Stinger

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 flight 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.

The monster's tail, dripping with blood and bits of flesh, lifted up into the air again. Cody saw the thing quiver, about to strike. Rick just stood there, paralyzed. There was no time to weigh the past against the present: Cody started running toward him, got off two shots, and saw a pair of the amber eyes fix on him. The tail hesitated for a vital three seconds, the creature choosing between double targets, then whipped in a vicious sideswipe, the air shrieking around the bony spikes.

Cody hit Rick with a bodyblock and knocked him sprawling over the curb, heard the ball of spikes coming, and flattened himself against the bloody pavement.

It passed less than a foot over him, came back again in a savage blur, but Cody was already twisting away like a worm on a hot plate and the tail struck sparks off the street. The tail was retracted for another slash, and Cody saw Rick sit up, the boy's face splattered with LaPrado's blood. "Run!" Cody shouted. "I'll get Miranda across!" Still Rick didn't respond, but Cody couldn't help him anymore. Miranda was crouched down on the church steps, calling for her brother. Cody got up, took aim at one of the thing's eyes, and fired the last two bullets. The second shot gouted gray fluid from the top of the skull, and the creature made a sharp hissing noise and scuttled backward.

Cody sprinted back across the street, zigzagging to throw off the thing's aim. He dropped the pistol, leapt onto the motorcycle's seat. The key was already in the ignition, and Cody yelled "Get on!" to Miranda as he stomped on the starter. The engine racketed, popped, would not catch. The creature started striding forward again, getting within striking range. Cody came down on the starter a second time; the engine backfired, caught and faded, fired up again with a throaty growl. The back of his neck prickled. He sensed the tail curling up into the air. Cody looked over his shoulder, saw the monster's black head with its underslung jaws full of needles thrusting toward him. and then a figure ran from the right, shouting and waving its arms, and one set of eyes darted at Rick. a foreleg lifted, the silver claws slashing so fast Rick hardly saw it coming. He flung himself backward, the talons streaking past his face.

But Miranda was on the motorcycle, clinging tight to Cody's waist. She screamed "Run!" to Rick, and Cody throttled up. The machine shot away from the curb and sped toward Republica Road.

Rick scrambled on his hands and knees up over the curb. He heard the slithering of the thing coming after him, the scrape of the talons on the concrete. He got to his feet and ran north, across a yard and in between two houses. and in that narrow space he stepped on a loose stone and his left foot slid, the ankle twisting with a pain that jabbed all the way to his hipbone. He cried out and fell on his face in the sand and weeds, clutching at his ankle.

The houses on either side of him shuddered and moaned. Boards cracked, plaster dust puffing from the walls. Rick looked back, and saw the dark shape trying to squeeze its body into the space after him, its strength breaking the houses off their foundations.

eighty yards away, Cody and Miranda were almost across the bridge when something - a human figure - rose up from the smoke directly in front of them. Cody instinctively hit the brakes, started to swerve the machine aside, but there wasn't enough time. The motorcycle smacked into whoever it was, skidded out of control, and flung both of them off. It crashed into the side of the bridge, the frame bending with a low moan like guitar strings breaking and the front tire flying up into the air. Cody landed on his right side and slid in a fury of friction burns.

He lay curled up and gasping for breath. Fate bit my ass this time, he thought. No, no; must've been the Mumbler, he decided. Old fuckin' Mumbler just crawled up on the bridge and gave us a whack.

Miranda. What had happened to Mirandai

He tried to sit up. Not enough strength yet. There was an awful pain in his left arm, and he thought it might be broken. But he could move the fingers, so that was a good sign. His ribs felt like splintered razors; one or two of them were snapped, for damn sure. He wanted to sleep, just close his eyes and let it all go, but Miranda was somewhere nearby - and so was whatever they'd crashed into. Some protector I turned out to be, he thought. Not worth a damn. Maybe the old man was right after all.

He smelled gasoline. Motor's tank ruptured. and about two seconds later there was a whump! of fire and orange light flickered. Pieces of the Honda clattered down around him and into the Snake River's gulley. He got up on his knees, his lungs hitching. Miranda lay on her back about six feet away, her arms and legs splayed like those of a broken doll. He crawled to her. Saw blood on her mouth from a split lower lip and a blue bruise on the side of her face. But she was breathing, and when he spoke her name her eyelids fluttered. He tried to cradle her head, but his fingers found a lump on her skull and he thought he'd better not move her.

