by David Coy
She was lying on the ledge that circled the chamber, and Gilbert was sitting next to her. He was so close; she could feel his butt against her thighs. She drew them back from the moist warmth of his nasty bottom.
Gilbert was breathing deeply through his mouth and he swallowed and removed his hand from under her shirt as if his hand were an object and not really his hand.
“It’s not that I don’t like you,” she said kindly. “But I’m not feeling very sexy right now. I’m sure you understand.”
Gilbert didn’t understand. He looked at her and wondered how many cocks she’d sucked—how many suck-sores she’d had. He felt a pang of something, a yearning that twisted in the pit of his stomach. He put his hand on her full thigh and kneaded it. He liked the way it felt and he decided that if she asked him to stop this time, he would refuse. It was God’s will that she was there with him.
“Stop,” she said and pushed his hand off. She knew that the longer he groped her, the harder he’d be to cool down. “Please,” she added.
Gilbert looked at her mouth and wanted to crawl in it, to experience its wet, sweet warmth all around him. He leaned over and tried to put his loose lips over hers. As he did, his hand rested on her strong ass, and he squeezed.
It was the hand on her ass that did it. It felt like a giant spider had stuck to it.
“Get off me, goddam it!” she yelled, then bumped him off the ledge with her thigh. Gilbert lost his balance and fell on his butt, then continued down onto his back with his feet in the air and a strained look on his face.
With a growl of disgust, she scrambled away from the spot and the bad breath that hung in the air. She got up and brushed her butt off where he’d touched it in case he’d left something nasty on it. When she looked down at him, he still had the stupid, bug-eyed look on his face as he tried to lift himself up by the ledge.
He didn’t need it, but she reached down and helped him to his feet anyway. She could feel the little string of muscle in his arm under the mushy covering. When he stood up, she took his temperature by flashing a look at his crotch. She didn’t want to, but she saw the bulge of his nasty little boner making a little tent in his pants. She groaned inwardly.
“Sorry, my king,” she tried to say warmly. “I’m just not in the mood, I guess.”
He didn’t seem very discouraged by the embarrassing fall, and that worried her. He should have been apologizing for his behavior about then, but instead, he put his arms around her real fast as if she were trying to get away. She could feel the hard little stick of his pecker against her belly. That, combined with a new blast of his breath, set her off completely. She pushed and wrenched herself free and tried to slap his face. He ducked away, and the blow glanced off his forehead and loosened his glasses. He kept ducking in slow motion long after the blow was gone and wound up turned ninety degrees away from her. When his face came back up and stopped moving, she slapped him again right across the mouth. The blow was so strong, she felt her palm strike his teeth.
The slap knocked his glasses the rest of the way off his head and he just stood there and stared at her.
When he grinned at her, his teeth were red with blood. It was a lascivious grin, and she got the feeling that he’d enjoyed the slap.
Whoops.
“I guess you didn’t hear me,” she said. “I’m not in the mood.”
“You mean, not in the mood for me,” he said thickly.
She was relieved to hear his voice. If he’d talk, she might be able to reason with him. “That’s not what I said.”
“But that’s what you meant.”
Bailey smiled back. “Look, it’s not you,” she lied. “I don’t enjoy sex very much is all. And this is a bad time for me. It’s not like we were in a nice romantic hotel room with wine and . . . and music, is it?”
The sphinx smiled a red smile.
“You’re used to handsome men, aren’t you?”
“No. That’s not it . . . ” she lied again.
“Men who excite you physically?”
“No!” she said. Of course you asshole!
“No?”
“Look. You’re no . . . Greek god, okay? But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t learn to like you.”
“The Greeks were evil and sinful.”
“Whatever. It’s just that you have to take it slow with a girl like me, that’s all.”
“You find those statues, those marble statues of naked men and women exciting don’t you?”
“Not very,” she said matter-of-factly, crossing her arms. She flashed a look at his crotch; the little boner was gone.
