by P. F. White
Sven just shook his head and pointed dumbly out the window.
“I think...I think these are the...the...djävulen.”
“What?” snapped Claire. The ground shook again. She was horny, and scared, and a little pissed off right now. The baby got up and toddled over between their legs. He had one hand on each of them and he giggled. Then he pointed and said very clearly:
“That's a Biiiiiig monkey!”
Claire followed to where he was pointing and screamed. She felt almost like her mind was going to break from the sheer scale of it. Even in the distance it was clear to her. The end was nigh. Visions of fire and death sprang unbidden to her. Whatever that...thing was, it was almost as big as their entire building.
The ground shook as it took another step closer. It looked like it was staring directly at her.
Chapter Thirteen:
The first thing the newcomers tried when they got to the front of the building was to pile three bags beside it, run a cord out of the bags, and then run off to a safe distance where they could take shelter behind one of their armored cars.
“Oh shit,” said Adriana from the security office.
John just shrugged.
“I wouldn't worry,” he said, “Unless they just set up a nuclear device, I think we are safe.”
The newcomers did something, and for a moment the camera went instantly dark. From the security office everyone could hear a muffled thump like someone slamming a door very loudly. Adriana looked worried, but neither Allyn nor John showed the slightest concern. Then there came another, deeper and somehow more powerful thud. This one shook the whole building.
John sat up much straighter.
“That wasn't any explosive,” he said. He frowned. Allyn took control of the cameras and within a moment had a feed from the top of the building. No one said anything as they looked at what was before them.
“Wow,” said Adriana eventually. She didn't know what else to say. The one saving grace of the security cameras were that they didn't have a great resolution. From this distance and through this equipment: what she was seeing looked like something straight out of a late night monster movie.
John just nodded his head.
“I just don't know what to say,” said Adriana, “It doesn't seem real, I mean...well you know. Jesus, if my parents could see this they would freak out. They would probably start praying...or...or...”
She suddenly missed her husband very much. Surprisingly: she also missed her parents. She didn't know why, but right now there was a part of her that just wanted to turn off the feed and have someone in charge tell her that everything was going to be all right.
She didn't give in to those thoughts though. Whatever it was: she was determined to stay strong. She kept silent and just watched. They were all glued to the screen now. They simply couldn't look away.
Approaching the building at a slow and steady pace, each footstep accompanied by a deep resounding impact tremor, was nothing less than a giant monster. There really wasn't any other word for it. Adriana wanted there to be a word, or a term. Something scientific and Latin sounding. Something to give rational explanation to what she was witnessing...but there really wasn't. It was a giant monster, pure and simple. She simply had to try and accept that. She tried to take her mind off it by focusing upon details though, she found this sometimes helped keep an observer clinical and detached.
Before her was a creature, roughly humanoid, with a face seemingly constructed from a giant pulsing eye and a mane of hundreds of squirming tentacles. It's hands were clawed, with six or maybe seven fingers on each. It's skin was multicolored, splotchy, and either scaled like a fish or simply heavily patterned. The creature had no visible genitals, nor any other indication of sex. It appeared to be watching the newcomers with a detached interest, coming slowly towards them and, by extension, the building itself.
“Well,” said Adriana, “At least we know why they want in so bad...”
No one responded to that. There simply wasn't anything to say. Hank probably would have made a joke, or at least squeezed her hand. As it was she was left to simply nod.
Yep, she thought, that right there is what a giant monster looks like.
# # #
Claire was freaking out. She grabbed the baby with one hand, Sven with the other and dragged them both towards the door of the apartment as hard as she could. She was babbling, but didn't even realize it. Her mind was going to a million places at once as her body pulled the others through the halls at random.
“Claire!” called Sven, trying to get her to stop. She wouldn't. He repeated it even louder, struggling to pull her to a stop. She tried to let go of him, and so he grabbed her up in a big bear hug. She struggled and screamed. She was incoherent. She wasn't even using words anymore: just howls of fear.
“Slap her,” said the baby. Then it giggled as if the idea was funny.
Sven didn't like to take suggestions on hitting women from an infant, on the other hand: what was he supposed to do? Claire was thrashing around so hard, beating at him with her fists and crying incoherent babble that he was really worried about her. His mind hadn't yet even begun to process what was going on outside. His mind was stuck on managing the problems right here.
He raised a hand to slap Claire, but then she suddenly howled in pain and looked down.
The baby had somehow gotten out of her grip and taken matters into its' own hands. The baby bit her on the leg with his little toddler teeth. He broke off only to laugh at her and so she kicked him. He hit the ground with a thump, more dazed than hurt, and immediately broke into an uncontrollable sob.
