Deathbeast

by David Gerrold

  —and Ethab waited, up above, detached, emotionless; he watched the beast advance on Megan as if it were a shadow-play and nothing more. His smile tightened—

  “Bait—it’s only bait,” he whispered. “Keep on coming, little one. You’re mine now; you are mine” His eyes were bright with something only he could see; his mind was all afire. There was no one else alive, not any more— there was only Ethab and the beast! And the beast was coming to him now, finally, at last! The challenge had been taken! Here in the notch, his destiny would be julfilled! That was why he didn’t fire—not yet, not now— he would not distract the deathbeast from the meal, the carefully laid out bait.

  Megan’s eye was measuring the ever-closing gap between her and the beast—“To hell with this!” was her decision. She kept on firing, but glanced off to one side, a flicking of the eyes to check her footing—yes, she could make it; grab here and there and swing down under, safe beneath the overhang, onto the shelf of rock—her eyes came, back and she began to move; taking one step backward, to give herself a bit of purchase for her jump, she—

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  skidded on some gravel, her foot slipped into a crack, a hole in the overhanging lip of rock and she was caught— “Oh, shit—” She just had time enough to look up at the beast—

  —he towered over her like God, and every bit as dispassionate as well. And then the mighty foot, with razored claws of shining steel, came down and there was impact, the quick sense of something cold and nothing else, it was all over now for Megan—

  He slashed her open like a melon—but delicately; precise and sure in purpose as a surgeon. He left her smeared across the rock, and wiped his foot a couple times to dry it, to keep from skidding on the slope himself. And then his head came down and opened widely, gaping—

  Loevil, anguished, at the bottom of the slope, could only stand and stare and scream in icy-fiery, all- consuming, raging, roaring horror—“Megan!!”—and all that he could think of was a moment when he’d looked gt her across a table, candlelit, and seen her soft-sweet eyes aglow with tenderness and love, and realized he’d never see her shining face again or touch her hand or kiss her on her eyelids while she smiled in contentment, and he screamed and screamed until his throat was raw— “MeegaaaahhhnnnnnU!”

  He was helpless witness to it all. He was weaponless and all alone. The beast was on the slope and eating what was left of her, picking at the pieces still bleeding on the rocks; there was no shape there any more—only the stump, the goddamn foot still sticking bluntly up from the awful hole it had caught in—

  The sound of the deathbeast eating was horrible. It chewed, it chomped, it swallowed wetly, then it looked around—it grunted in its throat; there was one last something there; it bent and grabbed, it raised its head, it

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  jerked and snapped to catch the piece still farther back into its mouth, and then it swallowed and was done.

  And that’s when Ethab finally fired to distract it. Not before. Not when he might have saved her; only now, when he wanted it to come to him. Nusa was halfway over the lip of the rock again, her holo buzzing softly. The two of them worked as a team. Ethab was the bastard who used other people’s lives as fuel and Nusa kept the record of it. If she couldn’t be a savage, then she’d enjoy the acts of savagery vicariously. By immortalizing Ethab’s naked soul, his unadulterated monstrousness, she gave him reason to continue; she transformed his actions into monuments, a graven idol unsurpassed by other men— she froze the orgasm of fulfillment into permanent achievement. She gave him reason to exist. And as such— she might have been the real beast. And Ethab merely was the tool that she used to give desire substance. He’d done it all for Nusa!

  —and in that bitter moment, Loevil, running up the

  rocks in screaming anguish, felt cold; Loevil knew—Nusa was no more than flesh to Ethab, something to fuck occasionally—but Ethab was nothing in return, an object, a machine—no more to her than all the animals he killed. Nusa fed the fires of the furnace that she called a soul with the fuel of Ethab’s fury. She was a vampire, leeching at his life—and when she finished with him, if she could use him up, she would merely smile and start looking for another, stronger life to use—how dare she feed on Megan’s death! He was going to kill them both!

