“Sun’s coming up,” Shorty said quietly.
“So we got here during the night,” Nathan said. “Or what passes for night.”
“Looks that way,” Mackenzie assumed.
Nathan, however, wasn’t entirely certain it did look that way, not after his assessment of time.
“Best tell the ones on ahead,” Mackenzie said. “We better find someplace with shade. I don’t want to be caught in the sun if it’s this hot during the night.”
“I don’t either,” Shorty added, his voice wasted and dusty.
Nathan looked from Shorty’s grim features to the surrounding desert and wondered where the hell they would find such a place. Without warning, Mackenzie hurried after the four men on ahead, and Nathan and Shorty followed. Nathan noticed that Leland and Jimmy were already looking to the east, or what he assumed was the east.
“Sun’s coming up,” Mackenzie announced, pointing to the light creeping along the skyline.
“Saw that,” Leland answered, sounding bone-weary and very much wanting a drink.
“Might be a good idea to get out of it,” Nathan said when he caught up to them.
“Where we gonna do that?” Eli snapped in a tired voice, running on spirit alone.
“There’s no place in sight,” Jimmy said. “Nothing.”
“We keep walking then,” Leland said as if freshly risen from the dead. “Not much else we can do. And I’m certainly in no condition to run.”
Nathan winced. “No, I don’t suppose I am either.”
“None of us are,” Jimmy noted. “Unless we all pile onto Shorty’s shoulders and let him carry us.”
The comment momentarily distracted Shorty from the horizon.
“Come on then,” Leland said. He started plodding ahead yet again.
“At least we’ll get a good look at this place,” Nathan said.
“Haven’t seen enough, lawman?” Eli muttered.
The poke didn’t brighten Nathan’s spirits, and he let that be known with a glare in Eli’s direction. A hard case himself, Eli didn’t back down.
“I said come on,” Leland barked at them as he led the others away.
Eli and Nathan continued glaring.
“What’s it gonna be, lawman?” Eli said, narrow-eyed and willing. “If I had a choice between walking and kicking the shit outta you, well, you can see I ain’t walking.”
Nathan scowled, the horizon brightening in the background. “Eli,” he finally said, “you’ve been on my ass like a saddle boil ready to pop, but I ain’t gonna fight you while you’re bare-assed. That might be what you do out your way, and probably the reason why you are the way you are. But with me, that just ain’t gonna happen.”
With that, Nathan turned and hurried after the others.
He didn’t have to check to see if Eli was following.
So they marched, double-time, making tracks in that black sand which was becoming increasingly finer. The sky continued to brighten, promising a smoldering dawn that unnerved Nathan and lent him a little extra strength. He carried his weapons and wet clothing before him while casting fearful looks at where he expected the sun to rise. His skin glistened in a sheen of sweat that he didn’t think possible. There simply wasn’t enough water left in him to sweat, by his reckoning.
“It’s coming up fast,” Mackenzie observed.
And it was, much faster than it should, or so it seemed in Nathan’s mind. He blinked away stinging rivulets of perspiration that smeared his vision, hefting his load in one arm at times so that he could wipe away the annoying moisture. The morning was on its way, and the rising temperature warned of a very hot sun. Nathan believed that when the sun did break free of the horizon, he wouldn’t have to worry about sweat in his eyes anymore, because he figured his own flesh would be sizzling like bacon hitting a frying pan.
“I see something,” Jimmy Norquay gasped. He pointed ahead of him.
There, still a good march away, was a milky patch stamped upon the land, sticking out like a polished eggshell.
“The hell is that?” Gilbert asked for them all.
“A rock,” Jimmy said.
A rock wasn’t going to help them, but there was something odd about it. Still, hope drained from Nathan’s chest, his mind fabricating all sorts of fiery demises once the sun cleared the distant ridge. A sound caught his attention and he swivelled to the left. Mackenzie did the same, having dropped back from where he walked with Shorty.
“The hell is that?” Eli stressed, hearing the noise as well.
Nathan scanned the nearly flat plain and located the disturbance. His mouth dropped open at the sight.
