“In here,” said Rory, leading them into an office.
Mother Laughing sat crooked behind a big oak desk. Her thin white hair covered her wrinkled leathery face, and her eyes fluttered behind the veil. The only light came from the lamp in the corner, casting an orange glow on the dark wooden walls. Other militiamen filed into the room to see what the old woman might say, and Rory gestured to the seat opposite her.
Max sat, feeling like at any minute she would bust out a Ouija board.
“I dreamed of you, Sheriff Maelstrom,” she said with a thick accent. Her voice rattled in her throat, and a crooked finger pointed at the sky.
Slowly she raised her arm, and like dogs watching a tennis ball, everyone in the room followed it instantly.
“The queen speaks to her children.” Her finger shook and came back down to rest against her temple. “She speaks to them in dreams.”
“I know,” said Max. He glanced around self-consciously. “I was bitten, and before I was cured I saw her. And I heard her in my mind. I saw the memories of the worms, their flight through the sky to Earth, their long, silent voyage through space…But, I was cured before a worm took hold,” he added, glancing back at the militiamen.
“You have seen what I see. You know what I know…”
“I’m sorry, Mother Laughing, I don’t know what you mean. I’m not in contact with them anymore.”
Mother Laughing finally met his eyes, spreading the white hair hanging in her face with leathery hands to stare at him. She nodded to herself and let the white curtain close once more.
“The queen tells them to make more queens. Soon the howlers will join as the screamers did. The first will awaken tonight. I have seen it. And you, Sheriff. You will kill it.”
Chapter 17
The House of a Thousand Guns
“Why me?” said Max, though he knew it was a pointless question.
Mother Laughing gave him no answer. Instead, her head lolled backward, and her eyes began to flutter.
“At least tell me what I’m up against,” Max begged.
“Mother Laughing has spoken,” said Rory. “Now she must rest.”
Max pointed a finger at the man’s chest. “If you think I’m taking on this queen on my own, you’ve got another thing coming. What is this, Dances with Avatar? That white man saving the natives shit might work for Hollywood, but I’m not going out like that.”
Rory stared, looking mildly amused. “You’re an asshole, you know that, right?”
“Sticks and stones, man. Sticks and stones.”
“Are you two lovebirds done flirting?” said Valentine. “Because we’ve got a queen coming, if Momma Chuckles here is to be believed.”
Max cracked up. “Momma Chuckles, that’s pretty good.”
Rory offered them both a white-hot glare before turning his back on them. “Come.”
“Where?” said Max, tired of the Indian guide shtick.
“To the armory. If we’re going to deal with this queen, then we’re going to need some firepower.”
“I can get behind that,” said Max, nodding to John and Valentine.
Ten minutes later, they were all standing before the largest stockpile of illegal guns and ammo that Max had ever seen.
“It’s Christmas, kids,” said Max, picking up a rocket launcher and testing its weight.
They had been taken to a million-dollar house that sat on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, which separated the States from Canada, creating a natural border. Max guessed that either a wealthy businessman owned the house, or else a local drug kingpin. Now, standing in the secret underground room below the garage, Max didn’t care who had owned the place; he was just glad they had liked guns.
“What does one man need with all these weapons?” said John, testing out the sights of a machine gun.
“Uh, the zombie apocalypse,” said Valentine.
“Figures, eh?” said John. “All the nutjobs who created bomb shelters and stockpiled guns and ammo were right.”
“Hey, Rory, did Mother Laughing say anything about seeing me with a rocket launcher in her dreams?” said Max.
“No.”
“Well, I’m taking this bad boy. I’m done fucking around with these goddamned space worms.”
Max grabbed a couple grenades and a pair of Uzis, strapping them to his thighs with the provided holsters. He hefted the rocket launcher over his shoulder and glanced at Valentine and John, who were similarly armed to the teeth. “If I’ve got to battle an alien space worm queen from space, I’m glad I’ve got you two in my corner.”
“Thanks, Sheriff,” said John.
“You too,” said Valentine.
When they emerged from the armory, they were greeted by a winter wonderland. Fat snowflakes slowly fell to earth, covering the world in a glistening carpet of white. The moon failed to penetrate the thick cloud cover, leaving the world shrouded in darkness.
“So how are we supposed to find this queen?” Max asked Rory.
“We follow the howlers,” said Rory. “Mother Laughing said they would all unite to create a queen.”
“Great idea, but how do we find a howler?”
Rory grinned. “Follow me.”
They left the home of a thousand guns and returned to town. As Max had expected, Rory led them back to the police station, where dozens of militiamen had gathered in the parking lot with as many snowmobiles. Floodlights shone bright around the station, blinding them as they approached.
“So, where’s this howler of yours?” said Max as he caught up to Rory.
The silent warrior said nothing as he walked around the station and stopped before a shipping crate sitting beside the one wherein Oaks and his family had found their end.
“In there,” said Rory.
“So, we let it out and follow it? Good idea. And what if it decides to kill us all instead?”
“Listen,” said Rory, raising a hand.
Max and the others listened, and he made out a low moaning sound.
“The howler has stopped thrashing and screaming,” said Rory. “Now it sounds...”
