Claws

by Russell James

  She’d just become the poster child for out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire.

  Larsson wouldn’t get the satisfaction of killing her, but knowing a crab would be doing it made up for the loss.

  Chapter 28

  Nathan couldn’t help but wonder how many soldiers across time had stood where he stood atop the western face of Fort Jefferson, watching for the approach of an enemy by sea. Likely some of them had also been on the lookout for giant crabs.

  The Gulf of Mexico lay deceptively calm with just the slightest chop. But beneath the surface, did a giant crab lie in wait? Did a dozen? If an army of them advanced on the fort, there’d be no stopping them.

  At the fort’s base, the stagnant water in the moat rippled. A current picked up and the water began to move like a slow stream. The level dropped slightly.

  That shouldn’t have been happening. The moat waters couldn’t pump themselves out. There was no place for the water to go.

  Soon the top layer of the moat wall’s bricks lay exposed to the sun. The old iron gate that blocked the sea from rushing in steamed as sunlight baked it for the first time in forever.

  “Oh, crap,” Nathan whispered.

  He sprinted around the top of the fort, keeping an eye on the accelerating water in the moat beneath him. He rounded the last corner on Valadez’s side. The mercenary looked up at him in a mix of anger and confusion.

  “What the hell are you doing over here?”

  Nathan pointed to a spot in the moat below. “Look there!”

  The murky moat water rushed from both directions and disappeared at the moat’s edge like it was running down a drain. The water shallowed and exposed a wide, dark opening.

  “A sink hole?” Valadez said.

  “I wish.”

  In an eruption of sand and water, a giant crab burst from the opening. It spread its front claws wide apart and hissed. The eyestalks turned in opposite directions, with one black, glossy eye each aimed at Valadez and Nathan.

  The two scrambled down the stairs and took up position at an embrasure on the second tier. In a flash, Valadez snapped his rifle to his shoulder. He sent a fusillade of rounds down at the creature.

  Bullets pinged and sang against the crab’s shell. Ricochets smacked against the fort’s masonry and sent puffs of dust and rock chips into the air. The crab recoiled and skittered sideways. It cleared the hole in the ground and a second crab appeared within it.

  “Oh, hell no,” Valadez said.

  He retrieved a grenade from a cargo pocket, pulled the pin, and threw it down into the hole. Seconds later, it exploded with a stifled boom. A spray of muddy water vomited from the hole and splattered against the fort wall.

  “Take that, you pieces of—”

  The second crab burst out of the hole, fast and, from the shaking of its claws, furious.

  “Way to piss it off,” Nathan said.

  The second crab sidestepped in the opposite direction from the first along the now empty moat. Claws clacked against stone. The rank stench of algae and rotting fish rose up from below.

  Larsson bounded up behind them, his rifle at the ready. “What’s the shooting about?”

  “Crabs at the wall,” Valadez said.

  Larsson moved left, and then sent a hail of rounds down at one of the crabs. Valadez fired a burst at the other. Then he pulled his pistol from his holster and offered it to Nathan.

  “Ever used one of these?” he said.

  “I once shot a derringer at history camp,” Nathan said.

  “Wow, you’re all sorts of useless.” Valadez tossed him the gun. “Point and pull the trigger. A round’s chambered.”

  Nathan caught the pistol and snapped off the safety.

  “You got the common sense to only aim that at the crabs, I hope.”

  “Never been a fan of shellfish,” Nathan said.

  He peered out of the embrasure. No new crabs poked out of the hole. The two in the moat headed back to the center. Valadez and Larsson rained bursts of bullets down on each with little effect. Nathan lined the heavy pistol up on the leftmost crab and pulled the trigger. The gun barked and had way more kick than he’d expected based on the movies. He guessed the round hit the crab. He couldn’t see how he could have missed. The crab didn’t flinch.

  “Grenades!” Larsson yelled.

  He and Valadez both grabbed grenades from their pockets and pulled the pins. Larsson pointed left and they threw both at the leftmost crab. The grenades bounced down the fort wall and into the moat under the crab.

