“Perhaps not,” said LaBlanc. The albino walked up, holding a pale hand to his bleeding head. He nodded to a couple of his fellow creatures. They instantly lost form, melting into flaccid pools of swirling flesh and going through the transformation. The others watched as they began to take definite form, turning into huge, white grizzly bears. The lumbering behemoths attacked the blocked passageway, digging into the wall of packed earth and stone, flinging hunks of rock to the side as if they weighed practically nothing.
Glen and Rowdy knew that it wouldn’t be long before the albino bears broke through to the other side. They retrieved the guns that they had been forced to discard, intending to give pursuit once the tunnel was cleared. Rowdy knelt beside his grandfather’s stretcher for a moment, taking the old man’s hand. “Now don’t you go and die on me while I’m off fighting the bad guys,” he told Gart. “If you do, I’ll end up writing a rousing country ballad about your illustrious life.”
“God forbid!” chuckled Gart. The elderly lawman smiled up at his grandson and squeezed his hand. “Take care, boy. Remember, if you end up eating a bullet, you won’t ever make it to the Grand Ole Opry.”
“I’ll be okay,” he assured him. Then he turned to Alice and Miss Mable. “Do you ladies mind sticking with Grandpa and seeing that he makes it out of here?” He stood up and hefted the weight of the MAC-10 in his hand.
“I’d much rather go after those scoundrels with y’all,” said Miss Mable. “But I reckon I’ll stay here and take care of the old man. You boys have fun, but be careful.”
“Yeah,” said Alice, stretching on tiptoes to give the lanky singer a peck on the jaw. “I found you once today. Sure wouldn’t want to lose you all over again.”
Rowdy grinned. “No chance of that, sweetheart.” He kissed her back and then joined Glen. The storekeeper sent his son to join the two women, despite the boy’s protests. Glen’s bearded face was intense with anger and concern. The thought of Jenny being subject to Dellhart’s mercy fired him up. He knew then that he truly loved the woman. He was bound and determined to secure Jenny’s freedom, even if it meant fighting the corporate cutthroat to the death to do so.
LaBlanc called out and they turned to see the bears pawing away the last of the rubble. Glen and Rowdy rushed to the chase, leaving the others behind. The flock of monstrous bats had resumed their normal shapes and were gathered around the injured sheriff and his friends.
The albino leader noticed that the attention of Alice and Dale was directed elsewhere. Their eyes were glued to the unguarded entrance of the Dark’Un’s lair. “Do you wish to see what lies within?” he asked, deciding that it could do no harm to satisfy their curiosity. “If so, follow me.”
The two left Gart and Miss Mable, following the gaunt albino to the mouth of the dark chamber. The two creatures who had died in defense of the lair sprawled on the blood-splattered floor, but they were in none of the forms they had exhibited during their frantic metamophosis. Instead, they were in the shapes of large white centipedes, nearly a foot long in length.
When Alice and Dale hesitated at the entrance, LaBlanc smiled. “Do not be afraid. Nothing here will harm you.” Put at ease by his quiet assurance, they stepped inside.
There was only one torch blazing from the rear wall of the mysterious chamber. At first Alice and Dale thought that the cave was empty, but then they noticed a single albino woman sitting cross-legged in a far corner. In the sparse glow of the firelight, they watched as she smiled gently up at them and spread her slender arms, showing them the mass of squirming blackness that surrounded her, crawling across the stone floor and swarming over her pale flesh like thin streams of ebony quicksilver.
“What are they?” Dale asked. He bent down and picked up one of the dark creatures. It snaked playfully between the boy’s fingers, tickling his skin and making him giggle with delight.
Alice McCray smiled in sudden amazement, for she knew exactly what they were. And the violently protective defense of the dreaded Dark’Un also became clear to her. Slowly she began to realize that the place they stood in was not the lair of some cruel and heartless monster, but a place much more significant in nature.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Skeeter Newland circled the mountain, this time with a purpose other than keeping a skyward watch for intruding aircraft that might hinder the military assault. Frag Hendrix had radioed him and requested that he and some of the transport copters survey the wooded slopes of Pale Dove Mountain and see if they could spot any sign of Yellow, Blue, and Green Teams, who seemed to have practically fallen off the face of the earth during the course of the operation. Three of the Bells, piloted by Stokes, Drayton, and Yarborough joined him in the surface reconnaissance, while the other Huey gunships, flown by Wheeler and Boyett, maintained a defensive pattern above the rocky peak. The only helicopter still on the ground was Hollinger’s Bell on the southern side.
