Tapping his last reserves of strength, he pulled himself back onto the girder and crawled forward.
After a moment, he reached the metal steps leading up to the crane’s cabin. He pulled himself up and climbed inside. He quickly surveyed the controls and started up the machine. The buttons and labels were all in Chinese. Thankfully, he could read as well as speak most Asian languages.
He looked down and saw the gruesome creature swiping at the chopper. He knew that he would only get one shot at this, and the beast would need to be in just the right position.
With a pull of levers, the crane’s arm swung away from the creature. Then he lowered the steel I-beam and put just enough slack in the wire to line up his shot.
The new movement drew the monstrosity’s attention, and it swung toward him.
It was now or never.
Knight jerked the crane’s controls, and the arm twisted toward the beast. The giant girder, being heavier than the arm, stayed in place for a second longer, but then the wire went taught and pulled the I-beam toward the creature. The momentum and weight of the large, red girder carried it forward like a missile.
It slammed into the beast’s stomach and drove it back against the skeletal frame of the building. It roared in agony as the girder impaled it through the abdomen.
38.
A high-pitched wail emanated from deep in the creature’s throat, but it didn’t seem to have the same force behind it as its previous vocalizations. Knight suspected that the girder had pierced at least one of its lungs. The beast clawed at its own chest and fell to the ground.
Knight dived from the crane’s cabin as the monster’s formidable girth bent the metal supports and tore the crane free from the building. The remnants of the crane fell down on top of the creature. It clawed ineffectually at the girder and the debris of the crane. Knight wondered if the first creature’s tenacity had been a result of it being created from a soldier who was accustomed to fighting and enduring pain while this abomination had been birthed from the body of a lab rat who probably cried for mommy after receiving a paper cut.
He heard the beating of rotor blades and looked up to the see the chopper descending on his position. He knew the Sikorsky S-92 transport chopper to be a solid craft capable of holding their whole group with room to spare. Beck sat behind the controls. The door in the side of the chopper fell open, and Salvatori dropped a rope ladder.
Beck maneuvered the rope into position, and Knight reached out and grabbed hold. He felt like he hadn’t slept in days, his muscles burned with every movement, and he could barely breathe. Despite all this, he forced himself to climb. Within a few seconds, he reached the cabin, and Salvatori helped him inside. Beck turned to him from the pilot’s seat and gave him a wide grin.
But her expression quickly faded as the chopper lurched downward and she fought against the controls to keep them in the air.
He looked over the edge and saw the malformed face of the creature staring up at them. The girder was still lodged in its midsection, but it had somehow pulled itself up and grasped hold of the rope ladder. One good jerk of the ladder would tear them from the sky. He didn’t have time to think; he only had time to react.
“Salvatori!” he screamed over the rotor wash. “Grab my legs!”
He didn’t wait for the old man to respond. He simply slid the folding knife from his pocket, flicked the blade into place and flopped the top half of his body backward out of the open cabin.
He felt himself slide downward, but then Salvatori’s weight fell on his legs. Another example of his small stature saving his life. A larger man would have dragged the doctor right out of the cabin with them.
His left hand reached for the rope ladder while his right readied the knife. With a sawing motion, the blade sliced into the rope. He looked down to see the gaping maw of creature full of crooked fangs. It tugged the rope toward it with a hand over hand motion.
His blade fought against the rope, but the ladder was military grade and must have possessed a high tensile strength.
“Hurry! We have less than two minutes before this whole city is destroyed!” Salvatori called down from above.
Knight wondered if Salvatori felt that he needed just a little more pressure. He tried to ignore the old man, the countdown and the beast below and focused upon the rope.
With a final motion, the last stubborn strands peeled apart, and the chopper jerked upward, nearly causing him to tumble out.
But Salvatori held firm, and Knight pulled himself back into the cabin. Beck didn’t waste any time as she pushed the chopper away from the city at full speed. The children stared back at the empty buildings as if in shock. He opened his arms wide, and they leapt on top of him. He pulled them in tight against his body and covered their heads with his hands.