Part 8
As the ground based ‘beetles and ants’ for want of a better word scurried towards her, they climbed on each others backs, their jaws snapping ever higher as they tried to bite her, forcing her to fly higher, nearer the holes at the ceiling. She used her breath to blast them from beneath her, but she realised that there were simply too many directions she could be attacked from where she was. She swooped low blowing and brushing the insect horde aside, sending their bodies rolling back into those of their own kind. She picked one of the holes high up in the ceiling, slightly more removed from some of the others and decided that was where she would make her stand. She flew up to it, flashed a gaze with her laser vision that incinerated the small winged grub that seemed to be cowering in there, then at super speed flew down the tunnel some hundred yards then backed up, her fists and arms a blur as she pounded the silicate flesh walls to crumble and collapse them as she moved back towards the entrance and the main chamber. As she worked she had to turn back periodically and burn or blow back the creatures that were trying to enter behind her. Their screams and shrieks filled the foetid air as often they rolled up into a protective ball to try and shield themselves, but they could not stop their delicate wings from burning. Satisfied that nothing could surprise her from her rear, as she would hear or feel them tunnelling through the walls she had collapsed, she fought her way back to stand in the entrance of the tunnel, facing the main chamber. The screeching cry of ‘Deracon! Deracon!’ was louder than ever and so too was the pungency of the drug in the air, as wave after wave of noxious smells seemed to reach her. As she gained the tunnel entrance the creatures had crawled up from the base of the chamber over each other, whilst others swooped towards her, their wing beats like the thrum of tribal drums. Still more were scurrying up the living flesh walls of the huge creature-ship, closing in on her from all sides. It didn’t take her but an instant to realise that this position too would be untenable. She used her heat vision to sear the eyes and heads of a few of the nearest aliens, but her gaze needed to linger to build up more power and she simply didn’t have the time to burn them back as they were too great in number. The sheer size of them meant her breath was far less effective in blowing them back, as she had done with the ordinary insects that attacked the shop. She tried, but often they would simply curl up into a ball like a wood louse, rolling away under the power of her breath only to uncurl again, unharmed and then they would come back at her. The same was true of the creatures that she hit with her heat vision – there were a few who were blinded and recoiled away shrieking but most were able to curl up defensively and then uncurl once the heat from her gaze had passed. She did have far more success against the flying insects that buzzed her as one look from her deadly blue eyes incinerated their wings and they plummeted screaming to the chamber floor. After several groups of different flying creatures had tried and failed, a piercing series of shrieks and clicks seemed to be the order for them to stay back out of range and the crawling beetle /cockroach/ant like forms took up the assault. Whilst the power of her breath was proving ineffective she decided that her freezing breath may have more of an effect. But it, too, took a few seconds to have an impact on each alien and the vast numbers of creatures meant that there was no way she could cope with keeping them in check that way.
All the while she tried her different powers she was physically beating and bashing any creature that came upon the entrance, kicking away those climbing up from the chamber floor and hurling away those who approached along the walls from either side. Where she could, she always tried to cannon them into their companions, thereby buying herself more time. Even as she fought, she had her hearing tuned to listen for any sounds of digging from behind her. But her time had seemingly run out as now the acid spraying creatures that had been up the far end of the chamber made their appearance, having scurried down the mile or so to her current position. Again the jets of deadly liquid seemed to be aimed near her, not at her, hindering her movement within the mouth of the artificial cave she had created.
‘
Time to get the hell out of Dodge’ she thought to herself.
She again blew a gap through the mesh of acid streams that confronted her and shot back up the chamber, using her heat vision here and there as a salutary lesson to the creatures not to come near her. But it was a lesson they failed to heed. She had destroyed or disabled several hundred of the creatures, mostly the flying insects as the terrestrial ones were more armoured and seemed much tougher, their chitin carapaces deflecting her heat rays. But more were still streaming through some of the holes in the chamber, such that she reckoned she was about back where she started in terms of their numbers. She hovered around two thirds of the way back towards the front of the living cave she found herself in, dealing out death through her heat vision to any of the flying creatures that came near. She noted the approach of the acid sprayers again and once more headed off to her hidey – hole refuge, forcing them to once more turn and scurry after her. She could do this all day she decided, thought she might need to break out for fresh air in a few minutes as the noxious smells seemed to be building and she could not hold her breath for ever.
