He glared at me. “It’s not your call. This is my town. My dead friends. I signed up for this long before you came here and every time we went on a rescue, I put my ass on the line. But I still went. Every time. I’m in it to the end.”
“You are one stubborn son of a bitch.”
“Hell, yeah.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the keys to the Rover carefully so they wouldn’t jingle and then handed them to Anne. She took them from me and put them in her pocket. “Be as quick as you can getting back to the car, and don’t worry about noise once you clear the fence.”
She raised her eyebrows at me. “I’m not going back to the car.”
“But you took the keys.”
“I did. Thanks.”
I had to take a deep breath and will my jaw to unclench in order to speak, and when I did, I did so slowly. “You. Need. To go.”
“If you’re staying, I’m staying. The only way I’m leaving is if I’m following you to the car. If you’re determined to do this, then I’m determined to stay here and keep you from getting killed.”
“Why are you so stubborn?”
“Because I don’t want you to die, jackass. What do you think? Also, since you don’t seem to know much about women, I should point out that you haven’t even started to see stubborn yet.”
I looked into her fierce, angry eyes and saw Patrick staring back at me. Ever since Anne had joined me in my search for Piotr, I had been fooling myself into thinking that I could get her out of harm’s way when we found him. That I could save her. But the truth was that she didn’t need saving any more than the rest of us did.
This was her fight as much as it was mine, and her right to die doing what she believed in. Her innocence had been taken the day that Patrick was murdered in front of her, and I grieved for what she lost. I never wanted her to become one of us. But I was proud to fight beside her.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. We’ll do this together. All of us.”
Her expression softened. I think she understood what it cost me to say those words. “Thanks. What’s the three person version of your plan?”
“I don’t know. I wish we had Mazie’s rifle. I’m a pretty good shot, but at this range the odds of me hitting Piotr are slim.”
“I’m a better shot than you,” said Anne, “and Dominic said that the ammo in this shotgun alternates between steel shot and slugs. I figure we’re about thirty yards away and a slug is good for at least fifty. I bet I could put some pretty good sized holes in him at this distance.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure I can do a better job of it than you, yes.”
“Alright, take the drum off and let’s get rid of the shot.”
Very gingerly she detached the drum, being careful to keep the noise to a minimum. She extracted all of the shells, sorted them by type, and then began to reload with only the slugs. Her fingers were slender and quick, and as she worked she spoke quietly. Her manner changed as she worked, calm and confident.
She began speaking quietly, as though reciting a lesson. I couldn’t tell if she was talking to me or even if she realized she was speaking out loud. “A .410 shotgun slug travels about 1700 feet per second and delivers almost 700 foot-pounds of kinetic energy. That’s a little more than a .357 magnum handgun round.” Shells quietly clicked into the drum’s receiver. Click. Click. Click. “The slug is lighter and more fragile than a .357 round, making it more likely to fragment, so the penetration isn’t as good. Of course, by “not as good,” I mean a person behind the target is less likely to be injured. The target will have an entry wound as big around as a golf ball and an exit wound the size of a baseball.” Click. Click.
I wondered at her childhood. How far had Patrick pushed to help her survive the future he saw for her? Most of the time she was just an unsure young woman full of wit and stubborn pride. But now for the first time, I was seeing something that Patrick had spent most of Anne’s life forging. Her skill and knowledge were her sword and shield against the world, but more than that, Patrick had managed to instill a sense detachment in her when she was in this place in her head. I imagine that he worked with her intensively on the competition circuit, knowing full well that that kind of conditioning would carry over to more real-world applications.
I remembered the night Patrick was killed. Most people would have been in shock to see their grandfather murdered in front of them, but I recalled how Anne dove for my gun like it was a raft at sea. And how in a split-second she had come up and fired with no hesitation and absolute precision.
It also occurred to me that she didn’t fall apart until after I took the gun from her.
Anne locked the drum into place with a quiet snap. We eased back up to the top, and after we were settled in, she began slowly inching the long barrel up over the lip.
I don’t know why people sense intense stares and gun barrels at a distance, I just know that they do. Anne moved slowly and smoothly, ensuring that if anyone did look up, there would be no abrupt motion to catch their eye.
It took forever for her to get the shotgun pointed at Piotr and the stock against her shoulder. She squinted through the iron sights and put a little tension on the trigger. “Ready.”
“When you shoot, all hell is going to break loose.”
“Shh.” She became very still. Her fingertip whitened as she slowly squeezed the trigger, never taking her eyes off of her sight picture. When the gun finally boomed, it was a surprise to all three of us.
Piotr was standing in the open, waiting for the next captive to be hauled up in front of him, when the round took him dead center in the chest.
I saw the moment of impact very clearly. Piotr didn’t jolt or rock back. There was no bloody wound. Instead, I saw the crushed bullet fragments drop to the ground between his feet. A thin, light-gray smoke hovered at his breast, and then seemed to uncurl and slide into his body out of sight.
All eyes snapped to the ridgeline while the report was still echoing around the quarry, and Piotr smiled his confident, chilling smile.
