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‘There! There’s one in line’ suggested one of the troops.

‘No, it’s not
quite there yet’ suggested his sergeant.

‘REMEMBER! ALLOW TWO SECONDS FOR THE
GRAB TO DROP!’ shouted Jack from the front.

‘Now he tells me’ moaned the s
ergeant. ‘Forget that one, there’s another one dead in line, so get ready’ he ordered ‘almost there.’

There was a
pause as Jack could swear he could hear his own heartbeat he was now so tense.

‘
NOW
!’ suddenly shouted the sergeant as one of the other troops released the mechanism.

‘WE’VE
GOT HIM!’ screamed the other soldier.

‘
QUICK
! CLOSE THE GRAB!’ shouted Jack in panic.

‘ALREADY DO
NE’ the sergeant shouted back.

‘WE
LL HELP ME BRING HIM UP THEM!’ shouted another of the troops as they all ran to help him wind up the cable.

As the mechanical grab had enclosed around the cr
eature, its immense strength rocked the airship to and fro as it wriggled violently all around as it tried to escape!

Unfortunately, t
his intense movement had loosened some of the ship’s mooring ropes back over the sides again.

‘SHIT!’ screamed Jack ‘THE MOORING ROPES!
GRAB THE LONG HOOKS AND PULL THEM BACK UP,
QUICKLY
!’ Jack shouted as he struggled to turn the airship around as it began to roll all around.

Unfortunately
though, it was already too late.

Five creatures had seen their fellow captured by the grab and now they had hold of the mooring ropes and were already quickly pulling the craft downwards as they began to climb up them!

‘HELP ME CUT THE DAMN MOORING ROPES! BEFORE THEY PULL US ALL DOWN TO THE GROUND!’ screamed Jack as two of the troops ran to his aid as the sergeant kept hauling the captured creature up further underneath the ship.

Jack
now ran around quickly looking over the sides.

‘THERE’S ONE
HERE
, QUICK! I NEED A
KNIFE
!’ he shouted as one of the troops just neatly slid one along the floor straight to him.

‘Thanks!’ Jack uttered
gratefully.

He immediately cut the rope directly underneath where he was standing, sending one of the creatures hurtling down to the ground!

‘I’VE FOU
ND ONE HERE!’ screamed another of the soldiers as he too cut another mooring rope ‘THERE HE GOES!’ he smiled as he watched it fall to the ground.

‘I’VE JUST CUT ANOTHER ONE LOOS
E ROUND HERE’ shouted the second soldier.

‘I NEED SOMEONE TO TELL ME IF
I’VE HAULED THIS ONE UP HIGH ENOUGH!’ shouted the sergeant, who now continued hauling up the creature they had just captured.

Jack raced to quickly gaze down at it.

‘That’s
fine
!’ QUICK! GET TO THE BIKES!’ he then screamed loudly.

‘What about the ropes?’ the sergeant queried.

‘Forget them! If we don’t gain
enough speed and height soon we’ll just drop down in the middle of these creatures anyway!’ Jack told him urgently.

‘I’ll go back to steering
’ Jack added as he rushed off as the sergeant and one of his fellow servicemen ran to man the cycles again.

‘Soldier, y
ou keep an eye out for anymore of these bastards climbing up the ropes’ the sergeant then ordered the other soldier before he ran to the cycles just as fast as he could.

The rem
aining soldier commenced running all around, checking for further creatures still climbing up the airship’s loosened mooring ropes.

‘WHAT’S GOING ON B
ACK THERE, I STILL CAN’T GAIN ENOUGH HEIGHT?’ shouted Jack as he struggled with the airship’s controls as it moved around in the air like a small boat in a stormy sea.

‘CHRIST,
WE HAVE FIVE ON THEM STILL HANGING ON!’ the second soldier suddenly screamed out.

‘HOW F
AR UP THE ROPES ARE THEY?’ shouted Jack.

‘
ABOUT A THIRD OF THE WAY UP!’ the soldier yelled back.

