Free Crime Plus Music by Jim Fusilli Page B

the notes that died screaming. More of them filled the tunnel. The soul shaker went prone and started belly crawling forward. Gibson imitated him, using his arms to propel himself forward. He was glad he’d been diligent in his workouts.
    â€œWe got to get to the source,” Shaderoc said over the cacophony.
    Apparently they were heading toward the origination point of the attacking notes. They began to travel down an incline and soon found themselves sliding through dirt and loose rocks into another chamber.
    â€œShit,” Gibson swore as they came to a halt.
    Before them was a giant pulsing entity, sort of like a gigantic cocoon or hive from which knobby, exoskeleton-like shell material protruded. There were also thousands of undulating feelers wiggling from the mass. The hive construct was lit from within and the demon notes squirted into life from the ends of the feelers. A rhythmic drone beat pounded at their bodies as well. Shaderoc crawled over to Gibson.
    â€œWe got one chance,” he said. “I’m going to rip open a seam in that mutha and in that moment she’ll be vulnerable.
    â€œShaderoc, I—”
    â€œNo, this is how it must be. I told you, only you can bring it home.”
    Before he could object again, the big man was up and seeking handholds invisible to normal men, scaling the rock wall. Hundreds, thousands of notes swirled about him. He unlimbered his rifle strapped across his back and blasted the notes to hell. Others he wrung their stems in his bare hands. But they were overwhelming him, their racket and jagged teeth opening countless wounds and gashes on his mighty body. His clothing was ripped to shreds and his rifle had been torn away from his hands. But Shaderoc kept on.
    Then in position, he looked over his shoulder at Gibson and winked. The notes battering him, he unsheathed his sword, but it wasn’t a saber. It was the fabled pimp cane and was resplendent, made of dark burnished wood with a jeweled head in the image of a pitbull’s skull. He jumped from the small ledge he’d gained.
    The pimp cane was arched high over his head, held in both hands as he yelled “Die, nasty mothersucker, die.” Shaderoc came down at the Hive Mother, his body engulfed in her musical killer note children.
    But the beasts couldn’t halt Shaderoc’s momentum. Out blazed a laser blade from the end of the cane, crackling with cosmic gravitas. The white-hot beam opened a deep gash in the rutted hide. “Now, man, now,” he yelled as the notes engulfed him, stilling his words forever as he fell away.
    â€œShaderoc,” Gibson yelled. Getting upright, the fizz and pop like toxic carbonated water flooded his chest again. But he rallied and his fingers worked the strings feverishly, his thumb thumping a ferocious funk attack. His fingertips bled, sweat blinded his eyes. He sent his sound spears at the opening even as it healed itself shut. The wound closed, most of his sonic javelins bouncing away impotently. But hadn’t one or two gotten through? Hadn’t he been able to pull it off? Agonizing moments crawled by and Gibson could see no change as the notes zoomed around his body like a cyclone, those hungry teeth nipping at and sampling his flesh.
    But as he sunk down, as his consciousness left his torn body, even as he watched his arm ripped off and eaten, the hive burned brighter from within. Its pulsations increased and as if too much water was being streamed into a balloon, its sides stretched beyond tolerance and burst. In one collective earsplitting wail, the notes died. Some of their bodies slammed into each other, the cavern walls, or simply fell to the earth, writhing in their death agonies.
    One-armed, Gibson, his stub miraculously cauterized, crawled to Shaderoc. His form was getting soft, his hard distinct Kirby lines dissolving. In his outstretched hand with the squared-off fingers was a squarish block with miniature tubes and knobs all