Tooth & Claw Part 2
"Are you boys all right?" asked Lee Jarvis, Willy's uncle and proprietor of the Lazy Lariat. He was a squat man, with a cannonball head, and the hard leathery skin of a man used to being in the sun and wind all his life.
"We're okay," said Nick as got up off the floor. "What happened?"
"There's a goddamn river out there," said Willy staring out the window and pointing to the street below, "a goddamn river."
"Watch your goddamn language," snapped Uncle Lee.
"The Hansen place is stuck in the hotel," said Willy. "Literally, it's gone across the street, and it's stuck right in the front."
Nick risked looking out the window. There really was a goddamn river out there, dirty water flowed across the street, bubbling, and churning around the few overturned cars and trucks parked there.
"Took my back door off," said Lee as he joined them at the window. "Now it's about six inches deep in my goddamn bar."
"So much for getting out of here tonight," said Nick to Willy, figuring that fate was making sure he kept to his own plan, despite Willy's pleas and his own fears.
"Damn," muttered Lee Jarvis. "The hotel's all lopsided." He was right; the entire left side of the building, the side that took the brunt of the impact from the Hansen place, was sagging badly.
"Hate to be staying there tonight," said Nick.
#
"Where are you?" called Beaumont.
"I appear to be on a roof," answered Thad Griffin, and it certainly did look like a roof, complete with tarpaper and shingles. He was flat on his back, the mattress of what was supposed to be his bed pressing down on him through a hole in the floor of what was supposed to be his hotel room. The BAR rested next him, the leather strap tangled around his ankle. Thad lifted up his leg, and pulled the heavy rifle up where he could reach it.
"I'll be with you in a second," said Beaumont, and then came a loud grunt, the squeal of a metal bed-frame moving against the broken wood floor. Griffin untangled his ankle, and used the rifle to shove the mattress up.
With a heave the overturned bed was gone, and Griffin found himself looking up at Beaumont, who was looking down at him surprised.
"Well," said Beaumont, "you really are on a roof."
"Help me up," said Griffin.
After a few seconds of heaving, Griffin found himself on the crooked floor of his hotel room.
"Any idea what just happened?" asked Griffin.
"It looks like some sort of flash flood," answered Beaumont.
"Flash flood," asked Griffin, "where did it come from? It hasn't rained here in months."
"All I know is that there is currently a river flowing through the middle of this town," said Beaumont. "I don't know where the water came from, but I'm pretty certain that it is there, and it doesn't look like it has any intention of stopping."
Some screamed from downstairs. Griffin pulled back the bolt on his BAR, Beaumont picked up his own Colt .45 and they both ran out the door. The floor in the hallway was warped and crooked, and the stairs to the ground floor were even worse. They found the hotel's receptionist/manager sitting on top of the front desk, her flower print dress hiked up around her chubby knees; she was screaming and pointing at something by an overturned chair.
"What is it?" asked Griffin, since he didn't see Nick West running around he slung the strap of his BAR over his shoulder. The receptionist, her tag said her name was Dora, just pointed at the chair, and said something that Griffin couldn't make out. The air smelled different, reminding him of a time when a professor took the biology class to a swamp.
Beaumont approached the overturned chair, a bloated monstrosity whose stuffing was escaping at the seams, with his pistol still out, and looked over.
"Mother of God," exclaimed Beaumont, firing his .45 into whatever lay behind the chair. Griffin pulled his own automatic and ran to the chair. Thrashing in the dirty water was something that looked like a crab. The creature definitely couldn't possibly be a crab, because crabs did not grow over three feet wide, with a blood red shell mottled with patches of olive drab. The shell cracked open from Beaumont's gunfire, and its innards a foul smelling mess of greens, reds, and purples burst out. Then the great crab went still.
The smell overpowered Griffin and he needed fresh air, and he staggered to the smashed entrance of the hotel. The air outside still smelled swampy, but at least it wasn't as grotesque as the miasma that spewed from whatever the hell that was.
"I don't know much about science," said Beaumont, as he covered his face with his necktie, in a vain attempt to filter out the smell, "but I don't know crabs grew that big, or out here in the middle of the goddamn desert."
