#killer animals

Something akin to birds came next, as the plants grew taller and thicker, they made nests in the grasses and laid strange orange colored eggs. Mice came next and we grumbled. I wish we had the mice. The birds. The biting flies. 

We…is not an accurate term is it? I. I wish. 

I didn’t know.

Science Officer Kent was the first to go missing and as I think back on it I remember hearing splashes for several days before that. We thought they were some kind of fish. We never found Kent’s body.

The water rose ever higher, the plants formed a thick carpet all around us, grasses taller than anything we’d built. The splashing became more frequent. We thought Kent was a horrible accident, a one off thing. 

We didn’t know. 

Two more went missing a week after Kent. I…I don’t remember who, I’m sorry, it all gets sort of tangled up when I think about it. That time we did find something. Not a whole body but pieces. Torn, ripped, mangled. 

We set up watches and tried to build a watchtower. We could get just high enough to see over the grasses but they were too thick. There was only a sea of water and a sea of grass. The rain didn’t help with trying to see. Nights were longer than days. And we quickly found out that the monsters came at night. 

It took three more kills for us to see one. They have long slender bodies and powerful jaws and claws. They looked like pictures I’ve seen of crocodiles on Earth, when there were still such creatures on Earth. We figured out they could come out on land to kill and dragged their prey into the water. They seem to feed on large deer like creatures. I think. Never saw a deer myself but some of the older crew had. We thought we could outsmart the monsters. 

We didn’t know. 

Someone, I’m really sorry I don’t remember who, thought the monsters might burrow in the mud, sleep through the dry season and come out in the rain. They might. We could never prove it. And we couldn’t fight them. I could go into it more but the rains have stopped. 

No rain means no water coming into the filtering system. I’ll have to go to the dwindling water soon or else die of dehydration. If I go get water I’m certain I’ll be taken. I don’t know which way is worse, death by monster or death by dehydration. I know which one is slower so I suppose I have an answer. 

If all goes well the ship will return in another year. I’ll protect this log as best I can. No one will be here to tell our tale and I don’t have the time to write it all. Sorry, sorry I wasn’t thinking. This is Science Officer Anna Simms on planet ALZ 547. I’m the last alive here, and I’ll be gone by the time you get back. 

There are monsters here, they come with the rains, this is not a good place to settle. 

Beware. 

We didn’t know, but now you do. 

*****

Science Office Grayling raised her eyes from the log book and stared out across the surface of ALZ 547. She had been ordered by the ship's Captain to destroy the log without reading it. There was nothing useful in the log, nothing the colony needed according to the Captain. 

Everyone knew the original landing party had all died sometime in the two years they had been alone. There were so many rumors about what happened. Of poor resource management. Of disease. Of a Science Officer gone mad. 

Several of them had raised concerns about staying on the planet, but the Captain was tired and wanted to set up his colony. 

Grayling wasn’t sure what to do. She stared out at their new planet. The water was coming closer, there were plants along the edges, and yesterday several people had been bitten by insects. The wet season was beginning. 

Grayling sat holding the forbidden log book and looked from the rising water to the fort that now seemed a little too overbuilt for a supposedly safe planet. 

A shiver ran down her back.