Chapter Fifteen – Worm

Chapter Fifteen – Worm

“Little is truly known about what happens in a hive. Not because of a lack of research, but because the means to destroy a hive leave little left to research. What we do know is that the Antithesis are not a species made up of individuals, or even a proper colony. Hive is a misnomer. We have spent too long thinking of extraterrestrial life in a way that is easy for us to understand.

The Antithesis are not ants, they are not termites, they are not insectile in nature, or mammalian. If anything they share more in common with plants. Ambulatory, devastating, violent plants.”

–Professor Heinlein, excerpt from a lecture on the knowledge gained from early Antithesis studies (thereafter called Alien Anthropology), 2028.

***

I pulled back and hid behind the corner not a moment before I felt all of my blood going cold. That had been, in my not-so-humble opinion, terrifying.

The lack of noise from the aliens was alarming. Alarming-ish. Or maybe not alarming, but it made them scarier, and harder, to deal with. I sort of wished they had the courtesy to announce their presence.

I tightened my grip around my Trench Maker, then flicked my thumb over the safety. The gun made a tiny humming noise and I felt things shifting within it. The reticule floating in my vision flashed orange.

I looked down the other end of the corridor. I could still leave. They hadn’t heard me coming, which meant that maybe they wouldn’t see me going either.

And then, when we crossed over with all the kids, they would be right there waiting for us. I grit my teeth and held back a swear. The last thing I needed was to be disemboweled because I couldn’t keep a lid on my dirty mouth.

I shifted so that I was in more of a crouch, then held my gun close to my side. It wasn’t how the heroes in the movies held their guns, but the heroes usually had an extra arm, and in the older movies they didn’t have a red circle telling them where their bullets would land.

I took one last breath, then moved.

The first Model Three never saw it coming. It was still staring off down the far end of the corridor when the red circle of my reticule lined up with the side of its head.

I yanked the trigger back, winced as that pulled my aim off, then winced harder when the gun barked in my hand. The noise was nearly deafening, and if it wasn’t for the knowledge that there were more beasts I might have flinched hard enough to drop the Trench Maker.

Luck, or some poor half-rate equivalent, was on my side as my first shot punched a hole into the back of the Model Three’s head.

The second spun around and rushed towards me, huge paws thumping on the ground even as its jaw opened wide to take a chunk out of me.

I fired into it once, then for good measure twice more before jumping to the side.

The Model Three flopped by, its body ragdolling over the ground.

You only hit that one twice.

“Not now!” I said. Myalis’ snark was cute, welcome even, but this wasn’t the time.

I brought my gun around to point it right at the huge worm thing and… and it wasn’t really moving towards me.

That wasn’t entirely true. Its sides were undulating and moving about where it wasn’t covered in bands of scale. Tiny little legs, no longer than one of my fingers, poked out from the overlapping scales and scratched at the floor as the worm wiggled away.

I looked out ahead and spotted a few bodies laying on the ground, most in plain clothes, but a few looked like they worked in the nearby shops. And, at the far end of the corridor, a hole was blasted through one of the windows. The slime slick leading from the hole to the worm told me everything I needed to know about where it came from.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Most models numbers between Eight and Ten are considered utilitarian, or specialized. This is a Model Eight. They are harmless.

“Harmless my ass,” I said. The worm was moving over to some poor twenty-something that looked like he’d been mauled. The smell wafting over from him had me recoiling, but I’d been made to clean out the orphanage bathrooms enough times to be able to ignore it for a bit.

The worm, the Model Eight, opened its mouth wide and started to grab onto the boy’s legs.