She let out a mad, wailing sound that rushed scream-like from her throat. Not daring to take her eyes off the thing, she fumbled with the propane torch. Those red, juicy eyes staring back at her expanded until they popped like bubbles. And the thing continued to bulge and increase, huge tears ripping open in its hide, revealing something beneath like the rubbery skeleton of a gorgonian. She caught but a glimpse of it and then those gaping holes were filled with coiling things and corkscrewing things—the feeding tendrils of soft mushroom coral, bristleworms and fanworms, the radial arms of crinoids. And then it became an immense writhing aggregation of pale-yellow marine polyps, bursting with thousands of pink stinging tentacles like those of deep-sea anemones. They undulated in the air, thousands of them, stubby and clutching, like human fingers.

And Javy knew that if she didn’t burn it there and then, it would drop into the water and slither up from the moon pool and devour her, absorb her, do things she did not even want to imagine.

She opened the valve on the propane tank, lit the flame.

The thing trembled with fluttering rhythmic vibrations as if it knew what she was about to do. She opened the valve and a blue-white tongue of flame reached out for that grotesque mass and found it. It made a weird, high-pitched squealing sound as it tried to free itself from the remains of the suit which was like some ruptured egg that had given it birth. The multitude of pink tentacles stabbed out blindly, whipping through the air, scooping and fanning, trying to find something to grab.

But she swept the guttering flame back and forth over it, tentacles withering and blackening, curling up. Burning and letting out gouts of vile-smelling smoke, the creature continued to whine, engulfed in flames. Finally, it clutched like a fist, charred and smoldering, and went still. It dangled there from the Exosuit in pouches and ribbons and flaps of burnt tissue…then it dropped from the suit and fell into the water, sizzling a moment before sinking entirely. It left a greasy oil slick to mark its passing.

Javonivic turned off the valve and dropped the propane tank.

She stumbled back two or three feet and promptly went down on her ass. Her vision swam and her head was filled with a dull thundering noise. She sat there, breathing in and out, shivering with the delayed reaction of absolute shock.

Slowly, she crawled to the Main Lock hatch. She opened it and stepped through. She heard the shrilling of the sonar alarm. It’s not working! It’s all in your head! Regardless, she made it to the console and saw a huge blip approaching the triangle of the habitat. It was the same size and shape as the one that had that attacked them and stripped away the submersible.

No, no, no, not again, dear Christ, not again.

(ALICE I’M COMING)