The Terror From Beyond the Void

I SPUN AROUND faster than any human should be capable of at the terrified cries from my son. I saw Kevin standing there, mouth wide open in shock and staring at Macie. My eyes flew to her next. She was looking down, paralyzed by fear. I saw what she saw. The jelly-like glob had landed on her bare foot. She immediately shook it off and into the dirt. But it was too late. Her foot swelled before our eyes, turning bright red.

Macie! I screamed, however, in my head. My physical form had stopped responding, but my inner self flew into panic. I didn’t know what to do. I’d seen how the infection spreads, how fast it spreads, and what it does to its host.

Kevin rushed to her side, Wes backed up, losing his balance to a fainting spell. He dropped to the ground and Natalie screamed like a banshee.

Once I snapped out of my inner panic, I rushed to my wife’s side. She had dropped to the ground as well, and we watched her swollen red foot turn green, crusty and hard. The infection had begun, crawling up her leg like an army of bugs.

The horrid cry from the beast erupted right behind us. I turned around, only barely catching a glimpse of the otherworldly terror as it rushed us, flinging more of its gelatinous, biological weapon. A large, goopy mass hit Natalie on the side of the face, entering her mouth and violating her open eyes. She reached up and tried to wipe the foreign substance off, but it became sticky like tar. It snapped back into place and began its annihilation of Natalie’s body. From head to toe, it worked fast; possibly due to the fact it had entered multiple cavities on her body at once to infect the bloodstream. A brief look back to Macie and I could see hers was working slower, but had already engulfed her shin and half of her calf. My wife’s head limpidly fell backward and she lost consciousness.

Natalie’s screams had stopped. I looked back to see her head collapse under the weight of her gluey, altered state. She melted inch by inch until she was nothing but a pulpy, green heap bubbling in the dirt. The creature finally moved from its idle stance, flattened itself on the ground and began to instinctively consume her.

“Dad, we have to amputate her leg!” I heard Kevin holler. His voice sounded so far away; my attention was glued to the repugnant feasting taking place only feet away. The gurgling, slapping wet sounds loudly cursed my ear drums.

“Dad!” Kevin screamed again. My attention snapped away from the hypnotic act taking place, landing on Kevin. Fear and panic had consumed him. But he held onto a glimmer of level-headedness that I hadn’t. “We need to amputate Mom’s leg! Fast!”

I looked down at Macie’s leg. The prying infection was up to her knee, methodically eating away at her skin.

Cut off its line of travel, save the rest of her, I thought. I wasn’t a medical expert by any stretch of the imagination, but it made sense. In my hand was a shotgun—I certainly wasn’t going to shoot her leg off.

“Dad!” Kevin screamed. It wasn’t until then that I realized I hadn’t verbally answered him.

“There’s a hatchet behind the front seat of the camper,” I blandly said with emotional fatigue prevalent in my voice. “Get it.”

Kevin ran for the camper, and I looked over my shoulder at the alien creature continuing to loudly devour Natalie Saunders. I looked to Wes; he was laid out next to the fire pit. If we didn’t act quick, that thing would certainly move on to him next.

I looked back down at Macie’s infection. It had wrapped completely around her knee and was beginning to climb up her lower thigh. Goopy masses from her calf started to drip into the dirt underneath her.

“Kevin!” I shouted, hoping he was on his way back. I heard the camper door slam shut and then Kevin’s footsteps clamoring across the dry undergrowth. He stopped next to me and handed me the sheathed hatchet. I ripped it from its case and gripped it tightly in my right hand. I wasn’t sure where to place my other hand to counterbalance the impending, dreaded act—I couldn’t have her infected limb touch me in any way.

“Straddle her!” I yelled at Kevin. He hesitated, trying to get his mind where mine was. I looked over my shoulder and saw the creature gobbling up the last, slimy bits of Natalie. “Now!” I commanded my son.

Kevin quickly climbed on top of her, sitting down on her midsection, and held her arms down and against the dirt. I kneeled on her other leg and raised the hatchet.

A throaty groan came from the creature behind me. I didn’t look back. I bit my lip until it bled, and slammed the hatchet down into her mid-thigh. She screamed herself out of unconsciousness, trying to thrash her body around. Kevin held her down, and I put more pressure on her leg. I raised the hatchet and slammed it down again and again until her infected limb was fully detached. Blood spilled everywhere, creating a soupy mixture with the dirt and leaves. Macie fell out of alertness again, her head hitting the ground.

“Dad—” Kevin whispered.

I trembled uncontrollably, praying that I had made the right decision. My world felt numb and fuzzy. My stomach hurt and my temples throbbed fiercely. I felt warm, but shivered with anxiety.

“Dad—” Kevin whispers again. My eyes drifted from the blurry visual of Macie’s amputated leg, to my son. He was looking behind me. He was looking to where Natalie Saunders was being consumed by the surreal abomination from beyond. I slowly turned around, still shaking and unable to verbally respond.

Natalie was gone; only dark green spatters of her remained. The creature was gone too; a muddy, green puddle sat stagnantly where it just had been. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at anymore. I wasn’t sure what I had seen, or what was even there.

“It sunk into the ground,” Kevin quietly trembled. “I saw it.”

The universe had given us a chance to rebound. I felt normalcy come back to all of my senses. My vision was clear, my hearing wasn’t muffled, and my instinctual motivation to protect my family came back with a vengeance.

“We need to cauterize her leg,” I said.