‘
I’VE AN IDEA, BUT YOU’D BETTER ALL HOLD ON TIGHT!’ shouted Jack as he continued to turn the airship around as they headed back towards the large building again.

Jack then dippe
d the airship down just before they reached the large black building, having the effect of knocking the remaining creatures clean off of the ropes sending them crashing down to the ground!

‘HAS IT WORKED?’ shouted Jack as he began to climb the airship upwards again ‘ARE THEY ALL GONE?’

YEP
! YOU SURE AS HELL GOT RID OF ALL
THEM
!’ shouted the second soldier as they all began to cheer in celebration.

Only second
s later though, they heard the second soldier violently screaming instead as they all immediately dropped what they were doing to quickly rush to his aid!

By the time
they reached him though, it was already too late.

A creature had somehow got on board and had ripped out the soldier’s throat, sending his blood splattering all around the airship’s wooden decking.

Having now brutally killed him, the creature then jut angrily threw his lifeless body to the airship’s floor.

Jack h
ad reached the creature first, but now having got there he wasn’t quite sure what to do.

As he had left the airship on an upward climb, the dead soldier’s blood was now running along the deck and splattering up against his shoes.

‘SOME HELP NEEDED HERE!’ Jack
now shouted nervously as the creature began to slowly head towards him.

‘
But what do we do? We haven’t any guns?’ panicked the other soldier.

‘Grab anything and ge
t this damn thing overboard!’ uttered Jack as they ran up behind him.

‘Grab what? We threw everything out to make it lighter
didn’t we?’ questioned the remaining soldier.

‘
Grab a fire extinguisher or something’ Jack uttered in panic as the creature began to slobber away with its now blood filled jaws as it continued heading straight towards him.

‘Lead it back here
towards me, Jack’ ordered the sergeant calmly.

‘How
exactly do I do that for Christ’s sake, ask it for a dance or something?’ Jack replied with sweat now pouring from his brow.

‘
No, throw a stick for it’ the sergeant then joked.

‘Na, just a bit further, Jack’ now whispered the sergeant as Jack backed away until they were almost next to him.

Just then though, the creature suddenly spra
ng forwards instantly knocking Jack to the floor!

Jack now covered his head preparing to be devoured, but then he heard the sergeant’s voice ring out!

‘NOW SOLDIER
,
NOW
!’ and Jack looked up just in time to see the two men swing the boom arm of Stuart’s film camera around!

It had
the effect of catching the creature underneath its belly sending it swinging it out beyond the airship’s cabin!

‘
BRILLIANT
!’ uttered Jack, grateful to still be alive.

Unfortunately though, the hellish creature wasn’t about to go that easy.

It thrashed around and grabbed at them as it frantically tried to get back on board again.

‘GET UP, JACK! AND HELP
US!’ shouted the sergeant now as all three men then strained every sinew in their bodies to force the bolts holding the camera to the floor away!

The creature just snorted and snarled in a savagery none of
them had ever witnessed in their lives before, as it began to slowly make progress towards them.

‘ONE MO
RE GO WILL DO IT!’ shouted the sergeant ‘HEAVE DAMN IT!
HEAVE
!’ he screamed out.

The cameras moorings suddenly broke free as all three men pushed it
s workings through the window, with the creature still holding on to it!

‘OH SHIT! IT’S
STUCK
!’ shouted Jack as they now just looked at each other and then sprinted forwards.

‘PUSH!’ shouted the s
ergeant ‘PUSH FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!’ just as the creature’s claw began to get so close as to scratch and then cut his face on the cheek.

‘IT’S
GONE
!’ suddenly shouted the soldier as the camera fell from the airship’s cabin as it then plummeted to the ground along with creature still clinging onto it!

‘Jesus!
What the hell is that thing?’ shuddered the soldier as he immediately slumped down onto the floor as with a trembling and violently shaking hand he nervously tried to wipe his brow.