Weirdly: this is what brought Claire back to sanity. She almost instantly stopped struggling, Sven let her go, and both of them went to comfort the baby who almost never cried.
“Shhh,” she said as she scooped up the bawling toddler, “Shhh it's okay. I'm sorry I- I'm sorry...” said Claire. She kissed her little brother and held him tight. Some other people had, at this point, heard the commotion and were coming out into the hallway to see what it was all about. Sven just shook his head and ignored them. Then the entire building shook again. It was getting close.
# # #
“Wow, they are trying again,” said Adriana, trying to keep herself calm, “They are quite...persistent...”
The group of strangers had piled more bags in front of the entrance now. It wasn't just three this time: it was already ten and they kept adding more.
“That's not going to be safe,” said Adriana as she realized they were going to just keep piling more explosives. “People will be hurt. Shit, I think-”
Allyn began saying: “We are perfectly-”
“No,” she said emphatically, “The blowback. Without anywhere for the explosion to go in this direction it's going to blow back and take out almost all of those people! Holy shit, we have to do something!”
John just shrugged.
“Well, they obviously aren't on the list or they would have contacted us-”
“Fuck your list!” shouted Adriana. They looked at her like she was crazy and she suddenly had an inkling what working with these two must be like for Hank. Adriana hesitated a moment, looking at the feed. She tore her eyes off the growing pile of explosives with difficulty. She had noticed something new, and cleared her throat, trying as hard as she could not to look at either the approaching monstrosity or the foolishly placed explosives.
“Can you bring up the camera near that one,” she pointed, “Near the side of the building, there. Do you see it?”
John was already turning the cameras, and trying to bring up what she was pointing at more clearly.
“I'll be,” he said quietly when they got a good picture of it.
There was a group of men and women equipped with some sort of climbing gear. They had formed two teams with suction grips and packs, even a few children strapped into carrying gear for the trip. They were clearly preparing to scale the side of the building.
“Can they..
.can they do that?” asked Adriana.
John shrugged.
“I don't see why not. They seem well prepared for it”
“They won't be able to get in on the roof,” said Allyn, “The door there is far too strong. But they should be able to get up to the top at any rate. Assuming they are competent climbers and do not fall.”
Adriana hesitated a moment. On the one hand: she knew what she had to do. She knew it more than anything in a long time. On the other hand: there were the repercussions of what she was going to do. She wished John were here, or anyone to help her. She didn't have time to argue with these two. She didn't even think she could convince them. She just stood and watched the group making its' preparations for the climb. Their packs were already fully loaded. Their expressions grim. They didn't expect to survive this, but they had to try. Adriana understood. She understood very well.
“Fuck it,” she said aloud and then bolted out of the room for the elevators. Allyn watched her go and then turned to John.
“That family is weird,” he said.
John just shrugged.
“They grow on you,” he admitted, “But I know what you mean.”
# # #
Hank got to the front but found he couldn't open the door himself. He could, however, work the communicator. He opened the channel and screamed out a big: “Hello!” into it in a desperate attempt to get one of the men laying the explosives to listen to him.
At first no one heard him. They were too busy lugging their bags to the door. There was still plenty of smoke from the previous explosion, but aside from that the door and entrance way seemed completely unharmed. Hank repeated himself a few times and eventually someone who looked like they were in charge held up a hand for the demolition team to stop and jogged over the communicator. The ground shook with the footsteps of the approaching creature. Hank didn't know that though, to him it was only a bunch of foolish people trying to get in.
“You gonna let us in?” said the large man who approached the communicator. The man's face was unshaven, his voice was gruff, and his manner very hard and professional. He was heavily muscled and seemed used to being in command.
“No,” said Hank firmly, “I can't. I want to, but I literally cannot. I don't have the code needed to unlock the door. You have to stop putting the explosives up, back up, maybe I can get-”
“Shut up,” said the man. There wasn't any malice in it, in fact: he sounded more tired than anything. “I ain't got time to listen to no chickenshit talk from a man who ain't even in charge. You wanna help? Open the fucking door. If not: I'm gonna tell you what we are gonna do.”
Hank could hear shouting from the others outside. They were moving the tank into position, setting up a few heavy machine-gun emplacements, and preparing to defend themselves from something he couldn't see. Hank had the feeling he was missing some piece of this puzzle. With every step the hidden malice in the situation only seemed to grow larger.
