War For The World

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Joan could see Alex on the other side of the pole. He was moving fast, determined eyes set on the pole as he clawed his way towards it. Her heart started beating fast as she felt time physically ticking away. She might not make it.

The claw had found its victim. An old man lost somewhere near the top of the net had been caught in its vice like grip. The C shape beam tightened around his neck, constricting his airflow enough that he quickly began struggling to breathe.

A large whine could be heard from above them as a large trap door opened up. Joan didn't give herself time just then to look up and into it, she was too busy focusing on reaching the old man. She had however heard the stories from when they were planning.

In a stroke of luck, Alex had bumped into survivors passing through Mittleberg on the second day of their planning stage. They too had lost people to the large red tripod, sending them on a similar vendetta. They'd followed the trails for quite some time, almost giving up entirely. However according to them they'd finally found the tripod after days of searching.

Joan remembered how eager she had been, lapping up each sentence of their story like it was water in the Sahara.

They'd found the tripod; however, they'd been too late to save their friend. What they bore witness to instead was the same large claw coming down every half hour. They'd described the horror in great detail. The screams, the crying and the gurgling from the people it grabbed and took back with into the hull of the machine. Their words had been of a great black trapdoor. Dark red ambient light spilling out from it and the tiniest sight of gears and wiring within. Joan assumed that to be what she'd witness were she to look up.

Instead her eyes were set still on the old man who had now begun to ascend rapidly out from within the pile.

She saw Alex grab hold as the man continued to rise. Alex's whole body connected with the man in a bear hug as he held onto the man's waist for dear life. The pole faltered just a fraction before continuing at a slightly slower speed.

Her window was rapidly decreasing. Alex and the man were now hoisted well and truly in the air. She could see the old man struggling to breath as the claw carried him by his neck. She could see from below the blood vessels growing around his throat and the veins bulging on his head. With her added weight, he would almost certainly pop.

Alex seemed to have noticed this. He shimmied upwards, moving his weight from the man to the claw. He seemed to have now found hand holds in the claw mechanism and had safely transitioned from choking the man to grabbing hold of the Martian pole. It all looked so difficult.

And yet she carried on, reaching the centre as her heart continued to beat and her mind went into over drive. She leapt upwards, using the people beneath her as a jumping off point. Their cries of pain and anguish as her feet pushed back against them were diminished to Joan by the added pressure of their mission. Her arms shot out wildly and in every direction, trying to get a good grip on something. She was certain this was the end. She had failed.

And then her hands were connecting with the old man's feet and she was suddenly being pulled up with them both. She heard a horrific gurgle above that must've been the man as she held on with all her strength.

She looked down, seeing herself rapidly ascend as the net became further and further away. The watchful eyes of the people below staring up at them. Were they confused? Or laughing.

Her entire arms were screaming out in pain as she gripped tightly to the old man's legs. He began to kick and squirm something fierce as blood began to trickle down onto Joan from his mouth.

She persevered however. Locking her arms in tightly around his feet; grubby old shoes with the soles missing, she managed to stay in place as the three ascended quicker now up and out of sight into the dark shadows of the inner tripod.