Snatcher - Dies to Alcohol Fire

  Heat washes over Blue’s face as the flames begin to draw their air from the ventilation duct, sucking at her, beckoning her inside. Cold, fresh air slides across her legs, and she yearns to taste it.

  The shadow’s thrashing grows more labored, and it slumps against her bed, plunging into the bonfire. Its skull splits like a pustule, acid blood boiling over the side, choking the room with sulfurous smoke. The sprinkler system doubles its output, washing the deadly blood and blue-burning alcohol outward—toward the ventilation duct.

  Blue pushes back as far into the vent as she can go, kicking at the deactivated fan blade. The cyan flames creep closer and closer to her face, and she makes herself as small as she can be. Before the roving wave can reach her, it recedes. The flames in the shaft flicker out. She peers down the duct, through the opening, to see her flaming bed sink into the floor, the creature atop it like a devil returning to hell.

  Its acid blood has created an impromptu sinkhole.

***

Alien: The Cold Forge, Chapter 25