The Arm Farm - 4

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4. Too Good to be True

Chris watched, motionless as the man’s blood hung in the air. The sunlight caught red droplets on their fall to earth, painting vivid red swatches. His heart pounded. “Megan, get to the car, get it started.” Old instincts took over. They weren’t on a peaceful farm anymore; it was a combat zone.

            “I’m not going to—”

            He cut her off. “Get to the car, get it started, and if I’m not there in five minutes, go get help.” Chris wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do with those five minutes, but there was no simple getaway. The naked man in the field had been shot at some distance square in the head. That meant that Art had range on his side and was a halfway decent marksman. Driving the car back out the main entrance was likely to get at least one of them killed or injured in the process. Art had to be dealt with.  

            Megan’s eyes were wide, but when she spoke, her words were calm. “If you’re not back in five minutes, I’m going to say then nastiest shit at your funeral.”

            He smiled at her. “I’ll be there.”

            Without another word, Megan moved toward the car, keeping as low as possible. Chris didn’t watch her go and ran toward the side of the barn. The few hundred feet between the fields and the big red exterior felt like a mile, but he made it. He hunkered behind a set of hay bales that he now suspected were more for show than anything else. Taking deep breaths, Chris tried to bring his brain from panic to focus. Adrenaline was charging through him, dulling any sense of planning or logic. There was only the present moment and the one immediately after.

            Art stomped out from between the double doors, good humor gone. Dark circles ringed his eyes as if he suddenly hadn’t slept in days. He held a rifle loosely at his side. It was a long thing with a big scope, jet black and smooth.

            Chris looked at the weapon with confusion. Like the farm, there was something off. It took him a second to realize that it was unlike anything he had ever seen. Sure, the component parts of a rifle were there, but all slightly disjointed. It was someone’s interpretation of a rifle rather than the genuine item. He tensed behind the bale, waiting for Art to turn back.

Art didn’t look back. He walked toward the field where the dead man lay in the hot sun and stopped. “Shit.” He kicked at the corpse and swore again. Running a hand through his beard, Art mustered the friendly salesman tone and spoke loudly. “Look, I’m sorry you all had to see that, but I assure you, this is nothing out of the ordinary.” The twitches in his posture betrayed the lie.

            Chris didn’t listen and took the opportunity to sneak into the barn through the open double doors. Without a weapon of his own, he needed the element of surprise. A rush of cool air met him, and prickles ran up his already alerted skin. He moved quickly, trying to pick his way through the mess of tables and equipment, looking for something that could be used as a weapon. Unlike before, the barn was silent. All the machinery had stopped running, leaving nothing but the low hum of the fluorescent lights.

            Chris crouched down, listening to hear if he had been followed. A muted thunk broke the silence. He looked up and saw the fleshy pods again. A black tentacle whipped around inside one, tapping at its squishy enclosure. With each movement the appendage made, Chris felt cold dread sliding over him.

            The tentacle whapped its pod and the thunk was far too loud.

“Stop that,” Chris hissed, hoping it would do something.

The appendage ignored him, striking again. A seam in the pod split.

No, no, no. Chris didn’t know what it was, but he was sure he didn’t want it out.

            The tentacle continued its assault, widening the small gap. A sharp, slimy point wiggled its way through the opening, tasting the air for the first time. It moved unnaturally, jerking from side to side like a compass trying to find north.

Chris froze, the childlike notion of holding still to avoid detection taking over.

The tentacle extended slowly, growing until it was a foot long outside the pod. A foul, black substance coated it, dripping to the floor, but making no sound.

Chris held his breath.

In a flash, the tentacle struck out in his direction, going straight as a board. It nearly reached him, but didn’t quite manage. The wriggling tentacle tried to extend farther, caressing the air a few feet from Chris’s face.

            Art’s shuffling footsteps echoed through the eerie quiet. “Chris, you in here? Look, like I said, I’m sorry you had to see that.” His voice rode the razor’s edge between friendship and menace. “Maybe you come out, we can have a talk about discounts, and everyone gets to leave here happy.” Art continued to move further into the barn, searching, the words sounding hollower with every step.

