FICTION BY ANNA VERNER

Anna Verner lives in New Zealand with her family. She tends to write in the genres of horror and fantasy. Her first book is titled The Assassins Raven and is available now on Amazon. She is currently writing the sequel.

Anna has a double-degree in Film and Drama. She worked for six years in Stunts and Wrestling and learned different Martial Arts. Then she went back to University for her Post-Grad in Teaching. She has taught English and Drama in high school.

Today she works part-time as a sports coach for disabled children.

THE HIVE
by Anna Verner

Someone is shouting, “They’re coming!”

Someone else responds, “The ship is too damaged! We have to get out of here! Everyone to the shuttle!”

Red lights flashing, loud buzzing, people scrambling and yelling. I am pushed and elbowed. I stumble but I have to keep moving because I am sandwiched inside a mass of panicked passengers who are attempting to flee. Everyone is running and jostling in the same direction, so I move with them in a herd down a hallway. Someone grabs my arm and holds me up as we all push forward. I think it’s a medical person because he is wearing a different uniform than me.

I manage to catch a glimpse of people’s faces. Everyone looks terrified, but a few show disgust when they see me. I look down to see what they are focused upon and I realize that I have blood all over my shirt. I must look frightening.

The spaceship spins and I can’t keep my balance. I drop to the floor. “I can’t,” I croak. People step over me and bang against me. They step on me, crushing my body with their feet and I know I am doomed.

Suddenly the medic hovers above me. He uses the wall to help lift me up. “Not on my watch. We’re all going to get out of here alive. That includes you. Especially you.”

I hold onto him. He grabs one of my arms and thrusts it over his shoulder as we stumble forward. “One foot in front of the other,” I hear him say. “The shuttles are just up ahead.”

His determination wakens something within me; it is almost like an energy flows out of him and into me. I find myself feeling hopeful against all odds.

I let him pull me along and close my eyes as he tugs me through the crowd. But I know I have to look; if for nothing else, then for the medic who is risking his life for me. Perhaps if I am aware of my surroundings, it might make it easier for him to help me.

I rub my eyes and shuffle along, squashed with the others.

I see a child fall on the ground; a second later its tiny head is crushed like a grape as it gets trampled by feet. Bloody footprints cover the hallway floor as people pass over the body. A few people cringe and cry, but no one slows down. I step gingerly over, but am pushed. Something squelches under my foot. I don’t look down. “Keep moving,” the medic says.

The lights flicker for a moment. Then it is dark. People shout and stop, waiting. The lights come back on, and I am relieved. Everyone sets off once again.

The ship jolts forward. A hole appears above us; objects are tossed down through it. An older man is hit on the top of his head by a pipe and slumps. A young person shoves past him to take the man’s place in the fleeing queue as he falls.

One of the light fittings above explodes and shards of glass and sparks fly in all directions. People cover their heads with their hands, but they keep moving.

A few people get pushed into rooms. The doors automatically open when people are close—not such a great design in an emergency. The medic and I are shoved against the wall. We push forward. I feel a bony arm digging into my back by someone from behind; but I don’t care as long as I keep going. I see green arrows. The shuttle bay is up ahead. We are close. All of a sudden I stumble and on the floor once again. I scream as my hand is stepped on. The medic reaches out for my arm and pulls me up. “I almost lost you,” he says. “And then where would we be, eh?”

Boom! The ship shakes.“Fire!” People scream and lunge forward. I hear crackling and sizzling. Thick black smoke fills the hallway above. The smell is bad.

Everyone is squished. The people from the back propel us onto the next person like dominoes. People are getting angry now, “Hurry up! Before we all burn!” Someone cries. Somehow with us all squished like sardines we manage to stagger closer to the shuttles.

The lights hurt my eyes and I want to close them again. Things are jumbled around in my head. I can’t see very much. I blink to make my eyes adjust. Somehow I have lost a few minutes of time. I try to move but I’m stuck. I look down to see why. I have a seatbelt on. Somehow I made it to one of the shuttles.

I want to feel my head; it hurts, but someone holds my hands down. “Don’t touch it!” a man growls at me, and I realize it is the medic buckled into the seat next to me. Somehow he has still managed to stay by my side.

“Keep still! We are trying to fix it as much as we can,” says another person who is standing over me, trying to bandage up my head.

My face feels sticky with blood. I feel the bandages with my hand. Something is poking out. I quickly fold my arms. I don’t want to know.

It smells like sweaty socks, puke and warm, acid piss in here.

What is going on? What is wrong with the ship? Ahh. I remember now. We were attacked. We were running. The Hive. Oh shit. The Hive is coming.

The shuttle pilot barks orders over the chaos. “Everyone needs to sit down and hold on tight! We are getting out of here!” The pilot presses some switches and something begins beeping.

