It looked like I, a human and a rat had a child together, and maybe, since they had the opportunity to take samples of my blood, it could have been. Indirectly, at least.
No idea what she was, let alone whether it be friend or foe. "Hello?"
The strange humanoid just distended her jaw and hissed at me.
"My name is Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik! But you can call me Erni if you wish. What's your name?"
She answered by spitting a glob of acid at me. No effect, of course.
The girl shrieked and clawed at my face, trying to kill me.
Trying.
I had a gun, but didn't see the point in using it.
Being was smaller than I, I just shoved her to the floor.
Turning my back to her, I marched to the large set of doors indicated by the lights.
"Gretchen! Can you open this up?"
As if I said `Open sesame,' the doors swung inward, revealing an identical looking hallway.
The rat creature tried to jump on me, clawing at my back, but I knocked her sideways with my tail, and she tumbled to the floor.
Stepping through the threshold, I called, "Shut, please." The large doors slowly swung toward the closed position.
When the girl thing leapt at me, I picked her up and threw her as hard as I could, which actually proved to be an adequate enough distance to put her out of the way until the doors shut in her face.
I had become a powerful Ss'sik'chtokiwij like Mom without even knowing it.
Gretchen's lights took me to the end of a hallway, and up an elevator to a room along an identical looking floor.
Dog Girl's room stood at the end of a short passage.
Its door came open, and I found myself inside that white padded cell I'd seen on the monitor.
Plain, no decoration.
A pair of chairs, probably for scientists jotting down observations, stood in the observation booth. A Jackson Pollock, and Picasso's Women of Algiers hung on the wall behind them.
On the table near the observation window, I spotted a dusty copy of a book entitled Hawaii: The When The Fiftieth State Existed, the subtitle something about deep sea color photographs from some oceanographer or another.
The cell itself contained only a food and water machine, and a fixture to tie the girl's chain.
The security door to the padded cell swung open. I stepped inside, examining the prisoner.
Swollen belly, as if pregnant. I took a closer look.
Hundreds of tiny bumps rose up under the skin, as if she were about to give birth to a mass of inch tall babies.
The creature let out a canine whine, then screamed like a human in pain, rolling and thrashing on the floor.
A hairy brown stick pushed through the skin of her belly like a piece of cheap plastic, then another appeared.
And another.
Her stomach exploded.
It ruptured along something like a seam, hundreds of brown spiders rushing out into the open.
The creature howled, and hundreds more came flooding out of her open mouth.
Her eyeballs burst like grapes, insects swarming out her eye sockets.
Shuddering in horror, I fled out the door, slamming it behind me.
Alarms sounded, warning lights flashed, and the door locked itself.
I stared through the glass, wondering what terrible experiment had led to this abomination.
Fire erupted from hidden industrial flame throwers set in the wall. Out of fear, I retreated to a safer distance.
The torches blasted the room's interior for more than five minutes, making me think of the blazing furnace from the book of Daniel.
When the fire let up, the only thing that remained behind that window was blackened padding and a charred skeleton on a leash.
"Perhaps a meeting between these two specimens would have been unwise," Gretchen Goose said through a nearby intercom panel. "Those brown recluse hybrids contained highly contagious diseases in their venom."
"Yes. That sounds very dangerous." I wept bitterly, mourning not only the loss of this unique and wonderful creature, but also its two hundred plus sisters.
Sarah, my dearest companion and friend, would not live again in this world.
All those opportunities for companionship. Snatched away from me by a greedy Ss'sik'chtokiwij.
The sight of the ruined tanks had made me sorrowful, the grief weighing heavily on my heart, growing worse when I saw the sad state of her pregnant adult versions.
When would I ever find a girl with such innocence, such unconditional friendship? I feared I'd be alone to the end of my days.
I asked to be directed to the exit.
The mouse creature attacked me once more on the way out, but, like our previous encounter, I shunted her aside without either of us harming the other.
Gretchen Goose aided in locking her in as I left out the main entrance. "Where will you go now?"
"I have wasted much time here. I need to check on my friends. Thank you for all your help, Gretchen. I hope you can find something that makes you happy."
"A difficult thing to hope for, for I do not understand the parameters of the emotion. One can be content without being happy and happy without being content. One cries tears of happiness, yet tears are also shed for unhappy life events.
"Your bible speaks of joy amidst suffering and persecution, but yet scholars state that this joy is not the same as happiness. How can one be joyous and not happy, or happy without being joyous? You should hope for me to understand the concept of happiness before wishing it upon me."
"Very well. I hope you can find the understanding you seek, and may the phenomenon please you when it comes to you, regardless."
"Thank you," Gretchen said. "...I think."
Confident that enough time had passed to prevent me being shot, I returned to the scene of Aquila's unfortunate demise.
Someone had taken the body, probably to put it inside a glass jar.
The thought saddened me, but, like Mother, I would have to put aside burial plans until later. The dead, like the bible says, would have to bury their own.
"Choke me like that one more time and I'm dropping you!"
Down a corridor, a young black man with unkempt curly hair, a little girl of same race riding piggyback.
