Blackteeth, page 35
Consequently, it had waited for Hesper in that very spot knowing that she might come back. It had seen her thoughts in her dreams and acted upon them. For hours, for days, for an unknown amount of time, it had anticipated her arrival. It had even chosen a spot within the room that did not set off the lights while it waited. Or perhaps they had disabled the lights. She thought the Blackteeth didn’t have patience, but perhaps they had learned it from her.
Hesper heard another one behind her, moving quickly, trying to get her before she noticed it. She spun with the sword swinging widely and made a jarring contact that caused the other one to shriek. Then she heard a third one. The scarred Blackteeth had brought some of her friends, and the three would probably kick Hesper’s ass into oblivion.
Hesper still held the flashlight, and she brought it around to shine it into the scarred Blackteeth’s face. It attempted a retreat into the shadows to get away from the so-very-bright light. Maybe they hadn’t adapted completely to the darkness, but they definitely preferred it. When briefly discussing this very flashlight, George had said something about a high number of lumens and being rechargeable with a USB port, that it was submersible, plus a few other features. At the time, being submersible was forefront in her mind, however, now she vaguely recalled something about a strobe function. She pushed the power button a second time and the flashlight began to rapid-fire flash. She tossed it onto the floor so that she could switch the sword into her left hand. She drew the Smith and Wesson with her right and moved to one side, using the speedy flashing feature of the flashlight to shift away as if she couldn’t be touched.
The third Blackteeth leapt for her, and Hesper spun away. The Smith and Wesson exploded three times causing bursts of lights that equaled the strobe’s blinking rays. The gunshots were incredibly loud booms that rattled everything in the room. The creature dropped to the ground, writhing in alternating flashes, an incredibly alien form thrashing horrifically from one shot of light to the next. The other two screeched their rage at Hesper, and she didn’t stop to congratulate herself.
If I can just take these three out... The thought was incomplete as the scarred one got behind Hesper and raked its claws across her shoulder catching the meat in great bits. She dropped the gun because her right arm abruptly became almost useless. She turned and kicked instead, using the front snap kick that was the first kick her Tang Soo Do instructor had taught her. Knee up high, followed by the lower leg snapping up, using the ball of the foot with the toes pointed away from the target. It didn’t really matter about her toes because she was wearing the heavy boots that George had given her. The hard sole of the combat boots made contact with the Blackteeth’s lower jaw. Something cracked almost as loudly as the gunshots and it wasn’t her boot.
If there was something Hesper could do well, it was to kick high and to kick hard. She was a small woman, but there was nothing wrong with the muscles in her legs. If she really wanted to reach a taller target, a jumping front kick would have been the thing to do, but she was already swinging the sword with her left hand. It wasn’t the most powerful stroke, but it carved the scarred Blackteeth across its shoulder and blood spurted. It yanked itself back from her with a terrible cry.
The second one jumped on Hesper’s back, and she buckled to the floor smacking the ground with a juddering thump. She shoved the sword over her neck and shoulder, pushing on it with the palm of her hand. She rolled away, and George’s fruit-slicing ninja sword unfortunately stayed embedded in the Blackteeth.
One hand pulled out a buckle knife, and Hesper sliced with that as she came up again into a standing position. The scarred one had come from the front again and was forced backward. It hissed unpleasantly as it went.
The flashlight had finally stopped spinning, but the repeating flashes made for a world gone dreadfully insane. The scarred Blackteeth was still coming for her as was the second one. The third one stopped writhing and lay in an ever-increasing pool of black blood.
The second Blackteeth knocked her back to the ground with a tooth rattling hit to the sternum, and Hesper fought for her breath for a long moment. She slashed again with the buckle knife before she forced herself to drop the weapon.
Hesper came to her feet in a speedy kick-up maneuver. She brought her legs up straight in the air and then pushed them down just as quickly while bracing her hands on the ground above where her head was located. She had to rely on her left hand more than the right, but it was still effective. She unhesitatingly found her footing and brought out the Ruger, disengaging the safety at the same time.
She was able to put three shots into the second Blackteeth, and it thrashed itself into the shadows shrieking its pain. By that time the scarred Blackteeth came on her other side, and its long arm backhanded her across the face knocking her to the ground again. The Ruger went sliding across the room.
Hesper scrambled for purchase, but the Blackteeth came down on top of her in a solid thump that pressed down on her whole body, grinding her into the rocky floor. She shoved with her left arm, and the grotesque picture of the strobe light illuminating the scarred face of the monster was like something out of her worst nightmare.
It grinned down at her with those limitless black teeth showing all of their fatal possibilities. Its jaw was crooked from her kick and black blood trickled down the side of its face, but still, it beamed maniacally down at her.
Hesper reached for another weapon; any weapon would have been good. She longed to reach up with her good hand and claw out the thing’s eyes with her bare fingernails, but she was trapped under its weight. It knew it had her. It cackled with insane glory, laughing in a way that chafed on her nerves, the sound digging into her brain like tiny insects intent on fresh food. She struck out with her legs and forced her torso upward trying to dislodge the creature in any way that she could, but it was a futile effort.
