Jesse said, “You think we’ll make it through the water?”
“We made it yesterday,” Colleen said.
“It wasn’t as deep then.” He scanned the wide, brown pool of standing water. Like an ancient tarn, it seemed to stretch on forever.
“What choice do we have?” Emma asked, climbing into the front seat next to Colleen. “They’re coming.”
“We could try that,” Austin said and pointed toward the edge of the lane, which rose at a forty-five degree angle. The strip of grass was perhaps wide enough for the Buick, but they’d have to take a chance on not tipping over. Examining the shoulder, Jesse was reminded of the times he’d seen men tackle steep hills on riding mowers, their whole bodies leaning to the uphill side to prevent them from toppling. Except those were lawn tractors, and this was a Buick built like a Sherman tank. Yes, he thought, warming to Austin’s notion. The chances they’d flip the car were minimal.
What if you get stuck in the mud?
Jesse felt the skin at his temples draw taut.
What if the suspension gives out? What if the monsters leap out of the forest?
Good points all, he thought, but he couldn’t shake Austin’s description of the creature rising out of the water.
Like a goddamned sea monster.
“Let’s take the shoulder,” Jesse said.
Sitting half in, half out of the driver’s seat, Clevenger eyed him dourly. Then, a barely perceptible nod. The professor shut his door, and Austin jogged around the car.
Jesse climbed in. Ruth Cavanaugh still sat hunched on the floor behind Clevenger’s seat, reminding Jesse of a carry-on bag taking away foot room on a cramped flight.
He hiked his feet onto the seat and yanked the door shut, wondering why the biggest coward in their party got the best seat in the house. Look at him, Jesse thought. Sprawled across half the backseat. Greeley’s feet were actually crowding Jesse’s right hip. Impulsively, he reached down and shoved them away. Greeley looked stricken.
Turning in his seat, Clevenger swept them with his keen blue eyes. “You’re sure we want to do this?”
“Take the shoulder,” Colleen said.
Clevenger seemed to deflate. He reached for the gearshift, paused. “Is everybody inside?”
Austin had his hand on the top of the open back door, a distant look of horror on his tanned face.
Jesse shot a look into the forest, saw the creatures bearing down on them.
Greeley grabbed Clevenger’s shoulder, shook it. “He’s in,” Greeley shouted. “Now drive!”
Clevenger nodded, and the Buick began to roll. The back door ripped free of Austin’s grasp, and the boy whirled in shock.
“Wait!” Emma shouted. “He’s still outside!”
Clevenger threw a confused glance back at them, but Greeley lunged forward, blocking his view. He seized Clevenger’s face and twisted it toward the forest to their left, where one beast had already begun to descend the short hill to the shoulder. “Would you look, for chrissakes, they’re coming.”
Clevenger uttered a surprised groan and accelerated the Buick. Austin began running to catch up, his legs quickly blurring. Next to Jesse, Greeley thumped back in his seat—plenty of room now, with Emma and Colleen both in the front—and reached for the open door.
Jesse clasped Greeley’s forearm, jerked his chin at Austin. “We have to wait for him.”
Despite the Buick’s growing speed, Austin was gaining. With a dive, he got hold of the top of the swinging door, but the Buick bounced and tripped him up. Austin hung on, but the door was swaying now, the boy’s legs scissoring over the rugged terrain, his face drawn in terror.
“Help him,” Emma shouted.
Jesse scrambled over Greeley’s unmoving body to offer a hand to Austin, who looked like he wouldn’t hang on for much longer. At that moment, Austin uttered a hoarse cry.
The creature from the pool had followed them.
Its stiletto-thin legs kicking up sprays of water as it ran, it closed the distance between it and the Buick in mere seconds. Its intention was clear. The creature groped for Austin’s trailing legs.
Jesse thrust out a hand. “Here,” he said.
Austin threw a desperate look up at Jesse, reached out. Their fingers brushed together.
Then Greeley lashed out with a boot and kicked Austin between the eyes.
Austin dropped away, and in the surreal moments that followed, Jesse watched out the back window as the boy tumbled end over end at the edge of the lane, landed on his back, and before he could even bring up his hands for protection, the beast fell on him, its whirring talons rending his flesh.
“You bastard!” Colleen screamed.
“Should throw you to those fiends too,” Clevenger growled.
“It’s his own fault,” Greeley whined. “He should’ve gotten in.”
The professor’s gasp made them all turn.
A creature had stepped onto the shoulder ahead.
Clevenger made a weird gurgling sound, but he didn’t swerve. He seemed locked in place, a frail mannequin someone had stuck behind the wheel as a joke. They were almost upon the creature, which was tensing as if to leap forward and meet them halfway. Without a roof, Jesse thought, they’d be easy pickings.
