He screamed and dodged to the side as it lashed out at him. It missed by bare inches and slammed into the gate.
Imogen was busy keeping more from climbing over and so couldn’t help, while Eliza and Rufus were dealing with the one at the front gate, and Mirabelle scanning the sky.
Cal quickly rolled to his feet and faced off with the thing.
Its mouthparts moved slowly as its alien eyes locked onto him, the rest of it completely still now, like a spider ready to pounce.
Cal struck first, jabbing out with his long spear, using the advantage of his longer reach.
But it parried the attack with one of its upper limbs—the ones which were wings on the flying versions—knocking it aside and almost out of his grip, and jumped for him.
He again dodged to the side but this time wasn’t quick enough and felt a burning slash across his bicep.
He ignored the pain and spun around, quickly stabbing again. He connected, but not hard enough and it skidded off the thing’s hard carapace.
He leapt back, ready to stab once more, and only then noticed his spear felt lighter.
He looked at the end, saw the asshole had chopped off part of it, the sharp end now lying at its feet.
It paid no mind to this, its alien eyes locked onto him, once again having gone still save for its slowly moving mouthparts.
Beyond it, Mirabelle was shooting arrows at the two remaining flying ones, keeping them from divebombing again. How many arrows did she have left?
Eliza and Rufus were still fighting off ones at the front gate. Two more had made it in, but the one they’d been facing off with now lay dead with a spear sticking out of its chest.
He flicked his eyes back to the one in front of him, having looked away for no longer than a second.
As soon as he did the thing moved for him again, but this time it did something strange, propelling itself forward but staying low.
Cal realized it was going for his legs and tried to jerk away, but it lashed out, cutting open his ankle.
He screamed and went down, unable to ignore this pain, rolling over onto his back quickly as the monster came for him again.
He braced the broken spear against the ground and angled the shattered tip at it.
And as the creature flew toward him on its now inalterable path, he could’ve sworn he saw recognition in its alien eyes.
31
Ichor dripped on Cal’s bare stomach and he pushed the alien corpse off of himself.
It had landed with enough force that the broken spear had pierced through its unarmored, though still tough, abdomen.
He tried to pull the spear free but it wouldn’t come. He decided to leave it. It was broken anyway.
His ankle burned where the monster had slashed him and when he looked down he saw it was bleeding profusely.
Shit, he thought. Had it hit an artery?
He knew there were some leg wounds that were dangerous, that a person could bleed out from, but he wasn’t sure if there were any arteries in the ankle. The only one that came to mind was that one on the inner thigh, the femoral artery.
But it wasn’t gushing or spurting, so he hoped it would be fine.
He saw Imogen still fending off more at the gate, grabbed another spear, thought about using the alien talon-spear Eliza had made for him, but the wooden ones were longer and more suited to this task, and went to help her.
She was bleeding from slashes on her arms, but she wasn’t letting that slow her down.
“You okay?” he asked as he joined her.
She nodded firmly, not saying anything, just stabbing her spear at the ones trying to come over.
There were only two left on this side, but they weren’t giving up.
He quickly checked on Eliza and Rufus. They were having a worse time keeping them out, but an easier time killing them, as now four lay dead around them.
Mirabelle was still scanning the skies.
“How many flying ones left, Mirabelle?” he asked her.
“Still two,” she said, not looking at him, not taking her eyes off the sky, her bow up, arrow drawn back, ready to fire.
The two trying to get over the gate were determined, and even with both he and Imogen fending them off, one still made it past them by again leaping over their heads.
Cal cursed as he turned once more to face it.
Again, that stillness, that anticipation.
Then it made its move, even faster than the others.
He jabbed out for it but it dodged and kept coming, now inside his defenses.
Before he could react it slashed across his chest and then was behind him.
The cut wasn’t deep as he had already started spinning away, but it still stung like a bastard.
“Look out!” Mirabelle, who had her bow trained right above his head, shouted. “Down!”
He dropped and rolled as the monster who had just slashed his chest came for him again.
Above him, another of the flying ones was diving right for him.
Mirabelle would have to deal with it, as he had other problems.
Like the monster leaping for him.
He tried to do the same thing he’d done before, getting his spear up and impaling it, but this time the alien just batted it away.
Cal put his arms up as the thing landed atop him heavily, one of its talons slicing across his shoulder, just barely missing stabbing through it.
Its mouthparts moved excitedly as it pressed its advantage, pressed closer and closer to his face.
“You son of a…” he braced his back then pressed his legs down, lifting them both up, “bitch!” he finished in a primal roar as he flipped the thing over his head.
He rolled onto his stomach and popped up to his feet, only to have his stomach drop.
He was so close to the edge of the hilltop that he’d nearly tossed the alien off—and almost gone off himself.
He stood three feet from the edge, watching the alien as it scrambled for purchase, trying to pull itself up.
He still had his spear and now jabbed the weapon at its face.
It lashed it away before it could connect, but this was a fatal mistake. It lost its tenuous grip on the hilltop and plummeted off to the ground two-hundred feet below.
