Monster (Gone 7)

“I will help you, but you must promise to end this. End me!”

“But I—”

“Swear! Swear by whatever is holy to you!”

Dekka’s head was swimming, her vision reddened, and she felt vast strength in the monster’s arms, strength great enough to crush her right here, right now, to end her life in a second’s time.

“I swear,” she managed through a strangled throat.

The creature released its grip. “Tear those glass doors apart, free those prisoners, and follow me!”

Dekka looked back at the glass walls forming cages. The nearest glass was starred, as if it had been battered from the inside. She couldn’t see well through the glass—it was too thick—but she made out one person clearly enough, a very tall white boy.

Dekka made a pushing motion with her hands. “Stand back! Stand back!” The tall white kid backed away and she hoped the others she could not see had done the same. Then she howled and the thousands of pounds of hardened glass disintegrated into a bee swarm of fragments. Glass shards fell and piled up.

“This way!” Carl yelled, and bounded toward the door the tank had come through, the tank that had now circumnavigated the table of heads and was sighting its weapon on Dekka.

The monster shoved her ahead, and the tank opened a deafening cannon fire, 20 mm shells exploding, but all striking the back of the creature named Carl. Smoke rose from behind him, shrapnel cascaded and clattered everywhere, and Carl’s body shook with the impact.

Dekka ran for the door, into a tunnel carved into the rock with only the floor paved smooth for the tank.

“Keep going,” Carl cried. “It comes up through Tower Two. Go to the top, there’s an emergency escape pod there!”

“Show me!”

Carl gripped her arm with one irresistibly powerful claw, the titanium nails stopping just short of cutting her flesh. “My name is Carl Pullings. I’m from El Segundo. Find my mother, tell her . . . not this. Tell her . . . tell her Carl loves her.”

“Come with me!”

The massive head shook slowly. “You don’t understand: they see me. The dark ones, the eyeless watchers, they’re in my head. They hurt me! They hurt me! It’s pain!” Carl screamed the last word. “Kill me! Kill me now or I swear I’ll kill you!”

He released her arm and pushed her away. He was blocking the door, cannon fire apparently having no effect as the tank emptied its magazine in futility.

“I’ll find your folks,” Dekka said. She squeezed his arm. “Thank you.”

Dekka raised her hands, opened her mouth, and Carl flew apart into pieces of gore. Dekka fled, fled in panic and an agony of the spirit, racing down the dimly lit tunnel with tears blurring her vision.

Side tunnels opened to left and right, but she kept straight ahead, her mind shattered by what she had seen, what she had done. Straight and straight and there, yes, the position was probably about right. A circular staircase rose, but it was too narrow, the steps too shallow for the creature she now was.

They see me! They’re in my head!

And Dekka, too, saw them, sensed them, felt their amused gaze, felt the brutal minds that seemed to reach into hers with tendrils like black smoke.

“Back to normal, back to normal,” Dekka ordered herself, and looked down to see her hands resuming their usual shape. Human once more and free of the watchers, she propelled herself up the stairs, two steps at a time, stumbling, hauling herself up, running, gasping, reaching a door that was blessedly unlocked, and through onto an open platform. She was atop one of the towers in the vast cavern. All around her, robotically controlled machine guns were trained on the main floor below, and something that looked way too much like a massive ray gun. No guards.

And there, on the edge of the platform, hanging over the side, rested three pods the size of subway cars. They were helpfully stenciled Escape Vehicle 2-1 through 2-3, and beside

the front hatch was a big red button shaped like a mushroom. She slammed her hand down on the button, and the nearest hatch opened. She spilled inside, gaping at what might as well be a passenger jet, with five rows of seats, four to a row. She had entered from the side and rushed to the front, pushed her way into an unoccupied cockpit with front-facing window and three more buttons, labeled from left to right one, two, and three.

She hit them in sequence—one, two, three—and a canned voice said, “Please clear the doorways. Please clear the doorways.”

Then, with a soft shush, the doors closed.

The mechanical voice helpfully warned, “Please buckle in and prepare for launch.”

Launch?

With unsettling speed the escape pod tilted back, bringing the cockpit to face skyward, or at least toward the stalactite-festooned ceiling of the cave.