Alien: Out the Shadows

“Okay,” he said. “We go inside. But don’t touch anything. And first chance we get, we fight our way out.”

“Ever get the feeling you’re being used?” Sneddon asked.

“All the time,” Ripley muttered.

Hoop was first down into the ship.

13

ALIENS

Maybe she’s nine years old. There’s a doorway leading down into the old ruin, steps worn by decades of tourists and centuries of monks long, long ago. A heavy metal grille is fixed back against the wall, the padlock hanging unclasped, and at night they close off the catacombs, allegedly to prevent vandals from desecrating their contents. But ever since they arrived, Amanda has been making up stories about the night-things they want to keep locked in.

When the sun goes down, she says, the shadows down there come alive.

Ripley laughs as she watches her daughter creeping down out of the sun, putting on a faux-scared expression, clawing her hands and growling. Then she shouts for her mother to follow her, and Ripley is aware of the people crowding in behind her. These are popular ruins, one of the city’s main tourist venues, and there is rarely a quiet time.

The shadows envelop her. They carry a curious chill, and the damp, musty smell of places never touched by sunlight. Amanda has disappeared ahead of her. Ripley doesn’t feel the need to call, but then she looks back and sees that she is alone.

Alone down here, in the shadows, in the darkness.

Someone cries out. She edges forward, running one hand along the sandy wall. The floor is uneven and she almost trips, then her hand touches something different. Smooth, lighter than rock, more textured.

There are skulls in the wall. The skulls are

the walls, thousands of them, and each one has a massive trauma wound—a hole, a smashed face. She fancies that she can see tooth marks on the bones, but perhaps that’s only—

My imagination, she thinks, but then the cry comes again. It’s Amanda, and recognizing the voice seems to conjure the girl. She is held back against the wall across a small, bone-lined room, clasped around the arms, shoulders and legs by the gnarled skeletal fingers of the long-dead.

She sees her mother, but there is no joy in her eyes.

Her chest explodes outward beneath her loose dress, and teeth bite their way through the material. Jagged, terrible teeth.

* * *

“Holy shit,” Ripley breathed, and she looked down into the darkness. For a while she was lost, not knowing where or when she was, and whether that had been a bastardised memory, or a vision of the future. Time swirled, uncertain and inelegant. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.

Kasyanov frowned at her and began to speak, but Ripley turned away.

“Come down!” Hoop shouted up out of the ship. “There are lights. And it’s… weird.”

“Weird how?” Ripley asked, thinking, Worn steps and skulls and bones in the walls…

“Just come and see.”