  “Go on, go on to him,” she breathed. “Go on—it’s time!” Her eyes were bright and gleaming—there would be sex tonight. Ethab, huge and finally alive, would take her like a whirlwind; the mightiest power of a maddened world and she would be his woman—she’d possess him now! He was her life, her tool! Weapon! Staff of power!

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  Strength and terror rampant on a field of blood! Ecstasy achieved, fulfilled and reaching, climbing toward its climax, gasping breathily, a poet’s cry: "Oh, sweet lover, let me die within your arms—!"

  The deathbeast looked upslope at Ethab, his one good eye unblinking; he was a black and mighty tower, a massive demon studying the moment before leaping into it—and there was Ethab standing broad within the notch, his rifle held so easily within the cradle of his arms—the deathbeast grunted, the sound was like a sigh, resigned, “All right, let’s get it over with.” He began to move....

  Behind him, there was Loevil screaming up the slope. He reached Nusa, calling for her rifle, grabbing, fumbling to aim it—"I’m gonna kill the bastard—/”

  —but Nusa stopped him with a grab upon his sleeve, “Don’t do it—this is Ethab’s moment—!”

  And Loevil stopped and looked and realized. His face was fragmented by quivering emotions. He wanted vengeance on the beast—and on the tyrant too—Nusa and Ethab!—and the dinosaur as well.

  But—blazer-fire attracted him—that was obvious now—

  —and Loevil wailed with the dying anguish of a rabid vengeance suddenly denied; but but Nusa was right; He lowered the rifle deliberately—this was Ethab’s moment, and he was just a bystander—“I won’t distract him,” Loevil vowed. “Either of them. I hope they both die— painfully.”

  Ethab’s bolts flicked out and lashed the rising demongod, Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Tyrant King, the mightiest carnivore to ever walk the Earth, nine tons of horror, liquefied and pouring up the hill like death transformed into a mountain. Deathbeast ntoved.

  Up and up and up—each step was like a crack of thundering doom. The tail went high and lashed, the

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  neck came down—the head moved in to jab and dart— and all the while, blue-white bolts that echoed red and purple flashed around it.

  Ethab fired methodically and unafraid.

  He was silhouetted in the notch. Loevil, Nusa, and Tril could see him as a starkly illustrated figure outlined in fire and light, a blackness standing in a cloud of smoke who hurled flames down at the beast that rose before him.

  He discarded the rifle and picked up the crossbow, all in one smooth motion; it was already armed and cocked.

  The ready light was flashing on the steel bolt. The grenade tip hummed in an ominous beat.

  And the deathbeast grew up before him like a freight' train.

  The notch was wreathed in smoke and lightning and

  the smell of death. The sky was black, the walls were red, and Ethab was a glowing shadow—

  The crossbow came up suddenly—the bolt released and streaked, it flew—it whistled like a wind of shining metal, piercing through the crust of bloody, blackened hide above the breastbone of the beast—it exploded with a flare of crackling brightness and sparks of energy came splashing like a fountain—multicolored splatterings of heat and radiation; a tighter glowing, deep within, of white and yellow, framed by orange-red, a burning jet still flaming in the deathbeast’s heart—

  It staggered. It stumbled—

  —it caught itself, it came up roaring.

  It stiffened—its gigantic back was rigid, arching up, its head went to the sky—and from its mighty t
hroat there came a roar so deep, so pained, so ragged—the cry of something damned and realizing all the dreadful tortures of eternity awaiting it; the mouth of yawning hell was beckoning like a whore—that the air was tom like shredded glass—and the anguish and despair came

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  up as from the depths of a volcano—threatening to shatter boulders loose from the rocky sides of the notch, and tumble stones down on the deathbeast and his tormentor.

  The beast roared like blackness—

  —and then the head came down again; the breath sucked in like the pull of rasping bellows, then wheezed out, long and slow, in sad exhaustion.

  But the beast still stood.

