Carter opened his revolver and fed it with two more shells. Then he snapped it shut, 
cocked it, and stood ready like Gary Cooper facing the outlaws off of the noon train. All 
I could find myself was a sharp spear of broken stalactite, but I hefted it in my hand, 
and swung it around my head, and even if it didn't frighten the crab-creature, at least 
it gave me some sort of confidence. The creature all this time was wallowing closer and 
closer, its grey eyelids peeling on and off its glittering black eyes, and its pincers 
were snapping with greedy anticipation. We couldn't see all of its body, but it seemed to 
have grown half as large again as the Jimmy-creature that Carter had killed on the ridge. 
It was far more ugly, too, and the crevices of its shell were alive with black parasitic 
leeches. The stench of fish was nauseating.
    Carter said: 'I'm going to try for the eyes. I'd like you to crouch down on your 
hands and knees here, Mason, because I want to use your back to steady my aim.'
    'Okay, Carter,' I said, mechanically. I turned my hardhat around so that the peak was 
at the back, and knelt down on the rough, rocky ground. Carter hunkered down beside me, 
and lifted his -38.
    'Maybe if we can blind it, we'll stand more of a chance,' he said, in a tight, 
choked-up kind of a voice, His podgy elbows dug into my back as he took careful aim.
    'Don't be too long,' I told him, 'I'm getting the cramp down here.'
    'You want to have cramp or you want to be a crab's breakfast?' asked Carter. I felt 
his arm tendons tense, and he fired one shot. I felt as if the shot had gone off inside 
my head. I waited, without moving, and then Carter said: 'Missed, dammit.'
    He fired another shot. He muttered: 'Missed.' I could hear the crab-creature's claws 
scraping against the side of the rock balcony, and as it shook its hideous head, water 
sprayed across the ground to-where I was crouching. It wasn't more than fifteen feet away 
now, and once it had humped itself up over the balcony's edge, there was only one thing 
left for us to do, and that was to try to make it back to the tunnel.
    'Carter,' I said, trying to sound respectful, 'don't you think it's time we retired 
with dignity? That thing's getting awful close.'
    Carter grunted. He was concentrating on hitting one of the black eyes that wavered on 
a stalk from the creature's head. He let out a breath, steadied himself again, and fired. 
My ears were singing from all the shots, and I hardly heard the crab-creature's grating 
scream. But I heard Carter shout: 'Hit it! Hit the bastard!' and I looked up to see the 
crab standing uncertainly on the brink of the balcony, one of its black globular eyes 
shot into bloody rags.
    'Down!' snapped Carter. 'It's no use unless I hit 'em both!'
    He steadied himself on my back once more, and quickly fired off another shot. This 
time his confidence, and the crab-creature's confusion, paid him instant dividends. I 
turned my head in time to see the other eye blasted off the end of its stalk. Carter 
whooped, and said: 'Who said I couldn't hit a mountain at three feet? See that shooting? 
That's what I call shootingl'
    The crab-creature became hesitant, and its huge claw flailed noisily at the rocks and 
the stalactites as it tried to find its bearings. We had to step back as it half-mounted 
the balcony, and swung blindly around trying to find us. But without its eyes it was far 
too slow and cumbersome, and all we had to do was press ourselves back against the wall 
of the cavern and its pincer groped uselessly past us.
    After a few minutes of searching, the crab-creature shifted itself back to the lake, 
and it settled in the water just a few feet away, almost submerged. The ribbon-like 
leeches which had been feeding in the soft sores between the shields of its body now 
attached themselves to the bleeding stalks of its eyes, and in a few moments it appeared 
to have replacement eyes of wriggling black.
    'It's a hard life in the devil's auxiliary, ain't it?' said Carter, his mouth pursed 
in disgust.
    'It's pretty hard on our side, too,' I replied.
    We waited for almost twenty minutes. I smoked a cigarillo and Carter took a couple of 
nips from a small silver hip-flask.
    The crab-creature stayed where it was, floating with only the hump of its shell and 
its mutilated head above the surface of the water. Now and then, the ground shook with 
sinister vibrations, but there was no sign of Chulthe, the devil himself, and I wasn't 
going to try raising him again until Dan had come back with the anti-tank gun.
    At last we heard a clattering sound from the narrow entrance to the tunnel, and Dan's 
puffing and panting as he struggled back down. He came squeezing out from between the two 
rocks which rested at the tunnel's opening, and half-slid, half-stumbled down towwards 
us. He was bushed, and sweating like a penful of pigs.
    'What kept you? said Carter, taking the anti-tank gun and checking it over.
    Dan sat on the ground, gasping for breath. 'You're kidding, Carter. I went up that 
tunnel and came back down again so quick you would have thought I was buttered.'
    Carter handed him his hip-flask, and Dan took a full mouthful. He winced, and 
swallowed, and said: 'What the hell do you call this?'
    'Good old confiscated white lightning, that's what,' said Carter.
    Dan shuddered.
    While Carter loaded the anti-tank gun, I walked as near as I dared to the edge of the 
rock balcony and inspected the wounded crab-creature. It was floating in the water so 
idly that I wondered for a moment if it was dying. But when I took one more step closer, 
its huge claw began to rise out of the water towards me, and I knew that it was still 
keeping watch. I went back to Carter's side, just as he was finished preparing the gun, 
and I said: 'That thing's guarding us for some reason.'
    Carter nodded. 'That's what I've been thinking. And I've been wondering why.'
    'Maybe it's trying to deter us from reciting any more Christian prayers.'
    'I doubt it. More likely it's keeping us here until it can rustle up some 
reinforcements.'
    Dan pointed out: 'We don't actually know if there are any reinforcements. Only Jimmy 
and Alison Bodine were mutated for sure. We never had any specific reports on the Karlen 
guy. That thing there could be Alison, and it could be the only crab-creature left.'
    'That's possible,' nodded Carter. 'In .that case, maybe'it's stopping us from 
exploring this lake, and finding out what's really down here.'
    I nodded towards the anti-tank gun. 'Are you going to use that thing on it?'
    'I guess. A shot to the head should finish it.'
    I looked around for Shelley. With his usual disdain, he had retreated to a small 
niche and was sitting there with his eyes closed, ignoring us. 'If you're going to start 
blasting, then I think we'd better back off,' I suggested.- 'You never know how strong 
the roofs of these caves might be.'
    'Okay,' said Dan, and while Carter prepared himself for a final attack on the 
crab-creature, he and I retreated as far back as we could, and shielded our ears with our 
hands.
    With his flashlight wedged between the cavern wall and a stalactite, so that its beam 
lit up the head of the floating crab, Carter took aim at a distance of only twenty feet. 
The water glittered with reflected light, and Carter's heavy, portly figure was 
silhouetted against it. I heard him click the safety-catch off, and his shoulders hunched 
a little as he applied his eye to the sights.
    I suppose we should have guessed the crab-creature was far quicker and far more