1988 - Stinger

by Robert McCammon

  “I’ve been better.” Cody smoothed the damp curls away from her forehead. Concussion, he figured. “Can you feel this?” He rubbed her hands, and she said, “Yes.” Then her ankles. “Yes,” Miranda responded, and Cody relaxed some. She had friction burns on her arms and a split and swollen lower lip, but he figured it could’ve been a lot worse: a broken back, broken arms or legs—and surely a broken neck if Stinger hadn’t been stopped.

  “We hit… the Mumbler, didn’t we?” she asked.

  Cody smiled faintly. “We sure did. Knocked him on his ass too.”

  “I… thought you said you could drive that motor.”

  “I think I did a pretty good job. We’re not dead, are we?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” Now it was her turn to offer him the hint of a tough smile, though her eyes were still vague. “I think I should’ve stayed in Fort Worth.”

  “Yeah, but then you would never have met me.”

  “Bit shit,” she said, and he knew she was going to be okay. The strength was coming back into her voice.

  He decided Miranda wasn’t going to pass out again, and he had to tell her what had happened and where they were. “We’re inside the spaceship,” he said. “In what looks like a dungeon, I think. Anyway, we’re hangin’ in Stinger’s idea of a jail cell.” He waited for her response, but there was none. “Stinger could’ve killed us. He didn’t. He wants us alive, which is just fine with me.”

  “Me too,” Sarge said, and Miranda lifted her head to see who’d spoken. “I’m Sarge,” he told her. “This is Scooter right over here.” He gestured into the empty space.

  “Scooter’s his dog,” Cody quickly explained. “Um… Sarge doesn’t go anywhere without Scooter, if you get my drift.”

  Miranda eased herself into a sitting position. Her head still pounded, but at least she could see straight now. She wasn’t sure who was crazy and who wasn’t, but then Sarge started rubbing an invisible dog and said, “Don’t you worry none, Scooter. I’ll take care of you,” and she realized Sarge lived in a permanent twilight zone.

  “Sorry I got you into this,” Cody said to her. “You ought to be more particular who you ride with.”

  “Next time I will be.” She tried to stand, but she felt so weak she had to rest her head against her knees. “What’s that thing keeping us for?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to guess, either.” Cody thought that the noise of fluid rushing through the pipes had gotten louder. There was another sound too: a distant reverberation, like a muffled bass drum or a heartbeat. Whole damn ship’s alive, he thought. “We’ve got to get out of here.” He crawled over to the cage’s edge, just short of the light bars, and stared down at the small pyramid again. Got to trip that switch, he knew. But how? “Don’t happen to have a slingshot on you, do you?” he asked half jokingly, and of course she shook her head no. He lay on his belly, his chin resting on his hands, and just looked at the pyramid. His belt buckle was jabbing his stomach, and he shifted his position.

  Belt buckle, he thought.

  He abruptly sat up, unbuckled the belt, and reeled it out of the loops.

  Sarge said, “Hey, don’t do that in front of a lady!”

  “How far would you say that thing is?” he asked Miranda, and pointed at the pyramid.

  “I don’t know. Seven feet, maybe.”

  “I peg it closer to six and a half. I wear a twenty-eight-inch belt, and…” He looked at Sarge, saw the scuffed black belt in the man’s dungarees. “Sarge, hand me your belt.”

  “My belt? Boy, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Take it off, Sarge! Come on, hurry!”

  Sarge did, reluctantly, and handed it to Cody. “What size is this?” Cody asked. Sarge shrugged. “The church ladies buy all that stuff for me. I don’t keep up with it.”

  “Looks a good forty inches.” Cody was already knotting the two belts together so the buckles were on opposite ends. “Maybe we’ve got us a long enough reach here. We’ll find out.” He gave the knot a tug to make sure it wouldn’t come apart.

  “What’re you going to do?” Miranda asked.

  “I’m pretty sure that thing down there is the control box for this cage. I think that if I trip it, it’ll lower the cage. So I might be able to get us out of here.”

  “Don’t mind him,” Sarge whispered to Scooter. “He’s crazy, that’s all.”

