DATE: 2nd JULY 2179. TIME- 22:09.
There was the smell of old sweat, decaying food and private crud, and that mixing up of other smells that were common where too many people were living in too little room. A couple of the colonists had voiced the opinion that exhaustion and fear could be smelled and that certain dreams gave off an odour. Reese wondered if that was how the aliens could track their prey so efficiently. They had no visible eyes or ears, no nostrils. Some unknown, special, alien sensing organ? Someday maybe some scientist would dissect one of the monstrosities and produce an answer. Hopefully it would be him.
Talk was quiet and centred on speculation. If it was about when the attack would come, everyone chose to ignore it. If it involved relief, no matter how far-fetched it seemed, the colonists would embrace it privately while laughing it away publicly.
No-one took any pleasure from sleep anymore, no real rest. It was a commodity, it kept you from falling apart the way the food kept you from starving, but that was all. Again Reese's thoughts turned to the aliens, did they sleep? Did they dream?
Graffiti had appeared on the walls, not the big territory marking spray paint of the subways, but small written phrases that the writer might take hope from or at least leave their mark with.
'May the Lord help this place.'
'Mendoza was here. 1st July 2179.
'Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I shall fear no Evil, because I'm the meanest motherfucker in the Valley.'
The silence was suddenly shattered by a reverberating boom from below. It was repeated at regular intervals like the thunder of a massive gong. Each of them knew what the sound meant.
'They're at the fire door,' Lydecker muttered. The booming increased in strength and ferocity. Audible along with the deeper rumble was another new sound: the nerve-racking scrape of claws on steel. Then silence.
For a breathless time they sat there, silent and alert, with their backs to the wall, each gazing into the shadows that encircled them. Nothing happened. There was no sound or movement in the gloom.
It was Newt who pointed it out. The wind had died. Stopped utterly. In all their time on Acheron this was the first time they hadn't heard the wind. It was disquieting, an omen.