The screams ceased. The digging ended.
He looked at Mo. The Māori's hands, also covered in a slick mass of foods that had never meant to be mixed, had also frozen.
"They are inside," he said.
60
"I HOPE THIS WORKS," said Mo. Any tension he felt was belied by his tone: offhand, like he was talking about nothing more important than programming his DVR to record a show he particularly enjoyed.
He and Aaron should play poker together.
Christopher grinned. "Of course it'll work."
And he knew it would, too. At least, the boomy part would. He was good with boomy things.
They were backed away to the end of the passage that led to the wet room. Mo took up most of the hatchway, but had left enough room for Amulek and Christopher to peek around.
The false wall/hatchway at the opposite end of the passage was closed. But he heard movement.
Why don't they just come in around us? Through the walls?
And he knew why: the girls had called the things. Lizzy and Hope, maybe Maggie and Buck and Sally, too. But their calls, whatever they were, had somehow funneled through the open doors that Mo had left behind. The sound or radiation or whatever they used had left some kind of breadcrumbs that the monsters were following, like ants following a leader.
He had seen a nature show on ants once. Saw what they did when a cricket got in their way when they were following a trail home.
It wasn't pretty.
He gulped. But didn't move.
He had to see.
The hatch at the opposite end of the tunnel started clicking.
The boomy part would work.
He just didn't know about the rest.
The hatch started screaming.
A moment later, it began to glow red.
61
IT TOOK ALMOST NO TIME at all. Or maybe it did. The time it took for the things to burrow through solid steel could have been measured in seconds, minutes, hours. It could have been a lifetime. Christopher didn't know. He didn't feel like he even had time to blink, but when the hatch started peeling outward he realized tears were streaming over his cheeks because he'd kept his eyes open so long.
The things pushed through.
This was something he'd seen, too. They were like roaches, squeezing into spaces far too small for their bodies. But where roaches seemed to bend and shift to make their way in, these things simply pushed until their outer skin peeled off.
That was something he hadn't counted on. And it could be a disaster. If the things' outer skins sheered away, if they left those spinning skin-saws in the decoy room behind them....
Mo shifted. Readying.
"Wait," breathed Christopher.
"Mahi atu," breathed the warrior. The words sounded like warnings – whether to Christopher or to the thing now pressing itself through a six-inch hole, he couldn't say.
The sickening ichor that passed for blood in so many of these things spilled over the edges of the hole. Thick, black, like motor oil congealed by cold.
The thing's head was halfway through. Raw bone visible on its misshapen temples, a skull oddly rounded so as to pass through the earth.
Then it stopped moving. Writhed a bit.
"Stuck," whispered Mo.
The thing pulled back.
The hatch began to glow again. The hole began to widen as the tumorous saws began working on it.
Wider. Wider.
No chances this time. They would open it all the way. Pour in as a stream of monstrous creatures that brought only death.
Mo got ready. Aiming down his weapon's sight.
The hole was wide.
The things didn't just enter. They poured in.
"NOW!"
62
A MOMENT.
Just a single moment.
It was long enough for Christopher to question. Not just his plan, but himself.
The only things he'd ever been good at were looking good, moving fast, and blowing things up. The first had been a surprisingly helpful gift. The second had given him freedom. The last had saved his life.
Now, his clothes were torn, his body abraded. He didn't even want to think about what his face looked like, not with a nose that had been broken more times than most prize fighters'. His first skill was history.
His second seemed diminished somehow, lost when compared to the warriors who worked so well together, who danced and seemed to know where each foot fell with perfect precision.
And now, for a long moment, he thought his final skill had failed him as well.
Then... it happened.
Christopher didn't know about the scope of Mo's talents, but apparently the guy could shoot anything with a trigger. The flare gun popped, and the flare brightened so quickly that Christopher's eyes streamed tears and his vision disappeared for a moment in a field of white.
When they cleared, he saw the flare buried on one of the monsters. Stuck to the peanut butter, the soup mix, the sticky foods that they had piled up in front of the hatch in the hopes that, when the monsters tore through, they would also tear through the provisions. Christopher had seen the way the dirt clung to them when they pulled through the ground like dangerous grubs seeking food, and he hoped the food would do the same. It did.
And so did the ammo that he and Mo and Amulek had shoved into the peanut butter, had jammed into the soup packets. The bullets weren't going to go off, not even with a flare gun hanging off them.
But the black powder they had gotten out of the shotgun shells.... The powder they had laced all over the noodle-and-peanut-butter mix, drizzling it like deadly frosting on the world's ugliest cake....
The flare was dying. Christopher had another moment of doubt.
Then the flare brightened. The monster the flare had stuck to screamed. Not in pain, Christopher got the impression it was telling the other half dozen things that had already entered the tunnel to get out get out get OUT!
Mo threw himself backward.
Threw the hatch to the wet room shut as he did.
And... the boomy.
63
IT WAS A SMALL SERIES of crackles at first. Like popcorn popping, or even smaller – like someone was pouring an exceptionally large bowl of Rice Krispies.
