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Hector froze.
If he made no sudden movements, the snake
would leave him alone. Except the creature kept coming, across his foot,
onto his boot. It couldn't be a snake. It had close to a hundred legs,
which it used to propel itself up Hector.
Hector yelped, dropped the ladder, and
batted at the giant centipede. Before he could get it off, it sank its
fangs through his trousers and into his skin.
He batted at it again, this time succeeding
in sending it flying. It crunched against a rock a few feet away. As
soon as it hit the ground, it turned around and came back at him.
Hector raced toward the front of the wagon,
but the leg the centipede had bitten gave out beneath him. He realized
with growing terror that the poison had paralyzed his right leg.
Gotta get out of here, Hector thought. Get
on the wagon and go.
He staggered, glanced behind him as the
centipede rushed after him.
A sharp pain pricked just below his left
knee. He turned to see a second centipede already on him. He flung it
off, but the poison spread through both of his legs. Too late to run.
He'd have to fight them.
He jerked a wrench from his apron and swung
it at the closest one. The creature made a sickening crunch beneath the
metal and slumped, dead.
The second centipede darted forward and
tried to bite his hand before he lifted it back up. Hector changed the
direction of his movement and caught the creature in the middle,
flinging it back several feet.
An awful smell filled the air from the dead
centipede, but it seemed to just drive the second one into a frenzy. It
scuttled forward, biting rocks, biting the ground, biting its fallen
friend.
Hector let out a breath. Perhaps it would be
content feasting on its smashed companion. Fighting against the
paralyzing poison, Hector forced himself to the side of the wagon, then
realized he'd left his ladder where he'd dropped it. Without the ladder
he'd never get the wire strung across the desert.
"Don't be stupid. You can make a new one,"
he told himself while watching the frenzied centipede writhe on top of
the dead one. "Just get on the wagon and go."
He caught the side of the wagon and tried to
draw himself up onto the seat. Almost faster than he could see them, two
more centipedes climbed up the wheel and onto his chest.
He screamed and tore them off.
A dozen more shadows moved on the ground,
racing at him.
Thistle's brays turned to deafening screams
as the whole clutch of centipedes converged on the donkey and Hector.
The creatures reached Hector and swarmed all
over his body, biting him, biting one another, biting themselves.
Stabbing pain prickled Hector's skin everywhere, then the poison numbed
him and he fell, unable to feel the creatures, unable to move to get
away.
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