The Void

CHAPTER 35

Zlatan felt the animalistic urges run through him again like a wave. He was the largest and most advanced of the Kurgan, and perhaps that was why he had been able to resist the undeniable changes for so long. His remaining team had shed their clothing, or simply burst from it, and now stood swaying before the meteorite fragment as though it was some sort of religious icon they needed to pay homage to.

He grimaced from the gnawing in his gut. He hungered for meat, red meat, raw and dripping. He tilted his head back, and would have closed his eyes but he had no lids anymore. He saw and heard everything, and felt connected to the life inside and out.

He looked back at the meteorite fragment. It sung to him, caressed his brain, and urged him to leave this former life behind, and to once and for all be free. It promised a new world with a new beginning and a new order. He would be part of it. He heard his men’s thoughts, still vaguely human. But the others outside did not think at all like them. They were now part of some sort of growing hive mind.

Zlatan stared at the beautiful thing nestled in the rocky cradle of the fragment. It had been searching for them for a billion years, after being blasted free from its home world. It loved them, but knew it needed to make changes for it to adapt, and change them to adapt to it.

A ghost from his past life still haunted him — a lovely Russian girl. He struggled to remember her name — it came back in a rush — Rahda, yes, that was it. He tried to recall her voice, but when he searched, the insect-like buzzing in his head just grew louder as if it were trying to wash away all trace of her.

The singing in his head grew more insistent, almost painful. He lifted an arm and saw that the material of his suit was splitting, showing the weird mottled flesh and bony plates like on those of his men. How could he ever go home now?

Zlatan’s eyes traveled up to his hand and he examined it closely; the fingers were becoming fused together into just three sharp prongs, more like those of some sort of burrowing creature. He would have laughed if his mouth permitted that action now.

“You all look like crap,” one of the Americans had said. Zlatan felt his face. There were strange lumps and fissures, and the size and shape was grotesquely wrong. The American was right; they were being made sick and strong at the same time, more and less human with every breath they took in this hellish place.

His attention was drawn to the American soldiers as they burst from the space shuttle with the women. His men didn’t care anymore, preferring the siren call from the thing inside the asteroid fragment. He knew what the Orlando crew had become, and also knew soon enough they would fully transform too. They had lost everything, and could never return home.

He lifted a grotesque arm to wave to the fleeing people and tried to call to them, but all that emanated was a mewling sound from a throat not designed for words anymore.

The irresistible singing pulled at him, but his Herculean will kept his gaze on the ever-thickening mist. There was something else that drove him on that was far more compelling than the entity inside the Orlando. Something he desperately needed to do.

He began to follow the Americans.