Gilbert stared at her with his bloody mouth partially open, then swallowed without closing it. He did it that way to try to hide the fact that he was swallowing in the first place. In order to do it, he had to stretch his lips back over his teeth just slightly and grimace a little like a chimp. The effect was utterly disgusting to her. It was the ugliest human gesture she’d ever seen. “We’ll see,” he said.
* * *
The hiss down the tube was the signal he’d been waiting for. Phil didn’t know for sure he was up next, but the timing seemed about right. The plan was a simple one. He would resist the hiss from the big bastard and make it come into the hole to get him. It would be out of view of its partner just long enough to grab Phil’s ankle and drag him out. He would have only a few seconds to plunge the pen into the big bastard’s chest. He wanted to get the poison as close to the heart as possible, if not right in it. He’d have to jab it in and pull it out—he didn’t want to leave a poison tipped pen stuck in its chest for the aliens to find.
If it worked, and the bastard died as quickly as Phil hoped it would, they’d have an effective weapon. The pen would leave a small hole with very little blood. It would be hard to spot against the folds and convolutions of the big bastard’s chest. It would take them hours to figure out what killed it, if they ever did.
If it didn’t work, Phil would probably get the shit kicked out of him and carried off to the labs. In its rage, the big bastard might literally pull him to pieces on the spot. On balance he had little to lose.
Phil lifted the corner of his bed roll, picked up the pen and removed the cap. He’d fashioned a thick handle for it out of aluminum foil to better his grip on it. He moved as far away from the opening as he could get and stretched out on his stomach with his feet pointed toward the opening. He tucked the pen up under his chest and waited.
When the hiss came at the opening, Phil stiffened. The next hiss was louder, more demanding, and Phil tightened his grip on the weapon. “Fuck off,” he said.
The very air went out of the tube. Then the light level dropped as the thing’s massive bulk filled the opening. Phil heard the slight huffing sound as the creature climbed in after him.
When the hand came down on his ankle, it felt as if a piece of hydraulic machinery had grabbed it. The yank that followed was like his leg was attached to a pickup truck, and he felt himself propelled backwards toward the opening.
Phil twisted completely around like an alligator and wrenched his booted foot free of the big bastard’s grip and scrambled to his feet. Caught completely off guard, the creature made a quick, awkward swipe with a massive hand to regain the foot. Half way into the hole and down on its knees, the creature lunged out again at Phil’s legs and missed. Phil kicked the creature’s face with a resounding thump. Stunned, the creature hesitated. Phil kicked again and connected. The big bastard stopped cold, and Phil thought he’d kicked it unconscious. A shock of pain went up through Phil’s leg from the force of the impact.
He hadn’t planned on being able to disable it with a blow, but this was working just fine. Phil switched legs and kicked its head again as hard as he could. The massive head went up with a snap from the impact and Phil knew he’d hurt it. The big bastard just stayed there on its hands and knees, stunned like a heavyweight fighter. The last thing Phil wanted was for it to fall flat. If it did, he’d never get the pen into its chest. He gamb
led and kicked it again.
Phil went down on one knee in front of the big bastard and put his hand on its back. He reached under it, stretching around the thing’s massive girth and positioned the pen just under where he thought the sternum must be. Then he brought the pen back and keeping the target in his mind’s eye, brought it up as hard as he could and into the creature’s chest. He felt the hardened tip go deep and strike bone and knew he’d hit the right spot. He cranked the pen around to get as much poison as possible into the wound, then yanked downward to remove it.
When he yanked, the packed foil around the pen slipped off in his hand, and the big bastard took that very moment to fall straight down flat.
“Christ!” Phil cursed and jumped back, almost getting pinned by the arm.
The creature lay there for a moment then started to rise up. It shook its meaty head and stumbled to its feet. Then it looked down at its chest and seeing the pen, reached up and daintily plucked it out with two huge fingers. It pitched the pen aside, and Phil knew he was about to die.