40
“Abraham!” shouted Piotr from the quarry. His voice was deep and smooth and carried easily, barely diminished by the wind and distance. “While I applaud the gesture, you know that’s not how this ends. An impersonal bullet fired by someone else? Not very satisfying, is it?”
The overpowering urge to slam my baton into Piotr’s skull returned, but I fought it down before I lost control and charged down the hill. He was taunting me, trying to goad me into attacking him. If I gave in, Anne and Chuck would be down the hill right behind me, and we’d all be torn apart by Piotr’s bags.
Five minutes ago, each of us had been prepared to make that sacrifice. But after seeing that shotgun slug drop harmlessly at Piotr’s feet? Now it seemed futile.
Self-control won out and I regained my composure. Gravel trickled down the face of the hill where I had kicked it loose by taking two or three involuntary steps.
Piotr’s smile slipped as he saw me master myself. His voice sounded angry now, less smug. “I’ve waited all this time for you to be ready, prepared every step of your journey—” Now it was his turn to fight for calm. “That’s fine. It won’t be long now. We’re drawn together by a higher purpose, you and I. Trust in that. Our time is coming. You just need another push.”
All but one of his guards had entered the van, taking the rejected prisoners with them. Piotr pointed at the one that remained by the water, and it turned to look at him. Some unseen communication passed between them for the briefest of moments, and then Piotr smiled at me and jumped into the van and slammed the door.
The last guard reached down and effortlessly picked up two of the dozen or more captives at his feet. He dangled them by their upper arms over the dark water of the quarry lake.
I drew my baton and broke into a run. Maybe I didn’t know how kill Piotr just yet, but that didn’t mean I had to stand by while his pet bag murdered all those captives.
Th
e guard slammed the first two men together. Bones cracked audibly under the impact, and then there was a splash as he let them drop into the water. The entire surface of the lake shuddered.
Instinct slowed me as the entire surface of the lake began to heave, slopping water over the edge of the quarry and over the feet of the bag standing there.
The van’s engine roared to life.
The bag spread his arms wide and threw his head back as the surface of the lake exploded.
I heard but didn’t see the van leave, as my eyes were fixed in horror on the thing that was emerging from the churning water.
41
A fleshy mass as large around as a hundred-year-old oak tree heaved skyward out of the lake. Water and wriggling things sluiced down its body in a hissing, plopping cascade as it reached a height of fifty feet or more.
Initially it appeared to be a thick column which tapered to a blunt point that swayed slowly back and forth in the air high above us. Its skin was rubbery, black, and warty in long strips and patches. In those sections hung drooping sacks, also black, but occasionally shading to gray as they stretched tight under internal pressure. Some of the sacks had burst and hung limp and ragged.
Can something be so horrifyingly wrong and alien that it was hard for the eye to make sense of its lines and features, but at the same time seem completely familiar? A feeling of instant recognition hit me, like glimpsing a friend just as he turns a corner, mixed with stunned confusion as I tried to understand what I was seeing. It was like the instinctive part of me knew exactly what I was looking at, even if the rest of me didn’t.
As I watched, the tip drooped down towards the captives gathered there at the edge of the quarry, pointing like a vast, grotesque finger.
It loomed closer to the knot of men who had been selected as good candidates, and who were on the ground, shouting and struggling against the plastic zip ties that bound their wrists and ankles.
The tip hovered a few feet from the closest man and then in a grotesque spasm, split open into five equal wedges, peeling back a third of its length and revealing corpse-like purplish maroon flesh on the inside, which was studded with thousands of long, thin backwards-pointing teeth.
Men screamed as the smell of rotting meat and oily musk rolled over them, and the wedges began to flex and writhe out of sync with each other. Now that it was fully revealed to me, a second sense of familiarity hit me, this time originating with my own experience. The head resembled one of the large worms that every bag carried in its belly, at least as far as the tentacles went, but on a gargantuan scale.
Only a few seconds had passed since the thing had surfaced. All of the tentacle tips drifted towards one of the helpless men, triggering another round of hoarse screaming, which snapped me out of my stupor.
I bolted forward and put myself between the man and the creature. Don’t ask me why I thought that would be a good plan, it just felt right. I stood my ground with the five thick tentacle tips pointing directly at my face.
They halted and hung in the air, hesitating for long seconds before each of the tentacles resumed their independent questing. I had hoped that the creature would react to me in the same way that the smaller one had done when attacking Leon, and it looked like I was right. I didn’t care to dwell on why that was. It turned from me and fixated on another man, one several feet to my right.
Since it had worked once before, I stepped quickly to the side to place myself once more between the monster and its victim.
Again it hesitated, then darted around me to try to get at the man. I reached down and yanked him away by the arm, sending him tumbling into several other captives. The tips of the massive tentacles dug shallow furrows in the stony ground next to me as the Mother struck where he had been. It jerked back, rearing high into the air.
Enraged, the tentacles snapped open as wide as they could go, revealing a gaping maw at the juncture where they grew out from the creature’s body. An enormous, awful bellow erupted from the creature, making the bruised-looking inner flesh around the maw vibrate and ripple and the water running down its sides stand up in shockwave patterns.
