Falow raised his service revolver and fired three quick shots in succession at the creature's body. A series of dry, sluggish reports echoed from across the hills. Natalie drew her own revolver, aimed, and shot. The gun barked four times, and bullets ricocheted off the deck peppering the spider with splinters of wood and metal. The bullets hit the creature with a cracking sound. Black ichor looking like tar began to ooze out of an opening in one of its legs. The pycno proboscis shot upward to the sky and let out a low mewing sound, and then the creature slid off the deck and into the sea.
A split second later the elephantine pycnogonid's wake hit the ferry, causing it to roll and toss its passengers to the deck. Natalie grabbed for the railing, missed, and fell down on her wet butt. The sea rose up and snarled.
Then silence. There was a faint moaning of new ice on the edge of the sea. A miasmic mist. The oily fumes of diesel fuel and the faint ozonic smell of rain.
Some of the passengers broke down and screamed. Others wept. Some applauded Natalie.
“Is it dead?” Falow yelled.
“Don't know,” Natalie said. “Probably wounded to the point where it can't scramble on deck again. I wish we had a .44-Magnum with us. These smaller caliber guns are close to useless against a thing like that.”
“Hope it can't come back,” said Elmo. She hadn't seen him arrive. He was already going back up to the deck.
They waited. The silence was eerie. Everyone was afraid to go to the rail and peek over the edge into the water. Captain Calamari gazed down from his position high on the bridge.
“I don't see it,” Calamari shouted. He was looking through binoculars.
“You better radio for help,” Natalie said.
“I will in a minute.”
“Did you see those large eyes at the end of its proboscis?” Nathan asked. “Normal Colossendeis don't have them. But we know so little about the deep-sea pycnogonids. Maybe this is a mutation. It must be able to see better than I expected.”
Before Nathan could finish his thoughts, the sea spider's legs shot out of the water and onto the deck like a cannon ball fired from a cannon. They scattered the passengers away like pigeons. One boy, as he ran away, shoved an older man who then bounced off the deck as his upper dentures shot out of his mouth. The dentures flew through the air and into Natalie's long hair.
CHAPTER 28
Prey
BACK ON THE deck, Elmo Samules glanced at Lisa James. He should have had more pressing concerns, considering the horror of the situation, but in this instant he seemed able to focus only on her. He wanted to shout warning to her as the monster's snout loomed at the side of the ship, but was afraid he would merely cause her to jump backward—into it. So for the moment it was as if he saw a snapshot, a still picture, with a little bit of animation superimposed.
Lisa stood just a few feet away from where the creature loomed. She was silent, with a radiant smile, somehow unaware of the mayhem about to take place. Apparently she had been watching the increasingly frenzied activity by the captain and his engineer, and never thought to look out to sea. Oddly, a bright blue butterfly seemed to follow her every step, fluttering happily near her hair and eyes. She grinned as she let the arctic butterfly land on the top of her hair. She did not see the pycnogonid behind her, but now she felt the ship tilt in its direction. The blue butterfly fluttered away.
The monster's snout loomed above Lisa's head. Still Elmo couldn't find the words he needed. The universe remained almost frozen.
Something liquid dripped on her. Drip. Drip.
Lisa suddenly revealed her incredulous fear as greenish goo oozed from the sea spider's proboscis and splattered onto her cheeks, hair, lips, and white coat.
And Elmo dared not move or shout, lest she react by fleeing him and blundering right into the monster.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The pycno's two front black eyes peered at Lisa with an alien intent. As the proboscis got closer, its unwinking eyes fixed on hers. Someone on deck had slapped on a flood light and pointed it at the creature. Elmo saw that its body was a bristly beige. Its legs made a horrible clattering sound.
“Aaah,” Lisa screamed as the digestive fluid burned into her skin, putting her into extreme agony.
So close were the spider's front legs that they dripped salt water onto her white windbreaker and blue jeans. The punk girl with the rhinestones immediately took action and threw a chair at the spider, which had no immediate effect. She threw another chair. After a few seconds’ pause the spider reacted, as if it were surprised at resistance, at a defense. One of its leg spikes caught the girl in the shoulder, slicing above her ribs and puncturing some major blood vessels. Then the entire leg came down on the rhinestone girl's head with a terrible raking that seemed to take much of the hair and skin off.
