They went up the steps. The front door was locked, but the nearest window was glassless and Ray reached into it, snapped the jamb’s lock off, and pushed the window up. He slid in first, then helped Nasty through. She stumbled, her strength used up, pitched forward, and they both fell to the hardwood floor.
Her mouth was right up against his ear, and she was breathing hard. Any other time this would have been a fantasy come true, he thought—but his mind couldn’t focus on sex at the moment, though her body was molded into his and her breasts pressed against his chest. God had a mighty wicked sense of humor, he decided.
The house creaked at the joints. Under them the floor rolled like a slow wave, and cracks shot up the walls. Along Travis Street the houses moaned as the creature tunneled beneath them, and Ray heard the scream of timbers caving in as a structure collapsed two or three houses away.
Nasty, tough as nails and swigger of tobacco spit, was shivering. Ray put his arms around her. “You’re going to be all right,” he said. His voice didn’t quaver too much, which surprised him. “I’ll protect you.”
She lifted her head, looked at him face-to-face, and her eyes were scared and dazed but there was a grim hint of a smile on her mouth. “My hero,” she said, and then she let her head rest on his shoulder and they lay there in the dark as Inferno ripped apart at the seams.
Across the bridge, Cody skidded the cycle to a stop in front of the Catholic church, and Rick jumped off. He looked back along First Street, couldn’t see anything through the haze. But that thing would be out of the ground by now, and probably heading this way. Zarra, Pequin, and Diego Montana had been waiting at the door for Rick’s return, and now they came down the steps. Cody got off the Honda, looked at the church, and knew those people jammed in there wouldn’t have a rat’s ass of a chance. If electric light hurt Stinger—and the way the monster in Crowfield’s house had reacted showed that Daufin was right—then there was only one safe place he could think of.
“We’ve gotta move these people out before that thing gets here!” Cody said to Rick. “We’re not gonna have much time!”
“Move them! Where?”
“Across the bridge. To the fort.” All of them gaped at him as if he’d gone totally off his bird. “Forget that gang shit!” he said, and felt as if the words split an old skin that had been shriveling tighter and tighter around him. He saw there were a lot of cars and pickups parked around the church, on both sides of the street, and most of them were broken-down heaps, but they could each carry five or six people. The pickup trucks could carry more. “We get ’em loaded and out as fast as we can!” he said. “The fort’s the only place Stinger won’t try to dig into, because of the lights!”
Rick wasn’t sure he believed that, but the apartment building was a lot sturdier than the church. He made his decision fast. “Diego, where’s your car?” The boy pointed to a rusted brown Impala across the way. “I want you to drive it up the street about fifty yards.” He motioned west. “Pequin, you go with him. Keep your lights on, and if you see anything or anybody coming, you haul ass back.”
Diego sprinted to the car, and Pequin started to protest, but he obeyed the order like a good soldier.
“Zarra, you get the Rattlers together. Tell them where we’re going, and that we’ll need all the cars we can find. I want every Rattler car loaded. Go!”
Zarra ran up the steps into the church. Rick turned to Cody. “I want you to …” He hesitated, realizing he was talking to the enemy just like he would a Rattler. “I’ll find Father LaPrado and start getting everybody out,” he amended. “I could use another scout.”
Cody nodded. “I reckon so. I could use that gun on your hip too.”
Rick gave it to him, handle first, and Cody slid it into his waistband. “Four bullets left,” Rick said. “Don’t pull a John Wayne if you see it coming. Just get back here in one piece.”
“Man, you like givin’ orders, don’t you?” Cody stomped down on the kickstarter and the hot engine fired. He offered a sly smile. “You just take care of your little sister. I’ll be back.” He turned the Honda around in a tight circle and sped west on First Street, and Rick ran up the steps into the sanctuary.
Diego Montana’s car was just creeping along, and Cody flashed by it about forty yards away from the church; he veered into the center of the headlights’ beam but had to cut his speed to a glide as the Impala stopped and he outran the lights. The violet-tinged gloom closed around him, and he pulled to the curb to wait for his night vision to sharpen.
