by Gini Koch
I managed to swing back inside and brace myself on the sides of the canal. I had a clear view of the parasite, but I was nowhere near enough to have a hope of the aerosol reaching. Besides, I didn’t know if alcohol would work on this thing anyway.
I considered letting go of the hairs and crawling into the canal, but the mere idea was enough to make me throw up, and I didn’t want to be near enough to the parasite for it to get a chance at me anyway.
Mom’s Glock was looking like my best option. If I could find it. With one hand. Hanging onto a big fugly’s gross ear hairs. There had to be a better way to make a living.
I stayed braced in the ear and slowly took my right hand off the hairs. I didn’t start falling, so I began the careful dig through my purse. This was complicated by Earwig’s contortions. I had to grab with both hands far too often. But finally, on the fifth or sixth attempt, my hand closed around cold steel.
I pulled the gun out, and now came the really fun part. The safety was on, and it required two hands to release.
Telling myself I didn’t mind this at all, I wrapped the hairs around my left upper arm, and let go. I was able to get the safety off, but then “Born to Raise Hell” came on, and Earwig went nuts.
The contortions were worse than ever, and I started to slip. Oh, well, no time like the present to find out what gun recoil felt like.
It wasn’t all that bad, but my first couple of shots didn’t hit. I managed to grab the hairs again with my left hand and did my best to steady my right. And then my stomach clenched, because the parasite was moving, right toward me.
Mom’s words, aim for what you want to hit, seemed so logical right then. I took a deep breath, aimed and fired. I kept on firing until the clip was empty. My reward was the parasite being ripped apart. My punishment was Earwig going down.
He fell over onto his side, the side I was on. I was hooked in his ear hair and I couldn’t get free. I held on as we went down, and then everything went black.
CHAPTER 42
I WAS LUCKY. I wasn’t squished, and I wasn’t unconscious. I was, however, in the ear canal and had parasite parts all over me. To say I started to freak out for real is an understatement.
My screams echoed in the ear chamber. I wasn’t sure if Earwig was dead or not, but I wasn’t trying to kill him, I was simply hysterical.
Somehow I still had the Glock in my hand. But the magazine was empty, so I couldn’t shoot my way out. However, the thought that maybe I could got me somewhat under control, in that though I was still screaming, I was also digging through my purse for another clip. I dropped the empty on the ground and shoved the new one in, all by feel, since it was pitch black in the stinkhole that passed for an ear canal. Mom would have been proud. I hoped I’d get to tell her about it while still on the Earthly plane.
I was about to start wasting bullets when the body began to move. My arm was still caught in the ear hairs and I decided trying to shoot myself free was not going to be a smart idea. The one positive about being covered with dead jellyfish slime was that it made my arm slick. I had to really work at it, but I got my arm free as the body lifted off me.
I could see now, and what I saw were two pairs of black-clad legs from the knees down. A-Cs were strong. Thank God. I dropped and crawled out. As soon as I was clear they dropped the body back to the ground with a thud.
Someone picked me up. “You’re a mess. And thanks for the headache. I didn’t feel bad enough.”
“Jeff, I’m covered with dead parasite.” I managed to get this out without screaming.
Christopher reached into my purse and pulled out an aerosol can. “Don’t know why you have trouble, it’s easy to find stuff in there.” Martini glared. He was almost up to Christopher’s standards. “Get back, Jeff. Kitty, stand still and close your eyes.”
I did as he said and he sprayed me all over. I was wet but I felt the parasite bubbling away.
“Is any in your nose or mouth?” Martini asked.
“I don’t think so.” Christopher sprayed my face. “I said I don’t think so!”
“Have to be sure.” He sounded like he was laughing.
I opened my eyes. He was laughing. I was back to considering the benefits of just hating him. Martini, on the other hand, was staring at my chest. I looked down. My top was soaked and I was in the running for the A-C wet T-shirt contest. “How’re we doing?”
