CHAPTER 3: THE THING INSIDE THE CYLINDER

When I returned to the Meadow, the sun was already setting in the sky. Scattered groups of mammals were making their way back towards either Bunnyburrow or Ottershaw, and others still were making their way towards the pit. The crowd had grown pretty big by this time – it wasn't unfair to think there might have been a couple of hundred mammals standing around the edge. I even recognised a few of my own brothers and sisters in that crowd, but their attention was very much on the Thing in the crater. There were a number of raised voices, and as I drew closer, I realised that one of those voices was that of Sheriff Buckshaw.

"Keep back! Keep back!" He was shouting, moving backwards and forwards along the cordon he had set up at the edge.

"For Bast's sakes, keep them back!" Stent ordered, "Everybody, get back!"

A young rabbit boy came running towards me – one of the Leapington boys from before.

"It's movin'," he said to me as he hopped past, "screwin' and screwin' out. I don't like it. I'm goin' 'ome, I am."

I moved closer through the crowd, squeezing through those assembled there. I got to the edge, and Stent and Buckshaw were on the other side of the cordon. Sharla was trying to keep mammals back.

"Please, keep back!" she pleaded. "We don't know what's in there! It could be dangerous!"

I saw somebody on the lid of the Thing – a young deer I recognised as an assistant at the Bunnyburrow greengrocer's. He was trying to scramble back out of the crater. Clearly the crowd had pushed him in, in its eagerness to get as close to the cylinder to see what was going to come out of it. He leaped from the lid, but fell short of the edge of the pit, and slid back down into it.

Just as the young Leapington boy had told me, the top was unscrewing, clearly from within the cylinder itself. Two feet of gleaming metal screw had been unveiled. Somebody bumped into me, and I almost tumbled in myself, but was able to steady myself and pointedly shoved an elbow into that mammal's direction to dissuade whoever had pushed me.

And then, the top of the cylinder fell off, hitting the ground with a ringing sound.

Every mammal that could see peered into it. It was perfectly dark inside, especially with the sunset in our eyes. I think everybody expected to see something relatively mammalian come out from inside it. I doubted it would be exactly like us, but it would surely be shaped like us.

What would actually come out of it was something very, very different to what I expected.

In the depths of the shadow inside the cylinder, something stirred. I could see something grey moving about in billowy movements, one above another. And then, two green, shining discs appeared within. Something snaked out of the darkness, whipping against its edge. And then another tentacle whipped forward, and another.

A sudden chill ran down my spine. I heard a loud, bleating scream from nearby. I backed away from the pit, as did several others, Sharla among them. My eyes kept themselves fixed on what was inside the darkness of that void, watching as more tentacles writhed from within. Many more mammals stepped away from the edge, horror etched on their faces and in their wordless screams and cries. The young shop assistant was scrambling to get out, but fell back in.

I found myself alone, the others having already run off. I wanted to join them, but terror had me rooted to the spot, watching as the creature heaved itself out of the cylinder.

Its body had to be as big as a bear, maybe bigger. Its green eyes, recessed into its head, stared at me. Its skin glistened like wet leather. A beak-like thing protruded from the bottom of its face, from which saliva dripped. Its rounded body heaved and pulsated as it pushed itself further out of its container.

This Thing, the Martian, was a nightmare brought to life. I have faced down thieving weasels, savage jaguars, power-obsessed sheep, and unlikely sloth speedsters, but nothing could ever have prepared me for this. There was practically nothing like it on Earth – it might have evoked images of octopuses or squid, but these were no deep-sea creatures. Their movements looked painful. Perhaps on Mars, with its lower gravity, they could easily move themselves on their tentacles, but on Earth, they were flimsy and unable to support their weight. There was a definite, calculating intelligence and intensity in those eyes. Even from just this first meeting, I was overcome with a strong sense of dread.

And then it fell out, falling to the ground with a heavy thud as it vanished from view. It might have been funny if not for the horror I felt. It gave out a strange, thick cry as it landed, and then another one appeared at the lip.

Up to that point, I had been too terrified to move, but seeing the second one emerge had allowed me a brief moment to come to my senses. I ran, and ran, and ran. Even so, I couldn't help but to keep looking back at the Martians emerging from that cylinder. I reached the edge of the meadow, lined with woodland, and turned back around, hiding behind the bushes. I noticed I was not alone – many of the mammals who had fled from the Martians had hidden here too.

I could see something poking up from the edge of the crater, and I realised that the shop assistant was still stuck in there, now trying to escape the Martians in a blind panic. My first instinct was to go and help, but fear kept my paws firmly rooted to the ground behind the bushes. He managed to get a knee and elbow out of the pit, but once again fell back in.

I could hear a scream, and then silence. No more movement came from the deer. Again, I felt an impulse to try and rescue him that my fear overrode.