At the church, Rick had convinced Father LaPrado that they had just a short time to evacuate almost three hundred people. The problem was how to do it without creating a panic, but there was no time to deliberate; Father LaPrado stood up before the congregation and explained in a voice as tough as brine-dipped leather that they had to leave quickly and everything they’d brought—pillows, clothes, food, possessions—would have to remain behind. They would clear the aisles first, then leave row by row starting from the rear. Everyone who had a car or truck should go to it and wait for it to be filled before driving off. They were heading across the bridge, he told them, to take shelter in the apartment building at the end of Travis Street.
The evacuation started, and cars carrying Bordertown residents began crossing the Snake River Bridge.
A hundred yards west, Cody wheeled the motorcycle into a dirt alley and drove through it onto Second Street. He cut the engine and coasted, listening. Could hear the noise of cars hightailing toward Inferno. Dark houses stood in the smoke, not a candle showing anywhere. Over toward Third Street a couple of dogs were howling. He guided the Honda over the curb and in between two houses, and there he stopped to listen again. His heartbeat drummed in his ears. He walked the motorcycle ahead, came out from between the houses—and froze when he saw a formless thing standing about ten feet in front of him. It didn’t move, either. Cody was afraid to draw a breath. Slowly he pulled the .38 out and his thumb found the safety catch. Clicked it off. He lifted the gun, steadied his hand. The thing still didn’t budge. He took a step closer, his finger lodged on the trigger, and that was when he realized he was aiming at a discarded washing machine standing in somebody’s backyard.
He almost laughed. Some John Wayne! He was glad none of the ’Gades were around to see this, or his reputation would be lower than ant pee.
He was about to put the .38 away when he heard a slow, scraping noise.
He tensed, stood rigid and stock-still. The sound repeated—metal across concrete, he thought it was—but where it was coming from he wasn’t sure. Was it ahead, on Third Street, or behind him on Second? He bellied down in the dust and crawled back into the space between the houses, and he lay there trying to pinpoint the sound’s direction. The haze was playing tricks with him. The scraping noise was first ahead, then behind him. Was it moving toward him, or away: he couldn’t be sure, and not knowing made his guts twist. Whatever it was, it sounded like something that was just learning how to walk and dragging its feet—or claws. The good part was that it was moving slowly and clumsily; the bad part was that it sounded heavy.
He caught movement through the murk: a shape on Second Street, lumbering past Cody’s hiding place. No damned washing machine this time. The sonofabitch was big and alive and it passed with a noise like razor blades scraping a chalkboard. The haze swirled around it and spun in its wake, and then whatever it was had gone on, striding inexorably toward the church.
Cody gave it about ten more seconds, and then he scrambled up, got on the motorcycle, and started the engine; it roared like hellfire in the narrow space, and Cody gunned it toward Third Street, saw clothes flagging from a line, and ducked just in time to keep his head. He turned left on Third with a shriek of tires and rocketed east all the way to Republica Road. Then straight to the intersection of First Street again, where cars were turning toward the bridge. He took another left, deftly dodged a pickup truck full of people, and wound his way through the refugees to the steps of the ch
urch.
Inside, Mendoza was helping Paloma Jurado along the aisle. Over a hundred people had already gone, and the cars had been leaving as fast as they could get packed. But only two cars and Mendoza’s pickup truck were left, and it was clear a lot of people were going to have to make it on foot.
“Take my grandmother with you,” Rick told him. He looked around, saw twenty more elderly people who couldn’t make it over without a ride. His Camaro was still parked in front of his house on Second Street, and there wasn’t time to go after it. “You go with them,” he said to Miranda, and motioned toward Mendoza.
She’d already grasped the situation. “There’s not enough room left for me.”
“You can make room! Go!”
“What about you?”
“I’ll find a way. Go on, take care of Paloma!”