As she flew she attacked the creatures below her, swooping low and delivering punishing blows with her fists to those that reared up to try and seize her. The more of the nightmare creatures that she killed, the more the insects worked themselves up into a frenzy, the shrill, clicking cries of ‘Deracon!Deracon!’ filling the chamber as they swarmed at her. With each passing moment she was destroying two or three of the creatures and wounding or damaging several more, but this vast chamber held thousands. At this rate the fight would take hours. But at least it was a fight she was winning. She was confident that she would be fast enough to avoid the acid sprays and whilst she was a little concerned at their use of the invisible gases to try and drug her, again, as she was proving now, she could handle it. But she decided she needed another breath. With her lightning speed she shot out through the tunnel by which she entered, emerging into the dazzling afternoon sunshine, so bright after the darkness of the ship and its living tunnels that even she winced for a moment before she revelled in it, drinking in the power of its rays like a satisfying fine wine, taking a deep glorious breath of fresh air that made her feel revitalised and invigorated. Only then as she felt the cool warmth fill her body did she realise just how dulled her senses had become whilst breathing in the air in the chamber. That strange, choking smell that tasted of decay and bitterness.
Refreshed, she sped back, heading the way she had come, back to the chamber, slamming into the creatures that had followed her into the tunnel, burning, freezing, blowing and smashing them aside as she finally rocketed back into the hall with an explosion of tumbling bodies as the insects in the tunnel with her were blown back out into the huge cavern. The chattering , chirping clicks reached a crescendo as the ‘Deracon! Deracon! ‘ mantra echoed around the chamber from a thousand alien throats.
Supergirl decided to repeat her successful tactics, swooping along the length of the chamber, hitting those within reach, burning or blowing away those out of arms-length, until she had regained her refuge at the far end of the cavern. There she took up position and again beat off all comers, lingering until the acid spitting creatures closed in and then flying back down the chamber almost back to the front, where she would hover and freeze, blow, burn or beat the insects away as they closed in on her. She repeated this circuit twice more, feeling completely at ease as the creatures could barely get near her. But as she took up her position in her ‘cave’ at the far end for the third time, turning to knock back several creatures that closed in on her at the entrance, she suddenly felt vice like jaws grasp her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides, helplessly. She gasped and shrieked in surprise, inadvertently drawing in a lungful of the pungent odours. She instantly felt sick and drowsy slightly, but only for a moment before she recovered her wits. Surprised at the attack she was also annoyed at her own complacency – she should have checked the tunnel itself as she flew into it instead of concentrating her gaze and her heat vision on the creatures that were approaching the tunnel from the walls. It didn’t enter her head that one of them might have already got there ahead of her, crawled inside and was waiting to pounce on her return. She tried for an instant to flex her arms but the grip was way too strong for her. But she didn’t wait for the other creatures to close in on her. As the creature was immediately behind her she could not use her vision or breath, and the clamped jaws were impervious to her strength, but she still had other weapons in her arsenal that she could use to dislodge her attacker. With lightning speed she spun on the spot, at the same sort of speed that had generated the vortex outside the café that had sucked up the smaller Earth insects. The creature behind her was around eight feet long, in a tunnel five feet wide. As it was hurled into the side wall of the tunnel with sickening force it never knew what had happened. She could feel and hear the reassuring snap as its neck stem split from its thorax, leaving the lifeless head and jaws still clamped around her arms and upper body.
