Jon Hood

6/17/15

Creative Writing

The Marine

I awoke with a jolt, drenched in a thin film of sweat. Michal-396 was shaking me, saying that I was uttering some nonsense about an attack in my dream. "I don't remember the dream and it was probably nothing," I told him. My name is John-115; they didn't give us last names in the Marine Corps, only numbers to identify ourselves.

We were on LV-426, sent here to help people set up Hadley's Hope, a colony that was placed here to begin terraforming the planet. While the scientists were inside the colony, Michal and I were on patrol and I must have dozed off for a bit. Sometime later, he shook me awake. "John, I think there's something out there," he said. I looked out into the distance, but saw nothing but rocks and dirt. Typical Michal, raising false alarm to nothing but a shadow. I can't blame him though, these patrols were boring, and this planet is dead. I don't know why they wanted our platoon here instead of on a warring planet. Wouldn't we be of more use winning a war rather than protecting scientists from dirt?

Michal shook me again pointing towards something, and he kept repeating, "Something is out there, man, I keep seeing movement." I stared hard into the shifting dark shadows, and what I think I saw didn't look like anything that I had ever seen before. The closest thing that I could compare it to was an emaciated horse with what looked to be an extremely long tail behind it. I blinked a few times, and saw nothing. It must have just been my imagination, seeing something among the shadows moving between the rocks. It was all black and very hard to see in the nighttime of the desolate outlands that were the landscape of LV-426.

I didn't want to believe Michal. "Calm down, this planet is dead."

We hadn't seen any action in a couple of years. We were Marines, but we were basically sitting and doing nothing on this rocky planet. We wanted to fight, to actually use our weapons instead of sitting on our asses, twiddling our thumbs, like we have been for the past 18 months that we had been stationed on LV-426.

I didn't want to admit that what I think I saw looked like a mysterious creatures we had heard about when we had first arrived on this outer planet. A race of aliens called Xenomorphs, known for being brutal killers, who hunted humans for nothing more than sport. They were supposedly humanoid, but bred to be the perfect killing machine. With no one living who had seen a Xenomorph, there were no records on how to kill it. At least, no records that were in a language we could read. I had never believed them to be real though, as one hadn't been seen in over 200 years.

It was late, probably two or three in the morning. I never kept track of time when I was on patrol. If I did, it only made my shift go by that much slower. Michal and I suddenly saw quick movements in a nearby gully, and what emerged from behind the tall rocks seemed to be everything the stories had claimed, and worse. The creature had to be 10 feet long, including its tail, which seemed to be sharp on the end, almost scorpion-like. It was walking on all fours at the moment, but I could tell from its thick back legs that it would be able to easily stand upright. Its head was round and about two feet long, hanging past the back of its neck, and it seemed to have no problem with balancing. I couldn't make out many other details from our distance and in the darkness. For a brief moment, the creature turned its head to us, and I saw it open its mouth. The teeth that lined its jaws were sharp, and dripping with a translucent jelly-type substance. It seemed to smile at us, taunting us to come chase after it, before it darted away. The creature moved so fluidly that it seemed to almost disappear in the dark.

We had no idea what to do, so we did the only logical thing, we called command. Command said nothing was coming up on the radar, and told me the same thing I had told Michal: I was merely imagining the creature, we must be tired, and that there was nothing that we needed to worry about. Michal, who was relieved that I also saw the creature, asked me, "What should we do?"

"Let's send out the night vision drone, it doesn't risk our safety, and we can see better with it."

"Great idea," Michal said.

With the drone prepped and ready, we sent it up into the night's sky. I was hoping nothing was really there, but a secret part of me did want something to appear, to finally allow me to pull the trigger on my gun. After a few minutes, the drone hovered over the rocky area where Michal and I both saw the creature. There was nothing showing on the video screen, and we were uncertain about what we actually thought we had seen. I was a little disappointed, but mostly relieved that the spot was empty.

Suddenly I heard an evil hiss in the distance, and it sounded inhuman. Michal and froze, our blood turning to ice. We heard terrified screams, gunfire from another patrol, and then a deafening silence. Michal and I radioed the leader of the distant patrol and received no answer. Worried, we agreed to go investigate.