Colleen jerked the wheel and they plowed into the water, the Buick’s front end disappearing under the murk and crashing into the bottom of the flooded lane. That’s it, Jesse thought as they bounced. We had a good run, we lasted longer than the others, but there’s no way the car—
Clevenger yanked the wheel to the left, and they sloshed forward in a lazy curve. The Buick spluttered, coughed, but kept chugging.
The creature, Jesse realized, had leaped at them, but finding them gone had sprung up and was loping along the shoulder after them. The water was too high; the beast was gaining rapidly. And more creatures were teeming down the lane behind them, their cadaverous frames barely slowed by the high water. To their left, six or seven creatures bounded out of the forest. Jesse threw a frightened glance at the speedometer, saw they were struggling to achieve twenty miles an hour.
Ahead, a pallid shape emerged from the water like a surfacing submarine.
Chapter Four
The creature started toward them.
“Up there,” Emma said and pointed to the shoulder to their right. It was narrower and steeper than the left shoulder, which was why they’d avoided it, but Clevenger obeyed and brought the Buick jouncing out of the pool.
“Ohhh shiiiit,” Greeley moaned as they tilted sickly. The Buick rumbled over roots, large rocks. Objects scraped the undercarriage with frightful shrieks. Jesse’s side of the car was downhill, his window actually slicing through the shallows, roaring with the surf and pinging each time the metal supports skimmed the water.
Greeley slid down into him. Jesse thrust an elbow into his ribs. Greeley cried out but was apparently too terrified to retaliate. The uphill side of the Buick snapped off an outcropping branch, crunched over a sapling. Jesse’s window shattered as the Buick dipped, and for one vertiginous moment he was sure the car would overturn, the damn thing bouncing along at nearly a sixty-degree angle.
“Oh no,” Clevenger cried. Through the maelstrom of noise and rain, Jesse saw the Buick race toward a squat stump. They hit it, him and Greeley flying forward and smashing the seatback, the jarring impact sending the big car sailing through the air. Jesse experienced a moment of soul-sucking weightlessness. Then the Buick crashed to the sodden earth, the driver’s side half in the shallows.
A creature pounced on the trunk.
The beast scrambled over the dented white metal to devour him, but the car rocked down, its back end whipsawing to the right. The creature on the trunk almost tumbled off. Its talons, however, saved it. The creature pierced the distressed metal lid, puncturing it as easily as tacks through paper.
“Jesse,” Emma said.
He turned and glimpsed the creature advancing over the trunk again.
“Where’s
the crowbar?” he shouted.
“Hold on,” Colleen called.
The creature swiped at his head. Jesse ducked and heard the claws furrow the damp cushion of the seatback. Foam flew around him. He scanned the back seat desperately to find a weapon.
Nothing.
The creature growled, its face looming closer. Jesse covered his head and did his best to burrow into the seat. He waited for the claws to slit his flesh, for the fanged maw to guzzle his lifeblood.
But nothing happened.
Emma and Colleen screamed. Jesse opened his eyes.
The creature was bridged over him, its feet on the trunk, its long fingers gripping the front headrests.
Jesse was afforded a view of the monster’s elongated phallus. It told the whole story.
The creature wanted the girls.
It reached down for Colleen or Emma; Jesse wasn’t in a position to see which one. Clevenger was doing his best, was swerving the Buick back and forth within the narrow strip of real estate he’d been dealt, but the beast barely trembled atop its perch. They were gaining speed, which might help them outpace the other creatures, but what of this one, the one whose mouth was opening in salacious need? A long stream of slaver dripped from its bottom lip and was swept by the wind into Jesse’s face. Arming the fluid off, he glanced over at Greeley, who looked green with horror. No help there.
Ruth, he noted, was semi-conscious, but appeared no more aware of her surroundings than a badly concussed athlete. The creature’s hand darted forward, and the girls’ screams spun higher. It lifted something off the seat.
Emma.
Oh Christ, he thought. No!
Its fingers were cinched in her hair. She gibbered and kicked, but it continued raising her higher. She’d clamped her hands over its pale fingers to keep her hair from ripping out at the roots. Colleen grabbed hold of one of Emma’s legs, but the Buick hit a pothole and she lost her grip.
Its prize dangling from one powerful hand, the creature straightened and brought Emma closer. Its green eyes crawled over her writhing body, and Jesse was sickened to see its phallus distend farther, the pinkish skin shiny and taut.
Jesse took a breath, cast about one last time for a weapon. The beast was pivoting, no doubt ready to leap into the forest and have its way with Emma.
Frantic, Jesse lowered his gaze to the floor.
There, by Greeley’s shoes, gleaming dully in the dreary day, he found a piece of the ruined roof, a sheared sickle of steel that just might—
Emma bellowed, and the creature prepared to jump.
Jesse lunged for the sickle, squeezed it, its jagged edge biting into the fleshy pads of his fingers.
Jesse stood in the back seat, grasped the creature’s erect penis, and began sawing with the steel shard.
The effect was immediate.
