1988 - Stinger

by Robert McCammon

  As Cody crossed the waiting room and headed for the door, his father stood up from a chair in the corner and said, “Boy? Hold on a minute.”

  Cody glimpsed the garish necktie and almost burst out laughing. No wonder the old man didn’t wear ties; the thing emphasized his sinewy neck and made him look like a geek. Cody had had enough of the medicinal odors and anguished noises of the clinic, and he kept striding out the door without waiting for his father. His motorcycle was still parked in front of the Warp Room, and he meant to claim it. Behind him, his father called, “Cody! Where’re you goin’?”

  Cody might have slowed a step or two; he didn’t realize it if he had. But then his old man was catching up with him, really stretching out those long legs. Curt walked to the side with the length of a man separating them. “I’m talkin’ to you. Don’t you understand English no more?”

  “Just go away,” Cody said, his voice clipped and tight. “Leave me alone.” Over the smells of scorched metal and burning rubber, the aromas of Vitalis and body odor reached him.

  “I came to see about you. Heard you got yourself in a fight. Lord, you look like you got your ass busted for sure!”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Looks must be deceivin’, then.” Curt watched the helicopter slowly circling over Cade’s autoyard, making tentative approaches to the black pyramid and then veering away through the smoke. “I’m tellin’ you,” he said, “hell has sure come to Inferno. Ain’t that about the weirdest sumbitch you ever saw?”

  “I guess so.”

  “It’s spooky. Somethin’ like that shouldn’t be. You know, I almost ran over Ginger Creech awhile ago. She was just strollin’ down the street in her nightgown. God knows what’s happened to Dodge. Whatever’s goin’ on, it’s knocked Ginger right off her tracks.”

  The woman in the blue robe, Cody thought. Mrs. Creech. Sure, he should’ve recognized her. But then again, he’d never seen her looking like a crazy woman before.

  “Guess what?” Curt asked when they’d gone a few more strides. “I’m a deputy. Don’t that beat all? Yessir! Sheriff Vance said that if I was to take Ginger to the clinic, he’d make me a deputy. Bet I’ll get me a badge. A silver badge, all shiny and nice.” The helicopter zoomed overhead, stirring a storm of dust off the street, and turned toward the pyramid again. Curt gazed up at the skygrid. He didn’t know what the thing was, but it was something else that should not be. It reminded him of jail bars, and started a crawling sensation of claustrophobia at the back of his neck. Without lights, Inferno resembled a ghost town, all the swirling dust and running tumbleweeds adding to the sense of desolation. Curt’s thirst was getting stronger, and he thought it was somehow right that just as he was given some responsibility, Inferno was falling to pieces. He looked at Cody, walking beside him, and he saw how close that cut was to the boy’s eye. Tomorrow morning he was going to feel as if he’d stuck his head into a blender. “You all right?” Curt asked.

  “What the fuck do you care?” It came out before Cody could stop it.

  Curt grunted. “Hell, I didn’t say I cared. Just asked, that’s all.” He let silence reign for a few seconds, then tried again: “I got busted up like that once. A Mexican did it, in a bar. Fast little bastard, he was. Man, I couldn’t see straight for a week!”

  “I’m okay,” Cody told him grudgingly.

  “Yeah, you’re a tough pair of nuts, ain’t you? That shirt’s a goner, though. Guess old Mendoza’ll pitch a fit, huh?”

  “No. Mr. Mendoza won’t.”

  Curt decided to let that “mister” lie. What was the point? It amazed him, though, that Cody could still speak of that old wetback with respect after a Mexican had just about bashed his fool head in. Well, Cody had a lot to learn about Mexicans yet. “I found a tie,” he said. “See?”

  “Yeah. It looks awful.”

  Curt’s first impulse was to snarl and clip him on the back of his skull, but he figured the boy had had enough punishment; anyway, Cody’s comment made a faint smile steal across his mouth. “I reckon it does, at that,” he admitted. “Never said I had good taste in ties, did I?” Cody glanced at him, and Curt looked away to hide the smile; it wouldn’t do for Cody to see it, he decided. It was time to go collect on that bottle of Kentucky Gent. The five dollars was burning a hole in his pocket, and he hoped the Bob Wire Club was still open. If not, he’d kick the damn door down himse—

  His thoughts were interrupted by a low rumbling noise that made his bones throb like a mouthful of bad teeth. Curt stopped in his tracks, and Cody halted because he’d both heard and felt the vibration. The noise continued, like the sound of heavy concrete plates grinding. “You hear that?” Curt asked. “What is it?” The sound drifted across Inferno and set the dogs howling again.

