Crustaceans Page 13

  They surged.

  The defences failed almost immediately.

  But the army boys had been prepared for that. They fell back fast, leaving their vehicles behind. The crabs started to climb and crawl over the trucks and jeeps. They paid no attention to the chopper that came back for another pass.

  It strafed the crabs… and the vehicles. The whole width of the street went up with a whump.

  Porter had to retreat fast from the sudden blast of heat. Even so he felt the skin of his face tighten and smelled burnt hair as his eyebrows singed. The girl whimpered again but didn’t raise her head.

  Suddenly everything went quiet.

  Shit. I’ve gone deaf.

  He looked round, just as the noise of the city started to fill in around him. Fires crackled all along the street, metal pinged in the heat. In the distance he heard a solitary clickety-clack, but there was no movement from any of the crabs from the attack… all that was left was burnt and burning shell.

  On the far side of the barricade troops moved forward, cautiously at first and then with more confidence as the crabs stayed down.

  Porter walked towards them… only to find himself facing down the barrels of six automatic rifles.

  “Put the gun down sir,” someone shouted.

  I’d forgotten I even had it!

  He bent and laid the gun at his feet. A soldier came over, still with his weapon trained on Porter, and kicked the shotgun away. It was only then that the soldiers relaxed.

  “The girl, is she injured?” one of them asked.

  “I don’t think so. But she’s in shock,” Porter replied.

  “I know how she feels,” the soldier muttered. “There’s a field hospital being set up a hundred yards down the road. Can you make it that far?”

  Porter nodded. That was enough for the soldiers. They immediately forgot about him.

  Clickety-clack.

  The noise came from back in the plaza at the subway station. Half of the troops left at a run. More jeeps and trucks were being brought up along Broadway. Curious soldiers stared out at Porter as he carried the girl along the street he no longer recognised.

  Dead lay everywhere… dead, and pieces of the dead.

  The girl started to squirm and lifted her head from his neck. Gently he pushed it back in place.

  “Not long now sweetheart. Just close your eyes for a bit longer.”

  He found the medical unit seconds later. They were in the process of setting up a field hospital in the middle of the street. Several wounded men were already being worked on frantically by surgeons wearing bloody tunics. More screams rose, and the girl stiffened in his arms. He squeezed her gently.

  “It’s okay darling. You’re safe now.”

  A nurse finally took notice of him. She had to coax the girl to let go of Porter’s neck, but when the child was taken away, she immediately grabbed the nurse in the same way. She looked back at Porter as they left but there was no recognition in her eyes.

  She’s got a hard road back from this.

  But at least she was alive. A great many folk hadn’t made it. Porter lit a cigarette and was almost immediately hustled out of the med-tent by a disapproving nurse. As he stood in the middle of Broadway the sheer scale of the disaster started to dawn on him. One of the busiest streets, in one of the world’s biggest cities, had been turned into a war zone in minutes… by a bunch of crabs.

  It was then that he remembered the disused station and the nest below. He ground out the cigarette and went back into the med-tent in search of an officer.

  37

  Shona thought the climb would never end. The pain was excruciating… a white flare of heat that felt like it had burned her bones. She concentrated on putting one foot above the other and climbing, one step at a time.

  She stopped, just once, heart pounding and breath coming hot and fast.

  Stark shouted from below.

  “Is there a problem?”

  It was seconds before she could reply.

  “Just need a rest,” she whispered. “Give me a minute.”

  She looked down, and gasped. The shaft below Stark was a rolling mass of small crabs, none more than a foot across clambering over each other in a frantic attempt to reach Stark’s feet. They were no more than eighteen inches away from achieving it. The clicking of their pincers only registered as her breathing slowed and her heartbeat returned to something approaching normal.

  “I’d suggest thirty seconds might be better,” Stark said calmly. He turned, looked down and sent a volley of shots into the beasts. That slowed them down… but not for long.

  “I see what you mean,” she said.

  She went back to the climb, taking it as fast as she was able. She was dimly aware of Stark shooting again, twice more, but she couldn’t waste the effort to take any heed. Her life shrunk to the six inches in front of her eyes… that, and the next rung to be tackled. Her brain kept itself busy calculating how many rungs she’d travelled, how long each took, and how long it might take to get to the top. There were several variables she had to estimate, but that just made it a more difficult, more absorbing task for her to tackle… anything to keep her mind off the pain.

  She was surprised when her head hit something… Lieutenant Wilkes’ foot.

  “Fifth floor, Haberdashery and Lingerie,” Wilkes said, deadpan.

  She laughed, then groaned as a new pain hit.

  Wilkes suddenly looked worried.

