Snatcher - VS Oxygen Explosion

  She folds at the waist over the side of the bed, her legs dangling helplessly over the edge, yanks the medical tubes out of the oxygen valves, and tosses them to the floor. She then unscrews the barrel of the ballpoint pen and pulls out the cartridge, leaving a hollow body with a funneled point. The cap fits almost perfectly within the entrance of the ball spring valve, and Blue shoves until the pen won’t go any deeper.

  A sharp, whistling hiss fills the air—too sharp, perhaps. The valves weren’t meant to be opened this wide.

  There’s a flammability alarm when there’s too much oxygen in the room—it shuts off her tanks when the alarm is triggered. That means, once the alarm sounds she only has a short while before her oxygen dissipates harmlessly.

***

  Then she exhales the words “f ck you” as she strikes the match.

  The flame catches and zips around the corner of the tray. Fire licks between the openings, scorching her arms in the fraction of a second. Then the explosive pressure snaps the tray against the ventilation duct with a deafening clap, and Blue screams.

  The explosion has nowhere to go except out her door— but she could swear she failed to fit the tray right. A roar fills her head and rattles her bones, spinning her world with the concussive blast.

  The howl dies to tinny ringing, like a drill on teeth.

  She imagines the beast propelled into the hallway.

  The creature’s cries drown hers out, its anguish palpable, and she remembers the fury of the one she let burn to death over the fires of Kaufmann. She’d been so terrified then. This time, she was close enough to touch it with her flesh-and-blood hands. She backs away as station fire alarms blare, curling further and further into the ventilation duct. The fan unit blocks any further egress.

  Steam forces its way inside the duct with her, scorching her exposed face and hands. The pressure in the room diminishes, and the nursing tray falls away, creaking and steaming.

  A shadow thrashes in the flames, its scorpion tail striking everything in sight, its mouth and toothy tongue snapping at anything it can find. Her linens have caught fire, belching dark smoke and licking the ceiling in spite of the sprinklers. The creature isn’t going to die, though. The systems designed to save the humans on the station are going to extinguish the flames around it, and it will kill her.

***

Alien: The Cold Forge, Chapter 25