Sixteen
The sounds grew, or maybe it only seemed that way because they had all grown silent again, as though even to breathe was to let the creatures know where they were. Riddick watched Jack in the dark, as she stood absolutely still, her heart raced loud enough for him to hear.
She was so brave, but was she brave enough for this? She should be in school somewhere, instead of stranded here, to wait terrified in the dark for some end she couldn’t even see; where she found comfort in a mass murderer.
Imam had a great deal of faith in his god, but what god could do that, could leave a little girl to that fate? Or his own boys for that matter, at least Jack was still alive, but for how much longer?
Shazza had her arms out as she searched for Jack, her fingers brushed against her first and then she pulled Jack to her and held her tight. Imam held Suleiman.
Johns impotently held the light tubes as though he could find some hope in them even when they weren’t hooked up to anything; he didn’t seem to care that he had left Fry alone. In fact he didn’t seem to care about Fry at all. This didn’t come as a surprise to Riddick, who had come to know Johns and his various weaknesses quite well, but he was surprised that Johns didn’t even try to play on the emotions of the woman.
Fry also wondered where Johns was. With the bay doors closed and full dark outside, it was almost impossible to see anything in the crash ship. She had memory to go on, and that was thrown off by the amount of damage all around them.
She hated that she had to call out for Johns, and hated even more that she didn’t know who else to call out for. She waited a moment, and started to think that Johns might not even answer her, but he finally did. By the sound of his voice he wasn’t that far off, so she started to make her way to where she heard the sound.
Her foot struck something on the floor and her breath stopped, and she almost went down. A hand gripped hard on her arm right before she hit, and pulled her up and across the floor. Riddick only let go when her hand touched Johns arm. He hadn’t said a word and he hadn’t made a sound. He also hadn’t let her fall.
It was Imam that broke the silence again, when he said that they should finish with the lights, so that no one would be injured. The survivors tried to shut out the excited clicks and whistles that came through the bulkhead, the scrape of…something…across the hull. It wasn’t quite nails on a chalkboard but it was close.
That it couldn’t be seen but only imagined was worse. Even Shazza and Riddick, who had been so close to the creatures out in the slash before the ship hadn’t gotten a good look at them. No one really had any idea what they faced, outside of what their own imaginations spoke to. In the dark there was a lot of room for thoughts to take hold that wouldn’t shake free.
It was difficult to shut out the sounds of the creatures but Riddick, Johns and Imam had started a strange sort of a relay from the nav bay, at the very front of the ship where the rest of the power cells were located. They would pass them one to the other and slowly move down the long bay towards the catwalk and then to the back of the ship; it took time, and was awkward, but it kept Johns in clear sight, to Riddick anyway, and without a free hand to reach for his shotgun.
Riddick knew that Shazza could easily handle Fry. Fry, Shazza, Jack and Suleiman helped to quickly move the rest of the supplies into the very back of the ship. They didn’t know if the creatures had ears or some other way of hearing them but they seemed to know that there was something alive in the ship, and the sound of the clicks and scrapes had given way to a strange high-pitched whistle.
If anyone in the ship had ever heard or even seen a whale, they would have said it sounded like whale song, but no one had heard a whale in over eight centuries. Jack had looked at the hull, when everyone was back in the large main bay once more between trips, and had gone over to press her ear to the bulkhead.
“Why do they do that, make that sound?” Imam had joined Jack, and stood just behind her, his own ear pressed to the bulkhead. “Perhaps it is the way they see, with sound?” Riddick had looked in his direction and nodded, not that Imam could see him, but it would make sense for nocturnal creatures not to rely on sight. He watched a moment longer as Imam comforted Jack, and told her that god was with them. If he was, there was no hope for them; he was a cruel and vicious god.
In Riddick’s eyes, god was a psychopath that had seen him dumped in a liquor store trash bin with his umbilical chord wrapped around his neck; that had seen him live most of his life with a horse-bit in his mouth. He believed in god, but hated him with every fiber of his being.
His thoughts were interrupted when there was another staccato burst of clicks and whistles, followed by a much longer scrape of something against the hull. The survivors went silent again, as the sound seemed to tear down from the top of the ship, and they all thought of the settlement roofs, torn open by something that they had thought at the time might have been explosions.
“Shazza…Is it going to hold?” Jacks voice was so quiet, as she held onto Shazza and pleaded with her to tell her everything would be all right. In the dark Riddick saw Shazza hold Jack behind her, away from the direction of the nav bay, her own voice grown hard and determined. “Something’s breached the hull; we need to get back to that last room. Now.”
