SHORT STORIES : The Calling

Mars Space Colony
January 06, 2079

 

Denise Colbert gazed incredulously into the pit of the cave, shivering as a cool breeze swept past her. Her heart beat faster as unease grew almost into panic. Surely Jeremy wouldn't have been foolish enough to enter the unknown depths of the caves alone, into the hands of God only knew what dangers might be lurking, awaiting unsuspecting prey. Of course those kinds of fears were unwarranted, for aside from a few bacteria, there had been no life on Mars other than a few hundred colonists living beneath the giant transparent dome that mimicked Earth's atmosphere while protecting them from the harmful Martian air outside, and the crops and livestock the humans raised for food. But even with the absence of predatory monsters, Jeremy was by no means safe. He could easily get lost in there, eventually dehydrating or starving to death. Perhaps he might even be crushed in a cave-in.

Denise shook her head and sighed dismally as she looked momentarily up at the pink sky, before her eyes wandered back toward the abysmal pit of the cave. God, Jeremy, you little brat, how could you be so stupid? she wondered bleakly.

She looked back at Jeremy's two friends and wondered how they could have allowed him to do something as unbelievably stupid in the first place. For a few seconds, she wondered if perhaps they somehow coerced him through taunts questioning his courage and masculinity, but quickly dismissed that idea, for the tone of their confessions betrayed not a hint of guilt or fear of repercussions. There was no indication that they were hiding anything.

"You're absolutely sure he went in there?" Denise asked softly.

Both ten-year-old boys gazed blankly back her, all the innocence and carefree exuberance common in children their age was devoid from their eyes. "It's where all the kids go eventually, once the changes take effect," David said matter-of-factly.

"What are you talking about?"

But Denise, like most of the other colonists, had a pretty good idea of what the boy was referring to. For indeed the children born on the Martian colony had been undergoing changes. Mutating into something other than human. She had only to look at the preteens standing before her now to be reminded of this. Both had suffered premature hair loss and their heads had swelled, as had most of the other children.

The skin over David's arms had hardened and dried, becoming scaly like the back of an alligator, and bits of flesh pealed off, leaving behind tiny white flakes wherever he touched. Such symptoms alone could have resulted from eczema or any other epidermal condition, certainly not completely out of the ordinary. However, his hands were now like claws, and the middle and ring finger on both hands had fused into one single digit. Even scarier (had Denise not now been used to seeing such grotesque mutations upon the bodies of children), his teeth had fallen out and were replaced by tiny green thorns that protruded from his gums.

And then there was Adam, whose flesh had taken on a sickly gray tint while his nose pushed upward and inward until it had taken the shape of a pig's snout. Enlarged lumps covered his entire head and body, jiggling like black Jell-o.

While the symptoms had been all too apparent, the disease remained unknown. The few doctors that were present on Mars had never seen anything like it, and the fact that the symptoms varied greatly from patient to patient (to the point they weren't sure if they were even dealing with the same disease) had made it that much more difficult to pinpoint a direct cause to the mutations.

Denise had been born on Earth sixteen years ago, and although her family had come to Mars when she was very young and therefore she had only vague memories of Earth, it meant that she had been spared from the mutations that afflicted the native-born. Her blond curly hair remained rich and full, glistening in the setting sun, her green eyes radiant and healthy, while her pale skin had been silk smooth, and without any blemish save for a small mole around her bikini line and a couple of small pimples along her chin.

Jeremy, on the other hand, had been born right here on Mars.

His changes, which had started only a year ago, had been internal unlike those of his peers. It had started out seemingly as a stomach bug. He had little appetite and frequently suffered from nausea and abdominal pains, with occasional vomiting and explosive diarrhea. These symptoms subsided within a matter of days, but in that time, Jeremy became quiet, lacking energy and motivation. At first, this was an almost welcome change, for Jeremy had always been so loud, so rambunctious, so goddamn annoying! At times she almost wanted to slap him in the face just to shut him up. If Jeremy was now no longer running around, screaming like a banshee and acting like a fucking retard on crack, well, Denise couldn't find much to complain about that. But as time passed and Jeremy became more and more withdrawn, Denise grew worried, almost to the point where she had actually found herself missing the way he used to behave, almost wishing that he would once more become the obnoxious little monster he had been before everything changed.

