Dagon Rising(7)
The research center was getting closer—
From the beach, a voice—Jennifer couldn’t tell if it was male or female—shrieked, “Oh my God, that huuuuurrrrts! Ah shit, that fucking huuuuurrrts!
The door to the research center burst open as Ed dived through it.
Jennifer risked one final glance over her shoulder as Susan and Wade followed Steinhardt. A huge, dark shadow stormed onto the beach. When Jennifer saw what it was, she gasped.
It looked like a Clicker in size and shape, but its coloration was distinctly different. The creature was completely black—the shell so dark as to be almost obsidian. It paused in front of a line of trees. Several staff members had taken shelter among the highest branches. They clung to the tree trunks, screaming and shouting and waving their arms as the black Clicker grasped at them with its pincers. Unable to reach them, the beast skittered backward. Then, as Jennifer watched in horror, it began to spray venom from its tail. The liquid splattered across the trees. The foliage began to smoke and hiss. The wood splintered and groaned. Then, one by one, the trees toppled over, spilling their terrified occupants at the monster’s feet. The black Clicker reared over them, paused, and then hosed the staff members down. They shrieked and squirmed as the acid went to work, dissolving them as it had the plant life.
“Get in here,” Wade shouted. “Doctor Wasco? Come on!”
Turning away, Jennifer pounded up the wooden steps. Susan and Wade frantically slammed the door behind her.
The research station’s lobby also served as a make-shift living room. Directly beyond it was a communications center that held a phone and shortwave radio system. The communications center was lit by an overhead light. Ed was already behind the console trying to get a signal out of the shortwave radio. Wade dived for the phone and tried to get an open line. Jennifer took a brief peek out the window. The Clickers and Dark Ones were focusing their efforts on the beach, killing and eating those colleagues who’d been too slow to flee. She quickly lowered the window blinds as Ed shouted into the shortwave.
“This is Dr. Edward Steinhardt calling from the island of Naranu. Our research team is under attack! I repeat, we are under attack! Can anyone hear me? If you are receiving this distress call, please respond. We need the military, it’s the Clickers and Dark Ones, they’re invading en masse, they’re destroying everything—”
The overhead light in the communications room went out. “—we have a dozen dead and—” Ed pressed the toggle switch on the shortwave. “Shit, we lost power.”
“Nothing like stating the obvious.” Wade turned to Jennifer, who stood in the middle of the lobby with Susan clinging to her. “That black Clicker. What was it?”
Jennifer looked at him with wide eyes and shook her head. “I don’t know. Something new. It sprayed down the vegetation. The poison acted like some kind of defoliant. I’ve never seen anything like that before. ”
“Maybe the carapace coloration was a genetic anomaly.”
“Maybe,” Jennifer agreed. “But that doesn’t explain the defoliant effect.”
“It was like Agent Orange,” Wade said. “You know, that stuff they used in Vietnam to clear the jungle? How are we supposed to fight something that can do that?”
They stood in silence, except for Susan’s soft weeping. The loss of light inside, and the rapidly falling night outside cast the research station in total darkness.
Outside, below them, on the beach, the sounds grew louder.
CLICK-CLICK! CLICK-CLICK!
Trembling, Jennifer bit her lip so that she wouldn’t scream.
TWO
The room smelled of cigarette smoke and sex. Tony Genova lit a Winston, snapped his lighter shut and sat it on the nightstand, and then lay back in bed. He exhaled a stream of smoke and stared at the ceiling. The bed creaked as the girl climbed out of it. He watched her naked ass sway back and forth as she walked to the bathroom and wished that he could remember her name. She went inside and shut the door. A moment later, he heard the exhaust fan come on—loud, but not enough to mask the sound of her pissing. He reached down, scratched his balls idly, and then took another drag off the cigarette.
New life, day…well fuck it, he didn’t know anymore. He’d lost track of the days after six hundred and some of them had passed.
He finished the cigarette, snuffed it out in the ashtray, and settled back into bed. He’d almost fallen asleep again when the bathroom door opened and the girl came out.
“Larry?”
At first, Tony didn’t realize that she was talking to him. After all this time, Tony still had trouble remembering sometimes that he was no longer Tony Genova from Paramus, New Jersey. To everyone who knew him, including the Federal agents who checked in on him from time to time, he was Larry DiMazzio, from Baltimore. He’d even worked on hiding his New Jersey-Central Pennsylvanian accent and adopting a Maryland dialect. Repeated viewings of The Wire and Homicide: Life on the Streets had helped. Tony had been surprised at how accurate the two shows had been, when it came to depicting what life was really like in that world. And if anybody would know, it was him.