"What just happened?" Devin asks.

No one responds.

"Hello?" Devin slams his hand down on the button for his radio. "Base, are you there? Base?"

He gets nothing back. Not even static.

"Guys," Star's voice shakes as she speaks. She points in the direction of the alien starship. The beam of her headlight barely reaches the monstrous abandoned hunk of metal. "Do you see that?"

I squint, turning my own headlamp where she's pointing. As my light dances over the webbed mucus covering the starship, something within it pulses.

I jump, my heart slamming against my chest along with the thump of whatever inside there moved.

The web throbs again, and then the gurgling sound of something wet tearing echoes through the valley.

"What the—" America begins to say.

"Oh my God!" Lou screams.

In the light of our headlamps, the membrane around the starship splits open like a swollen belly ripping apart at its skin. Strands of goo drip from the tear like thick, sticky globs of drool from a dog's jowls.

My breath catches in my throat—the wind knocked out of me. A hand grabs me by the wrist, tugging, but I'm frozen in place.

The air is suddenly alive with a hissing drone like the moan of cicadas. The sound swells around us, growing until it feels like my eardrums are about to burst. I bring my hands up to cover them, forgetting my helmet is covering my head.

Ahead of us, something slithers out of the gaping mouth in the membrane. A tentacle-like arm smacks against the side of the starship, and then another one darts out next to it like the tongue of a snake. The tentacles leverage themselves against the hard surface. The muscles pulse and undulate beneath gooey pink skin. The creature pulls itself out—a mutated moth birthing from an enormous cocoon. Moist webbing clings to the slimy appendages like afterbirth goo. It's body shakes, slinging some of the slime onto the starship and ground beneath it.

"Shawn, run!" America shouts. His hand closes around my arm, jerking me from my trance as he tugs me away from the starship.

I stumble backwards a step, unable to take my gaze away from the horror coming to life within the darkness in front of me. The monster pulls its fat, worm-like body out. Thin membranes of skin stretch between the bony wings that unfold behind it. They vibrate and shiver like the monster is getting ready to take flight.

"Fuck! Fuck!" someone screams.

Another jerk on my arm snaps me out of my trance.

"Shit!" I scream as I turn and run.

"Go, go, go!" America's grip on my arm tightens as he pulls me along.

Ahead of us, Star, Devin, Lou, and Elias skid to a stop, all of their heads turn it up to the sky.

"They're everywhere!" Star yells.

Above us, at the top of the ledge, dozens of the vultures emerge in the air. They bear down on us like a swarm of hornets. Enormous bat-like wings hoist fat, swollen bodies into the air. Their faces are like prehistoric sea worms—rings of teeth and no jaws. No eyes.

A horrible sucking and smacking comes from the swarm as their abdomens constrict and relax like an esophagus trying to swallow a pill that's too large. The sound echoes through the valley, along with the buzz of their wings in what I can only imagine is a crude form of echolocation.

Some of them are the size of humans—some of them larger. Their wingspans are enormous, and their tentacles swirl around them like whips.

"What do we do?" Lou shouts. "Where do we run? Shit! Shit!"

My stomach drops to my feet as I glance over my shoulder. The monster that I watched pull itself from the chrysalis has taken flight. The nauseating sound of membrane tearing fills the air once again. Across the length of the starship, more seams split in the webbing, like dozens of eyes peeling open. Tentacled arms pulse out from within the mucus as the monsters birth themselves into the night.

"They have us surrounded!" Devin shouts.

My heart races. My eyes dart around as the creatures close in on us from all sides. Then, my gaze lands on the side of the cliff.

"The caves!" I scream, panting to catch my breath. "In the side of the cliff!" I throw my hand towards them. "We can hide in there."

Without hesitating a second, the six of us break into a sprint. My heart slams against my ribs as my feet pound the ground.

"Come on, Elias!" America shouts over his shoulder.

I throw a glance back. Elias is falling behind, his face a grimace of pain and terror. The first alien I saw soars in behind him, its massive tentacles pinwheeling in the air.

"Watch out!" I scream.

The monster slashes a heavy tentacle towards Elias. He throws his hands out and dives to the ground. The wormlike arm hits his side, knocking him into a skidding roll through the moldy dirt. Dust kicks up around him in a torrent. The arm curls and pulses, but he slips out from under its grip. Instead, the momentum of the tentacle pulls the alien into a skydive, knocking it a couple yards off its course.

