Alien Hunter: Underworld by Whitley Strieber

one of the ventilator systems.”
    â€œPull them.”
    â€œYes, sir. Give me a minute, sir.”
    While Flynn was waiting, he went to the furnace and tested the mechanism. An interlock prevented direct contact with the interior. Heat like that would incinerate you in an instant.
    The intercom buzzed.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œThe facility is clear. No eyes on your position.”
    He replaced the receiver and pressed the ready button on the furnace housing. A green light appeared on the black surface of the control panel, and the door slid open. Despite the thickness of the interlock, the heat was so intense that the interior shimmered with it.
    Flynn opened his jacket, lifted his pistol to a looser position in his holster, then walked to the back of the car. He unlocked the trunk and pulled it open.
    The three bags lay just as he had left them. When he put them in, he’d noted their positions carefully. Also carefully, he touched the nearest of them. No responding movement. He touched the one behind it. Nothing. He reached deeper into the trunk and touched the third bag. Again, nothing inside reacted.
    He lifted the first bag out of the trunk. The aliens were light, weighing only ten or twelve pounds. Careful not to let any claws cut through and scratch him, he carried the bag to the furnace and laid it in the open receptacle. Immediately, it began to smoke. He pressed the red activation button and the door closed. He repeated the process with the second bag.
    As he turned back toward the car, he heard a loud click overhead. Angry, thinking that some airman was still working up there, he looked up. He saw only the shadowy girders. An instant later, though, when he directed his gaze back to the trunk, he saw that the last bag had been torn open and was now empty.
    He stepped quickly back to the intercom. “This is on lockdown. I want the entire facility evacuated at once. Is that clear?”
    â€œYes, sir.” He could hear the question in the voice. He didn’t care.
    A red light began circulating overhead and a Klaxon sounded. He drew aside one of the screens and stepped into the center of the large open space.
    Methodically, he scanned the floor. Empty. So the thing had jumped into the girders.
    Now there came another sound—the echoing creak of hinges.
    Flynn turned toward it, and was horrified to see an airman enter through a side door and begin walking toward him.
    â€œGet out of here!”
    â€œSir?”
    â€œOut! Now!”
    The airman stopped. His smile froze.
    â€œMove!”
    From overhead, there came a flutter. Flynn looked up. The airman kept smiling.
    A figure dropped down, looking for all the world like a dark gigantic demon sliding down an invisible wall.
    Then it stood before the young man, five narrow feet of spindly arms and legs to the airman’s solid six-foot bulk.
    The next instant, the creature leaped back into the rafters.
    The airman had entirely changed. His uniform was gone, nothing left of it but shreds on the floor. Blood gushed out of his eye sockets and from the hole where his mouth and tongue had been. It went sluicing down his legs, pumping from the crater that was all that was left of his genitals. From overhead, there came a whirring sound, a noise of bees or busy flies.
    As Flynn watched, the streams of blood stopped. They hung, frozen like candle wax, then, slowly at first, changed direction. They began to travel upward, racing across the man’s body as he crumpled to his knees. An orb of blood, dark red, hung in the air six feet above where he had stood.
    As Flynn was drawing his gun, the creature dropped back down.
    It connected with the vibrating mass of blood.
    There was a blur and a high crackling sound like something being dipped in hot grease. The bubble of blood disappeared into a new form entirely, and what landed with a light step on the room’s floor was not an alien. Neither was it a human being, not quite. It was covered with