And then, this evening, right before Denise's father had returned from the Anderson Military Base, Jeremy had suddenly disappeared. The Colbert family had split up looking for him, and it was only blind luck that Denise had run into the boy's friends and had asked if they had seen him, only to be lead to this cave. She almost now regretted asking him, when faced with the ugly truth of how impossible it now seemed to find the boy. At some point, in some fork, the cave could split up into a half-dozen different directions. These thoughts made the already overwhelming task of finding him that much more daunting, to have to tread into the depths of that pitch black labyrinth, perhaps only to find the boy's corpse awaiting in the end.

The responsible thing would have been to turn back right away, to notify her parents of what had happened, so that perhaps the colony could delegate a search and rescue operation for Jeremy. Denise should have turned back right this instance, yet there was that one nagging thought that chilled her and squeezed her already tightly coiled gut that much tighter: For every second's delay was a second longer that Jeremy was down there, lost, alone, and scared.

Tears filled Denise's eyes and she sobbed softly, blinking them away as she swallowed in an effort to clear her voice. "How long has he been down there?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

The boys considered this question momentarily, scratching their bald pates, before David finally answered: "I think about five or six hours."

"Five or six hours, and you never said anything to anybody about this?" she asked, her voice rising more in distress rather than anger. "You never tried to stop him?"

"It's where we're all going in the end," David told her calmly, "when we're called. Those of us changing, anyway."

"It's his time," Adam added, his voice now deep, guttural.

His time. Denise mulled the words over in her head a few times. They almost made it sound like he was dying or dead already. It was the kind of thing one would say to rationalize the (perhaps untimely) death of a loved one in perhaps a vain hope of easing the sting of that person's demise and simply brush it off as an act of fate, something that was meant to be. Oh, it was just his time to go. But Jeremy wasn't dead; he couldn't have been dead. The hell with it being "his time." Denies was going to find him and bring him home if he had to drag the little brat against his will. She had to; it couldn't be safe in that cave.

Just as she was about to enter the cave, David's claw-like hand closed tightly around her wrist, his coarse, almost reptilian scales chafing her skin and making her utter a groan of discomfort beneath her sobs of distress. "You can't go in there," he said simply as he tried to pull her away.

"Let me go," Denise said, trying to be firm, but her tremulous voice still barely above a whisper, trailing off into silence.

"You're not one of us," David went on.

"You're not changing like us," Adam said.

"I have to find him, goddamn it, I have to bring him home."

"The cave is his home now. He belongs in the cave, not with you."

"Fuck you!" Denise cried as she tore her hand free and pushed David aside. The sudden movement had burned the flesh over her wrist and the back of her hand; it felt almost as though her skin had scraped against sand paper. Denise staggered back a few steps, trembling and breathing heavily as tears streamed down her eyes. As her heart beat faster and louder against her chest, their words haunted her: The cave is his home now. He belongs in the cave, not with you. No, she wouldn't believe it; it couldn't be true. She wasn't going to let it be true, goddamn it! Denise squeezed her teary eyes tightly shut, feeling the tears run down her cheeks as she sniffled and sobbed and cried out, rebuking the boys' claims and all their horrific implications. As mounting panic threatened to take control, Denise turned and staggered, nearly tripping over her own ankles, the sudden motion throwing her forward a few feet before she was finally able to regain her footing and bolted, descending deep into the abysmal darkness of the cave.

 

As she ventured further into the depths of the cave, Denise found that it wasn't a pitch black pit as it had appeared from the outside, but instead it had been illuminated by a series of undulating bladders that clung to the ceiling. These translucent cells pulsated and vibrated, dimming and then brightening as they rose and fell. Their membrane was an almost transparent peach tone, revealing a bright orange nucleus floating within.

As Denise continued to run, occasionally slowing only to frantically speed up once more, she saw that this endless cavern had wooden support beams that appeared intermittently against the walls, along with the phosphorescent gels. Looking down, beneath her feet, she saw railroad tracks, no doubt used for transportation.

This cave had been inhabited after all!