A creature to her front seized her right ankle as she stopped spinning and she decided it was time to relocate. She shot into the main chamber, the creature still clinging painfully to her leg as this time she was able to flex her arms and get enough give from the lifeless mandibles to prise them apart. She let the lifeless head fall, its antennae still twitching onto the throng below, as she kicked her clamped leg out viciously, the creature still managed to cling onto her however. This one was smaller in size and height, around 3 feet long and a foot and a half or so high. It had four large, black, soulless eyes that reflected the pin point gleam of light from the firefly creatures like a candle on a black onyx table. Twice more she lashed out and it still clung to her but when she looked it full in the eye with her heat gaze it was instantly blinded and released her, shrieking as it fell down to its fellow creatures far below. The whole episode had been too close a call for her. She needed a better way to deal with these insects en masse than her current ploy. She burned the wings of another crowd of flying bugs that tried to catch her unawares as she looked around the fleshy chamber for options. Speed and mobility were obviously crucial to her survival, no more fighting in tunnel entrance ways for her. She thought of spinning rapidly to recreate the full vortex but with these bigger and heavier creatures they would probably be able to ride it out relatively unscathed. Her heat vision and her freezing breath could only kill a few at a time, likewise her super strength. Ironically, it was the creatures own cries of ‘Deracon!Deracon!’ echoing around the chamber that gave her the answer. She emitted a tentative sonic note to gauge the reaction on the creatures below her. But again only a few seemed affected. She let out a much wider call, using the chamber walls to echo the noise around the host below her. Many more seemed stunned but recovered quickly to come at her again.
All the while she thought, she was swooping into them punching and kicking at the hard shells before her. Some flipped over onto their backs where they shrieked in distress until they were helped to right themselves by their companions. For others she felt the reassuring crunch as her fists broke through their armoured heads into the soft silica based flesh beneath. The echoes were too diverse she decided. She needed some way of focussing them.
She ripped a piece of the chitin armour from the back of one the creatures rearing up to grab her, then took a good look around the chamber, doing some last minute calculations. Then she set off like a rocket, slamming into the fleshy walls between the side tunnel entrances, the chitin shell brandished before her. As she hit her carefully chosen spot she spun at lightning speed with the shell for a few micro moments before she riccochetted off to the opposite wall where she did the same. She repeated the process all down the chamber, bouncing at ridiculous speed from side to side like a pinball . When she had finished there were some forty or fifty shallow indentations in the flesh of the creature ship, slightly curved, but each had been polished smooth with the piece of shell that she bore. She then returned to her original starting point.
She was still a little whoozy from when she had been grabbed from behind and then had opened her mouth to cry out, so again she ventured out for some air. This time, as she came back inside, the tunnel was suspiciously empty. She sensed that they were waiting to ambush her before she saw them with her x-ray vision, clustered on all sides around the mouth of access tunnel in the great chamber. She slowed up before the entrance to the hall, quickly scanned the surrounding passageways and then, her arms a blur, she scratched and dug her way through the living flesh to the next tunnel, but she didn’t stop there. She kept going, digging through to the next four tunnels before she finally sped into the main chamber. As she dug she could feel the huge creature ship shift slightly at the mild discomfort. Her arrival in the chamber caused consternation among the insect horde, which reeled and surged towards her. But she only had one destination and one goal. Ignoring them, she flew to the spot she need and then let out a piercing, shrill cry directly into the nearest indentation she had made. The sound hit the polished hollow, reverberating around and amplifying in intensity as the sonic waves then proceeded on to the next hollow and so on. All had been expertly aligned for this purpose, the noise rebounding off each and growing to fill the chamber as Supergirl changed the pitch of her cry, dropping into the ultrasonic range. That was when the insects became really agitated, as disorientated by the sounds they ran and scurried in frantic circles as those crawling on the walls and ceilings dropped to the floor stunned. The flying insects too whirled and dived in crazy patterns as the sound drove them into a frenzy before they too started to plummet to the base of the chamber.
Even as she sang her deadly note of discord she was still wary, using her heat vision on any creature that came too near, sometimes shifting her position out of necessity to avoid or beat down on a clumsy challenge but always returning to the same spot, the optimum location for her sound wave to do the most damage. She kept it up for long moments, the shrieking screams of distress were more deafening to her ears than the now near silent tone she was emitting herself. Those that were able retreated into the tunnels but there was no escape for the majority of creatures below her. The frenzied movements of the seething mass became less and less as one by one they succumbed to the sonic vibration, their movements becoming slower as they slipped into a comatose state. Some curled up tight to defend against it but they were the minority.
