Cal was surprised at how tall she was, only a couple inches shorter than he was.
She laid the one she was carrying down and Cal looked around at his camp helplessly.
He, Eliza, and the alien female were the only ones that were conscious. Well, them and Rufus.
He checked on Mirabelle and a felt rage boil up in him.
This alien female wasn’t the one who had launched the rock, but the male who had was still her tribemate, and she’d participated in the attack, so bore some responsibility. And yes, the rock had been aimed at him, Mirabelle being collateral damage, but that didn’t calm him.
It did make him realize though just how hard the rock must have been slung to still have enough force after bouncing off of his head to knock her out.
He was surprised he was alive, let alone conscious, actually. It had hit his forehead, which was the thickest part of the skull… but still.
Unable to do anything right now for Mirabelle, he focused on the other member of his group who needed help. “Hey,” he said, getting the female native’s attention, then pointed at Imogen. “What did you do to her?”
She looked at Imogen, then back at Cal, did something like shaking her head. It wasn’t exactly a human motion, but was close enough that Cal understood.
She couldn’t fix her.
“How are we going to fight that thing?” Eliza asked.
Cal looked over the gate. “I don’t see it. Maybe it left. Maybe it thinks it’ll be too hard to get to us.” It sounded nice, but he didn’t believe it. “Just in case, get your spears.”
“I don’t think spears are going to do anything to that thing.”
“We have to try.”
Cal and Eliza kept a lookout, armed with spears that didn’t give him much confidence, while the alien female tended to her injured friend, whispering soothing words.
Cal would have offered her bandages, but they were all out.
He was both filled with adrenaline, and also tired. He’d thought the fight was over, but now there was this thing from Earth to deal with.
Was this what had sliced those branches clean off and taken out the monsters from the waves? But they’d found those bodies in the forest on the side of the front gate, while this one came from the rear.
Did that mean there were more than one of these things? If one of them had come back, maybe more had.
And what about the other thing? That colossal, humanoid monster that had punched a several-thousand-pound door right out of its frame and nearly taken out their helicopter. Had taken it out, indirectly, by causing them to run out of fuel.
Even if nothing else had made it through, how were they possibly going to fight off the one that had?
A sound drew his attention. Trees moved, settled.
Then silence. Stillness.
“Did you hear something?” Eliza whispered, clutching one of her spears, eager to be rid of it—preferably by launching it through the head of their spider-like attacker.
“I think so,” he said very quietly.
There. Another blur of motion.
“To the side,” he hissed, already moving that way, spear in hand.
They peered over the edge of the cliff.
“Oh fuck,” Eliza stated.
The monster was scaling the sheer side of the hilltop with ease, its long, sharp limbs digging in and propelling it upward at a sickening rate.
He hurled his spear down at it. It hit the thing’s head and bounced off.
It roared in annoyance as it looked up at him.
Seeing her chance, Eliza launched her own spear at the creature.
Her aim was peerless and the spear slammed straight down the thing’s open mouth and into its throat.
It stumbled, losing its grip, and fell back to the ground where it landed with a hard crack.
“Shit,” Cal said in awe. “I think you—”
The creature spasmed on its back, limbs twitching, and Cal’s heart leapt into his throat.
Then it went still.
“—killed it,” he finished with a sigh of relief.
“How could it take so many bullets but then be taken out by a spear?”
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Cal said.
“Oh you’re so funny.”
Cal looked at her with a frown. “What?”
But she was staring down at the monster.
Cal looked. Still not moving, but he wasn’t sure if it was dead. It had fallen a good hundred feet, but now that she’d brought it up, it did seem unlikely that a spear and a fall would kill it if another one of its kind had been able to shrug off hundreds of bullets.
Then its limbs twitched violently and both of them let out a yelp of surprise which was drowned out by a horrible shrieking noise like metal on metal that reminded Cal of the sound the monsters from the waves made, and he briefly wondered if there was some connection, or if it was simply coincidence.
“Crap,” he said, as the thing rolled over and righted itself, spear still stuck in its mouth.
It reached up with one of its blade-like limbs and bent it around the wood, gripping almost delicately and pulling it out.
A green fluid poured from its mouth into the dirt, where it sizzled and sent up a cloud of smoke.
Then it looked up at them—directly at them, Cal knew, despite its lack of eyes—and in a blur of motion was gone.
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“I don’t see it,” Eliza said.
“Me either,” Cal agreed. Then he glanced back to check on the others, saw the alien female moving toward Imogen. “Shit. Shout if you see anything.”
“What are you—” she began, but Cal took off.
He grabbed the alien by her arm—the fur covering the outer edge of which was unexpectedly soft and silky—yanking her up and away.
She looked at him, raising her lips in a growl, but then got control of herself.
“What are you doing?” he asked accusingly.
She said something in her high, soft voice, in that language he didn’t have a hope of understanding.
Then she showed him the back of her hand.
He frowned. “What? What is that supposed to mean?”