“Have you guys seen anything yet?” Skeeter asked into the microphone of his headset. The sun was bright that afternoon and the Texan had to squint past the glare of his windshield, despite his aviator glasses and the shade from the visor of his 1st Air Cavalry baseball cap. “Those fellas just couldn’t have up and disappeared into thin air.”
One by one, the pilots reported no sign of the missing teams. Then Drayton changed his tune as he spotted something below. “Wait a second…yeah, I’ve got some bodies in sight here on the eastern face. Looks like Green Team. They’re scattered all over a damned thicket. What a freaking massacre!”
Skeeter was skirting the southern side of the mountain and heading for the eastern side to have a look for himself, when he spied the ruins of the trailer camp halfway up the wooded peak. “Now what the hell happened here?” he wondered. The bloody bodies of Blue Team lay sprawled around the wreckage. From that height, they resembled toy soldiers that had been mangled and discarded by some temperamental child.
“Do you see anything yet, Skeeter?” came the voice of Hendrix through his earphones.
“Yes, sir,” replied the skinny Texan. “Both Blue and Green teams are down. Looks like they met up with some resistance that was too much for them to handle.”
“Damn!” cussed the commander. “What about Yellow Team?”
“I’m in sight of the western face now,” said Yarborough. “The forest covering is extremely heavy on this side. If Yellow Team has suffered the same casualties, I can’t verify it from this vantage point.”
Suddenly, an explosion sounded from above the peak of Pale Dove Mountain. Skeeter glanced up in time to see one of the Huey Cobras burst into a ball of orange flame. Smoldering pieces of debris rained down, littering the bare stone of the mountaintop. Skeeter spotted something else up there, too; something dark and swift teasing at his peripheral vision. It was there for a fleeting instant and then was obscured by the rocky point.
“Who got burned?” he demanded. “Was it Wheeler or Boyett?”
Wheeler’s voice came over the intercom, sounding more than a little rattled. “It was Boyett. Gripes, did you guys see the thing that bagged him? It was huge and as black as sin. And it didn’t fire a single shot…just swooped up from the forest below and tore the blasted chopper apart.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Skeeter. “What kind of ship was it?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” mumbled Wheeler.
“Well, tell me anyway, for God’s sake!”
Before Wheeler could give his interpretation of the threat that had destroyed Boyett’s gunship, Stokes’s voice blared through the airwaves. “Attacker at eight o’clock! It’s coming straight for me, right out of the damned trees!” There was the rattle of the Bell’s fifty-caliber nose guns, then a brittle crash. “The sucker has stripped my freaking blades! I’m dropping like a stone!”
Another burst of flame erupted, this time from ground level as the Bell slammed into the mountainside, exploding on impact. A mushroom cloud of heavy black smoke rolled skyward.
“
What is the source of the threat?” asked Skeeter. “Has anyone identified it yet?”
“I’ve spotted the enemy aircraft,” said Wheeler. “It’s flying low on the northern side, no more than a few yards over the treetops. I’m going to intercept and engage.” There was a roar as the gunship angled its nose downward and dived toward its elusive target.
“Wait for backup, Wheeler!” demanded Skeeter. He was banking around the eastern face of the mountain now. “Repeat, wait for backup.”
“Screw you, Skeeter. This bastard fragged Boyett. I’m going to put a missile up its ass!”
Over the radio, Skeeter Newland heard the sound of one of the Huey’s AH-1G air-to-surface missiles leaving its launch pod. There was an explosion and a rebel yell from Wheeler, then two more missile fires. From the sound of the explosions, Skeeter knew that the offensive aircraft should have been in flaming fragments by now. But something was wrong. Wheeler’s enthusiasm was swiftly changing into frantic frustration. He fired the missiles again and again, then resorted to the electric Gatling in the Huey’s nose turret. “What’s wrong with this son of a bitch?” grated Wheeler’s voice. “Why won’t it go down?”