  Cody looked at the pyramid and pointed. “There!”

  A thin vertical crack of muddy violet light had appeared about thirty feet below the pyramid’s apex. The grinding noise went on, and the crack of light was widening.

  In the clinic, Jessie heard it and went to the window. Rick Jurado came out of his house, and stood on the front porch with Miranda beside him. Mack Cade was standing on Third Street next to his Mercedes, watching the volunteer firemen futilely trying to coax water pressure back into the limp hose, and his first thought was that the rumbling sounded like a massive crypt opening. Typhoid and Lockjaw ran around in a circle, yapping.

  Others peered out their windows, and some of the seventy-eight people who had gathered in the Catholic church came out to the front steps to see. Sheriff Vance, who had returned only a few minutes before from Dodge Creech’s house, emerged from his office into Celeste Street while Danny sat shaking inside.

  The vertical line was about fifteen feet long and stretching open like a cyclopean eye. In the helicopter, Captain Taggart swooped past the fissure. Rhodes, who occupied the copilot’s seat, and Gunniston in the observer’s seat just behind him were shoved against their backrests by the g-forces. They saw the reptilian plates sliding away from the aperture, and the glow that drifted through was more like luminous mist than earthly light. The aperture’s edges appeared moist, rimmed with gray like diseased gums. “Stay away from that grid,” Rhodes warned as Taggart took the ’copter up again, but he knew Taggart understood the consequences of hitting that thing as well as he did. The rumbling noise continued as the plates unhooked and slid away from each other. The opening was now about forty feet wide, and Taggart lined the ’copter up with it and used his two control sticks to angle the blades so the machine hovered. Streams of liquid were oozing down from the sides and edges of the opening, running over the plates beneath it. Rhodes leaned forward, the seat belt tightening across his chest. He could see nothing but murk inside the fissure; it was like trying to peer through slimy water.

  “Want me to get closer?” Taggart asked.

  “Hell, no!” Gunniston yelped, his hands clenched to the armrests.

  “Just hold this position,” Rhodes told him. Several more plates moved apart, and then the noise abruptly ceased.

  Mist curled from the opening and was tattered by the rotors. Taggart checked his gauges: fuel was getting low. They’d followed the grid from east to west and north to south and found that it extended just over seven miles in all directions. Its highest point was about six hundred feet directly above the pyramid, sloping away to spear through the earth at the grid’s limits. Below the helicopter were dull red centers of flame amid the wreckage of Cade’s autoyard, and the rising of heated air made the machine shudder.

  “Thing looks like it’s got skin,” Gunniston said, staring with revulsion at the slick ebony plates.

  Rhodes watched the opening. Banners of black smoke moved past the canopy, and for a few seconds his vision was obscured. When it cleared, he thought he saw something move inside the aperture: a drifting shadow, approaching through the mist. He didn’t know what it was, but he realized they were far too close to the pyramid for comfort. “Move us away,” he said tautly.

&nbs
p; Taggart changed the rotors’ pitch, started to slip the helicopter to the left.

  As he did, the thing that Rhodes had seen emerged from the mist. Gunniston gasped, “Oh, Christ!” and Taggart throttled the engine up, veering away with such speed that the men were lifted off their seats. Never in his wildest nightmares had he witnessed such a thing as now cleared the pyramid’s opening and hovered in the turbulent air.

  * * *

  29

  The Duel

  A helicopter had emerged from the black pyramid—but it was unlike any machine ever created on earth. Instead of rotors, triangular metallic wings like those of a giant dragonfly beat rapidly along the sleek black body. Its cockpit—the shape an exact duplicate of the compartment in which Taggart, Rhodes, and Gunniston sat—was made of what appeared to be blue-green, opaque glass, multifaceted like the eye of an insect. Most startling of all, and what had caused Taggart to grip the throttle and veer away so fast, was the craft’s tail section: it was made of intertwined, ropy black muscles, and at its end was a bony ball of spikes like a knight’s mace. The tail was whipping violently back and forth, the muscles alternately clenching and relaxing.