She reached out for him but he brushed her hand away.
“Stop it.”
But she didn’t. She moved quickly, putting her hand to his head and—
Cal watches as the alien female leans over Imogen, putting her hand on her face.
Goddammit, he thinks. How’d she get over there so quickly?
He tries to move to stop her, but finds he is immobilized.
What the fuck? he tries to say, but no words come.
Then Imogen sits up, looks at Cal and smiles, and says something.
Except it isn’t English. It is that alien language the natives speak.
Cal staggered back, found himself staring at the native.
He looked over to Imogen, who was still unconscious, then back to the alien.
“Did you…”
She bared her teeth in what might have been meant as a reassuring smile, but which did not at all reassure Cal. At least her teeth didn’t look too sharp.
He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
She pointed to Imogen.
“What are you try—”
“Cal!” Eliza was rushing toward them.
“What—”
She sped past and to the other side. “It went around.”
“Dammit!” he cursed. “I’m getting whiplash.”
She was at the edge of the hilltop and he hastily joined her—for now putting aside the mystery of what the native had done to him—and just caught a blur of motion as the monster disappeared into the forest.
“Did you see where it went?” he asked.
“No. Somewhere in the trees.”
He glanced back to check on the woman and saw her kneeling by Imogen, placing her hand on her face.
“Son of a—” He rushed over to her and was about to yank her away w
hen Imogen’s eyes popped open and she sat up—just like he’d seen her do in whatever that vision had been.
He skidded to a halt, staring at Imogen, waiting for her to speak in that alien tongue.
When she instead looked dazed, he looked at the native as she leaned back, a smile on her smooth face. “What’d you do to her?”
The alien woman looked at him, then back at Imogen.
Grunting at this lack of an answer, Cal moved over to Imogen, kneeling beside her. “You okay?”
She blinked, staring at him. Then she turned her head and saw the alien woman and scrambled away, getting to her feet and looking around for a weapon.
“Whoa,” Cal calmed her. “It’s okay.” After a moment’s hesitation he added, “I think.”
“What’s going on?” she asked. In English, to Cal’s great relief.
“That thing that was back on—” Cal began to explain and then the netting above their heads came crashing down atop them.
63
The monster had come around the front and easily cleared both their gate and the taller palisade, only to have its entrance barred by the net.
Well not so much barred, as had completely taken it out and was now was thrashing around on the ground, trying to get free from it.
Which it looked like it would do quite soon with those sharp limbs it had.
Rufus freaked out at the monster, but didn’t try to attack it, instead choosing to keep a wide berth and growl at it.
Smart.
Mirabelle was still unconscious by the tree, out of harm’s way. For now.
Eliza charged forward, spear raised, her nude body rapidly shifting into soil from the feet up.
By the time she reached the monster she was already fully transformed. She stabbed the spear down as it lashed out at her, slicing through her leg and causing her to miss.
She fell slightly, the lower part of her leg now gone, but caught herself on her now much-shortened leg, steadied herself, and stabbed at it again.
Cal grabbed one of the talon-spears and rushed toward the monster, jabbing at it as well as it shrieked and thrashed.
He cried out when one of its limbs slashed across his shin deep enough to cause not just pain, but true agony.
He looked down and saw it had cut to the bone. Not just to the bone—which was easy to do on the shin—but partly through the bone itself.
He fell backward just as the thing lashed out again, barely missing taking his entire lower leg off.
“Help me,” Imogen said, grabbing one end of the net.
She had recognized the thing, and despite having just woken, her military training had kicked in, urging her into action.
Seeing what she meant to do, Eliza moved away from the creature, her leg now reformed, grabbed the net on the opposite side and Cal watched helplessly from the ground, the agony from his shin causing his vision to blacken, as together the two women dragged the thing over the edge and flung it off.
64
Cal limped to the edge to look at where the thing had crashed. It was still thrashing about. Still alive.
“That’s one tough son of a bitch,” Imogen said.
The alien female tentatively joined them to look over the edge at the monster.
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to kill it with what we have at our disposal,” Imogen stated.
“Maybe it’s got a weakness,” Eliza said. “Like fire or something.”
“That would be convenient,” Imogen said. They still had the fire going, not to mention Eliza could become it.
They watched as the monster finally sliced free from the netting they’d spent entire days making, shredding it to pieces.
The sight of the shredded rope triggered something in Cal’s mind, but his agony prevented it from coming into focus, and then the monster was free and he had bigger things to worry about.
It looked up at them again with that eyeless gaze, then moved away.
“It’s slower,” Eliza said.
“You call that slow?” Imogen asked.
“Not slow, but slower. I think we must’ve injured it.”
“Well that’s a relief. We threw it off a couple-hundred-foot cliff. It shouldn’t still be alive at all.”
They moved around to the front, except for Cal who now was sitting down, no longer able to stand, gritting his teeth against the pain. None of them had even noticed he was hurt. Not that he could blame them.
