Anomaly

The incessant blaring from the alarm stirred Lane from his slumber. Pale moonlight shone through the window. He looked at the clock on the wall, its faint luminescence read 3:00am. The hair at the nape of his neck stood at attention. We don’t do drills in the middle of the night… There was a strong rap against his door as he pulled himself out of bed.

“One moment,” he growled. The door swung open as he pulled his fleece over his head. “What is the meaning of this? Can’t a man dress in private?”

The guardian’s expression was grim. He was a young man, the shadow of age hadn’t yet graced his face. His haircut was high, tight, and looked fresh. Lane didn’t recognize him. Perhaps a new recruit? Where is my usual detail?

“I’m sorry, sir. Time is of the essence.” He turned and motioned for Lane to exit the room. “You’re needed in the command center.” Lane studied the man’s face for a moment.

“What is your name?”

“Specialist Gordon,” he said.

“Well, Specialist Gordon,” Lane said, exiting the room. “Where is Jacobs?”

Gordon matched his anxious pace. He hesitated, “Sergeant Jacobs is dead, sir.”

Lane paused for a moment. Dead? He continued, his pace quicker than before. Dread filled his bones as a chill set down his spine. His breath caught in his throat as they exited the dormitory corridor into the main hall. It was a large room lined with benches and artwork. It wasn’t uncommon to see staff members or guardians eating lunch. The artwork was there to liven up the place. The walls were sleek and the floors were polished, much as you would expect from a military base housing mostly scientists. He had never seen so many people there at one time. The fear in the air was palpable. Guardians were directing panicked crowds down the hall and toward the safe room with weapons drawn.

What stuck out to Lane most were the guardians’ faces: pale and forlorn. They knew something that he didn’t. It was as if they knew that nothing mattered. Whatever killed Jacobs was serious. Clearly the crowd had experienced the same thing as the guardians. It makes sense they would be so disheveled without military training.

Lane turned to his escort. “What’s going on, Gordon?”

“Sir, there isn’t time to explain. I have to get you to the command cent–”

The building shook violently. The crowd’s screams grew louder. Lane looked up. The ceiling of the base was glass; the crew found it inspiring to look into the cosmos when the work became dull. They were tasked with monitoring radio waves from the universe. It wasn’t inspired work, though there was always an air of excitement when they discovered a new signal. The guardians would place bets on what the signal would be from. It was usually run-of-the-mill: a pulsar, a supernova, or even clouds of molecules surrounding the birth of a new star. The crew was always most excited when they discovered new black holes, though it often didn’t last past dinner.

Lane grew cold. The early morning sky was ablaze. It was beautiful in a way that made him feel insignificantly small. The goosebumps on his skin, however, brought him back to reality. These aren’t meteors…

“We have to move!” said Gordon with a forceful pull to Lane’s arm.

The two forced their way through the mass of people. The panic in the room grew stronger, which made it difficult for Lane, a man of short stature, to maneuver the crowd. Gordon practically pulled him through. They had just made it to the other side when the first explosion erupted. Lane chose not to look back as the gunfire overwhelmed his ears.

Gordon made a right into the next corridor and pulled out his sidearm as he ran. They turned left after a few strides, and were met with a secure door. Lane had forgotten about that. He ran toward the security panel, fumbling for his access card. A cold sweat ran down his temple as he struggled to get it out of his wallet. Gordon took up position behind him, pistol at the ready. Lane dropped the card as he pulled it from the wallet. The screams were getting closer.

Gordon glanced back at him. “Any second now!”

After a few tries, Lane was able to pick up the card and touch it to the panel. Gordon shoved through the doors the moment they unlocked, pulling Lane along with him. Lane looked back as the doors were closing. He didn’t see the beast, but dark tentacles reaching and swatting at the people running by. A handful of them almost made it to the door before it closed, banging and crying on the other side to be let in.

His sense of humanity weighing on him, he reached for the lock’s release, but was stopped by Gordon. He struggled against the guardian’s grip, kicking and clawing like a child fighting a nap.

“Let me go!” he shouted. “We have to help them!”

A loud crash hit the door, freezing him in Gordon’s arms. The screams intensified for a brief moment before being muffled by the cracking of shattered bones and squelches of smushed organs. Blood oozed through the cracks under the doors. Lane fell to his knees, words escaping him, unable to process the horrors unfolding. The blood has reached him, staining the knees of his gray, crisp woolen pants crimson.