As the creatures’ noise diminished as they gradually became still, she stopped her deadly song and cast an eye of grim satisfaction over the great hall. She knew many of the creatures had escaped into the tunnels but she was confident now that she could handle anything the survivors might throw at her. She hovered, looking over the mass of alien bodies, mostly still but here or there a twitching limb or a scurrying survivor was the only movement. She knew she had not killed most of them with sound but stunned them, and whilst she had no idea of how long it would last she was confident that she could simply repeat the process for as long as she needed to. There was the odd chattering cry of ‘Deracon!’ that echoed around the room from the die-hards and a subdued chatter from creatures hiding in the tunnels, but the huge hall was mostly silent. But gradually a low hum from the far end indicated that more creatures were heading for the chamber. ‘Well, let them come’ she thought to herself. A distant cluster of flying insects appeared, each one roughly the size of a football. They swarmed up the far end, well away from her. She decided to wait until they had closed with her before unleashing her sonic pulse. The creatures just kept coming. She was surprised by how many, as thousands now filled the far end of the hall and there were still more emerging every second. As they topped the ten thousand mark she started to become worried, and decided enough was enough. She began her stunning note again and as she did so they swarmed towards her. Huge swathes of the creatures plummeted to the floor of the chamber in shock, twitching as they fell. But they had advanced over halfway before she realised that they were covering the sonic amplifiers she had made in the wall deliberately, covering the depressions with their bodies behind the mass of the swarm. As she looked desperately around her surroundings, she could see that here or there nearby creatures had emerged from the walls in ones and twos and had nestled themselves into the hollows, digging in with their legs and holding on, such that even when stunned by her note they did not drop and so their bodies continued to deflect and disrupt her sound, lessening the effect on their companions.
‘Tricky little so-and so’s’ she thought to herself. ‘
Well, they may be intelligent but they were still going down’. She would just have to do it the hard way, through physical force. She kept up her note until they were three quarters down the length of the room. Some thirty thousand of the football sized creatures had now entered the hall, around a third had been disabled by her sonic blast around a third were covering the depressions in the walls and the rest were coming at her. There were still more entering all the time. With these much smaller creatures her heat vision was much more devastating, blinding and burning their wings with ease. As she flew into their midst she continued to emit her note, even as she burnt them with her gaze, but the swarm was so dense it was soaking up the sonic effect after a few feet. She zipped through the host at speed, her fists flailing a path back and forth through the multitude.
But as she flew she suddenly felt something slam into her ankle, and an instant later she was yanked to a stop violently as she realised that whatever had hit her was tethered.
“HUHHHHHHHHHUNNNGGGHH” she gasped in shock as she stopped suddenly, mid-flight, her golden hair and cape swirling about her. She looked down to see a thick blob of silvery sticky goo at her ankle which was tethered down to one of the creatures on the floor of the chamber. It was held fast by its companions as the silvery thread extended from its mouth. She realised it was like a chameleon’s tongue, a sticky means of pulling in prey. She tried to fly on, stretching the gooey thread trying to go beyond its breaking point, but it didn’t break and more and more of the creatures on the floor that were slowly recovering were helping to hold down their companion. She thought of how spider-silk was fifty times stronger than steel, comparatively. How much more strong was this horrendous stuff from these monsters? She was starting to feel frightened for her safety as she tried and failed to pull away. She directed a sonic pulse down, directly at the creatures below even as she still beat at those around her with her fists.
This had the desired effect and those holding the chameleon-tongued creature in place fell back, releasing it. But though Supergirl could now fly on, the creature retracted its tongue, but in doing so it wound itself into her, to cling to her leg. It was an insect the size of a large sheep and, as she tried to shake it off, it was unbudging. Her heat gaze seemed to kill it but it remained clamped to her ankle in death. Suddenly she felt another fist-like blow to her back and realised as the sensation of pressure against her cape grew that it was a second tongue attack by one of these strange new creatures. It hit her with a force that knocked the wind out of her momentarily, slowing her up mid-flight, and before she could react she felt another blow on her shoulder. She felt a growing sense of panic as, again before she could react, another sticky globule hit her and another and another. One hit her wrist, one her thigh , one the back of her head and before she knew it they were all pulling her down towards the floor and even the flying insects engulfed her as they forced her down towards the base of the chamber.