“I don’t see it,” Eliza said hopefully.
“Yeah,” Imogen agreed. “That’s not a good thing.”
The alien woman saw Cal’s wound, locked eyes with him.
“What?” he asked irritably.
She looked away.
Eliza noticed Cal wasn’t near them and looked around. “Oh no,” she said when she saw him and rushed over.
He held up his hand, waving her off. “I’m fine.”
She ignored this, letting out a disbelieving little snort. “I can see your bone.”
“That’s because I’m naked,” he said jokingly.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Hurt?”
“Just a bit.”
Imogen was at the gate, still scanning for the monster.
Eliza looked at the basket of food.
“No bandages,” Cal reminded her.
Ignoring this, she got up and grabbed one of the baskets, coming back over to him and tearing it apart.
“Hey,” he said.
“Need to stop the bleeding. Like you said, we don’t have any more of those bandages. Or even Tylenol flowers. We really need to up our medical-supply game.”
“First thing we’ll do if we don’t die.”
“Don’t joke like that.”
Cal nodded, but the truth was, he wasn’t joking. He couldn’t see any way out of this, couldn’t see any scenario in which they survived.
They’d barely made it out back on Earth, and then they’d had machine guns. And even still, not all of them had made it.
Stabbing a spear down its gullet had seemed to piss it off, and at least take it out momentarily. But not kill it. Plus, it’d now twice fallen from the cliff, and seemed only slightly worse for wear.
“Maybe you can get it in its mouth again,” he suggested half-heartedly, unwilling to give up. “That seemed to hurt it.”
She nodded as she wrapped the banana-apple-tree leaf around his calf. “I tried to stab its mouth when it was in the net. It seemed to be moving away, trying to avoid it. Keeping its mouth closed. Like it had learned from the first time.”
“Great,” he grumbled, “it’s smart too. Anything?” he called out to Imogen.
She shook her head, not looking at him, continuing to scan for the monster.
Eliza finished wrapping the leaf around his shin, then wrapped the cordage from the basket around it, tying it off in the place.
She leaned back and nodded at her work then looked around the camp. “I’m going to check on Mirabelle.”
Cal nodded, watched her walk away, naked and unselfconscious.
Her wounds were completely healed. Lucky her.
If only he could turn into earth or water or fire and heal this leg, that would be nice.
He looked at the alien female, sitting beside her fallen tribemate.
She met his eyes yet again, then looked down at her tribemate.
That was when he noticed she was no longer breathing.
Shit. “I’m sorry,” Cal told her, motioning at the body.
The woman looked up at him, then down to her companion, back to him. Gave something that was almost a nod.
Then she looked over to Mirabelle, who Eliza was unsuccessfully trying to wake.
“She’s not waking up,” Eliza said dejectedly, leaning back from Mirabelle and looking pleadingly at Cal. “She’s not bleeding, but…”
He nodded at her. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” This was a lie.
But the smile she gave him, however weak, made it worth it.
No matter h
ow impossible the odds, he would never give up, never lose hope, and he didn’t want her to either.
They sat in tense—and for Cal, painful—silence, Imogen scanning the area over the gate, walking the sides like she did when keeping watch.
He listened, straining his ears, noticed Rufus had his ears pricked, shifting back and forth, also listening.
Cal could hear the stream below, the gentle movement of the water. Could hear faint leaves rustling from the canopy of the giant tree above them in the gentle, but intermittent breeze, the footsteps of Imogen in the soft soil of the hilltop, Mirabelle’s quiet, shallow breathing.
He watched her chest rise and fall, her bare breasts hanging heavy to the sides, his mind flashing back to nights when he was on top of her.
His heart ached and he wanted to be mad at these alien natives for hurting her, but he couldn’t do anything about it right now.
And the one who had thrown the rock that had knocked her unconscious—and maybe, in this world without modern medical technology, would eventually lead to her death—was dead, having died a horrific death at the mouth and claws of the monster that now harried them.
He looked at the alien female, saw blood trailing down from her breast, which was partially covered with the carapace armor Eliza had made and Imogen had been wearing, that she had taken from her.
Cal was surprised Imogen hadn’t taken it back from her. Probably too distracted.
He wanted to go over there and rip it off of her to give back to Imogen.
But there was something about her, a vulnerability he couldn’t quite identify the cause of, that was disarming. And he wasn’t so sure anymore that he’d be able to hurt her, not unless she tried to hurt one of the other women. Then there was that fact that she’d just lost someone, which increased his sympathy for her. They’d done it to themselves by attacking, but that didn’t stop Cal from feeling for her.
And besides, he didn’t have the energy to try to take it from her. It was all he could do to stay conscious. The agony in his leg hadn’t abated, though he was growing used to it, if one could be said to grow used to that kind of pain.
It was sharp and brittle and rang through him. All he could do was grit his teeth, clench his fists in the soil, and bear it.
Survivor- World of Monsters 2 Page 17