Hesper found one of the thing’s arms too close to her face, and she locked down on its terrible whitish flesh with her teeth. She bit until she felt bone grate under her teeth, and there was nothing that would ever convince her to let go. The inane thought that followed the Blackteeth’s rage-fueled shriek was What’s good for the goose…
It yanked Hesper away from its limb, ripping its own flesh in the process. Then it held her jaw with one of its clawed fingers while it raised the other one for the final deadly strike.
That was the moment Hesper knew she’d failed. She’d failed, and she was going to die like a thousand others had died before her. However, she also knew she’d hurt the monsters, and perhaps all of this hadn’t been for nothing. The living world knew. They knew, and they wouldn’t just let it go thinking it was the nonsensical ravings of a madwoman.
Hesper grinned up at the Blackteeth above her. It hesitated for a second, caught by the oddness of her reaction to its final deadly offensive.
Hesper steeled herself as she continued her crazed grin. It’ll be quick. It’ll be so quick I might not even know.
The booms came like a cannon fired next to the two struggling figures, and Hesper felt the scarred Blackteeth come off her even while she shut her eyes expectantly. For a moment she didn’t know what had happened. Her eyes swept open again. The wavering strobe light revealed another figure in the room.
She saw the person and the smoking gun at the same time she saw the open doors to the control room. They’d opened, and neither Hesper nor the Blackteeth had heard it. Or perhaps the Blackteeth had been expecting more of their kind and discarded it.
Moss reached for the flashlight and picked it up. He pressed the button two times before the solid light came on and stayed on.
“How?” Hesper managed to get out.
“Mun-Hee gave me very explicit directions,” Moss said. He pointed the beam at the body of the scarred Blackteeth. “Can we go back now?”
Hesper rolled to her stomach and stared at the Blackteeth’s still bodies. The second and third ones were definitively dead. She came to her knees. Awkwardly pulling out the key from one of the pouches, she held it tightly. “Do you want me to give you time to get out?” she asked.
Moss said, “What?”
“I’m shutting the power plant down, or I’m going to set it to self-destruct. I don’t know what happens when I do what the builders directed. I know it’s going to be bad. No one is going back after I’m done. It’s just like I said.”
Moss looked at her and then at the key in her hand. He was still dressed in the clothing she’d seen him in at the hospital, although none of it was particularly clean at the moment, and the jeans were damp from having come through one of the pools. He was wearing a backpack and held a handgun with his right hand. He tucked the flashlight into the spot between his arm and his body. Then he pulled a key out of his pocket with his left hand and looked at it. “There’s another way,” he said.
Abruptly, the scarred Blackteeth exploded upward, and Hesper rolled out of its way. She knew immediately that it saw Moss as the greater threat. Hesper didn’t have a weapon in her hands and was still on the ground. Moss held a Desert Eagle, the large caliber bad boy of handguns. He saw the Blackteeth a second after she did, and it was too late. It flew into him and knocked him back. The handgun and the flashlight both went flying, and he made a noise that made Hesper’s stomach curdle. He landed against the wall twisting in the air until one of his legs jammed against the stone. He crumpled into a motionless heap.
Hesper was frozen. The Blackteeth glanced at her and grinned terribly despite the fact that its jaw was still crooked. Black blood oozed from its chest, but it didn’t seem terribly concerned. Instead, it reached for Moss’s key and plucked it out of his hand.
She unthawed instantly and went for the ninja sword that was still stuck in the second one’s shoulder.
The scarred one flew at Hesper just as it had done at Moss. In the flashlight’s beam, she could see that he was flat on his face on the ground, a motionless mess that didn’t look like he was going to get up. Then her hand was on the sword’s handle, and she yanked it with all of her might. She felt it give, and it started to come loose just as an awful grasping claws dug into her flesh. She was yanked away from the sword and hit the wall with her already wounded shoulder.
Hesper fell to the floor a full fifteen feet away from the Blackteeth. She looked at it as she fought to keep herself from vomiting from the intensity of the pain assailing her. It glided over to where she had yanked at the sword and snatched something off the floor. The second key appeared in its hand.
The great beast turned back to grin evilly at Hesper. It displayed the keys as if they were a prize, and it was true, they were. The Blackteeth knew what they meant, and more importantly, knew what they meant to Hesper and her kind.
Hesper had run out of choices. She reached down and grasped one of her very last weapons. The words that Camp had told her came back in a rush. “Use it when you don’t have anything else. First, remove the safety clip. It pops right off. Then hold it in your right hand. You are a rightie? Keep your hand wrapped around the spoon. This is the spoon. It’s also called the safety lever for a very good reason. With your other hand, put your middle finger through the pin. That’s the round part here. Pull and twist and it’s armed. While you’re holding the safety lever in place, you’re good to go. It won’t go off. Once you throw it, the lever comes off, the striker inside hits the cap, and ignites the pyrotechnic delay element, and you’ve got four or five seconds before it goes boom.”
Hesper forced herself to a sitting position, and she stared fixedly at the Blackteeth. It was still obviously congratulating itself on its success, standing approximately fifteen feet away from her and about the same amount away from Moss. It had bested the little human, and it would kill her just as soon as it finished its mantra of success. In that, it was exactly like thousands of human beings, and Hesper saw the comparison all too well. Pride goeth before a fall.