            Chris knew a lie when he heard one, but the tentacle’s reach was growing with each passing second.

A second appendage split from the first, attempting to pry itself from the fleshy prison.

You need to move, now. Freezing is what gets people killed. Chris didn’t know if that applied to creepy alien creatures in psychotic farmer’s barns but had no other options. He did his best to put the creature from his mind and scanned the room. Heading back toward the barn door was suicide. Art stood blocking the entrance, his finger around the rifle’s trigger.

            “Come on, Chris. There’s nowhere for you to go in here.” A hint of frustration rose in Art’s voice. “It’s not too late for us to talk through this.”

            Chris took a deep breath and left cover, moving at a low crouch. The rows of silent machinery were able to shield him from Art’s view, mostly.

            Art sniffed at the air. “Oh, come on, Chris, let’s not do this.” He shuffled forward toward the incubators where the creature was still desperately trying to follow its prey. Art’s footsteps approached the incubator and stopped. “What the hell are you doing out? Did you see something that spooked you?”

            Chris made his way to a table covered in sharp surgical instruments. Using Art’s momentary distraction, he stood and picked up a long scalpel. Against a rifle, it wouldn’t be much, but if he could get close, it might just do the trick. Clutching the weapon tightly, Chris ducked back beneath the table.

            “You know you need to stay in there. Was it that big man, Chris?” Art made some cooing sounds at the creature.

            A response came in the form of a high-pitched, warbling chitter. Chris dropped the scalpel and clapped a hand to his ear out of reflex. The sound of the metal hitting the barn’s concrete floor might as well have been a cannonball. Seconds after, the deafening report of the rifle filled the barn, and a beaker too close to Chris’s hiding spot exploded in a shower of glass. Chris winced at his own stupidity and picked up the scalpel again. Sitting still was once more off the table. He tensed and took off between the tables, hoping to get some distance before Art could get another shot off.

            “I told you not to do that!” Art yelled, racking the rifle.

            Chris paid no attention and didn’t give any of his precious energy to a response.  Every fiber of his being went toward putting one foot in front of the other. Instinctively, he slid beneath another table and moved to the adjacent row.

At the same moment, Art fired again. The bullet ripped through the metal table above Chris, leaving a sizeable hole, and buried itself in the concrete floor. Shrapnel struck the back of Chris’s neck, showing just how close it had been. He tried to stay focused. Time moved slowly. Every heaving breath he took was a marathon. There is a way out of this. He looked around, already moving again.

Ahead, there was a staircase sloping down into a tunnel and out toward the fields. There was some chance it would lead to a basement, trapping Chris in a dead-end, but staying above ground wasn’t an option. He hoped that whatever lay below would allow him to close the distance between himself and Art to make the scalpel effective. Chris picked up his speed and slid across the floor, landing hard on the metal steps. Momentum carried him down, but he managed to stop himself before he fell all the way.

            From above, he heard Art shouting. “I’m trying to make this quick, Chris! Why couldn’t you just take the damned arm?”

            Chris couldn’t tell for sure, but it sounded like Art was moving further away. He didn’t see me move. It seemed impossible, but Chris wasn’t in a position to question good fortune. Carefully, he made his way further down the stairs. As he went, a slimy substance coated the metal, threatening to send him slipping with each step. At the foot of the stairs, a long concrete hallway stretched out toward the fields. Recessed white lights ran along the edge of the wall stretched to a dark room in the distance. A blue light pulsed at the end of the tunnel.

            Upstairs, Art fired another shot. A great clatter shook the ceiling as machinery fell. Chris moved, stepping off the stairs and into the tunnel. Looking down the expansive length, dread rose in his throat. Even through the numbing adrenaline, he felt it. In the same instant, the lights changed from white to red, and an alarm claxon blared. Chris looked down at his feet, too late to see the infrared sensor he had crossed.

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