  “A doppelganger,” Rhodes said.

  Taggart was concentrating on working the cyclic control stick with his right hand and the twistgrip throttle with his left, backing the ’copter away without crashing into the bank building or drifting into the grid. Smoke swirled in front of the cockpit. The dragonfly machine held its position, but slowly angled as if its insect eye was following the earth craft. Gunniston said, “What?”

  “A doppelganger,” Rhodes repeated, thinking aloud. “A mirror image. At least… maybe that’s how an alien sees us.” Another thought struck him. “My God… there must be a factory in there!” But was it a machine, or was it alive? It was a double of their own helicopter, yes, but the way those wings and muscles worked, the thing might be a living creature—or more bizarre still, a combination of machine and alien life. Whatever it was, the sight held Rhodes in a thrall of horrified wonder.

  The trance snapped, very suddenly, when the dragonfly darted forward, soundlessly and with a deadly grace.

  “Go!” Rhodes shouted, but the breath was wasted. Taggart’s hand on the throttle made the engine scream. The helicopter shot backward and up, missing the overhanging ledge of the bank building’s roof by about eight feet. Gunniston’s face was a bleached-out shock mask, and he gripped the armrests of his seat like a cat on a roller coaster. The dragonfly made a quick, twitching correction of flight, angled up, and came after them.

  The ’copter rose into clouds of smoke and dust. Taggart was flying blind; he eased off on the throttle and spun the machine in a tight circle, the engine spitting through dirty air. As Taggart made the second rotation Gunniston yelled, “At starboard!”

  The dragonfly plunged through the murk on their right, twisted violently around in imitation of their own maneuver, and the tail with its ball of spikes came at them. Taggart jerked the ’copter to the left; as the machine heeled over, the dragonfly’s tail flashed past so close both Rhodes and Gunniston could see the razor-sharp edges of the spikes. Then clouds enveloped it, and as the ’copter kept falling Rhodes realized that a few blows from that damned tail could tear the aircraft to pieces. He didn’t care to think about what it would do to flesh. Taggart let the helicopter plummet until his stomach lurched, and as they dropped through the clouds and leveled off he saw the houses of Bordertown about sixty feet below, people standing in the streets and the glow of candles through windows. He made another tight turn, zooming over the autoyard—and there was the dragonfly, emerging from the clouds and gaining speed at it hurtled at them.

  “Head for the desert!” Rhodes said. Taggart nodded, his face sparkling with sweat, and gunned the throttle. As soon as the helicopter leapt forward, the dragonfly changed direction and maneuvered in front of them, cutting them off. “Dammit!” Taggart said, and altered course. The dragonfly did too. “Bastard’s playing games with us!”

  “Get us on the ground!” Gunniston pleaded. “Jesus Christ, set us down!”

  The dragonfly pitched downward, came up again with terrifying speed at the helicopter’s underbelly. Taggart had time only to rear the helicopter back on its tail rotor and pray.

  In the next second came an impact that knocked the men breathless and rattled their brains. There was a shriek of tortured metal, even louder than Gunniston’s scream. Everything not bolted down in the cabin—flight log, pencils, extra helmets, and flight jackets—flew around their heads like bats. The cockpit’s glass shattered into a crazy quilt, but the glass was reinforced with metal filaments and did not explode into their faces. Acting on instinct, Taggart jerked the machine to the left again, the engine stuttering against a stall. The dragonfly swept upward and away, whirling around and around in a deadly pirouette, bits of the helicopter’s metal flying off its tail like miniature comets.

  The red landing-gear malfunction light blinked on the instrument panel, and Rhodes knew the skids were either mangled or torn away. “Clipped our skids!” Taggart shouted, panic starting to close around his throat. “Bastard clipped us!”

  “Here it comes!” Gunniston had seen the thing through the unbroken window at his side. “At three o’clock!” he yelled.

