Ah, there's nothing like that new chapter smell. Hope you enjoy this next part! :D
Part IV
"It's got her!" John Proctor shouted. "It's pulled her under!"
"What is it?" Worf demanded of the colonist, his teeth bared in a threatening snarl.
"I…I don't know," John stammered. "A monster. It took those four children, and now your counselor—"
"Scan the river," Worf ordered Lt. Doe, who turned her tricorder toward the dark water.
"It's not working, sir," she said, trying frequency after frequency. "All I get is static."
Worf growled low in his throat and tightened his grip on his phaser.
"Contact Commander Riker," he snapped. Then, he dove into the rushing river without another word.
"Lt. Worf, wait!" Doe cried, but the Klingon was gone, vanished beneath the current.
John dropped to his knees on the muddy riverbank.
Doe slapped her combadge.
"Lt. Doe to Commander Riker," she said. "Commander Data, please come in!"
"No response…" John murmured, rocking slightly as he pressed his folded hands to his chin. "No response… No response…"
The young security officer scowled at him.
"Doe to Enterprise," she tried. "Doe to Captain Picard!"
"First twilight comes, and then the howling," John said in a strange, sing-song voice, still rocking on his knees. "Your phasers can't save you then, oh no… There'll be no one to see, no one to hear…"
"Hear what?" Doe demanded.
John turned to look at her, his wide, wild eyes gleaming orange in the sun's dying light.
"Your screams…"
Data sat straight up, clods of soil and grass falling from his hair and shoulders. With quick, bird-like motions, he swiftly checked his diagnostics and physical status, then looked around.
Songbirds and crickets had resumed their twilight songs, punctuated here and there by a raven's caw, a frog's low croak...
Satisfied the worst of the danger had passed, at least for the moment, he climbed to his feet to offer a hand to Elizabeth.
"I've never known an earthquake like that," she said, accepting his assistance, then beating at the greenish stains on her clothing. "Not here, on TerraLuna."
"I believe that…plant…was responsible for the tremors," Data said, turning his curious golden eyes toward the deepening shadows both above and below the treeline. "Its root system must have extended beneath much of the pasture."
"Yes, well," Elizabeth said, flipping her hair back behind her shoulders. "We'd better be getting back to your friends. Now that plant thing is gone, I think we should all consider finding shelter for the night…before something even worse finds us. Look there."
She pointed past the setting sun to a different part of the rapidly purpling sky.
"The moon?" Data inquired.
"A full moon," she said, then flinched as a raven soared overhead. "We should hurry. It's getting too dark to be out in the open like this."
"Why?" Data asked, quickening his pace to walk beside her across the uneven terrain. "Elizabeth, it would be most helpful if you told me what you know."
"I…"
She stopped short, her eyes widening as she stared at something past the android's shoulder.
Data turned to see a pair of large, night adapted eyes gleaming greenish gold in the darkness beneath the trees.
"What is it?" he asked, moving to take a protective stance between Elizabeth and the creature. The particle scattering field interfered with the android's ability to adjust his optic sensors to read frequencies outside the human visual spectrum, but his sharp eyes could just make out a long, lean frame in the dimness, reminiscent of an Earth wolf, only some three times the size…
"Oh, God," the woman whispered, backing away on shaky legs. "Oh, God, it's the wolf… The wolf John saw last night. Oh, God, run… Run…!"
She dashed for the gate, tripping and scrambling in panic. Data kept his eyes fixed on the creature's.
"Elizabeth!" he called, aiming to keep the shadowed beast's attention fixed on him as he backed slowly away from it, toward the trees. "It is inadvisable to run from a wild animal. You may provoke its instinct to give chase. Please, remain close to me."
But Elizabeth was gone, over the gate and out of his sight. In the distance, he heard a familiar leafy rustle, a muffled shriek…
The enormous wolf-creature lifted its long, sharp muzzle and sniffed the air.
Data remained as still as only an android could, without breathing, without blinking…
The beast snorted once, then turned away, the sharp sound of snapping sticks following it back into the forest.
The moment it was out of sight, the android released the breath he had been holding and raced into the wood the opposite way, seeking to once again retrieve the colonist from the clutches of the presumably carnivorous plant before it was too late...
The dark water was shockingly cold and surprisingly deep. But, Worf was a powerful swimmer.
A flurry of movement to his left drew his attention to a dark, murky form, approximately the same shape and size as a man. A man swimming with a limp, shadowed figure in his arms...