Lisa collapsed to the floor in near shock, and lay motionless. She was pale, like an angel sculpted in white marble in a giant cathedral. Her white coat spread open like wings. Her beautiful shiny hair trailed along the deck like golden seaweed floating in a still sea. Elmo couldn't draw his attention from her.
Another woman watched only a few feet away but did nothing. Her hair, a lifeless shade of black, was mostly covered by a chador. She surveyed the scene for a moment, her granite eyes locked on the pycno. She screamed something in Arabic, but did not run. She found a bucket with some water and dashed it onto Lisa, diluting and washing away the burning digestive juices. But that brought her into range of the spider. One of the legs came down on her arm, severing major nerves and rendering her arm useless. She took one look at the arm flopping at her side and continued to scream.
Finally Elmo broke out of his weird stasis. He took a fire ax and ran toward the sea spider. “Haa,” he bellowed as the ax came down on one of its legs. The pycno quickly moved its leg, carrying with it the ax, which had sunk a few inches into its flesh.
The spider's proboscis started to shake as the creature now went for Elmo. Elmo backed up, slipped, and was struck on his ribs by one of the thing's legs. The ax cut might have taken some of the power out of the spider's strike, which would ordinarily have killed him. A leg spike bounced off his rib cage, and he felt something snap inside. He rolled away, got up, and was struck again in the ribs. The throbbing hurt exploded into a lightning bolt of seemingly scorched nerves. He bit his lip and started to scream.
“Damnnnnn!” Elmo bellowed. He tasted blood and was getting dizzy.
Lisa came out of her stupor and started to crawl away. Her pert nose wrinkled as the odor of the creature hit her.
Now Elmo saw Nathan looking for a weapon. Elmo himself was weaponless and hurt, but he edged closer to Lisa, needing to try to help her. He was already so close he thought he could see the girl's pulse pounding rapidly in an artery in her forehead. Or was he imagining it, in the stupor of his pain?
Meanwhile Nathan was there and charging in. The man certainly didn't lack courage! But in his distraction he tripped over a gull that had frozen solid to the deck. Its mouth was opened in a horrible rictus as if caught in a scream. Its eyes bulged as if in protest against a Newfoundland chill too cold for even arctic gulls to survive. As he tripped, Nathan hit his knee on the gull's beak.
“Damn,” he cursed.
Elmo knew how he felt. Everything was going wrong. They were trying to help each other, and only getting themselves hurt. The trained police had been better, on the parking deck below; they had taken time to aim and fire their guns, driving the monster off for a moment.
Elmo looked back to Lisa. Another of the pycno's legs moved toward the girl, and then its terminal claw scissored forward and pinched her outstretched hand. Her thumb seemed to unhinge in a horrible spray of blood. A scream bubbled in her throat, frothing on her tongue like specks of sea foam. Elmo thought he felt the amputation in his own hand. He tried to get up, so as to lurch forward and reach her, but could not. All he could do was watch her.
Another leg scratched her forehead, and blood began to trickle down into her
eye. For a second Elmo saw the spider as if through her eye, through a crimson lens.
“Help me,” Lisa screamed as she wiped the blood away. She dodged as a leg crashed to the deck near her. Another leg crashed down behind her, and she dodged again. It was as if the creature were toying with her as it tried to smash her face, break her teeth, shatter her legs, making it impossible for her ever to walk again. Actually, Elmo realized, it simply couldn't locate her readily, because of the awkwardness of having to reach up across the deck and haul its snout up there. The monster was working hard to hold on to the ferry, so was clumsy about grabbing morsels from its deck. But they could not depend on that for very long, he feared.
The creature simply ignored Elmo, who could not move to help Lisa. He needed not only more strength, but some effective weapon. So for the moment he successfully wedged himself behind a table. He cast frantically about for something, anything that might do. Anything to throw, to prod with, or merely to heave into the maw and perhaps block it.
