Read Online Alien Jungle by Roxanne Smolen - Free Book Online Page A

raised his hand in the hope that they would join him.
    Moving so fast it seemed to have teleported, a second creature appeared behind them.
    Trace froze, one arm in the air. He was too far away for a clear shot. Impani ran forward. She didn’t see the thing following her.
    “Impani,” he wheezed then forced air into his lungs, forced his petrified body into motion. “Impani! Turn around!”
    But at that moment, the alarm went off. Its wail added to the bedlam. Trace’s warning went unheard. He dodged through the crowd, waving and yelling.
    Impani saw him and stopped. Madsen turned. He raised his flamethrower, but too late. The monster backhanded him and sent him flying. A spout of liquid flame shot upward from the weapon and drew an arc in the air. Madsen fell into an intersection of tubes. They erupted in an orange blaze. Several colonists ran toward him. Others ran away.
    Wilde pulled out his stat-gun. The creature swung its long, mossy arm and struck Wilde before he could duck. His head snapped sideways. He spun off his feet and sprawled motionless on the ground.
    Impani backed away, her mouth open. The monster towered over her.
    Trace fired. Energy crackled over its body. No effect. He fired again. It advanced on Impani as if his stat-gun were less than a mosquito bite.
    “No!” He sprinted forward and barreled into the creature with his shoulder.
    It was like hitting a tree. Trace planted his feet. His face pressed into its torso. It smelled like rotting meat. With a strangled hiss, the thing swatted him away. He fell at Impani’s feet.
    Cole and the line of men appeared. They blanketed the moss man with fire. It stood there, encased in flame, its eyeless face turned toward them. Then it lifted its head and howled.
    Trace cringed as its eerie wail rose above the keening alarm. Still aflame, the monster ran from camp into the jungle. The alarm stopped.
    Trace leaped up and pulled Impani into his arms. She trembled, and he held her closer. “Are you okay? When I saw that thing come up behind you—”
    “I spoke to it, and it hesitated,” she said. “Did you see that? I think it understood.”
    “Yes,” he murmured and hugged her tight.
    Wilde groaned. With one hand to his head, he staggered to his feet.
    Two colonists pulled Madsen from the fire. His face and chest were bright red. Within the burning tubes, Trace heard the pop of fire extinguishers. Puffs of white gas battled the acrid smoke.
    Then Trace heard his father’s voice.
    “What in God’s name were you thinking,” Aldus yelled, “coming out here like that?”
    Trace glanced around. His eyes smarted with soot. With a start, he realized his father was speaking to him. “Sir?”
    “Your face is exposed.” His father scowled.
    Trace looked at the men with the flamethrowers, at the people fighting the blaze. They all wore neckerchiefs or disposable masks cupped over their mouths—and he remembered leaving his mask on a table in Cole’s quarters.
    Aldus approached the colonists who watched over Madsen. “Better get him to the hospital dome.”
    “The hospital was hit,” a man said. “I just came from there. The quarantine room was torn up. Like they were looking for something.”
    “That’s giving them credit for more intelligence than they have,” Aldus said over the rising voices. “They’re plants.”
    Cole asked, “Are the patients all right?”
    “Jack Barnes is missing,” the man told him, “but like I said, the thing tore up the place. Jack might be hiding.”
    Stifled cries rounded the gathered crowd.
    “We need volunteers,” Aldus said. “Jack Barnes was under quarantine. He might be confused or delirious.”
    There came a chorus of “I’ll look for him.”
    Trace was about to join the search when Anselmi and Natica ran toward him.
    “One of those creatures took Farley,” Anselmi said.
    Natica panted. “I shot it point blank. It didn’t even flinch.”
    “Which direction did they go?” Cole asked.
    Natica pointed