The pistol had landed on the cabin floor, out of reach. Troy lunged toward it. Grace lashed at him with her tongue, the appendage striking his arm.

Troy cried out. It was like being hit with a bullwhip. He staggered, lost his balance.

On hands and knees, he searched the floor for the weapon. Tears of pain obscured his vision, but he could see the black shape of the gun. It had clattered underneath a row of seats. He crawled after it.

By then, Grace had entered the cabin. As he reached for the pistol, she stepped on his hand, grinding her heel on his fingers. He howled.

She picked him up by the scruff of his neck as if she were a lioness plucking up a misbehaving cub.

And flung him toward the cabin’s open doors.

61

Screaming, Monica watched her mother toss Troy into the gray maw of the cable car’s yawning exit. Troy hurtled into the chasm, and Monica was overcome with such horror that she forced herself to look away.

“Look at me, child! I am your mother and you are mine.”

Grace loomed in front of her, hair blowing around her head in a dark nimbus. Her tongue slithered from between her lips.

As if waking from a dream, Monica remembered the small knife in her hand.

The tip of the appendage flicked toward Monica in a pinkish blur and snapped against Monica’s lips, and the sharp pain snatched a scream out of her. The instant her mouth went open, her mother’s feeding tube plunged inside. Monica felt the alien thing fill her mouth and quest down her esophagus, while her mother’s eyes shone with savage pleasure.

Monica sank to her knees.

As her mother’s tube filled her, it felt as if she were choking, unable to breathe. Darkness clawed at the edges of her vision.

Intuitively, she realized that once the sea of darkness overtook her she would never surface again. This was her mother’s final feeding, her last opportunity to siphon the remaining life out of Monica.

Monica clutched the knife.

Above her, Grace’s eyes shone with triumph.

Using what little strength she had left, Monica swiped at the appendage with the blade. The knife ripped a deep gash in the strange flesh. Blood spurted. Reflexively, Grace reeled the tentacle out of Monica’s mouth with such speed that it left Monica’s throat bleeding and raw.

Grace gagged. Hanging out of her mouth, the tongue flopped like a fish in a boat, leaking great gouts of blood.

Shrieking, Monica surged upward and shoved Grace toward the yawning doorway as hard as she could.

Grace tumbled backward, off balance. Her eyes flew wide with shock, and she pin-wheeled her arms to try to brace herself in the doorframe.