  “You don’t look so hot ma’am,” he said.

  “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  Wilkes bent down and lifted her onto a small platform below a large grate. Stark pulled himself up to join them.

  “We‘re in trouble sir,” Wilkes said.

  Stark laughed grimly.

  “I’d spotted that.”

  “No. More trouble.”

  Wilkes reached up and banged on the grate with his gun. It seemed to be built of cast iron. It clanged but didn’t move.

  “It’s solid. I can’t move it.”

  Stark reached up and shook it. Some small pieces of rust fell in their hair but nothing else wanted to move.

  “Cover us,” Stark said to Wilkes. He twiddled with his ear-piece.

  “This is Colonel Stark. Can anyone hear me?”

  Shona heard a crackle and a fragmented voice trying to come through. Wilkes fired a long burst down in the shaft at the same time, drowning out any other response.

  “Sorry sir,” he said as he turned back. “Best make it quick. They’re getting close.”

  Stark tried again. This time the reply came through clearer.

  “We’ve got you sir. ETA four minutes.”

  Wilkes turned at that. He looked pale.

  “I doubt we have that much time sir.”

  “We’ll have to make time.”

  Stark joined Wilkes standing over the shaft. Both men fired long volleys down into the crabs, emptying their magazines and slapping new ones into place with barely a pause. The air in the chamber got hot and acrid. Shona finally remembered she had a weapon of her own. She stood over the shaft and stared down.

  Her father’s worst nightmare had been made flesh. The whole shaft seethed with crustaceans, all between nine inches and a foot across, pincers snapping frantically. In their frenzy they chopped pieces out of the crabs around them, but still they came, clambering over the top of their dead. They were little more than two feet below the lip, and coming fast.

  Shona fired her weapon, the recoil slamming fresh pain up and down her ribcage.

  All too soon she ran out of ammo.

  “Do you have a clip for me?”

  Stark didn’t pause in his firing.

  “I never thought we’d need one,” he shouted.

  “What do you think now,” she said, sarcastically, as the first crab climbed over the lip. She stomped on it, hard, and kicked it back into the throng where it was chopped and diced in seconds.

  Stark was now too busy to reply.

/>   “I’m on my last clip,” Wilkes shouted.

  “Me too,” Start replied.

  All three of them now had to stomp and tramp in a manic dance, squishing crabs underfoot, the crack of shell breaking loud even amid the gunfire.

  Snick!

  Warm blood ran from a cut just above Shona’s ankle.

  The first of many.

  The men kept firing.

  The noise was deafening. Shona’s eyes hurt from the flash and flicker from the muzzles. She looked away, up to the grate… just as a shadow passed above.

  “Down here,” she called. “We’re down here!”

  More shadows moved above. The grate started to slide to one side.

  “Guys. Time to go.”

  An arm reached down from above.

  She grabbed it and was lifted, one armed, up through to daylight. New pain threatened to engulf her completely, but the sound of a scream from below rooted her back in reality.

  Stark!

  She turned just in time to see Wilkes pull himself out of the grate opening. Five crabs nipped and cut at his legs, blood seeping through his trousers.

  Another shout of pain came from below. The soldier beside Wilkes leaned over the grate and sent a long burst of bullets down into the shaft. Two others jumped down into the hole. Seconds later they bundled a prone figure out. Wilkes helped and they lay the Colonel on the ground.

  Shona’s heart leaped.

  Stark!

  She bent over him. His lower torso was a mass of small cuts, but as she bent over him he opened his eyes and smiled.

  “See. I told you I’d show you a good time.”

  38

  At first Porter couldn’t find anyone to listen to him.

  “Listen sir,” the first officer he approached said. “You can see we’ve got a situation here. Please, just let us do our job.”

  The second was even more dismissive.

  “Sit down and shut up, or I’ll shoot you.”

  Porter cut that one some slack. The man was covered in blood and smelled of crabmeat.

  He’s been in the front line. And he’s seen what the fuckers can do.

  Porter was just about ready to go outside for another smoke when a truck pulled up and three more injured were unloaded. He heard one of them being referred to as Colonel.

  I haven’t spoken to anyone higher than Major yet. One last try. If this is a bust, I’m outta here.

  The Colonel was laid on a gurney and nurses started to work on his wounds. They all looked nasty, but none seemed life threatening. Porter took his chance and stepped forward.

  “Colonel?”

  A nurse started to hustle him away.

  “I found a nest,” Porter shouted. “With thousands of eggs.”

  The tent went deathly quiet. The nurse started to hustle Porter away once more, but the officer sat up.

  “Let him through nurse.”

