The Dark Corner

STAY AWAY

I stumble to a halt, dusty rubble crunching under my knees as they strike the ground. I feel the impact in every bone and joint. Then, nothing.

Too tired to feel. Too tired to…not.

I groan, but only the listless dregs of a sigh escape my lips. I blink; even blinking seems like so much effort; and stare up at the unexpected words in disbelief. 

They are scrawled across the pitted surface of a wall; blotchy and bleached to the point of obscurity by the incessant glare of the star. 

A warning?

I tremble as a cold shiver vibrates through my feverish body.

Someone was here before me. More than I had ever hoped to find. More than I had ever expected to find.

I crawl forward, the battered gloves of my environmental suit rasping against the gravelly debris.

I try to stand. 

The muscles in my legs quiver, then shake, then simply give up.

~

My lungs burn. My heart pounds an erratic rhythm. Sweat — precious fluid! — beads on my brow and snakes along the contours of my face. My skin burns against the tantalising moisture.

I reach forward. My gloves brush against the crumbling stone, catch on a crevice, and I pull. Inch, by agonising inch, I pull myself up. I scream; a harsh, painful hacking sound tearing from my vocal cords.

And I’m there. 

Wheezing, I collapse against the wall. My visor screeching against the hell-fired masonry. My vision swims in and out of focus as I struggle to examine the writing.

Blood.

I stagger backwards, and fall. The impact jars my lower back and shoulders.

I scream soundlessly. My back arches involuntarily against the sudden pain flooding my frayed nervous system.
The world flashes white. 

Then grey. 

Then black.

Then fills with a galaxy of supernovae, flashing electric in the darkness. 

~

The fog clears, and I am on my back.

I stare listlessly up at the sky — the eternally bright, eternally daytime sky.

Is this how it ends?

Something primal inside me rebels at the thought.

My will to live? Or the carefully conditioned drive to complete my mission? Does that distinction even matter on this tidally-locked hellhole?

I roll over and start the long process of standing; forcing one foot under me, and then the other, bracing my hands on my thighs and half pushing, half pulling myself up. 

It hurts and it doesn’t. I must keep going.

I walk, my footsteps weaving and erratic, towards a semi-collapsed structure to my right. My drunken path takes me out of the shade for an instant and the heat of the alien sun assaults me, penetrating even the carefully engineered layers of my suit.

I fall back into the shade, and crawl the last few feet under the cover of the crumbling roof.

I am just alert enough to activate the emergency recovery mode on my suit before exhaustion overtakes me and I slip into unconsciousness.

~

Shadows

Contorted shapes

Disembodied voices

The lost scream

Pulsing…

(Thud…thud)

Pulsing…

(Thud…thud)

PULSING…

(Thud…thud…THUD)

A beating heart desperate for blood

No

Not a heart

Not that

Never that

It pulses…it pulses…

A savage rhythm; screaming for blood

It pulses…it pulses…IT PULSES!

It reaches, and it pulses

It pulses and it reaches!

Then…

Then it feeds

~

I gasp as I return to consciousness, the sharp intake of breath burning in my raw throat and lungs. My body still aches as I push myself up, but the cocktail of drugs, hormones, steroids and nutrients the suit forced into my bloodstream has eased the debilitating fatigue. For now at least.

I shake my head, trying to throw off the last horrifying vestiges of my dreams, but that frantic, desperate thudding still echoes in my bones. I can still feel that reaching, probing presence. Despite the heat, I shiver; a deep chill at odds with the oppressive heat. 

~

I turn on my side, mentally preparing myself to rise and carry on with my search, when I see it. 

A shadow, huddled in the corner.

I freeze.

The tortured screaming from my dreams resurfaces.

I can’t move.

What if it sees me? What if it hears me? What if it reaches for me? What if it…

The world fades around me; retreating until it is just me and the shadow. My heart thumps in my chest, and I see it in my mind again. That throbbing, pulsing, undulating mass of twisted flesh and bone.

Reaching, reaching…

My hand moves of its own accord; I can only watch as it inches closer and closer.

Reaches…

My glove touches the shadowy figure and it tips to the side, falling to the ground with a dusty rattle.

I stare down at the man. The man! A wizened mummy, skin stretched tight across its face; mouth drawn back in an agonised rictus. 

Collins?

I stare in confusion at the shrivelled corpse; the name clearly visible on the environmental suit. 

He was one of the lost research team. Where is his helmet? What happened here?

I roll the desiccated body over and see the damage to his abdomen; a ragged tear, slicing through the multiple layers of his environmental suit. The frayed edges of the fabric are stiff and saturated with dried blood.

What happened here?

~

I step away from the body and survey the rest of the small room. Something in the corner reflects a stray beam of the infernal sunlight, and the glint catches my eye. I approach it hesitantly.

I know what it is. A smooth, round bulge, covered in a fine layer of dust, blending into the debris.

