Slime pt. 5

Bucky made his way down the steps, his boots clanging loudly on the metal. He was humming to himself, not a care in the world. He was going to be getting home soon. He just knew it. He was going to be getting out of space, and back on earth. He would be getting back to his wife, and his daughter. He missed them more and more every day. He didn’t think it would be that bad when he first signed up. He thought he would at least be able to keep in contact with them, but he quickly learned that contact was iffy at best, and most of the time the links back to earth were down.

That was one of the things no one tells you when you are signing up. They never tell you that you will spend whole months cut off from your life on earth. They lure you in with the money and the promise of moving up in the company, but they never tell you how lonely it gets, or how dark. Bucky had thought he knew what true darkness was, but he had been proven wrong. Tetra-18 barely had a sun, and when night hit the world outside of the compound was pitch nothing.

It didn’t matter, though. None of it mattered. Soon he would be off Tetra-18, and back home. He only had a short term contract, and no option for the company to re-up him if he didn’t sign off on it first. That was a deal that most of the other guys didn’t get. He didn’t spread word around either. Didn’t need any of the roughnecks and bruisers getting jealous. When they got jealous they started slamming things. Usually someone else’s face. He knew they all thought he was a rube for thinking that he was getting back to earth, but he knew he was. They couldn’t drop him on another rock without his consent without breaking who knows how many space laws. At least, according to his contract.

“Lars, you start packing yet?” Bucky reached the bottom of the stairs and called down the long, shadowy hallway. The overhead lights, at least the ones that hadn’t already burned out, were flickering. Must have been because of the quake earlier, or maybe the tremors he had felt a little while ago. “Lars?”

He took a step forward, and paused. He could hear something at the end of the hall. It was soft, though. It was like a faint swoosh and splash of water. Heavier than water though. It wasn’t so much a splash as it was a smack, of something thick hitting against the heavy metal walls.

What the heck was Lars doing down there? He didn’t really strike Bucky as the kind of guy who would start washing the place down before they jetted. Especially since it would all just be so much space rubble in a few days.

“Lars, you okay down there?” Bucky took another step forward.

The faint noise stopped suddenly, and the only thing Bucky could hear was the whirring of the fans bolted up in the air ducts. The door to the bunker slowly opened, and the light from inside turned the hulking form of Lars into an almost terrifying silhouette. The old man took another step forward, his motions seeming odd. They were too fluid, and at the same time his limbs seemed to be moving too loosely. His outline seemed to pulse, but just a bit, as if something under his skin was still adjusting.

“Lars?” Bucky tried to call out, but his voice was nothing more than a whimper.

The old man charged, moving faster than Bucky had ever seen him move. He didn’t even have a chance to turn before the old man was right in front of him. Lars froze, his eyes locked onto Bucky’s.

“What… what the hell happened to you?” Bucky stammered.

Lars’s skin was blistered and burnt, and his eyes were two glowing green, liquid orbs that seemed to dribble past his lids and down his cheeks. He was gritting his teeth, and that same green liquid oozed past his cracked and bloodied lips. His skin moved in gentle waves, seeming to be completely unattached from the tissue underneath.

Bucky tried to scream, but Lars just laughed. He old man grabbed him, slammed him against the wall, and then started pulling him down the hall by the collar of his work uniform. Bucky kicked and fought the best he could, but each movement made him wince with pain. He was pretty sure his right arm was broken, and it felt like his knee had been knocked out of place.

He looked up at Lars just in time to see the old man knock one of the air duct grates away from the ceiling, exposing the whirling metal fan inside.

“No,” Bucky muttered.

Lars looked at him, his smile growing, the edges of his mouth ripping. He nodded at Bucky.

“No!” Bucky screamed.

Then he was lifted off the ground with such ease that Bucky’s scream was actually silenced by his surprise. He just stared, wide eyed as his head moved swiftly towards the spinning metal blades.

-*-

Lars pushed the boy hard, his head connecting with the metal blades. Gore and brain and bone splattered the hallway as what was once a head was suddenly reduced to a bloody, dripping stump. The body gave a few hard jerks and then went still.

Lars dropped Bucky’s body to the floor, propping him up against the wall.  Then, using both hands, he cleared away the stump that was Bucky’s neck, and found the severed, and partially crushed trachea. Using two fingers he forced it open again, and then positioned his mouth over the now clear opening.

Parting his lips, Lars let loose a stream of glowing green slime, the liquid finding its target perfectly. Not a drop was spared. In moments Lars had filled Bucky’s body up, relieving some of the pressure in his own. Once he was done, he stepped back, watching.

The slime didn’t need a host’s brain to function. Lars’s brain had been liquefied almost the instant the slime had entered him. No, the slime didn’t need a brain. It just needed a shell, and Bucky’s body was the perfect shell.

It started with a hand twitch, and then a small sputter of slime from the ragged stump of a neck. Then, carefully, Bucky’s headless body stood up.

The two corpses didn’t need to talk. They just knew what they had to do.

They had to find the others in the compound and deal with them.