Perhaps a hundred yards away, a black fin bulged upwards and broke free of the surface in a puff of sand. At first, Nathan thought he was staring at the broad side of a big old bass violin, the kind he saw people play at town dances. He couldn’t see the details, but he knew that something wasn’t quite right. Grit fell away from the thick curvature, but a lot still coated the thing. More of the sand bulged and crumbled away as the shape continued to rise, taking great effort to free itself from the desert’s clutches before pausing as if recovering its strength.
The spectacle captivated the train robbers.
The bass violin pushed again and more of its bulk came free, just as a second bass violin breached the grainy detritus that marked the wake of the first.
“The hell is that, Leland?” Eli asked again.
“No idea, Eli.”
“It’s big,” Shorty noted. “And alive.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth when the lower section of the violin came free of the desert. The thing lifted itself into the morning air like a flower searching out the sun. Thick, gnarly stalks supported the mass, appearing like several stumps of old cedar or the like, all connected.
“We better get moving,” Nathan said in a low tone, fear doing the talking for him.
The violin shape split apart in the middle.
“Lord Almighty,” Mackenzie said, realizing what the thing truly was.
It was a claw.
A great pincer flexed its length with an energetic clap clap, the sound loud and startling and carrying across the empty space. The pincer snapped three times more in lively succession. The significance of the larger disc underneath the claw suddenly became much clearer. A substantial ridge popped free, creating a billowing dust fall. The dense outline took shape within that cloud and turned around.
The men didn’t wait. Nathan was running with the rest of his companions.
“Oh Jesus,” Eli was panting as he chugged along.
“Oh Jesus, oh Jesus!” Gilbert stressed in even greater volume.
Oh Jesus, indeed, Nathan thought, his fright giving him all the energy he needed as he ran away from the emerging crab thing.
But all around them, other crabs were rising, near and far. In fact, everywhere he looked, points and shapes were emerging, summoned by the approaching dawn. Claws erupted from once flat planes, some slow, some popping forth with vigor. Some claws shot straight up like fat, serrated Vs while others shook off the sand’s weight with great vibrations. One section of the sand exploded forth in a pile of black grain, not a dozen yards away, and that one frightened Nathan worst of all.
That claw was attached to a mass perhaps the size of a fully-grown cow, black and disc-shaped like a crab, but covered in a shaggy coat that might have been hair. The thing turned, rotating itself on a multitude of legs that Nathan didn’t count. A second claw came into view and flexed—Clapclapclap!—snapping out a code as clear as an evening dinner bell.
“Oh shit!” Gilbert shouted, still carrying his gear.
“Run!” Jimmy shouted.
They ran—as best as they could given the loads they carried—charging the glowing green line brightening the horizon.
A flicker of movement to the right caught Nathan’s eye. Then his left, and he felt his bowels loosen.
There were hundreds of the things. In fact, sand clouds were
erupting as far as the eye could see, meaning there were thousands of the creatures pulling themselves free of the earth. All around. Even in their direct path.
Leland and Jimmy veered around the violent breaches of the enormous monsters. By the time Nathan and Mackenzie rushed by them, the beasts were flexing their claws, sending up even more sand. Grit pelted the men, covering their skinny-assed frames and sticking like an unpleasant dew.
Nathan heard a moaning and realized it was himself.
The crabs scurried after them, their legs obscured by dust clouds. They nimbly kept pace with the fleeing men, skittering sideways in parallel lines, as if studying the curious creatures in their midst. The crabs were hairy things, the strands clotted with sand and filth. Their bodies were round and meaty, and as big and bulky as cattle. Claws snapped out that hungry code while a few remained open and were held at guard, protecting alien faces.
Dozens of black, soulless eyes the size of fists tracked the men.
A shot rang out, causing Nathan to flinch.
Leland fired his Winchester a second time, and the cattle-sized crab beast that approached him cringed as if it had been stepped on and skittered back a few paces. It went no farther, however.