Denise slowly came to a halt, doubling over and pressing her palms firmly against her thighs as she stood there, breathing heavily. She shivered as cooling perspiration trickled from every pore of her body and blinked as the sweat stung her eyes and matted her hair to her scalp. She coughed softly and pressed her hand against her bosom to feel her rapidly beating heart, cursing whatever delusions had drawn Jeremy to this godforsaken cavern in the first place. It seemed hypocritical to criticize him now, she supposed, for here she was venturing into the depths of this cave, right along after him.

"Jeremy!" Denise called frantically and her voice echoed eerily throughout the tunnel. "If you can hear me, get back here right now," she said, trying to sound demanding, to give a command that he simply must obey. But instead, it came out as a meek plea. "Please, buddy, come back." She wiped tears from her eyes and bit her lip to stifle the sobs that threatened to betray her distress. "You don't belong here, goddamn it, you belong with us, with your family, not in a fucking cave!"

When again she received no answer, Denise began walking slowly this time, still breathing heavily as she blinked the tears from her eyes. After a few minutes, she began to walk faster, knowing that most likely Jeremy would be too far away to hear her cries, but still unable to keep herself from calling his name once more. Then again, the cave seemed empty and vast, so perhaps her voice could be carried through the distance to wherever he was located. In that case Denise could only hope that Jeremy would stop in her tracks at the sound of his sister's voice and wait for her, or even better, to turn around, run toward him, and they could put this insanity behind them once and for all. But alas, she knew, as much as she'd hoped for the contrary, that it most likely wouldn't be that easy.

Denise plodded further into the cave, varying her speed, and little changed of her surroundings. Perhaps there were a few turns here and there, but otherwise the environment remained the same for what seemed like miles, though she had no way of knowing how far she had truly come, or how much time had passed. She remained on the railroad tracks, knowing all too well that if a train or cart were to zoom by, she would have scarcely a few minutes to leap out of the way before she was crushed beneath the tremendous weight of speeding metal, but still remained nevertheless. Eventually the tunnel widened, the cave now becoming a vast cavern that seemingly spread infinitely in each direction, and still Denise continued on the path of the railroad tracks, believing somehow that as long as she stuck to the path she would not be lost.

Denise's interest in the origin if this facility had been piqued, and on some level she remained here out of morbid curiosity as much as to find Jeremy and bring him home. She felt that if she were to press on, the answers would come, and those who built this facility, as well as their reasons for doing so, would finally be revealed. Perhaps then she would realize why Jeremy had been drawn here to begin with. Denise pushed these thoughts away, not wanting to fall deeper beyond the point of no return, wanting only to find Jeremy and bring him home (kicking and screaming if necessary), to leave this hellhole once and for all, and to hell with curiosities and answers.

"Jeremy!" she called once more. She hadn't expected a response, but was still saddened when none was forthcoming.

Eventually the railroad tracks formed a small bridge over a narrow river of shimmering green chemicals that flowed slowly and endlessly about twenty feet below. As quickly as she could, Denise raced across the bridge to the other side, pausing only once to gaze below, to see a distorted green reflection of her haggard, wary face as the chemicals rippled and bubbled below, she could still feel the heat pressing down against her body, matting her now greasy hair to her scalp and the back of her neck while drenching the rest of her body in perspiration that clung her clothes to her back like a second skin. Her temples throbbed with a painful headache, and her brain felt swollen inside her skull the way her searing bloodshot eyes felt almost too large to fit into her eye sockets. It couldn't have taken more than a few minutes to cross that bridge, yet every second stretched to an eternity as Denise grew lightheaded and nauseous. Her steps, while graceful when she began to cross, were now a slow drunken stagger as her body swayed back and forth and from side to side. Denise began to cough, and they were harsh, croaking coughs that scraped against her narrowing throat and made her lungs and belly ache. Toward the end of the bridge, she swayed as she threw out her left foot taking a step forward and struck against her right ankle, shrieking as the sudden momentum nearly threw her into the vat of toxic chemicals before she was finally able to regain her footing and hurried off of the bridge, onto solid Martian soil, her legs still carrying her, seemingly of their own accord as she staggered further into the cavern.