She fought with the frantic courage of desperation, beating off the insects from her upper body but yet more sticky blows struck her back and thighs. The flying ‘footballs’ were stabbing her with a series of barbed stingers arrayed across their abdomens but mercifully they could not penetrate her skin, though the blows were still painful.
Almost before she knew it, she had been reeled in, like a caught fish, down to the cavern floor. Once there she flailed desperately as the creatures swarmed all over her and one by one her powers were negated. Her arms and legs were clamped in vice like jaws, still able to move at first until three or four sets of mandibles held each limb, and other creatures helped hold down those that had her in their jaws. She was staked out almost, spread eagled as the last of her defences were overcome. As she opened her mouth to scream a stunning note at the creatures around and above her, a jet of sticky strands hit her jaw, spraying over her lips and forcefully closing her mouth. It tasted vile and disgusting, a gluey kind of mucus taste that made her grimace. She thrashed her head violently from side to side, trying in vain to shake herself free. But the connecting strand to the mucus-like globule seemed to gradually stiffen, holding her head in place. Her eyes grew wide in fear and desperation as she could feel the overpowering odours of the strange invisible gas fill her nostrils, slowing her reactions, dulling her senses. With a huge effort she turned her head to blast them away from her with her gaze, but even as she did so, a blob of sticky goo hit her full on the forehead, covering her eyes, plunging her into the terrible darkness, filled with the chattering hum of the creatures and their unceasing cry of
‘Deracon! DERACON!’
She was genuinely terrified now, as she realised there was nothing left that she could do to escape.
Finally she felt a steel-like mandible clamp around her throat and start to close with incredible force against the soft tender flesh of her neck. Beneath the goo covering her face, tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as she realised she was totally helpless. She never thought it would end like this for her.
They had her totally at their mercy.
“Come. We must leave” Jaeger gripped Em by the upper arm and pulled her roughly off the stool by the counter.
“I told her nothing!” Em cried fearfully.
“WHOA-WHOA-WHOA Good boy!!! Easy there with the lady!” Rob interjected hurriedly.
Jaeger sneered. “She isn’t a lady”.
“Oh shit, you’re not one of them ‘ladyboys’ are you? I knew it was too good to be true…” Rob said plaintively to Em.
“I am a woman but just used for breeding…” Em said, hanging her head.
“Oh, so you ain’t a fella then?” Rob said with obvious relief. “Well, in that case you don’t have to go with this bloke if you don’t want to…Get your hands off her, you.”
Jaeger froze and looked at him contemptuously. The two warriors with him moved a step nearer, menacingly. R.V. Jones gave a supportive growl for appearances sake and then rolled over and went back to sleep.
“Ah yes… you from the flat screen viewer yesterday. You are an imbecile” Jaeger said.
“Yeah, well…..you….got a big nose…” Rob said lamely back at him.
“I must go with him…” Em said with obvious reluctance.
“No, you don’t, love…you can stay here…” Rob found himself saying.
“They are my people, I must go with them…” she reiterated.
“Like a commune or something is it? Well, this is the land of the free and all that… you don’t have to go with them…” Rob said doggedly.
“I don’t?” Em said hopefully.
“YOU WILL NOT DISOBEY ME!” Jaeger hissed. “You will come back and face the wrath of the All-Father…”
“What?” said Rob. “Look, she ain’t your wife or daughter - you ain’t are you?” he asked her, as she shook her head. “Good. She don’t have to go with you and certainly not if you are just gonna drag her off like that.”
“You would dare stand against my will, against us?” Jaeger gestured with anger and amusement at the two warriors with him.
Rob swallowed hard. “I don’t want no trouble, I’m just saying she ain’t drunk or nothing, she can decide for herself. And you shouldn’t go pulling folk about like that.”
Suddenly three of the youths from earlier came into the shop. Rick was nowhere in sight but the short scruffy one seemed to lead the way. He seemed confident and somehow taller than before.
