Monster Planet(112)

'You can be part of the future, Sarah. You can come with me and build something. Wouldn't that be nice? To stop destroying, to stop killing, and build?' Ayaan was shouting in her ear. Sarah hadn't realized how noisy the little valley had become with all the popping vacuum tubes and crackling skin.

Every bone in the Tsarevich's left arm cracked with a series of pops like muffled gunshots. The skin of his deformed hand flowed and flexed like a piece of rubber under stress. His face was changing shape, its contours shifting, rebuilding themselves.

'You don't have to die today. It will be difficult,' Ayaan told her, 'but I can convince them. I know I can. I only need you to say yes. I need you to agree to be a part of what we are working for.'

Sarah opened her mouth to reply. Then she closed it.

The Tsarevich's mouth was moving, his jaw flexing. It looked like he was trying to say something. His right leg, the short one, flapped like a sheet on a clothesline.

The fingernails on his hand curled and bent around themselves. They split the flesh of his fingertips. His hand tried to close in a fist but the fingers spat out wet, dark sparks. His body twisted and shook and pulsed with noisy explosions. Sarah could only imagine that his internal organs were exploding one by one like potatoes left too long in the coals of a campfire.

Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

With a wet splash his good eye burst in its socket. The green phantom hobbled forward and tried to smash at the vacuum tubes with his femur staff. There was no on/off switch on the machinery. Energy slashed out of him and he staggered back. He tried again and got knocked back again. It didn't matter, after a moment.

Up on the spikes the Tsarevich's face split open in a horrible grimace as steam built up inside of his head. It shot out of his ears, his nose, his eyes. With a noise of air being sucked into a vacuum his entire body caught fire. He went up like a torch.





Monster Planet





Chapter Seventeen


The Tsarevich's body burnt like a log soaked in gasoline. His dry tissues, overloaded by the energy of the Source, hissed and spat and started to break down. A chunk of jagged bone flew from one spasming leg. Patience was standing just below him'it fell on her and cut open her cheek. She reeled back in horror and pain, a scream pushing out of her lungs even as she dropped to her knees to retrieve the bone fragment. She clutched it to her breast like a holy relic.

Above her the Tsarevich's head slumped to one side and fell off. It hit the ground in a splatter of sparks and flame. A lot of people screamed then, and almost all of them moved backward, away from the scaffolding.

At the back of the crowd a male cultist in a blue paper shirt screamed bloody murder, much louder than any of the spectators at the Tsarevich's grisly demise. Ayaan grabbed Sarah's arm and yanked the girl along behind her as she rushed to see what was going on.

Through a gap in the crowd she could see the screaming cultist, his face a mask of agony. Four spikes of filed bone burst from his chest as a ghoul sank its exposed teeth deep into the back of the cultist's neck.

Ayaan shook her head. No, that wasn't acceptable. The ghouls couldn't disobey their orders. Their minds were too simple'they couldn't overcome the Tsarevich's command. The Tsarevich was keeping them under control.

The Tsarevich was dead.

A new ghoul, one of Gary's victims, came stumbling through the crowd, her face and hands bright red. She grabbed at Sarah but the girl twisted away. Ayaan swiveled around on one boot heel and blasted the ghoul's face with dark energy. The undead face cracked and peeled away from smoking bone. Ayaan didn't bother to watch her die a second time. 'Are you alright?' she demanded.

Sarah nodded unhappily.

Enni Langstrom, the green phantom, appeared at Ayaan's elbow. 'Enough of the concern for her well-being,' he shouted over the screams. 'Just kill her already!'

'No,' Ayaan said, 'no, that's unnecessary. she's harmless.'

Enni shook his head. 'She came here to kill him. Now he's dead. You can call it a coincidence if you want but I want her dead. Jesus Christ, look at this! This is Armageddon. We can sort out who did what later. Just kill her. Where's Erasmus?'

Ayaan frowned. 'Didn't you see? Gary ate half of him. He's dead. I'm sorry, I know you two were friends.'

The skull-like face turned even paler than usual. 'Then it's just you and me. We have to save as many of the believers as possible. They served him well, they don't deserve to die like this, not in this place.' He stared deep into Sarah's eyes and grabbed her face in one thin hand. 'Anyone we can't trust dies, now. I'll let you do it, but kill her! She's an unknown factor. She could ruin everything.' He knocked Sarah into the dust with a backhand slap. Then he stomped away, his femur staff clicking on the rocky ground. As he moved through the crowd he touched each ghoul he passed and they slumped to the earth, the life force drained out of them.