Cal took a second to stare over the edge where the monster lay splattered in pieces, feeling uneasy, thinking how close he’d just come to rolling off the edge himself.
They needed to get some kind of fence up here.
Then he turned to check on Mirabelle. “You get it?”
“No.”
He scanned the skies, making sure nothing was immediately coming for them. “How many arrows you have left?”
“Three.”
“Fuck.”
He saw Imogen running away from the front gate. “What’s wrong?”
“Just killed the last one.”
Cal nodded, looked to the front gate where Rufus and Eliza were, Rufus rumble-growling.
“Eliza, how many left?”
“Two outside.”
“What are you doing?” She was standing with her spear up, but not making a move.
“They’re not coming over anymore,” she answered, not taking her eyes from the gate.
He moved to the gate and peered over.
Two of the alien monsters stared back up at him.
He glanced down at Rufus, then back to the aliens. “I wonder if they’re afraid of him.”
“They should be,” Eliza said, patting his head proudly.
“You two stay here,” he told her. “Kill anything that comes over. Imogen, guard the rear gate just in case. If you stick close to the palisade the flying ones won’t be able to dive at you as easily.”
Mirabelle was still scanning the skies.
“Mirabelle, you said there’s two of the flying ones left?”
She nodded.
“Don’t fire again unless you’re certain you can take them out.”
“Okay.”
The
y waited, Eliza and Rufus guarding the front gate, Imogen the rear, and Cal and Mirabelle looking up at the star-filled sky, watching for signs of movement against the dark backdrop.
“They’re leaving,” Eliza called.
Cal rushed to the front gate and peered over.
The two remaining aliens were running down the front path.
“What the hell?”
“Maybe they’re scared of us.”
“They damn well should be,” Imogen said.
“Anything?” Cal asked Mirabelle.
“Nothing.”
They waited for one minute, two.
Two turned into ten and still, nothing attacked.
Mirabelle reluctantly lowered her bow, shaking out her hand. “I think they’re gone.”
“Yeah,” Cal reluctantly agreed. “Maybe. Stay alert anyway.”
She looked over at him, then down. She rolled her eyes. “Oh great, now there’s two of you.”
“Huh?” Cal looked down at himself.
And felt his stomach drop when he saw that he was naked, his jewels blowing in the breeze.
32
Cal, not being from the future as Eliza was, put on his loincloth.
Not so much because he was embarrassed or even uncomfortable, but more because the idea that he had been fighting aliens with sharp talons and oversized mouthparts with Richard and the twins slapping about made him very uneasy.
A loincloth wasn’t much in the way of armor, but at least it was something.
He looked at the alien corpses, of which they now had even more of, and thought about making something like a cup from their carapaces.
The thought of having bits of dead alien corpses so close to his privates bordered on revolting, but the idea of having one of them bite into his dangling bait was worse. Besides, he could use his loincloth to line it.
Eliza was ruffling Rufus’s head, who was relaxed now, perhaps sensing there were no more monsters nearby. “What a good boy you are,” she told him as he let his tongue loll out and looked obscenely happy with the attention he was receiving.
Cal had to agree though, he had been a lot of help. They might not have won if it hadn’t been for him—even if he had been sleeping on the job for the beginning of it. He was a great guard dog.
When he was awake.
“That was too soon,” Cal said. “It’s only been a few days since the last one.”
“And our spikes didn’t stop them,” Imogen said. “Barely slowed them.”
He nodded, noting with some pride that the outfit of leaves he’d made for her had held up remarkably well. “I think what you said earlier is right. We need to make the gates taller.”
“Won’t much matter with the ones that can fly,” Mirabelle said, shaking her head. “As if non-flying ones weren’t bad enough.”
“We definitely need to make more bows and more arrows,” Cal agreed.
“Even the ones that couldn’t fly seemed different.” Eliza said “Stronger.”
Cal nodded. “Yeah, I noticed that. They could jump better than the old ones and were more aggressive.”
“It’s all my fault,” Imogen said.
The three looked at her in confusion.
She was looking down, looking not so confident for once. But she made herself look up to meet their eyes.
“I don’t think they’re stronger because of you,” Cal said doubtfully. “We had four before and—”
“No,” Imogen interrupted. “I mean getting ambushed. I was the one on watch and I didn’t know they were coming because I don’t have one of those things in my head that you all do.”
“No,” Cal said, “it’s not your—”
“Don’t. It is. If I’d had one I would have gotten a warning, could have woken you all up before they got a chance to ambush us.”
Cal wasn’t so sure about this. The last warning had come only moments before they had appeared. “Imogen—” he began.
“No, Cal,” she interrupted again, staring hard at him. “I’m ready. You can activate me.”
“We don’t even know what it will really do,” Eliza said. “It might do something besides give you a display.”
“There’s one way to find out. It’s either that, or I don’t keep watch, which isn’t fair. We all need to do our part.”