  The grenades exploded almost as one. A flash and roar sounded under the crab. It hopped up, screamed, and flailed its front claws. Then it scampered right. It did not look wounded.

  “We can’t break the shell,” Valadez said.

  Valadez sent a burst of rounds down on the crab. Larsson unloaded on the one on the right. Nathan aimed for a crab’s face and sent two bullets dead center. They had no effect.

  The crab on the right climbed up on the bridge to the main gate. It reared back a claw and drove it into the thick oak doors. Wood splintered and iron hinges groaned. It drove the claw home twice more. But the doors held.

  “The doors just totally paid for themselves,” Nathan said.

  “Solid doors and a high wall,” Larsson said. “We can’t kill them, but we’re safe in here.”

  Then the crab on the left stretched out its front claws and began to climb up the side of Fort Jefferson.

  Chapter 29

  Larsson decided this was the perfect time to cut and run.

  No weapon they had could penetrate the crab’s armored shell. Valadez might hold them off for a while, but if they could climb the damn walls, eventually, they’d climb in. And then the big doors keeping the crabs out would turn into big doors holding the people inside with the crabs. And that would get ugly.

  The crab continued its crawl up the wall. One eyestalk stared into an embrasure. It jabbed a claw halfway through another with an explosion of red brick dust. The crab rocked back and forth trying to free its stuck claw.

  Larsson pointed his rifle out of the embrasure and unloaded twenty rounds point blank into the crab’s shell. The crab shuddered under the impact, though no bullets penetrated. It lost its grip and slipped down the side of the fort. Its claw did not break free.

  The air filled with the sharp report of cracking shell. The joints of the great claw split and separated. The crab fell and landed on its back in the muddy drained moat. Seven claws flailed in the air. Its dismembered eighth stayed wedged in the embrasure.

  Larsson saw his opportunity. “We need ammo. Hold tight.”

  Before Valadez could reply, Larsson bolted down the steps and into the courtyard. He went to the pile of supplies but didn’t touch one round of ammo. He grabbed the silver suitcase containing the lure controller and ran for the powder magazine. Once inside, he slammed the door, threw open the trapdoor, and scrambled down into the old CIA bunker. He didn’t take out his flashlight. He wouldn’t be in the dark long enough to need one.

  Once inside, he stopped in front of the air vent. He untied a shoelace and tied one end to the metal briefcase’s handle. Then Larsson climbed into the vent head-first and arms up. His gut wedged tight between the sides. With a back and forth shimmy like a rotund snake, he worked his way down the air vent. When his feet disappeared inside, his shoelace dragged the controller along behind him.

  He worked his way to where the vent turned straight up and bright daylight illuminated the space. With great effort, he forced himself through the constricting turn and swore he’d lose ten pounds when this was over.

  He crawled up and out of the shaft. It seemed like he’d stepped into a junkyard. He peered over the top of the trash. He had a clear line of sight of the whole area, and an open path to the beach. The Zodiac sat on the sand, loaded with most of the lures. The incoming tide had lifted the stern free.

  At the fort, the crab that had lost its claw still lay on its back, but two others skittered b
ack and forth along the moat. A hand grenade sailed out of one embrasure. It landed beside one crab and exploded with zero effect. A pistol barked from another embrasure. Its rounds just ricocheted off the crab’s shell.

  The two in the fort would be too busy to notice his departure until it was too late. The crabs had opted to attack through tunnels into the moat, which he hoped meant they’d left the beach unoccupied. His path to vengeance was clear and calling to him.

  “No time like the present,” Larsson said to himself.

  He vaulted over an empty metal drum and sprinted for the beach with the controller in his hand.

  Chapter 30

  Nathan knew a losing battle when he saw one.

  He’d read enough accounts of them, from Brandywine Creek to Gettysburg to the Argonne Forest. Soldiers on the losing side got to a point where the outcome, though perhaps still distant, now manifested as inevitable. This fight between three men and giant crabs had reached that point.

