Bad Radio (37 page)

I could feel the vibration through the soles of my feet as it settled into a steady idle. I closed the choke and then slowly pushed the handle away from me. The roar pitched down to a rumble as it began to work.

The spool started turning with a squeal and a shower of black dust and grit. The chain dangling from the tip of the crane lengthened, slowly reaching for the surface of the water far below. When the hook broke the surface, I tried to keep track of how much chain was under water as I watched the links slide out of sight. When I thought I had what I needed, I pulled the lever back to neutral and the spool stopped turning.

Done with the first part of my plan, I stepped away from the control panel.

Just in time for one of the Mother’s tentacle’s to whip down and yank me into the sky. In a split-second I was fifty feet up in the air and moving fast.

45

I
nch long teeth sawed into my leg as I dangled over a deep well of wetly rippling purple flesh. I’m going to blame panic for what I did next, because that sounds better than stupidity.

I hunched upward and grabbed the end of the tentacle holding me with both hands and yanked. The closed loop of muscle came open and I dropped straight down towards the gulping orifice below me.

The Mother snatched at me in the air and managed to knock me enough to the side that I hit the edge of her mouth between the bases of two of her five pillar-like tentacles, instead of dropping straight into her maw. I heaved off even as I slammed into the ridged muscle, narrowly avoiding being pinned as the tentacles closed like two huge fingers gripping a cigarette.

I tumbled through the air for five stories and slammed into the frigid black water. The impact was like being hit by a car, stunning me. By the time I was able to focus I was much farther down than I expected. The rippling glass ceiling of the surface glowed far above me. Unseen things in the water bumped into me with blunt noses before sliding over and around me.

I pulled hard for the surface with my arms, since my booted feet slipped through the water with little resistance as I kicked. I should have pulled them off, but I didn’t like the idea of having bare feet while hungry things swam up from below.

It was hard to tell if the surface was getting closer. Something much larger than before shoved me in the leg, pushing forcefully past me. A few seconds later it hit me again, this time in the back, and hard enough to bruise me. I lost some of my precious air with the impact.

A long shadow crossed between me and the surface, long and thick like a fire hose, but frayed at the front end. There were several of them in the water around me. I could feel the currents of their passage as they shot past, inches from my skin.

They let me get within about ten feet of the surface, just to the point where I could make out the rubbery stretching and contracting images of the crane arms hanging over the quarry, when my calf was gripped in the fist of a pissed-off giant, squeezing for all he was worth.

The worm jerked savagely, and dozens of needle-sharp teeth popped through my jeans and into my leg. I tucked into a ball and clawed at the rubbery thing, but I couldn’t get a grip on its slick hide. It jerked again, and the surface jumped away as it pulled me down.

I could see whorls of inky shadow above my head as it dragged me back through the expanding cloud of my own blood. Terror was making my heart race, burning up my oxygen and pushing me towards panic as I desperately fought against the need to inhale.

I reached down, grabbed my foot with both hands, and pulled it up towards my face until I could feel the slick tentacles that were wrapped around my calf against my lips. I bit down as hard as I could.

It was like trying to bite through a snake without the scales, all sliding, contracting muscles with a core of bone joints down the center. I dug in and shook my head like a dog until my teeth touched bone.

The worm let me go like I was on fire and bolted away. I clawed for the surface with everything I had, spots drifting across my vision.

I broke into clear air and gulped air and lake water in equal amounts, wasting precious moments coughing and catching my breath. As soon as I was able, I got my bearings and spotted the chain hanging down into the water a few feet to my left.

I grabbed the rusty, coarse links and started pulling it up hand over hand looking for the hook at the end. My fingers finally found it, so I hooked it into the waistband of my jeans and swam towards the Mother.

My head was above water, which worried me, but the Mother had switched her focus to the bags on the stairway. The distant mob was nearly at the top now. A few more seconds and they’d get through.

I could see Anne and Chuck pressed up against the spools at the top of the stairs, trying to push them over. I hoped that they could shift the heavy stack before the bags reached them, because otherwise the wave of creatures would easily push it over on top of them.

I reached the Mother’s massive trunk and began to curve around it, chain in tow. She wasn’t much more than about twenty feet thick at the waterline, so I figured it would only take a few moments to circle her with the chain.