Then the big bastard just collapsed as if its bone structure had evaporated. The thump from the heavy fall shook the floor.
Phil shook his fists in victory, retrieved the pen and replaced the cap over the bloody tip. He moved as far away from the big bastard as he could and slumped against the wall.
“Gotcha,” he said weakly.
When the big bastard’s partner came to the hole a few minutes later, it looked at the fallen one then at Phil and grunted like an old man. It reached into the hole and shook the other’s foot a few times and when it got no response, grabbed it by both feet and tugged it unceremoniously out of the hole as if it was something to clean up.
It seemed to take no interest in the cause of its partner’s demise and started right for the exit seam with it, dragging it by one foot.
Phil looked out the opening and watched it go. When he looked over at Mary, she gave him a single thumbs up and a big grin.
“You did it!” she said.
Farther down the tube, Seseidi watched the huge spirit dragging the dead one and saw the pleased looks on the faces of the white warrior and his woman
To have killed such a spirit, he thought, the white warrior must be very great.
* * *
Now that they had a weapon that was worth a damn, they could take an offensive posture.
For the first time since his abduction, Phil felt a spark of real hope. The enemy’s over-confidence had given them the freedom of movement within their camp. That was a tactical error on their part. Now fate—and some unfathomable evolutionary forces—had become confederates. Some more luck could fan that spark into a flame of victory.
Damn, he felt good.
“How’s this?” Ned asked, holding up a small wooden chair.
“Perfect,” Phil answered. “Break it into pieces. Try to get some slivers under six inches long.”
The only thing close to a blowgun shape in the dump was the hollow folding legs of two cheap aluminum chairs. He couldn’t cut the legs or straighten them so a bona fide blowgun seemed out of the question. But the problem remained: he needed a delivery system that would give them some stand-off distance, if only a few feet.
If he couldn’t fashion his second choice—a bow and arrow weapon—they’d be left with spears and hand-thrown darts. That would be okay, but accuracy would suffer a bit, and the stand-off distance would be compromised he was sure. What they needed in any case were points—sharp points to drive the chemical weapon into the enemy’s flesh.
Ned raised the chair up over his head and crashed it against the rubbery floor. The chair bounced off intact.
“Must be oak,” he said, putting it down on the floor. He then proceeded to stomp the legs off the chair. Turning it several times to get the right angles, he stomped it completely to pieces then finished it off by twisting and breaking off what was left. The little chair didn’t stand a chance.
“I’ve got some chunks here, but not a lot of slivers,” he said picking through the chair’s remains.
“We need sharp points, Ned,” Phil snapped.
“Right,” he said sheepishly.
Ned picked a likely looking piece about the right size and using his can opener, worked and pried a large, ragged splinter off the edge. He held it up so Phil could see it.
“How’s ‘is?” he asked, very pleased with himself. It was an irregular wooden needle about three inches long. It was thick, but tapered to a sharp point.
“Great. Make as many as you can.”
Phil was looking for anything long and rod like that had some flexibility—something that would make a suitable bow. Nothing popped out at him from the pile. He dug down into it, determined to move the whole mess in his quest, tossing the stuff behind him and to each side. There was little in the way of the required shape. Nothing, that is, until he put his hand on the perfect alternative—a thick, black, rubber bungee cord about twelve inches long. He held it up and tested its elasticity.
Perfect.
With this as the propulsive force, any rigid arc to string it across would suffice. He looked around and settled again on the aluminum chair. He stripped off the sun-rotted nylon straps that acted as the back, then muscled the back away from the seat where it attached. What he had left was a three-sided tubular bow, the ends of which had a convenient hole for the metal hooks of the bungee cord.
He mounted the bungee by its hooks through each hole in the arms of the bow, pulled it back as far as he dared and let it go. The device responded with a deep thrump. It wasn’t real snappy or fast, but Phil was sure it would launch an arrow of the right weight at least a hundred feet, maybe farther, with some degree of accuracy.
Arrows.