“We’re all still alive,” Martini said, sounding somewhat surprised.
I looked around. Earwig was, thankfully, dead. His eyes were back to human. It made him look even more horrible than he had. Well, I’d avenged my sort of romantic rival’s brutal murder. Maybe Martini would continue to speak to me if we survived.
We moved away from Earwig, and I could see that Reader was doing pretty well against the Killer. It had several limbs missing, and though the Humvee seemed to be covered with a nasty greenish-yellow ooze, it was still being driven, moving nimbly for something so ponderous. He was also keeping it away from the rest of us, which was one small blessing in a field of grossness.
The girls had somehow mounted the Pachyderm and were riding it like a bull at Gilly’s. I was awed, and I found myself wishing I had a movie camera. “Girls Gone Wild” would have paid a fortune for this footage.
Motorhead was no longer on the audio menu. Tim had switched to the Beastie Boys and had the bass turned way up. He was dueling with the Serpent; the beat and their tonality seemed to be affecting it, and its strikes were off.
“Love your musical choices,” Martini said to me.
“They’re keeping us alive.”
“Yeah. Rock and rap as the saviors of mankind?”
“Rock and roll will never die.”
“We might,” Christopher said, as the Pachyderm bucked and thundered nearby and the Slug inched toward us.
We backed away from the Slug, and then, over the sounds of “Fight for Your Right,” our air support arrived.
The jets had a payload, and I knew we didn’t want to be near their drop zone. “We have to get out of here.”
Martini grabbed my hand, and we were moving at hyperspeed. We were far away from the action, which was good, and I was so far past grossed out and adrenalized to the max that I didn’t get nauseous. I was worried about the girls, but the Pachyderm was frightened by the jets buzzing it, and it stampeded off, toward us, but away from the Slug.
The jets were amazing to watch, fast and expertly flown. They dropped their salt payloads with impressive accuracy while avoiding Mephistopheles, who was trying to knock them out of the air.
A larger plane arrived now, flanked by more fighters. This one I figured had the water. “How did it get here so fast?”
“We can create ocean water at the Science Center,” Christopher informed me. “We need to be ready in case a parasite hits a whale.” Wonderful news—they could get any mammal. I was glad our pets were safe.
The salt was working. The Slug wasn’t moving, and even from this distance I could see it bubbling. The big plane was overhead and dumped its water load. “Wow.” The slug disintegrated. “How do we know that killed the parasite?”
Martini grabbed my hand again, and we all raced back. There was a jellyfish in the midst of the muddy remains of the Slug. It was pulsing, but slowly. I could tell it was dying. But dying and dead weren’t the same thing. I grabbed my other can of aerosol out of my purse and moved in.
The parasites could move when they had to. This one gave it one last go and lunged toward me, as much as something with no limbs could lunge. But I was ready. This was a hairspray situation, and I was an expert. The parasite took a full blast of Ever-Hold and dissolved.
“I thought you said the superbeings were invulnerable as long as their parasite was alive,” I mentioned to Martini as I slogged out of the mess.
“We’ve never tried hairspray, salt baths, rock and roll, or simply ramming them with our cars.”
“You just lacked vision.”
“Thanks,” Christopher
said. “We’ll be sure to mention it when we’re back.”
The big plane took off, but the jets weren’t leaving. Some of this was because of Mephistopheles. However, two of the jets were buzzing the Pachyderm. Tim and Reader seemed to be doing all right with their particular superbeings. I dug around in my purse and pulled out the walkie. “Mr. White, please.”
“Here, Miss Katt. How goes the offensive?”
“We’re still alive, so very well for the moment. The salt worked; however the jets aren’t leaving as requested. They can’t hurt Mephistopheles, and I have to assume they can’t hurt the Pachyderm either, so they’re causing more havoc than they’re solving.”
Silence. I watched the Pachyderm buck like a prized rodeo bull. The girls were still on it. Amazing.
