The thing pulled itself from Loo's middle, spewing a fresh stench and emitting a high, furious whistle. Andrew casts about the crowd. The adults were no good - they covered their faces and whimpered, held one another or just onto themselves. One by one, they fell to their knees and prostrated themselves.
But the children were back with the pickle jars. Andrew grabbed one from a slack hand, and pulled off the top. When he turned back, the creature was crouched on hind legs that articulated in two places, like a horse's, while clawed hands scraped mucous and blood from a wide mouth that was lined with sharp teeth (and somehow, despite its orifices being blocked, it kept screaming). Its eyes were small and black, its skin bedsheet white, the only color being the tiny rivulets of Lou-Ellen's lifeblood shearing off its forehead. From buttocks to skull was a span of no more than eight or nine inches.
The jar was big - it would hold four or five quarts of liquid and the mouth was wide. It was only a little smaller than the one that held Maryanne Leonard, in her parts.
Andrew held it in the crook of his bad arm, and as he stared the little creature in the eye, and inched towards it, it dawned on him that a point had come and gone in which he had not only given poor retarded Lou-Ellen Tavish up for dead, but that he had ceased to care; because what he was really after was this...this thing that had killed her; this thing, whose cousin had jumped onto his chest, the afternoon he was nearly hanged outside Eliada, and maybe driven him a step nearer to madness.
The creature spat a gob of bloody phlegm in front of it, and reared back on its haunches. Andrew tried to reach for it but he could not. The God-damned arm hindered him. The thing was too quick, too quick...
Norma was quicker. She let go of poor Loo's shoulders, and lunged across the table. The creature made ready to leap, but Norma grabbed it, two hands around its narrow chest. As she did, it seemed as though a dozen mouths opened up along its side, and a terrible whistling rose up. But Norma did not let go, even as she slid down along the blood-slick edge of the table and grasped the twitching thing to her.
Lines of blood beading like a necklace rose up along her face where the creature had slashed. But she did not let go - just yanked her head back so the tendons stood out on her neck, keeping her eyes clear. Yet as Andrew watched, it seemed that she became Norma and Loo at once, his perception crossing time and memory and making a single thing.
Andrew shook his head as if that might dispel the madness. This was some narcotic that the creature spewed from its orifices and it made him and the others hallucinate. Was that what caused the families to fall into prayer as they had?
He stumbled around the table to where Norma struggled with the creature. It was face-down on the sandy ground with her half-pinning it. She looked up at him, her eyes wild, and as he got closer he saw that her knuckles were nearly as white as the creature as she struggled to crush it.
Andrew intervened. Setting the jar down on his side, himself on his knees, he grabbed hold of the thing and pushed its head through the mouth of the jar. It squealed, painting the glass with a shifting fog. Norma squeezed harder, and Andrew heard a clicking sound that he felt sure was a tiny rib cracking, and Andrew realized that if he meant to collect a live specimen - and he did - that Norma would be as much hindrance as a help.
She was trying to kill the thing.
Andrew took his good hand and twisted Norma's wrist. She cried out and let go, and Andrew was thus able to stuff the Juke into the jar. It scrabbled furiously as he found the lid and jammed it on top. The creature lurched back and forth, claws clicking against the glass.
Shaking, Andrew stood and faced the families. They were still prostrate, most of them, but they looked up at Andrew in a strange way. Andrew could not tell if they meant to tear him apart, or worship at his feet.
He drew a breath.
"You," said Andrew, motioning to one of the children. "Fetch me a nail. We will have to make holes in the lid, if this thing is to live."