a Heckler & Koch 9 mm. Good weight, short, a nice death-dealing compactness. She
took it up, checked it, went back to the box and tensely fingered through the
jumbled mass of sticks, clattering them aside until she found two 30-slug curved
mags. One she stuffed into a back pocket, the other she held against the gun
while she began cramming the fourth grenade into an already overstuffed pocket
over her right breast.
The pile of cans burst apart in a wild spray of tin. The sticky, squealing
viciously, had erupted from the ground.
Krysty gasped. Her heart felt as if someone had just kicked it.
She sprang back, dropping the grenade. She also dropped the second mag. The
sticky came at her like a flying fury, and she had to dance away and flee back
to the living area of the barn, her right hand fumbling at the remaining mag
jammed into her back pocket. It wouldn’t come out, had somehow gotten entangled
with the pocket lip. She felt as if she could scream, but didn’t. Instead she
turned for the door, but the creature was already there, its eyes almost popping
with rage and blood lust.
Krysty yanked the mag and it came out, tearing the pocket open at one side. But
now she was all fingers and thumbs and the mag would not slot in. The sticky,
hooting nasal fury, jumped for her and she felt its wind as she stumbled aside,
saw the sucker pads of its right hand lunging at her. She raced away across the
room, still trying to shove the mag into the SMG but in her desperation only
jamming it. Her heart was pounding like a trip hammer and sweat was coming off
her like glistening pearls. Adrenaline boosted her body and desperation boosted
her brain.
In a microsecond she took in the fact that one of the pillar supports that held
up the upper chamber had heavy nails sticking out of it. Thrusting the mag
between her teeth, she grabbed hold of one of the higher nails and thrust a foot
at a lower one—the H&K stuffed under her left arm and held tight to her body—and
she began to pull herself upward. The nail heads were sharp; they tore at her
flesh. She didn’t give a damn, didn’t even think about it. The fact that her
fingers began to bleed and the nail heads became suddenly slippery merely acted
as a further booster. She reached the second floor and rolled over onto what
remained of the floor planks just as the kill-crazy creature slammed into the
pillar.
She stared down at its fearsome, horrific ugliness as it, too, began to climb,
hissing and snorting through its nose. She pushed herself up into a kneeling
position and once more endeavored to cram the curved mag up into the SMG, but in
her terrified haste she fumbled more than before and the mag suddenly became a
living thing in her hand, flying out of her grasp. The sticky’s head rose above
the floor and blindly she smashed the useless gun into its face, crashing the
snub-nosed barrel repeatedly into one of its eyes and transforming it into a
crimson jelly before the creature was jolted off its perch, tumbling back to the
ground. Panic rose like nausea within her, and without thinking she clutched at
one of her grenades, yanking the pin and screaming, “Fuck you!” as the sticky,
shrilling its pain and rage, leaped for the pillar again. She dropped the
grenade on it and flung herself backward, scrambling as if demented away from
the floor edge.
The roar of the detonation nearly deafened her, and all at once the floor was
rocking then bursting apart and she was sliding toward the edge and tumbling
over. She fell, still clinging to the H&K, and hit the ground, automatically
rolling on the trash-choked floor. Beams and planks thudded down and dust rose
chokingly. She staggered to her feet, her ears ringing, her eyes prickling and
smarting.
Miraculously the whole barn had not collapsed, and after a moment she could see
why. The sticky had taken most of the blast. Unaccountably it had fallen across