“First we's gonna blow this goddamn entrance open,” said the man, “Then we's gonna come inside. We gots hurt, we's gots sick. We cain't survive none out here no longer. We need inside that place- whatever the fuck it is. Simply the way it gotta be. We won't hurt no-one who don't resist, but we think this place is damn defensible. Got a gardener says he worked there, says you all built it like a goddamn bomb shelter. More than that though: we think we cain live here, so we's gonna live here. You can too, if'n there's room. Don't matter none t'me, but we are getting inside that fucking building.”
Hank waited for him to finish and then said simply:
“No you aren't. I know you have a lot of explosives, and I know you probably think you can get through these doors, but I'm telling you-”
“Son,” said the man with a condescending tone, “I've been bringing down buildings since afore you'se born. My daddy taught me back in the day. Us'ta be a decent job, now I cain get rid of those things with it, and maybe find a place to live. My folks need me more'n they need some peckerwood like you. So you cain either stand back or-”
“It won't be enough!” screamed Hank, “You can pile every goddamn explosive you want and it won't even dent the doors! All you are going to do is kill yours- You! Hey! Come back!”
The man was already walking away. He shouted a few orders to some of the other people, but Hank couldn't make them out. The tank outside fired its' first shot, but Hank couldn't see if it hit anything. There was another impact tremor afterward so he didn't think it mattered. Whatever was out there was clearly big. He paused, frustrated and feeling helpless. He had an image in his head of their first night here. He remembered seeing something so big it defied his imagination.
The men outside ran from the explosives and took cover behind a few trucks.
One of them shouted something and completed the circuit.
There was a very loud noise and the screen went black for a second.
# # #
John watched the explosion wash out from the entrance of the building as if the building itself had breathed a cloud of fire. True to what Hank had said: the backwash of the explosion blew right through the trucks. It scattered men and women like children's toys- reducing some to little more than a spray of bloody chunks. Others disappeared entirely. As the smoke billowed out, Hank could just make out a few survivors, maybe one in ten, who were standing up with hands drenched in blood from where they had held them to their ears.
Some looked like they were crying, others just looked horrified or confused.
Beyond them was the defensive line set up to delay the incoming monster. Hank was able to just barely make it out through the communication device. He saw a leg that had to be a hundred feet around at least. It was cloven like some sort of demon, and carried a weight that broke the concrete beneath it. The tank fired silently on the monitor and the shell impacted somewhere out of view of the camera. It didn't appear to do any real damage, there was certainly no blood.
Hank had to help somehow. He ran back towards the security office.
# # #
“You should turn on the defense now,” said Allyn. John looked at him.
“You know: to clear out those few near the door.”
“I'm not sure. They might be on the list.”
“Unlikely. We couldn't risk the creature getting in regardless.”
“That makes sense,” said John.
John flipped a switch. He couldn't hear it of course, and neither could the people out front- not really. Almost instantly the men and women who had survived the blast began to stagger away from the suddenly pulsing lines on the ground. A few fell or tumbled. One woman vomited on the ground and lay still. Those fighting the beast were too far away to be affected, but they would probably be dealt with soon enough anyway.
“What should we do about the climbers?” asked Allyn. John thought about that for a moment.
“We could use the lightning projector? I believe it is set up to pulse the perimeter as well as project outward.”
Allyn nodded.
“That makes sense. I believe we have half a dozen charges collected from recent storms.”
“That should be plenty,” said John. He started switching a few switches. Allyn watched without expression as the men manning the machine guns began to open fire at the giant monster. He was curious to see what it would do to them. He doubted very much any weapon they had would hurt it overly much. There was another impact tremor and then an even louder vibration when the creature roared.
# # #
The man in the office stopped writing. He suddenly had the strangest feeling of deja-vu. He pinched his nose to clear it and looked towards the clock on his desk.
“Did you do that?”
The clock did nothing in response. He looked up for a moment. He waited.
Outside, in the dark room where his painting was stored, the entire floor shook loudly.
The man raised one finger to the air.
“Aha!” he said proudly, “I remember this now. Such an od
d sensation, memory. So very corporeal you know?”
The clock did nothing. The man just shrugged.
“I do hope they sort it out soon though,” he said to himself, “Some of us have work to do...”
He wrote for a few moments, writing out his string of symbols with all the care of his station. Each one had to be perfect. He could practically feel reality bend and fold to each stroke of his pen. He knew it wasn't a pen, of course, and he wasn't really a man. Ideas came and went, they flowed through stages and defined bits and pieces of reality as he knew it. It had all become so elementary by now that he hardly even noticed. He finished a particularly intricate symbol, feeling a tiny bit of satisfaction with the work, when something occurred to him. He supposed it was something like a memory again. The man broke into a big grin and muttered softly to himself: