The line of people broke back, choosing places behind parked cars or any cover they could find. The fire came intermittently now as all semblance of order was lost in chaos. The shot still came hot and heavy from the people, who would have seemed shockingly heavily armed for a civilian group. The crab’s progress was halted as it tried to get a bead on its next target.
“Keep firing!” a man shouted as he loaded another clip into his assault rifle and let loose a stream of bullets that sent shockwaves of recoil of his arms. The crab took a couple steps back and bent its legs, getting lower in the water. This heartened the people who stepped forward and kept their barrage of firepower going full tilt. They didn’t aim well in their fury and many of their bullets hit their unfortunate neighbors who were pinioned on the crab’s back. The crab reared back. Held in its claws was a huge log of an ancient felled timber. It tossed the log forward in a monstrous arch. The people in its path turned to run but they had no chance to retreat the oncoming death. The log rolled over them easily, squashing them to the concrete parking lot. The log crushed several cars in its path until finally losing steam as it crunched into Duke’s tow truck at the end of the lot. The people had only just recovered their shock when the crab picked up another log and threw. This shot didn’t kill as many as the first one because the people were ready for it, but it put them in total disarray. They weren’t firing nearly as much as they were and this allowed the crab to recover somewhat and take another step forward.
“Mel! Get to the office and pull the emergency switch!” Mel, who was hunkered down behind an overturned El Camino and furiously loading a semi-automatic shotgun, dropped the weapon and made a beeline for the office. The survivors turned and fired upon the crab, shouting curses and threats to keep it occupied in any other direction than Mel’s. The people realized that they couldn’t stop the crab with their firepower alone. They hoped that Mel could get to the defenses without dying and that they still worked. They hadn’t been used in over a decade.
The last time this happened.
Chapter - 33
Mel drove his legs forward, running as fast as was possible for his seventy-year-old frame. It was an odd, shambling run, but it was quick enough. Mel had a feeling that certain death added a little pep to his step. He was nearing the office when he heard someone scream for him to watch out. He turned to see the crab swiping a claw in his direction. He neglected the door of the office, stepped up on the bench and tried to dive through the glass window. The window spider-webbed but did not break. Mel fell backwards onto the ground with a dull thud. He felt his arm snap at the elbow. He sat up and grunted, wondering how he ever felt he could possibly smash through a storefront window like he was some sort of action hero, not just a simple old man. The crab claw missed him by a few feet, swiping over his head, and crashing into the office, tearing the building in half.
Mel rose to his feet slowly. He cradled his broken arm, and wondered if he were going into shock. He sure as shit didn’t feel any pain. His mind swam a bit as he wandered away from the office building instead of going into it. “Yep,” he thought, “I’m going into shock all right.” Mel turned back towards the building and shambled forward, pulling open the shattered office front door and stepping inside. He walked to the back of the office and moved behind the clerks’ desk. Mel knelt down, cursing the cracking of his knee joints. He wondered if he would be able to get back up when he was done with this. Mel touched the edge of the carpet at the back edge of the floor under the desk and pulled. A neat square, cut exactly so that nobody who saw it at a cursory glance would know what it was, pulled back revealing a small trap door. Mel lifted the unlocked latch to reveal a dirty, yet unrusted, black safe. He opened the lock, since he was one of those trusted with the code, and opened the safe lid.
Sweat stung his eyes. He sat back and wiped it away with a liver-spotted hand. This was taking too much time. Mel didn’t have to look to know the destruction the crab was wreaking outside. At least the monster was still in the parking lot, but how long could that last? He bet that at least half of them were already dead, and he didn’t even want to think about how many family members and friends he lost out there already. He leaned forward, reaching into the safe. He felt something give in his back and fell forward, hitting his forehead on the lip of the safe.
“You doddering old man,” Mel said aloud, as talking to himself wasn’t unnatural for him. His wife had died over fifteen years ago. Mel knew that anyone left alone too long would begin to talk to themselves. It was only natural to fill the void. He wiped the blood that was now mixing with the sweat in his eyes. “Make yourself useful. At least one last time.” He picked up a small black box the size of his palm out of the safe. The box had nothing on it except for a green button, dead center. Mel pressed the button and listened. Nothing happened.
“What the flim-flamming-fuck!” Mel screamed. He pressed the button several times, but the result was the same. Nothing. Mel tried to stand up, but he had twisted something in his back and he couldn’t move more than a couple inches without incredible pain. He didn’t think that mattered much, because he was pretty sure his knees were shot anyway, let alone his broken arm which had swollen up to the size of someone who pumped barbells several hours a day. He leaned forward again to relieve some of the pain in his back when he saw it. Inside the safe were a couple of triple-A batteries. Mel turned the black box over in his hand and worked the battery case open with his thumb. It was empty.