Leland—who had dropped all his gear except his rifle—stopped and fired at another crab darting forward. The bullet zinged off the hairy shell of the beast, driving it back. But Nathan wasn’t sure if it was the impact frightening it or the sound of the shot itself.
He dropped everything except his Colts and aimed at one crab coming too close. He fired, parting a patch of weedy hair the size of a pine knot. The crab retreated in a flurry of legs and sand, but didn’t go far.
More of the creatures gathered around the fringes, while hundreds more filled the land beyond that, attracted to the confrontation. There were far too many to count, and certainly too many to fight. The tallest of the things were chest height, with smaller ones no higher than a man’s waist.
And they were closing in.
A metallic hammering distracted Nathan, and he saw Jimmy slamming the butt of his rifle into that milky plate that they’d seen earlier from a distance. Over Jimmy’s head a green line of dawn trembled and fattened upon the horizon, flaring to life like the first flames taking to kindle. And, though Nathan had been preoccupied by the monster crabs, a hot and ferocious heat engulfed his face—the searing temperature spike of an inferno.
“Get around him!” Leland bellowed.
The men encircled Jimmy Norquay as he hammered that odd-looking plate.
All the while, the very earth trembled from an awakening army of crabs.
Shorty roared as he stood fast and leveled his shotgun at the monsters edging closer, their claws poised and ready. Shorty fired both barrels, hitting the nearest one square in a hot spatter of lead. The blast drove the creature and the ones behind it back in a flurry of legs and claw claps.
Jimmy dropped his knees and fanned the surface of the door-sized plate, clearing it of dust. There were markings upon the metal skin, fat scrawls that shouted out a mysterious message. Nathan didn’t know what they were, but he dropped alongside Jimmy and felt the hot exterior.
“Steel?” he asked.
Jimmy shook his head.
“Shoot anything that gets too close!” Leland yelled overhead. “Anything!”
The rest of the gang surrounded Nathan and Jimmy, marking the borders of that little island of metal. Naked-ass cheeks and an assortment of skinny and broad backs—complete with dimples—shone in the growing morning light. Beyond that, the crabs orbited the little circle of men, coming closer in arcs, as if daring them to do something. Claws snipped and flashed like well-oiled scissors, while those black orbs that had to be eyes studied the little gang and wondered how they tasted.
Eli shot one crab square in the face. The monster took the blast, its legs tensing up upon impact, before scuttling away.
Not far enough, however, as the number of crabs behind it was too thick to allow it to go any farther.
And that started the shooting in earnest.
The men screamed as they unloaded into the black-haired crustaceans, and all the while Nathan and Jimmy bent their heads and readied themselves for another round of gunfire. There was no cover, nowhere to run or hide. The little island of metal would mark the gang’s final stand—before they were overwhelmed and devoured.
Shorty reloaded and fired again at a crab that was becoming far too brave. The shot scrubbed the hair from the creature’s face and burst open one of those can-sized eyes in a spray of pink jelly, splashing the rest of the shell in a thin lather. The crab didn’t retreat, however; rather, it darted forward and grabbed Shorty’s leg. Shorty went down with a scream, his leg suddenly gone below the knee. The crab scuttled backwards, holding the severed limb in one claw while the other one snapped excitedly.
A screaming Shorty writhed on his back, holding onto his lower leg that whipped and flung dark gushes at the desert. Jimmy latched onto him and pulled him into the circle.
Another crab had a different idea, however, and charged. Its claws snapped at Shorty and neatly snipped off his right arm at the bicep. The big man shrieked, a piercing note that paralyzed Nathan. A great eye flicked one way then the other, birdlike, and focused on Shorty’s bloody bits. Shorty thrashed under the life-stealing procedure. Gunfire erupted, blazing away at the black-haired shell where lengthy strands of hair drooped and hung, spattered and clingy with sand and other dried matter. Men screamed. Gunsmoke burned the men’s eyes and lit up their sinus cavities.