Much to Rob’s surprise they came and stood behind him, facing down Jaeger and the two burly warriors.
“Who the ‘ell are you then?” Rob asked, bewildered.
“Clint Eastwood” said the scruffy one.
“You mad twat.” Rob said.
“We can kill them easily, Jaeger.” The warrior Galen said quietly in Chengduish.
“NO! I WILL COME!” said Em quickly.
Just then a traffic cop entered, stopping in the doorway to remove his gloves slowly as he took in the scene, the sun reflecting off his polished motorcycle helmet. Then he pulled off his mirrored shades.
“We cannot attract the authorities…”Jaeger hissed to Galen. “Stay.” He said to Em. “You have betrayed us with lies to the Angel…” he said in Chengduish.
“I told her nothing!” Em responded fearfully.
“You lying bitch!” Jaeger hissed as he drew back his hand to strike her, only to find Rob held it.
“No fucking way, mate.” Rob said sternly as he held the raised hand fast. “I dunno what all that monkey chatter was but I don’t like it if it means you end up hitting her.”
Galen and the other Warrior stepped closer but the telepath waved them still with his other hand.
“Hey…what gives? Everything ok here?” Said the traffic cop.
“It matters not, now.” Jaeger said and turned back to Em. “Do not come back to the house. Rot out your days here, with this…fat fool” Jaeger turned to go, pushing passed the motorcycle cop.
He then barged passed the construction worker, cowboy, soldier and American Indian chief that stood outside, about to come in. Galen and the other warrior followed him silently.
“Phew! What was that all about? Ok if we collect donations for our college field trip?” The traffic cop asked as he took a bucket half full of loose change off the construction worker.
“Sure…” said Rob with relief. “As long as you sing at least one verse of ‘
YMCA’.”
Supergirl gradually recovered her composure. So this was it then. She had thought her end would come more spectacularly somehow…saving the world from some terrible explosion but sacrificing herself in the process. Certainly not like this… her life snuffed out away from the eyes of the world, with no one even knowing where she was, not even her cousin. And so no one even knowing that she was dead. She could hear them scuttling and screeching all around her, could feel dozens of points of contact between their legs, talons, mandibles and antennae and her own body. It gave her the creeps. She couldn’t move, see or utter a sound, beyond a muffled moan as the sticky, mucus globule covered her mouth. She felt giddy from the drug in the air that filled her nostrils now. She wondered how it would end.
Perhaps a brain drinking bug, like in
‘Starship Troopers’? Or would she be fed to some hideous larvae? Would she be…ugh…impregnated somehow? Or worse, would she be injected with an embryo, serving as a paralysed host whilst the growing grub devoured her slowly from within? She shuddered. She realised that she would soon be suffocated anyway with the mucus membrane that covered her mouth forcing her to breathe through her nose and the only air she could inhale was heavy with the pungent stink of the invisible odour. She hoped it would be quick at least.
To her relief, the globule over her mouth was retracted allowing her to gasp in air, all be it the foetid corruption-heavy air of the chamber. To her further surprise the same thing happened to the one sealing her eyes shut. She blinked in surprise in the dark chamber. A large headed creature, which looked a little like a moth, was leaning over her, emitting a slow, low pitched purring noise. It touched her face with a sharp talon, scratching her harshly and causing her to wince though it didn’t break the skin. There was a flurry of chatter and another waft of the strange smell, and then another creature appeared, this time stroking her face with a soft, hairy palp from the side of its smaller head. Its second, larger head was looking down at her above it. The first creature continued to make the purring noise, which under the effect of the drug she found reassuring. She realised suddenly that that was what they were trying to do, to placate her, to ease her fears, to soothe her. ‘
But why?’ she wondered. She became vaguely aware of a commotion down passed her feet and as she looked down the length of her prone body, using her Kryptonian vision to see in the dark, she noticed the creatures parting, allowing something to pass through the host.
She felt her body lowered almost to the floor, fighting a rising sense of panic at the thought of the unknown. She felt it then, something heavy seemed to attach itself to her boot. The fireflies returned, hovering over her and bathing everything in an eerie orange and green glow but at least allowing her to switch to her normal vision.
