Critical Failures VII

by Robert Bevan

  “Do you remember that holy bitch's exact words? I'm giving birth to fuckin' bug people. What if it's in their nature to claw their way out of the mother. Maybe that's the reason that scorpion whore wanted a different host to carry her kids in the first place. They'll rip me to fuckin' –”

  “Basil!” shouted Randy when he saw his special mount lapping up Denise's amniotic fluid. “Stop that!”

  Basil looked up briefly, then resumed licking the deck.

  “Oh I'm sorry, Randy,” said Denise. “Is my goin' into labor boring you?”

  “Of course not. I just –”

  “Mercy of the gods!” cried Captain Longfellow.

  Randy looked up. Logan was ascending from the water on top of what looked like a giant stationary wave, grinning as he continued clutching the blue amulet that hung around his neck. The ship listed slightly toward him as more and more water rushed in from all sides to feed the rising pedestal.

  “What is that?”

  “It would appear you don't be the only one with an unusual pet,” Captain Longfellow said with awe.

  “Again, dear Captain,” shouted Logan as he rose higher above them. “You have my sincerest apologies. But I shall need to borrow your landing vessels.”

  The wave he was riding rose further out of the water and sprouted arm-like appendages from its sides. It placed both of its watery hands on one of the small landing boats attached to the side of the ship and started to pull.

  The whole ship tilted sideways. Randy grabbed the railing with one hand and Denise's wrist with the other.

  Basil groaned, slipped in Denise's amniotic fluid, and slid across the deck. He smashed through the railing, then fell over the side.

  “BASIL!” cried Randy. He couldn't let go of Denise, but neither could he bear the thought of poor Basil drowning again.

  When the water monster wrenched the landing boat free from the ropes and pulleys that were meant to lower it into the water, the Maiden's Voyage righted herself. Randy let go of Denise's wrist and ran to the other side of the deck, hoping to catch a last glimpse of the companion he'd once again failed.

  He caught more than a glimpse.

  “YAAAAAAAAAAAA!” said the basilisk, staring back up at him as he stood on the surface of the water as surefootedly as if he were on his native desert sand.

  “Basil!” Randy cried excitedly. “When did you learn how to do that?” Jesus must have included some premium options in Randy's Special Mount. That was thoughtful.

  “Randy!” groaned Denise. “Help me! What do I do?”

  Randy turned around and thought about births he'd seen in movies and TV. “You got to breathe and push.”

  “NO!” shouted Captain Longfellow. “Not on me ship. Hold those little monsters inside ye until we can get ye to –”

  The ship tilted hard again as the water monster grabbed another landing boat. Denise slid across the deck like a giant shuffleboard disk. She slammed into Randy, knocking both of them through the railing near the section Basil had destroyed.

  They splashed down into the surprisingly warm water. For what little good it would do either of them, Randy grabbed Denise by the wrist again. He tried to kick, but he could feel himself sinking. As he sank below the surface of the water, his flailing free arm felt something else. Something slender and leathery, like maybe a dire walrus's penis or the tentacle of an elderly octopus. Hoping it was neither of those things, he grabbed it tightly.

  When he looked up and saw the bottoms of eight glowing reptilian feet planted firmly on the surface of the water, he knew he was holding the end of Basil's tail.

  Whether or not Denise knew what was keeping them from sinking, she climbed up Randy, using his shoulder and face as footholds, then out of the water onto Basil. Randy started to climb up after her, but Basil pulled him up and set him down gently on his back.

  “Cripple the ship!” Logan commanded the aquatic monster he'd summoned. “But see that you don't sink it. We'll come back for it once we're properly armed again.”

  The water monster swatted at the mainmast, smashing it to splinters and leaving it hanging limply tangled in the rigging.

  “We'll be waiting for ye!” Captain Longfellow shouted up at him. “Go on and get yer balls back from the little girl who took them from ye, and we'll finish what we started here!”

