Monster Nation(104)

I don't question his ways.

'Which just means you don't know.'

Mael's voice returned a little louder, a little harsher. She had gotten to him, she decided. If only just a little. That was a kind of victory in itself.If you're going to tell me now that you don't believe in the father of clans, I wish you would just save your breath.

'It's not like I'm going to need it for anything else. Mael, I need some time to think. Some space. I want you to know, it's not you. It's me.'

His reply smacked into her ribs hard enough to make her squeak in surprise and pain. Something'something dead had come at her hard and fast. It wasn't Dick: it had arms, arms that wrapped around her waist hard, unfeeling arms that would crush her if she didn't do something.

Nilla did something.

Twisting to her side she dropped to the floor like a bag of flour, slipping down through the ring of those crushing arms. At the same time she kicked out with one leg, crushing a kneecap with the heel of her shoe. Unfeeling, the dead thing came at her again, surging through the darkness, enormous and stinking and ragged, torn and ravaged muscles convulsing, striking, descending to smash her to pieces.

Nilla reached up, felt hair, and grabbed. The dead thing swiveled and scratched and struck at the air but Nilla held it away from herself and avoided the worst of its attack. Heaving and grunting she hauled the dead creature toward the doorway, toward the light. She had to be fast and she pushed her muscles to obey her, to give her some kind of coordination as she pulled on the dead thing's blood-matted hair. As she got its head under her armpit. As she heaved one more time and shattered its skull against the doorframe.

The dead thing collapsed like a bag full of meat. Nilla dropped it and stepped into the light, her body screaming at her, every muscle in her arms and back wrenched by the exertion. Then she looked down at the thing she'd killed.

Shar looked back up at her.

It was her, it was definitely her. How she had died, Nilla had no clue. It really didn't matter. She had died and come back and Mael had been clever enough to make her one of his puppets. Nilla pressed one knuckle against her upper lip, trying not to vomit. When she stopped shaking she looked at the ceiling. As if he were there, somewhere, in the sky. The way someone else might have looked up to talk to God.

'This is it, then. It's all you have to offer. Dead things struggling in the dark. Hurting each other. Fuck it, I'm done.'

He didn't speak to her again. Maybe he knew better, or maybe she'd switched off whatever part of her brain listened to him. Beyond the doorway stood a stairwell that lead upward. At its top a door opened onto black air. When Nilla's eyes finally adjusted she saw stars. Clouds. The night sky. To her left a pulsing heartbeat, a throbbing pulse of noise. She looked over and saw the spinning blades of a helicopter.





Monster Nation





Chapter Thirteen


You can't see it but you know it's there, you feel its presence. Through the wall I can feel it' life, in the glorious abstract. In the middle of this morning's test run she started vomiting blood and by the time I had her cleaned up and sedated the extrusion should have collapsed but' it didn't. Right through the wall and I knew it somehow, I whispered it to her. It's self-reinforcing now, I think. I smashed all the fetishes and the instruments but' it's still there, the sensors show nothing of course but' I can feel it. [Lab Notes, 11/6/04]

'He's going to come out of there any second now,' Clark promised, but he knew he was wrong. Together with Vikram he stared at the stairwell hatch leading down into the prison. Sergeant Horrocks was supposed to be emerging from that door at any moment, leading what was left of the troops.

It had been seven long minutes since his last call. There had been a lot of noise back then, a lot of shooting and screaming coming up from below. All of that had since stopped.

'Any second,' Clark repeated, and Vikram muttered in acquiescence. Behind them the Pave Low helicopter spun its rotor uselessly. There was only so long that they could wait'fuel for the aircraft was at a premium.

'Ah, Bannerman'here he is,' Vikram announced, as a human shape appeared in the stairwell door. 'Nothing to worry about, I'' Vikram fell silent for a moment, then let out a terrified shriek. He raised his sidearm and fired three rapid shots into the doorway. The bullets collided with dead flesh and sent the figure there spinning.

'That was so totally unnecessary,' the shadowy figure said.