Antarctic Ice Beasts, page 14
Holli had to turn away, sobbing into her cupped hands.
Dallas wished he were smart enough to do the same. He watched Sherm fall, heard his cries until he was too far gone to see. But before that instant when the chasm between them became too great, he saw something that jolted him to his core.
It may have been a trick of the light, or just a hallucination conjured from a brain on overload. In the instant before Sherm dropped out of sight, Dallas swore he saw the man change. In that terrible flash of time, Sherm’s face turned white as marble, his eyes expanding, darkening, until they were as big and black as a pair of eight balls.
It was as if he’d become one of them, the bat men, moments before his body joined the throng at terminal velocity.
He pulled Holli close to him, unable to look away.
Together, they shuffled around the prostrate bat men until he was close enough to look over the cliff.
All he could see was a sea of white, the men packed so tight where Sherm would have landed, there barely seemed room enough to move.
“Come on,” Dallas said, hustling them away. There was nothing to see, and he didn’t want one of the bat men seizing the opportunity to easily shove them both over.
Holli wiped her eyes and looked up. The stingray was gone.
“What did he see?” she asked, sniffing back tears.
“I don’t know, but it sure scared the hell out of him.” Dallas wasn’t entirely sure of what he’d seen himself, Sherm’s impossible transformation deepening his sense of dread.
He looked over at North who was still atop one of the animals. The doctor was watching the giant, who had spread his arms wide, head thrown back.
“What’s he doing?” Dallas said.
“It looks like the fucker’s basking in the afterglow of Sherm’s death,” Holli said icily.
There was a shift in the atmosphere, a slight rumbling Dallas could feel through his boots. “I don’t think that’s it.”
The bat men closest to the cliff’s edge stood and jerkily shifted away, nearly knocking Dallas and Holli down in their haste. “Oh, that’s not good,” Dallas said, wrapping his arms around Holli. He tried to move further back, but they smacked against the solid wall of men.
North was roughly removed from the creature and tossed in their direction. He landed hard on his hip, crying out in pain. Nichols was thrown as well, though when he hit the ground he did so silently, lying there as if he were dead. Dallas pulled away from Holli to help North up.
“You okay?”
North grimaced, massaging his hip. “I’d have broken something if not for these layers.”
“Help me get Nichols to his feet.”
They straddled Nichols and lifted. Nichols managed to stand on his own two feet, though his eyes were glassy, staring into the expanse. Dallas snapped his fingers inches from Nichols’ face.
“Come on, Nichols. You gotta snap out of it.”
The man didn’t even blink.
“You think Jeannie would want you to be like this? We’re going to need you, not carry you.”
There was a faint glimmer of recognition, a slight twitching of his mouth, but that was all.
That suddenly became the least of Dallas’ worries.
The rumbling grew louder, escalating until it was the thunder of wild horses approaching. They looked around for the source of the cacophony.
“What now?” Holli said.
Dallas ran to the edge of the cliff, got on his hands and knees and looked down.
He scrambled away, falling on his ass in desperation to get away.
“Run!” he shouted.
He hooked an arm around Nichols and took off, only to be pushed back as if he were made of paper by the iron throng of bat men. Holli tugged at him. “What is it? What is it?”
The first of the new and horrid creatures hooked its gargantuan claws into the icy ledge and pulled itself up.
Even North screamed this time.
It was essentially a bat, pale as death and as big as a van. Its fangs were as long as a man’s forearm. The giant bat’s pale pink eyes locked onto them and it shrieked. It got its legs under it – legs that were as thick and powerful as a Clydesdale’s. It was joined by more and more bats, all as identical as the first.
Dallas shoved Holli behind him.
“You still fascinated?” he said to North.
The doctor’s mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, not a single word escaping.
When Dallas turned around to see if there was any chance the men had broken up, offering a means of escape, he saw that they all had their arms thrust outward, heads back, just like their giant leader.
The bats had formidable talons on the ends of their leathery wings. With each step they took, they slammed the talons into the ground, piercing it as if it were hot butter.
They screeched as one and the sound nearly burst Dallas’ eardrums. He slapped his hands over his ears, but it was too little, too late. The sonic assault made his vision waver. He was so dizzy, he had a hard time staying on his feet. What was up seemed down.
He slammed his eyes shut, hoping the darkness would restore his equilibrium.
When he opened them several moments later, the enormous bats were standing over them.
“Oh shit, no,” Holli panted.
The stench of burnt matches rolled off the winged beasts. Dallas balled his hands into fists in what he knew would be a futile attempt to defend himself, to defend them all.
One of the bats dipped its furry head toward him, a thick rope of saliva dripping from its maw. It opened its mouth, showing Dallas the rows of teeth it had in store for him. Dallas decided at that moment he would die fighting before getting sucked into its mouth and shredded alive.
He was about to punch it in its snout when the rippling of its belly stopped him cold. The fur wriggled and moved as if something were trying to burrow free.
