by Greg Taylor
“Okay,” Strobe replied. “Ready or not, the twin I never knew I had is about to make his appearance.”
Sighting along his crossbow shaft, Toby watched as Strobe positioned the decoy in the middle of the front door entrance. The crude skeleton of wood, wire, and metal rebar scavenged from the house had been given the final touch of Strobe’s T-shirt.
That’s not gonna work! Toby thought when he saw the decoy. It looked so ridiculous, Toby practically laughed out loud. Especially when the decoy started to twitch back and forth, the result of Strobe manipulating the wire Annabel had tied to the frame.
As the decoy across the way continued its come-on dance, Toby now had more than just a giggle or two to try to stifle. He could feel the unmistakable, totally inappropriate rumblings of a laughing jag coming on!
“Toby?” Annabel whispered when she saw Toby’s shaking shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
Toby was dismayed to find that he couldn’t answer Annabel’s question. He was losing it! He was having a meltdown! That’s what this was, Toby realized. All of the death-defying escapades had finally gotten to him.
“Toby,” Annabel said, the concern apparent in her voice.
“He’s comin’!” Strobe warned from across the street.
That sobered Toby up like a shot. A slap to the face couldn’t have done a better job.
SLAM!!!
Startled by the sight of the creature’s monstrous ten-foot frame hitting the ground in front of Strobe’s yawning front door, Toby almost accidently set off his crossbow. Again. Quickly composing himself, he locked the creature in the sights of his powerful crossbow scope. The thing was standing statue-still, sizing up the decoy in the doorway.
“Take the bait,” Annabel whispered as she and Toby zeroed in on the all-important area at the back of the creature’s neck. The DDI.
The beast suddenly took a step toward the decoy. Toby and Annabel pressed their fingers delicately up against their crossbow triggers and waited for their shot.
“Almost there …” Annabel said.
And then—
Yes ! There it was! The DDI’s protective covering had lifted!
WHOOOOSH!!!
Toby blinked his eyes. What just happened? He looked over the top of his crossbow. The creature was gone! It was as though it had simply disappeared!
But when Toby looked up, there it was, flying off into the darkness. The thousand-pound beast was so powerful it had been able to take off like a rocket!
“Damn!” Strobe said over the duo’s headsets.
The trio was stunned at how quickly their grand plan had dissolved into failure. After a moment of frustrated silence, Strobe said, “We may have to go after those explosives after all, Tobe.”
CRASH!!!
Toby and Annabel jumped in surprise. They looked up at the ceiling. Something had landed on their roof!
“Strobe?” Annabel whispered into her headset.
“Yeah, he’s up there.”
Suddenly, a large, dark shape shot past overhead and dive-bombed directly toward Strobe’s hideout!
“Strobe!” Annabel called out.
The creature exploded through the front door, smashed the decoy, and splintered part of the frame as it disappeared inside the house. Toby was frozen at the sight. The thing had attacked! It was inside the house with Strobe!
Annabel leaped though the window frame and raced across the yard. When Toby tried to follow Annabel, his T-shirt caught on an exposed frame nail and jerked him back. He ripped loose and ran to catch up with his fleet-footed partner. Before he made it to the sidewalk, she had already disappeared into the house.
Hideous sounds echoed from inside the hollow structure. Roars from the creature. Glass shattering. Wood splintering.
Just as Toby was about to enter the house, Annabel and Strobe appeared from a side door, charged across the backyard, and took shelter inside a tunnel of concrete pipe. They had escaped the creature’s attack!
But the thing was more than ready to take the battle outside. With a concussively powerful roar, it flashed into view from behind the house and went after the line of pipe where Annabel and Strobe were hiding.
Toby dashed behind a trash bin and tried to get a bead on the creature with his crossbow. It wasn’t easy. The thing was a fast-moving target as it tossed aside sections of the heavy concrete pipe as though they were weightless.
Toby suddenly felt powerless. How on earth could he possibly help his friends with just a crossbow? The beast looked like a guttata Terminator as it demolished Strobe and Annabel’s flimsy shelter—bit by concrete bit.
