Chapter 8

Eight

How do you respond when someone pulls you into another dimension?

What are you supposed to do?

Supposed to say?

Theo had no bloody idea and not least because his brain was refusing to think properly. He stood there, in the middle of the alien clearing, mouth agape, looking at the monster that had taken him captive and all he could think was, how does he look so human?

The monster had to be well over six and a half feet tall, which meant he towered over Theo, who came in at just five foot ten. He was easily twice as wide, wider even than Joel, and heavily muscled to a degree that Theo wondered wildly whether this dimension pumped extra testosterone into the atmosphere as standard.

He had a head, a torso, arms, legs—all arranged in the standard human model, which was entirely impossible because those features had developed in a long line of primates, and primates were exclusive to Earth…weren't they?

Worse, he had all the other characteristics that a human generally had, also impossible, but there they were. He had a shock of dark, silvery hair on top of his perfectly normal sized head. He had eyes which were like moonlight, grey and silver and blue all at the same time, and were the same shape as Theo's. His mouth was exactly like a human's would be too with wide, plump, purple lips. His skin was perfectly human apart from the fact that it too was a light purple colour and had a slightly silvery glow to it.

A glow, not a shimmer.

Everything was human-like, even his other features such as his nose and his ears. And he was wearing clothes. A top, trousers, boots.

The monster was dressed.

Almost in clothes that looked like army fatigues!

It was that which snapped Theo from his monster-induced stupor. The memory of his squadron, of their army gear, of them being attacked by the munchers, of Gill's ear being ripped free from her head and how it felt as he tucked it into her pocket, was enough for him to remember what some of these monsters did.

They ate humans.

The monster still had his overly large, purple-silvery hand wrapped around Theo's arm—five fingers there too! Theo looked around for his gun, but quickly released that it had not come through with him. How had he lost it so easily? He could feel his knife still strapped to his thigh, that was something at least, and it gave him a wild burst of wholly inappropriate confidence.

Without giving himself a chance to think it through, Theo dragged in a deep breath—of alien air!—and yanked himself free. He turned to where the interdimensional rip was just behind them, thoroughly intending to launch himself back into his own dimension and the village shop, but before he could even so much as make a jump for it, the rip closed.

Theo gasped.

Interdimensional rips could not be closed. At best they could be patched up with the adhesive. But this one was gone, sucked in on itself as if it had never existed, and instead of looking back into the village shop, Theo was looking at a whole bunch of dead munching monsters. They were dozens of them, and they filled the space in front of him. The one nearest to him was massive, and Theo knew immediately that it was a queen. But what was she doing here? Who had killed her? And what did that mean for his squad?

He opened his mouth to say something but a moment later realised that behind the dead munchers there wasn't a quaint little village as there should have been, but a vast forest which covered the entire area in front of Theo. Several of the trees in that forest were covered with the familiar orange goo. Theo could see it because there were bright, silvery lights in that forest illuminating the goo.

"How…"

He swallowed around the sizeable lump now in his throat. It was true to say that he had experienced quite a bit of panic recently. When he was conscripted there had been plenty, when the army judge refused his legal challenge quite a bit more, and then again as he'd been shipped off to the army base in Somerset. That first battle with the munching monsters had been anxiety inducing but it was nothing compared to how Theo felt now. Had he been wearing his Garmin he did not doubt that his heart rate would be a hundred plus.

He was in an alien dimension.

A monster was stood next to him.

A monster who looked human!

And Theo knew enough about evolution to know just how improbable that was.

He took a step back and then another. The monster did not move. He stood exactly where he had been since they'd left the village shop, arms by his side, head tilted slightly as if curious to see what Theo would do next.

Theo did the only thing he could think of.

He ran.

They were slightly uphill of the vast, phlegm-filled forest, so Theo pelted downwards through the clearing, past the dead munching monsters, working at the full speed he had achieved through years and years of consistent training. His sprint time had been the best in his group, he was able to cover distances quicker than anyone he had ever met, and he raced now, not even thinking about what he would do once he escaped the monster, but perhaps imagining vaguely that he would make it to one of the other interdimensional rips and get home that way. There were thousands of them! Some were huge. The size of a building. He could find one of those damn rips, surely? He just needed to get away from this monster, this human monster, and before the thing decided to eat him along with the munchers!

Theo raced down the wet hill, being careful not to slip as it had clearly recently rained. His body fell into the natural rhythm that it was so familiar with, the action of one foot in front of another, his arms pumping, his breathing automatically finding a perfect tempo. Theo was not aware of it then, but the gravity in this dimension was slightly less than that on his Earth and that aided him, giving him a personal best in the distance that he quickly covered.

He sucked in a deep, satisfied breath.

Thiswas what Theo excelled at.

Outside of the elite runners, no one could match him in it.

He got less than a hundred meters.

The monster tackled him to the ground, bringing him down in one smooth move. Theo gasped as he was pulled into a tangle of limbs, the monster's arms encircling him, taking the worst of the bumps and rocks before they came to a stop just as the forest proper started.

The monster held him there, in his very human, purple body, with his very human breath feathering against Theo's neck. The whole thing was just…unbelievable and Theo pushed at him, stumbling away and back onto his feet, breathing heavily now, and turned and eyed the monster.

Clearly there was no escape.

Was it even worth trying to fight?

He reached down and patted his thigh and wanted to scream when he saw the knife that had been strapped there just a few minutes ago now in the monster's hand! The fury that Theo had felt just this morning as they went through the mission in that damn briefing room filled him.

He had never wanted this!

He had never asked for it!

All he had ever wanted was to stay at home and live his comfortable, safe life. He dashed what might have been an angry tear from his face and straightened up. His legs were suddenly shaky, and he had to grit his teeth to keep himself in one place.

"If you're going to eat me, just get it over with!" he demanded. "But do it quick. Don't eat me alive."

The monster did that head tilt thing again. He looked down at his wrist where he wore something that looked suspiciously like a Garmin. He pressed something on it then nodded.

"Desist in your efforts for freedom."

Theo's jaw dropped.

Dropped.

He felt quite faint all of a sudden. "What…"

"You are not strong enough to free yourself so cease," the monster said with a strange sort of rumbling noise. "You will only cause yourself harm."

Howwas this possible? Was Theo in fact unconscious somewhere? Knocked out perhaps in that first battle with the munching monsters? Julia somewhere above him, trying to wake him up, not realising that he was trapped in the weirdest of dreams…

"This isn't possible…" he whispered at the same time that the monster gestured to him.

"Come away from the forest. There are creatures in there that will come out at night to consume you and even I cannot stop them all."

"You're speaking English," Theo whispered even as the monster reached out and grabbed him again. Theo was too shocked to resist.

"Your language," the monster said.

"But how?" Theo asked.

"It is not a difficult language," the monster said and there was that rumbling noise again. "Now we must move back up the hill before you are eaten."

"So, I can be eaten by you instead?" Theo asked, the shock replaced once more with a combination of panic and anger.

"I do not need you for food," the monster replied. "I need you for something other than that."

"Need me for what?" Theo demanded.

"You are going to aid me," the monster said.

"Aid you how?"

"To finally remove the nightmares from my dimension and from yours."