The sound was vast and deafening, but it wasn’t the volume that was so fearful, but the deep, resonant frequency. The vast majority of the sound must have been below the threshold of human hearing, but it could be felt as a punishing wave of pulsing vibration. The gravel around my feet danced and jittered under the assault.
The mouths of everyone around me were open, screaming into the maelstrom with their hands clapped over their ears and the skin on their faces and arms rippling.
I might have been screaming, too, I don’t know. All of the glass windows in the cars became silver dust trembling in the air, framed by rounded squares of painted metal.
Something pinwheeled into my peripheral vision, and I turned. I saw a crumpled piece of sheet metal skid across the ground, soundless against the endless onslaught, and recognized it as the remains of a folding bus door. One of the huge armored bags erupted from the bus.
His arms were flung wide, fingers splayed rigidly out, and his head was tilted back, pointing his face at the sky. His throat was stretched and swollen, with the skin bunching into purpling fleshy bands.
Five black tentacles emerged from his gaping mouth, spread outward across his face: across cheeks, eyes, and forehead, and at the center, a gaping, trumpeting hole occupying the same space as the mouth it was emerging from. The flesh of this maw also trembled, but any sound it may have made was lost in the din.
As if an answer was all that was sought, the unimaginable sound cut off like a switch. I pulled my hands away from my head as I realized that I had been clutching my ears like everyone else, and was surprised to see that there was no blood on them.
Even so, the new silence roared in my ears and things still seemed soundless to me. My body felt numb and buzzy, like I had just stepped off of a rollercoaster, and I could feel my hair settle back onto my head.
Everyone but me was on the ground, still curled up and clutching their ears, including Chuck and Anne. The Mother was no longer screaming, having summoned her offspring, but she was still enraged at my interference. The tentacles blurred into motion like cracking whips and snatched a man off the ground. She shoved him into her mouth with inward curling tentacles and the toothed walls convulsed on him. And then he was gone.
The guard ran ponderously towards me. The tentacles protruding from his mouth did not retreat back inside, but instead flailed at the air, grasping and twisting in my direction.
There was no time to draw my pistol, even had I wanted to do so. I had only my steel baton and my anger, but that was enough for me.
I swung downward in a short, vicious arc intended to pulp the guard’s head, but he jerked aside and my baton ended up coming down on his shoulder. The impact was solid. I felt it all the way up my arm, but it didn’t seem to faze him.
A toothed tentacle raked across my face like a wet rubber strap with broken glass embedded in it, and a ham fist drove into my chest like a sledgehammer.
I don’t recall crossing the space between the guard and the parked car I slammed into. One second I was upright, and the next I was sitting on my ass against the crushed door of a Honda.
By the time my eyes focused, he was nearly on top of me again, so I reached one hand up over my head and groped until I found the side mirror. I snapped it off of the car just in time to smash it into his face, glass and plastic shards exploding outward from the impact. The guard lurched back, both hands instinctively coming up, only to get tangled in the thrashing, bloody tentacles coming out of his face.
I stumbled away from the car while trying to figure out if the pain in my ribcage meant splintered bone fragments were already shredding my lungs, or if I was just bruised to hell and back, when it dawned on me that the first guard by the lake wasn’t bashing my skull in.
A quick look around revealed why. The first guard was too busy holding a captive over his head to be worried about beati
ng me into hamburger. The Mother had the tip of each tentacle holding the captive’s head steady, as a maggot-filled tube joined her mouth with his. It spasmed as a long shadow passed through it into the man, distending his throat briefly.
I looked away in revulsion and discovered something else. Anne and Chuck were gone.
42
Fear touched me as I felt events wheeling out of control. Piotr had driven off, waving and smiling, and I had no idea where he went. The thing that I had come to the quarry to kill had turned out to be a building-sized monster that could swallow me whole.
Not to mention that the biggest bag I had ever seen was trying to beat me to death, and doing a pretty good job of it. And to top things off, my friends were missing and could be in serious trouble.
I used to be good at this. When my squad was in trouble it was my job to instantly come up with a plan that was clear and simple and effective. And I always did. It was my gift the way that Henry soaked up knowledge and the way Patrick could sense the supernatural. It was why I was the leader, even though I was a good deal younger than everyone else.
But time and events had changed all of that. Now rage clouded my mind when I needed it most. That was just one more victory that Piotr had over me, one more weakness for him to exploit. If I let him. If you were to ask my father, he would tell you that I was the most intractable, unreasonable, pig-headed son of a bitch he’d ever met. And he’d say it with pride. I dug in and forced the world into focus.
My top priority was finding Anne and Chuck, but I needed to be alive for that. This fight had to end. The bag trying to kill me had recovered from being force-fed a car mirror and was heading towards me again.
I held my ground while it bore down on me and hit it at the last second with an uppercut to the jaw as hard as I could. I kept the baton in my fist as I swung, giving me the advantage of the old “roll of quarters” effect.
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