Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [79]
Alice shot it three times in the head, which, if nothing else, distracted it from Matt. Taking advantage, Matt clambered out from under the door and ran back to the other side of the cab where the bundled metal tubes hung.
Matt had noticed the tubes when they first rode down into the Hive. He wasn't in a position to ask what they were doing there then, and he didn't give a tinker's damn what they were doing there now.
What did matter was that they could be used as a weapon.
The creature's impossibly long tongue came shooting out of its mouth and wrapped itself around Alice's left leg.
Then it pulled.
Alice fell on her back, dropping the Colt.
She tried to hang onto the gridwork of the trapdoors to keep from being pulled in even as Matt undid the cable that kept the tubes secured in the corner.
He then charged forward, using the tubes as a battering ram to slam into the monster's head.
The creature stumbled backward, not nearly as hurt as Matt hoped it would be, but, at least, it released its tongue's grip on Alice's leg. She quickly scrambled over toward the gun, but before she could, the tongue flew out again and literally slapped Alice down.
Oddly, she gave up on the gun, and instead grabbed two of the tubes, which had come out of the bundle.
With the first, she slammed it down horizontally onto the end of the monster's tongue, holding it secured to the floor.
With the second, she drove it down vertically like a spear, through both the tongue and the gridwork of the trapdoor, skewering it.
She had, in essence, nailed it to the floor.
"Open the door!" she yelled at Matt.
Matt turned to push the red button that would open the trapdoor the monster was standing on—and couldn't move from, now that Alice had secured it—but there was someone standing between him and the button.
Rain.
Her eyes were watery.
Her movements were sluggish.
Her mouth opened wide, showing blackening teeth.
She moved to bite him, just as Lisa had.
This time, Matt was ready, and he pushed her off. Reaching down, he picked up the Colt.
"Open the door now!" Alice screamed.
With his sister, Matt hesitated. When Alice thought Rain was dead a few minutes ago, she hesitated.
Now, Matt unhesitatingly shot Rain in the head.
She fell backward, right onto the red button.
The monster fell right into the undercarriage, slamming against the tracks while travelling at some sixty miles an hour or so.
The friction caused a huge conflagration that Matt could feel and smell even more than he could see. The heat was like an inferno, and the stench of burning flesh seared his nostrils, even as the fire climbed into the cab.
It wasn't pretty.
It was, however, deserved.
Matt then pushed the red button again. It shut the door, slicing off the thing's tongue, and leaving it behind to burn on the tracks.
He and Alice exchanged glances. Matt felt more tired than he'd ever been in his life.
Alice looked more alive than she had since he first met her a couple of hours ago.
What a fucking day.
He opened the door to the engineer's cubbyhole. It didn't take too long to figure out how to slow the thing down—they made it fairly idiot-proof. He did so as the train pulled into the other terminus.
Terminus. What a fucking appropriate word.
In silence, they disembarked. Matt still carried Rain Melendez's Colt. Alice held the case with both virus and anti-virus.
They walked quickly amongst the crates and boxes, heading toward the giant staircase that would take them back to the lavish mansion.
At one point, they passed the metal bar J.D. had placed by the blast doors. Its countdown was at less than ten seconds.
As they went up the staircase, the blast doors closed behind them.
Lisa and Matt's parents had raised their kids to be Catholic, but both of them had lapsed pretty thoroughly by the time they hit their teen years.
Nevertheless, Matt found himself praying for Lisa, for Kaplan,