Chapter Thirty
North’s skin wanted to crawl off his bones and fly far away from here. He’d always hated bats. Growing up in rural Massachusetts, bats often got into the house, causing an instant ruckus, eliciting terrified peals from his sisters. He’d once had a bat fly directly into his face, knocking him over a chair. From that moment on, North would run into the nearest closet when a bat infiltrated their home. When night fell and the air was ripe with them, he would stay indoors, even when his friends were still outside and calling him a chicken.
Those were harmless fruit bats.
These pale, beastly specimens were too horrifying to behold. North wanted to close his eyes and wish them away.
“I don’t fucking believe it,” Dallas said.
Neither did North.
As if being a giant, ivory bat wasn’t enough, North stared in stark horror as massive arms, the arms of a human bodybuilder, burst from the bats’ abdomens.
A pair of arms grabbed North, pulling him into the bat’s sulfur-smelling body. He opened his mouth to scream and found it filled with bristly fibers. He jerked his head sideways, the coarse hair scratching his face like nails. His heartbeat was a manic metronome pounding in his ears. He saw Dallas, Holli and Nichols embraced by the bats and their impossible fresh set of arms.
And then they were climbing up into the air. North’s stomach dropped, bile spewing from his open mouth.
He heard screaming.
It was his own.
His body went stiff as a board. He wanted nothing more than to extricate himself from the bat’s clutches, but he also knew that if he managed to struggle free, he’d only fall to his death. Like Sherm.
North squeezed his eyes shut, but not tight enough to stop the flow of tears. His atavistic repulsion of bats fought against his will to survive, a will he thought he’d lost. He knew from the moment the base had been destroyed that there was no coming back, but he didn’t want to die before he’d seen all he could see.
And now he didn’t want to see any more. Yet he wanted to live.
No, that wasn’t exactly right.
He still deeply missed his wife. Everyday without her had been empty and lonely, even when he was surrounded by friends and family. But there was comfort in knowing that they would meet again in the hereafter. Many nights when he went to bed, he prayed he’d never wake up, at least in this world.
North had wanted to die all these years. He just didn’t want to die like this, his last moments plagued by fear and pain.
His mind reeled as the bat twisted in the air. He felt he was seconds from passing out, which would be a mercy. North willed the bat to do more aerial acrobatics, to put him out of his misery.
The bat responded by leveling out, flying straight and steady. It was as if it could read his mind, taking delight in defying his wishes.
No!
North let his panic run rampant. His heart rate escalated. His breath came in short, pained gasps. He was starting to hyperventilate. This was good. Sooner or later, he would grow fuzzy, his brain shutting down from the lack of oxygen. He thought he heard Holli say something, but her voice sounded so, so far away.
The tang of blood filled his mouth. He realized the bat’s fur had cut deep furrows in his face. The wounds seeped into his mouth as he gulped for air.
Please, please, please, pass the fuck out!
Was it possible to do so while you were still able to desperately want it to happen? He’d never encountered a patient who’d told him such a thing.
His stomach flipped again as the bat changed elevation.
He dared to open his eyes.
They were descending.
There was no sign of the other giant bats.
The bat sailed over the pale, bald heads of the countless men crammed along the cavern floor. They reached up, their fingers brushing against North’s rigid body as the bat lowered itself even further. North felt his bowels let loose the same moment he unleashed a terrific wail.
And then it all stopped.
The powerful arms let North go. He dropped several feet onto the icy ground. The men had pulled away, making a clearing for him.
The ground shook steadily. It was not the quaking of aftershocks. It was the booming, steady approach of something humongous.
On his hands and knees, weeping, North refused to open his eyes. He didn’t want to see what was coming. He didn’t want to see anything anymore. Only his wife.
“Rose, please, take me with you! Please, Rose, come save me!”
“Stand!”
The command cut North’s pleas as quickly as the sharp snap of a faucet.
“Stand!”
The deep, bass tone of the voice shook North’s bones, rattling his already erratic heart.
It was a voice that was not to be ignored.
North pushed himself up, still keeping his eyes closed, conjuring images of his Rose, hoping if he thought of her and only her, she could reach out between the veil and pull him toward the warmth, safety and comfort of her bosom.
“Look!”
North shook his head.
Hands grabbed him painfully, making him cry out.
Several of the bat men had lunged to grasp his arms, their fingers pinching through muscle until their tips hit bone. His nerves were on fire. His eyes popped open, eyes bulging from the rush of pain.
He saw the man behind the voice.
This monster made the giant that had led their capture look like a Lilliputian.
This new, astounding giant stood no less than thirty feet tall. His muscles rippled as he walked, hands flexing as if he were preparing to crush North to death. He was paler than death, with a slash for a mouth that went so far back, the corners disappeared behind the back of his head. His black eyes were as big as a man curled in the fetal position. North saw sparks of red in those eyes, dancing, bloody fireflies swirling in their centers.
“See,” the giant said.
He opened his hands, thrusting his palms outward until they were a mere foot from his face.