Griffin looked out the shattered window at the remains of Pentecost, Nevada. The little abandoned shack that sat across the street was gone, and now rested just below their room. The Lazy Lariat, being a solid brick building, looked more or less undamaged even though water flowed from its open front door, but the wooden gas station and general store next to the saloon was a piled of wrenched sticks. Only the front door, with a handwritten sign reading "BACK IN 1 HOUR" remained standing.
Griffin figured that whoever owned that little business was probably worse off than they were.
#
"Damn," muttered Ned, breathing heavily, "where the hell did all this water come from?"
Betty took a deep breath and paused a second for her heart to slow down. A wall of water raced down Preacher Hill and had slammed into the truck, causing it to slide sideways across the road. Now it was half in the ditch, pinned against a massive boulder, with dirty water flowing around them as if they were in the middle of a river. The water smelled funny, like rotten eggs, and God knows what else.
Betty pondered Ned's question, but the only answer she could come up with was stark raving mad. The water was coming from the top of Preacher Hill; it was coming from the old mission. She wanted to ask Dr. Prosper what the hell he was up to in that old mission, but he was still unconscious, his head resting on Ned's shoulder. His breathing was shallow and some drool hung out of the corner of his mouth. He wasn't in any condition to answer anything.
The sky was dark, which was odd; sunset shouldn't have come so quick. The speed of the sunset was just another strange thing to wrap up what was turning into a very strange day.
Betty hit the starter, and the engine caught right away. There were small mercies this evening. She turned on the headlights and screamed.
There was a flash of teeth, laid out like Satan's saw-blade, two green eyes, and claws.
"Get the hell out of here," said Ned.
Betty put the truck in gear, and the tires spun, flinging mud and dirty water in all directions, but the truck itself wasn't going in any direction at all.
Betty cursed a blue streak, shifted the gears, and put the pedal down, shifting a lot of mud and water, but not the truck.
The strange creature lunged at the truck, its long claws flashing in the headlights. It hit the truck with a thud, causing the whole vehicle to lurch backwards. Betty felt the tires his solid ground, and hit the gas one last time.
This time the truck lunged at the creature, just as it came in for a second attack. The thing hit the front hood of the truck with a thunderous thud of wrenching metal, and rolled off into the water with a splash. Betty felt the truck bounce over something hard and big on the road, wished it was that damn thing's head, but didn't pause to look, choosing instead to pour on the gas.
#
"Look at this damn thing," said Lee Jarvis as he plopped it on the table in front of Nick and Willy.
"Damn it Uncle Lee," said Willy, pinching his face in disgust, "that thing reeks."
"It smells like a dead fish," said Nick as he reached for his flashlight to see what the hell the old man had dragged in. Despite the sun disappearing so quickly, he and Willy had decided to stay in the dark. They could have sworn they heard gunshots coming out of the hotel. It could have been the police, or it could have been someone's idea of personal business, either way, they couldn't afford to get involved.
It was a dead fish, but it wasn't like any fish Nick had ever seen before. It was squat and flat, with spines in a crooked row along its back, and its skin was black, and glistened with slime of some kind.
"Damn thing was flopping around the dance floor," said Lee.
"Get it off the damn table," said Nick. "God knows where that damn thing's been."
"I know one thing," said Willy, "that thing ain't been around here. There isn't a fishing hole for a hundred miles of this town."
"There is now," said Nick, "the whole town's a fishing hole."
"That's just it," said Willy, "none of this should be happening, this just shouldn't be."
The window exploded, showering glass all over the room. Nick hit the floor, he didn't need to be told what was happening; someone was trying to kill him. Bullets slammed into the walls, spraying plaster dust like a choking mist.
"Willy," called out Nick, "you hit?"
"Sumbitch shot off my hat," muttered Willy, his .38 revolver in his hand, though it wouldn't do much good.
The fish flew off the table in pieces, accompanied by splinters of wood to land in a greasy mess on the floor.
"Are these the cops?" asked Lee Jarvis.
"If it's a cop acting like that," said Nick clicking the safety off his Thompson submachine gun, "then that cop is in for a world of pain."
#
"What the hell?" asked Griffin as he pulled back the bolt on his BAR. "That sounds like a Thompson."