Collins’ helmet.

I brush away the dust, and read the words scrawled across the visor; the same faded brown as the warning on the wall outside.

LEAVE

My throat constricts with fear, and I force myself to breathe evenly. 

One. Two. Three. Four.

The external locking mechanism is smeared with blood.

I know what happened here.

Collins would have had just seconds to live after breaking the seal on the suit. He spent that time leaving a message.

In his own blood.

I try to raise comms again, but receive only sharp bursts of static in return. Some kind of interference in the atmosphere. Simms had been trying to boost our signal; without success it seems.

LEAVE

The plea echoes in my head and I fight the urge to flee back to the lander. 

One confirmed casualty from a team of five. Where are the others? And my own team?

My mind flashes back to the sandstorm.

~

The kilometre high wall of dust and debris rushes towards us. Caught out in the open. No where to run. Rocks the size of my fist hurtle at random from the maelstrom.

Stephenson! Oh fuck, Stephenson!

Right in the visor. A dull thud.

The dust swallows his falling body.

Bursts of desperate static as the others try to radio for help.

Scrambled screaming.

Hot needles dig into my brain. 

I turn my comms off to make it stop.

~

I shake my head, trying to rid myself of the memory.

Gone. I have to assume I am the only one left. Just me. Alone on this god-forsaken rock.

Just me. And the mission.

~

I force myself to look around again. To my right, a small door leads off into shadow; smeared brown handprints bracket the crumbling frame. 

I move closer to inspect the bloodstained stone. 

Out. The stains were made on the way out.

I look back towards Collins. 

What was he running from? What forced him to…?

I close my eyes and breathe. Then step out of the harsh, unceasing light and into the shadows.

~

The short hallway ends in a narrow stairway, leading down into darkness. The intrusive glow of the never-ending day is a diffuse rectangle at the other end of the corridor.

I activate my suit’s lighting; the cold rays struggle to penetrate the darkness. My eyes follow the glare, pointedly ignoring the stains on the walls, until the steps continue past into shadow. 

My knees ache as I take the first step. Too long without proper sustenance; the suit’s systems can’t sustain a body indefinitely. I fear I may be approaching that limit. 

I descend for what feels like eternity. Just me, the echo of my footsteps, and the gently bobbing cone of light. I have never felt so alone. On the surface, despite the searing heat, there was possibility; a horizon. Down here, nothing but claustrophobic shadows and the crushing dread of the unknown. The world ending at the limits of my suit’s lighting.

Ahead, the beam bends as the steps give way to flat ground. At the bottom, the corridor continues into the distance.

Into shadow. 

And at the boundary of darkness and light, a figure lies slumped against the wall. The unmistakable silhouette of an environmental suit. 

~

I rush forward, ignoring the ache spreading across my lower back.

They were searching for shelter. But what did they find instead?

I approach the body, now close enough to see condensation glistening on the inside of the helmet. The suit is nearing its operational limits, no longer working efficiently. But that fogging. That means life.

I kneel by the body and look for the name-tag, Thomas, one of my team. I activate the suit-to-suit communications link. My helmet taps lightly against his, and the sound of ragged breathing erupts from my speakers. 

‘Thomas, it’s me, Davids. Are you conscious?’

I see eyes struggling open, red-rimmed and hollow in their sockets.

He blinks once, then his right hand reaches up and grabs weakly at my suit.

‘Captain…’ his voice is cracked and strained. He swallows, grimaces, then opens his eyes again. ‘You must get out. Leave me. I’m done. Taylor and Murphy. It already got them. Stephenson, he never made it out of the storm. I didn’t…I didn’t…think…that I’d see anyone again.’

His eyes roll back, head swaying from side to side.

I shake him lightly.

Thomas blinks and shakes himself back to awareness. 

‘I need to know what happened here. Can you tell me what happened?’

‘Dreams, Captain. Have you…had…the…dreams? The…the visions?’ His voice is strained, I have to concentrate to hear the words. 

‘I had…a dream…stress-induced, a fever dream, that was all.’

‘No captain…real…all of it…real…’

‘What do you mean real? What happened here?’

‘The closer… you get…more vivid…more detailed.’

Thomas is breathing heavily now, the fog on the inside of his visor completely obscuring his features. His voice is low and cracking, but I can hear the fear.

‘Something…hit…planet…knocked…out of…orbit…Just…enough…change…rotation…tidally locked. Inhabitants…fled…underground…something…radiation…change…mutation…consumed…each other…everything…all biomass…gone…all subsumed…it…cannibalises itself…growth…consumption…regrowth…needs more…it feeds…Murphy…Taylor…research team…all gone. IT REACHES!’

I stumble back as Thomas grabs my suit tighter and tries to pull me down.

Our connection attenuates as our suits break contact, but I can still hear him muttering.

