Mbc4 weather cracked#
Mbc4 weather crack#

After a few more seconds, it stopped in midphrase, and the silence descended again.Īnd in the next instant there was the crack of earth splitting open and he whirled to see a flurry of dirt erupt in front of him and two gaunt arms with metallic saw-edged fingernails coming up from the floor. The singing had a metallic undertone, and it drifted past him like a half-remembered Sunday school song from a tinny record player. 'Naughty, naughty boy' The thing sounded like a demented grandmother on speed. A bead of sweat crawled into his eye and burned it like a torch. Why wasn't the thing still taunting him? Where the hell was it? He glanced over his shoulder, quickly shone the light behind him. If alien eyes had never been exposed to electric light before, then. The light was holding it at bay maybe something in the wavelength of electric light, he reasoned. The thing didn't speak again, and all Rhodes wanted to do was to get out of this tunnel, but he dared not turn his back and run. Who's the guardian?' It was the question that Vance had told Rhodes the Dodge Creech creature had asked, and now the colonel knew for sure it was no crazy old lady down there in the dark. 'God don't like naughty boys,' the old woman's voice answered. He sensed a figure, standing just beyond the light. 'I'm Colonel Matt Rhodes, United States Air Force' he said. Put out that hot wand of hell and let's have us a tea party.' The flashlight, Rhodes realized. 'Where you goin', Colonel Matt Rhodes United States Air Force? Love thy neighbor as thyself. 'You okay?' 'You okay?' the awful voice in front of him mimicked. 'Colonel?' It was Vance's voice, echoing through the tunnel from behind him. He retreated, the light's beam spearing along the tunnel in front of him. Now he heard someone running down there-shoes squishing on that shit in the tunnel-and then the choked thunder of Rhodes's voice: 'Get me out' The rifle was flung up, but Rhodes held on to the flashlight. Vance had heard an old woman's shout, the sound of rifle fire, and a scream that had made the hairs on the back of his neck do the jitterbug. There was silence, except for a slow dripping noise.Īnd the light caught something: a figure, jerking in and then out of the beam, way down at the far end of the tunnel. He fired again, missed, and then the creature that looked like an old woman was charging him, an arm still covering its eyes and its head thrashing with what was either rage or pain. It bucked against his shoulder and almost knocked him flat the bullet tore a gash across a gray cheek. He heard himself scream the hand had a terrible, crushing power in it, and his wrist felt as if it was about to break. Two metal nails winnowed into his skin, and he knew that if he lost the light he was finished. The thing's other hand closed on his left wrist.

And first of all, she had to be found-he hoped by himself and not by Stinger. There was no way to know what its intent and capabilities were until Daufin explained why it was after her. Heading where, and for what reason? If Stinger was digging tunnels like this one under the entire town, then it was either wasting a lot of energy or preparing for a major assault.

Maybe it was the sound of something digging, or the sound of a massive thing moving through an already-dug tunnel. The noise seemed to be coming from somewhere to his left. Little scurryings of fear ran in his belly. Or a subterranean bulldozer, he thought grimly. It ceased after a few seconds-and then there it was again, a rumbling like a subway train somewhere beyond the walls. There was a distant rumbling noise, and a slight vibration in the tunnel floor.

Mbc4 weather cracked#

There was a roar coming from the creature's mouth like air through a cracked steampipe. And again, and this time wrenched his arm away from her. He jammed the rifle barrel right up against the crook of the thing's elbow and pulled the trigger.