Chapter 2

Panic.

Blind panic.

Rebecca ran through the mess hall dodging up turned tables and chairs, leaping over broken glass and other useless debris. She didn't particularly know where she was going or what she would do if she got there, but she just had to run and hope her brother Timmy could keep up.

The barricade had broken only seconds ago and her mother screamed for her to run. Rebecca didn't need to be told something so primal, even if her mother's voice was drowned out amongst the gunfire and screams.

It had all gone to hell in the passed few days after her and her family discovered that strange alien place passed the mountain range. LV246 was an inhospitable place, home to howling winds and treacherous terrain. Mum and Dad decided it was too good of an opportunity to pass up, the former uncertain and the latter with money in his eyes, and Rebecca and Timmy were forced to come along as a babysitter could not be found back at the complex.

The all terrain vehicles was a sturdy machine and coped well against the harsh winds. But like most times involving sand, no matter how water tight sand always managed to find a way inside. But they were bred tough out here. Only those with a spirit of adventure and hard hands found a way to make a living in the far colonies. But for those that it suited, it made for a potentially profitable life.

The two parents jumped outside and entered the alien structure and Rebecca had waited, glad for the free time to alone to play games with her brother Timmy, but after a while she had grown scared and worried. She would never forget the panic in her mother's eyes as the door was later wrenched open. She saw her father on the ground with a disgusting spider wrapped around his face. They put him down at the back of the vehicle cabin and lay a blanket on him for comfort, but Rebecca couldn't help but scream the entire trip back to base. Mother and even Timmy tried to calm her down, but she couldn't bring herself to stop.

She never saw her father again, nor much more of her mother who stayed with him as much as she possibly could, sobbing like a lost child. The populace was abuzz with the news of the mysterious creature and many were scared.

All too quickly the spider mysteriously disappeared and her father died in an explosion of blood and horror. She wasn't there to see it, but she heard the panicked rumours and the complex police arming themselves. They tried to put in a distress call back to Earth, but a heavy storm prevented the relay dish from aligning and this no signal was ever sent

One by one people went missing, some mysteriously and some in view of the others. Silent, fast and devilish, monsters appeared from nowhere without warning. Silver black dragons that moved in silence and attacked like the most cunning of predators stole people away, moving with unseen speed like lizards scurrying away into the smallest nooks with prey in tow. They ruled the dark and were excruciatingly hard to kill with the small firearms they had on hand.

The colonists retreated back to the private quarters and set up a last ditch barricade at the end of a long hall. The few men and women that were left that knew how to handle the paltry and few guns they had stood with fear swirling through their bellies like rabid tapeworms. Funnelled down the long corridor the creatures charged like a swarm of insects and many fell before the ensuing gun fire.

Acid flew and burned, both the battleground as well as the fighters behind the barricade of furniture and steel plating. And when the first of the defenders fell in a burning scream, the resolve broke and the deadly locusts ran amok.

Rebecca's heart was racing and her ears were deaf to everything except her own gasping breaths. She cleared the mess hall and veered into the control room. She saw familiar faces, all as scared as she was and screaming. She saw Jerry, one of the comms crew fruitlessly shouting at the computer station used for the relay dish, but she paid him no further mind. She had to keep running.

Walls, pipes, chairs, people all flashed by as she hopped and ran. She turned a corner and crashed into someone, sending them both sprawling onto the floor.

"Get out of my way!"

She didn't who it was, but the person was on top of her. It was a man, squashing and slapping her as he tried to untangle himself and get back up.

Suddenly the weight was relieved and Rebecca chanced to open her eyes, but immediately clasped the shut and screamed in terror. She saw one of those monsters on the ceiling grappling with the man who flailed wildly. Like a lizard, it scurried along the ceiling and disappeared into a recess in the ceiling along with the dying man.

Sporadic gun fire echoed through the halls, but was quickly being drowned out by the screams of her terrified friends and family and the screeching of the unholy monsters.