"I'm getting my shotgun," said Beaumont. "It's coming from next door."
Thad Griffin looked out the front window. The street had cleared, Thad saw bullets bouncing off the brick walls of the saloon, and that the second floor windows were shattered.
That didn't make any sense; Nick West was supposed to be hiding at the Lazy Lariat, a guest of his partner's uncle, not shooting it up from across the street.
"What's next door?" asked Griffin.
Dora the desk clerk emerged from behind the reception desk, an old Colt Peacemaker in her hand.
"An old hardware store," she said, "but it's been closed for years, the owner went to California."
Beaumont racked a round into the chamber of his shotgun.
"Old hardware store next door," said Griffin, "watch my back."
Griffin went out the door; the water was lapping the edges of the plank sidewalk, and went face to face with the entrance to the house that had caved in his hotel room. He nudged it open and went inside. The floor was crooked, and wet, but the back was wide open, and beyond that was the entrance to the hardware store. There wasn't much left of storefront windows, the flood had caved in the door, and the boards that once crisscrossed them lay in a tangled heap. Someone was still shooting; Thad looked up and saw the gunfire coming off the roof, but he couldn't get a bead on the shooter himself.
"Upstairs," whispered Thad to Beaumont, as he entered the store, hearing the staccato drumbeat of the Tommy gun coming from a door at the top of a flight of rickety wooden stairs. The gunfire stopped.
He must be reloading.
Thad Griffin raced up the stairs, his rifle ready. He only had a few seconds before the shooter reloaded his Tommy gun, and he had to move fast.
"Get your hands up," barked Griffin as he ran onto the roof, but the only answer he got was a splashing sound, footsteps in the water below. He ran to the back of the roof and saw a crude wooden ladder half sunk in the muddy water below, and just out of reach. He could hear movement, but couldn't see a thing because it became so dark so quickly.
"Damn it," barked Griffin. "Where'd he go?"
There was a flash, causing Griffin to duck, but it was the lights, at least some of them coming back on.
"Nick West?" said Beaumont as he looked across the street.
Thad turned to see the Lazy Lariat; and Nick West himself half hanging out of the second floor window, aiming his Thompson at the old hardware store.
"Down!"
"We're okay," said Nick as got up off the floor. "What happened?"
"There's a goddamn river out there," said Willy staring out the window and pointing to the street below, "a goddamn river."
"Watch your goddamn language," snapped Uncle Lee.
"The Hansen place is stuck in the hotel," said Willy. "Literally, it's gone across the street, and it's stuck right in the front."
Nick risked looking out the window. There really was a goddamn river out there, dirty water flowed across the street, bubbling, and churning around the few overturned cars and trucks parked there.
"Took my back door off," said Lee as he joined them at the window. "Now it's about six inches deep in my goddamn bar."
"So much for getting out of here tonight," said Nick to Willy, figuring that fate was making sure he kept to his own plan, despite Willy's pleas and his own fears.
"Damn," muttered Lee Jarvis. "The hotel's all lopsided." He was right; the entire left side of the building, the side that took the brunt of the impact from the Hansen place, was sagging badly.
"Hate to be staying there tonight," said Nick.
#
"Where are you?" called Beaumont.
"I appear to be on a roof," answered Thad Griffin, and it certainly did look like a roof, complete with tarpaper and shingles. He was flat on his back, the mattress of what was supposed to be his bed pressing down on him through a hole in the floor of what was supposed to be his hotel room. The BAR rested next him, the leather strap tangled around his ankle. Thad lifted up his leg, and pulled the heavy rifle up where he could reach it.
"I'll be with you in a second," said Beaumont, and then came a loud grunt, the squeal of a metal bed-frame moving against the broken wood floor. Griffin untangled his ankle, and used the rifle to shove the mattress up.
With a heave the overturned bed was gone, and Griffin found himself looking up at Beaumont, who was looking down at him surprised.
"Well," said Beaumont, "you really are on a roof."
"Help me up," said Griffin.
After a few seconds of heaving, Griffin found himself on the crooked floor of his hotel room.
"Any idea what just happened?" asked Griffin.
"It looks like some sort of flash flood," answered Beaumont.