Abruptly, Wheeler released a scream the likes of which Skeeter and the others had never heard, even during the Airmobile missions they had flown in the hectic skies of Vietnam. The Gatling continued to fire, as if Wheeler was depressing the button in sheer desperation. Then there came the sound of shattering Plexiglas and rending metal. “It’s coming for me!” wailed Wheeler. “It’s coming through the freaking cockpit for me!”
“What’s happening over there?” demanded Skeeter, pushing his own gunship to the limit. “Is there anyone on the northern side who can tell me what’s going on?”
“Good God, will you look at that thing!” came the voice of Drayton. “It’s ripping right through the front of Wheeler’s chopper. And it’s…no, it can’t be doing that!”
“What?” asked Skeeter. “What’s it doing? And what the hell is the thing, for crying out loud?”
“It’s a pilot’s worse nightmare,” said Hendrix, giving his viewpoint from the mountain’s northern slope. The commander’s gruff voice was rock steady, but it held a trace of emotion that Skeeter could only identify as awe.
Wheeler’s scream stopped abruptly and his radio went dead. Then Drayton’s voice resumed the panicked transmission. “It’s coming for me now! Backup! I need some backup…fast!”
“I’m right behind you,” said Yarborough. “What do you say we give this bastard a fifty-caliber enema?”
“I’m with you, buddy. Let’s do it!”
“Negative!” blared Hendrix’s voice over the airwaves. “Let Skeeter handle that monster. You don’t have the heavy artillery that the Huey does.”
“We’re already on its tail, Colonel. It’s running scared.” The staccato of the transports’ nose guns stuttered over the radio, then Drayton spoke up again. “Wait a minute! What’s it doing? Damn, it’s making a U-turn…and now its closing in on us!”
“Let’s get the hell out of here, Drayton,” suggested Yarborough. “We’re no match for this baby.”
“You can chicken out if you want to, but I’m going for it. I can take it. I know I can!”
“Dammit, Drayton, get away from that thing…can’t you see that it’s—”
Drayton began to shriek. “Teeth!” he shrilled. “Look at the freaking teeth!” Then there was an ear-shattering crash and Drayton’s radio went dead.
“What happened?” Skeeter was at the northeastern point of the mountain now and gradually swinging into view.
“Drayton’s bought the farm,” said Yarborough in a tone of grim resignation. “And now it’s my turn.” Another crash of buckling steel and shattering glass crackled through Skeeter’s earphones and then Yarborough was silent, too.
By the time the Texan had reached the northern face of Pale Dove Mountain, the threat was out of sight. All he saw were twin explosions as both the Bell transports slammed into the mountainside, a hundred yards from where Hendrix’s Red Team scaled a rocky cliff. Skeeter watched the copters crash and burn, but for only a split second. Drayton and Yarborough were already barbecue. Now his butt was on the line. He turned his attention back on the surrounding airspace, searching for the unidentified threat that had eliminated seventy-five percent of his air cavalry in a brief span of three minutes.
“Where is it?” Skeeter growled in frustration. “Where is the blasted enemy?”
“Twelve o’clock high!” warned Hendrix from where he stood at the top of the bluff. “Right above your head!”
Skeeter jerked the stick to the side and veered sharply to the left. A second later, something very dark and very large cut through the airspace he had just vacated. He steadied his chopper and swung it around so that he could get a good look at the dark threat as it corrected its flight path and climbed skyward for another attack.
“No freaking way!” muttered the lanky Texan. His eyes widened in disbelief.
There, screaming up at him from the wooded terrain below, was a sleek fighter jet; an F-16 Fighting Falcon with a shiny black finish and an iron-gray undercarriage. The cockpit looked to be darkly tinted. He could see no sign of a pilot, for the dome was pitch black in hue. There were no insignias or identification marks on the wings, tail, or fuselage to tell him who the enemy might be. But that didn’t matter much to him. He was determined to shoot it down anyway.
“Listen to me, Skeeter!” commanded Hendrix from below. “Don’t treat it like a regular aircraft. It’s something else entirely…some sort of hideous monster in the shape of a jet. Evade for a moment and check it out before you attack!”