They fell back in a long line towards the room, with Fry, Shazza and Jack in the rear. Imam was just ahead of them, as he carried the very last of the power cells into the room they intended to seal themselves into. Suleiman, Johns and Riddick backed up along the long hallway.
Riddick knew that Johns had his shotgun out, that he had in fact pulled it out at the first sound of the creatures as they tried to breach the hull. He stayed at Johns’ side but he knew Johns wasn’t going to shoot him, and definitely not right now, when he couldn’t see in the dark. Johns needed him, for the moment at least. They had retreated about halfway down the length of the ship, and had entered another section, when they first the sound of something inside the ship itself.
They had passed through one section, and were about to enter the corridor when they heard the clicks again, from somewhere in the space in front of them. Other scrapes and echo calls sounded from beyond the bulkhead, as though the creatures were in communication about how to get in. “What’s up there, Riddick?” Johns’ voice was a little higher than usual, and normally he would hate that it showed, especially to Riddick, but right at this moment he didn’t give a damn. That sound, of something as it tried to get in, something they hadn’t even really seen, that was determined to eat them, was the most terrible thing in existence. His fear of Riddick took a backseat for a moment.
“You got the big gauge, Johns, why don’t you go fucking check?” Johns hated that Riddick sounded so calm, as he looked down the hallway. Johns didn’t know how to play it; was Riddick calm because there was nothing there? Or was he calm because there was, and once it was done eating Johns, Riddick would kill it and walk away without a scratch?
He tried to play the angles, but he couldn’t think clearly; it felt like forever, but only a second or two had passed as time drew out for all of them. “I’d rather piss glass.” It was muttered under his breath, but Riddick heard him anyway, his reply a short snort of breath, as Riddick laughed at him quietly.
They continued to back up until everyone but Riddick, Johns and Suleiman were left in the forefront. The croak began almost nearly on top of them, above a stack of crates that had been held in place by cargo netting during the crash. Johns had dropped to the floor and backed away towards the relative safety of the corridor behind them.
The light on the shotgun was the only light they had, and Suleiman and Riddick were soon swallowed by the darkness. Riddick stayed very still and quiet, and hoped that by example the boy would do the same. His voice dropped to its lowest register, as he told the others to “just keep moving”. Suleiman gasped as he looked up at the creature balanced on top of the crates; the sound had the creature turn its head in his direction. If they saw through sound, then it wasn’t too much of a stretch to believe they would be attracted to sound as well.
Riddick slowly looked over at the boy and weighed his options. He could pull the boy out of the way and get them both killed, and the rest of the survivors as well. His mind turned to Shazza and Jack left alone against Johns. He looked sadly at Suleiman as he backed into the wall, his last whispered words “just don’t run”.
But Suleiman ran anyway and, not able to see, ran away from the others, down another corridor where he was stopped suddenly, fatally, by another creature that had waited silently there. The creatures had set a trap. Riddick looked one way and ran; his hands flew up over his eyes when Johns brought the light on the shotgun up.
The creature behind him, also sensitive to light, let out a scream before Johns fired two shots at very close range into it. Imam dropped the power cell and tried to rush forward when he heard Suleiman’s scream, but Shazza and Jack held him back and wouldn’t let him come forward. The startled cry of the survivors echoed in the small space when the creature fell in a heap before them. Riddick pulled his goggles down as Johns swept the light from the shotgun over the creature and the light bubbled its skin, burning it severely.
“The light hurts it.” Fry had made her way to the front to stand beside Johns once more, nearly close enough to touch. She let out a short strangled scream when one of the claws fell against the deck and a cruel dagger-like claw shot out.
Only Riddick saw what the creature really looked like, because he could see in the dark. Fry saw the claws, Johns saw the teeth; and those became larger than life for them both.
“Let’s get moving, we’ll burn a candle for the kid later.” Another time and Riddick wouldn’t even have thought there was anything wrong with what Johns said, but he could see Imam’s stricken face at losing the third boy and couldn’t feel that way.
They did have to move though, or all of them would die. Riddick took the power cell from Imam as he passed; he didn’t know what to say to him, so he took the only burden he could. They were almost at the door that led into the final section of the ship, where they hoped they would be safe, when the short burst of clicks from the second creature sounded from behind them.