Veronica Stone

Pt. 18

Her heart jump-started, and the girl rolled over in a clumsy panic to catch a slimy creamy white tentacle flop onto the ground from her face.

OH RASSH$*@!!!

She sprung up and looked around the murky deck, she could make out the pale mounds scattered about the floor, the army of slimy tendrils trailing from them. She grit her teeth. There were the regular nightmarish images looking at these things placed in her mind and then there was her connecting the dots in reality. The silence made more and more sense. Veronica ambled towards the closest one to her, a new breed of anxiety tainting staccato breaths. She wanted to puke, she wanted to be wrong. There was that time she found that squirming writhing ball of millipedes during one of her and gran's hikes out by Benny Hall. This was like that, that skin-walking feeling, dread scraping its finger down her spine. The effect just seeing these things up close had on her mind should have paralyzed her like before, but her need to know overpowered her fear. She'd taught them how to match pills, how to ride, how to shoot underwater, she'd memorized and monitored their skill stats, their emotional ticks, blood types, heights, shoe sizes, family history, who preferred blue tracer rounds to red, everything about them. These were her men. She had to know. Veronica swallowed hard and began pulling away at the tendrils, they were sticky and mucousy and unsettlingly soft yet near impossible to tear. She only got through enough layers to see what looked like a face, although it was hard to make out with her deteriorating vision.

"Oh god...", a whisper escaped from her finally.

Veronica let go and crumpled down defeated beside the mound. There was not enough exposed face to tell who but she knew it was one of hers. She watched the tentacles diligently slither back to cover up the spaces she'd cleared. Her hands were near completely numb, a side effect of directly touching those things she figured, and her heart ached, because she could make out all the other pale mounds scattered around, and she didn't have to think too hard to guess what lay buried within them.

Fu*$...

Her breaths rattled, straining to reign in tears.

C-commander, you is...you got a jo- FU@% MAN!

It was probably the entire ship. Veronica grit her teeth. Even as she thought, she could feel her bodying being numbed and seduced to sleep again, everything was spinning.

Cheezus I gaw-

She found herself struggling. Before, she thought the reason she hadn't stood since she landed was from fatigue, but as she struggled again to bring herself to her hands and knees she was certain, this thing was responsible somehow, like something in the air. The longer she spent here, the sooner she'd end up like the rest. Probably within a few minutes with the rate her vision dimmed.

Fu$#...

Veronica...what you hey for? Veronica? What you hey for? What you come for?

I-I...chhh....I-.....

She struggled to respond to herself. There was just so much going on. Her mind too loud to think.

Some of them were actually moving. The mounds. The tentacles were dragging them.

Nononononononono no mannn...

They ignored her pleas, gliding extremely slowly, at a glacial, lazy, nonchalant pace, almost as if they had no concern about being stopped or interrupted.

Veronica sat there, knees to her chest, shaking. There were just too many, she barely had enough energy saved up to save herself. The mounds continued on, mockingly slow.

No man no man no man no...

She'd known these guys for years, how could she just sit there and watch them go?

FU*# FU*% FU#$!!!

No.

She was the commander. This was her responsibility. Veronica had no idea what that meant now, but she knew it was true. Possessed by a desperate sense of duty and denial she wriggled and squirmed across the slimy metal floor of the deck. Her limbs were near completely numb now, like awkward weights holding onto her body. Time was running out for something, she couldn't think what for, and she didn't want to try either. Thinking was the last thing she wanted to do. In the state she was in she wasn't getting far and she didn't know where she was going either, but she had to at least feel as if she were doing something. She couldn't just lay there.

Then there was a heaviness below the left side of her hip. The leg was totally numb. She knew what this meant.

No!

A fresh flash of panic hit her. The terror of seeing those things for the first time. The thought of being smothered, suffocated in dirty mucus. With all the strength she could muster, Veronica rolled over, and slapped around at her waist until she felt her knife. She could barely see and she could barely hold the handle properly, but she hacked and sawed frantically at the tentacle on her ankle as carefully as a hysterical person could. Even with the blade, it was hell to cut.

"Sh*&!", she cried.

She could make out a bit of blood on the blade as she fought her distorted coordination and numb fingertips to resheath it. She took some time to steady her breathing as best as she could and examined the leg shrouded in darkness. It was hard to confirm just by looking but then a stinging pain lit up her leg. Her heart jumped, first with alarm, then with elation. She could feel it! Not only could she feel the sting of the wound but she could feel other things. Veronica wiggled her toes madly. She'd forgotten what the feeling of her feet rubbing against the inside of her boot was like. It was the pain! Reinvigorated, she used the single foot with feeling to help push her forward.

Then there was a SPLOOSH! It was as if someone had shot her right through the chest. She just stopped. She'd been covering a bit more distance but the power of denial had its limits. This was definitely it. She remained still, on her hands and knees, utterly silent for about 5 minutes. She didn't know if it was a pirate or one of hers. It was just too much.