People panic and hurry to strap in. The beeping stops. The pilot faces the console again and grabs the wheel. He begins takeoff. I can hear a few people pray to their God or Gods or spiritual somethings.

I hang on tight to my harness as we zoom away from our burning ship. It’s a bumpy ride filled with turbulence. I am overwhelmed with relief as we fly away. People have started talking and looking out the tiny windows. Is The Hive following us? No one can tell.

A lot of people are relaxing now. They think we have made it. People clap and hug. But I stay rigid in my seat because I know it is not over; I know this is merely the beginning of the chase. I have read too many reports about what has happened to other colony ships. I know what’s next.

The Hive does not want anyone to escape. They always give chase. At this point, it’s hard to know which way things will go. Sometimes they get so caught up in the chase that they become focused on the few instead of the many, and when that happens, a few shuttles manage to slip through. The question now is: will we be survivors or The Hive’s newest conquest?

The pilot is checking his instruments, but there is so much debris coming away from the mother ship that everything seems mingled together. All we can do is keep flying and hoping; hoping they attack another shuttle. It’s amazing how quickly we turn from helping each other to wanting someone else to die. Survival instincts are strong.

My friends will be in the other shuttles and I don’t want them to die, but I want to live at any cost. There is something I need to do. But I’m sure the people in the other shuttles want to live, too. They will try to outrun us so that we will be targeted as the one that is cut from the herd and lagging behind.

My thoughts are interrupted. I am staring through the porthole window and I realize that I am doomed. One of The Hive has picked us. Why us? Were we not flying fast enough? Can it feel our presence? Are our brains more tasty than the others? Who knows the reason?

Do I have my gun? Suddenly shooting myself seems like a good idea. Wouldn’t it be better to die quickly than to be a mindless, eyeless creature controlled by some slobbering poop? The Hive would leave me with no ideas or thoughts of my own—terrorizing others, doing The Hive’s bidding until my body fails and decays too much, and then is left somewhere to rot. Brrr. I shiver. That is not what I want. And no one else deserves that either.

I feel around. No, its not here. What happened to my gun? I replay the last half hour through my mind and realize that I must have left it on the table when I started running. Why did I do that? That’s right, something fell on me. I almost didn’t make it out at all, gun or no gun.

Inside, I know it’s best this way. I cannot shoot myself. I need to see this though; to find out what happens next.

I see a flood of red light through the porthole and I realize that The Hive ship has locked us into their sights. We are being pulled to a stop. People are really panicking now. Someone is trying to smash open a window. Their idea seems to be to kill us all quickly—only it isn’t working because of the super-thick glass—because you know, we’re in space.

Sirens are blaring. The medic next to me reaches over me and touches my shoulder. I think he is comforting me, but then I hear a blip. “Your re—” I don’t know what he is going to say next because he is cut off and he sits there blankly, his arm falling limply down onto my lap. He joins some people as they unbuckle their seatbelts and unwillingly rise to their feet, moaning and shuffling. They are the ones controlled by The Hive, they’re always first. I do my best to scrunch lower in my seat; maybe I can escape their beam that way. Or so I tell myself in desperation.

A few people get up out of their seats and try to fight, the ones that are not yet controlled, but they are overpowered, their screams cut short. One passenger lumbers towards me. It looks like a person, or at least it used to be. Its skin is hanging loosely and its throbbing veins are visible through its skin.

The smell of a thousand rotten eggs is overpowering. My eyes burn and start watering. I have to cover my nose but there is a drone-creature right in front of me and I don’t want to draw attention to the possibility that somehow it doesn’t see me.

The drone-creature from The Hive is positioned in front of me like a decaying statue. Its moon-white eyes stare out at nothing, yet I know it has seen me. As it reaches out to touch one of my shoulders, a finger falls off and hits my boot but it doesn’t seem to notice. That encourages me because I realize it’s been wounded. Sweat drips down my forehead, mixing with the blood as it slides down my face.

The drone-creatures are the worst. They are the ones that do the deed: inject you with their venom, or suck out your brain, or worse. No one has been able to clarify that part, because the ones that know aren’t likely to come back and tell us anytime soon. We know so much, and yet so little about what’s out there in space.

The sounds around me sober me up again. I don’t want to look at their big squishy bodies, or their white eyes. I don’t want that to be my last memory before The Hive takes over my mind.

I wonder what the queen looks like, because there is definitely a hierarchy, but no one is sure.  The scientists think they must have some kind of higher-up, and they assume the drones work like bees. These are the workers sent out to enlist, destroy or gather food. That’s why they call it The Hive. Ok, fuck off, brain! I need to stop thinking about them. It’s not helping me.