Black tentacles erupted from the water next to me and a huge splay-faced worm wrapped itself around my chest. The damned thing thrashed and looped its tail around me, trying to capture my arms, while at the same time gripping and jerking rhythmically with its teeth trying to dig into my chest as deeply as possible. Spray flew as it writhed, its tail slapping the surface of the water.

A quick glance at the staircase showed that there was no time to try and get free. I kept moving, fighting to keep my arms free of the worm’s tail and slowly closing the gap as I circled the Mother’s body.

Chuck and Anne threw themselves at the massive tower of steel-wrapped spools. It tipped forwards slowly, imperceptibly, and then suddenly it was past the point of no return.

The spools separated as the tower fell. The bags directly underneath the cascade were crushed, while the ones nearby were hurled off of the steps to fall into the water below like raindrops.

The massive spools bounced on the stone stairs, each impact sounding like a car crash, and plowed into the mob, spinning and tumbling all the way down the top section of the stairs before flying off into space.

It wasn’t enough to make a clean sweep of the stairway. At least fifteen of the things remained at the bottom, but it gave Chuck and Anne time to sprint for the shack in relative safety.

I had to look away as I finally closed the circle and snapped the hook over the massive chain, encircling the Mother in a wide loop of steel. I gripped the fat links with both hands and began to climb, dragging the heavy worm clamped around my chest out of the water with me.

I sucked in as much air as I could and bellowed, “Now! Pull the lever now!”

In the distance, Anne and Chuck turned their heads towards me. Anne ducked out of the shotgun strap around her shoulder and dropped the weapon on the roof.

That’s when I realized that I had made a serious mistake. The bags were already at the top of the stairs and running for the improvised steps at the shed. There was no way that Anne was going to be able to get back on the roof in time if she ran to the crane and back.

I tried to stop her. “Anne! Don’t jump! Get back!”

It was too late.

She raced to the side of the building farthest from the bags and hung from the edge, letting herself down as far as she could before letting go and dropping to the ground. She rolled to her feet and sprinted to the crane lever.

Some of the bags began to notice her. They split off from the group charging the shack and ran towards the crane.

Anne yanked the lever back and the chain began hauling me skyward. It clicked and twitched as the hook slipped over the links below me and cinched up tight against the Mother’s trunk.

I looked down in time to see one of the Mother’s tentacles whipping through the air at me. She hit me with the toothed side of her tentacle, which would have flayed me down to the bone if not for her offspring wrapped around my torso. The long serrated teeth struck me in the middle of my back and ripped all the way through her spawn, penetrating just far enough to rake my skin underneath. Both halves of the worm dropped lifelessly off of me to flutter down and splash into the water below.

At the top of the quarry Anne ran for the far side of the shack. Five or six bags were right behind her. Chuck threw himself flat on his stomach with his arms reaching down off of the edge.

Anne leaped with everything she had. They connected. Chuck pulled her up as she scrabbled for purchase with her toes, and together they managed to get her back up on top of the roof. The shack trembled and thrummed with the impact of the bags as they slammed into the side below her.

The chain drew me steadily upwards until I reached the tip of the crane. Far below, the surface of the lake boiled as the Mother thrashed at the end of her noose.

46

I
picked my way down the sloping crane arm as quickly as I could. When I reached the ground I pushed the lever back to the center position, locking the drum into place. The Mother hung half out the water, twisting and jerking against the chain biting into her flesh. The entire crane arm bobbed and groaned in time with her struggles. I knew she wouldn’t be trapped for much longer.

I needed to get into the shack. I couldn’t go through the ring of frenzied bags around it, so that left just the one option. I looked hard at the roof, took two running steps, and leapt.

I sailed upward and out, pin-wheeling my arms in an attempt not to tumble and keeping my eyes on the rapidly approaching tin roof below. Chuck and Anne both looked up with wide, disbelieving eyes as I dropped down out of the sky, nearly on top of them.

The building boomed and rattled as I hit the roof flat on my back not two feet from the edge. The impact knocked the wind out of me.

Anne helped me to my feet. “That was amazing! I can’t believe you just did that!”

“I promise you, it wasn’t my first choice.”

“Now what?” The shotgun in her hands boomed. A bag with the face of a snarling, bearded man pitched back and out of sight below the roofline.