After a few more seconds, it stopped in midphrase, and the silence descended again. The singing had a metallic undertone, and it drifted past him like a half-remembered Sunday school song from a tinny record player.
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. 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. 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. He retreated, the light's beam spearing along the tunnel in front of him.
#Youtue haiki 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. Waiting.Īnd the light caught something: a figure, jerking in and then out of the beam, way down at the far end of the tunnel. 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. In about five seconds it had burrowed halfway into the earth. It flung itself to the floor, began to frantically dig itself down with feet and fingers, throwing damp dirt backward upon Rhodes. The thing abruptly turned and, its eyes shielded and back bowed with a dowager's hump, scurried away from Rhodes down the tunnel.
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