The sky grew dark and the rain was starting to fall. As Hurricane Rita made herself known I felt a sinking feeling in the bottom of my gut.
Doctor Kin in the cab of the truck that splashed along the soggy streets toward a questionable destination, following unspeakable submerged creatures, chanted along with the beckoning tones, possibly enraptured as Private Brown unquestionably was.
"Kin, Kin!" Zoe shouted at our driver while pounding on the roof of the cab. "He's going to take us straight to that chapel." She announced.
I agreed, but pointed out that we needed to follow Brown and get her out.
"I'm not convinced he'll let us get back out again."
While we followed Brown I spied several people slipping in the dark open maw of the chapel's undoored doorway. Brown sang at the top of her lungs, skipping oblivious. The two huge forms followed in twin wakes behind her, gaining on her as the rain fell harder.
"We need to go faster, get Brown," I said. Zoe pointed out that the fastest way to the chapel was in the bed of our very truck, as long as we were headed toward the chapel we would have no problems.
Just then lightning flashed across the sky, stretching and bending time, everything was out of proportion, distances wrong.
We were further away from the chapel, yet closer to Brown, then she stretched further away, sliding ahead without ever changing speed.
It all snapped back, tentacles reached from the water, grasping for Brown who headed pell- mel for chapel with nary a care.
"Go, now, faster!" I shouted. Kin was oblivious to me, but I got the impression that he was not only aware of Private Brown's plight, but that it held great interest to him, that it was of some import that she got to the cursed building. He slammed the gas pedal to the floor. Water sputtered and sprayed as the tires tried in vain to accelerate to match Kin's urgency. It threw Zoe and myself back onto the floor of the truck bed.
More tentacles reached up and over the sides of the truck, there must have been an uncountable number of the creatures. Kin sang at the top of his lungs, the notes from the chapel penetrated my chest and vibrated the truck. I could see ripples in the water from the sound waves. High, sharp notes pierced our ears and the sky. Lightning flashed revealing eye stalks mixed in with the grasping tentacles. We were moving too fast for them, were too heavy.
We barrelled ahead, Brown raced, arms and legs churning, pumping. The creatures could not get a grip, could not slow us down.
Suddenly I was sitting in my own hummer, straining to hear the music, but it was there faint and distant, but there. It's rhythm matching the rhythm of the music Kin sang in the truck that now carried me to the chapel. I shook my head to clear it.
"The time flux is getting worse," Zoe mouth spoke from beneath wild eyes. Chief Mac answered from her front seat, "What?"
I closed my eyes tightly, then reopened them, my mother was leaning over me singing, singing in a language I did not understand.
Then it snapped back, Doctor Kin singing along with the unmistakable music and chanting. The rhythm was the thread that wove through all the dreams, tying them together, keeping them all in sync. All of time oscillated on the carrier wave of that accursed tune.
When I focused on the song, letting the music fill my head I could feel myself being pulled along, down into the rhythms, the tones, the beat, the chords...
Until Doctor Zoe called to me, "Major!" She slapped me. That brought me back. The chant was the link, but it was doom as well.
One of the tentacles had a-hold of Zoe's leg, "Help me!"
I reached out and grabbed at it. The fur was thick and hard like frozen grass. I kept one hand on it and pulled my multitool out with the other. Zoe and I struggled against the pull of the hideous grasping creature until I could managed to get my Gerber out.
I couldn't get it open in time so I just used the hard metal to slam against the tentacle. The shock made it release. Zoe dove across the bed helped by the fact that the truck had hit a bump.
Zoe landed on me. I grabbed her and twisted to the side. We ran over other creatures and the truck came to a stop.
"He's gone!" Zoe shouted into my ear.
I turned and saw that the truck door was open and Kin was running the now few paces to the chapel. Brown had entered ahead of him.
"Follow, follow!" Zoe said, "The only place away from them is the chapel."
I could hardly think, hear or move. I was still being crushed and tugged by the music, like the current of a class 5 rapids dashing me against the rocks of my sanity.
"Get us in the chapel now!"
Going in the chapel, yes, I had to go in the chapel, Zoe and the chant agreed, and go I must.
Though she was not a small woman, in one confused and adrenaline driven effort I lifted myself and Zoe up out of the truck and landed on my feet in the water beside it.
"Get out of the water, get inside!" She shouted at me, I had no time or presence of mind to think why she needed me to carry her. She was Chief Mac, and my mother, it all swam around and around like a whirlpool being sucked into a sink hole. I could not think why so I carried her, on my hip as I ran the few steps into that chapel of horrors.
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