Cal sighed. “Imogen, you don’t have to—”
“I want to.”
He sighed again, holding out his hands and letting them drop. “All right. It’s your choice.” He looked around at the alien corpses. “Let’s get this place cleaned up first.”
Mirabelle nodded at the dead winged one. “I think I can use those to make fletching. They look sturdy and should work better than the leaves I’m using.”
She looked between Imogen and Cal. “First we need to clean up your wounds.” She, Eliza, and Rufus were unscathed—though a few of Eliza’s old wounds had opened and two had blood trailing down from them, though no longer seemed to be actively bleeding—but Imogen and Cal had several cuts on their bodies, Imogen’s mostly limited to her arms.
Thankfully the gash on his ankle had clotted and stopped bleeding, and his other wounds had barely bled at all.
And so they dragged the alien corpses to a pile next to the other already dismembered ones, Rufus even getting in on the action and dragging one all by himself.
Cal at first thought he was going to play with it or destroy it or—God forbid—eat it, but he only walked backwards, dragging it in his jaws and then jerking his head to hoist it onto the pile with a sigh.
Eliza patted his head and fawned over him. “Such a smart boy.”
Once this was done, Eliza cleaned Imogen’s wounds while Mirabelle cleaned Cal’s, then got them bandaged up with the few bandage-leaves they had left.
“We need to get more of these,” Eliza said. “Only one Tylenol flower left.”
“Give it to her,” Cal said, motioning at Imogen.
“You’ll split it,” Eliza said, tearing it in half and holding a half out to each.
Cal shook his head, pushing it away. “No, I—”
“Just eat the damn flower,” Imogen said, taking her own and chewing it.
“I’m not in pain.”
“They might fight infection or help you heal faster. Just eat the freaking flower.”
Cal sighed and took the flower, was about to protest again, but then saw the look all three women were giving him and dutifully put the flower in his mouth and chewed.
He swallowed then said, “Happy?”
Mirabelle nodded. “Very.”
Eliza nodded as well. “Yes.”
Imogen pushed herself to her feet, looking up at the sky, which was beginning to lighten. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m too amped up to sleep.” She looked at Cal. “I’m ready to be activated.”
“I don’t have any upgrade tokens.”
“I’ll do it,” Mirabelle said. She absently ran her index and middle finger over one of her horns.
Given the horns, she probably wasn’t too eager to find out what either the LIFE or DEATH upgrades would do to her.
“You sure?” Cal asked Imogen. “We can’t know for certain what effect this will have.”
“I already said I am. Let’s just get it over with.”
Mirabelle looked a question at Cal.
He sighed and nodded at her.
She nodded back, then focused on Imogen. “Here goes nothing.”
33
Cal blinked, his eyes doing that weird focusing thing that had happened when he’d woken up from his concussion.
He’d been looking at Imogen, now he wasn’t. Instead he was staring up at the sky.
He sat up—how had he ended up on the ground?
He looked around for Imogen, but didn’t see her anywhere.
Eliza and Mirabelle were both sitting up as well, Rufus whining as he licked Eliza’s face.
“What happened?” Eliza asked, absently pushing the alien dog away.
&nb
sp; “Imogen’s gone,” Cal said, getting to his feet.
Mirabelle put her hand to her mouth, her eyes growing watery. “Oh no. What did I do?”
“It wasn’t—” he began, then an alert from his interface drew his attention.
NEW ARRIVAL INCOMING
The message faded and was replaced with a countdown.
There was also a dot indicating which way to go, just like there had been to the door that had led them to Earth.
“Did you two both—”
“Yeah,” Eliza said. “She might be at the clearing we all first appeared in. Dot is in the right direction for that.”
“Damn,” Cal swore. He hoped she was all right. “Gear up and let’s go get her.”
“All of us?” Mirabelle asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. We should stick together. Four of those things ran away and might still be out there. Which is why we need to hurry.”
“Okay,” Mirabelle said and went to get her bow and arrows.
Cal looked at Eliza, “Want to put your clothes on now? Most of the leaves have fallen off anyway and you’re not bleeding anymore.”
She smiled at him. “Why bother? It’s not like there’s anyone that’s going to see my nudity.”
He stared at her. “Uhh…”
She laughed. “I’m just kidding. Obviously me being like this distracts you far too much. We can’t have that.”
Rufus sat under the tree watching as she walked over to the gate where her clothes had been knocked to the ground by the attacking monsters.
She put them on, and though they were even more ragged than before, it was true that Cal was able to focus a bit better with her covered.
He briefly wondered if that was why people had invented clothes: so men wouldn’t be distracted all the time.
“Are we going to have enough time to make it there before she arrives?” Cal asked Eliza, trying not to stare at the way her loincloth didn’t quite cover her as she walked back toward him. He’d just seen her completely naked, why was this turning him on?
“It’ll be close,” she answered, giving him a knowing grin.
“And she doesn’t know the area.” He shook his head, growing serious. “We should have told her more.”
Survivor: World of Monsters 2 Page 9