“Miss Katt, apparently the pilots are concerned about leaving two young women on the back of, if I may quote, that butt-ugly bucking bronco. Could I inquire as to Claudia and Lorraine’s whereabouts?”
“They’re about to win the All-National Rodeo.” It made sense. Pilots have great eyesight, and any normal man would want to save either girl, let alone both of them.
“I see. Perhaps the pilots have the right idea.”
“What would that be?”
“They wish to get our girls off of their ride.”
Worked for me. “Tell them good luck.”
“Anything else?”
“Got a giant mongoose around?”
Silence.
“You’re insane, you know that,” Christopher offered.
“My crazy’s working a lot better than your sanity.”
“True,” Martini sighed. “True.”
The walkie buzzed again. “Sadly, no giant anything here or available, Miss Katt.”
“Could you ask my father what kills snakes besides mongoose and bullets?”
“I live to serve.” Short silence this time. “Strangulation. Chopping off the head. Crushing the head. And, oh, really? How interesting. Boiling water apparently works as well.”
“We’re gonna need a bigger plane, Mister White.”
“We’ll do our best.”
I heard “Fight for Your Right” again. Tim had the song on continuous loop. That probably wasn’t a good sign. “The faster the better.”
I dropped the walkie back into my purse. “Okay, until the planes with boiling water somehow manage to appear, we need to try to stomp the Serpent’s head.”
“With what?” Christopher asked me.
I looked over my shoulder. The jet planes had what looked like cables hanging down. I hoped the girls would take the hint. “You boys spent a lot of time running around Mephistopheles at the airport. Why?”
“We try to herd them away from civilians.”
“Oh, good. So you’re all trained then.” I gazed at both of them for a moment, the best looking rodeo clowns in the business. “The second the girls are off its back, herd the Pachyderm toward the Serpent. Use whatever you have to in order to keep it bucking and freaking out.”
Martini stared at me for a moment, then shrugged. “Everything else has worked.”
“Trust me.”
He looked away. “Right.” He took off, and I turned to watch him. I also didn’t want Christopher to see that I had something in my eyes.
Christopher put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“It wasn’t all you. I didn’t fight all that hard at the start.” And, I had to ask, if Christopher had gotten to me first, would I still want Martini? I didn’t like the answer I gave myself.
“Yeah.” He squeezed my shoulder. “He’ll come around, Kitty. I promise.”
“What says I want him to?”
He leaned over, kissed my cheek, and wiped away a tear that had somehow gotten free from my eyelashes. “Your face.” Then he was off after Martini. And I was standing there alone figuring I was going to stay that way, no matter what Christopher thought.
CHAPTER 43
I WONDERED IF MEPHISTOPHELES was going to engage me now, but he was still hanging back. As long as one of his minions was still functioning, I guessed he wasn’t going to take any risks.
However, I was standing around out in the open, and while we had two superbeings down, we had four still functioning. Not good odds for me, seeing as I didn’t have hyperspeed to help me out.
I decided getting into a vehicle would probably be a good idea. Conveniently, we had a spare that hadn’t been hit, trampled, or washed away. I ran for it.
Behind the wheel was a nice place to be. I didn’t unhook my purse, though, just in case. This made driving a bit awkward, but I figured awkward was better than losing my bag of tricks.
I took a look. Tim was having a lot more problems than Reader, and all his doors were open. I decided to go help out our team’s rookie. I pointedly ignored that, in reality, I and the girls were the real rookies; we were doing pretty well so far, after all.
I hated driving without music, but Tim had my iPod. Even in this life and death situation, I wanted some tunes. “Fight for Your Right” was getting old.
I hit what I thought was the radio button as I headed toward Tim and the Serpent. I was very proud of myself for heading toward it, rather than away from it. But there was no one around to brag to. There was only static coming out of the speakers. I twisted the knobs and hooked into what I thought was talk radio.
