Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters Read Online Free Page B

over the rail.
    His internal workings ran down on shore later that night. I sat with him with my elbows on my knees. Every so often he got his breath back. A yellow tree boa angled forward from a branch but I waved it away. He called out to the boat. They called back.
    They built a cage. Bamboo.
    They rowed around in their smaller boat dumping powder all over their section of the lagoon. It paralyzed the fish, which floated to the surface. A few eyed me dazedly on the way up.
    While they worked, I waited under their larger boat. It seemed safer there.
    That night they lined the deck stem to stern under their lanterns, their rifles nosed out towards the darkness. I bobbed under the curve of the bow. Off in the distance, a giant tree fell, shearing its way through canyons of canopy, opening up new opportunities.
    “Do you suppose he remembers being chased, and intends to take revenge?” Kay asked.
    “I’ve got a hunch this creature remembers the past and more,” her favorite male answered. He watched his own arms whenever he moved so I named him Baby Sloth.
    I floated and listened while they tried to get under the rock of my primitive reasons. How sly was it possible I was? How instinctual? “Just what do you think we’re dealing with here, Doctor?” I heard Baby Sloth ask.
    I cleared my throat. I cleaned bone bits from my talons. Hours passed. I listened to the quiet crunch of beetle larvae chewing through the boat’s hull. One by one, the talkers above me ran out of words and announced they were going to sleep. There were dull, resonant sounds of them settling in below. I sank, my neck back, only my face above the dark water. For some reason I thought of scorpions, those brainless aggravations who went back as far as I did.
    Back up into the night air tiptoed Kay, with Baby Sloth. They whispered. The sound carried. “How much more time do you think you’ll need? ” I heard her tease. “From where I’m sitting, a lifetime,” I heard him answer. One more time, I hauled myself up the rope.
    I slipped and tumbled over the railing, sending the shock of my greeting across the deck. Kay shrieked. She was within arm’s reach. Baby Sloth swung, whonking me with his rifle butt. I knocked him overboard. Others came stumbling up from below. They ringed me as if everyone was ready to charge but no one harbored any unreasonable expectations.
    I grabbed Kay and tilted us over the rope and into the water.
    I surfaced to let her fill her lungs. There was splashing behind me. I dove and towed her through my secret underwater passageway. Particles of their powder were suspended in the water even at this depth and I could feel them befuddling me.
    In my hidden cavern, I rose from the water and lugged her around. “Kay!” Baby Sloth called, hoarse from held breath. I splotched along in the shallow water puddling the rocks. “Kay! ” he called again. I bellowed some response.
    I had no stamina. Everything was too much work. I laid her out on a shelf and then, once he knelt next to her, surfaced from a convenient nearby pool. I approached him woozily, planning mayhem. He bounced a head-sized rock off my face. He stabbed at my chest. I lifted him up and started working my talons into his ribs. Gunshots, from all those rifles, made little fire tunnels through my back and shoulders. The others had found the land entrance to my lair. A headache came on. I put him down.
    I turned from him. Kay gave another shriek, for someone’s benefit. They all fired again. I staggered past them to the land entrance and out into the warmer air. “That’s enough,” I heard Baby Sloth tell the others. “Let him go.”
    Lianas patted and dabbed at my face. Day or night? I couldn’t tell. I walked along bleeding and gaping. The path was greasy with mud. My feet were scuffling buckets filling with stones. I hallucinated friends. I could hear them all cautiously following. I headed for the lagoon.
    What was less saddening, finally, than a