Early evening in the desert of Iran was a busy time for nocturnal creatures. The sand was still warm, and snakes, scorpions and spiders were out hunting lazy insects or rodents not yet in their burrows for the night. The Corsac fox silently wound through the spindly brush, its enormous bat-like ears listening for the smallest footfalls of its prey; and massive owls lifted snakes and rodents from the desert floor. By late evening, the sand would be cool and the air temperature near freezing; the desert would be silent and still.
Sam was moving carefully through the twilight. For a large man, he trod as silently as the other night predators. He stopped and turned to motion Zach to lie flat on the ground; his scope had shown him an encampment ahead, probably desert traders, but possibly an ambush. He could make out the glow of flames in the distance, but could not detect any movement or thermal signatures other than the small fire. He would have preferred to skirt the camp, but a small human-like form slumped in front of the open flap of the tent had attracted his attention. Might be a kid, he thought, it’s too small to be a man. He observed the prostrate form for three more minutes, but with no heat signature he had to assume it was dead. He would still be cautious though – it was possible the bodies were booby-trapped.
He crawled back to Zach. ‘We need to check something out, son. Could be an ambush, but I’d still feel better if you were close so I can keep an eye on you.’
Zach nodded quickly, but his eyes were round and he looked nervous.
Sam moved from cover to cover – a low bush here, a mound of sand there – alert for noise, vibrations, or anything else not in keeping with the night-time sounds of the desert. He had Zach draw his pistol to cover his back, but knew that in a firefight the scientist was only there to draw his share of the attention or make some noise so Sam could target and destroy the enemy.
There were no wires on the ground and his scope didn’t pick up any laser trip lines. Sam moved to the tent and ducked his head in – odd smell, but no movement. Three small bodies in oversized crumpled clothing. He called Zach in as he began to examine the tent further.
‘Phew! What’s that smell? Sort of a sweet vinegar… yeech.’ Zach held his hand over his nose as he joined Sam, who was bending over one of the small figures.
‘What do you make of this?’ Sam said, using the muzzle of his gun to turn the face towards Zach; he was taking no chances by using his hand to touch the body.
It might have been a man once, but now it was barely a humanoid shape: four feet in length with skin the colour and consistency of tanned leather. At first Sam thought the eyes had been removed, but on closer examination he could see small, shrivelled balls like dried raisins inside the collapsed sockets. He pressed his gun barrel a little harder against the skull and it collapsed inwards with a puff of dry powder.
‘What the hell could do this?’ Sam looked up at Zach, whose face was screwed up in an ‘I reserve the right to throw up’ expression.
He was about to move on when he noticed the small circular hole in the man’s chest. He went from body to body and found similar holes in all of them, either on their front or back. The only exception was a mutilated corpse with its head cleaved in two. From the excoriated remains, Sam could see that the insides of the body – all moisture, muscles and organs – had been somehow removed. Even the fluid and marrow from the bones had been extracted, leaving odd structures like brittle cobwebs. The cadavers were just empty cases.
Zach had both hands over his mouth and talked nervously through his fingers. ‘I’ve taken hundreds of biology classes on a hundred different subjects and I’ve never come across or even heard of anything that could inflict this type of damage on a human body. These men are totally devoid of all fluid. Even if it was a type of bleed-out virus like ebola or hanta, there would still be traces of the fluid leakage everywhere. The desert is extremely dry, but for this effect they would have needed to be in the direct sun for months.’
Sam nodded. ‘But the fire outside tells me that whatever happened here only occurred in the last few hours.’
He looked around the tent quickly and quietly, checking maps, inside boxes and turning over blankets. ‘Over here,’ he said. In the corner of the tent was a hole about three feet wide where the sand had erupted around its edges. This was the source of the smell, and it made even the battle-hardened HAWC hesitate. The hairs on the back of his neck rose slightly.
He pulled a small pencil torch from his pocket and shone the beam into the hole. It wasn’t deep and trailed away outside the tent. He moved the torch closer, leaning forward as he did. The edges of the hole were greasy and coated in a waxy substance. This close, the smell was overpowering. On his knees, he leaned closer.
‘Don’t!’ Zach’s voice was so sudden and sharp it made the large HAWC jump. When Sam looked up at him, he seemed about to faint.
Sam turned back to the hole and spoke over his shoulder. ‘Could it be some sort of tunnel – like Hamas use along the Gaza?’ After a few seconds silence, Sam answered himself. ‘I didn’t think so either.’
Zach had his thin arms wrapped around his body and refused to come any closer to the pit. ‘Night bugs,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Night bugs. When I was a first-year student I had to share temporary accommodation in a low-rent suburb with about ten other students. The beds were infested with night bugs. That smell reminds me of the stink.’
Sam had seen enough. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’
It was cooler now and the creature could travel over the surface without fearing the crushing heat of the yellow sun. It felt stronger after feeding on the small fluid-filled animals; they were soft and slow, with no defensive claws, teeth or stingers. The creature could survive here; its kind could rule here.
It stood again on its powerful jointed legs, lifting two-thirds of its body from the sand and extending its shivering eyestalks. Its bulbous, chitin-covered compound eyes enabled it to see ultraviolet, infrared and polarised light, and its multinocular vision gave it almost unlimited depth perception – mandatory in its own dim and vicious world where it was the alpha predator.
It called once again to its kind, and waited. After a few barren minutes it dropped back to the sand. Its landing startled a sand viper, which struck out at the larger creature. The snake had no chance of penetrating the arthropod’s inches-thick armour plating and its strike got a defensive reaction from the creature – a lightning-quick jet of its saliva. It was the same fluid the predator injected into its prey, which liquefied organic matter so it could be easily drawn up by its feeding tube. Concentrated, however, it had another defensive use – the combination of formic and caprylic acid, mixed with dozens of other unknown enzymes, made the saliva a strong biological corrosive.
The snake fled quickly, winding its way across the cooling sand, its body already starting to dissolve and leave a trail of scales and liquefied flesh in its wake. The creature watched the small animal flee: it was too small for a meal and no threat. It tasted the air once again and continued its scrabbling movement across the dark desert sand.