To anybody who had been passing by at the time, perhaps unaware or even uninterested in the Thing that had landed, it must have been an odd sight – hundreds of mammals in the woodland, all looking towards where the Martians had emerged.

In spite of my fear, I felt a morbid fascination with these Martians which kept me rooted to the spot I had picked for a while, staring at the mound and the crater left behind by their cylinder's impact. I didn't dare go back there, but I felt a keen desire to look into it anyway. So, I began walking the tree line, around the pit, glancing towards it as I moved. Several black whips snaked above the edge of it for a moment, like the arms of an octopus, and then they vanished back down. As I circled, I could see something else creeping above the rim. It looked like a giant screw, with a dish attached to it. I wondered what they were doing. They were clearly assembling something in there, but I didn't have a clue beyond the feeling that it was something bad.

By that time, the mammals that had made for the tree line had clumped together in groups, and it was clear that they were all feeling and thinking the same thing I was. I recognised one of them as a neighbour.

"What ugly monsters," was all he said. Shaking his head, he repeated himself: "Sweet cheese and crackers, what ugly monsters…"

"Did you see the deer that fell into the pit?" I asked, hoping to be told that he had made it out, but I got no reply. I said no more, and simply stood alongside him, staring at the crater. I think I felt a sense of comfort at not being alone in that situation.

I figured it would be better if I could see into the pit, so I searched for something to stand atop or climb up. I found a small knoll to stand upon, and when I turned back toward my neighbour, he had already started back towards Bunnyburrow.

The sunset faded to twilight before anything else happened. The crowd far away on my left, towards Bunnyburrow, seemed to grow, and I heard a faint murmur from it. The small group of people towards Horsell had gone. There was almost no indication of movement from the Martians.

Some of us were encouraged by the arrival of more mammals to start moving towards the crater again. A group composed mostly of deer, rabbits and sheep had brought with them a pole, upon which a scrap of white material fluttered. When they got as close to the pit as they dared, the lead sheep held the makeshift flag high and started waving it.

I considered this for a moment – the use of a flag to show that we meant them no harm wasn't a bad move. After all, these Martians were clearly intelligent creatures, at least enough to construct their cylinders as a means for travel between our two planets. With the flag to signal them, we could also show we were intelligent.

Among the crowd, I could see Stent, obviously there to oversee the attempt at communicating with the Martians, Sheriff Buckshaw, who was there to ensure the safety of the crowd, and Moosos Alexander, who must have been there to capture the moment on film. Sharla was not there.

Three puffs of green smoke rose from the pit, bright against the dark blue sky above. At the same time, a hissing sound reached my ears. The dish from earlier raised above the rim, positioned behind a lumpen, black shape. For a moment, I wondered if this was how they were going to communicate with us.

The hissing sound changed to a humming. The mammals at the edge continued waving their flag.

Something flickered from the antenna of the dish: the ghost of a beam of light.

Suddenly, the mammals closest to the pit were set ablaze. It was as if an invisible jet had doused them in white flame. By the light of their own fire, those mammals staggered and fell. Those not set alight scattered, running for the trees.

I stood and stared, not quite taking in what I was seeing, not understanding in that moment that it was a fiery death that was leaping from mammal to mammal. An almost noiseless and blinding flash of light, and a sheep fell head-long and lay still. The unseen shaft of heat soared over the mammals it had already taken, setting the pine trees alight. On the other side, I could see woodland, bushes and grass burn. This invisible sword of flame and death swept through the Meadow, reaching further and further away from the pit.

I was too stunned to move. The heat-death, this Heat-Ray, swept side-to-side, but somehow it didn't complete a full circle. If it had, I'd have been roasted to death too.

The realisation unstuck my legs, and I ran as fast as I could, but I couldn't shake the feeling that as soon as I thought I was safe, the all-consuming heat would take me. That the Martians were simply toying with me, and that they were waiting until I dared to hope, and they would strike the fatal blow.

Once I reached Bunnyburrow, I stopped, my breaths coming out raggedly. My nose was twitching like mad. Images of what I had seen flashed before my eyes – the mammals set aflame by the Heat-Ray. Among the mammals who were closest to the pit when the Martians had unleashed their terrible weapon had been Stent, Sheriff Buckshaw and Moosos Alexander. They had all burned, I realised. Alexander was surely broadcasting his report live – the entirety of Zootopia would now be aware of what had landed in the Meadow, and just what danger they posed.

With Sheriff Buckshaw and Stent among the dead, I had to go and inform both the Deputy and Sharla what had happened, if they didn't already know. I staggered my way back towards the centre of Bunnyburrow, the smell of smoke not far behind me and the dread of what was to come brewing inside me.

Well, Sharla might be this story's Ogilvy, but I really couldn't bring myself to kill her off, hence why I put Sheriff Buckshaw in her place for this chapter.

Once again, thanks to ZAA for proofreading, giving me some pointers for things that needed tidying up, and to you for reading.