‘It pulses, it pulses, and it reac…’

Thomas slumps to the side and his comms go silent.

~

I continue on. Every cell in my body screams for me not to, but I must complete my mission. There is no one else.

The corridor goes on for miles without deviation.

Whispers accompany me the whole way.

At first, I thought it was Thomas, his final words echoing in my head. But as I travel further, they are growing louder and more insistent.  

Calling out for me.

Reaching, for me.

~

The air, the walls, the ceiling, the darkness and shadows, even my torchlight, all take on a rhythmic thrum. The world pulses around me, just beyond my range of hearing. But I can feel it. Every cell in my body vibrates to that irresistible call.

I continue forward.

The angles and corners of the walls shift in and out of focus, displacing and rearranging into impossible angles. I feel sick; nauseous and disorientated. I reach for the wall to steady myself and it’s not there. I fall sideways and slam into it. Just where my hand was reaching seconds before.

I stumble onwards, each step a fall, the ground never quite where I expect it to be. But I continue. The mission demands it.

~

I jerk to a halt a few feet from the end of the tunnel. The ground vanishes just up ahead; the passage ending in a sharp drop. 

Cautiously, I move to the edge and teeter on the brink, my legs weak and unsteady. 

The abyss beyond, stretching into darkness in all directions, is bathed in a sickly red-orange glow. But that perfidious light, it doesn’t dispel the shadows; It stains them. Taints them with its very presence.

I look down into the depths and I see it; that twisted, writhing mass of bone and muscle and sinew. It pulses slowly, exposed flesh straining as it expands and contracts.

The vibrations are strongest here. I can feel my teeth grinding as they shift in their sockets, My heart skips a beat as it tries to keep time with the deep, inaudible rumbling. The whispers and screams intensify, coming from all directions and none.

It pulses. It pulses.

I am mesmerised by it. The pulsing light, the throbbing vibrations, the slow, undulating rise and fall of the abomination below me. Space contracts and I inch closer to the edge. Leaning, stretching, reaching, reaching…

~

It reaches. It reaches. IT REACHES!

The chorus of screams erupts in ecstatic crescendo.

Below me, the mass reaches upwards, thousands of sinewy filaments stretching upwards. 

‘REACHING! REACHING!’

Now, I join the chorus, the words ripping from my ragged throat. I exult in their cries. My incoming death. My impending completion. My becoming.

The first of the tendrils reaches the ledge, feeling its way towards my feet.

IT FEEDS

I snap; adrenaline floods my bloodstream and I stagger back from the edge. A tendril flashes past an instant later and the screams erupt in furious harmony.

I don’t think now, I run. Headlong, back along the tunnel. Every muscle in my body straining and burning with the effort.

~

A light flashes in my visor; suit efficiency below thirty percent.

It won’t be enough.

I pass Thomas.

I hear his body being dragged back into the melange. The rhythmic tapping of his helmet on the ground as he is pulled back towards the abyss.

My legs burn, and they are numb. There is no difference. I force myself onwards.

I reach the stairs. My body screams as I take the steps two at a time; more stumbling than running now. My gloves brush the ground in front of me as I struggle to stay upright. I can hear them slithering behind me.

I press harder. Down on all fours now, scrabbling up the long stairs like a wild animal. Saliva froths on my lips as I scream unintelligible curses into the darkness ahead of me.

My lungs burn. My temples explode in blinding agony. I fall, and desperately scramble back to my feet.

It reaches! It reaches!

I feel something grabbing at my ankle and I kick out; a wet, fleshy thump as my boot connects. I surge forward. Fear, fatigue, exhaustion, my mission, all forgotten; overwritten by the overwhelming, primal need to survive.

I reach the top of the stairs but miss the landing. I sprawl onto the flat ground. The scant air left in my lungs is expelled in a violent cough of spit and phlegm against my visor. 

Wheezing, I struggle to my feet and run again. My strides are uneven and stumbling. I careen, half-falling, towards the light. That blessed, infernal, unchanging light. I can hear the desperate scrambling of the tendrils
right behind me.

Reaching. Reaching.

The voices are growing fainter now.

I burst from the doorway and back into the light. The oppressive heat hammering down on me. My suit efficiency flashes an angry red; ten percent.

I sprint through the shade of the ruins and back out into the open plain, heedless of the danger. There are worse things behind me.

I keep running. 

Overhead, the unforgiving light of the eternal sun beats down on the parched earth.

Below me, the ground pulses. 

And. It. REACHES.

Keith O’Sullivan is a writer, poet, father, husband and general purpose nerd, living in the scenic wonderland that is West Cork.
An avid consumer of Horror (especially the weird and the Gothic), Fantasy and Science Fiction, they are currently splitting their time between finishing their first novel and producing a speculative fiction podcast, Tales Under A Broken Sky, where they explore the horrific, macabre and fantastical in prose and poetry.