  Logan's crew had crowded into the two landing boats, and the water monster pushed them toward the island. As it moved into the shallows, Randy got a clearer idea of just how enormous this thing was. Vaguely humanoid in shape, it looked to be at least three stories high, almost as big as Jesus when he'd turned up in Cardinia.

  “We got to warn the others,” said Randy.

  “Good luck,” said Jay from up on the deck. “Your iguana is slow enough on land. That thing will be on the island before you're out of shouting distance.”

  “Ye may have a chance,” said Captain Longfellow. “That be a water elemental. It can't stray far from a source of water. If yer friends be on the shore, they may well be fooked. But if they be inland, Logan's beast will have to wander around in search of a stream to follow. Ye may yet have time to warn them... for whatever good that will do.”

  “We ain't got time to warn shit about shit,” said Denise. “I'm gettin' ready to pop out these motherfuckin' kids into the goddamn ocean. Get this critter moving toward that fire and hope there's a bunch of clerics cookin' S'mores or some shit.”

  Randy wasn't sure which mission he should prioritize, but toward the fire seemed like a good direction to travel regardless of what he chose to do after they got there. He dug his heels into Basil's sides.

  “Come on, boy. Let's go.”

  Basil's walk-on-water speed was about the same as his land speed. While Denise moaned and groaned in her labor pains, Randy considered his options. It felt cruel to abandon Denise on the beach when she was about to give birth, but labor could go on for who knew how many hours. He wasn't sure if Katherine and the others had that kind of time before Logan got there with his giant water elemental and his gang of bloodthirsty pirates.

  When they finally made landfall, there was nobody around the fire. The wood was only about halfway burned through, and there were a few extra logs piled up a few feet away. Judging by the long distance between footprints in the sand leading inland, Randy guessed that whoever was here saw the approaching water elemental and wisely ran away from it. That made his decision easier.

  “I reckon the others might already know about Logan and the water monster, so I can stay with you.”

  “That's real fuckin' great, Randy,” said Denise. “I wouldn't trust you to wipe my ass, much less deliver my babies.” She was sweating profusely now, breathing hard as she lay on her back in the sand where she'd tumbled off Basil's back.

  “I can go see if I can find a cleric if you want.”

  “Don't you fuckin' leave me!”

  Randy was again unsure as to the best course of action to take. He didn't have any more confidence in his ability to deliver babies than Denise had. But with both options looking equally grim, he decided to honor Denise's wishes. “Okay.”

  “You got to see me through this, Randy. I know you're dumber than a sack of slug turds, but you're all I got.”

  “Don't you worry, Denise. All you got to do is push them babies out. If you get a little scraped up in the process, I got some healing magic in me. We'll get through this.”

  Denise nodded, though her eyes betrayed the terror she was feeling. “Let's do it then. No more fuckin' around.” She pulled out two more withered peppers and shoved them both into her mouth.

  “Denise!” said Randy. “I don't know if that's such a good idea.”

  But Denise chewed on those peppers like they were the last two Slim Jims in God's whole creation. Her face became even redder as she started sweating enough to qualify as a water source to sustain Logan's elemental. After she swallowed, she actually looked relieved, as if she was savoring the pain in her mouth as a distraction from the pa
in down in her –

  “Lord almighty!” said Randy when he spotted something shiny and black crowning from between Denise's spread open legs. “The first one's coming! Push, Denise!”

  “YAAAAAA!” Denise cried out in a voice similar to Basil's. She panted and grunted, but the baby didn't budge.

  “Come on!” Randy encouraged her. “You got this! Push a little harder.”

  “I... got... an idea,” said Denise between pants.

  “There ain't nothin' to think about. You just let nature take its course, and I promise you we'll –”

  “I'm... really... angry!” Denise's thighs bulged so hard with expanding muscle tissue that Randy feared the baby's head would crack like an egg, but the gods held true to their word. With a grunt and a groan, she pushed until the whole slimy baby head was out, as well as enough of its shoulders for Randy to grab hold of.

