Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits Read Online Free PDF

workers
explained. “That’s when it got him.”
    “Die!”
Bobby said, “Unnhh! Unnhh!”
    “Stop,
Bobby!” she ordered.
    She
brought her face down to the grate and looked. Peter had both arms wrapped
around one of the uprights and was holding on for dear life. His right leg was
wrapped with dark tentacles. She traced the tentacles back to the globular body
a meter behind him. The creature had its other tentacles wrapped around another
upright and was trying to pull Peter loose. Each time the creature contracted
and pulled, Peter’s leg rose up from the tension.
    “What is
that?”
    “We don’t
know,” Mike said, “but it won’t let go.”
    “We’ll
see about that.”
    “Peter!”
she yelled. “Peter can you hear me?”
    “He won’t
answer. He’s drugged or something,” someone said.
    “Shit!
Give me that pipe,” she said to Bobby.
    She lifted
the rod up and slipped it through a space directly over the creature’s body and
guided it down until it rested right on it. She jabbed down at it and tested
the consistency.
    “Tough as
leather. Here. Everybody put your weight on this,” she said taking a high grip.
“Now, on three. Ready?   One, two, three!”
    In unison
they rammed the rod down. She could feel it pierce the creature’s skin, slide
through and into the ground underneath it. There was a single shriek-like
whistle.
    “Hold
this,” she said to Bobby. Bobby held on and gave it another sharp jab or two.
    She got
down and looked. The creature had let go of Peter’s leg and was flailing
aimlessly around the pipe jammed through its middle.
    “There.
Pull on that for a while!” she shouted, fury in her voice.
    She ran
to the edge of the dock, jumped down and started under it on her hands and
knees. Peter was still clamped to the support with both arms. His eyes were
closed as if he were asleep.
    “Peter,”
she said pulling at his arms. “Peter, it’s me. Let go. Let's get you out of
here. Peter?”
    He just
groaned and held tighter.
    “Goddammit
. . .”   she muttered, frustrated and
afraid.
    He wasn’t
about to let go. Some survival mechanism had taken over his entire system and
glued him in place.
    “Peter!”
she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Peter! It’s Joan! Let go! It’s all right!
It’s dead!”
    She
pulled at his arms, and then watched one eye slowly open and felt his grip on
the upright lessen a bit. A moment later, she was able to unwind his arms and
get him moving. Mike and another kid scrabbled under to help her, and they soon
had him sliding toward the edge of the dock and open air.
    “Uh,
Joan?” a kid named Larry said from above. “I think you’d better hurry up.”
    Joan
looked up through the grate and saw his eyes fixed on the jungle’s edge. She
turned and looked over her shoulder. It looked like a dark mass, like flowing
mud from a distance. She squinted to sharpen her focus and could make out the
individual shapes of the brethren of the thing under the dock moving on them from
the jungle.
    “Screw
this!” she cursed. “Move! Get him out of here!” She felt for the phone in her
shirt and found the spot that should have held it flat and empty.
    “Shit!
Tommy, go call security! Run! Go!”
    They
pushed and wrestled Peter up onto the dock. Joan picked him up and fast-stepped
toward the office. When she turned around to look, she saw the creatures
flowing up over the edge of the dock like a dark wave.
    “Hundreds
. . . hundreds . . .”   her voice cracked
in astonishment.
    They made
it to the office, clamored inside, closed the door and locked it. Tommy was
there with a phone in his hand. “They’re on the way,” he said.
    No sooner
had he put the phone down when Joan heard the first shots being fired. The
sound confused her.
    She put
Peter down on the floor and went to the window to look. She was expecting a few
of the security guards with their little pistols. What she saw was some kind of
special weapons squad, in dun-colored uniforms,