‘HELL! WE NEED TO GET TO A HIGHER ALTITUDE OR WE MIGHT NOW LOSE THE CREATURE WE’VE CAPTURED!’ suddenly realised Jack, as the soldier and his sergeant quickly nodded to him before they sprinted straight back the cycles again.

Jack immediately
ran to the controls and began climbing the airship steeply upwards, then after a while he ran to check the creature they had captured was still there.

‘Thank the Lord for
that
’ he uttered ‘we haven’t lost it!’

‘DAMN GOOD JOB, BE
CAUSE IF IT’S ALL RIGHT WITH YOU, PROFESSOR, I DON’T MUCH FANCY GOING BACK THERE AGAIN!’ shouted the sergeant as he kept furiously peddling away.

The soldiers were so keen to get the creatu
re back and so distance themselves from the remainder of his kind that they didn’t let up on their peddling, not even for a second.

In the end, they were both stripped down to their waists they were both sweating away so much.

Jack looked down to check his watch, then he re
alised that as it ran on a battery that no longer worked either.

‘Damn!’ he cursed ‘I need you Stuart’ he muttered away to himself ‘with your old fashioned family heirloom
‘wind up’ watch. Maybe there
is
something to be said for the old fashioned stuff’ he pondered.

Jack
was really worrying now as he had fully expected the engines to have come back on by now. He just slumped down over the controls as he gazed back at the two soldiers still peddling their hearts out.

C
learly having the creature dangling so near them was enough to prevent the airship’s engines from ever starting up again.

Jack
cursed away to himself as he soon began to realise ‘damn! Then the creatures
themselves
must be able to neutralise our electricity.’

Then he
ran for some matches to try an experiment. Then he took a deep breath as he struck one.

Nothing happened.

So he tried another and then another, but none of them would light.

He then ran to light up his electric torches, but they too wouldn’t work.

He was now
worried they might not get back before dark as it was clear they were now virtually carrying a mini ‘dead zone’ around with them wherever they went.

Back at Eugene
meanwhile, Jenny was beginning to get worried herself as she nervously looked down at her watch.

‘W
here are they, Dad?’ she asked, looking very agitated ‘they surely should have been back by now?’

Joan
meanwhile just looked to the skies as she just bit her lip, as she too looked very tense.

‘It’ll be dusk soon’ she observed ‘I hope it wasn’t my crane idea
that let them down, maybe it didn’t work properly?’ she queried.

‘It’ll be
fine
’ insisted Stuart.

Just then
, one of the soldiers came running over towards them.

‘THEY’VE BEEN SPOTTED!’ he shouted ‘AND THEY’VE CAPTURED SOMETHING IN THE GRAB!’ he added excitedly.

‘Se
e? I told you it would be all right’ smiled Stuart.

‘Thank
the Lord for
that
’ uttered Joan, now looking very relieved.

Around a mile still to go
, Jack could see the sun about to set. He just prayed they would get back to the deep enclosure Stuart had prepared for them, before it got too dark for them to even see it!

W
ith the creature on board, they would have no lights and so would not be able to see anything at all once it turned dark and this was now a very big problem.

Matters weren’t helped by the creature’s wriggling around
all the time, as it made the airship roll around in the air and slowed it down.

The creature itself though, had not slowed up one iota and still looked as fierce and threatening as ever!

In a rare lighter moment, Jack looked down to see a drunk sitting on a roof top as he took a swig from a bottle of whisky. The down and out had obviously found himself a hideout and was just settling down for the night.

Jack carefully steered th
e creature clear of his building, but the airship was still close enough for the old tramp to see it.

Th
e tramp initially held his bottle up to toast the airship as it sailed on by, but then he noticed the violently struggling and snarling creature as it just spat and wildly waved its claws at him and the old tramp just jumped back in shock!

‘
Holy Mother! I swear I’ll never touch another drop of this stuff again!’ he uttered before he promptly fainted.

Jack allowed himself a brief chuckle
, before returning his attention to the serious matter in hand once again.

Then he saw it.
Stuart’s trap, as soldiers were now running along the ground and frantically waving up towards him and pointing the way.