Like a frightened turtle, she drew her arms and legs in on herself and tried to curl up into an invisible ball. She tried to wish it all away like a bad dream, to pretend that none of it was real and she was not about to die.

"Mommy!" She cried.

"Becca!"

A hand grabbed her shoulder and she was awake again. She knew that grip and the way it bit into her skin between her bones. It was not frightening, but her brother she knew and she was instantly back on her feet and running.

"Becca, I dunno what to do!"

She saw her brother's terrified eyes and knew that even though he was the older one, she would have to take charge. If they didn't they would die. They had both seen friends suddenly snatched away or torn to pieces and the fear gave fuel to their legs once more. Rebecca glanced over her shoulder and saw two of the monsters slithering along the ceiling towards them. One of them veered off when a young boy stumbled outside crying and it pounced on him like a grotesque tiger.

The remaining monster kept it's bead on them, closing fast.

"There!"

Rebecca saw a vent below the grated floor and her mind came alive. She had played numerous games in the maze of vents and tunnels all throughout the complex and knew them better than anyone. Maybe if she kept her head straight, she would be able to guide them both somewhere safe.

"You go first!"

Timmy shoved Rebecca forward and watched her slither inside like a snake. It was dark inside and barely wide enough for her to look back over her shoulder and see Timmy follow in behind.

"Come on, Timmy! I know where to go!"

"BECCA!"

She turned and looked again and saw her brother's terrified face for the briefest instant before he was pulled away. Her wrenched heart screamed at her to help, but terror won out and she left him. She knew what had happened and cried and screamed and crawled blindly, even if a distant part of her instinctual mind knew exactly where she was going.

She heard him screaming, his high pitched voice echoing through the steel plated tunnels.

"Becca! Mommy! Mo-"

Suddenly it stopped, but Rebecca scrambled on through the maze, switching left and right before finally tumbling through an opening and into a small enclosed chamber. She sat in the corner, cradling her knees to her chest and sobbed. Scrapes on her kneecaps bled into her fingers, but she was oblivious to the pain. She wanted to scream out and cry, like a lost little baby amongst the wolves. She wanted her mother, but the same instinct that forced her to crawl on as Timmy was taken told her that her mother was most likely dead.

Scratching and bumping sounds meandered all around her, and she could swear she could hear muffled voices trying to scream out. An enclosed steel air vent that crossed the bottom of the chamber buckled as something within quickly sped by.

Letting the tears fall freely, she did her best to keep quiet and sat frozen for a long time after the last noise died away. She closed her eyes and tried not to imagine what was currently happening to her family.

xx

Cold, alone and emaciated, Ripley sat on the floor as her arms chafed in the straight jacket. She desperately wanted her hands released just so she could feel cool air on them, however stale and filtered, but they instead wallowed in sweat and unwashed poly-canvas. It made her think of Dallas over and over again, stuck in the beast's lair. She was stuck in a padded cell of a metal hospital.

Drugs seemed to course through her system day and night without pause. They rode a current of intensity, administered when she was supposed to eat, but she never had any appetite. They also left her crushingly tired, but try as she might sleep would not come without the dreams of giving birth to that monster again.

Even thinking about it again now, she felt hot and flushed, made worse by the stifling fabric of the straight jacket that refused to let any fresh air touch her cloyed skin.

She never saw that psychiatrist again, nor Burke and quickly concluded upon her transportation to the facility she now resided to be a vote of no confidence on their part. They did not believe her and had abandoned her. They wanted her to just disappear.

In a way it helped because it replaced sadness and fear with anger and bestowed some conviction. At least temporarily it gave her some drive to overcome her banishment, but it soon gave way to resignation as others took their place feigning belief and interest, including the police.

That was the nail in the coffin. She was up for murder and destruction of property. At least technically she had confessed to the latter, but of course they did not believe her reasons, and she doubted they would agree even if they did. All throughout the meetings and committees that discussed her story, they mentioned the loss of the ship and the iron more than the loss of the crew.

They were accountants, lawyers and judges and her story was too fantastic.

There was no hope.