“Sad,” said Valentine.
“Like it wants to go home,” John added.
Rory nodded. “The gathering has begun.”
“Listen,” said Max. “If we do this, if we help you kill this queen, do I have your word that you’ll let us leave?”
Rory nodded. “I give you my word.”
He turned to head back to the parking lot and the waiting snowmobiles, but Max grabbed his arm.
“And what if you die? Will your men honor your promise?”
Rory glanced down at the hand that held him, but Max held firm. The young warrior pulled his arm free and turned to address the others. “When the white boy kills the queen, him and his friends are free to leave, understand?”
“Alright,” said Max. “Let’s kill this bitch.”
Chapter 18
The Queen of the Damned
The howler was released, and just like Rory predicted, it ignored everyone and made a beeline for the field behind the police station. Max, John, Valentine, and the Mohawk Militia took off after it on their snowmobiles. The beast was in a hell of a hurry, and Max glanced down at the speedometer. They were going thirty miles an hour across the field and pacing the howler, and he doubted they would be able to keep up if it veered into the woods without the tracker that some brave soul had attached to it.
Half a mile from the police station, the field gave way to a forest of pine, oak, and birch, and the howler bounded through without slowing. Max followed close behind Rory as he tore through the underbrush and blazed a trail through the heavy snow, kicking up a plume of sparkling white powder in his wake. Max had lost track of the howler, but he knew that Rory was following it with the old tracking device.
They drove through the woods and finally emerged into frozen swampland. There was no sign of the howler, but Rory was still on it, leading them through thick underbrush at the edge of the swamp and c
ontinuing through the pines. The going was slow through the thick woods, but eventually they came out on the bank of the St. Lawrence river. A steep hill led down from their perch to the frozen river, and Rory raised a fist.
Everyone stopped and shut off their snowmobiles, and Max stood on his, scanning the river with binoculars. He spotted something three hundred yards up the river, a mass that he couldn’t quite make out. But he didn’t have to see it clearly to know what it was.
“They’re gathering,” said Rory, handing Max a pair of night vision goggles.
Max traded out the binoculars for the goggles and groaned when he saw not a group of howlers, but a coiled-up worm with a black shiny carapace and thousands of oversized millipede legs. The worm had no eyes that Max could see, but it had a mouth—a large round maw with row after row of wicked teeth. There were a few howlers left, and to Max’s surprise, they were giving themselves to the queen’s horrendous maw, practically fighting for a turn to be eaten.
“What the fuck…” said Max.
“What do you see?” said John.
Max described the alien space worm queen, and even as he spoke, it changed. The queen swallowed down its last howler and began to glow with electric light. The many plates that made up its dark carapace suddenly opened, and dozens of long electric tentacles erupted from it and swayed in the air like insectile feelers.
“I don’t want to know what kind of nightmare that bitch is going to give birth to,” said Max.
“We must not let her lay her eggs,” said Rory.
Max was about to hand him back the goggles, when suddenly the queen’s head turned in his direction. If it had had eyes, Max would have sworn that it was staring right at him.
A sound born from the depths of hell issued from the queen, jolting everyone and echoing through the river basin. It suddenly uncoiled, and the thousands of legs propelled it with startling speed right for the hill they had parked on.
“Okay, this is fun,” said Max. “Now it’s coming toward us.”
“It’s time,” said Rory, staring at Max expectantly.
Max chuckled to himself. “Alright then, let’s do this shit.”
He unstrapped the rocket launcher from the back of the sled, walked out to the edge of the hill, and took aim at the center of the queen’s body. The thing had to be a hundred feet long, and it was at least fifteen feet around. It was a big target, but it was still two hundred yards away. Max steadied his breathing and let the rocket fly.
The rocket shrieked through the air, leaving Max’s heart hammering with anticipation and adrenaline. Everyone watched the rocket’s epic flight through the air as it flew out over the hill and curved down, slamming into the middle of the queen. The explosion was exquisite, and the militiamen cheered when the ice gave way and the queen was pulled into the frozen river.
Max looked through the night vision goggles. The hole was at least twenty feet across, and there was no sign of the queen. “Well, that was easy,” he said, handing Rory back the goggles.
But Rory wasn’t looking at him, he was staring at the frozen river. Max turned back to look and let out a sigh. The ice was glowing downriver from the blast site.
“Ah, shit—”
The ice suddenly exploded upward near the bank, and the queen erupted form the water. A thousand legs brought her up onto the bank, and the head rose up as she curved back like a cobra about to strike. A guttural roar escaped the queen, followed by a crack of lightning. To everyone’s surprise, the tentacles shot up the hill like bolts of lightning, grabbing hapless militiamen and their snowmobiles before yanking them back toward the queen.
“Fire!” Rory cried, and the hillside erupted with gunfire.
Max hurriedly reloaded the rocket launcher as a thousand rounds slammed into the approaching queen. The tentacles came again, pulling screaming men and women off the top of the hill and wrapping them in a blanket of crackling electricity.
“Hey, bitch!” Max screamed over the tumult.
The queen space worm reared back like a striking snake, opening its hideous maw.
Max fired.