“At least someone was thinking back then,” Mel said, reasoning that whomever put this device inside the safe knew that the batteries would be dead if left in. Mel didn’t think they would work even now. He wondered what the shelf life was on batteries anyway. Did they expire? He thought they might. He had a hard time getting the things in the battery case with his fucked up arm, but it worked. He listened for a moment to the happenings outside. The crab had gained ground on the people. To Mel’s ears, the monster must be in the middle of the parking lot. Mel prayed that the box would work. He pressed the green button. There wasn’t a sound, but the button glowed a vibrant neon. Mel smiled and slumped forward. Maybe someone would come for him and maybe not. He didn’t care much if he lived or died at this point. At least he could be useful one last time. He just hoped he was in time. He hoped the cavalry would show up soon.
Chapter - 34
Mel got his wish. The green button didn’t just light up in the destroyed dock office building. It lit up in alarm bells in the surrounding counties and several along the coast for many miles. The younger members of the community or outsiders didn’t know what it meant. It had been more than a decade since that particular alarm rang, but the rest of them did and the mobilization was swift. Citizens went inside and collected whatever firearms they owned. Those who didn’t have enough ammo drove directly to the nearest shop and cleaned house, leaving the owner with a stack of IOUs and a disgruntled look. Cars and trucks were loaded and the entire populace drove directly to ground zero, where the trouble was happening. The last time they fought the crab, it took a wall of firing guns to drive the beast back into the ocean. The alarms were set up to get everyone on point and quickly drive the beast away, and maybe hopefully kill the damn thing this time.
Deep within the woods, the first peals of the alarm reached the vagrants. They came out of their man-made shelters and broken down trucks and looked at each other nodding greetings as they loaded their deadly and aged weapons.
“Looks like we’re about to go through hell again,” a man said, a deep gash scarred his cheek, parting his beard like Moses did to the Red Sea.
Chapter - 35
The people weren’t the only ones mobilizing due to the alarm. The monster crab heard it too. The gigantic beast stepped away from the wreckage as soon as it heard the alarms, which could be heard for miles around. The crab felt the salt water sting its multiple flesh wounds as it submerged itself back beneath the waves. The crab drifted below and sank to the ocean bottom, landing gently on a multi
tude of spider crabs, simple in size but still terrible to behold at a nine foot span from leg to leg. There were thousands of them, spread out for miles in every direction. It was as if they knew their master was on the attack and they wanted to witness it for themselves.
The monster crab brought its claws together. They cracked resoundingly like two immense trees smashing in a hurricanic cataclysm. The myriad of drifting spider crabs responded to the calls by climbing upward. Slowly and deliberately they moved en masse toward the surface. The monster crab swung its claws out and back together again. The sound of the clash could be heard and felt for miles below the ocean water. Like an army called to attack, the spider crabs were on the move. The teeming horde of scrabbling legs, claws and clacking mandibles looked like hell had opened up and expunged its army among the damned.
For thirty miles along the coastline they came, pulling themselves out of the water and moving along the land. Their efforts were mighty, but their progress slow. These crabs weren’t meant to live on the surface. Their bodies were too heavy to be picked up by their long, spindly legs. However, their numbers were immense. Like a moving spiked carpet, they climbed over each other to land on the sand or rocky soil to let their brothers climb over them and then again. The ground became a moving wall of armored flesh. Whatever they caught in their claws died. At first only fish caught on the way to the surface were rent into pieces by the tearing claws and biting mandibles, but then small mammals, and reptiles that weren’t quick enough to get out of the swarm’s way were overtaken and killed. The crabs didn’t spare any living thing in their wake. Their only thought was to kill or die. Nothing else.
The people saw them from their cars as they drove along the small lettered highways toward the ground zero of the attack. Those quickest to respond to the alarm drove by the oncoming horde with no problems. They looked on in horror at the slow moving throng from outside their car windows. Some of them laughed as they shot assault rifles from their cars or trucks and watched their bullets hit the wall of living flesh, searing off limbs and cutting bodies in two. There were so many that several exhausted clips seemed to make no difference in the onslaught. It was those slowest to react to the alarm that suffered the first losses. The crabs overtook the highway, getting crushed under speeding tires and riddled with bullets from passing cars. Soon the roads were teeming with the live and dead crustaceans, making the car tires skid on the roads, sending drivers crashing to their deaths against trees and overturning cars in ditches. Survivors got out of their vehicles and ran for the trees. Not all of them were so lucky.
Chip Parker and his buddy Chris were gunning the engine on their Ford F150 as they sped along the highway behind an old Plymouth Duster. Chip swore at the driver of the Duster for going too slow. The crabs were all over the road now. He swore as he thought of the extra time he took to load the back of the pick-up with guns and ammo. He brought everything, and if memory served him from the last time this happened, he was only ten at the time, he would need every last bullet. He could hear Chris in the back of the truck, firing off a repeating shotgun and whooping like he was crazy. Chip knew that Chris actually was crazy; he had known him since they were kids. There was nothing that Chris liked better than to kill something. Having a mess of things to shoot at was probably heaven to the guy. Chip liked to see living things splatter to pieces himself, but he had too much to concentrate on right now, no matter how much he would like to roll down the side window and shoot up some crabs. The truck was getting away from him.