  The bolt flickered, dying in its throat.

  The beast was bloody, it was blackened, its right eye was ravaged, and its tail was twisted oddly—but it was unbeaten.

  It still stood. Unsteadily—but it still stood.

  Its crimson eye blinked slowly, looking down at Ethab like a judge—

  —who took a frightened step backward and—

  —armed another bolt and raised the crossbow like a shield, too quickly now, and fired and—

  —missed.

  He’d fired too fast. The bolt clattered on the distant rocks behind the beast, exploding into emptiness.

  Ethab threw the crossbow down and grabbed his rifle, and turned and—

  Sixteen

  “SHOOT THE BASTARD!”

  Loevil and Nusa looked awestruck up the slope and saw—

  —the beast outlined in orange flames; Ethab’s fire limned a silhouette of horror in shades of acid-sparkling light. His blazer-bolts were screaming in electric-crimson tongues—

  Beyond the notch were clouds of gathering ashen gloom, and little lightnings flickered bright and orange- purple through them; they were a stormy background to the battle raging in the rocks. The beast was centered in this frame; it was the focus of the sizzling, screaming, roaring energies that came splattering from behind it. The acrid glare was all around, flickering auras on the rocks; the notch was all ablaze with luminescent power reflections coruscated, dancing in the air, which cracked and snapped with sparks of silver static.

  The deathbeast was a larger darkness in the middle of a steady-state explosion, a maelstrom of endless wrath—

  —it dipped its head to pick at something—

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  —and there was silence.

  All the flashes stopped abruptly. All the noise. The air still rang and crackled, the smoke still rose, but suddenly the silence was incredible. The only sound was something breathing as unsteady as a huge and failing engine, the gasp and wheeze of rattling lungs as large as caverns.

  The beast stood in the notch, facing toward the distant sky. Its back was turned to them, they couldn’t see what it was doing; its head was low and oddly held—

  —as if the beast were poised on its own pain, and waiting for the subsidence of agony so it could move again—

  The silence waited, crackling and sizzling. Pools of molten tallow were boiling on the rocks.

  And everything was darkening.

  The clouds from the horizon now were stretching overhead, a ceiling black and ominous. The evening was arriving with an early, storm-lined dusk. The wind was whispering of the things that it had seen today—

  The deathbeast grunted, rising slowly off the balance of its tail. Majestically it moved—it began by leaning forward, it raised its anchor high and stumbled-staggered through the notch, and to the other side; there was the scrape of metal claws on granite, and then the beast was gone. The day returned to silence. The notch was scorched and blackened; smoke curled from the rocks like faded Silken streamers—but of Ethab there was nothing to be seen. The notch was empty now, just some drifting wisps of haze and ash.

  The air was suddenly cold. The chill came with the wind.

  Loevil and Nusa traded glances.

  “You stay here with Tril,” he said. “I’m going up to see.” He took her rifle in one hand and moved across the rocks like a guerrilla.

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  “Loevil—!”

  He made a stay-behind gesture with his free hand. He paused, looked back and saw her face—her eyes were terror-stricken; she was afraid to be alone. “I’ve got to make sure,” he said. Ifs my job. He didn’t add, that’s the only reason.

  He went up warily. He held the rifle high before him, and moved on feet like glass. His knee still hurt him terribly, he favored it with every step, but he had to know. He picked his way across the rock, putting each foot down slow and carefully, moving like a ballet dancer tiptoeing up behind a bomb.

  Everything was quiet. There was no sound at all—not even of the deathbeast breathing.

  Where had it gone?

  The top of the notch was empty. It was hot, still smoldering. In places, the rocks were glowing red.

  Loevil moved into it with care. He stooped to pick up Ethab’s crossbow, and looked at it with a scowl. All that trouble for this? Its metal springs and rods still gleamed unstained. The crossbow told him nothing, so he laid it down again. The shafts of shattered bolts lay all around—

  His boot scraped inadvertently across the naked rock. He moved on slowly, looking....