“. . . not working any more.” The voice sounded familiar.
“Might be time to close the doors and take off.” That sounded like Gower.
“I do and we’re all gonna die.” Aha, this was Tim.
I looked around and found another button, pushed it, and gave it a try. “Hey, can anybody hear me?”
“Kitty?”
“Yes, Paul. If I live, can I have one of these cars?”
“Glad you can think of the future.”
“James is doing better than Tim.”
“I already told him that,” Tim snapped.
I looked at the Serpent and another thought came to me. “Switch the music.”
“To what?”
“Try something soothing, but with a beat.”
“You have that?”
“I have everything.” Well, almost everything. I didn’t have Indian pipe music, which would have been my first choice. I thought about it. What song would lull a snake into submission? “John Mayer?”
“Over my dead body.”
“Could be, Tim, could be.” I thought some more. It needed a beat, and it needed to be soothing. And I needed to own it. This gave us a lot of choices. The Serpent had responded to the beats, but I wanted to soothe it. “Put on Tears for Fears. ‘Cold.’ On continuous.”
“You have got to be kidding. I thought we were trying to kill the superbeing, not me.”
“Tim? I’m in charge.” Supposedly. “We’ll know fast if it’s not the right song.”
“No Barry Manilow or John Tesh?” Reader was on the group radio.
“If you want. I have Rod Stewart, too.”
“I’m ready to let the Serpent just kill me.” Tim had switched the music. The Serpent started to sway.
“I point out that it’s working, so stop complaining. Is there any way to make the music come out of my car, too?”
“Why?” This was Gower.
“Because then we could surround it with the sound.”
“Turn on the radio.”
“I thought I had.”
“Under the buttons you used to turn on the intercom, girlfriend,” Reader offered.
They marked where their invisibility shield button was, but the radio button was incognito. Aliens were weird.
I found the right button, and the music blared out. I rolled the windows down and drove around toward the back of the giant snake-thing. It saw me and expressed an interest, but its head was starting to bob, and its glowing eyes were drooping.
“We’re boring it to death,” Tim said. I was impressed I could hear him, but the intercom was pretty
powerful.
“You know, I haven’t passed judgment on your musical choices.”
“Because you don’t know them.”
“Girlfriend, I was with you on all of the other stuff, but you’re kidding me with this, right? You don’t really have Manilow or Tesh, do you?” Reader snickered.
Well, I didn’t actually have Tesh. “I think we have more pressing issues at hand.”
We did. I could see the girls hanging off cables in the distance, and the Pachyderm was heading toward us. This meant Martini and Christopher were herding it. At least, I hoped so. But it also meant that Tim and I were going to be right in the path of the one-monster stampede.
“Tim, get ready to circle around this thing, and keep away from the Pachyderm.”
“I knew you were going to suggest we stay close by.”
“I did mention you had to be excited about dying to come along.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I close the doors at least?”
The Serpent was nodding and swaying. It really liked this song. “Sure, but be careful.” I watched him get out and slam the doors and the hatch. The Serpent’s head bobbed lower, and for a moment I thought it was going for Tim, but it was just relaxing.
He leaped back into the driver’s seat. “Clockwise or counterclockwise?”
“No idea. Which works better to charm snakes?”
“Your father says counterclockwise,” Gower offered.
My dad knew everything. No wonder Mom loved him. “Thanks, Dad!” Tim and I started off and circled the Serpent counterclockwise, keeping across from each other. I could see the Pachyderm, and it was coming fast.
“Girlfriend, are you singing along?” Reader was definitely snickering.
I was, and so what? Maybe I was adding resonance. This was the only time I’d had to sing along, after all. “Maybe.”
“Good voice.”
“Why, Tim, you’re a suck-up. I like that in a team member.” The ground was shaking, and it was harder to steer.
“We’re going to need to break off and try to help herd that thing onto the Serpent.”
“That should be close to impossible.”