Cancer

The sunset behind the far hills striped the sky with colors as rich and beautiful as a stained glass window, but Michael paid it no mind because the trees were screaming. Arms and hands were fused with branches and twigs, the skin and bark running together in ways the eye seemed unwilling to categorize. Mouths spotted the trunks like shelf mushrooms, their lips always moving as they muttered and occasionally gave out a shriek. Michael felt his stomach lurch. He looked away, but not before he saw the wedding band on the end of one twig-finger.

“Jesus,” Henry whispered.

It was Henry's first time out on a search and rescue team, and Michael thought the young man was doing pretty well dealing with the aftermath of a breach. Plenty of people broke down or fled at the first sight of something the shouldn't have been but was. Henry looked pale, but determined. He locked his eyes forward and patted his extra ammo clips.

“Let's keep moving,” said Michael, shouldering his rifle.

They walked along a path that had once bordered a wheat field. It held a different sort of crop now, the spongy fungus-like flora that seemed to appear wherever the other world pushed itself into to real one. Meter high spikes also sprouted from the earth. Michael pointed toward the nearest one.

“That's a bad sign. Those are made of the same metal-tissue shit that the biomechanicals are made of. We may come across a walker, so keep your guard up.”

Their path curved around the base of a hill. As they continued on Michael spotted the buildings up ahead. The land sloped down towards a creek to the West. On the far side they could see a normal field of wheat.

“It didn't affect that big of an area,” said Henry.

“Nope, a square mile or two at the most.”

It was a fairly small breach. Michael had personally seen larger, and what word filtered in from the outside spoke of whole cities swallowed at once.

“This seems to be limited to the Terryson's farmstead. Most of it anyway,” said Michael.

Linda Terryson had been near the edge of her and her husband's land checking some traps when the change had came. She had ran towards town as soon as she saw the air start to shimmer behind her. At least that's what they had gathered when they got her calmed down enough to talk coherently. That and that her husband Doug was still back at the stable next to their farmhouse feeding the horses.

They approached the house warily. It was still partly recognizable as something built by human hands. It had a roof, doors and windows. The geometry was wrong though, right angles were hard to find, its lines had warped into something more organic. Strange outcroppings sprouted from it like tumors, some twisting into cruel spikes.

Henry spotted the movement before Michael did, spinning and raising his rifle as the walker skittered out from behind the house. Its headless torso was triangular and narrowed to a thin waist that sprouted dozens of piston-driven insectile legs. The two foremost legs were held upright like a crab's claws and ended in two cruel scythes. It hissed and clanked as it charged across the yard at them, as big as a horse. The crash of Henry's rifle snapped Michael out of his stupor and he raised his own to fire. The walker's shell was hard and metallic, deflecting their shots as it came on. It was almost on top of them when one of Michael's shots seemed to find the nest of tubes that hung from its abdomen in front of its waist. Its gate faltered as oily blood gushed out of the wound before it tipped over sideways. It took several minutes to die, twitching, before its legs curled up on themselves like a dead spider.

They stood there a little longer, waiting for the adrenaline to abate a bit. Finally, Michael gestured towards the stables. They found Doug and the horses in the middle of the pen. Their flesh looked like wax that had melted and solidified again. They wriggled and twisted as one solid mass. Doug Terryson's face stared out at them from what may have been a horse's shoulder. His mouth opened and closed.

Michael didn't remember shooting, just later when Henry had gently taken the rifle away from him where he stood dry firing the empty cartridge.

Later, as they were walking back to town, Henry spoke.

“Maybe it would be best if we never found him when she asks.”

Michael didn't answer, he just nodded. Yeah, the kid might do pretty well at this job.

This ain't Yoda

It hangs over me in the dark. What little light filters through the tear in my hull suggests muscle wrapped in glistening black skin. A peristaltic wave is rippling under that skin and I am fighting the urge to vomit.

Is it breathing?

Am I breathing?

I remember the angry red of atmospheric reentry, altitude klaxons wailing, a flash of swamp on the view screen. After that, there was nothing. Nothing untill this.

Water, warm as a bath and stinking of sulphur is everywhere, but I’m not afraid of drowning because that thing is unfolding itself. I have other problems.

Falling Fruit

The captain sat next to a fountain, eating an orange. The sun shone hot over the courtyard. Flies buzzed angrily, flitting from body to body. Blood had dried in the sun, staining the white tiles.

"Sir, we have their leader."

The captain glanced up at the lieutenant.

"Have some of the men move these bodies and rinse away the mess. It stinks."

The lieutenant saluted and turned on his heel before walking away. The captain rose from his chair, wincing as his back popped. He tossed his orange rind onto a soldier's corpse. The body had started to bloat. No one seemed to mind except the flies.

He walked out through the open doors. In the dirt road that ran in front of the house, a line of soldiers stood. Between two of them hung the rebel. His clothes were dirty and ripped. His curly black hair was clotted with dirt and twigs. He looked, the captain thought, exactly like a man who had been hiding in the woods for nearly a week. The captain made a curt gesture. The men dropped the prisoner's arms and backed away to the far side of the road.

"You are the leader from the village," the Captain said. The man made no reply, staring at the ground in front of the captain's shiny black boots.

"You and your men fought bravely, but there were too many of us and you had no real supplies."

The man looked up sharply at that, as if searching the Captain's eyes for sarcasm. Seeing none, he nodded. The captain stood and looked out over the field to the village for a while. The church bell began to ring. The man picked a twig out of his hair and sat twirling it between his fingers.

The captain reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out an orange. He offered it to the man. The rebel took it. He studied it, turning it in his hands. He peeled it quickly with his dirty nails, and ate it in three big bites, seeds and all.

"Sweet," said the man.

"Are you ready?" asked the Captain.

The man nodded absently, rubbing his sticky fingers in the dirt. The captain removed his pistol from its holster and shot the man in the head. He turned and walked back toward the house. He thought he might have another orange. The trees were heavy with them, and soon the fruit would fall and splatter over the tiles.