  The top half looked just like a human baby. Everything below the waist, as Randy had braced himself for, was distinctly more bug-like. The opalescent black exoskeleton was soft and pliable. Though it had claws and a stinger, they wouldn't tear through flesh any more effectively than a rubber eraser.

  “Oh, Denise!” cried Randy, choked up with emotion. “It's beautiful.” He tucked the screaming baby in one arm and unsheathed a dagger with the other to cut the umbilical cord. “Welcome to the world, little...” He was about to say 'guy' when it occurred to him that he didn't know whether this was a boy or a girl. The parts which conventionally provided that information were presumably down in the bug half, and Randy wasn't familiar enough with scorpion anatomy. That announcement would have to wait. He held up the baby for Denise to see. “Do you want to hold it?”

  “FUCK YOU!” shouted Denise as she pounded the sand with her fists, still in her Barbarian Rage. “MORE!”

  At first, Randy was confused by that last part, thinking it was a continuation of what she'd started with. Then she saw another scorpion baby head crowning.

  “You're doing great, Denise. Just keep goin' like you're goin'.” Randy wished he had a towel or a blanket or something to set the baby down on. As sticky and slimy as it was, he hated to set it down in the sand. But he didn't have a choice. The next one looked like it was getting ready to pop out of Denise like a champagne cork. He set the kid down and prepared to receive the next one.

  They got into a rhythm. Denise screamed and hollered through it all, but she was pumping out those babies like a Pez dispenser. Randy barely had time to slice through umbilical cords and set babies down in the sand before the next one was halfway out.

  Finally, the last baby was delivered, and Denise deflated back down to her pre-Rage size with a long sigh and fart.

  Randy took a welcome moment to breathe as he held the screaming child to his chest and patted it on the back. Thank goodness the rest of them had calmed down. He couldn't imagine what eight screaming scorpion-people babies would sound like. Hopefully this one would soon calm down like its brothers and –

  “Oh no!”

  All the babies were gone, except for the one Randy still held. Basil stared at it expectantly, then let out a huge belch. It smelled like afterbirth.

  “What is it?” said Denise, propping herself up on her elbows. “What's wrong?”

  “Basil,” said Randy, trying as hard as he could not to cry. “Go on back to the Celestial Plane.”

  “The fuck's the matter with you?” asked Denise. She looked to her left where Basil had just disappeared, then to her right. “Where's all my babies?”

  Randy was too overcome with grief to speak. He held out the one surviving baby.

  Denise sat up and accepted the child, holding it at arm's length like a piece of abstract art he was trying to make heads or tails of. “Is it supposed to be this ugly? You reckon it's retarded or something?”

  Randy shook his head.

  “Where the hell's the rest of them?”

  “I'm so sorry, Denise!” cried Randy as sobs and tears poured out of him.

  “Goddammit, Randy. Can I not enjoy the birth of my own children without all your drama queen bullshit? Stop making this about you and show me the rest of my cockroach kids.”

  “They was coming out so fast, one right after the other. I forgot he was there.”

  “Who was there?” asked Denise, impatient and irritable. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Basil,” said Randy. “He ate the rest of your babies.”

  “Damn.” Denise took a moment to process the horrifying news Randy had just dumped on her. “That's kinda fucked up, Randy.”

  Randy burst into a fit of sobs again. “I'm so, so sorry! I'll do whatever I can to make this right. I'll go on quests until I get every one of them resurrected.”

  Denise grimaced at her one surviving child, still screaming. “Fuck that. My cooter's feelin' a little raw. How about you just slap a healing spell on me, and we'll call it even.”

  “Of course I'll heal you, Denise.” He placed a palm on her knee. “In Jesus Christ's name, I heal you.”

  Denise sighed with relief. “Damn, that feels good. Thanks, buddy.”

  Randy couldn't help but feel that his sins had not yet been atoned for. “You really gonna forgive me? Just like that?”

  “The way I see it, you did them kids a favor,” said Denise.

  “How do you figure?”

  “Say I got eight kids, but only two titties. Big as these titties are, they ain't enough to feed all those hungry freaks. How do I choose who gets to eat? Sooner or later, all of them would have died a slow and miserable death from starvation. Your reckless indifference to my children's lives spared them that agony.”