In one palm, North saw Rose, poor, emaciated Rose, lying on her deathbed in the hospice. Her body had been reduced to sticks, her teeth rotted out, mouth open wide. And there he was beside her, holding her hand, telling her it was all right to let go, silent tears running down his cheeks. Her chest heaved once, twice, and fell, never to rise again. What little was left of her sagged deeper into the bed. North wept, whispering, “Wait for me in Heaven, honey. Wait for me.”
The hand closed. North felt what little strength and will he had left, break.
“Now, look,” the giant commanded.
In the other palm, there was nothing but endless black.
North stared into the pitch, searching for something.
“Look!” the giant roared.
“I…I am.”
His eyes darted to every corner of the open hand. It was like looking into the dark reaches of the South Pole during the endless night, except he couldn’t look up and see stars or the moon.
“I don’t…I don’t see anything,” he whimpered.
The hand closed and the giant grinned, the crescent of its smile stretching to the top of its head.
“Yesssss. Nothing.”
North stared at the beast of a man, dumfounded.
And he suddenly understood.
“No!” North blurted.
The giant began to chuckle. It escalated to maniacal laughing.
North sagged, only the piercing hands of the men keeping him upright.
It couldn’t be true. Rose was not gone forever. There had to be more than that.
His belief was shattered by the giant’s revelation.
She would not be waiting for him. She was truly and forever gone. There had never been any hope.
North wept, his cries drowned out by the giant’s rumbling laughter. He was let go, falling to his knees.
A powerful rush of air knocked him backward.
He looked up, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand so he could see.
The giant bat had returned.
Looking up, past the bat’s vermin-like face, he spotted the others. Holli, Dallas and Nichols were still up there, circling.
Soon enough, they would be brought down. And they would know.
The bat’s arms scooped him up.
He was gently, almost tenderly, lifted towards its mouth. North snapped his head down. He did not want to stare into the beast’s waiting, hungry mouth. With a great shudder, he felt something let go in the core of his body. His skin felt as if it were on fire. When he looked down, his hands were not his own. They had been replaced by chalk white, muscular hands. He didn’t have time to puzzle what had happened.
The bat’s mouth closed upon his neck, but its teeth did not penetrate his flesh. Encased in the darkness of its mouth, North went stark raving mad, flailing and screaming until his heart, in its final act of kindness, burst.
Chapter Thirty-One
Dallas had never felt so helpless…and repulsed. It was bad enough to watch those massive human arms sprout from the trunk of a bat big enough to carry a semi off into the darkness. It was another to have them locked around his body, their vice-like grip impossible to break out of.
It was also no bed of roses having his face smashed against the vile underside of the bat. Its hair felt like tiny needles. He was sure he looked like he’d had his face dragged behind a car over a gravel driveway.
He saw Holli to his right. She had gone silent, flown too far away from him to see her face. Nichols was ‘strapped’ to the bat to her right.
North was nowhere to be seen.
Dallas had heard the doc’s cries when those arms got ahold of him. Whatever fascination he’d had with their predicament died at that moment. He hoped to hell North was alright. The man may have gone a little bat shit – no pun intended – over the crazy life forms they’d been encountering, but that was just shock.
The bat went into a sudden nosedive. Dallas felt everything he’d ever eaten tumble up into his throat. The arms squeezed tighter, making it hard to breathe. Black spots flickered at his vision’s edge.
It stopped so suddenly, Dallas felt his organs shift while the framework of his body remained locked. His brain shifted in his skull, sparking an explosion of stars. He didn’t even sense the arms letting him go, nor did he have the senses to put his arms out to break his fall. The side of his face hit the floor, breaking off several molars, bounced up and slammed down again. He heard the wreckage of bone and teeth in his head as if it were in surround sound.
Groaning, spitting out thick wads of blood and teeth, Dallas tried to get his arms to work, to will his legs to move.
The ice cold floor beckoned him to stay. The cold felt good on his damaged face.
Maybe I’ll just rest here a minute, he thought. It hurt to even think about lifting his head.
He looked around, but could only see white. He blew out a sharp breath, scattering light flakes of snow. It took the phrase being snow blind to a whole new level.
Dallas had been in his fair share of physical scrapes, but he’d never had his bell rung. Until now. As much as the rational part of him shouted to get up, the majority ruling part of his brain and his entire body refused to listen.
Even Holli’s screams couldn’t rouse him.
Dallas closed his eyes with the intention of going to see what was happening to Holli. Instead, he slipped into a dreamless slumber.
When the bat’s man-arms dropped Holli, she managed to pull her legs up and hit the ground on her heels. She slid along the slick ground for several feet before hammering her tailbone. A hot lance of pain went from the base of her spine through the top of her head. It punched the breath out of her. She fell onto her back, spinning as momentum carried her past Dallas who lay face down, his arms at his side as if he’d died somewhere in the air. Nichols was nowhere to be found. She had no idea where North could be.
The moment she stopped, both hands went to her rump. She howled in agony. For a second, she thought her cries had scared the bats away, but she quickly realized the winged monsters had delivered them to whatever fresh nightmare this was going to be and left them to the next level of torture.