She looked down the length of her body and saw it then, a large scorpion-like creature, roughly half the size of a domestic cat. It was large by conventional Earth standards that is, though next to the giant insects in this chamber it was tiny. Its head was a mass of antennae and it had four crab-like claws, two small, two large. Its ten legs were segmented and moved cautiously, though now it crouched. It had not one, but three scorpion tails each larger than the rest, nested one within the other upon its back. It sat there, a dark mass over her left foot staring back at her with compound eyes. After what seemed an age, it started to move, hesitantly at first, its antennae tapping tentatively out a path for it to follow up Kara’s boot. It formed a regular pattern, tapping twice to left and right, tapping once in front, taking a step forward then tapping once again in front before repeating the whole cycle. Slowly it inched up her boot, her leg held fast by three sets of mandibles. It stepped delicately over the first , at her ankle, then moved on to the top of her boot.
As it reached the edge at the top of the red leather boot it stopped, delivering the first gentle tap to her flesh. It made her skin crawl. It then edged on over the second pair of mandibles locked around her leg just below her knee. The scorpion-thing stopped when it reached her knee, its antennae going into overdrive as it tapped lightly on her flesh in all directions. She closed her eyes tight shut, the sensation of impotence was maddening to her. She toyed with the idea of burning it off but she knew that would mean death for her, and at the moment all it had done was to tap her leg. But, almost as if they could read her mind, the creature that held her throat twisted its grip, the upper mandible pushing under her jaw, angling her head forcibly back, baring her throat and forcing her gaze up, up and away* from the creature crawling up her body.
She felt it moving over her knee and lower thigh, then over the third set of mandibles that held her leg across her upper thigh. She felt the delicate tap of its antennae and one of its ten legs slip beneath the ruffled hem of her red skirt. For a brief, terrible moment she thought it was going to crawl up there, between her thighs to her womanhood, but mercifully it retracted its segmented leg and instead placed it atop of the fabric of her skirt. The other legs followed suit, tapping delicately over her smooth bronzed thighs then onto the fabric of her skirt and then on until they had carried the creature to her hip. There it squatted, its full weight pressed down against her body. It stayed for a long moment and she realised as she felt its heart beat against her clothing and her flesh beneath, that it seemed to be syncopating itself with her own body’s beating pulse. The rhythm of its heart beat matched her own and only then did it continue. Patting out its tiny drum beat as it advanced up her body, over the flattened tautness of her abdomen and stomach. Her breathing was becoming faster with each passing second as the uncertainty in her grew, the fact that the creature was now out of sight from her tilted head just making things worse as her mind thought of all the terrible options it had. Would it plunge those terrible stingers deep into her proud heart? Was it destined to slit her bared throat with the razor sharp edge of those claws? Would it enter her mouth, perhaps to lay eggs or would the stingers be used to blind her? All of these awful dangers ran through her mind as the scorpion creature moved between her breasts, squatting again on the ‘S’ that was emblazoned over her chest, adjusting its position until the underside of its belly rested directly over her heart. The syncopation was even more obvious now, and when it was content it moved on, scuttling over to her collarbone, settling down on her chest. The antennae now played constantly before it, drumming lightly on her bare skin, tap – tap – tapping until it seemed to find what it wanted, then it slid its whole body forward an inch or so. As it sat over the little hollow where her neck met her torso it brought its claws into play, pinching the skin with the larger pair in two places whilst the smaller ones splayed the skin apart between them, smoothing the stretched skin out. She felt rather than saw something detach itself from the creature, landing on her neck with a disgustingly wet
‘schloop’ noise. She could feel from its contact with her skin that it was sinuous and approximately two inches long, of variable thickness. It seemed to secrete a slime trail of mucus like a slug as it started to edge its way up her body slowly following the curve of her neck around to the left side of her face.