  Another crab had just crawled out of the hole, as if it had been in the bullpen waiting to replace the one now trapped on its back.

  He leaned out the embrasure and fired several bullets at the crab in the moat, hoping to find some tiny chink in its impenetrable armor. The crab continued to search the outer wall for a good grip to start its climb. Three men weren’t going to hold those things off.

  In the distance, he caught sight of Larsson running from the north coaling station ruins to the beach, carrying a silver briefcase. He did a double take. Wasn’t Larsson down below getting ammo? He glanced over his shoulder and saw an empty parade ground.

  “Check the beach!” he shouted at Valadez.

  Valadez ripped a half dozen rounds at the closest crab and then looked out across the key. His face reddened. “That deserting son of a bitch.”

  Larsson reached the Zodiac and threw the silver case in the back. He grabbed the rifle from near Wilson’s corpse. Nathan held out hope that a giant crab would rise from the sea and tear the man in half. It didn’t happen. Larsson jumped in and started the engine. He backed the nose of the inflatable off the beach.

  Nathan wouldn’t miss Larsson, but his departure left them a man short and still low on ammunition. And the crabs kept coming.

  He emptied the rest of his clip into the face of the crab in the moat. It flinched, found footing, and started to climb.

  He dropped the clip from the pistol and saw that it was empty.

  “Need one of these?” Gianna said from behind him.

  Nathan turned and she held out two clips. Four new ammunition cans sat at her feet. He was torn between joy over the reload and fear over her exposure. He grabbed the clips.

  “How the hell did you get here?” Valadez said. “You drowned in the trawler.”

  He leveled his rifle at Gianna. Nathan grabbed the barrel and pushed it skyward.

  “How about we focus on the crabs?” Nathan said. He turned to Gianna. “We need more grenades.”

  She nodded and headed back down the steps. Nathan kicked a can of rifle ammunition over to Valadez. With fury in his eyes, Valadez watched Gianna leave.

  “It’ll take all of us to get out of this alive,” Nathan said.

  “It might take more than that,” Valadez replied.

  He pulled a grenade from his pocket and yanked the pin. He leaned out the embrasure and with an underhand lob tossed the grenade between the climbing crab to the left and the fortress wall. The blast propelled the crab off the brick in a cloud of red clay dust. It dropped into the moat and immediately righted itself and threw itself back into the attack. Valadez turned to Nathan and smiled.

  “Now that felt good,” he said.

  Suddenly, behind him, a claw burst through the embrasure. It snapped closed around his waist. He screamed as the claw pulled him back out. His head slammed against the bricks and he went limp.

  Gianna reappeared with two cans of grenades. She dropped them and screamed at the sight of Valadez in the crab’s claw outside the wall.

  Nathan knew they were doomed. There was no way he and Gianna could hold off these crabs. He wondered how the soldiers in the fort ever had. The grenades had enough kick to knock the crabs off the wall, but not enough to kill them.

  The crab shoved Valadez’s body into its mouth. Then it rammed its blood-soaked claw back through the embrasure. It missed Nathan by inches.

  Then he had an idea.

  “Bring those grenades,” he said to Gianna.

  Nathan ran up the stairs to the terreplein. Gianna followed with the grenade cans. He went to the big restored Rodman gun. A stack of cannon balls stood behind it. He picked up one ball. It had to weigh fifty pounds. His back complained, but all that weight was just what he’d hoped for.

  Eyestalks peered over the edge in front of the cannon. Then the crab raised itself up over the terreplein’s edge, exposing the white underside of its shell.

  “Pull the pins and drop two grenades down the barrel,” Nathan said. “Now!”

  Gianna grabbed two grenades and pulled the pins. The handles sailed off into space. She dropped them down the barrel and turned away with her ears covered. Nathan rolled the cannonball down the barrel and dove flat on the ground. The ball clunked against the grenades. He covered his ears.

  The grenades boomed. The cannonball rocketed out of the barrel. The gun rocked backward with the recoil. Paint around the wheels shattered into black snowflakes.

