Michael Langlois - Bad Radio

My head was above water, which worried me, but the Mother had switched her focus to the bags on the stairway. The distant mob was nearly at the top now. A few more seconds and they’d get through.

I could see Anne and Chuck pressed up against the spools at the top of the stairs, trying to push them over. I hoped that they could shift the heavy stack before the bags reached them, because otherwise the wave of creatures would easily push it over on top of them.

I reached the Mother’s massive trunk and began to curve around it, chain in tow. She wasn’t much more than about twenty feet thick at the waterline, so I figured it would only take a few moments to circle her with the chain.

Black tentacles erupted from the water next to me and a huge splay-faced worm wrapped itself around my chest. The damned thing thrashed and looped its tail around me, trying to capture my arms, while at the same time gripping and jerking rhythmically with its teeth trying to dig into my chest as deeply as possible. Spray flew as it writhed, its tail slapping the surface of the water.

A quick glance at the staircase showed that there was no time to try and get free. I kept moving, fighting to keep my arms free of the worm’s tail and slowly closing the gap as I circled the Mother’s body.

Chuck and Anne threw themselves at the massive tower of steel-wrapped spools. It tipped forwards slowly, imperceptibly, and then suddenly it was past the point of no return.

The spools separated as the tower fell. The bags directly underneath the cascade were crushed, while the ones nearby were hurled off of the steps to fall into the water below like raindrops.

The massive spools bounced on the stone stairs, each impact sounding like a car crash, and plowed into the mob, spinning and tumbling all the way down the top section of the stairs before flying off into space.

It wasn’t enough to make a clean sweep of the stairway. At least fifteen of the things remained at the bottom, but it gave Chuck and Anne time to sprint for the shack in relative safety.

I had to look away as I finally closed the circle and snapped the hook over the massive chain, encircling the Mother in a wide loop of steel. I gripped the fat links with both hands and began to climb, dragging the heavy worm clamped around my chest out of the water with me.

I sucked in as much air as I could and bellowed, “Now! Pull the lever now!”

In the distance, Anne and Chuck turned their heads towards me. Anne ducked out of the shotgun strap around her shoulder and dropped the weapon on the roof.

That’s when I realized that I had made a serious mistake. The bags were already at the top of the stairs and running for the improvised steps at the shed. There was no way that Anne was going to be able to get back on the roof in time if she ran to the crane and back.

I tried to stop her. “Anne! Don’t jump! Get back!”

It was too late.

She raced to the side of the building farthest from the bags and hung from the edge, letting herself down as far as she could before letting go and dropping to the ground. She rolled to her feet and sprinted to the crane lever.

Some of the bags began to notice her. They split off from the group charging the shack and ran towards the crane.

Anne yanked the lever back and the chain began hauling me skyward. It clicked and twitched as the hook slipped over the links below me and cinched up tight against the Mother’s trunk.

I looked down in time to see one of the Mother’s tentacles whipping through the air at me. She hit me with the toothed side of her tentacle, which would have flayed me down to the bone if not for her offspring wrapped around my torso. The long serrated teeth struck me in the middle of my back and ripped all the way through her spawn, penetrating just far enough to rake my skin underneath. Both halves of the worm dropped lifelessly off of me to flutter down and splash into the water below.

At the top of the quarry Anne ran for the far side of the shack. Five or six bags were right behind her. Chuck threw himself flat on his stomach with his arms reaching down off of the edge.

Anne leaped with everything she had. They connected. Chuck pulled her up as she scrabbled for purchase with her toes, and together they managed to get her back up on top of the roof. The shack trembled and thrummed with the impact of the bags as they slammed into the side below her.

The chain drew me steadily upwards until I reached the tip of the crane. Far below, the surface of the lake boiled as the Mother thrashed at the end of her noose.

I picked my way down the sloping crane arm as quickly as I could. When I reached the ground I pushed the lever back to the center position, locking the drum into place. The Mother hung half out the water, twisting and jerking against the chain biting into her flesh. The entire crane arm bobbed and groaned in time with her struggles. I knew she wouldn’t be trapped for much longer.

I needed to get into the shack. I couldn’t go through the ring of frenzied bags around it, so that left just the one option. I looked hard at the roof, took two running steps, and leapt.

I sailed upward and out, pin-wheeling my arms in an attempt not to tumble and keeping my eyes on the rapidly approaching tin roof below. Chuck and Anne both looked up with wide, disbelieving eyes as I dropped down out of the sky, nearly on top of them.

The building boomed and rattled as I hit the roof flat on my back not two feet from the edge. The impact knocked the wind out of me.

Anne helped me to my feet. “That was amazing! I can’t believe you just did that!”

“I promise you, it wasn’t my first choice.”

“Now what?” The shotgun in her hands boomed. A bag with the face of a snarling, bearded man pitched back and out of sight below the roofline.

I beckoned to Chuck, and when he came over, I reached out and tore off one of his sleeves. Having just come out of the water, my clothes were still soaking wet.

“Hey!”

“Sorry, I need the fabric.”

The roof was made up of several overlapping sheets of tin. It was easy enough to peel one back, exposing a wide gap between the two-by-fours supporting the roof. When I judged it wide enough, I dropped through.

The inside of the shed was free of bags. The first time I had been in the shack, I had noticed a striker in the moldering pile of old welding aprons and gloves. Used to light a welding torch, a striker is just a spring loaded handle that rubs a piece of flint against a steel plate. It’s small, lightweight, and reliable. Better yet, it still works if it gets wet.

I stuck that and a can of turpentine into the back pockets of my jeans, and then went over to the drum of diesel. I turned it over onto its side and started punching holes in it with a screwdriver from the bench. I worked as fast as I could, since the noise was sure to attract attention from the outside, and also because I wanted as much fuel left in the barrel as possible when I was done.

I grabbed the leaky drum by the ends and hefted it. It was a hell of a lot heavier than I expected, but I managed a controlled run to the door. One good kick sent it flying open, knocking a couple of bags out of the way and opening a path between the door and the crane. I shot out of the doorway at a dead run.

I could hear them in pursuit as I got close to the crane, but they couldn’t catch me by the time I was close enough to jump up onto the arm. I braved the slope of the crane like a man on a tightrope. The bags lacked the coordination to follow and quickly turned back to the mob surrounding the shed.

Slippery, stinking fuel poured off of the barrel and made the metal struts slick under my feet. If it hadn’t been for the rust to give me traction, I wouldn’t have made it ten steps. As it was, I had several close calls hefting a couple of hundred pounds of fuel up the ever-narrowing steel path.