“NNNNNGRRRRRRUUUHHHH!!!!” she growled in frustration at her own impotence as she realised with horror just where this creature was heading. She strained her limbs against the clamped jaws but to no effect. Sure enough, she felt it edge ever closer to its destination but knew she could do nothing to stop it. She rolled her eyes to the side where she could see a reflection of the firefly light illuminating her body in the black eyes of one of the creatures holding her down. She used her enhanced vision to zoom in on the tiny scene in that black reflection, seeing the little satellite creature heading slowly but surely towards her left ear. There seemed to be a thin strand, almost like an umbilical cord connecting it to the scorpion. She felt the sickening sensation as it slipped over the cusp of her ear and into its depths, her teeth gritted in a suppressed scream as she felt it slither into her, slipping slowly over the soft tiny hairs inside her ear, sticking them flat with its mucoidal trail, then massing up against her inner ear and the tympanic membrane. Held fast by the jaws at her throat, there was nothing she could do.
“MMMMnnnngggghhhuuuugggghhh!” she whined tearfully through clenched teeth at the disgusting sensation. When the slug creature was in place the scorpion seemed to come to life again rearing up and holding position for a second before stabbing down with the first of its tail spines. She felt the painful stab as it struck her – but it did not penetrate her skin. It tried again and again, provoking excited clicks and chattering from the surrounding host apart from the moth like creature whish still emitted the soothing purr. It wasn’t soothing her anymore, nor were the gentle strokes to her head and cheek. The scorpion creature squatted again before it then reared up, patted about her neck, then seemed to find a specific patch of her throat and this time squirted something on it. For an instant it felt cold but then it seemed to tingle and burn and she realised with horror that it had sprayed acid of some kind on her neck. She started to thrash violently, forcing more creatures to grip her body and pin her down.
“NO! NOOOOO!” she screamed before the mandible clamped around the back of her neck and just below her chin tightened painfully, stifling her cry. In the new grip she was finally able to dip her head slightly to catch a glimpse of the scorpion, but the view was both awkward and painful. She found she could see more in the reflected eyes of her captors. She switched her gaze back to the reflected image in those soulless eyes.
She saw the scorpion use its small claws to stretch the skin taut, then it stabbed down painfully with its second stinger. This pushed her skin inwards almost to breaking point but it held. The creature tried twice more and failed. Finally it reared up and squirted more of the painful acid on her throat. She could feel it burning her skin and tenderising it but it was not potent enough to eat its way through. But again the creature splayed the softened, now puckered skin taut before it reared up to its full height, its largest tail unfurled fully, quivering and then it plunged it down into Kara’s neck.
“AAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGLLLLLLLHHHHHHH-- !!!!“ she let out a strangled scream before it was silenced.
This time the stinging spike pierced her skin and to her horror and revulsion she felt its tip enter her throat like a steel needle.
(*Sorry chaps couldn’t resist that one! 
)How strange are the ways of the gods ...........and how cruel.
I am here to help one and all enjoy this site, so if you have any questions or feel you are being trolled please contact me (Hit the 'CONTACT' little speech bubble below my Avatar).
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, though I didn't really intend things that way its just how its worked out. To new readers, you don't need to have read my other two stories first to follow this one, they are independent of each other
Lol ) but as I say its just a light hearted token of thanks. The prominence or otherwise of your user names in the story bares no reflection on anything else other than the ease or awkwardness that I could fit you in. Like I say just thought it would be a bit of fun for you guys to try and spot each other. Some are obvious, some are phonetic, and some have bigger roles to play than others, but I hope you all are not disappointed by whatever role (or mention) I have given you.(apart from SGZ6 but hey, sorry man) I mean no offence to anyone, so if you are upset or dislike me using your usernames in this way, please pm me and I will remove them. Its not my intention to upset or anger anybody. (but given the title and our story starts with the annihilation of humanity, its probably fairly obvious most of you will meet a sticky end!). Any attributes I ascribe are to the characters in the story and bare no relation to the users even though they may be named after them, as I have never met any of you. So some may be female and the user is a man etc I have no way of telling, by and large. Some are bigger challenges than others (Literary Gary?!!!!) AND jsut when I thought I had them all pegged, 'SamtheWise2' goes and adds a comment 
. Oh well, I wanted a challenge, and now I have one!