  The cannonball slammed the crab in the underbelly. It tore through the shell in an explosion of pink meat and clear liquid. The impact drove the creature off the wall, and it tumbled down into the moat.

  Gianna looked up and out across the empty horizon. She raised a fist in victory. “Yes!”

  To the left, the second crab crawled up onto the terreplein. Its rear legs sent a cascade of loose bricks down into the moat as it crawled onto the fort. The twin eyestalks turned and stopped, fixing on Gianna and Nathan.

  “Pivot the cannon!” Nathan jumped up and pushed the cannon right along the race. Rust ground around the cannon’s carriage. Gianna pitched in and it lurched to a stop facing the advancing crab.

  Gianna needed no orders. She dropped two more sputtering grenades into the barrel. Nathan grabbed another ball. The iron slipped against his sweat-soaked palms. He dropped the ball in front of the cannon.

  The crab hissed, spread its claws, and rushed the cannon.

  Nathan scooped the cannonball up and heaved it down the barrel. He dropped to the ground. Before the ball could hit the barrel’s bottom, the grenades exploded.

  The cannonball blasted over him so closely that its wake rippled his shirt. The ball struck the crab just below the eyes and caved in what passed as its face. One claw took a clumsy swipe at the cannon and missed. The crab staggered sideways and stumbled off into the parade ground below. It hit the grass with a sound like a breaking eggshell. It lay on its back and did not move.

  Nathan crawled over to the edge and looked out. From within the hole in the moat, another crab moved.

  “Hell, no,” Nathan said.

  He had to refill the moat, and there was only one way to do that. Open the iron gate in the moat wall. The one that had long ago rusted permanently shut.

  He pulled a hand grenade from the box and practically tumbled down the steps to the ground level. He ran for the hole in the south bastion, slipped through, and dashed across the silt bridge to the moat wall.

  He sprinted down the moat wall toward the gate. With yards to go, his foot hit a loose brick. The brick slid. He skated sideways. The grenade went sailing into space, and he tumbled into the empty moat.

  Nathan splatted face first in a layer of fetid ooze. He rose and spit something rank from his lips. The grenade lay embedded a few feet away. His feet slipped as he fought for grip in the muck. He scrambled to the grenade and dug it from the mud. With a lurch, he slogged to the iron gate. Standing on the moat bottom, it was over his head.

  “Son of a…”

  His plan was to be watc
hing the moat when it refilled. Instead, he’d be swimming in it. If he could.

  He pulled the pin on the grenade, jumped, and wedged it in the gate’s corner. He landed in the mud and fell back on his butt.

  The grenade exploded. Shards of iron sang as they sailed past his head. Seawater blasted through the opening like it came from a firehose. The pressure swept away crumbling mortar and then bricks around the opening washed away. The incoming sea swelled to a torrent and knocked Nathan flat on his back. The water spun him against the slick, algae-coated walls and then drove him down along the moat. His head submerged.

  In the cloudy, rushing water, he could not tell up from down, heard nothing but the pounding of water against stone, and felt nothing but the scrape of his tumbling body across the moat wall. And somewhere up ahead, all this water funneled into a hole filled with giant crabs.

  Something caught the collar of his shirt. He stopped moving but the rushing water threatened to pull him out of his clothes. He reached up to grab this lifeline and felt an arm. It pulled and he broke the surface.

  Gianna held him with one hand and had the other clamped to the bridge to the main gate. Nathan coughed out a mouthful of saltwater. He grabbed a crumbled edge of the moat and together they pulled him out.

  The churning moat water forced a half-exposed crab back down into the hole in the moat. Then the force eroded the sides and the hole collapsed. The moat refilled to sea level and the water calmed.

  They made their way back along the edge of the fort and through the hole in the south bastion. Inside, they collapsed in the sun on the parade ground. The dead crab lay a dozen yards away.

  Nathan could barely believe that he was still alive.

  “Are you okay?” Gianna said.

  “I think so. You?”

  She pattered herself down and looked incredulous. “Somehow, yes.”