Don’t think! Toby’s brain screamed. Shoot!!!
Toby took aim and squeezed the trigger. When the arrow struck the creature’s back shoulder, the thing stopped its rampage, flicked the annoying arrow out of its leathery skin, and looked in Toby’s direction with a ferocious frown.
Toby aimed and fired again.
AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!!
Toby was shocked to hear the creature roar out in pain. But then he saw what had happened. His second arrow had lodged in the beast’s eye! The injured Alpha let out another howl of rage, grabbed Toby’s arrow, and yanked it from its eye socket. Yellow blood—looking sickly white, pus-like in the monotone night—streamed down its face from the wound.
Toby recoiled from the disgusting sight. Then he froze. The creature had just focused its one good eye on Toby’s trash-bin hiding place. It knew where the second arrow had come from!
But this is just what Toby had wanted to do. Distract the creature from Strobe and Annabel. Now what? One word rocketed through Toby’s brain:
Retreat!
Flinging the crossbow strap over his shoulder, Toby turned and bolted across the street.
As soon as the creature saw Toby, it pushed off from the ground and flew after him with a powerful thrust of its wings.
Toby scampered through the house where he and Annabel had fired their arrows and bolted out the rear entrance. He had no idea where he was going. All he knew was that he had to outrun the Alpha. Somehow.
Huffing toward another house, Toby looked back over his shoulder. The creature was quickly gaining on him.
But something was wrong with it. It looked wobbly—slightly off balance—as it flew. Apparently Toby’s arrow had done some damage.
Advantage: Toby. That didn’t make him feel much better. Desperately hopscotching from one house to the next in an attempt to stay one step ahead of his pursuer, Toby’s mind raced faster than his legs.
Where to go? What to do? With no plan, Toby was just riffing. And running for his life.
Suddenly, a glimpse of water between the skeletal frame of a nearby house. Echo Lake. Toby changed course. He wasn’t sure why, but water seemed to be his salvation. He was halfway through another partially completed house when—
SLAM!!!
The creature hit the ground not ten yards from the house, blocking Toby’s exit out the rear door! Toby skidded to a stop. The stitches of his wound had come loose and blood was seeping through his cargo shorts. The beast sniffed hungrily when it caught the scent of Toby’s blood. It smashed through the door frame—a rude entrance into the house—and reached out a long, leathery hand to reel Toby in.
Toby dove away from the creature, rolled a few yards, leaped to his feet, and scrambled through a nearby doorway. The thing was right behind him. But it was too large to follow Toby through the narrow opening.
CRACK!!! CRACK!!! CRACK!!!
The powerful beast ripped the framing around the door to shreds and dove after its prey. Sharp talons cut deep grooves in the wooden floor as the creature pounded down the hallway. By the time it smashed into the room at the end of the corridor …
Toby was gone. He had crawled through a window and was racing for the lake.
Toby looked back to see the beast emerge from a gaping hole it had just created in the side of the house. Leaping over a pile of metal rebar poles, Toby ran as fast as his throbbing legs would
carry him toward a nearby pier that reached out into Echo Lake.
Behind him, the creature had gone airborne again. It flew only a few feet above the ground, its one cyclops eye locked on to Toby’s bobbing back.
This was it! It was going in for the kill!
Twenty yards … ten … five …
Pounding across the wooden planks of the pier, Toby had the bizarre, out-of-body thought that he would be waking up any time now. But of course he wouldn’t be. This was his nightmare come true. The sharp sting of pain from the Alpha’s talons would come any second now!
Toby made a snap decision to dive off the side of the pier instead of racing to the end where the water was deepest. He hit the black water with a loud splash and disappeared underwater just as the Alpha swooped down and grabbed for him. The creature instantly pulled up, hovered over the lake, and waited for its prey to reappear.
