With a repugnant, cracking jerk, one of Rex’s hands whipped upward to grip the captain’s arm in a claw-like grasp.
“Stay back!” The captain hissed, his voice strained by the agony of obvious physical pain as he weakly waved away the advancing medic. “I’m fine!”
Rosemary, her eyes wide and brimming with tears, was clearly unconvinced. Not knowing what else to do, Lamont stepped forward and took her arms, drawing her back from Carter as he collapsed onto his hands and knees, the alien tendrils throbbing an angry red around his trembling leg.
Without warning, the body of Rex O’Neil, having lain stiff for hours, suddenly began to shake with violent spasms. A horrible, rasping weeze shuddered from his blue lips—a sound that produced in Lamont’s mind a vivid, incongruous image of the wind rustling through dead leaves in December.
Through his pain, the captain crawled forward and placed his trembling hands on the pilot’s arm. “Rex! Rex, it’s alright—we’re going—” he stammered. But he was stopped short by the unbearable sound of cracking and popping that emerged from Rex’s white neck as it bent upward, lifting his red-haired head at an angle that was somehow completely wrong. The young man’s eyes remained closed, but his lips opened slowly, uncertainly. The voice that emerged from them was Rex’s, and yet not. It was hollow, dry, as cold as starlight.
“Where am I?” Rex rasped.
“You’re in the cave,” Francis explained, his voice trembling with pain. “On an alien world. There was an accident, but we’re bringing you home.”
The sound that came from those purple lips now made Lamont’s blood curdle. He realized that he was clinging to Rosemary, and Rosemary was clinging to him, for dear life. He could not tell if it was a laugh, or a moan, or simply a meaningless exhalation. It made him wish that he were dead.
“Home!” Rasped Rex. “Home…”
The head dropped with a crunching sound. An anguished sob escaped Captain Carter’s lips as he leaned over the stiff body, close to Rex’s bone-white face. “Rex! Rex!” He gasped.
Then, with a repugnant, cracking jerk, one of Rex’s hands whipped upward to grip the captain’s arm in a claw-like grasp. He pulled Francis downward, and Lamont could see that the bruised lips were moving slightly, stiffly with speech. But he could not make out the rattling whispers. Then the body was still once more, the pale tendrils slinking back into the alien’s body. With awkward desperation, Captain Carter fought to free his arm from the mortified grip of Rex’s dead hand. Falling backward, he dragged himself a short distance away, pulling a limp leg, and retched.
Next: Left Behind
Beautiful and disturbing. But man, I was hoping it would work.