  Randy frowned. “I guess that's one way of lookin' at it.”

  Denise held up her baby. “But this little monster gets to suck from both barrels. It's gonna be a fat little fucker.” She pressed the baby's face against her left boob. “There. Drink some milk and shut the fuck up for a second.” Shockingly, the baby actually stopped screaming and started sucking on Denise's nipple.

  Randy felt a little bit of warmth return to his heart. In spite of tragedy, there was this little miracle.

  “Look at you,” he said, beaming at Denise through a mixture of sad and joyous tears. “Motherhood comes so natural to you.”

  “Fuckin' hell, kid!” she said, cringing at the baby on her breast. “This ain't a goddamn contest. Pace yourself.” She pulled the suckling baby off and switched breasts. It started crying again during the transition, but was subdued as soon as Denise's right nipple was within reach.

  Randy sniffled and tried to compose himself. “You given any thought as to what you're gonna name it?”

  “I was thinking I'd wait until I knew whether it was a boy or a girl. But seeing as I don't have too good a track record tellin' the difference even with full-grown adults, maybe I ought to just pick a name that can go either way.”

  “That makes sense.”

  Denise winced as the baby sucked hard on her nipple. “What do you think about Fatty?”

  Randy frowned thoughtfully. “Is that... short for something?”

  “Naw. Just plain Fatty. I figure if it turns out to be a boy, a name like that will toughen him up. Get him picked on at school and shit so that he has to learn to defend himself from an early age.”

  “What if it turns out to be a girl?”

  “Then she'll always be mindful of her weight.” Denise smiled down at her baby. “Ain't that right, Fatty?”

  Chapter 46

  Since she'd removed the shitbag from Mordred's head a couple of days ago, Katherine had taken on the role of his primary caretaker. Not because no one else was willing if she chose to delegate that unpleasant task, but more to set an example for her crew, and to show them that their captain wasn't above pulling her own weight and getting her hands dirty.

  She also appreciated the solitude. The shitbag burning ceremony hadn't been as enthusiastically received as she'd expected. The people who'd been grumbling about their inhu
mane treatment of Mordred weren't a whole lot less grumbly, and now there were grumbles from people who feared that the shitbag had been the only thing keeping him in check, and that it was only a matter of time before he got loose and killed them all. The two shots of booze she'd rationed didn't help matters. It wasn't enough to get really drunk from, but rather just enough to make them feel like getting really drunk.

  Not long ago, a bungle like that would have been really discouraging, another excuse to not expect too much from herself in the future. But after the string of wins she'd racked up lately, those excuses no longer held water.

  What did hold water, however, was this fucking mine. Mordred's shaft had remained dry in spite of the rain because the small lip at the bottom of the shaft's entrance kept water flowing down the main tunnel. But the water level was rising, and if it rose past that lip, Mordred's shaft would fill up in a matter of minutes. Being tied to a chair would almost ensure a horrible drowning. The thought of it sent a shiver through Katherine as she breathed in the damp earthy mine air and walked in the dim light of the rock she'd enchanted before entering.

  “Shit,” she said when she saw how high the water had gotten from last night's rain. It was only a few inches away from the shaft entrance. That was cutting it way too close. Getting the mine entrance repaired so that it kept water out instead of funneling it in would have to be moved higher on the priority list. For now, she'd have to fill and dump the Bag of Holding a few times to get the water level back down. But that could wait until after she finished her business with Mordred.

  Shining the light into the shaft, she looked for any sign that water might have gotten in. It wasn't bright enough to see very far down, but she was encouraged at least that there was no water here at the top. She dropped the rock down the shaft and was further encouraged when she heard a thud instead of a splash when it hit the bottom. Using the rope secured to the log on the other side of the tunnel, she lowered herself down the shaft.

  “How are we doing today?” she asked the catatonic dwarf tied to the chair when she got to the bottom of the shaft. “I trust you slept well?”