Shockeye

I know my first writing post was kind of out there. But now I am posting an actual story. Hope you enjoy. If you do I'll post more.

Dark Corridors – By A. Pershing AKA Shockeye

Corporal Moulton entered his quarters and sighed. The door slid shut behind him as he sat down in front of his desk. He hated doing reports. Moulton always procrastinated over them until the captain had to yell at him. This time he completed them without delay. It didn't take him long to finish. He stretched as he stood up and walked over to the porthole. Mars was drifting away as the ship went on it's way to the asteroid belt near Jupiter. He gazed at the red planet while he picked a piece of food out of his teeth. Shame he had to leave dinner early.

He tried to see below the ship, straining his eyes to see the outer hull of the ship. Cpl. Moulton gasped as he saw a dull gray movement near the rear of the ship. An asteroid was about to hit. He reached for his radio but it was knocked out of his hand with the force of the impact. The ship lurched, throwing Cpl. Moulton to the floor. The lights went out and he heard the distant slam of the heavy security door closing off the rest of the crew in the cafeteria.

Cpl. Moulton's rear end landed on the floor at the same moment the power went out. The impact had knocked him onto the floor. His heart skipped a beat and he thought he had been knocked out. It took him a second to realize he was still awake. Cpl. Moulton sat in the darkness waiting for his eyes adjust to the light. All systems were down; the entire ship was dead. Stranded between Mars and Jupiter. There was an electric crackling and a voice. Cpl. Moulton crawled towards the source of the sound.

“Corporal!” the voice said “Are you there?” He fumbled around and his hand rested on his 2-way radio. He grabbed it and pressed the button.
“I'm fine ma'am,” he said “Looks like all systems are dead.”
“Whatever hit us,” the voice of Sargent Rossi said “Knocked out the main electric generator. The back up will have to be...”
“Turned on by hand,” Moulton finished the sentence with her “Of course. I'm in my quarters right now. I'm the closest to it.”
“Corporal, the rest of us got locked in the cafeteria when the security doors shut. Fortunately the doors along the way to the backup generator can be opened by hand crank.”
“Right, I just have to make sure I remember the way.”
“You'd better,” Sgt. Rossi said “Captain Berg doesn't want to have to crawl through the vents.”
“Yes ma'am, I'm on my way.”

Cpl. Moulton felt the area around his bed with his foot. He found his footlocker and pulled the lid up. Groping around in the dark, he found his flashlight. Turning it on, he headed for the door.

The door to his quarters opened easily enough. Just had to grip the handle and force the door sideways until it slid all the way. Taking a right out of his room, Moulton watched as the light illuminated the hallway in front of him. It reminded him of when he was a teenager and had broken into an abandoned hospital. The ship was in better shape than that, but it was the same feeling. Silent, dark corridors with closed doors on each side.

As he came to the end of the hallway, Moulton turned left and descended a small gangplank to the next level. He let his mind drift back as he continued. The doors of the old abandoned hospital gave him the creeps. There could have been a different monster behind each one. He remembered how the whole building smelled of rot and decay. Something in the air here smelled the same.

After another hundred meters or so, Moulton arrived at a door that led to a lower part of the ship. There was a wheel embedded in the door with a handle in the middle. It took both hands to turn the wheel until the door was open enough for him to get by. The door stayed open when he let go of it.

The next section was a series of empty cargo holds. A musty odor grew stronger as he traversed three of the rooms. Something made a noise behind him as he entered the fourth hold. Shining the light behind him, he found nothing. He turned to walk forward and heard the noise behind him only louder. It was a light skittering, scampering sort of noise. Something smaller than him, but with a lot of clawed feet made that sound.

Cpl. Moulton moved faster toward the next door two hundred yards away. Along the way he looked for something he could use as a weapon. Anything that would have been use to him was screwed to the floor or wall. The skittering noise got closer, making him run faster. A quick glance behind him showed no trace of his pursuers, yet every sound they made told him they were right behind him. One hundred yards to go. Now the things began shrieking. Terrible high pitched screeches ripped through his mind. Moulton ran faster as he saw the door ahead of him, but there was still no distance between him and the things chasing him.

Twenty five yards to go. He passed a nondescript stack of crates on his right side next to a support column. Something jumped out at him from behind those crates. It was a hideous dog the size of a lion. Cpl. Moulton screamed and stumbled forward.

He had landed on top of the flashlight. He heard it crunch and split underneath him. The sound of his fall echoed through the empty spaces. He held his hands to his side, feeling the painful abrasion that ached as he stood up. Whatever was chasing him had disappeared. He couldn't tell where they were. They could be right in front of him, waiting to pounce. Moulton strained his eyes trying to find the faintest trace of light. He felt his way to the door and turned the wheel. When it was halfway open, he went through it.