When she was far enough away from the toxic river, Denise fell to her hands and knees, coughing, but this time less harshly than before. She was weakened and needed a rest. The effects of the chemical exposure were starting to subside, but were still strong enough to cause discomfort. Her aching head continued to throb and the sweat that rained from her brow stung her already searing eyes, although she was able to breathe easier now. As she slowly rose back to her feet, wishing desperately she still had a wall to lean on for support, Denise coughed softly and pressed a hand against her chest, feeling each thump of her rapidly beating heart as she brushed her sweaty hair out of her eyes with her other arm. Denise's sinuses still throbbed and burned slightly, causing her to sneeze wetly into the air. In her dizzy state, the sudden movement caused her to topple forward, and she collapsed to her hands and knees once more, her sweaty hair whipping against her brow once again as snot began to drip from her nose. This time she remained in that position for a while, squeezing her eyes tightly shut and her mouth hanging open as she took in slow and steady breaths, coughing and sneezing a few times, though not as harshly as before.

After fully regaining her composure and wiping the snot from her nose with the back of her hand, Denise rose slowly to her feet, nearly toppling over and falling on her face yet again, more from the threat of another spell of vertigo rather than actual dizziness. She staggered forward a few steps before firmly planting them on the ground and regaining her footing once and for all. With a deep sigh, Denise once more began to travel down the dark cavern, with an eerie dreadful feeling creeping up her spine even more so than before. Although she encountered no otherworldly creatures that would have confirmed such fears, she began to suspect that by crossing the toxic river, she had crossed over from her realm of comfort, familiarity, and safety into a twilight zone of one's worst nightmares. This feeling, while certainly nothing new, was even stronger now than it had been when she first entered the cave. And after what seemed like an eternity through the cavern that seemed completely endless in all directions, Denise finally caught glimpse of a silhouette up ahead.

Slowly growing closer, she realized she had finally found what she was looking for.

"Jeremy, wait up!" Denise called hoarsely as she hurried toward him. She threw her arms forward as the boy stopped and turned toward her, his green eyes widening, perturbed by her sudden presence as she beckoned him to come closer. "Damn you, you little brat, Mom and Dad are worried sick about you right now!" she exclaimed as relief filled her and she finally approached him. She hugged him tightly, and then shuddered when he neither returned her embrace nor acted revolted by her sudden display of affection, but instead remained stiff, his arms dangling limply as he continued to stare blankly off into the dark horizon beyond. Well, not surprising, I guess, since this is how he's been for the past year anyway, she thought with a nervous giggle.

"You shouldn't have come," Jeremy said, almost admonishing her, but still speaking in that same deadpan monotone he'd always spoke in lately. "You don't belong here. You've put yourself in grave danger."

"I came here for you."

Jeremy shook his head. "I belong here now."

Denise sniffled wetly as fresh tears filled her eyes. "No, you belong with your family."

"This cave...it's calling me. I can't resist its pull."

"Whatever you're going through, we can help you. Me, Mom, Dad, we can help you pull through all of this."

"I'm not who I used to be and I haven't been for a long time now." His voice, mingled both with sorrow and grim acceptance, began to trail off. "This is where I belong now. I'm finally ready."

Jeremy doubled over, tightly clutching his sides with both hands as he let out a howl of shear agony. Denise opened her mouth to scream along with him, yet no sound came from her throat. Instead, she could only watch helplessly as Jeremy writhed in excruciating agony and finally collapsed to his knees, his entire body trembling and damp with perspiration as his face contorted and his eyes appeared as though they would burst from their sockets any second. Denise grabbed Jeremy's shoulders tightly, trying to hold him and stop the convulsions that now wracked his entire body, trying to offer what little comfort and help she could, while a frenzied panic had taken control of her as well. Jeremy recoiled and shook free from her grasp. With his hands thrown out in a warding off gesture and a look of utter horror upon his face, he cried: "Get away! I don't know...if I can keep myself…from killing you." His face darkened and his voice was deeper, more guttural. He opened his mouth again but this time he could now only utter a few grunts and belches, sounding perhaps like what any wild beast might sound like in a vain struggle to mimic the patterns that make up human speech.

As he continued to writhe and his convulsions grew even more intense, Jeremy was literally thrown back to his feet, staggering backward as his back arched sharply. His head whipped back and forth and he began to froth at the mouth. Every inch of flesh rippled. The boy's eyes popped like grapes, shedding tears of blood down his contorted and now grotesquely distorted cheeks, while a red feral glow emanated from his eye sockets.