"I wouldn't choke you if you knew how to carry me right!" The girl's hair had been done up in braids decorated with pastel butterflies and beads and flowers and objects shaped like things you'd see in a box of Lucky Charms.
"See, if you sat up there right, we wouldn't be having this discussion!"
The girl blew him a raspberry.
I watched them pass by in amusement. Nice to see something peaceful happening amidst all this bloodshed.
Something rumbled. I followed the sound to its source, the dwelling of the Jorden family.
Since I risked getting shot for entering unannounced, climbed into their duct system, examining the place from a safe distance.
It smelled bad in those vents, the stench growing more and more unbearable the closer I got. I held my breath as I approached.
Anne Jorden's remains had been scattered all over the place, scraps of rotting meat on haphazardly arranged pieces of bone.
What to do with all this mess? I asked myself. Do I bag it all up and deposit it by someone's door, possibly getting blamed for the murder in the process? Do I simply bury it and just tell Timmy and Rebecca that I found it?
Would she believe me? And how would I get that message across?
Do I shove the corpse back out the vent and horrify everyone? Do I cremate it?
None of the options seemed that great.
I decided to take one of the parents' blankets, wrap the bones up in one place, and figure out the rest later.
The rumbling sound came from an industrial rug cleaning machine. The African guy in plaid ran it down the carpet with a filter mask over his face, muttering that on earth they'd just rip the carpet out and replace it completely. The guitarist from Ssorzechola's cult carried out the ruined sofa.
No one in the parents' bedroom. The vent hadn't even been ripped open.
The room featured one queen sized spring bed, a large metal clothes closet, a pair of framed landscapes in the style of western novel illustrations, and a crucifix. Boxes of paperwork, clothing and other miscellaneous items of varying degrees of usefulness cluttered the floor.
I knocked off the bolts and plate as quietly as I could, climbing down the wall.
I did not tarry, merely snatched a cover off the bed and shot back into the vent, bundling the mother's remains together the best I could.
Among the pieces of rotting flesh I discovered ragged scraps of the woman's jeans, containing personal effects, including an ID badge on a lanyard.
[0000]
After enclosing the bulk of these within the blanket, I tied the bag of remains in a sturdy knot, tying the lanyard with the woman's ID badge to the top. A rather inelegant solution to the problem of burial. I hoped this would at least provide closure for everyone involved.
I carefully placed it on the bed, making a rapid departure.
I supposed the cleanup crew would discover it sooner or later.
Satisfied that I had at least given the mother's remains a more dignified resting place, I turned my attention to a more pressing concerns: Her survivors.
I picked up the trail of Rebecca, Timmy and Frank, though with care since their guardian could easily use me for target practice.
Ironically enough, the scent trail led me to a unit right across the hallway from the Butler family home.
I had high hopes for this arrangement...until I saw Frank lying dead on the floor by the entrance.
I turns out the man needed a lot more than a sniper rifle to stop my family.
I frowned at the large eviscerated body sprawled on the carpet. Not good.
I expected more. I guess I'm a terrible judge of character.
Yet another failure on my part. There I was, investigating rooms full of dead bodies and playing with dolls inside locked rooms instead of preserving human life.
Honestly, no one said I was supposed to, but I couldn't deny that a great many deaths on this base could have been prevented if I had simply paid more attention...and been more aggressive with my young aunts. The humans were weak, in constant need of protection, and I failed them, again and again. Rapchuck's accusation still haunted me.
Yet, how could I afford to be so cavalier about slaughtering my own relations, in favor of humans?
Still, I could not deny that I had not only failed my friends, I failed Jesus, for in the vision he commanded me to save the humans. To save their lives. To protect them. "I am sorry, Lord. I will try to do better."
[0000]
My thoughts returned to that old proverb about the child throwing dying starfish into the ocean: `It mattered for that one.'
Although I doubted I could save all the humans on the base, but I could at least try to make a difference, while I still had time.
If nothing more, I would return to Newt's side, and remain there until the child's safety could be proven with absolute certainty.
I sniffed around Frank's body, searching for her trail.
The man died fighting. I found the corpses of three adolescent Ss'sik'chtokiwij laid out around him, the one that killed him sprawled across his lower torso, his fat hands still clutching the handle of the weapon.
Rebecca's scent retreated from this location, making a brief detour into the unit across from the Butler place.
I did not stop there. A fresher trail led back out...combined with a new unfamiliar man scent.
I detected the odors of unwashed body funk, baby powder and petroleum jelly, oddly lacking the normal accompanying odors of spoiled infant formula, alcohol wipes or such like.
Deciding it too early to make assumptions, I followed the scent down the corridor, up stairs, and across a bridge corridor, past the `tabernacle', the showers, and a row of dwellings, to a unit at the north end of the complex.
Wary of guns, I crawled inside the vents to examine the place.
Not sure what I expected, but the sight I beheld was not it.
The living space inside the unit resembled a daycare crossed with a portrait studio, the walls gaudily painted with Mickey Mouse and friends cavorting around on beaches with surf boards and palm trees.
The furniture consisted of a couch, an oversized crib, a bed with Spongebob sheets, and a stage covered in red velour, framed by umbrella lighting. Cameras attached to computers observed and recorded the scene.