They looked at her with a mixture of distaste and curiosity. They hated the 'crimes' she was held responsible for, but seemed amused at her story.

She recounted it all truthfully and in detail. It was difficult and she broke down in tears numerous times as she remembered her friends and the terrifying ordeal. Finally, she told of flushing the monster into space, concluding her story that had taken over an hour to retell completely.

She closed her eyes to try and stifle the tears and opened them again to find the committee head, a fat man with a face pockmarked with pimple scars lift an eyebrow and mutter "Indeed."

And with that, they concluded their findings and revoked any status her previous life may have held. No longer an officer, ineligible for employment or socials security. Freedom was taken away in the name of her own 'personal safety', so they stipulated.

Ripley screamed at them, calling them foolish. They of course brushed her off.

A light buzzed overhead, protected behind steel mesh it was annoying at first, but soon joined the myriad of noises that filtered through the padded walls day and night. Screams seemed to come at all hours and from a variety of sources. Some were screams of anguish, some maniacal pleasure. Some, she was sure, came from the staff.

She received no overt kindness from them. The doctors were curt, but polite and the orderlies were firm, but not abusive. It was as though everyone functioned like automatons, going about their assigned tasks and no more. No cheerfulness, but no opportunistic sadism either.

She saw early on how they treated patients who were violent or resisted. The orderlies were not above cracking skulls or breaking bones, and the doctors seemed to have syringes of sedatives hidden up their sleeves like magicians.

And so she co-operated as best she could. After all, it was not their fault she was here. She saved her hatred for Burke. She remembered initially waking from her coma and instantly distrusting him.

It's OK. I'm really an OK guy.

The anger helped deflect the nightmares after a time. Night after night she dreamed of the bloody birth through her ribcage and heard the screams of her baby girl Amy as the alien ran amok and tore her to pieces. But soon, she dreamed it was Burke and not Amy and was glad when the facehugger wrapped itself around her. She was giving birth to revenge, looked forward to it and felt no pain in her dreams as her chest broke open. Her ribs were a placenta, her blood the womb's waters and the screech of the alien wriggling free the cry of her newborn baby.

It's OK. I'm really an OK guy.

She heard footsteps out of rhythm with the normal noises of the day and the angry thoughts were banished. As she guessed, the footsteps grew louder until they stopped outside her door. They were the heavy clink-clap of Dr Morson's steel capped shoes. Another followed in behind it in kind, softer and more skittish. Uneven and nervous, but Dr Morson's were regular and heavy. Relaxed and not shy of the noise they made.

A sharp buzz resounded and the heavy steel door opened smoothly outward to reveal the Doctor and his guest, but he was hidden. His stature, shorter than the lanky Morson shrank in behind like a shy child with his face concealed from view.

Dr Morson smiled, condescending and perturbed down at Ripley who sat cross-legged in the corner of the room waiting patiently. Ripley was his best behaved patient. Ripley was never sure whether he liked that or not. Wether he appreciated the good behaviour or viewed her as a piece of plyboard to break in half.

"Ellen, there's someone important here to see you. Will you receive him?"

"Yes." Ripley croaked, her throat dry from the sedatives and lack of use. She gave Morson the most minimal of answers to his questions and she certainly did not talk to herself in her cell like many of the other patients did.

Morson gave Ripley a threatening flash of his eyes before turning to reveal her visitor.

Wearing almost exactly the same clothes, but none of his usual casualness and surety, Burke peeked through the harsh buzzing light and saw his 'dead end'.

It was all Ripley could do to not leap forward and attempt to bite his teeth out. Like her baby, fangs glistening and longing, bared and sharp. Instead she sat and stared daggers at him.

Ripley's lips were dry and cracked, but Burke's were soaked with nervous sweat. His suit jacket was stifling and the fringe of his curly hair was dark and clung to his clammy skin.

Ripley smiled. She guessed why he was here and the anger subsided, replaced with a sad smugness.

He spoke, his voice thin and wavering, "Ripley. Um… I think I need to talk to you."