"Flash flood," asked Griffin, "where did it come from? It hasn't rained here in months."
"All I know is that there is currently a river flowing through the middle of this town," said Beaumont. "I don't know where the water came from, but I'm pretty certain that it is there, and it doesn't look like it has any intention of stopping."
Some screamed from downstairs. Griffin pulled back the bolt on his BAR, Beaumont picked up his own Colt .45 and they both ran out the door. The floor in the hallway was warped and crooked, and the stairs to the ground floor were even worse. They found the hotel's receptionist/manager sitting on top of the front desk, her flower print dress hiked up around her chubby knees; she was screaming and pointing at something by an overturned chair.
"What is it?" asked Griffin, since he didn't see Nick West running around he slung the strap of his BAR over his shoulder. The receptionist, her tag said her name was Dora, just pointed at the chair, and said something that Griffin couldn't make out. The air smelled different, reminding him of a time when a professor took the biology class to a swamp.
Beaumont approached the overturned chair, a bloated monstrosity whose stuffing was escaping at the seams, with his pistol still out, and looked over.
"Mother of God," exclaimed Beaumont, firing his .45 into whatever lay behind the chair. Griffin pulled his own automatic and ran to the chair. Thrashing in the dirty water was something that looked like a crab. The creature definitely couldn't possibly be a crab, because crabs did not grow over three feet wide, with a blood red shell mottled with patches of olive drab. The shell cracked open from Beaumont's gunfire, and its innards a foul smelling mess of greens, reds, and purples burst out. Then the great crab went still.
The smell overpowered Griffin and he needed fresh air, and he staggered to the smashed entrance of the hotel. The air outside still smelled swampy, but at least it wasn't as grotesque as the miasma that spewed from whatever the hell that was.
"I don't know much about science," said Beaumont, as he covered his face with his necktie, in a vain attempt to filter out the smell, "but I don't know crabs grew that big, or out here in the middle of the goddamn desert."
Griffin looked out the shattered window at the remains of Pentecost, Nevada. The little abandoned shack that sat across the street was gone, and now rested just below their room. The Lazy Lariat, being a solid brick building, looked more or less undamaged even though water flowed from its open front door, but the wooden gas station and general store next to the saloon was a piled of wrenched sticks. Only the front door, with a handwritten sign reading "BACK IN 1 HOUR" remained standing.
Griffin figured that whoever owned that little business was probably worse off than they were.
#
"Damn," muttered Ned, breathing heavily, "where the hell did all this water come from?"
Betty took a deep breath and paused a second for her heart to slow down. A wall of water raced down Preacher Hill and had slammed into the truck, causing it to slide sideways across the road. Now it was half in the ditch, pinned against a massive boulder, with dirty water flowing around them as if they were in the middle of a river. The water smelled funny, like rotten eggs, and God knows what else.
Betty pondered Ned's question, but the only answer she could come up with was stark raving mad. The water was coming from the top of Preacher Hill; it was coming from the old mission. She wanted to ask Dr. Prosper what the hell he was up to in that old mission, but he was still unconscious, his head resting on Ned's shoulder. His breathing was shallow and some drool hung out of the corner of his mouth. He wasn't in any condition to answer anything.
The sky was dark, which was odd; sunset shouldn't have come so quick. The speed of the sunset was just another strange thing to wrap up what was turning into a very strange day.
Betty hit the starter, and the engine caught right away. There were small mercies this evening. She turned on the headlights and screamed.
There was a flash of teeth, laid out like Satan's saw-blade, two green eyes, and claws.
"Get the hell out of here," said Ned.
Betty put the truck in gear, and the tires spun, flinging mud and dirty water in all directions, but the truck itself wasn't going in any direction at all.
Betty cursed a blue streak, shifted the gears, and put the pedal down, shifting a lot of mud and water, but not the truck.
The strange creature lunged at the truck, its long claws flashing in the headlights. It hit the truck with a thud, causing the whole vehicle to lurch backwards. Betty felt the tires his solid ground, and hit the gas one last time.
This time the truck lunged at the creature, just as it came in for a second attack. The thing hit the front hood of the truck with a thunderous thud of wrenching metal, and rolled off into the water with a splash. Betty felt the truck bounce over something hard and big on the road, wished it was that damn thing's head, but didn't pause to look, choosing instead to pour on the gas.