  Taggart felt the helicopter’s blades respond to the stick, and the machine swung up as his feet worked the tail rotor pedals. They were on an even keel again, and he laid on the throttle and arrowed straight for the desert to the east of Inferno.

  “It’s closing!” Gunniston warned, daring to look back through the rear observation port. “The thing’s hauling ass!”

  Rhodes saw the low-fuel warning light come on. The airspeed indicator was nosing toward a hundred and twenty, violet-washed desert flashing past about ninety feet below and the grid’s eastern boundary in sight. Gunniston made a choked sound of terror as the dragonfly pulled up even with them at a distance of twenty or thirty yards to the right, its triangular wings a whirring blur. It hung there for about five seconds before it darted ahead, rapidly gained altitude, and vanished into the haze at the top of the grid.

  Taggart could no longer see it through the cracked glass. He whipped the ’copter around in a spiraling turn that shoved Rhodes and Gunniston into their seats and dropped twenty feet lower to the desert, speeding back in the direction of Inferno. “Where is it? Where’d the bastard go?” he babbled. “You see it, Colonel.”

  “No. Gunny?”

  Gunniston could hardly speak. He got out a weak “No, sir.”

  Taggart had to cut his speed before the reserve fuel drained. The speed-indicator needle trembled at sixty. “She’s handling like a tractor!” Taggart said. “Must have a mess hanging down underneath! Damn sonofabitch just pulled away like we were sitting still!” Air was shrilling in through the cockpit’s cracks, the control stick was sluggish, and they were flying on fumes. “I’ve got to set her down!” Taggart decided. “Gotta belly her in, Colonel!”

  They were almost over Inferno again. “Clear the town first!” Rhodes said. “Slide her in on the other si—”

  “Jesus!” Taggart screamed, because the dragonfly was dropping down from above, almost on top of them, and for an instant he thought he could see a distorted image of himself—an alien image—reflected in the multifaceted glass. He turned the ’copter over on its right side, trying to whip past—but the thing was too close, and its tail was swiping toward him. He drew a breath.

  The tail smashed through the cockpit’s glass, filling the compartment with a thousand stinging hornets. Fragments slashed into Rhodes’s cheeks and forehead, but he’d flung his arms up and saved his eyes. He saw what happened to Taggart.

  The spikes on the end of the tail buried themselves in Taggart’s chest. His head, left arm, and most of the upper half of his torso disappeared in a blizzard of blood, metallic sparks, and flying glass. The dragonfly’s tail continued through the pilot’s backrest like a can opener, and Gunniston saw the c
lenching ebony muscles and the ball of spikes pass him with the velocity of a freight train before it tore through the ’copter’s side and out again. He laughed hysterically, his face covered with Taggart’s blood.

  Irrevocably damaged, the helicopter reeled across the sky. It spun in a wide, fast circle, and through the broken glass Rhodes dazedly watched as the north face of the bank building grew larger.

  He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Somebody’s blood was everywhere. There was a lump in the pilot’s seat that had no business being there, yet clenched to the control stick was a gray hand that should belong to someone. Red lights flashed all over the instrument panel and alarms buzzed. The roofs of Inferno were coming up fast, and Rhodes had the eerie sense of sitting still while the world and the wind were in terrifying motion. The bank building loomed ahead. We’re going to crash, he thought calmly. He heard laughter, and its incongruous sound amid all the carnage made the slipping gears of his brain latch into place again. Within seconds they would smash into the bank building.

  Rhodes reached for the pilot’s control stick, but the gray hand was locked on it and the dead arm’s muscles had seized up; the stick was immobile. He blinked, saw the copilot’s stick in front of his own seat, a twistgrip throttle to the right. He grasped the stick. No reaction from the rotors. Dead controls, he thought. No, no… the transfer switch…

  Rhodes reached over Taggert’s corpse and hit the controls-transfer toggle on the instrument panel. The warning lights lit up on his side. He hadn’t flown a helicopter for more than two years, but there was no time for a checkout course; he slipped his feet onto the pedals that operated the rear rotor and angled the control stick with his left hand, at the same time cutting the speed with his right. The building stood before him like a mountain, and even as the ’copter responded to a tight turn Rhodes knew there wasn’t going to be enough room. “Hold on!” he shouted to Gunny.