Beneath the lake’s surface, Toby was swimming as deep as his lungs would allow him to go. He couldn’t see an inch in front of his face. The water was shockingly cold. When he couldn’t hold his breath any longer, he pushed upward for a gulp of air. As soon as his head broke above the lake’s surface, the creature’s dark shape dropped toward him!
Toby took a quick breath and retreated back underwater. As he did, the beast’s reaching talons slashed him across the back. Toby winced at the pain, but he kept pushing for the lake’s floor. As much as that hurt, Toby knew it was nothing compared to what the creature would do to him the next time he went up for air. Or the time after that.
It was the Alpha guttata that had time on its side, after all. It could stay airborne for as long as it wanted. Toby’s energy was draining quickly, however. He simply couldn’t wait to go up for air much longer.
As he desperately held his breath, Toby’s oxygen-deprived brain began to urge him to give up the fight. It would be so simple. Just float to the surface and let the creature have at him. The longer Toby stayed underwater, the better that idea sounded.
But then, the adrenaline blast of a possibly lifesaving idea jolted the boy back into action.
The pier!
If Toby could make it under the pier, that just might save him. He could stay beneath the wooden structure—treading water and breathing all the air he needed—and the creature wouldn’t be able to get to him. Unless it started ripping up the planks, which Toby wouldn’t put past the insane beast.
But Toby was willing to take that chance. It was better than blindly going to the surface time after time.
So Toby swam in what he thought was the direction of the pier, hoping he could make it before having to go back to the surface for another gulp of air. Because he knew Alpha Man would be there. Waiting for him. Ready to take his revenge.
An eye for an eye, after all.
12
In his mad dash to stay one step in front of the creature, Toby hadn’t had time to think about Annabel and Strobe.
But they were thinking about Toby. After their close call inside the pipe, Annabel and Strobe had looked out to see the thing flying away from them. Then they had spotted Toby, limping from one house to the next.
That’s when they gave chase.
Annabel had led the way, her crossbow bouncing against her back as she ran. She and Strobe had watched as Toby leaped into the lake. Then the creature’s attempt to snatch him from the water when he resurfaced.
Now they were flattened against the side of a large recreational building near the entrance to the pier. In contrast to the houses surrounding it, this structure was complete. It was like a sparkling jewel for the high-end development, a showcase to whet the appetites of potential buyers.
One of these days the building would be the center of lighthearted activity. Bands playing. People dancing. A nice dinner, perhaps, overlooking the lake.
One of these days.
Annabel sighted along the shaft of her crossbow. Strobe stood next to her, weaponless, but ready to help in any way that he could. With a final aim at the creature, still hovering over the water and waiting for Toby’s reappearance, Annabel fired.
The arrow slammed into the beast’s skin, a sensitive area near the left wing. Whirling in midair, the Alpha instantly zeroed in on the recreational building, flew toward it, glided over the top, and landed with a thud on the other side.
No sign of Annabel and Strobe.
Creeeeeeeak.
The creature’s head swung in the direction of the building’s double French-door entrance, which had suddenly swung open. Annabel and Strobe had taken shelter inside! Two quick strides and the thing was at the door. With a savage roar, the creature went ballistic on the entrance. It ate it right up!
Chunks of wood went flying. Glass shattered. Within moments the beast had created a huge gap in the side of the building. It pushed its way inside to go after Annabel and Strobe.
Good thing they weren’t actually in there.
As soon as Annabel had fired her crossbow she tossed a sweaty armband through the open door of the building—a hopeful diversion—and ran with Strobe to hide behind a nearby construction trailer.
That’s where they were now, listening to the out-of-control creature crash through the interior of the building. Suddenly, a section of wall exploded and the beast reappeared, nostrils flaring as it angrily scanned the area for its prey.
“Wow,” Strobe said, completely awed at the Alpha’s over-the-top power.
“What do we do, Strobe?” Annabel asked. Her concern was constricting her throat, making her voice raspy. “Any idea how we can stop this thing?”