Cpl. Moulton took a few cautionary steps into the room. He knew the way to the backup generator. Three hundred yards to the next door, make a few turns after that, down some stairs and around two more corners. He would have to do it all by touch, but it was relatively simple.

Cpl. Moulton then began to wonder what had happened to those things that were chasing after him. Did something get into the ship? His fall probably scared them off. He then wondered if there would be any more of them. Moulton got his answer when something in the darkness stood inches from him and roared.

The scream that Cpl. Moulton let out left him hoarse and winded. He staggered backwards tripping over himself and fell on his backside. The thing roared at him but now it was off to his side. It roared a third time, and now Cpl. Moulton could tell it was circling behind him.

Moulton got to his feet and ran towards the next door while he had a chance. He found the door with outstretched arms and opened it. This time he shut the door behind him. Whatever these things were, they had plenty of chances to attack the terrified corporal. Moulton wondered if there was something about himself that was putting them off. Leaning against a wall, he began to feel dizzy. Bracing himself, he vomited. His head cleared up a bit and he took a few deep breaths before he moved on.

He faced down the next hallway, and something caught his eye. It was a green, glowing LED in the ceiling. He stood under it. The light was a power indicator in a junction box of the auxiliary power system. He reached a hand up and saw it illuminated green by the light. The veins in his hand stood out black in the light. His hand began to change. The skin cracked and bled, the fingers were rotting. He took his hand away from the light and hurried on down the corridor.

Around a corner was a porthole. Moulton hurried up to it and looked out. He was almost to the engine room, that's where the backup generator was. The angle of the wall meant that from this porthole, Moulton could see the tail end of the ship. He also saw a gaping hole in the hull. It couldn't have been where the asteroid hit. That was on the other side of the ship. The hole didn't look like impact damage. It looked like something had burst out of the ship. Or was cut by a very large can opener.

Cpl. Moulton took a deep breath to calm himself. He continued on down a small flight of stairs. As he went down, some things dropped off the ceiling at him. With strong claws, they grabbed him by the shoulders, the ears, the hair. They pecked at him, nipping and tearing his skin. He screamed and started to thrash against the wall trying to get these things off of him. He slammed his back into a post and they all fell off at once. He hunched over from the pain of banging his spine against the wall. He had one more corner to turn when pain gripped his chest. He stumbled as he clutched at his chest, wishing he could reach inside and calm his heart.

In the last room the backup power was running on redundant circuits. The junction box to the rest of the ship had to be switched on manually. The room glowed with a dim red light, just bright enough to see.

Cpl. Moulton turned a corner on a bank of computers when he heard another great roar. He saw the switch for the generator in front of him. He stumbled up to it, the pain in his chest sharpened and forced him to his knees. He had a hand on the switch and looked back and saw the thing that roared at him. A demons head, with red glowing eyes, on a twisted, winged body, and it walked on four legs. It roared again and pounced at him. Cpl. Moulton threw the switch and fell into blackness.

The lights came back on. Banks of computers began powering up. The security doors opened. Sgt. Rossi tried to reach Cpl. Moulton on her 2-way.
“Nothing, sir.” Sgt. Rossi handed the 2-way to Capt. Berg. They wondered what happened. Rossi expected Moulton to come running back to grovel in front of her any moment now. Capt. Berg took a few steps down a hallway and didn't let anyone pass him. He started smelling the air. A certain scent tickled the inside of his nose. His eyes grew wide and spun around to face the crew.
“Everyone back into the cafeteria,” he said shutting the door. There were puzzled looks as they crew gathered back in the room they were just released from.

Sgt. Rossi asked the Captain what was wrong. He walked up to a computer terminal and pushed a few buttons. A schematic of the ship appeared on the screen. A large number of sections on that diagram flashed yellow. He switched to camera view. Sgt. Rossi and the crew saw the captain's eyes grow wide. They gathered around him and looked at the screen.

Some of them clasped their hands over their mouths, others just hung their heads. Capt. Berg had located Cpl. Moulton on the camera system. He was dead, lying in front of the panel of the generator. Capt. Berg punched a button and the screen changed back to the flashing schematic.
“One of the fuel lines ruptured. It expanded to gas and was breathed in. Immediate poisoning.” he explained “It must have taken all his willpower to make it to the generator.”

Captain Berg activated a system that contained nanobot mechanics. They took off in search of the breach in the fuel line in order to repair it. The ventilation system switched on and began cleaning the air.

“I've done a bio-scan,” Sgt. Rossi said, tapping the screen of another computer “Severe damage to the nervous and cardiovascular system. Minor neurological damage. Official cause of death: Heart attack caused by exposure to toxic chemicals.”
“Neurological damage too?” Captain Berg said.
“Yes. He probably suffered terrible hallucinations before he died.”

The End