  “Listen to me, both of you.” The urgency in Cody’s voice stopped Sarge’s whispering. “I’m gonna slide my arm out through the bars as far as I can. If I can’t keep steady, they’ll burn my arm up real quick. Sarge, I want you to hold my legs. If my arm catches fire, I want you to pull me back as fast as you can. Got it?”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “Because you’re a lot stronger than Miranda, and because she’s gonna be keepin’ an eye out if Stinger comes back. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Sarge answered, in a small voice.

  Cody pushed the belt ahead of him between the bars, and the buckle on the other end went over the edge. Then Sarge grasped Cody’s ankles as Cody slid forward with his face only inches from the beams. Slowly he eased his hand through, then his wrist, then up to the forearm where the hairs had been burned away. The buckle was lying on the floor just underneath the cage; now the trick was flicking his wrist to snap the buckle against the control box.

  His face was right up on the beams, and he could hear their deadly hum. Now was the time to try it if he ever was. He snapped his wrist upward. The belt buckle scraped along the floor, stopped two or three inches short of the pyramid. He drew it back and flicked it forward again; once more, the buckle fell short.

  Cody strained his arm another quarter inch between the bars. There was about enough room for a toothpick to fit in between them and his skin. A few hairs sparked and crisped away, in pinpoint flames. His heartbeat was making his body tremble. Steady… steady, he told himself. He flicked the belt forward. Still too short. A drop of sweat rolled into his right eye and blinded him, and his first impulse was to wipe it out, but if he moved without thinking, either his face or his arm would go into the bars. He said, “Sarge, pull me back. Slow.”

  Sarge hauled him away from the edge, and Cody kept his arm rigid until the fingers had cleared. Then he rubbed his eye with his other hand, got on his knees, and pulled the belt up. “It’s not long enough,” he said. “We need another couple of inches.” But he knew there was nothing else to be used, and he was about to toss the knotted belts aside in frustration when Miranda said, “Your earring.”

  Cody’s hand went to his earlobe. The skull earring hung down a little more than two inches. He took it off, knotted the small chain to one of the buckles so the silver skull had as much play as possible, then gripped the other buckle and said, “Sarge, let’s try it again.”

  Working slowly and carefully, Cody dropped the buckle with the tiny skull dangling from it over the cage’s edge and let its weight pull the rest of the belt down. Then he slid forward, Sarge grasping his ankles again, and negotiated his hand, wrist, and forearm between the violet bars. When he was set and ready, he snapped his wrist upward. This time he thought the extension would reach; again it just barely fell short of contact. He had to push another quarter inch of skin through.

  He started sliding his arm forward, millimeter by millimeter. Beads of sweat were heavy in his eyebrows, and one of them popped and sizzled as it touched a beam. A little more, he thought. Just a little more. The hairs on his arm were afire. A little more. Now he could see no room between his skin and the bars. A fraction more, that’s all…

  There was a soft whuff as a lock of his hair grazed the bar before his face and caught fire. The flames crawled toward his scalp. Miranda cried out, “Pull him back!” He felt Sarge’s hands tighten on his ankles, and at the same time Cody flicked the belt with a quick jerk of his wrist.

  He heard it: the metallic, almost musical tring of the silver skull hitting the control box. But whether that was contact enough to trip the switch he did
n’t know, and in the next second Sarge was hauling him away from the bars and Miranda was plucking away burning hair. The muscles in his forearm cramped rigid, and as the belt came up over the edge it wandered into one of the bars and was sliced in two as cleanly as by a white-hot blade. He lay on his back, rubbing the cramp out of his arm, the buckle still clenched in his hand.

  And then he realized, with a start, that the cage was descending.

  He sat up, a stubble of burned hair still smoking above his left eye. The pyramid glowed violet. The cage settled gently to the floor, and the circle of bars went dark.

  * * *

  55

  Stinger’s Realm

  Matt Rhodes was the first down the rope into the hole beneath Sonny Crowfield’s house. The bull’s-eye lantern was tied to his waist and a fully loaded automatic rifle from Crowfield’s arsenal was strapped around his shoulder. As soon as his shoes squished into the ooze at the bottom, he took the lantern off and aimed it into the tunnel ahead. Nothing moved in there but the slow dripping of gray slime. He looked up, saw Rick Jurado’s light about twenty feet above. He pulled on the rope, and Rick started down.