"Elias!" I yell. Without thinking, I dart back to him. I skid to a stop next to him and grab him by the arm. "Keep moving!" I yank him to his feet.

He stumbles along beside me as I drag us towards the cliff.

Out of nowhere, something heavy claps me right between the shoulder blades, and I gasp, the wind knocked out of me. I fall forward, landing on my hands and knees. My skin stings as I skid across the dirt. The thick fabric of the space suit grates against me.

Before I can take a breath, an intense pressure crushes my right ankle. Screaming, I whip my head around and kick at the enormous worm-like tentacle wrapping around me.

"Get the fuck off me!" My throat burns. I clench my hand and slam my fist against the fleshy tentacle, but the creature only squeezes tighter. It feels like it is about to crush my bones.

"Fuck off, stupid space cucumber!" Elias yells from behind me. A rock the size of a softball soars over my right shoulder, just barely missing me as it clocks the sea-cucumber-of-the-sky in its teeth.

The pressure on my ankle releases just enough for me to yank my foot free. Immediately, hands grab me by the wrists, pulling me to my feet.

Star clutches my right arm, while Elias grips me by the left.

"Don't stop running!" Star yells.

I sprint along with them, nearly tripping over my own feet. My right ankle throbs beneath me, but I don't dare stop.

Out of the corners of my eyes, I watch the monster right itself in the sky, preparing to swoop in for another attack. The gurgling click and suck of its throat contracting and releasing turns my stomach enough to make me wretch. Its brothers and sisters weave their way towards us, now fully emerged from their cocoons. Wet, going webbing drips from their wings and tentacles as they shake off the remnants of the chrysalis.

Suddenly, a scream coming from my right pierces the air—shrill and full of terror.

I whip my head around. My breath catches in my throat. One of the creatures that came over the ledge dives down at Lou. He shrieks as it collides with him.

"Oh my God!" his voice is full of agony. It slams him to the ground face first. With a crunch, his helmet cracks on a sharp rock and pops off his head. Shattered glass spews over his face, drawing blood. He pushes himself to his hands and knees, blood gushing from his nose. He only manages to crawl about a yard before tentacles wrap around him.

"Help!" he shrieks. His gloved handles claw at the ground as the tentacle pulls him along. The creature's head darts in, and its vortex of teeth latch on to the side of his neck.

"Lou!" America shouts. He runs to him, but the abomination flings out its other tentacle. It smacks America in the chest, sending him flying back a dozen feet. He skids across the ground, his hands braced behind himself in a useless attempt to brake.

Devin rushes towards Lou next, but a second creature dives in. It whacks Devin with one of its tentacles as its rushes toward Lou. Devin stumbles back, falling to the ground.

The creature's teeth extend out from its body as it latches on to Lou's leg, slicing through his spacesuit like razor blades. The two monsters pulse and writhe in tandem. Their mouths gnaw at Lou's flesh, sucking his blood like leeches. His screams turn to guttural gurgles. Blood explodes in pulsing geysers from the carotid arteries in his neck and the femoral in his thigh, splattering across the prehistoric faces of the space worms.

A third one swoops in on Lou. It squirms and wriggles between its siblings to feed. Unable to latch on, it swings out a tentacle from the mass of carnage, looping it around Devin's leg.

"Get the fuck off me!" Devin bats at it with his fist.

The creature pulls itself towards him, throat sucking and smacking with hunger. Then, it dives and makes contact. Its teeth constrict around the side of Devin's arm.

"Devin!" America's hoarse voice screams. He runs toward them, whips his helmet off and flings it at the monster.

The glass fishbowl whacks the monster in the side of its head and cracks in a spray of glass. A guttural clicking erupts from the creature's throat, and it releases its grip on Devin. In the light of America's discarded headlamp, its teeth shine with blood. Something else curdles in the saliva around the ring of sharp incisors. Within the mouth of the monster, tiny worms writhe. They crawl between its teeth like blind parasites in rotten meat.

"Run!" I scream.

The five of us sprint the last few yards to the caves. I give one last glance over my shoulder as I climb the rocks at the base of the cliff. Lou's body has now been absorbed by a mass of pulsing worms and wings—an infected heart beating somewhere in the depths of space we were never meant to explore.

"Shawn!" Star's voice screams. "Get in!"

A hand shoots out from the cavern in front of me. Star clasps her fingers around my wrist, and I'm pulled into darkness.