At first he was having an easy time of things, running over the crabs was easy with the Ford’s oversized tires, but the damn things kept coming. Chris didn’t remember the last time having so many attacking at once. The tires began to slip. There were too many of them. It was like he couldn’t find the pavement anymore. There was that damned Duster in front of him too. Chris hit the four wheel drive and called through the back window to Chip, telling his buddy to hang on. Chip just kept that damn huge gun of his going almost non-stop. The Duster was just going too slow. Chip swore again, lustily and loudly although he knew that nobody would get the benefit of the words, which was probably a good thing since the driver of the classic car was Chip’s father, Steven. Chip had a sense of humor about a lot of things, but swearing at his dad wasn’t one of them. Chip liked having all his teeth so he decided that getting away with that once was enough.
The thought of slowing down to increase the grip of his tires on the road crossed his mind, but the increasing flow of crabs on the road scared him. They were covering the ground so that a person couldn’t see the pavement anymore. He was worried that the tires would slip even with four-wheel drive, and, worse yet, that the damn things would overtake the vehicle if he went too slowly. Chis hated the way the crabs looked. Their long, thin legs and squat bodies, so unwieldy and ungraceful out of the water. They looked like a thing from another planet. He would rather blow them to bits from a distance, thank you very much. He pushed the gas pedal down in an effort to push the duster’s speed a bit.
Chip was loading another clip and glanced at his father ahead of them. He thought that Chris was getting a little too close to his pop. He slapped the roof of the truck hard to get his attention.
“Back the fuck off of my dad,” he yelled. “You’re going to make us both wreck.”
“He needs to pick up speed,” Chris hollered back. “These things are all over us.” The Duster’s right rear tire spun on a group of particularly mushy crabs and made the car fantail. Chris was driving so close that the Duster’s bumper connected with the truck, making the car spin out totally. Chris hit the brakes hard. Even with four-wheel drive, his truck went sideways. He saw his friend Chip flying over the cab and landing on the mass of crabs below.
Chip couldn’t hear the crashing steel and screeching tires above the clacking scrabble of the crabs as they scuttled all over and around him. He tried to stand, but the wind had been knocked from his body and he was dazed by the violence of his wreck. The crabs were all around him. They were climbing up his body. They seemed to engulf him in a tidal wave. The creatures smelled of sea water and brine. Their spiked bodies scraped his skin. Their claws searched and pinched him from every direction. Sharp pains shot through his body seeming from every direction at once. His mind couldn’t get a bead on where he was hurt. He spun his arms, like a drowning man trying to get air. He panicked. He forgot the assault rifle was still in his hands. He depressed the trigger sending a stream of bullets in a wide arch, emptying the clip with one pull. Parts of crabs sprayed everywhere with the bullets. A long stream of hot lead tore into the F-150 as it began to roll over and over along the road. Chip bit down on his tongue and tasted blood. His jeans were nothing but tatters. His legs were flayed from the knees down. They relentlessly climbed onto him. They were so heavy that Chip fell to his knees.
He already knew that he was a dead man when he was thrown from the truck. He just didn’t count on it being so painful. The crabs poured onto him, crushing him beneath their weight. The air was compressed out of his lungs. He was pinioned, unable to move. He watched himself being eaten. The crabs swiped out claws that tore bits of flesh from his body and brought it to their mandibles where they ate with relish. The worst ones were attacking his face. They knew that he was caught and they took their time. No longer did they seem afraid that he would hurt them. They settled in to feed. Chip wheezed as bits of the flesh covering his cheekbones were ripped away. His lips were torn out at the sides, making him smile wider. With two easy swipes of the claw, a crab made Chip’s world go black. Tears fell out of the empty sockets that used to hold his eyes. Chip lived a crazy life. All his friends thought he would die in a blaze of fire and fury. He ended up dying slow, terrible and alone.
Chip’s father, Steven, had no idea that his son had preceded him in death, nor that he was about to follow him in into the great beyond. The Duster was spinning in circles and slowly veering off to the side of the road. Steven had spun out before, but never like t
his. He thought he was going to be sick. The carpet of flesh made the road nearly frictionless, keeping the car spinning at top speed, which made hitting the ditch such a jarring event. The spinning world crashed back into focus in one vicious slam into unyielding ground. Steven rocked his nose against the steering wheel, shattering the bridge and sending a spout of blood splattering across the dashboard. He leaned back in the driver’s seat holding his nose, not yet noticing that he had a pronounced dent in the left side of his forehead where he slammed it into the suicide knob he had put on the wheel over thirty years ago.
Steven held his hand on his bleeding face, but didn’t press very hard to quell the loss of blood. He didn’t really intend to do anything at all by putting his hand up. It was a natural reflex, which were the only ones he had left. The suicide knob had cracked his skull sending a bone splinter into his brain, knocking out rational thought. None of the windows of the Duster were broken and he watched with child-like expression, the crabs that covered his vehicle and tapped the glass trying to get at the meat inside. Steven put his hand out and tapped back. The whites of his eyes turned to red as blood filled the inside of his broken skull. His body fell limp as his soul left him.
Takaashigani Page 13