“Skip that for now,” he said. “Look for something we can make arrows out of. Anything straight, thin, round, light.”
They both started digging and throwing stuff helter-skelter, looking for material that might work.
Ned thought it was a grate of some kind at first, but when he cleared the crap away from it, he realized it was one of those little carts, or service things, that go in the corner that people put drinks and glasses on. He took hold of it and wrestled it up out of the pile. He carried it over into a clear spot and put it down.
The cart was about three feet wide by three tall and about two feet deep. It had three shelves and there were wheels attached to the legs. The shelves were made out of dowels that were the length of the shelves and about three-eighths of and inch in diameter. The dowels were close together and ran through holes in several support members running across each shelf. In short, the entire cart was made up almost entirely of three-foot-long, three-eighth inch, perfectly round, straight arrows.
“I’ll be damned,” Phil said.
“Pretty good, huh?”
“You bet. Let’s take it apart.”
A few minutes later, they had a pile of perhaps a hundred featherless arrows. They were a little thicker and heavier than Phil would have liked, but their size presented a secondary benefit: they could also be thrown like spears.
They didn’t have a way to sharpen the tips. The only knife they’d ever seen was the little pen-knife Gilbert had stabbed Tom Moon with so they still had to use the oak slivers as arrow heads. Phil liked that idea because he was sure the tips would get good penetration on flesh. In addition, the tips were modular, and could be attached to anything, could even be used as booby traps.
All that was missing was a way to fletch the arrows. They tested a couple against the wall, and Phil was pleased with the somewhat slow but true flight he got out of them. They decided fletching wouldn’t be an absolute requirement at short range.
Once Ned got the hang of it, he was able to rip off splinters that were fairly uniform in size and shape. A couple of hours later, they’d fashioned about thirty arrows with wicked arrowheads wired to them. Most had at least two splinters attached. Some had three tips wired into a sinister looking tri-tip that Phil called those Ba
stard Busters. Ned thought that was funny. Bastard Busters . . . he repeated through a smile.
Next, Phil tore off the leg off a pair of jeans and knotted the end. Then he looped a belt through one of the remaining loops to make a quiver. He put the arrows in it and slung it over his shoulder.
With the makeshift bow, arrows and quiver, he was equipped with the goofiest weaponry he’d ever seen. He’d done better as a kid with the stuff in the garage. The only thing that kept him from laughing at the rig was the knowledge that the poison that would go onto the tips of these improvised arrows was as deadly as hell.
They spent the next several hours making more arrows and wound up with a large plastic baggie with dozens of more splinters as extras. Once that was done, they took it all back to Ned’s chamber to begin what Phil knew would be the dicey and arduous process of coating the slivers with poison from the backs of the frogs.
It took some practice, and Phil was sure that the first few had a highly variable amount of poison on them. He didn’t want to injure the frogs by rubbing the rough splinters over their skin too hard, but he wanted to make sure he made good contact. He finally decided that a moderate amount of pressure was necessary, and it didn’t seem to bother them too much. With the particularly rough slivers, though, he dabbed them against the frog rather than swiped it. He worried about those and put them in a separate pile and had Ned mark them heavily with bands of ink down at the base. He used one frog for about half the slivers then switched frogs. When he was just about finished, he noticed that there was no feeling in the finger he was using to hold the frogs down with. He was glad when he finished the last one. He wasn’t at all sure how much poison could be safely absorbed through the finger tip with no ill effects.
* * *
The impregnation and extraction process seemed to affect Mary worst of all. As far as Phil could tell, she’d played host the most times. When she stumbled into the tube, he helped her to her chamber and fed her. She lay down on the bed, and he covered her with a light sheet. Her shirt was unbuttoned, and Phil saw the near solid mass of fine, straight scars over her torso. He could tell the new ones because they were the pale, reddish ones. She twitched and mumbled for a while then slept soundly and Phil managed to get a few winks in himself. He was glad this would be the last time for her. He wasn’t sure she could take it again.