Strobe’s silence answered Annabel’s question. From the looks of it, they had run out of options. The creature was like a demonic battering ram, able to pulverize anything that got in its path. There didn’t appear to be any possible way to get rid of the thing. But there was one thing Strobe and Annabel hadn’t counted on.
Crazy Toby.
He had waited until his lungs felt like they were disintegrating inside his chest before he had returned to the water’s surface.
When he discovered that he hadn’t made it under the pier—it was a few feet away—Toby instantly panicked. He was certain the creature would get him this time, would snatch him up in its taloned feet!
But then Toby saw the thing demolishing the recreational building. He quickly put two and two together, figured his friends had followed him and tried to help in some way, and were now trapped inside the disintegrating shell of wood, metal, and glass.
As Toby treaded water and watched the creature disappear inside the building, a blinding flash of anger suddenly blazed inside him.
“HEY!” he heard himself yell. Swimming to shore and pulling himself from the water, Toby had the strange sensation that his limbs and voice were being controlled by something outside his body. “What the hell you think you’re doin’?!”
When the creature reappeared from the building, Toby picked up a rock, ran a few feet, and launched it. The rock found its mark, but bounced harmlessly off of the creature’s leg. Once again, however, Toby had gotten its attention. The beast turned to look at Toby as he strode in its direction.
Behind the trailer, Annabel and Strobe stared at Toby in shocked disbelief.
“What’s he doing?” Annabel asked.
“He’s snapped, man. He’s totally snapped.”
Actually, Strobe was pretty much on the mark with that observation. The stress, the craziness of the situation, his pain, his concern for his friends … it was all suddenly just too much for Toby. Any sense of logic, of self-preservation, of caution, had simply vanished from his head. The only thing left was a blinding anger and, really, a kind of temporary insanity.
“What right do you have to do this? HUH?!” Toby was now about twenty yards from the creature, which stared at him as he approached. The beast’s prey was always wildly panicked, totally blinded by fear. It could smell that fear on its victims. But the helpless human, yelling at the top of his lungs, gave off no scent of fear or panic. The Alph
a looked, if not confused, at least curious at the sight of Toby as he continued to walk in its direction.
“You pick on a defenseless girl like Chelsea Travers! Take away Mrs. Child’s only son! Go after my friends!! I won’t let this stand!! Got it? This is where it stops! You worthless, ugly-as-sin, unholy, good-for-nothing PIECE OF CRAP!!!”
Toby suddenly froze in his tracks. It was as though the air had been sucked right out of him. Then … looking like he was returning from some kind of hypnotic spell, Toby’s eyes slowly focused on the monster in front of him. His expression was one of total surprise. What had he just done?!!!
Instantly catching a whiff of Toby’s return jolt of fear, the creature opened its gargantuan mouth and screamed, the force of its roar literally causing Toby’s hair to ripple, as though blown by a sudden breeze!
Move, man! MOVE!!
That’s what Toby’s brain desperately urged him to do, but his legs wouldn’t budge. He felt like he was frozen in place. He didn’t think he could move if his life depended on it.
Hey, wait a second. It did!
But it was too late to run. The creature was already coming at Toby like a freight train. It was about to take his head clean off with a snip of its razor-sharp teeth, when—
Strobe dove out of the darkness and tackled his friend!
The beast’s jaws snapped shut where Toby had just stood, finding air instead of flesh.
Strobe jumped up, grabbed a rod of rebar lying nearby, and went at the creature, using the metal shaft like a spear.
The beast stepped back to avoid Strobe’s weapon. It parried with a slash of its talons. Strobe ducked and attacked again.
The furious back-and-forth battle lasted only a few seconds. The creature easily avoided one of Strobe’s lunges and retaliated with a vicious swipe of its long arm.
The force of the beast’s blow lifted Strobe from the ground and sent him flying. He hit the ground awkwardly, his right leg and arm bent beneath him. Strobe clutched his already bad arm and yelled out in pain.
“Strobe!”
Toby ran over and grabbed Strobe across the chest. He slowly pulled him away from the creature as it closed in on the two of them. He was trying to get back in the water. Under the pier.
