Worm: Plague 12.7

Fetch.  I ordered my bugs, as Mannequin lunged for me again.  I didn’t have a second thought to spare as far as telling them how.  For now, I needed to survive.

This time, his attack was frenzied.  If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was irritated.  I hopped back out of reach of the first swing, then quickly backed up as he followed that up with a series of rapid rotations of his upper body, momentarily becoming a blender-whir of whirling blades.

I was so busy trying not to get hit by the blades that I missed it when he tilted.  He balanced on one leg and kicked out wide with the other, letting the chain out so it could stretch the seven or eight feet to me.  I was knocked back onto the wood pile a second time, landing on the edge and falling to the ground a second later.

He stopped spinning and retracted his leg, apparently unfazed after the dizzying act of spinning like a top.  I saw my bugs tugging the baton, but Mannequin spotted them at the same time.  He stepped back and placed one foot on top of it.  With a kick, he sent it sliding across the floor, away from me.

Fuck.  I’d have to take the slightly less efficient route.  I grabbed a stout two-by-four as I stood.  It was old, dusty, damaged by years of exposure, and the screws that clustered in one end were rusted.

—Worm: Plague 12.7