Skeeter didn’t like to be told how to do his job, but he figured he ought to swallow his pride and take his commander’s advice this time, especially since the carelessness of the other pilots had resulted in their defeat. He banked upward and cleared the nose of the attacking aircraft before it reached him. Skeeter wheeled around just as the black Falcon sped into the vast Tennessee sky. From this vantage point, the chopper pilot could see the bizarre differences that Hendrix was trying to warn him about. First of all, the F-16 left no visible jet stream against the pale blue backdrop of the sky. Second, as the plane maneuvered for another attack, it did not spin and turn like a regular fighter plane. Rather, it seemed to flex and twist, like something of pliable flesh and bone instead of uncompromising steel. And the most puzzling point of all was the motion of its wings. They flapped like those of a humongous bird, instead of remaining stationary and secure like the wings of a true jet.
The Texan circled his Huey around the lofty point of the peak and angled its nose skyward. He pressed the trigger switch on the end of the joystick, firing a missile square at the diving Falcon. The living jet glided smoothly to the side, evading the rocket completely. The rocket climbed into open space, then faltered, falling to the earth and detonating near the two-laned blacktop of the main highway.
Skeeter swept his gunship around, tracking the Falcon’s progress. “I won’t miss this time,” he promised and punched the button twice. The missile pods barked smoke and flame, sending long needles of destruction toward the exposed belly of the aircraft. They hit the undercarriage of the fuselage, but when the twin explosions had died, there was no damage to be seen, only blotches of sooty discoloration. Skeeter chased the Falcon as it banked and turned for another attack, then glued his thumb to the fire switch for five full seconds. A steady stream of rockets belched from the pods, peppering the black jet and engulfing it in a barrage of fire and shrapnel. But again, as the smoke cleared, it appeared to be totally unscathed. Its glossy hull was singed and scuffed, but showed no real damage.
The dark Falcon swooped downward, cutting sharply beneath the bottom of the Huey and momentarily disappearing from sight. Skeeter tried to pull up, but he was too late in acting. The tortured screech of parting metal rang from beneath the helicopter and then the jet was gone, shooting onward. Skeeter cocked his head
and saw the landing skids of his Huey drop toward the earth, with the two rocket pods attached.
“Dammit to hell!” snarled Skeeter. “You just spoiled my chances for a smooth landing, you black buzzard!” He worked the stick, spinning in a steady circle. The dark Falcon was returning for another attack. The mercenary pilot centered the nose of the Huey and slipped his thumb to the alternate trigger; the one that controlled the electric Gatling gun.
Skeeter fired. The six barrels of the machine gun spun, expelling lead projectiles at an incredible rate of six thousand rounds per minute. The fifty-caliber rounds seemed to have no visible effect on the airborne demon.
They riddled its body and wings with all the fatality of spit wads. Several of the rounds ricocheted and penetrated the windshield of the Huey. One found the lobe of Skeeter’s right ear and tore it completely off, then punched through the headrest of his seat.
The Falcon circled him, slowly and steadily. Skeeter maneuvered to keep the jet in sight, never letting up on the Gatling gun. After a while, the Falcon tired of its game of aerial cat-and-mouse, and came in for the kill. Skeeter watched in growing panic as the beast loomed nearer, losing the deceptive appearance of a common aircraft and beginning to look more and more like some hellish blackbird. Long razor-sharp talons sprouted from the wings and the cone of its nose split horizontally in the center. It gaped like the maw of a shark, flashing row upon row of jagged gray teeth.
Skeeter Newland tried to avert the confrontation, but the thing was suddenly upon his craft. The narrow head of the bestial jet tore into the front of the Huey, shattering the windshield and ripping the instrument panel away in an angry gnashing of triangular teeth. Skeeter screamed and tried to escape, but there was no place to escape to. The sharp talons punched through olive drab steel, hooking onto the sides of the copter. In midair, the living jet clung to the faltering Huey like a black widow spider closing upon a snared fly. The ebony cockpit appeared to be no cockpit at all, but rather a gigantic black eye, staring in at him with dark malice. Then the pointed snout found what it had been searching for. It lashed out, the fangs burrowing deeply into the center of Skeeter’s chest, attacking the Alamo tattoo with much the same savagery and ruthlessness as did Santa Anna during his invasion of the Spanish mission at the end of its thirteen days of glory.
A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult Page 484