While walking over to where the other patrol was posted, Michal and I noticed some tracks on the ground that seemed to disappear at the wall of the colony.

"Could this creature climb walls?" I thought to myself. If so, it was more dangerous and deadly than it looked.

When we arrived at the patrol tower, we were horrified by what we found. As Marines we've seen some bad shit, and we've done some bad shit. However, this was nothing in comparison to what we've ever seen or done. The patrolmen, men we had known and were friends with, were torn limb from limb, with deep holes bored in their heads. The holes were deep enough to mash up the brains of the patrols. Maybe the creature speared them with its tail or maybe it did something else that allowed it to do such a thing. Michal and I were more scared than we had ever been.

"What do we do, man?" Michal asked with a fear in his voice I had never heard.

I told him the truth. "I don't know. I'll radio the other patrols and see what they're doing."

We quickly learned all the patrol units all had already pulled back into the colony, and were sealing the doors. We ran toward the colony, but the gates were tightly sealed and we were locked out and trapped outside with this creature. We didn't know what it was or where it was hiding. Michal and I agreed to stick together; we were better as a team anyway. We had been on 20 tours together, but nothing as crazy and frightening as this.

"I don't want to die," Michal said in a shaky voice.

"We are not going to die, we have gotten through worse, remember the sun battle?" I said.

Michal calmed, and nodded. It had been a hell of a fight, with plenty of times when I had thought that it was my last moments. But both Michal and I had made it out alive then, and we would make it out of here now.

We created a small fortress out of ammo crates and sand bags against the wall of the colony, for the best angle and protection. We felt hidden and very secure, until we heard it again, a long evil hiss in the distance, almost like the creature was taunting us, toying with us. We saw nothing but empty darkness. I hoped that the creature would get bored with us and leave the colony's perimeter, but I knew that it was wishful thinking. All of the sudden, one of the stacks of ammo crates directly across from us tumbled over and behind it stood the horror of a creature that I had seen earlier.

It could only be a Xenomorph, and it had crawled straight out of our nightmares. It had an elongated, cylindrical skull, but no visible eyes, a skinny tall body that appeared like an exoskeleton and its weapon - a segmented, blade-tipped tail that looked scorpion-like. Michal and I stood in horror as the creature approached. It whipped its tail, knocked me aside and grabbed Michal, lifting him 10 feet in the air. The Xeno thrashed its tail around and shoved it through Michal, down his throat and spearing him like a shish kebab. I wanted to scream, but nothing came out, I was in shock. Michal was like my brother and this thing had taken him out like he was a fly. With its inner mouth protruding from its main mouth, the Xeno bit into Michal's head, leaving the same deep hole as we found in the patrol earlier.

In udder terror, I grabbed my gun and began firing at the creature, screaming mindlessly the entire time, but every bullet seemed to miss. Finally I shot the Xeno's arm and its thick green blood splattered on me, burning my arm where it landed. It felt worse than when I was shot back when I first joined the Corp.

"Acid for blood, this monstrosity had acid for blood." I though to myself as the Xeno began moving towards me. I continued firing, but then the unthinkable happened - my gun jammed. "Twenty tours and my gun had never jammed, God damn-it, why now, of all times," I screamed into the darkness.

The Xeno came closer, hissing the entire time, and it picked me up with its large webbed claws, its long fingers wrapping around my body. For a creature that was so skinny, it was insanely strong. It stood on its back legs, slowly raising me up so that I was at level with its face. It looked into my eyes, seeming to study me. Without warning, I felt a searing pain when the creature stabbed me through the stomach, and I shuddered with the creature's tail inside my body, knowing that this was the end of my life as the barbed point shot through my lung.

I awoke with a jolt; Michal-396 was shaking me, saying that I was uttering some nonsense about an attack in my dream. I had no clue what I had dreamt about, but when Michal said, "John, I think I see something in the distance," I suddenly got this weird feeling in my stomach that something bad was about to happen. And just as I looked out among the dark rocky landscape, I could have sworn that I saw a teasing smile in the darkness of the desolate plains.