Cody heard footsteps - two boots: one clacking, one sliding.

He saw someone lurching toward them from the Bordertown side. Rivulets of gasoline had run from the smashed motorcycle, and the figure kept coming through the fire. It was hunchbacked, with a spiked tail, and as it got nearer Cody could see a grin of needles.

Half of Sonny Crowfield's head had caved in. Something that shone like gray pus had leaked through the empty left eye socket, and the imprint of a motorcycle tire lay across the cheek like a crimson tattoo. The body jittered, one leg dragging.

It came on across the streams of flame, the cuffs of its jeans smoking and catching fire. The grin never faltered.

Cody crouched over Miranda. He looked for the nail-studded baseball bat but it was gone. The clacking boot and dragging boot closed in, the hunchbacked body and tail of spikes silhouetted by fire. Cody started to rise; he was dead meat now, and he knew it, but maybe he could get his fingers in that remaining eye and jerk it off its strings. Pain shot through his ribs, stole his breath, and hobbled him. He fell back to his side, wheezing for air.

Stinger reached Miranda. Stood over her, staring down. Then a metal-nailed hand slid over her face.

Cody was all used up. There was nothing more. Tears were in his eyes, and he knew Miranda's head was about to be crushed and there was only one chance to save her life. The words were out of him before he could think twice: "I know who you're lookin' for." The dripping head lifted. The hand remained clasped to Miranda's face. She moaned, still mercifully unconscious, and Stinger gripped her hair with the other hand. "The guardian." The voice was a gurgle of fluids. "Where is shei" "I... can't..." Cody felt close to a faint. He didn't want to tell, and tears burned his eyes but he saw the fingers tighten on Miranda's face.

"You'll tell me," Stinger said, "or I'll tear this bug's head off."

Lying between the two houses on First Street, Rick hugged the ground and started crawling. The monster couldn't get its body into the space, and neither would the arm reach Rick. He heard a crash that seemed to shake the earth. Timbers flew around him, and he realized the thing was beating the two houses to pieces with its tail. He struggled up, hobbling on his good leg, as roof shingles and shards of wood exploded like bomb blasts. ahead was a chest-high chainlink fence and on the other side the river's gulley. He saw fire on the bridge but he had no time to concern himself with what was burning; he clambered over the fence, slid down a slope of red dirt, and lay in the muddy trickle of water. From Bordertown he could hear the crash and shatter of the houses coming apart. In another couple of minutes the creature was going to break through and come across the river. He roused himself, shunting aside the pain in his swollen ankle, and started climbing up the opposite slope toward the rear of the buildings on Cobre Road.

On the bridge barely fifty yards from Rick, Cody Lockett knew his luck - and possibly Daufin's too - had finally run out. Stinger would destroy the town and everyone in it, starting with Miranda. But the fort was protected from Stinger not only by its foundation of bedrock and its armored windows, but by its electric light. even if he knew where Daufin was, there was still no way he could get to her. Cody sat up, his brain doing a slow roll, and smiled grimly. "She's up there," he said, and pointed to the faint smudge of light. He saw an expression of dismay flicker across the ruined face. "Pretty, huhi Better wear your sunglasses, fuckhead." Stinger released Miranda. Both hands gripped Cody's throat, and the tail thrashed above the boy's head. "I won't need sunglasses," the gurgling voice replied. The face pressed toward Cody's. "I'm gonna earn my bounty by scoopin' up some live bugs to take on a little trip. I'm real close to findin' her pod too. If she doesn't want to go, that's fine: she can rot in this shithole. Comprendei" Cody didn't answer. The thing's breath smelled like burned plastic. and then it let go of his throat, put an arm around his waist, and lifted him off the concrete as easily as if he were a child. The pain in his rib cage savaged him, brought cold sweat to his pores. Stinger lifted Miranda with the other arm. Cody tried to thrash loose, but the pain and effort were too much. He passed out, his hands and legs dangling.

Stinger tucked the bodies to his sides and continued walking across the bridge toward Inferno, dragging the malfunctioning leg. He entered a sky-blue house near the intersection of Republica and Cobre roads. The living room had no floor, and Stinger dropped into darkness with his cargo of bugs.