Part 40

Kyle didn't feel the hand closing on his shoulder until it was pulling him away.

"MOVE, DUMBASS!" shouted Frank. He propelled Kyle ahead of him down the corridor back the way they had come. "EVERYBODY RUN!"

"Wait!" Maurice tried to follow, but his bare feet slipped in the slug's trail of thick goo and he fell hard on his back.

The exploding sky swirled above him-

-and then the slug-thing grinned down at him, mouth wide.

"Oh please GOD NO-"

THWIP-
PLAFF!

The slug's head exploded. Two large chunks flew in different directions while a spray of smaller bits splattered the bricks beside Maurice's head. Maurice rolled away just as the slug's headless body collapsed.

The stilt-creature stood a few yards away, pointing its short fleshy tube at the dead slug.

Then it turned and aimed it at Maurice.

"FUCK!"

Maurice ran, leaping over the slug's corpse just as-

THWIP!

Something small and fast ripped through the trailing edge of Maurice's bathrobe and hit the nearby wall with a loud CRACK.

"IT'S SHOOTING AT ME!"

Behind him, the creature rotated slightly, aiming at Maurice's wide back. Its odd body shuddered, and two leathery sacks on either side of the flesh-tube inflated-

A loud squeal filled the corridor. The stilt-creature rotated away from Maurice, turning to face the giant worm.

The scorpion had begun its feast, using both scythes to widen and deepen the wound that it had made. But now long strands of pale, stringy flesh were spewing from the wound ensnaring the beast and pulling it into the wound. It screamed as it tried to cut its way free, but the very wound it had created was now a giant mouth closing around it. A mouth with newly-grown teeth.

Then the worm rotated, crushing the half-eaten scorpion beneath its bulk as it turned into the corridor and slid forward.

The mouth opened-

THWIP!

The stilt-creatured shifted on its spindly legs. The fleshy tube stiffened briefly, then fired a single pointed thorn into the massive mouth.

The worm swallowed the projectile and the ones that followed.

THWIP! THWIP-THWIP!

Finally, the stilt-creature ran. The worm was slow, but it was huge. One surge of its massive bulk overtook the fleeing prey. Tooth-lined mouth-flaps slapped shut around the stilt-creature's torso. The worm curled its forward section upward and opened its mouth once more, letting the crushed and dismembered... yet still twitching meal slide into its barbed throat.

The worm's head came back down with a loud SLAP against the rough stone, then it continued down the corridor unaware of the red smear it was leaving on the wall behind it.

The tiny insects that had first drawn its attention were gone now-

-And Frank hadn't been carrying Kevin when they fled.