Crawlers

11:57pm

RAAAAASP. The sound of my body reverberated up the tunnel. The snort and wheeze of my breath had become a catarrhal gasping as I heaved myself after my prey. I am not accustomed to moving at speed. Nor to doing things for myself. 

'You mean nothing to me, Jasmine,' I lied, through Lauren's mouth. 'Soon I will have this whole world from which to choose a companion. But I promise you, when my hand is upon you again, you will love me - for the rest of your short but painful little life!' 

I stopped, breathing hard. At the top of the tunnel, just inside the entrance, stood a figure. 

'Jasmine?' I asked, straining Lauren's eyes. 'Is that you?' 

The figure didn't move. 

'So... you came back,' I said. 'Changed your mind, have you?' I shaped Lauren's mouth into sneer. 'What if it's too late, Jasmine? What if I'm not interested in you any more? What's a last-minute change of heart going to be worth then? Hmmm?' 

The figure at the top of the tunnel didn't answer. 

My own vocal organs were good for one thing: I laughed, making Lauren laugh with me - the human girl's cackling treble a counterpoint to the boom of my bass. 

'I am jesting with you, Jasmine,' I said. 'Of course you can still be my companion.' I held out Lauren's arms. 'I forgive you. Come to me.' 

The figure started running down the tunnel. 

There was something odd about the way Jasmine was moving: her right hand was level with her hip, and her left arm was across her body. As I watched through Lauren's eyes Jasmine was joined by three more figures following along behind her: they too held their hands to one side, as if they were all... carrying something. 

'Jasmine?' I asked uncertainly. 'What are you doing?'

...

'Aaaaaaaah!' Jasmine, Ben, Robert and Josh screamed at the top of their voices as they reached the target of their charge. 

Then, like a harpoon, the tip of the three-metre-long scaffolding pole plunged past Lauren, straight into the Queen. 

The pole was hollow. The circular edge of rusty steel at its tip wasn't particularly sharp, but with the weight of the pole itself plus that of four young people running down a slope with it, it was sharp enough. With a horrible, wet, puncturing sound it stabbed the Queen, driving almost a full two metres into her soft body. 

'YEEEEEEEEEE!' A terrible, rending shriek pierced the air. The Queen bucked and thrashed. Instantly Ben and everyone else were knocked off balance, flung to the ground by the movement of the pole. 

Ben stared upward in awe at what they had done. 

Their spear had penetrated the Queen's tongue at its thickest point, where it jutted out of her mouth. Now the dirty-white meat of the tongue was stained by a runnel of greenish-grey ichor. This rapidly swelled to a stream as the tongue lashed from side to side, opening and spreading the wound. 

The Queen's blood, if that's what it was, was welling up inside the hollow pole: it poured out of the end like a tap at first, but the pressure seemed to be increasing. Soon the foul-smelling fluid was jetting out with the force of a fire hose, spattering great swathes of thick gunge across the tunnel walls and ceiling while Lauren, still shrieking, was flung back and forth in the air. 

Ben numbly wiped the goop from his eyes and just lay there, aghast. 

After what seemed like an age, the shriek died down; the Queen's movements became less frantic. Lauren's side-to-side movements gradually slowed and the tongue dipped, losing strength, lowering its burden to the sloping tunnel floor. The torrent from the pole slowed to a trickle.