The safety clip came off. She held the weapon so that the safety lever didn’t detach immediately. She yanked the pin and twisted it at the same time. Then she deliberately let the safety lever drop away while counting silently. One thousand one. One thousand two. She tossed the weapon while she called, “Catch, you black-toothed bitch!”
The grenade bounced once and then came to rest right at the Blackteeth’s feet. It looked down curiously at the ball shaped thing. Apparently, it had never seen one of those before, or it wouldn’t have been so casual.
Hesper remembered the last part that Camp had said. “Throw it and duck. Don’t throw it at something that it’ll bounce back to you. I can’t emphasize the ducking part enough.” She tucked her head under her arms and hit the ground hoping for the best.
There was a very long second where Hesper thought that the grenade was a dud. It wasn’t going to do anything except cause the scarred Blackteeth to chortle.
Hesper had never in her life been so happy to be wrong. The world exploded.
Hesper’s ears were ringing, and the world was dark. She finally registered that the grenade had gone off exactly the way that it was supposed to. It was a fragmentation grenade and both she and Moss had probably been way too close. She checked herself and found nothing but what the Blackteeth had done to her. She also registered that her eyes were closed, and she opened them to find that the machinery’s blue lights were still lit but sputtering oddly. The military-grade flashlight had been buried under some rocks yet showed its beam trickling through the gaps in the debris pile. A minute later and Hesper was at Moss’s side examining him, directing the beam to see where he’d been injured. His heart was still beating and he wasn’t bleeding in a way that indicated an artery had been cut.
Hesper looked at the wall where she had last seen the scarred Blackteeth and found nothing left but wreckage and ruin. The Blackteeth was a pile of gore. She made herself go to it, and it took her about five gruesome minutes to find one of the keys. The key was still complete, and its proximity made the lights on the machines flicker harder in response.
When Hesper’s eyes settled on the part of the wall that the builder indicated, it was all but gone. Realization of what that meant made her shudder. She’d blown up the scarred Blackteeth, but she’d also blown her chance to shut down the power in the builders’ world. There would be no way of shutting down the portals.
Fuck. Hesper would have groaned, but she also realized that the other Blackteeth were probably well on their way to see what had happened. She was going to have to get Moss up and get him moving to the nearest pool. She was also going to have to thank him for saving her ass.
Hesper stumbled to Moss’s side and put her hand on the back of his neck. “Time to go, Moss,” she said quietly, shaking him gently. “They’re coming for us, and we can’t wait here.”
“Wait,” Moss said hoarsely as his eyelids fluttered. “Didn’t I shoot it? Didn’t I kill it the first time?”
“Didn’t I mention it’s not human?” she asked. “Their heart isn’t in the same place as ours. It’s better to aim for their heads. Take note of that for future reference.”
“You didn’t mention that,” Moss grumbled. “I hurt like a sonuvabitch.”
“No time for hurting,” Hesper said, tugging on his arm. “We need to find a pool and go.”
“What about shutting it down?”
“I screwed that up.”
Moss lifted his head and looked at the room. “You used a…grenade?”
Hesper shrugged.
“I know Taylor took all of them back, so where in the fuck did you get another grenade?”
Hesper shrugged again.
Moss coughed and then said, “Wait. Camp. Taylor’s combat engineer. Camp sent something with me. You’re lucky it didn’t blow up, too. You’re also lucky that when that thing threw me, I turned so that I hit the wall instead of landing on the backpack.”
“What?”
“Camp said you could use it instead of shutting it down on the spot.” Moss grinned at her and showed bloody teeth. “It’s a brick of plastic explosive with a timer. We set it right here and then run.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Boldness is the fruit of hope.
– Philippine proverb
“That’s it?” Hesper asked. She’d taken the device out of the backpack and set it next to the wall. It had been carefully packed in bubble wrap and packing tape, but she’d cut that away with one of the knives George had provided. When it was fully exposed, she stared at it and saw a brick-sized material encased in a black material and Charge Demolition M112 printed across it. There were also wires with ends inserted into the clay-like material and what looked like a plain old kitchen timer attached to it. She would have thought it was fake but for what Moss had told her.
Moss leaned against the door holding the Desert Eagle in his hand while trying to hold his stomach with the other hand. “That’s what Camp said. It’s preset for thirty minutes. You make those two connections there and there”— he pointed— “and then push the start button. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” He coughed, and she saw him wipe blood away from his mouth. “Good thing you can’t buy that stuff at the corner grocery store.”
Hesper looked around and decided that if the device exploded there, it would take out the whole room. Maybe it would do more because she didn’t know what exactly it would do. Would it accomplish the same thing as what the builder had carved into the walls on the opposite side? Since the grenade hadn’t done it, she didn’t know. “How big is the explosion going to be?”
“Camp said not to hang around,” Moss said. “Anywhere around. So how about you push that button and we get a wiggle on because I can’t feel one of my legs right now. My shoe’s filling up with blood.”