Eli hammered the attacking crab with the butt of his Winchester and that backed the creature up on its legs. The monster withdrew, but a claw clamped down on Shorty’s other leg and dragged him free of the circle of men. Jimmy tried to hold onto him, but Shorty’s blood-slicked limbs and shoulders rendered it impossible to maintain a grip. Shorty continued to howl. He crunched himself in close to the attacking crab and drove his remaining fist into the space between its eyes. The men fired at the beast, hoping to free their companion, but another crab barreled into their midst and promptly snatched up Shorty’s severed arm. Leland fired at the thing point-blank, and a piece of shell flew out of the creature’s hide. The crab scrabbled off while stuffing Shorty’s dead fingers into its mouth. Meanwhile, other crabs converged upon Shorty’s weakening frame, and one quick snip separated the big man’s head from his shoulders in a shocking burst of tar.
“Shorty!” Leland shouted, before a crab reached in and cleanly pinched his foot away from his ankle. Leland fell screaming. The men whirled about, firing as they did so, facing the chest-high monstrosity scuttling up their leader’s spine.
“Christ Almighty!” Eli screamed and fired, feverishly working his Winchester’s lever like a punctured bellows.
The crab didn’t flinch under that barrage, even though pieces of shell split apart and spun off into the dying shadows. Leland half turned, coming up with a pistol, and planted the gun square against the soft underside of the beast—when another crab darted forward, emboldened by the success of its brethren, and snipped off Leland’s gun arm at the elbow. The gang leader fell, his stump spraying a jagged line across Nathan’s chin and neck. Mackenzie was screeching. Gilbert was reloading. Eli hammered his rifle’s shoulder butt into the face of the attacking crab. Sand and grit salted the air, while jets of blood snaked throughout. Gunsmoke also added to the chaos, rendering all as apparitions.
Gilbert joined Eli and pounded the monster with his rifle, as did Mackenzie, but the crab did not release Leland. In fact, the other claw belonging to Leland’s captor came around and sheared off the top of the gang leader’s hairy head in a crackle of bone, and that was that.
Like a starter’s pistol, that unmistakable, gut-clenching crunch attracted the rest of the crabs.
Hundreds, thousands scrambled towards the growing melee, drawn by the noise or the blood or the violence. Perhaps everything. In that fleeting glimpse of certain death, Nathan’s mind and blood went cold,
despite the rising temperature.
We’re dead, he thought. He clawed at the metal beneath him.
When his fingers dug into something.
He glanced down and saw that he was no longer upon the large metal plate he and Jimmy had tried to clear away. His animated retreat from the attacking crabs had uncovered a distinct curve along the thing’s surface, as well as a groove that his fingers had hooked into, an indentation with a bunch of black markings, partially uncovered, pointing at the inset.
Above the screaming and the gunfire and the blood, Nathan jammed his hand into that inset.
His fingertips sank into a pliable material, shockingly cold.
There was a ponderous click of metal, then a great prolonged scream that might’ve come from a storybook giant. The sound paralyzed Nathan.
Just before the world rose beneath him in a gush of white.
30
The white nose of a whale rose up from the desert depths in a long groan of metal, turning the very air into an unbreathable tempest. Nathan rolled down along the side of the emerging monolith in a cloud of grit and dust before landing at the bottom—except the bottom was expanding as the white cone at his back continued to rise. The other men fell as well, damn near frantic from the deaths of Shorty and Leland. The crabs withdrew as a black tide, their claws held up in a defensive posture, their thick legs barely visible through the dust clouds of their rapid retreat.
The shell at Nathan’s back stopped moving.
He twisted around, wrenching his attention off the carnivorous multitudes not twenty paces away, and squinted at the milk-bone whiteness of the thing behind him. It resembled a revolver’s spent shell, the tip flattened as if it had smashed itself against a slab of pig iron.
And it was the size of a house.
Sandy ribbons snaked off its heights as Nathan checked on the surrounding crabs. Those multitudes were no longer retreating, but rather tensed with a predatory readiness.
“What is it?” Mackenzie was shouting, his face lifted and staring at the heights.
Nathan couldn’t answer because he didn’t know. The crabs didn’t seem to like it, however, but they were getting used to it pretty fast.
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