#
"Look at this damn thing," said Lee Jarvis as he plopped it on the table in front of Nick and Willy.
"Damn it Uncle Lee," said Willy, pinching his face in disgust, "that thing reeks."
"It smells like a dead fish," said Nick as he reached for his flashlight to see what the hell the old man had dragged in. Despite the sun disappearing so quickly, he and Willy had decided to stay in the dark. They could have sworn they heard gunshots coming out of the hotel. It could have been the police, or it could have been someone's idea of personal business, either way, they couldn't afford to get involved.
It was a dead fish, but it wasn't like any fish Nick had ever seen before. It was squat and flat, with spines in a crooked row along its back, and its skin was black, and glistened with slime of some kind.
"Damn thing was flopping around the dance floor," said Lee.
"Get it off the damn table," said Nick. "God knows where that damn thing's been."
"I know one thing," said Willy, "that thing ain't been around here. There isn't a fishing hole for a hundred miles of this town."
"There is now," said Nick, "the whole town's a fishing hole."
"That's just it," said Willy, "none of this should be happening, this just shouldn't be."
The window exploded, showering glass all over the room. Nick hit the floor, he didn't need to be told what was happening; someone was trying to kill him. Bullets slammed into the walls, spraying plaster dust like a choking mist.
"Willy," called out Nick, "you hit?"
"Sumbitch shot off my hat," muttered Willy, his .38 revolver in his hand, though it wouldn't do much good.
The fish flew off the table in pieces, accompanied by splinters of wood to land in a greasy mess on the floor.
"Are these the cops?" asked Lee Jarvis.
"If it's a cop acting like that," said Nick clicking the safety off his Thompson submachine gun, "then that cop is in for a world of pain."
#
"What the hell?" asked Griffin as he pulled back the bolt on his BAR. "That sounds like a Thompson."
"I'm getting my shotgun," said Beaumont. "It's coming from next door."
Thad Griffin looked out the front window. The street had cleared, Thad saw bullets bouncing off the brick walls of the saloon, and that the second floor windows were shattered.
That didn't make any sense; Nick West was supposed to be hiding at the Lazy Lariat, a guest of his partner's uncle, not shooting it up from across the street.
"What's next door?" asked Griffin.
Dora the desk clerk emerged from behind the reception desk, an old Colt Peacemaker in her hand.
"An old hardware store," she said, "but it's been closed for years, the owner went to California."
Beaumont racked a round into the chamber of his shotgun.
"Old hardware store next door," said Griffin, "watch my back."
Griffin went out the door; the water was lapping the edges of the plank sidewalk, and went face to face with the entrance to the house that had caved in his hotel room. He nudged it open and went inside. The floor was crooked, and wet, but the back was wide open, and beyond that was the entrance to the hardware store. There wasn't much left of storefront windows, the flood had caved in the door, and the boards that once crisscrossed them lay in a tangled heap. Someone was still shooting; Thad looked up and saw the gunfire coming off the roof, but he couldn't get a bead on the shooter himself.
"Upstairs," whispered Thad to Beaumont, as he entered the store, hearing the staccato drumbeat of the Tommy gun coming from a door at the top of a flight of rickety wooden stairs. The gunfire stopped.
He must be reloading.
Thad Griffin raced up the stairs, his rifle ready. He only had a few seconds before the shooter reloaded his Tommy gun, and he had to move fast.
"Get your hands up," barked Griffin as he ran onto the roof, but the only answer he got was a splashing sound, footsteps in the water below. He ran to the back of the roof and saw a crude wooden ladder half sunk in the muddy water below, and just out of reach. He could hear movement, but couldn't see a thing because it became so dark so quickly.
"Damn it," barked Griffin. "Where'd he go?"
There was a flash, causing Griffin to duck, but it was the lights, at least some of them coming back on.
"Nick West?" said Beaumont as he looked across the street.
Thad turned to see the Lazy Lariat; and Nick West himself half hanging out of the second floor window, aiming his Thompson at the old hardware store.
"Down!"
TO BE CONTINUED
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