  Rick had the second of Crowfield’s rifles, as well as one of the flashlights they’d gotten from people at the fortress. When Rick made it down, the rope was hauled up and a few seconds later came down again tied around the device Daufin had suggested they make: four of the bright battery lamps wired together and with a wire handle like a basket of light. It illuminated the tunnel with a powerful white glare, and Rhodes breathed a lot easier when it reached the bottom.

  Jessie climbed down next, carrying a flashlight and the Winchester strapped to her shoulder. Tom followed, with Daufin clinging around his neck. The last down was Curt Lockett. Hanging at his chest was a hiker’s backpack, brought from the hardware store, that held the five sticks of dynamite and the hogleg Colt.

  Tom set Daufin down. The tunnel that stretched before them was about seven feet in height and another six or seven feet wide. In the muck around them were pieces of the house’s floor, a mattress, and a broken-up bed. Crowfield was probably lying in it when the floor split open, Rick figured. He unstrapped the rifle, propped its stock against his hip, and kept the flashlight’s beam pointed ahead. Rhodes gave his lantern to Tom and took the bundle of battery lamps. “Okay,” Rhodes said quietly, his voice echoing. “I’ll go first. Daufin behind me. Then Jessie, Tom, Lockett, and Rick brings up the rear. Lockett, I don’t want you throwing those sticks without my order. Got it?”

  A flame flared. Curt lit a Lucky with the Bic lighter. “Got it, boss man.”

  “Rick, make sure you watch our backs. And everybody keep as quiet as you can: we want to be able to hear anything digging.” He swallowed thickly. The air was wet and heavy down here, and the rotten-peaches odor of the gray ooze stung his nostrils. The slime hung from the ceiling and sides of the tunnel like grotesque stalactites, pools of it shimmering an iridescent silver on the floor. “What’s this wet shit all over the place?” Curt asked. It was about two inches deep underfoot, as slick as engine grease.

  “Stinger digs these tunnels,” Daufin answered. “It sprays them with lubricant so it can move faster.”

  “Lubricant!” Curt grunted. Little ants of fear were running figure eights in his belly. “Stuff looks like snot!”

  “One thing I want to know,” Rhodes said. “Does the power source that runs the replicants come from Stinger or the ship?”

  “From Stinger.” Daufin peered down the tunnel ahead, alert for any sign of movement. “The replicants are expendable, meant to be discarded after their use is finished.”

  The replication process must be incredibly fast, Jessie thought. The creation of living tissue bonded with metallic fibers, the inner organs, synthetic bones—all of it was too much for an earthbound mind to comprehend. Her own questions about what Stinger looked like, and how it created the replicants from human bodies, would have to wait. It was time to go.

  “Everybody ready?” Rhodes waited for them all to reply, and then he started into the tunnel, careful of his footing in the slime and trying very hard not to think about the size of the monster that had drilled through the Texas dirt.

  Rick shone the light behind them. All clear. Before leaving the ’Gade fort, he’d knelt down beside Paloma and held her hands between his. Had told her what he had to do, and why. She’d listened silently, her head bowed. Then she’d asked him to pray with her, and he’d rested his cheek against her forehead as she begged God’s mercy on her grandson and granddaughter. She’d kissed his hand and looked at him with those sightless eyes that had always seen to his soul. “Dios anda con los bravos,” she’d whispered, and let him go.

  He hoped she was right, and that God did indeed walk with the brave. Or at least watch over the desperate.

  Since leaving the apartment building, they’d seen neither the creature that had grown out of the horse nor any of the human-sized Stingers. They’d found two fifteen-foot lengths of rope at the hardware store and had come across the bridge, where Rick’s heart had sunk when he’d seen the battered remains of Cody Lockett’s motorcycle still burning. He didn’t know if Cody’s old man recognized the machine too, but Curt Lockett hadn’t made a sound.

  The tunnel veered to the right. The lamps revealed an intersection of three passages, all going in different directions. Rhodes chose the center of the tunnels, which continued in what he thought was the way to the black pyramid, and Daufin nodded when he looked at her for reassurance. They went into it, their lights glinting off the wet walls. In another moment they could hear a steady pounding ahead, like the beating of a huge heart.