My head is pounding. One of The Hive’s leaders must be heading my way. I can hear slimy sticky tentacles wriggling and slopping around. The movement of its long arms are making the shadows from above move and glide in some sort of danse macabre.

The humans who are out of their seats move back to let the monster pass. Control of the room is not needed now because there is nowhere to escape. The Hive knows it has achieved victory over the ship’s people.

I feel The Hive’s leader hovering over me and I can’t help but face it. Whereas the drones have pure white eyes, the leader’s eyes are evil black. I see dark, malicious pools look into me. Slime drips onto my chest as a tentacle falls slowly down over my head and I’m suddenly suffocating. I do not see my reflection looking into its eyes; instead I see an empty seat. I am pale and sweaty.

I swallow hard. I didn’t get to do much, it’s only my first time out and this happens. I’m not ready. I’m not ready! Oh crap. I try to look away. I want to live. I want to live. I am rigid and holding my breath. Tears fall down my cheeks. The thing leans over closer to me. I can feel its foul stench. I try to lean back into my seat as far as I can go.

“Whirrr-tickt.” It opens and shuts its mouth. Its breath reeks. It jerks backwards and squelches as it leaves, its tentacles popping as they grab and let go of the seats it passes.

What just happened? I sit upright. It didn’t take me, but why? Am I still alive? I wriggle my fingers and touch my legs. I am in still in control of myself, at least.

The shuttle tilts slightly over to one side. I am startled and quickly wipe the blood and sweat from my face. I jerk around, looking for something—anything—any sign of the others. But there is no one but me aboard. The shuttle is floating aimlessly with no pilot and no coordinates for direction.

Why am I still here? The Hive never misses anyone. The Hive always takes all souls on board. That was what we had been taught.

I press the button which releases my safety belt. I clamber to my feet, slightly stumbling because I feel dizzy at first, but then I get my bearings.

I look around. There is blood and ooze everywhere, telling me that The Hive accomplished what they set out to do.

What do I do now? No one who trained me prepared me for this kind of thing. Our emergency procedures in the handbook only said to get into a shuttle and wait for takeoff. Why weren’t their instructions for what comes after?

The shuttle leans over a bit more. I grab hold of a chair arm nearby for stability. I need to get to the pilot’s seat. I don’t know anything, but it’s just pressing a few buttons, right? It can’t be that hard. Shuttles are supposed to be fully functional.

I walk slowly and unsteadily towards the cockpit area and quickly sit down. I look around at the flashing lights, hoping something will look familiar. I see a button that says “auto pilot.” Thank goodness! I press it. A small hologram of a pilot appears on the switch board in front of me. That was not what I was expecting.

“Hello there! How can I help you Agent Xy?” it asks in a cheerful, friendly voice.

I want to ask it how it knows me, but there’s no time. “I don’t know what to do!” I yell at it. “How do I fly this thing?”

“There, there,” it soothes. “First things first. Press this.” It points at a red button.

I press it. There’s a beep and one of the flashing lights turns off. The shuttle slowly rotates back on its axis.

“Press here.” The engine roars to life. Then it commands me to press yet another button. A steering wheel pops out in front of me. “Now take the wheel.”

I reluctantly hold the steering wheel with both hands.

“Turn slightly to the left.” It says. I do. “Now the right.” I do it awkwardly. It is not a smooth turn, but I am relieved that I managed it.

“You are now flying. I am imputing the co-ordinates now.”

“Great,” I say and breathe a sigh of relief. I tell the hologram, “When this is over, I wish you could have a drink with me. You have helped me so much.”

It looks at me in a weird way and it cocks its head to one side. “Perhaps in another life Agent Xy.” It enters co-ordinates and a line appears on the screen in front of me.

“Follow the line,” it says. “Thank you for picking auto pilot, goodbye.” It disappears.

And I’m on my own again. I hold the wheel and follow the line.

Suddenly I hear the computer’s siren blaring. It repeats the same message over and over: “Collision imminent! Descend!”

I realize what the auto pilot has my flight path set upon. It is not going where I thought!

I try to change course to drop but everything is locked in. I press as many buttons and levers as I can to stop it but it is too late. My eyes are wide in horror as I am forced to watch The Hive’s ship loom closer.

Now I remember why I was left behind. I am part of the rebellion; the anarchists who destroy The Hive’s ships, one at a time. I wasn’t seen by the drone-creature because I am cloaked. The wheel turns on its own now, keeping the line in the middle of the screen. The large ugly bubble ship blocks out all light as it looms over me.

“Here I come, asshole!” I shout as my shuttle heads towards the target.

Then a countdown begins. “Collision in five...four….”

Calm now, I sit back in the chair. I will die in the crash, but when I die, The Hive’s ship will also die. I am one sacrifice so that others can be saved. That is my mission for my home planet. I close my eyes, bracing for impact.