Then the crackles turned to cracks, the cracks to bangs.
The bangs to a series of booms.
The flare ignited gunpowder. The gunpowder ignited bullets. The bullets ignited the gas cans – emergency cans for an emergency generator that Christopher had known The Underground Māori Survivalist Manual would certainly provide for. He had poured a bit more on the floor – more accelerant for more fire. Plus, it wasn't gas that typically caused an explosion, it was gas fumes, trapped in an enclosed space with more gas. So he didn't want full gas cans, he wanted them partially empty.
But each gallon of gasoline had about the same kick as fifty sticks of dynamite if it went.
Ten gallons in the hall.
Pop... crackle... KABOOM.
The explosion rocked Christopher backward even through the closed hatch as the floor buckled beneath his feet.
He grinned at Mo. The hunter was smiling back. So was Amulek, for that matter – something Christopher had actively started wondering if the kid was capable of.
"It worked?" said Mo. "They are dead?"
"No," said Christopher. "No way. You've been here this whole time so you don't know. They don't die. Even the pieces come for you if you let them."
Mo's smile faded. "Then how do we beat them?"
"Well, the smaller the pieces are, the less mobile. So I'm hoping we can get past what's left in the tunnel. Get somewhere else before more come." He let his grin grow a shade wider. "Easy-peasy."
Mo's smile didn't return. "And the little girls, the mama, the big man? The kitty? How do we convince them to come?"
Now it was Christopher's turn to have his smile fall from his face. "Dammit," he said. He turned his hands palm upward. Shrugged. "I can't
think of everything."
The hatch at their backs pinged. Started to shriek as buzzsaw growths ground against it from the other side.
Mo sighed. He picked up a shotgun from where he had put it beside the hatchway. Handed it to Amulek, who took it, then grabbed a second shotgun for himself. "I do not think it matters, e kare."
The hatch started to glow. Mo and Amulek cocked their shotguns as one.
"Your plan was not enough," said the big hunter. "They are coming through."
64
CHRISTOPHER THOUGHT of making the most obvious move: saying "No duh" in the most scathing tone possible. Then he decided that pissing off his only allies was unwise. Especially given they were two larger-than-average Māori warrior-types currently holding cocked shotguns.
He fell back to Vocal Option Two: "Crap. Shit. Crap."
Unfortunately, the Thesaurus Method of dealing with trouble didn't seem to bear any results. The hatch kept glowing. And now part of it ground to nothing – a whirring slice of unflesh could be seen through the hole.
"Crap. Shit. Shit. Crap."
The hole widened.
Mo fell back a few steps. "Do we protect the others?" he asked.
"I don't –" Christopher began, then realized the question wasn't aimed at him. Mo was staring at his grandson. A solemn moment, even in the midst of terror. As though Mo was recognizing his ward's manhood in this penultimate instant.
Amulek nodded. "Keep the Marae clean," said Mo. He clapped the teen on the shoulder. Not the same kind of manly pounding given by guys in the United States. Mo's arm went up and down in a straight line, held rigid at the elbow. Again, Christopher got the sense he was seeing something ritualistic. Something important.
Mo stepped forward. He nestled the shotgun in his bad shoulder. Gritted his teeth – not in pain, but irritation – and switched to his good shoulder.
Amulek stepped back. Moving to the center of the room, where he could take over defense after Mo fell.
And Mo would fall. There was no question.
They all would.
The first of the things began to push through.
The girls, Maggie, Sally, and Buck began to scream again.
65
CHRISTOPHER RAN TO Amulek. Gestured for the shotgun. The kid only hesitated a moment before handing it over. He unlimbered his bow. Arrows appeared in his draw hand as if by magic – Christopher was going to have to ask him about that one of these days.
Right. Like you have any more days left.
He spun in time to see the last of the hatch peel away. No magic peanut butter, no high-explosive noodles. Just metal that was worth little, air that was worth even less.
This is wrong. I shouldn't be here. Not in the back. I should be where Mo is. I should be protecting everyone.
It doesn't matter.
Then the monsters were in.
66
GROANING, MOANING, entreaties –
(GIVE UP GIVE IN GIVE UP GIVE IN)
– that were low in his ears but somehow shrieked in his mind.
The sound of screams: his, Mo's. The girls and woman and man he had thought he knew. Screams of fear and human terror. Screams of longing and alien lust.
Sally's roar, changed from something fearsome and predatory to something full of longing and somehow even worse for the change.
The boom of gunshots. Deafening in the small space. But not enough to dampen the other sounds.
The smack of shot into flesh. The wet thud of flesh falling to the floor.
The crackle of bones resetting, of wounds knitting together under yellow mucus. Impossible. Invulnerable.
Mo was shouting the loudest. Screaming a chant, a cry to battle, a cry to death. "Ka mate, ka mate!" over and over, louder and louder. The strength of his screams carrying over the sound of all the rest. Christopher didn't know what he was saying, but he saw Amulek, ready to fight, ready to protect the guests in his home. The teen was crying freely. Tears streaming over his unmoving face as the first of the things that had fallen and regained their feet reached for Mo.