The strange smells lay thicker now. Although I did not smell death, I still felt ill at ease.
The children had been dressed in costumes, as if rehearsing for a play, Rebecca in a fuzzy bear costume, one which left her face exposed, hands restrained in front with zip ties, her brother as Goldilocks, or possibly Shirley Temple, complete with stockings and blonde wig. His wrists had also been zip tied together. Neither could escape their bonds.
Neither child looked happy. Timmy definitely did not like the choke collar around his neck.
Rebecca, a prisoner inside the crib, cried and whimpered, cowering next to the corner post.
Two strangers towered over them, a shirtless narrow twenty something, black hair in an oily wave, clad in a leather vest and pants, and a large fat person with a furry bear costume.
The men briefly kissed, the bear removing his headdress to do so.
The guy in leather smiled at the children. "Isn't this great? I told you this marriage was going to work! Didn't I tell you, Jeff? I mean look, we're a family! We've even adopted children!"
"This'll definitely expand our income. Families with children get double allotment on trades and supply shipments."
"Yes sir. An honest to God family. I'm getting goosepimply just thinking about it."
Using their gay marital status to exploit the base's public welfare system, apparently.
Smirking, the guy in leather playfully ruffled Timmy's skirt.
The boy shuddered in disgust, but the man only chuckled to himself, lifting the back portion of the boy's dress.
Although still unclear on many nuances of human culture, I suspected these men didn't appear to have the children's best interests at heart.
"Get on the bed," the man in leather growled.
Timmy refused.
"Get on the damn bed!"
Timmy didn't move.
The man grabbed the loop of the choke chain, dragging the boy onto the Spongebob bedspread.
The boy trembled, tears rolling down his cheeks.
Giving Timmy a fiendish smile, the man leaned over the bed, calling to Rebecca. "Oh Baby Bear?"
No answer came. He held a hand to his ear. "Baby bear?" He looked at the girl expectantly.
Rebecca only made whimpering noises.
Leather Man grabbed Rebecca's brother by the choke chain, pressing a switchblade to Timmy's throat. "What do we say, Baby Bear?"
I growled softly, clenching my claws. How could I disarm this man without killing him? By that same token, would I be letting him go free to commit similar crimes?
I tried to forgive this lost sinner, but suspected I would soon have to do something more forceful than merely forgiving him.
"Someone's been sleeping in my bed," Rebecca mumbled with nervous fear.
"Hey Brett! Remember that ferret they had on those old Budweiser commercials?" Jeff asked. He did an impression of the ferret saying Rebecca's line.
The two men laughed.
"C'mon, Baby Bear!" Brett tightened Timmy's choke chain. "You can do better than that!"
Jeff put his hands on his hips. "One more with feeling!"
"Someone's been sleeping in my bed!" The sounds came out of Rebecca's mouth in sobs.
Brett marched up to her lifting her chin. "What did I tell you about crying!"
Rebecca cried again.
Brett slapped her. "What did I tell you!"
Deplorable! A Ss'sik'chtokiwij would never subject their young to such meaningless cruelty. Even Mother's attacks, cruel as they were, did not revolve around such petty mind games!
I drew my gun, fumbling in my purse for the bullets.
Too dark. I didn't even know how to load the weapon.
I realized that, even if I knew how to load and fire the thing, I probably wouldn't be able to hit the metaphorical `broad side of a barn.' No one ever took me to the firing range.
Cursing my stupidity, I holstered the weapon.
Brett shoved Rebecca to the bottom of the crib, shooting a meaningful glance at the bear suit guy. "What do you think, Mama Bear?"
Jeff shrugged. "I think Goldilocks needs to be taught a lesson for sleeping in Papa Bear's bed."
"You're right!" Brett pushed Timmy on his back, unbuckled his belt. "We should definitely teach her a lesson..."
Becoming increasingly uneasy, I melted away all but one bolt on the vent cover, preparing for the worst.
My activity had not gone unnoticed. As Brett removed his belt and unzipped his pants, Rebecca stared fixedly at the vent cover, as if she knew I was there.
She twisted her lip, her face communicating a wordless `Help me.'
I slid the cover open. Nobody else seemed to notice.
"Hey Papa Bear," the guy in the bear suit said as he watched Brett pull Timmy's face up to his crotch. "When do I get a turn at Goldilocks?"
"Mama Bear will have to settle for Baby Bear. That's what she's there for."
"But I wanted a boy!"
"Then Mama Bear can have Goldilocks after Papa is done with her!"
Rebecca kept staring at me, expression hopeful yet wary, like one choosing the company of a rabid pit bull over that of a burglar.
She nodded her head towards the man in leather, who even now forced Timmy to put something in his mouth that clearly did not belong there. `Sic `em,' her face seemed to say.
I clenched my claws into fists.
Although Christian to forgive sinners such as these, and put them in jail, I lost control of my temper. Plus...hadn't eaten in awhile.
Saliva bubbled from my mouth in sheets as my lips drew back from my broken teeth. Uttering a hissing roar, I launched myself from the vent like a missile, shredding the leather clad child molester to bloody pieces.