She was about to follow Mendoza and her grandmother to the door when Cody Lockett came along the aisle. He glanced quickly at her, his face gray with dust except for the area around his eyes where the goggles had rested, then directed his attention to Rick. She saw that his swagger and cockiness had dissolved. “It’s headed this way,” he said. “I saw it on Second Street. I couldn’t tell much about it, but the thing’s huge.”
Rick saw Mendoza guiding Paloma out the door, with a few other old people in tow. It wouldn’t take but a couple of minutes for Mendoza’s truck to fill up. “I said go!” he snapped at Miranda.
“I’m staying with you,” she said.
“The hell you are! Come on!” He grasped her arm, and she just as stubbornly pulled away.
“There you go, spoutin’ out orders again,” Cody said.
“You shut up!” Rick looked around, trying to find a Rattler to help him, but the rest of them had already gone; Father LaPrado was herding the remaining thirty or so people out. A car horn began blaring in the distance, getting louder, and Rick knew what that meant: Diego and Pequin had seen something and were racing back. He pushed his way through the door and out to the steps, with Cody and Miranda following.
The Impala had pulled up to the curb, and already people were jamming into it. Others had decided to run, and they were heading north toward the riverbank. Pequin got out of the car just as Rick reached the street. “We saw somethin’, man!” Pequin pointed west, and his hand trembled. “Out there, maybe thirty or forty yards!”
“What’d it look like?” Cody asked him.
Pequin shook his head. “I don’t know, man. We just saw somethin’ movin’ out there, and we hauled ass back! It’s comin’ this way!”
“Rick, I’m ready to go!” Mendoza was behind the wheel of his pickup, with Paloma and his wife in the cab beside him. Eight others were loaded into the truck bed. “Bring your sister!”
“When you go, I go,” she told Rick before he could speak. He glanced into the haze to the west, then back to Mendoza. Time was ticking past, and the creature was getting closer. “Take off!” he said. “I’ll bring Miranda over myself!” Mendoza nodded, waved a hand, and drove toward the bridge. Diego’s car was jammed so full it was dragging the pavement, and the last car was loaded down too. More than eighty people were going north on foot. Diego put the Impala into reverse and it shot backward, throwing sparks off its hanging tailpipe. “Wait for me, you bastard!” Pequin shouted, running after him.
“Hey, Jurado,” Cody said quietly, “I think we’ve got company.”
The haze swirled before the thing’s approach. They could hear the scrape of metal on concrete. The last car, carrying seven or eight people and a couple hanging to the doors, backfired and sped away.
The shape came out of the smoke and lurched into the candlelight that streamed from the church’s windows.
49
Stinger’s New Toy
RICK LAUGHED. HE COULDN’T help it. All that hurrying to get people evacuated, and what had emerged from the murk was a horse. A palomino, broad-shouldered and muscular, but just a damned horse. It took another clumsy step forward and stopped, tottering as if it had been sipping from a trough laced with whiskey.
“It’s a drunk horse!” Rick said. “We were scared shitless of a drunk horse!” The thing must’ve gotten away from somebody’s farm or ranch, he figured. Surely this wasn’t what had come out of that hole in the street. At least now he and Miranda had a ride across the bridge. The horse was just standing there, staring at them, and Rick thought it might be in shock or something. He started toward it, his hand offered. “Easy, boy, Take it ea—”
“Don’t!” Cody gripped his arm. Rick stopped, less than ten feet from the horse.
The animal’s nostrils flared. Its head strained backward, showing the cords of muscle in its throat, and from the mouth came a noise that mingled a horse’s shrill whinny and the hiss of a steam engine.
Rick saw what Cody had seen: the horse had silver talons—the claws of a lizard—instead of hooves.
His legs were locked. The creature’s deep-socketed eyes ticked from Cody to Rick and back again—and then its mouth stretched open, the rows of needles sparkling in the low light, and its spine began to lengthen with the cracking sounds of bones breaking and re-forming.
Cody stepped back and bumped into Miranda. She clutched at his shoulder, and behind her the last dozen people to emerge from the church saw the thing in the street and scattered. But the final person to come out stood in the doorway, his backbone straight as an iron bar; he drew a deep breath and started purposefully down the steps.
