Page 6 of Planet Zero
Addie rose and pulled on her shoes which were glorified socks with the leather-reinforced sole. Her drowsiness ebbed, chased away by the sudden fast beating of her heart.
She joined Sathe by the entrance. “What is it? Have the nomads come back with reinforcements?” she whispered.
Sathe didn’t respond, but her cat-like ears twitched asynchronously, sticking up from their normal flat position under her hair.
Low male voices speaking in For reached Addie, and as she stepped outside, she was able to see Hoban, Wynn, and several others standing between the teepees with their ears pointed just like Sathe’s, looking around, listening. The area was eerily, oppressively quiet.
Addie looked back at Sathe. “Is it the nomads?” she asked again. “Something is wrong, even I can feel it.”
A slight tremor rocked the ground under her feet.
“Wrennlins,” Sathe whispered just as the men shouted and broke into action, going for the weapons, throwing open teepee flaps to alert those inside.
Addie stood in one spot, refusing to believe it. Wrennlins, this planet’s version of T-rex, the demons, the scourge of this land… were here?
She shook her stupor off. “We’ve got to fight them, Sathe. Tell me what to do.”
Sathe’s eye connected with Addie’s. “Run.”
Another wave rippled the ground.
“Run? We have to help defend!” Galvanized, she dove back into the shack, making a beeline for the corner where their utensils were kept. There was a club with a stone etched into its end, and her short-handled axe, and the sharp sliver of stone she used for a knife. All of it woman-sized, tools not weapons, but anything would do.
She grabbed the axe. “Come on, Sathe, take the club!”
As she extended it toward the For woman, the ground near Sathe erupted in a geyser of dry dirt releasing a great serpentine body topped with a mouth. That’s right, not a head, just a mouth without a tongue, open wide and trimmed with vicious serrated teeth the color of coal. It coiled as it continued to emerge, and without breaking its body’s creeping momentum, the mouth-end stroke and clamped around Sathe, eerily precise despite her fast-charged effort to dodge. It ripped her upper body off and threw it up before catching it into its mouth at a better angle for processing.
The ground kept rocking, throwing Addie off her feet. She fell down on her bottom, a silent scream stuck in her throat when in her mind she screamed and screamed in terror and anguish for Sathe. Her death was quick. It couldn't have hurt too much with it being so quick. Addie was next, she knew it. She had no chance, being only half as fast as Sathe, and even that speed didn’t matter.
More matte gray coils appeared from underground, the Wrennlin seemingly without an end, writhing like an earthworm on steroids, its body the width of a mature tree trunk. The head-end of it wiggled back and forth, locating prey.
Addie sat where she landed, immobile, hand clamped around the axe that would be laughably ineffective against this monster. She was done in for, but a persistent animal part of her made her keep absolutely still to save her life, no matter how pointless her existence might have become.
The Wrennlin’s head-end struck down and picked up what remained of Sathe, consuming it like a mindless carnivore it was. Next. Addie was going to be next. Run? Not move? What to do?What?
The ground buckled again, and the shack lost its support once the poles holding it up were loosened from the packed dirt. One side collapsed, bringing down several heavy layers of furs on Addie. Before she was completely covered up, she glimpsed the outside with more Wrennlins erupting from beneath the earth, the teepees toppling over, dirt spraying, people running, shouting. She thought she heard Anne’s frantic voice calling her name. Men were slashing at the coiling beasts with their huge battle axes that looked like toys next to the monsters. The men looked like walking snacks. Still, they fought, hacking off mouth-ends but getting gobbled up from behind. The heads or tails game would be a no-go with Wrennlins. Both ends were heads.
The shack collapsed completely, burying Addie underneath the furs. Darkness enveloped her, suddenly familiar and welcome. She couldn't see, and she didn’t want to. The ground continued to rock but the terrible sounds of the carnage became muffled, and the loudest sound was now her own ragged breaths.
She stayed under the furs, hugging the axe to her chest like it was a stuffed toy, her mind blank on what to do and how to process what was happening. Occasionally, an anguished scream penetrated the thick layers, and she would swallow convulsively, her eyes wide open even though nothing penetrated the inky blackness.
On and off, the ground shook when something great erupted from underneath. Once in a while, a large body threw its entire weight against the surface. Dirt occasionally rained on the furs in a spray reminiscent of hard rain.
She wanted to pretend it was all just a nightmare.Please let it be a dream…
But she knew it wasn’t. Miracles didn’t happen. She had learned her lesson when, an intergalactic crash survivor, she had been told by Iolanthe that there was no way off this planet. That this was her home now, whether she wanted it or not.
She hadn’t wanted it. She had refused to believe the word “impossible,” and instead of adjusting, had spent the first year in agonizing, soul-crushing hope. She, who had never worshiped God on Earth, had prayed fervently for a way to go home. But evidently, this planet was too far from where God resided, and her prayers were never heard.
She had emerged from that dark period of her life bitter, heartbroken, and wise.
There were no miracles.
Chapter 3
Addie didn’t know how long she spent hunched under the furs. She must have drifted off, because she surfaced abruptly, fully alert, as if the conscious part of her was plugged back in and streaming sensory content.
The absolute darkness was no longer welcome, and it was hard to breathe - her fur cave was too well insulated, and she was running out of air.
