14 #2
It was a wall of flesh, not stone. It extruded itself out of the mouth of the second-level shaft, grabbing at the ground and pulling itself forward with things that were not quite tentacles but definitely not feet.
It had dozens of eyes and hundreds of mouths that opened and closed and re-formed elsewhere on its body.
Bones stuck out and were turned into hooks to keep dragging itself forward, yard after yard of anonymous meat pouring out of the tunnel, seemingly with no end in sight.
Ah , I thought, very calmly, so that’s what Sentry was doing with all the extra meat .
Meat seemed like the best word. It was the color of old fat and it fell apart and re-formed in dangling, gelatinous strands.
It saw me a moment after I saw it. Most of me wanted to stand around and shriek, but the part of me that survived far too many battles spun me around and sent me running deeper into the mine.
Not down! I thought miserably, even as I ran. But I couldn’t possibly get past it. It filled the central shaft of the mine to capacity. My only hope was to lose it in the tunnels on the third level.
I scrambled back into the open tunnel mouth, and realized almost immediately that I would not be losing the rest of Sentry anywhere.
It was faster than I was, and already practically at my heels.
A smear of flesh whipped out and struck me across the back, sending me stumbling.
I suspect that the only reason I survived was because it took longer to turn corners than I did.
The white beam of my headlamp skidded over a familiar three-way junction.
Right was a dead end. Left took me back toward the others. But they were down in the cave with the wholeness, and even if I survived long enough to reach the spiral crawl space, Sentry would pour down it and devour first me, then the others.
The middle tunnel was low and tight, and the word firedamp and something less than a plan slid through my brain together.
I dove into the middle tunnel.
I made it perhaps ten yards in before something whipped around my ankles and I fell. I hit the ground and thrashed, kicking at the coil of flesh trying to encircle my shins. I managed to get one foot loose and rolled over, gasping in ...
Not air.
Everything slowed down. I crawled backward on my elbows .
.. at least, I thought I was crawling backward on my elbows, and watched as a ball of pale flesh lurched through the tunnel and landed on my foot.
The underside of it was black with dust. A fragment of bone emerged from the ball and stabbed down into my calf. From a long distance away, I screamed.
In your pocket. Get your hand in your pocket. That’s all you need to do .
I told my hand to get into my pocket, but I had no idea if it was happening.
Controlling a whole arm seemed an impossible feat.
Ingold had said that Fragment had to control each muscle individually, and I had never really appreciated how hard that must be.
I would have to tell him the next time I saw him.
You’re not going to see him again. You’re going to die here. But get your hand in your pocket first .
The shapeless lump of flesh stabbed another bone fragment into my leg, just above the knee, and I realized that it was climbing me like a mountaineer climbing a peak, using the bones like pitons to brace itself against. I was probably still screaming, but it all seemed very far away.
I felt cold metal under my fingers. That seemed very odd.
Grip it tight . The voice in my head sounded a little like Angus. I wished that Angus was here. No, wait, I didn’t wish that. If Angus was here, the monster would be eating him, too.
The squeeze began to fill as the bulk of Sentry’s horrible second body reached the tunnel and began pushing itself inside. Translucent shapes like sea anemones flowered around the opening, then grew darker and more opaque as more of Sentry rushed to fill them.
I hitched my body backward, despite the excruciating pain in my leg. (Surely it was excruciating? I didn’t like to think I’d be screaming so much otherwise.)
The headlamp beam no longer showed stone overhead, only writhing flesh and protruding bone.
It loomed over me like a great wave and hung there for an impossible moment.
I clutched the metal thing in my hand and thought rectangle and cold and I didn’t mind dying, not really, but did death have to look so revolting?
The wave came crashing down.
Everything went dark. Something clammy pushed against my lips and nostrils. It really was a good thing that I was only partially tethered to reality anymore. Otherwise I would find this very disturbing.
Now put out your hand , said the voice that wasn’t Angus.
I tried, but there was something in the way. The voice wasn’t impressed. Push, then. Don’t let go of what you’re holding .
So I pushed. Muscle parted in front of my fingers. My right hand went through the monster as if it were made of dough. Occasionally it would hit something thicker, stalks of tendon or bone.
Keep pushing! It was starting to sound like my first drill sergeant now. I wished it would make up its mind.
Something was going up my nose. Maybe when it got to my brain, it could tell the voice to pick an identity and commit.
My fingers hit air, then stone.
Now , said the voice, and this time it was my father. Alex, do it now .
Do what?
But the advantage that I had over Sentry was that my muscles only had to be muscles, and they remembered things, and what they remembered was a great many hours spent practicing as a teenager, so that when you have a metal lighter in your hand, you push your thumb like this and flip your wrist just so .
Click .
There was a sound so loud that I couldn’t hear it and I felt myself lifted an inch or two in the air.
My last thought before I lost consciousness was that if there were any girls around, they’d be really, really impressed.