Big Gee

The Good Lord made many creatures, and many plants, and he created man in his image. But as a good Christian, Dan Hawking also knows that the Adversary got his hand into creation as well, that he made creatures in his image, to test the righteous and bring destruction and despair into the world. The abomination that crashed into the Bakersfield Christ Risen Church was testament to the Adversary’s power. It burst through the main entrance like a locomotive, a tempest of claws, barbs and legs, its armor black as night, riven and pitted by decades of fights. The grandfather of all girtabs, an emperor scorpion with a body like a pickup, as old as the sun, rushed into the cavernous auditorium. It pushed aside seats and rubble like a ship cresting the waves. The whole building shook with Big Gee’s entrance. Dan was hurting very much then, thanks to Big Gee’s little brothers and sisters, but he knew what he had to do and raised his rifle to his shoulder. And he thought that it was true: They never stop growing.

In the old correctional facility, Ling asks, again, still incredulous, “As big as a van?” “If you don’t believe us, send your people to Bakersfield,” Mal says “Dan and me peppered it with high-powered rifle rounds. Rod and the girl just got away. Zed was still on the balcony over the auditorium, where he went after Prophet. I shot one of its legs off with my FN FAL, but that just seemed to make it angry. It crawled up the balcony, where we had our little shootout with Prophet’s gang – and it made the balcony collapse. Which took Zed with it.” Zed continues “I fell right in front of his pincers, but he seemed distracted by the balcony coming falling down, so I got away before he pulled me to pieces.” Also, my fucking shotgun jammed on me, twice – but he does not tell this to Ling “When he finally came after me, I ambushed him and put a twelve gauge slug right into his kisser. Boom!” He slaps the table “That gave him pause. He crawled away from us and just pushed through an old emergency exit – he basically put a new hole into the wall.” Rod goes on “On the second floor, we had freed the girl and made our way downstairs. But by then, those pheromones we had splashed around during our fight had attracted the girtabs in and around the church. They hunted us. We shot about a dozen of them, but I still was stung. A most unpleasant experience, basically, the toxin overloads your cardiovascular system and you go into shock after a minute or so. After we had driven off the scorpions, we had to stop in the ground floor of the building. I just could not go on. While Dan and the girl watched over me, Zed and Mal went after Big Gee and finished it off.” Zed goes on “That we did. We tracked him outside. That was like following the tracks of an army. But those tracks ended suddenly, just at one of the walls of the church. He went up that wall and lurked on the roof. It was the devil’s own luck that the roof held him. And just as we came to that wall, he jumped us. Literally jumped us. He got Mal here pressed into the sand, and got my leg between his pincer. Broke it, too. But I still got my shotgun between his, whatsit, manacles?” “Mandibles.” “His mandibles. I pulled the trigger, and that was that. His corpse still lies next to the church, if you need to verify our report.”

And that was that, Dan thinks, outside, in the sun, periodically giving the evil eye to the camera watching the space in front of the gate. Zed pulled Mal from under the monstrous cadaver. Everyone in the group was a mess, in different ways, so we patched ourselves up. Zed was quite lucky, with a clean fracture. That thing could have ripped his leg clean off. We looted the Prophet’s fighters, and some fine loot it was. We took the girl – Lla Viper, an unusual name – and went back to the jeep. We tied the bike to the roof, and although he made the painful face every time he stepped on a pedal or the jeep hit a hole larger than a thimble, Mal got us back to Refugium.