personal matter”, his answer. The Major takes another canister and walks toward the mass of transforming flesh.

The being takes on the appearance of a shapeless lump. Macready looks while readying himself to shoot.

As the marine approaches, the ungainly plasma slowly forms the shape of a squatting human silhouette.

A figure with its head down, bowed on itself to the ground.

What the hell…

The creature rises slowly. Macready is a dozen meters and he can now make out more details.

The monstrosity evolves quickly. Its shapeless mass takes new details. New muscles, blood vessels and bones are formed. A strange feeling sneaks into the soldier, as he sees a face modeling right before his eyes. Fingers sprout like mushrooms out of rough shaped hands. A sense of hypnotic stupor and family warmth makes its way into him.

“What is he doing?”, Moore asking to Ironside. “Why doesn’t he shoot?”

The man doesn’t reply, intent on watching the scene with binoculars.

While a person’s body forms before the eyes of Macready, more nuances continue to emerge, as drawn by an invisible artist. Dark hair grows on its head, as quickly as a full beard on its face.

The heart of the Major seems to become heavier, while the creature’s chest rises, taking a deep breath.

The transformation is completed, the being opens its eyes, looking around. Then it focuses its gaze on him, staring at him intently.

“You can’t…”, murmurs Macready. “R.J…”

Mesmerized by the figure materialized in front of his eyes, and pervaded by a sense of numbness that flows tempting in his veins, the Major doesn’t notice the small movements of the sand in front of the creature. The sand bumps, as if something is making its way into the ground, snaking slowly toward him.

The being moves its head, as if to stretch the neck muscles. The features of its face, just meters from Macready, relax. Its mouth opens in a friendly smile, its eyes watching him with a mild stare.

“You look really messy, Albie…”

The sense of loss of the Major leaves space to a profound sense of sadness. Meanwhile the thing crawling in the sand is now two meters from him.

Hearing those words, many thoughts stir in Macready’s mind. Memories come to the surface, almost violently, as driven by an external source.

Scenes of his childhood with his older brother. The moments lived when he came back from Vietnam, so changed and restless. The difficulties when he started drinking, until that day when he decided to take the job in Antarctica in a desperate attempt to escape his demons.

Suddenly, that moment of stasis gives way to a high-speed movie, taking Macready back to the present.

The machine gun on the armored vehicle unlocks, and Ironside doesn’t waste any time. A burst centers in full one of the canisters launched earlier by Macready.

At the same time a tentacle squirts out of the sand, darting towards the Major’s face.

The man has lowered his guard in those fractions of a second when his mind was a jungle of thoughts. He looks at the tip of one tentacle opening in a vertical mouth bristling with fangs of a metallic black.