The bony hand forced John’s head under water. He struggled to grasp the side of the bus, to pull himself up, but his fingers peeled loose and he was drowning, the crush of the water an incomprehensible force, pushing the last air out of his lungs.
John clawed helplessly at the talons around his neck. Feeling his own numb fingers growing weaker.
Then there was a shape in the water above him, visible only as a shadow in the rippling reflection of the headlights from the shore. Something floating toward him, carried by the current.
Whatever it was, the cloak was distracted by it, turning away from his prey. John seized the opportunity and wrenched free of the claw, pulling himself up out of the water, sputtering and spitting. John wiped water out of his eyes and saw what was bobbing his way:
A pink silicone ass.
Ted’s pickup was now fully submerged upstream and the truck’s rubber ass cargo had spilled into the rushing water. The cloak stared in wonderment as one ass after another flowed its way, two dozen of them, bobbing along majestically.
The cloak screamed in despair, “The prophecy! It is true!” It turned its vacant eyes upward, rainwater filling the holes of the mask and dribbling out like tears. “You have summoned him!”
A pale blur whipped down from the sky. It snatched the cloak, whisking it from the water. It carried the struggling figure up, then flung it off into the distance, the cloaked thing landing soundlessly somewhere downstream.
John climbed up the side of the bus, shook wet hair from his face, and yelled, “HEY PUSSNADO, IT LOOKS LIKE YOUR SHIP JUST HIT AN ASSBERG! BECAUSE YOUR MAN JUST GOT ASSASSINATED! HEY, DO YOU MIND IF I ASS YOU SOMETH—”
Amy
No one could hear what John was yelling from the water.
“You know what really gets me?” said the agent behind the gun. “The sheer arrogance of it all. You’ve convinced yourself you’re taking some kind of moral stand, but you don’t care that you’re putting the whole world at risk for it. You’re so sure you’re right. I bet you win every argument with your boys. The little nerd girl? Bitch, your ego could blot out the sun.”
Ted was shouting now, joining the chorus of shouts from almost everyone in the vicinity. He was standing over the defeated black cloak, looking up at something, mouth agape.
He screamed, “GET DOWN!”
Amy didn’t even have time to obey. She and the agent both looked up in time to see a pale blur whoosh down from the sky.
The BATMANTIS??? landed heavily on one of the NON trucks.
Gunshots rang out—the female agent was unloading on the beast with her brimstone shotgun. The monster leaped off the truck and pinned her to the street, water breaking and splattering around her shoulders.
The agent didn’t drop the gun. She worked the barrel around and pressed it right to the BATMANTIS???’s face.
The creature made a quick swipe with one of its serrated claws and something went rolling away, splashing through the standing water at the side of the road.
It was the agent’s severed head.
“AMY!”
It was David, running toward them, hands and shirt covered in blood, carrying some kind of pole. He frantically looked back and forth from Amy to the winged beast.
Amy screamed, “I think it’s helping us! That’s why it kept turning up! It’s trying to help!”
But the BATMANTIS??? chose that moment to lunge at her, swiping a claw and missing only because it clumsily stumbled over its own misshapen feet.
David yelled, “No! It’s an asshole! Get away!”
The beast lurched in her direction. Amy dove and rolled away. She sprinted toward David.
He brandished the object she now realized was a spear from Marconi’s collection, putting himself between Amy and the monster.
The beast spun around to face them. Instead of teeth, it had a ragged kind of beak. Powerful jaws. It was no herbivore.
David yelled, “NO! We did not survive all this shit just to get eaten by your stupid ass. Just go away!”
Amy said to it, “We’re the good guys! It’s okay!”
The thing snatched at David. He thrust the spear at it, backing it off.
“NO!” he screamed at it. “No! Don’t you see, you dumb son of a bitch? We don’t want to kill you! Can you even hear me, you fucking animal? I will put this through your goddamned neck!”
The thing just looked confused. Not evil, Amy thought—just scared and hungry and lashing out blindly at a world it didn’t understand.
The BATMANTIS??? lunged again—not at David, but past him. It was going for Amy.
David growled, “NO!”
He jabbed at it with the spear as it passed. He got it, right in the side.
It recoiled. Dark blood oozed. The thing screeched.
And then the monster … smiled.
Amy was sure of it. As if it finally had a fight, like this was what it had come for.
The BATMANTIS??? whipped a claw through the air with a pale blur, and David’s spear went flying.
David, in a blind rage, did not back down.
“COME ON! Come over here and die, you fucking animal! I’ve fought shit that would keep you for a pet!” He turned quickly toward Amy. “Run! I’ll keep it busy!”
She didn’t. The BATMANTIS??? swung a claw, bashing David to the ground. Effortless.
It jumped on him, pinning him just as it had done to the agent moments ago. Amy screamed.
David yelled again for her to go. She stayed.
He clawed at the thing’s face, yelling, “LOOK AT YOU! YOU ARE A MISTAKE! A MALFUNCTION! YOU EAT ME, I WILL FUCK YOU FROM THE INSIDE!”
The thing raised a claw, meaning to lop off David’s head.
Amy suddenly remembered the Taser. She yanked it out of her back pocket, ran up and pressed it against the monster’s neck, the blue flashes of electricity popping against its skin.
It didn’t paralyze it, but it did cause it to recoil again, to stagger backward.
Amy stabbed a finger at it. “Last chance! You have to go. You understand? We have been more than patient.”
The monster snarled, then yelped and stumbled forward. Something had slammed into it from behind.
John
There were now six of the huge, squealing maggots clinging to the top of the bus and more were crawling out, crowding each other. John was thus having trouble finding purchase on the upturned rear and thought it would look bad to Amy if he just started shoving children off into the water to make room.
John heard someone from shore tell everyone to get down, then the BATMANTIS??? swooped overhead, landing on a vehicle nearby. There were gunshots and then the shots abruptly ended.
Then it looked like the beast was confronting someone, its jumbled limbs and wings thrashing around in the silhouette of the RV’s headlights. John heard enraged and panicked cries through the rain. Dave and Amy were confronting the monster, and from the sound of it, losing.
Frantic, John awkwardly climbed around to the rear bumper of the bus and tried to get his feet over the pavement—only a small corner of the bus still overhung solid land. He managed to drop onto the street. Two of the maggots were already there, having crawled off the bus.
John turned …
A man was running past him.
It was Ted.
Running with purpose and rage.
Running to confront the beast he believed had taken his child.
He was carrying the backpack containing the brimstone bomb.
Ted jumped onto the back of the BATMANTIS???, getting it in a chokehold, a muscled arm wrapped around what passed for the thing’s neck. The creature thrashed and tried to reach back for him, its clumsy mismatched limbs badly failing at the task.
Frustrated, the winged beast jumped and took to the air, Ted still on its back, as if the BATMANTIS??? intended to get him up high and shake him off. Up the two of them went, up and up, a flash of lightning illuminating the pair for just a split second, revealing a glimpse of tiny flapping wings and a desperate, thrashing struggle in midair.