A figure wearing a blue Starfleet uniform.
Worf quickly swam in that direction, but the murky form seemed to vanish.
Worf surfaced for a moment to reoxygenate, then dove deep, running his hands over the slimy river weeds that grew along the muddy sides and bottom. Just when he thought his lungs would burst, his hand went through the weeds all the way up to his shoulder. Worf rose to take another breath, then dove again and pushed his way through the narrow opening he'd found into what seemed to be a tunnel, black as pitch and thick with oozing mud.
Choosing not to think about the very real possibilities of forks, dead ends, or the tunnel collapsing around him, the Klingon kicked and crawled and forced his way through the ooze, through the blinding blackness, until his stinging eyes caught a glimpse of what he sincerely hoped was sunlight rippling up ahead. Drowning while trapped in a dark, slimy, flooded tunnel was no way for a warrior to die.
Fortunately, the tunnel widened, and Worf swam upwards, following the bubbles caused by his movement.
He surfaced in the still waters of what seemed to be a large cave. Beyond its jagged mouth, a full moon shone over a black lagoon. But inside...
The creature that had snatched Troi seemed to be amphibious. It was bipedal with webbed hands and flipper-like feet. Gill slits showed pink against what appeared to be a plated, blackish-green exoskeleton, and its eyes were large and bulbous, like a fish or a frog.
As Worf watched, it placed Troi's still form down on the smoothest cave rock, where the water had long since lapped away any rough irregularities. Then it stood back and regarded her, tilting its head just slightly to one side, and then the other.
With a terrible roar, Worf burst from the water and grabbed the creature around the middle. It thrashed and wriggled, trying to grab for the Klingon's throat, but Worf headbutted it, hard, right in the breastplate and it went down with a strange, croaking gasp. Worf grabbed it and held it under the water, squeezing its gill slits until it stopped struggling and went completely limp. He roughly dragged the unconscious creature back onto the rock, then dashed over to check on Troi.
What he saw chilled the Klingon far more deeply than the freezing water.
Something about her form had changed. Her eyes seemed to have gone hollow. Her skin was no longer supple and pink but dry and sinewy and her mouth...
Her mouth gaped open in a silent scream...
This wasn't the Deanna Troi he knew. This was a mummy. A shrunken husk with a gaping jaw and no eyes…
Worf clenched his fists and raised his head in a roar that made the dripping stalactites tremble above him. Then, gently, he lifted her empty shell and took it with him back through the tunnel to the river bank.
Carefully, he set his burden down on the grassy bank, then sat down himself, fighting to catch his breath. He had to report this to the captain. To Riker...
A snuffling, sniffing sound caught his ear, and he jumped back to his feet in a defensive stance, his phaser already in his hand.
John Proctor was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Lt. Doe. But, the sniffing was growing louder, accompanied by heavy footsteps...far too heavy to belong to a dog or even a bear.
"Show yourself," the Klingon demanded, turning a slow, wary circle.
A long, wolf-like howl met his challenge, and Worf suddenly found himself flat in the mud with a large, furry creature snarling on his chest. It had a long snout and pointed teeth, like an Earth wolf, but its eyes...
He knew those eyes...
"Proctor?" Worf gasped. "John Proctor?"
The Wolf Man snarled and renewed his attack. It was powerful and far stronger than its slender frame implied, but Worf caught the creature in a scissor hold and quickly took the upper hand. Before long, the trained warrior had the furious monster pinned with his phaser held inches above its snout.
"Remain still, or I will fire," he warned.
The Wolf Man scratched and snarled, fighting to throw the Klingon off.
Worf squeezed the trigger button.
And nothing happened.
The Wolf Man looked up at him with its gleaming, predatory eyes and seemed to laugh.
Worf bared his teeth.
But, the Wolf Man snapped first, burying his fangs deep in the Klingon's arm.
Worf roared and fiercely kicked the monster away, sending it yelping back into the the darkness. Then he swayed, and sank wearily back to the ground.
Something was making him terribly woozy. Some poison in the monster's bite...
Worf reached for his combadge. He had to alert the others. To warn them before...before...
But, it was no good. Worf fell unconscious to the soft sound of combadge static.
To Be Continued...
References Include: Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954); The Wolf Man (1941).
Thanks so much for reading, and your encouraging reviews! Stay tuned for more, coming soon! :D