The pycno turned its full attention to Lisa. “Please!” the girl implored. Elmo realized with horror that it was her sounds it was orienting on, as much as anything; every time she screamed or cried for help, it closed on her more accurately.
The spider then grabbed Lisa around the waist. Her left arm was twisted at an odd angle. Her lipstick-red lips peeled back from her teeth and a long howl burst from somewhere deep within her throat: “Aaaaah.” The pycno's listless black eyes stared into her own. Blood was running from her forehead and her windbreaker was mostly torn off.
“Please,” Lisa screamed. Elmo tried to lurch to his feet, but collapsed before getting anywhere. He had to watch the confrontation, helplessly. A claw like a pair of wire cutters reached out and grabbed her arm and turned her toward the creature's proboscis. The proboscis opened wide and Elmo could smell the stink of ammonia and rotting meat. He knew it would be much worse for Lisa. She held her arms in front of her in an automatic defensive maneuver which had little effect. Seconds seemed to turn to hours.
Next he saw the proboscis touch her arms, at first gently like a moist warm rag, but then more forcefully.
Suddenly, up, up, up the proboscis carried her into the air. She screamed again, despairingly. Then the pycno threw her into the ice-cold sea. It happened in just an instant. The girl had no time to react. The pycno looked at the passengers on the deck, seemed to hesitate, but then let go of the boat and sank back into the water, in search of the girl.
Elmo's whole body seemed to go numb, as if the water were chilling him to insensitivity, instead of her. Lisa—dying! He staggered to his feet, determined to do something, anything, if only to throw himself into the sea after her. If all else failed, at least he would die with her.
“Get the passengers inside the parking area or the coffee shop,” Falow shouted to Natalie and Calamari. Even though Falow wore a wool cap, the sweat on his scalp looked icy. Shivers wracked his body visibly as he ran to the rail and looked over.
Elmo followed him, clutching at his side. He might not feel the pain, but his body did. He reached the rail and stared out at the roiling water. Lisa, Lisa—where was she?
The boat bumped. Jellyfish creatures with purple bladders floated to the surface of the black sea, swirling in an eddy current. They looked a little bit like Portuguese men-o'-war. Seconds later a vast white mass, perhaps their mother, joined the jellyfish. Its myriad long arms curled and twisted like a nest of boa constrictors.
“What are those weird things?” Elmo shouted as he scanned the ocean for the girl. He had spent a great deal of time at sea, but never seen anything like this before.
“The seas around here seem to have a lot of strange organisms lately,” Natalie said through clenched teeth.
Then his desperate gaze caught a glimpse of white. Her tattered windbreaker! It had to be!
“There she is!” Elmo screamed. He saw Lisa about fifteen feet from the ferry. The gloom was tenebrous, making it difficult to see her against the dark waves, despite her bright jacket. She was still quite conscious and trying to swim to the boat. Cold drops of sea water stung her face as the freezing wind drove them against her cheeks and forehead. She screamed in surprise, this time because the arctic bath chilled her bones. Her long red hair glimmered under a lacework shawl of ice crystals. Each stroke of her arm and each kick of her legs seemed to be slower than the last. The intense cold of the water was rapidly draining her strength. She was losing her energy amidst the jewels of ice which drifted by like a slow swarm of bees. Again the shock of the frigid sea against her face made her wince with pain and sapped her strength. It was if her limbs were run by hidden clock springs which needed to be rewound.
Without thinking further, Elmo climbed down a rope ladder at the side of the ferry. The crippling effect of his injuries was fading; he knew he had to act right now if it was humanly possible.
“Quick, swim to me,” he cried to the girl. He held out his hand, the oddly shaped fingers stark against the heaving background of the sea.
The sheer physical smoothness of the jellyfish near the girl was alien, intimidating. The pycno was nowhere in sight. Soon something resembling a green and red möbius ribbon with blue eyes and a twist of greasy hair came out of the depths and wriggled closer to the girl. The girl swam as fast as she could to the edge of the ladder where Elmo knelt. She came closer to him.
Closer. But still out of reach—and he couldn't go to her, because he depended on his hold on the ladder. If he lost that hold with his other hand, they would both be helpless in the water.