Jeremy howled and screamed, opening his lips so wide that his cheeks tore apart. It was then that his face pealed off, like a mask now saturated in blood, revealing not a skull gleaming in gore, but a new face whose skin had a silver hue. His ears were pointed like that of a demonic elf and he had a new set of predatory serpent's eyes that gave off a dim yellow glow. The creature had the snout of a horse, and slithering through his large flaring nostrils were thin purple tentacles that flailed and coiled in the air. The creature that was once Jeremy Colbert now stood eight feet tall, his former skin now discarded and lying in tattered clumps within a pool of blood as he stood there, blood still dripping from his body as he hissed and grunted, encircling Denise, his icy, predatory gaze leaving her frozen in fear.

"Please," Denise pled and sobbed as she backed away slowly. She looked in disbelief at the abomination that had once been her brother...that was still her brother, regardless of the grotesque form he now took. She didn't want to believe that he would hurt her, regardless of what the transformation had done to his mind. But she was stricken with terror all the same. Her heart hammered against her chest as she stumbled backward, trembling uncontrollably. The creature stepped forward and Denise recoiled with a shrill, frightened shriek that echoed throughout the cavern.

The creature leapt into the air, pounced Denise and tackled her to the ground. The force of the sudden impact had knocked the wind out of her, briefly silencing her fearful screams. The creature pinned Denise to the ground, his claws piercing and digging painfully into her shoulders as his hot breath beat against her face. Denise's entire body stiffened as her chest tightened. She felt as though she would suffocate and when her lips parted to utter a scream, she could only utter a croaked sob.

"Please," she whispered faintly, barely able to do more than mouth the words. "I'm your sister...please...you can't...you can't—"

The creature hissed and chuffed, as the tendrils from his nose tickled Denise's cheeks and his spittle splashed against her face. The creature lifted his arm high into the air, preparing for the final killing blow, when suddenly he froze and uttered not a roar of triumph, but a howl of great agony and turmoil.

 

Denise's eyes slowly fluttered open and she at first wondered if her debacle in the cave had all been a dream, and perhaps Jeremy—while still almost zombie-like at times—had never disappeared to begin with. Oh such a comforting thought, but alas a false hope, for it was not the warm, comforting, and familiar setting of her bedroom, but the cold, sterile blandness of a hospital room, where a balding, middle-aged doctor with inch-thick glasses that made his eyes look like poached eggs stood by the foot of her bed.

"How...how did I get here?" Denise asked with a groggy yawn.

"A few kids found you lying unconscious and bleeding by the mouth of a cave about a half hour ago."

If Denise had to guess, she would say that those kids were David and Adam. They were right, she thought with a dismal sigh, groaning from the pain that flared from the wounds on both her bandages shoulders. I don't belong in the cave, but Jeremy does now, God help him. A single tear scrolled down her cheeks.

"We tried getting in touch with your parents, but they weren't home. We left a message on the answering machine. Hopefully they'll be here soon."

"They're out looking for my brother," Denise sighed.

"Were you looking for him as well? Was that why you went into the cave?"

Denise nodded, but would not elaborate further, unsure of what to tell the doctor, or her parents for that matter, unsure if she herself could fathom what had happened. The image of Jeremy's horrific transformation, the last thing she could remember, now haunted her. Jeremy's screams echoed through her mind as she once more saw the blood oozing from rippling flesh being torn and pealed away, revealing the abomination beneath.

Yet something had stopped the creature from killing Denise. So perhaps, she thought, and a faint glimmer of hope lip up within her broken heart, just perhaps Jeremy might still live on somehow, even as a dwindling entity buried deep within the primitive psyche of the creature.

 

The light of the sun had hurt the creature's eyes as he had carried the unconscious girl out of the cave, but now back inside the cave, the pain was blissfully forgotten. He could not figure out what had stopped him from killing her. She was an intruder, after all, and every instinct within had demanded she be destroyed. But there was something special about her, something he could not bring himself to destroy. Vague, murky memories of warmth and love from another lifetime.

It didn't matter.

The cave was his home and had been for as long as he could remember. As he crossed the Toxic River meant to prevent outsiders from penetrating his home, and strolled deeper into the caverns, a group of military personnel and scientists surrounded him. They were his masters, not some strange yet eerily familiar girl. Their will was the only thing that mattered.

 

The end

October 05, 2005
October 14, 2005