Bitemarks 3.12

Ah sorry. Allow me to sum up my week.
"Al, can you stay late after work today?"
"Al, can you work tomorrow instead of having the day off?"
"Welcome home Al... remember I was renovating the loft? Well I've blown the lighting circuit. Here's a torch, see you monday."
¬¬

Now where were we?

Bitemarks 3.12

Her memory filled in the gaps as Skarletta ran her fingers over the hidden touchpad on the ship's exterior. A door seemingly appeared from nowhere on the smooth surface and slid silently open. Skarletta ducked inside. There wasn't time to power up the ship beyond its basic auxiliary power. Neither was there time to run a full set of diagnostics on the device. But the device *was* here and that was a good thing. Skarletta grabbed it from its housing then made to leave. Her hand was slippery where the arterial blood was pulsing against the wound and seeping out through her fingers. She couldn't dally, but she could spare enough time for one more act. She flicked open a panel near the ship's primary controls and pressed a series of buttons then made her way back out. Ed lay where she left him, still unconscious. Inconsequential now she mused and made her way back out of Beauclair's house. On the drive here she had passed a small village. It was close enough. She would feed, heal and then make her way back to England.


--------------------------------


Ed groaned loudly and tried to open his eyes. His vision swam and wouldn't focus. His whole skull felt like it had been shattered. He shifted his position and sat up, immediately wishing he hadn't. The rush of disorientation flew down to his stomach and he rolled to one side and vomited heavily. He was aware now how tender his neck felt too. Gingerly he pressed around it with his fingers, listening for the tell tale scrape of bone on bone but it seemed intact. He hadn't seen a thing but he had no doubt what had happened. It had to be her. He looked around for the crossbow and found it. It was in its fired position, so he'd got his shot off after all. That was evidenced further when he saw the trail of blood leading from him towards the ship. The ship! He saw it now and lost himself in a moment of disbelief. An actual working spaceship, right there in front of him, defying everything he thought he knew. It was smaller perhaps than he expected although in this huge hangar it was hard to judge the true scale of the bubble shaped craft. He moved closer to it. It could be around the size of four double decker buses, elliptical, maybe 25 metres or so long and half as wide. Its outer surface was completely smooth with no distinguishing marks except for the large bloody handprint upon it. Ed reached out and touched the print. The blood was smeared, almost like someone had drawn a pattern on the side. He traced it with his finger, a criss cross diamond shape. As he traced lights glowed under his touch and as he completed the pattern a section of the bubble slid away to reveal an opening. Ed fished in his pocket for another of the silver bolts and fitted it to the crossbow. Was she still in there? He peered inside. Lights had come on inside as the door opened and Ed stepped in. The inside was similar to the outside. Smooth white metal in most places and here and there more familiar sections of steel. There were two doors ahead and Ed took the one on the right first. Beyond the doorway was a room of sorts. At its centre was some form of computer terminal that reminded him of the Tardis controls from the Dr Who show he used to watch as a child. It was full of blinking lights and buttons and a few levers. To his left there were more panels on the wall and a section of glass. Ed looked at the glass panel. It housed some form of device that looked detachable. He ran his fingers around the edge of the glass and noticed a soft red light blinking to the right. Taking a deep breath he pressed the red light as it lit up. The glass panel slid aside and Ed reached in and pulled out the device. It could have been anything and Ed wasn't stupid enough to give in to mere curiosity given the situation but there was something important about this device. It had a trigger. Oh it wasn't gun shaped and perhaps it was something as innocuous as a medical device, but Ed decided he wanted it. He noticed more lights blinking on the control panel and went over to look. A section of panel had lights and he noticed more of them had lit up since he first looked. Ed watched them for a while. They were flashing in some kind of regular pattern. He had no idea what they were but they put him in mind of a film he'd seen a long time ago as a teenager. Predator. A chill ran down his spine. That was what they looked like... a countdown of sorts. And countdowns on electronic devices generally meant...

Ed didn't even stop to think. He ran. He ran with the urgency of a child running away from the playground bully. He ran with the panic of an animal escaping a predator. He ran like a man who genuinely feared for his life. He ran from the room so fast he slammed into the vault door opposite. He ran down the corridor and nearly lost his footing on a rug near the door he'd entered through. He ran through Beauclair's house heading only for the door, ignoring everything else in the way. He ran out of the main door and down the stairs two at a time. He ran to his car, tore the door open and started it up even as he closed it behind him. And once the engine started he slammed his foot down on the accelerator and drove at full speed down the country road, back the way he'd came. He didn't care about the windy country roads he hated so much. He didn't think about those shadowy trees that leapt from nowhere. He drove. Time no longer meant anything, coming rapidly in moments of fast and slow motion. Had it been seconds? Minutes? How much distance had he...?
WOOOOMPH!
He felt the explosion and saw the mushroom cloud in the rearview mirror as it swallowed up the hill that Beauclair's house had sat upon. He felt the shockwave slam into the car. He felt the wheels lose friction as the car was temporarily lifted by the force. He felt the wheels strike the road again and heard the tires screech as the car slid sideways. He felt the heat of the blast and he felt too the jarring impact as the car slammed sideways into one of those trees. And for the second time that day, Ed felt himself lose consciousness...