If it wanted him, it would take him. Simple as that. He knew it was reading his mind and he was only glad he could not read its own. As he looked upon it, he felt pure animal aggression stir inside him. He hated it. There was nothing more, just hatred. He wanted to kill it. He wanted to have a gun in his hand so he could drill holes through it. Because he knew one thing: the history of this creature and the history of his own race were intertwined and it had never, ever been a dance of joy. It had been dark and ugly and horrible. This thing was the absolute nemesis of his race and he longed to murder it as all men secretly, subconsciously, did.

It droned again.

Orr, not really thinking, brought up the flashlight and put the beam in its eyes. It moved backward a few feet with a brief swish of its wings. He did not know how it hovered like that, but it seemed to take no physical exertion that he could see.

The hatred he felt overwhelmed him. “Well, here I am. What the fuck do you want?”

It droned and flared its wings.

And Orr acted instinctively.

Maybe it was going to attack and maybe it wasn’t. Regardless, his animal instinct spiked and he threw the flashlight at it with everything he had. It passed right through it as if it was made of smoke. Instantly, the creature pulled away, its wings flapping in a blur with a shrill buzzing sound. Its eyes seemed to burn even brighter…and then it simply slipped off into the fog and dissipated. It became ghostly, almost transparent, and he could see the fog through it. Then it broke apart into something like a cloud of fireflies that winked out one by one.

A ghost. A fucking ghost.

Out in the mist, there was a solid wall of droning and then nothing.

Orr went right down on his ass, his heart hitching painfully, his bladder so full he thought he’d piss right down his leg. His heart found its rhythm again and he sat there, breathing, trying to convince himself it was all some fucked-up hallucination brought on by the gases in the mist, but he knew better. He could still smell the thing.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, his breath frosting out in clouds, but he heard the hatch open and Anderson came running out.

“Sir! Sir? Sir…are you all right?”

And Orr had a crazy impulse to laugh. “Sure, all things considered, I’m doing quite well.”

8
PARANOID