The rocket screamed through the air, making a beeline for the queen’s mouth and disappearing inside it. The head exploded in a shower of gore and thick ichor, blowing Max off his feet. He watched from his back as the colossal worm teetered. The thousands of feet jittered like a millipede on crack, and the tentacles randomly released blasts of electricity. Finally, the queen’s shiny body swayed and toppled over, hitting the ground like a felled sequoia.
Max hurried to his feet and grabbed the last rocket. He found John and Valentine among the group and breathed a sigh of relief that they were alright. Rory had survived as well, but a half dozen militiamen and women hadn’t been so lucky.
“Look!” someone shouted.
Max found the woman and followed her pointing finger.
Down by the shore, the body of the queen had begun to glow once more. The tail end of her long body started to swell. It suddenly opened, and a black mass at least ten feet long was pushed out of it. Max at first thought it to be an egg, but if it was, the shell wasn’t hard. Instead, a thin membrane was hiding a dark, writhing form beneath it.
What emerged from the disgusting mass of glistening film was so outlandish that Max could hardly believe his eyes. The thing had two arms, two legs, and a torso like a human, but that was where the resemblance ended. From its head, dozens of tendrils hung like electrified dreadlocks, and its face was all mouth, circular like the queen’s had been, and filled with vicious-looking teeth. The long neck was worm-like and stretched at least two feet off the shoulders. The entire body was covered in dark carapace-like plates that reflected the fire still burning around its mother’s destroyed head.
And it looked pissed.
The beast turned its head toward the group on the hill and let out a bloodcurdling shriek.
Chapter 19
Hybrids from Hell
“What. The. Hell. Is. That!” Valentine shrieked.
“I guess it’s a wormhead,” said John.
Everyone looked to Max for guidance, including Rory.
“What?” said Max “I signed up to kill the queen, and the queen is dead. Besides, there’s only one of th—”
Another sack emerged from the dead queen’s tail, and then another.
“Great,” said Max. He returned everyone’s expectant look with one of his own. “What are you waiting for? Kill ‘em all!”
He jumped on his snowmobile and started it up. The others followed his lead, hooting and yipping as they peeled out down the hill and unloaded gunfire on the wormhead. Max riddled the first with bullets that seemed to have little effect on the hard-shelled hide. The other soldiers’ bullets seemed just as useless. One of the snowmobilers got too close, and the wormhead sprang fifteen feet, leaping like a lion to pounce on the hapless militiaman.
“Take them down the river!” Max cried out and headed west across the frozen river.
John and Valentine caught up to him, and he held up a grenade. They nodded understanding and drove ahead. Rory and the others caught up as Max allowed himself to fall behind. He glanced back as the last of the riders passed him and found six wormheads barreling across the ice after them on all fours. Max sped up, having lagged a little too much. One of the beasts landed two feet behind his sled, and Max fed him shaved ice, gunning the throttle and screaming across the snow. He pulled the pin on the grenade and threw it behind him.
The explosion boomed twenty feet behind and he ducked down, not wanting to be hit by the shrapnel. A quick glance back told him that he had hit one of them, blowing off both arms and half the dreadlock tendrils. But despite its injuries, it kept coming.
Rory suddenly flew by in the opposite direction, machine gun blazing as he steered right for the lead wormhead. He veered right at the last moment, tossing his own grenade at the monster and steering clear. The grenade exploded right in front of the wormhead, blowing off limbs and leaving a twitching mass of gore
in its wake.
One down.
Max waited for Rory to catch up again and tossed one and then the other remaining grenade, taking out another of the alien hybrids and finishing off the armless monster. The remaining wormheads split up, two heading for opposite banks and the other continuing across the ice.
“Head them off!” Max yelled to Rory. “I’ll take care of this one!”
Rory nodded and sped up to direct his men to go after the wormheads that were now running along the banks. John and Valentine slowed down and let Max catch up. He had to speed up to fifty miles an hour before the wormhead began to fall behind, and he cursed back at it, quite fed up with the overpowered alien spawns.
“What’s the plan?” said John.
“You two have any grenades?”
Neither did, and Max glanced back at the pursuing beast, trying to think of something. He wondered how long it could keep up this kind of speed. The militiamen were doing their best against the other wormheads on the north and south banks, but they still hadn’t taken them out.
Max’s snow sled suddenly began to sputter and choke, and he lost speed fast. John and Valentine slowed down as well, but Max urged them on as he fought with the throttle, trying to get the engine running right.
He glanced back and found the wormhead right on his heels. With a surprised string of curses, Max gunned it, but the snow sled suddenly died. Behind him, the wormhead leapt into the air. Max hit the brakes, ducking down as the alien soared overhead, missing him and landing on all fours.
Max fought to get the sled going, but it was no use. He stood up instead, brandishing his twin Uzis, and aimed at the wormhead as it turned around and stalked him.
“Come on, you ugly motherfucker!”
The wormhead leapt, and Max unloaded both clips into its open maw. Blood flew and the beast cried out as it came down on the snow sled. Max leapt out of the way just in time, but he paid for his bravery as a claw caught his leg and tore through his pants. He hit the ground and rolled, coming up with Stefan’s sword in hand.
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