He shook the thing away. Reached to his hip – for the first time Christopher realized the big man had a machete strapped to his side – and with one chopping slash took the thing's head off.
Of course that only made things worse. The headless zombie started dancing that terrible dance, that mad jitterbug they always did when their heads were injured. Aaron had said that was because they lost contact with whatever made them this way. Maybe so. All Christopher knew was their movements grew less conscious, more dangerous.
The headless creature reached for Mo again. The hunter shot it once, a point blank punch to the chest, but it just kept coming. It was one of the diggers, flesh covered in whirring growths.
The plated saws bit at Mo. Chewed into the arm he thrust protectively in front of him. For the first time, the hunter screamed in pain.
Christopher stepped toward him. Felt a restraining hand. Amulek, holding him back. Either to keep him as one of the last defenses or simply to respect the warrior's sacrifice.
Mo shoved his hands against the whirring blades that had taken over the creature's flesh. He screamed again, but didn't draw back. He picked the thing up. Blood sluiced down his arms.
He threw it into the mass of creatures that had pushed into the wet room behind the first one.
They all went down in a tangle of struggling bodies. In pools of ichor, bits of flesh torn free from bone.
Mo fell as well. Hands worn nearly free of flesh, skin white as parchment from pain and loss of blood. His body was limp as a coat dropped on the floor, just an empty shell from which consciousness had fled.
One of the creatures pulled away from the headless one. It loomed over Mo. Then reeled back as an arrow burst forth from the center of its forehead. Another insane creature born. But this one fixated not on the other demons that had risen, but on the angel who lay before it. On Mo.
It plummeted toward the Māori.
67
"NO."
BOOM-KRCHAK.
"No."
BOOM-KRCHAK.
"NO!"
BOOM-KRCHAK.
Christopher walked forward with each step, with each shot, with each re-racking of the shotgun slide. With each scream.
"NO!"
BOOM-KRCHAK.
He was screaming his will that the monsters leave, that they not cut down his brave new friend. He was screaming his hope that they could somehow escape. Screaming the knowledge that such was impossible, that doom was here for them.
He was screaming a final "screw you" at the universe.
He walked forward: screaming, shooting, screaming. The thing that had crouched over Mo was blasted backward. Black holes appeared all over its body, patchwork patterns of ichor splashed the walls. It pitched back. A step. Two.
Mo rose up on his elbows and knees. Tried to crawl away. Fell again.
The thing moved toward him once more.
Christopher kept screaming. Kept firing.
But he suddenly realized the sounds had changed.
He was out of ammo.
68
HE WAS TOO FAR AWAY.
Too far to save Mo.
No chance to save his friends.
Couldn't even save himself.
Torn, didn't know where to go.
The things in the back of the room were no longer struggling with the zombie that Mo had decapitated. They grabbed arms, legs. Pulled. The thing fell in five pieces on the floor. The pieces twitched, writhed, grabbed. Still dangerous, but no longer of concern to the zombies in the room. The whirring jaws, the spinning skin.
They moved toward Mo.
And then...
69
... EVERYTHING STOPPED.
It wasn't his imagination, though at first Christopher thought it must be. He must have fallen into some panic-dream where the zombies stopped moving, where the girls and Maggie and Sally and Buck all stopped screaming.
Where all wa
s silent.
Where all was... safe.
The silence lasted only a moment. The cessation of motion even less.
Then the storm began.
Something pounded its way into the room. No bigger than the other monsters, but it bore the same resemblance to them that a class five tornado did to a summer sprinkle.
Christopher couldn't follow what was happening. He kept pulling the trigger, kept racking the slide on an empty chamber. The shotgun dry-shot over and over. Click, click, click.
Amulek shot an arrow. Another. Another. Christopher couldn't tell if they hit their mark. Couldn't even tell what the teen was shooting at.
Something hit the wall. Not ichor this time, the wall smoked as acid struck it. The same acid that Christopher had seen several times before, a weapon and a curse for the things that produced it.
The sound of thumps surrounded him.
Then the chaos ceased.
Confusion began.
A single creature was all that was left. It stood over Mo. Arms long and extending to blade-like ends that were covered in entrails, bits of broken flesh. Mouth dribbling black acid that hissed furrows in its skin – furrows which healed as fast as they came. Teeth gritted and uneven, rage splitting its features into alien pieces like a shattered mirror rendering what was once known into a fearsome mockery of self.
The blades withdrew. Christopher realized they were bony masses, extending out from where the hands should be. But as he watched, the blades retracted, shifting until they were swallowed up in bony forearms, parts of the blades shattering out to form fingers at the ends of knobby hands.
Vaguely humanoid hands.
Hands that led to armored wrists.
Armored wrists that pivoted strangely on impossible ball-joints before morphing to powerful arms that were both alien and familiar.
The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7] Page 72