Schumaker… Lane Schumaker… he thought. Except it wasn’t his thought. The voice in his head belonged to someone else. Something else. The voice was low and gravelly. Sinister. It was thunderous in his mind, yet echoed by a thousand whispers.

“I… I don’t understand,” he whispered.

Ah. So you can hear me, the voice said. Let’s take care of your pathetic friend. A deep, resonant sound emitted in his brain, rattling his insides. Rather, a cacophony of multiple sounds, all inexplicable to him. Lane covered his ears. It had him teetering on the brink of insanity. He prayed to a god that he didn’t believe in for the sound to stop. His legs gave out, and he mustered the energy to glance at Gordon who was seizing violently on the ground.

***

Lane awoke in the hallway next to a lifeless Specialist Gordon, in the puddle of blood that had seeped in from the previous corridor. The throbbing in his head was near unbearable. He noticed that his ears were ringing as he pulled himself to his feet. He reached up to his ear to find a trail of blood oozing from it. Gordon’s ears were similar.

“He could hear it, too…”

He wondered how Jacobs died. He thought it unlikely to be the same manner as Gordon. Perhaps he was lucky, and his dormitory was smashed by one of the first meteors. Or was he killed by one of those… those creatures? Lane hoped not. Jacobs was a good man, he didn’t deserve that kind of death.

He leaned down and grabbed the pistol from Gordon’s cold hands. He had never fired a gun before. Never even held one; he was an academic, not a soldier. The guardians were the protection here. Yet, he found himself alive and his guardian dead. The building shook again. He heard the roars of the creatures all around him. Was he surrounded?

Limping, he began his slow trek toward the command center. He must have twisted his leg when he fainted. His vision was dark and blurred, occasionally giving out completely. Even still he could see the faint glow of the emergency floodlight that guided him. He made his way down the corridor and hung a right.

The path before him was strewn with bodies. They weren’t the mangled corpses left behind by the creatures. They were slumped against walls and doorways, blood oozing from their ears. He tried to fight the urge to retch, but the nausea overwhelmed him.

“Have to keep moving,” he said, steeling himself. He wiped the bile from his lips and continued the trudge.

He hung another left. More bodies. The roars were closer now. The secure door to the command center was at the end of this hall. As he made his way down the corridor, his perception of reality began to slip. He walked on the ceiling, the blood from his ears dripped toward the floor. The lights flickered. They were slow at first, but sped up as he approached the door. They twinkled like stars in his eyes. The building shook again.

He made it to the door and reached for his access card, but the door unlocked with a buzz before he found it. He was standing on the floor again. He hadn’t heard the voice, but it was there. He could feel its presence, like a nail buried deep at the base of his brain. He pulled the door open, and shrieked as a body fell onto him, soaking him with more blood.

He entered the room and was taken aback by how cold it was. He sighed deeply, watching the clouds of his breath fade into the air. The door swung shut behind him and the lights flicked off. He shuddered, the hair on his neck standing tall, as he realized the roars were now directly behind him.

Lane Schumaker, the voice said, this time as much through the speakers of the command center as in his mind.

“What do you want?”

To finally meet you, of course.

Lane tightened his grip on the pistol. “Why me?”

The voice chuckled. You sent for me, Lane. Don’t you remember?

The screen on the far side of the room illuminated. He covered his eyes, the sudden light causing his pupils to quickly contract. It was showing… logs. Logs of every radio signal they had received. Logs of every radio signal they sent out. The screen was scrolling through thousands of pages of data. It stopped on a particular log. It was dated last June.

Lane felt a pit form in his stomach. He remembered that day. The signal they received was… different. It felt alive. They pinpointed it to CR7, and hoped it was evidence of extraterrestrial life. Another signal came the next day. And the day after that. They sent signals back in an attempt to communicate. It was his call.

“But there was nothing,” he whispered. The signals had stopped once they had sent out their own. “Why are you here?”

The screen flicked over to a map that showed every base similar to this one around the globe. It flashed crimson. There were distress signals from every one.

To destroy.

Lane let the pistol fall to the floor as he felt the slimy embrace of the tentacle on his ankle. He hadn’t noticed that the roars had ceased. Instead, he heard the low growls of the voice behind him. Tears fell from his eyes as the creature tightened its grip around him.