The Exodus Towers by Jason M. Hough Read Free Book Online

red glow rippled across the surface of her alien skin, coalescing where her eyes and mouth should be, before fading.
    Skyler turned and fled.
    He waded through the water in a panic, until his knees were free of the liquid and he could run. He stumbled twice, landing hard on his elbow once. If it hurt, he had no idea. Every neuron in his brain screamed Run, RUN .
    Boots heavy, fluid sloshing with each awkward step, Skyler flew from the tunnel and back into the gray mist outside.
    Subhuman wails rose all around him. He had enough sense to ready his weapon, and he surged forward, not wishing to slow down and allow himself to be surrounded.
    A human shape formed in the mist ahead. Skyler fired without thinking, and the creature dropped. He did not break stride, even as he heard snarling from left and right.
    He dodged shattered stumps and fallen trees, using the angle at which they lay to tell him which way was out. When he reached the stream he leapt across, took a sharp right turn, and followed the water. Skyler had no idea whether he had the direction right. He just ran. Figure it out later .
    After a time he chanced a quick glance over his shoulder, then slowed to a stop when he realized he’d outrun them.
    “The hell I did,” he muttered. Never in the last five years had he outrun a sub over any significant distance. They stopped short, for some reason. Baffled, he took a knee and waited for five long minutes. When his breathing and heart rate returned to normal, and no subhumans came loping out from the undergrowth, he stood and forced himself to relax.
    Suit yourselves , he thought, and started walking. He let his feet guide him where they may, his mind wholly consumed with the image of that …  thing  … inside the shell ship. Patterns of red light pulsing through the microscopic lines of its skin, converging where its eyes should have been. He replayed the scene over and over, hoping it would become less terrifying. The fact that it didn’t only served to scare him more.
    After a few hours of wandering he found himself back at the tiny village where the abandoned aura tower still waited, lodged into the side of a shack. The sun sat low in the western sky, kissing both horizon below and rainclouds above.
    Halfway through securing a small home to make camp in, Skyler swore. He’d never reported his findings.
    “Karl, come in,” he said after fumbling with the radio. “Hello? I need a team sent out here at dawn; it’s urgent. Full kit. We have a problem. Please acknowledge.”
    Silence.
    Skyler smacked the radio with his palm, tried again, and found the same result. Either his device had failed, or Karl’s had. He tried a quick search of the dead colonists’ bodies, but if any had carried their radio out here, it had been lost in the confusion of their demise.
    He had no other option but to camp here and return at dawn, and went about securing a small outlying building to serve as shelter. Satisfied he wouldn’t be surprised in the night, he ate a quick meal and cocooned himself in a blanket on the gritty tile floor.
    Drifting off, beneath the insects, frogs, and other wildlife, Skyler thought he could hear the chanting again. It lulled him to a dreamless sleep.
    He woke in a foul mood.
    The sun blazed, already well above the horizon. Clouds huddled in angry clumps, scattered evenly across the sky, allowing long periods of sunlight to fall. Not even noon and the day promised uncomfortable heat. At least in Darwin the ocean breeze provided some respite.
    After washing his face and swishing the staleness from his mouth, he heated a military-style packaged meal over a small flame. “Pork in rice,” the Aussie army package boasted like a dare. With some hot sauce it might have had enough flavor to excite a taste bud or two, but Skyler ate the mush just the same. Calories were calories, and it sure beat munching on another goddamn mango.
    Sweating through breakfast, slapping his neck when insects landed there,