The creature’s body continued to lengthen, muscles thickening into brutal knots under the rippling flesh. Dark pigment threaded through the golden skin, and the bones of its skull popped like gunshots and began to change shape.
Rick retreated to the curb. His heart was beating wildly, but he couldn’t run. Not yet. What was being born in front of him held him like a hallucination, a fascinating fever dream. The head was flattening, the lower jaw unhinging and sliding forward as gray drool dripped from the corners of the mouth. The spine bowed upward, the entire body hunched, and with a sound of splitting flesh, a thick, segmented black tail uncoiled from the base of the vertebrae. A wicked cluster of metallic spikes, each one almost six inches long, pushed out of the black wrecking ball at the end of the tail.
The monster had doubled its length, the legs splaying out like those of a crab. And now spinier legs, each with three silver talons, were bursting through the skin of its sides. The body settled, its belly grazing the pavement. The flesh was splitting open, revealing a hide of interlocked black scales like the surface of the pyramid, and the thing thrashed as if trying to escape a cocoon. Flakes of golden skin flew like dead leaves.
Cody had the .38 in his hand. His motorcycle was just beside him, and he knew he should get on and go like a bat out of hell, but the spectacle of transformation held him fast. The creature’s elongated, knotty skull was now somewhere between that of a horse’s and an insect’s, the neck squat and powerful, muscles bunching and writhing as the body threw off pieces of dead flesh. It hit him that this was unlike anything he’d ever seen in any sci-fi or Mexican horror flick for one simple and terrible reason: this thing seethed with life. As the old skin ripped away, the creature’s movements were no longer clumsy but quick and precise, like those of a scorpion scuttling from the wet dark under a rock. The flesh of its head burst open like a strange fruit and dangled in tatters. Beneath it was a nightmare visage of bone ridges and black scales. The convex eyes of a horse had been sucked inward, and now amber eyes with vertical black pupils gleamed in the armored overhang of the brow. Two more alien eyes emerged from the holes where the horse’s nostrils had been, and diamond-shaped vents along the sides of its body gasped and exhaled with a bellows’ whoosh.
The monster shrugged off the last scraps of horseflesh. Its narrow body was now almost fifteen feet long, each of its eight legs six feet in length and the ball of spikes quivering another twenty feet in the air. The two sets of eyes moved independently of each other; and as the thing’s head turned to follow the f
light of a Bordertown resident across First Street toward the river, Rick saw a third set of eye sockets just above the base of the skull.
“Get back,” Cody said to Miranda. Said it calmly, as if he saw creatures like this every day of his life. He felt icy inside, and he knew that either he was about to die or he was not. A simple dare of fate. He lifted the .38 and started to squeeze off the four bullets.
But someone walked into the pistol’s path. Someone wearing black, and holding up with both hands a staff with a gilt crucifix atop it. Father LaPrado walked past Rick. Rick was too stunned to stop the priest but he’d gotten a look at LaPrado’s ashen face and he knew the Great Fried Empty had just swallowed him.
Father LaPrado began shouting in Spanish: “Almighty God casts you out! Almighty God and the Holy Spirit sends you back to the pit of hell!” He kept going, and Rick took two steps after him, but the quadruple eyes on the creature’s skull locked on LaPrado and it rustled forward like a black, breathing locomotive. LaPrado lifted the staff in demented defiance. “I command you in the name of God to return to the pit!” he shouted. Rick reached for him, about to snag his coat. “I command you! I command—”
There was a banshee shriek. Something whipped past only inches in front of Rick, and the wind of its passage whistled around his ears. His hand had blood all over it, and suddenly Father LaPrado was gone. Just gone.
Blood on my shirt, Rick realized. The unreality of a dream cloaked him. He smelled musty copper.
Drops of crimson began to shower down on him. And other things and parts of things. A shoe hit the pavement to his left. An arm plopped down on the right, six or seven feet away. The remains of Father LaPrado’s body, hurled high and torn to shreds by the ball of spikes, fell to the earth around him. The last thing down was the staff, snapped in two.