I looked down the hall to my left and saw a crumpled form lying in front of the West Employee Entrance, a plain steel door with a rectangle of [image]
I looked down the hall to my left and saw a crumpled form lying in front of the West Employee Entrance, a plain steel door with a rectangle of glass at face height. There was a bullet hole in the glass. We’re under siege, I thought, and I felt the cold finger of panic touch my spine. We’re under siege and no one outside of these walls even knows that it’s happening. No one at all.
The workers at AccuTech Factory are about to face a terrifying final shift when a mysterious truck crashes through the factory gates at full speed, bringing with it a cargo of human and alien terror. An alien parasite, capable of absorbing and perfectly mimicking its hosts, hides and reproduces within them, leaving a bloody trail of death and devastation in its wake.
“I touched him,” Henley said, and he ground his palms hard into his eyes. He blinked at the phone. “I carried the guy inside. He… he bled all over me.” “Then it’s very likely that you’ve been infected, Mr. Henley. Anyone else who you’ve had direct physical contact with since being exposed might also be infected. This thing is extremely contagious.”
For Mark and his colleagues, a desperate fight for survival begins. They are hunted by the creature and shot on sight by snipers from a shadowy military faction determined to prevent the alien outbreak and news of the incident from spreading to the rest of the world.
“Goodbye, gentlemen,” MacAllistair said. His tone was brisk and impersonal. “I understand your anger, but there’s nothing I can do. God help you all.” There was a loud click and Major MacAllistair was gone, replaced by dead silence. We stared at the phone. “Did they just cut the line?” Dom asked, and Henley gave him a slow nod.
This gripping tale of survival, betrayal, and visceral body horror is drenched in blood and draws heavily from The Thing (1982) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Some scenes and situations also evoke Battle Royale (2000) and Aliens (1986). MacAllistair's character could easily be a Weyland-Yutani executive, just to give you an idea.
Henley locked the door behind us and we tip-toed quickly through the front office hall. I let Henley go first so that I could keep my eye on him. So that he couldn’t sneak up on me and… do something. Something bad. I decided to leave my gloves on. I hadn’t made any direct physical contact with Henley, Dom or anything either of them had touched since the ordeal had begun, and it seemed prudent to keep it that way.
Unfortunately, first-person narration has never been one of my favorites, and in this case, it diminishes much of the tension, sometimes almost shamelessly spoiling the fate of the despicable protagonist. Both the protagonist and the supporting cast would have benefited from a bit more characterization and background, in my opinion, instead of just spewing profanity and showing the worst of themselves.
With all those big, square windows sitting in a row, it would have been easy for the snipers to pick us off, but they allowed us to retreat, and the shot I was bracing myself for never came. There’s been many, many sleepless nights since then where I’ve found myself wishing that the snipers had gone ahead and opened fire. I could have died with a clean conscience. I could have died with my soul still intact.
I thoroughly enjoyed most of this intense and gory read, and the stunning cover—possibly AI-generated but still very beautiful—caught my eye. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any credits for it in the book or online. The cover alone made me pre-order this ebook to add to my Kindle the moment I stumbled upon it on Amazon a few weeks ago.
I took a deep breath and said, “Okay, there’s no sugar-coating this, so I’ll just say it. Jim’s sick, and more of us are going to start getting sick pretty soon. That’s why we’ve been surrounded with guns and barbed wire fences. There’s a bug in here, a disease that’s super-contagious, and it’s… it’s bad.” I rubbed my temples hard and grimaced. I didn’t know what to say to them and not sound like I was crazy.
Gianfranco
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horror-gothic-and-weird
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