  Closer up Porter saw the same look in this man’s eyes he’d seen earlier.

  This one’s also been up close and personal with the fuckers.

  A woman walked over to stand at the Colonel’s side. She winced as she walked, and her eyes had the same look as the others.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  Porter looked at the Colonel.

  “You heard what Ms Menzies said,” the officer replied. “She’s the one with the answers.”

  So he told his story

  He missed out the part about the young security guard at the zoo, but more or less got everything else told. They listened in silence until he described the scene in the disused subway. Just talking about it brought the scene rushing back.

  As he gets closer to the nearest giant, he notices a glistening sheen on the ground, one that shifts in the light like oil on water. He moves closer and bends for a closer look. A clump of silver globes lies there, each reflecting his face back at him. They pulsate, almost as if they are breathing.

  Eggs.

  Small, perfectly formed crabs squirm inside balls of fluid held together by an oily slime.

  “How many?” the Colonel asked.

  Porter remembered the sheer scale, the enormity, of the nest area.

  “Thousands. Tens of thousands. Maybe more.”

  “It’s not possible,” someone whispered.

  The Menzies woman looked solemn.

  “I’m afraid it’s all too possible. We knew they were looking for something. They were looking for a nesting ground.”

  “And they found it,” Porter said.

  “So what do we do now?” the third officer who’d been brought in said.

  “We have to go back in,” the Menzies woman replied. “Go in, and clear them out.”

  The Colonel laughed bitterly.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, we didn’t do too well the last time we went down there.”

  “But we have to,” the woman said. “If these things hatch then what’s happened today will seem like a picnic. The whole of Manhattan will be in their feeding territory.”

  The Colonel sat up as the nurses finished applying the field dressings to his wounds.

  “So what’s the plan?”

  The woman seemed stumped.

  Porter’s mouth worked before his brain.

  “Only one way to clean out a crab burrow. Burn them out. I’ve found that gasoline usually works.”

  Once again the place went quiet. The army boys all stared at him, mouths open.

  Mama always told me that my mouth would get me into trouble one of these days.

  The Menzies woman spoke first.

  “That might work.”

  The Colonel nodded.

  “And I think we can come up with something better than gasoline. But first we need to find the place.”

  He turned back to Porter.

  “Do you remember the name of the station?”

  Porter shook his head.

  “But I can tell you how to get there.”

  “Too risky. We might take a wrong turn. No. You’ll have to show us.”

  The Colonel took a new set of trousers from an orderly.

  “Wilkes?”

  The other officer looked up.

  “I need ten men with Napalm B flame units. And I need them yesterday.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Wilkes saluted and left the tent.

  The Colonel stood and clapped Porter on the arm.

  “Well, it looks like you just got conscripted.”

  39

  Half an hour later Shona stood at the entrance to the Wall Street Subway station, looking down into the dark. Three soldiers had already gone down. The crabber, Porter, was at her side. He looked even less enthusiastic than she felt.

  “You’re sure we have to do this?” he asked.

  Shona nodded.

  “But you don’t have to,” she replied. “You’re not military. They can’t force you.”

  Porter ground out a cigarette.

  “I’m going,” he said. “I owe it to some people.”

  Her ribs still hurt, but some painkillers had taken the edge off it. If truth be told, what she was really feeling was excitement. No nest of the mutant crabs had ever been found. This was an opportunity of a lifetime. She’d packed some kit in a backpack.

  I just hope I get a chance to use it.

  Just to her right Stark and Wilkes were deep in discussion with a very pale-looking subway official. The man was getting increasingly animated and, more than that, terrified. Shona wondered what Stark was asking of the man.

  No less than he’d ask of himself.

  The city around them had fallen eerily silent. It had been five minutes since the last sound of distant gunfire. Now it was like a quiet Sunday morning here in Wall Street Plaza.

  Apart from the dead folks. And the crabs.

  There was enough crab parts scattered around to keep a team of researchers in work for months. She realised that, if she survived the trip down to the nest, that she’d probably be busy for the rest of her l
ife.

  I’ll be just like Dad.

  Stark and Wilkes arrived at her side. Both men moved almost as stiffly as she did, but both looked resolute. They had heavy flame-thrower units strapped on their backs.

  “Are you sure that will do enough damage?” she asked.

  “It’s Napalm B,” Stark said. He looked grim. “I’ve seen it used before. Trust me… it does enough damage.”

  Seven more men arrived at the station entrance. They too wore flame units and carried automatic weapons.

  Stark spoke to Porter.

  “Were there any beasts in this station?” he said, nodding to the stairs.

  “Only dead ones,” Porter replied. “And a lot of dead folks. It ain’t pretty.”