  Nearby, something grunted; something large. The sound was deep—it was the sound of something enormous forcing air out of a scorched and injured throat.

  Loevil turned and listened. His expression narrowed with concern.

  He eased slowly forward. Cautiously, he edged through the notch and to the other side. .

  He came around the comer of the rocks—and stopped—

  “Oh, my God—”

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  There was a spit of land, an edge before the cliff— the deathbeast stood there, poised upon it like a monument, Ethab bloody in his mouth—and Ethab still alive!

  The beast just stood, in pain—and motionless, seemed almost lost in thought, as if considering this thing that had created so much agony for him—

  —not moving, not biting, just holding; the killing could come later—

  Ethab was moving.

  He was injured, that much was obvious—he was trying to work free. The beast was only holding him, not noticing his struggles. The beast was lost in its own pain, it had forgotten that it held him. Ethab struggled, and the blood came welling up inside his mouth and overflowed his chin—

  Loevil stood aghast—his eyes were blurred with smoke and tears—rage and horror filled his soul. “Kill him, dammit—” he breathed.

  The awful part of the whole thing was that even as he struggled, Ethab smiled.

  Ethab was transfigured into something almost holy. Finality was on his face. This—at last!—a true completion! The glory of fulfillment! He was finished, finally— the blood bubbled from his mouth and down his neck and shirt.

  And Loevil, crying, brought the rifle to his shoulder, sobbing, “You son of a bitch—you couldn’t even get killed properly!” He took aim, wishing he could close his eyes—then, thinking once of Megan, told himself, “Shoot the bastard, Loevil! Shoot the bastard!”

  And he did—

  The deathbeast recoiled when the bolt struck Ethab in his mouth—he dropped the body as it charred and blackened, stepping back and almost falling off the edge of the cliff. He caught himself and scrambled back up on the

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  flat. Ethab’s body writhed upon the ground, burning, roiling—smoke poured up from it—the body shriveled like an empty husk—

  —and the deathbeast bent its head and took it like an hors d’oeuvre, daintily, an afterthought—did I forget to eat this one? It jerked its head, and snapped and swallowed. And Ethab was gone.

  “I’m sorry, Megan,” Loevil sobbed. “I’m sorry—”

  The deathbeast finished
swallowing, a wet sound, very loud and flat in the dying afternoon. It belched in awful satisfaction, a rumbling expulsion of internal gas and fumes. It looked around, as if looking for dessert—

  —instinctively, Loevil backed around the rocks—

  —it didn’t see him. It moved around on. the cliff area, as if looking for the way down. It grunted and made funny noises in its throat. It was slowing down; it was tired and in pain

  Still sobbing, Loevil gasped for breath; he forced himself to close his mouth and hold his breathing steady. His heart was pounding like a bomb within his chest.

  He peeked carefully around the comer. The death- beast’s tail lay across the ground, its head hung down as if in thought, or even sorrow. Its forepaws hung before it limp and broken. Its hide was black and charred in crisscross smoldering lashes. Cratered flesh oozed blood and serum. The monster’s flanks heaved like earthquakes as it breathed; but the pace, the desperate pumping of its wheezes was much slower now. The beast was going torpid.

  Loevil backed away slowly.

  He went back through the notch, stopping to pick up Ethab’s fallen crossbow; he still didn’t see the rifle-— that’s a pity. We could have used it—and came back down the slope toward the spot where Nusa stood. Tril was whimpering beside her, wiping at her nose and red-

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  ■ dened eyes. Loevil picked his footing carefully. His knee felt like the inside of a bear trap every time he moved it.

  Nusa was waiting warily on the overhang; she held a rifle in her hands. She looked at him, a question on her face. What was up there?

  Loevil didn’t feel like talking, but he spoke up anyway. “Oh, no—” he answered bitterly, the words came out all sideways: “It wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.”