Her arms were out, reaching for Elmo; her eyes pleaded for help, and she was moaning. Several spiral soda-bottle creatures also emerged and drifted toward her. The translucent globes of their eyes grew slightly in size as they approached.
Then the pycno emerged and treaded water. Now its eyes looked like dark plumbs. Its proboscis pointed in the girl's direction, as the orifice at the end dripped a pale fluid.
The harbor seemed even colder, and Elmo knew that Lisa felt the last vestiges of heat leaving her body. Her fear became panic as her screams escalated in volume. Her eyes were sunken. But she was still moving forward, finally coming into the range of his long fingers.
Just as Elmo got hold of the girl's hand, their grips locking, the pycno grabbed her left leg. She kicked, weakly. The vein in her leg started to leak more blood into the ocean. The shoe on her other foot came off and floated in the waves like a gull on the water.
Elmo pulled. The pycno pulled. The girl moaned.
“Elmo, take this,” Nathan shouted. Elmo's breath caught in his throat as he saw a crowbar. The girl was now holding onto him with both her frozen hands. Below her, the sea appeared bottomless, like a black hole in a vast space.
“I can't! I can't let go of the ladder or Lisa!”
“But the legs!” Nathan cried, as if this were new information. “They're pulling on her!”
“I can't hold her much longer!” Elmo yelled. Sea water poured out of the girl's mouth along with vomit that was now rising from her stomach like lava from a volcano.
The pycno started to grab her thigh.
Nathan bashed ineffectively at it with the crowbar. He couldn't reach it from above.
“I'll shoot it,” Natalie said and took a few shots at the creature from her position on deck.
This wasn't getting them anywhere. They couldn't win a rug-of-war with the monstrous spider. Elmo realized that he would have to gamble. Suddenly he let go of Lisa for a second, grabbed the crowbar from Nathan with his right hand, and swung it down onto the pycno's retreating leg. But nothing seemed to stop the sea predator.
A slimy brown thing flapped out of the dark sea and pulled at the long hair of the woman. It was the pycno's bumpy tongue. Lisa moaned, then started making little sounds of horror, like the bleats of a sheep being led to slaughter, as the pycno yanked on her, forcing her to gaze into black eyes on the end of its long pulsating proboscis.
Elmo looked where she loo
ked, sharing her horror. The proboscis was smooth and fleshy. As he gazed into the enlarging opening before her he thought he saw something scurrying frantically within the opening of the sucking appendage. Was it a parasite, or the living remains of some non-digested prey? He saw how Lisa's revulsion increased, her mind shattered. The ocean level was just below her chin as he saw cakes of ice floating away on the currents and waves. He saw her became drowsy as hypothermia took effect.
Water gurgled and foamed around the girl's mouth, and she stopped struggling against the deadly undertow. Elmo almost felt linked to her mind, sharing her dying thoughts. Keeping her head above water seemed a pointless task. Above her the dark sky looked like an ocean, as cold and dangerous as the one below. The beats of her heart bounced round like a marble in a roulette wheel: this was cardiovascular destabilization. Both her body and mind were shutting down. In her hypothermic stupor, the murmuring waves seemed to beckon to her like the voices of angels.
Finally the pycno pulled Lisa into the cold ebony sea. As she plummeted down into the darkness, bubbles rose to the surface. The last thing he saw through his cold disoriented eyes was the blue glow of bioluminescent jellyfish. They swarmed around her face, eerie and supernatural, like a mysterious radiance of a divine presence.
“No!” Elmo hurled the crowbar away, let go of the rope ladder, and dived after her. He didn't even feel the shock of the water; he had been half immersed in it anyway. But his dive wasn't effective; he realized belatedly that he should have done it from the deck, so as to gain some momentum to carry him below the surface. In a moment he was gasping for air amidst the waves.
“Elmo! Here!”
Dazed, he turned his head. There was Joseph Falow, in a lifeboat. The man had a coil of rope. Good idea!
The boat nudged up to him as he faced it. “Tie rope around me!” Elmo gasped. “Get me dead weight!”