  “Stinger’s ship,” Daufin whispered. “The systems are charging.”

  Rick kept his flashlight aimed behind them. And it happened so fast he had no time to cry out: a hunchbacked figure scurried into the beam about twenty feet away, lifted its hands before its face, and quickly retreated to the darkness.

  Rick stopped. His knees were rubbery. He’d seen the weaving tail, and the thing had resembled a mottled eight-legged scorpion with a human head. “Colonel?” He said it louder: “Colonel?”

  The others had gone on a few paces, but now Rhodes halted and looked back. “What’s wrong?”

  “It knows we’re here,” Rick answered.

  From in front of them came a woman’s Texan drawl: “I wouldn’t come any closer if I were ya’ll.”

  Rhodes swung around and held the lamps up. Twelve or fifteen feet ahead, the tunnel wound to the left and he knew the creature must be standing around that turn.

  “You bugs sure like to live dangerous,” Stinger said. “Is the guardian with you?”

  Daufin took a step forward. “I’m here,” she said defiantly. “I want the three humans set free.”

  There was a cold little laugh. “Lordy Mercy, was that an order? Honeychild, you’re in my world now. You want to come on and give yourself up, I might think about lettin’ the bugs go.”

  “Either you set them free,” Daufin said, “or we will.”

  That brought another giggle. “Look behind you, honeychild. You can’t see me, but I’m there. I’m in the walls. I’m up over you and down underneath. I’m everywhere.” Anger was creeping in. “I’ve got your pod now, honeychild. That’ll be good enough for my bounty. Plus I’ve found a whole world full of bugs that can’t fight worth a damn, and I ought to thank you for leadin’ me here.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “No? Who’s gonna stop me?”

  “I am.”

  There was silence. Daufin knew Stinger would not rush forward into the glare. And then Stinger hissed: “Come on, then. I’m waitin’ for you. Come on, let’s see what color your guts are!”

  “Get down,” Curt said quietly, and he touched the fuse of the dynamite stick he was holding to the red tip of his cigarette. The fuse smoked and sparked, began to burn, and Rhodes shouted, “I told you not to—”

  “Fuck it,
” Curt said, and hurled the stick toward the bend in the tunnel.

  Rhodes grabbed Daufin and threw both himself and her into the muck. The others hit the ground and two seconds later there was a blast like a dozen shotguns going off. The tunnel’s floor shook, chunks of dirt flying through the air and showering down. Rhodes sat up, his ears ringing. Daufin struggled out from underneath him and got to her knees. She looked back in amazement at Curt, who was already on his feet and taking another puff from his bent cigarette. “That’s what dynamite is,” he said.

  Stinger’s voice did not return. But from around the bend there was a terrible gasping sound, like air being drawn into diseased lungs. Rhodes stood up, cocked his rifle, and held it as steady as he could, then began walking forward. He crouched and rounded the bend, ready to open fire.

  Something was on the tunnel floor, trying to crawl away through the ooze. It had one arm, the other a blackened mass lying several feet away, and its head was a misshapen lump. In the torn face, the mouth full of broken needles gasped like the gill of a bizarre fish, and the single remaining eye flinched in the light. The spiked tail had risen from its backbone and thrashed weakly from side to side. The thing’s hand started clawing frantically at the dirt, trying to dig itself in.

  Rhodes held the bundle of lamps closer to its face, avoiding the twitching tail. The awful ruined mouth stretched open, spilling gray fluid, and the eye began to smoke and burn in its socket. A charred, acrid chemical odor hung in the air. The eye popped open, melted in a rivulet of ooze, and the body shuddered and lay still. The tail thrashed once more before it fell like a dead flower.

  Electric light burns out the thing’s eyes, Rhodes thought. And once they were blinded, Stinger had no more use for the replicants—which were, in essence, walking and talking cameras—so the power source that animated them was simply turned off. But if all the replicants were in some strange way part of Stinger—powered perhaps by Stinger’s brainwaves—then it was likely Stinger could feel pain: the impact of a bullet, or the blast of dynamite. You hurt me, he remembered the creature saying to him in Dodge Creech’s house. All the replicants were Stinger, and Stinger was vulnerable to pain through them.