It dropped Emma onto Colleen and clutched at its wounded phallus, which was hemorrhaging black liquid. Jesse disengaged the sickle, lowered it, then pistoned it up with all his strength. It imbedded between the creature’s legs.
The howl that issued from the beast’s mouth was unlike any sound he’d ever heard. Klaxon-loud, its demonic outrage echoed through the trees, drew every eye—human and beast—in the forest.
Triumph caroming through Jesse’s chest, he jerked the steel piece downward. The creature’s scrotum ruptured and emptied black fluid all over the back seat. The testicles, white and round as baseballs, plopped out of its body and onto the Buick’s upholstery. Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse saw one testicle roll toward Greeley’s hand. Screeching, Greeley recoiled and bicycled his legs.
The creature howled again, and though the terror in Jesse’s mind escalated, a very clear image prevented him from backing down:
Tiara Girl, her dying body being defiled by the Big Nasty.
This creature was not the same one Jesse’d battled in the pine grove, but there was no doubt in his mind it would’ve done to Emma precisely what the Big Nasty had done to Tiara Girl. Or worse.
Despite the agony no doubt rippling through its gaunt body, the creature lowered its face to Jesse, its jaws hissing in menace.
Jesse lashed out again, this time with a quick sideswipe, and exulted as the serrated steel cleaved the sides of the creature’s mouth. Its eyes widening in furious disbelief, it pawed at the fluid bubbling from its lips. It swayed on its walking-stick legs. Then the creature tipped backward, too stunned to catch itself before it hit the trunk and tumbled off.
Jesse turned and saw that Colleen was staring at him in admiration. “That was some hardcore shit, Jesse,” she said
“Hang on,” Clevenger shouted. He guided the Buick into the pool, which was only a few inches deep now. Showers shot up in dirty brown fans on both sides of the car, but the ground was more level than before. Jesse glanced behind them and saw they were distancing themselves from the creatures, the big white car surging ahead.
“How far ahead is Red Elk’s place?” Clevenger asked Colleen.
“Not far,” she said. “A mile or so.”
The professor nodded. “Let’s hope he knows a way out of this circle of hell.”
Jesse put a hand over his heart to steady its trip-hammer thud. Leaning forward, he saw Emma’s chest heaving in relief and terror. Colleen had her arm around Emma’s trembling back. Linda Farmer was supine on the floor, her short body using up every inch of foot room on the passenger’s side. The park ranger was alive, but who knew for how long. Greeley had recovered, was watching Clevenger drive them away from the monsters. Ruth Cavanaugh was catatonic. She stared at nothing in particular and didn’t bother righting herself when they jostled over a bump in the lane.
Jesse glanced at his hands, which were covered in the black liquid that had spilled out of the creature’s abdomen. He started wiping them on the seat, then gave up when he realized how pointless it was.
The dull heat of fading adrenaline spreading through his body, Jesse watched the Buick near the edge of the pool, pass onto drier land, then continue down the lane toward Frank Red Elk’s house.
Chapter Five
Sam stood at the edge of the forest and glanced at his watch.
12:46.
The rain had let loose almost an hour ago. Charly was more than a little late. He felt like a chump out here without an umbrella, but he suspected if he knocked on the door, her asshole husband would answer.
He checked his watch again, knew something had come up.
Sam blew out disgusted breath. What the hell was he doing out here?
And to make matters worse, look who was rolling down the lane. Larry Robertson, his police cruiser traded for a Chevy pickup like Sam’s, only Robertson’s was black and Sam’s was blue. Robertson’s was also a year newer and likely didn’t carry a four-hundred-dollar-a-month payment.
Sam broke off watching the black pickup when another vehicle emerged from the thicket of woods that separated Indian Trails from the longer section of winding road. Small, red, sporty—that wasn’t the ride of a federal agent. Though the car was a good way off, he could discern the shape of the driver, the long hair, the curve of the neck.
Sam watched the slowing vehicles and toyed with the idea of heading out in the open. It would be tough coming up with a plausible story, but it would be a hell of a lot better than cowering behind this tree in the storm. The rain wasn’t cold, but he was growing uncomfortable just the same. He longed for nothing more than a dry change of clothes and a warm drink. Hot chocolate, maybe. Of course, he didn’t have any stuff to make hot chocolate, hadn’t needed any since Karen divorced him and got the kids.
A cloud seemed to rush over him. He cleared his throat and told himself it was the weather making his eyes bleary.
The sheriff stopped his truck, got out and waited for the sports car to pull into the drive too. When the red car disappeared from Sam’s view, the house obscuring it, Robertson went over, probably to talk to the driver.
Now’s your chance, he thought. The moment those two go inside,
you can hightail it out of here, get in your truck and head back to your five acres of loneliness. Maybe there’ll be a good skin flick on Showtime tonight. You can pretend one of the blondes is Charly. It’ll be seriously entertaining. Maybe even use your left hand so it’ll feel like someone else is doing it.
But something prevented him from breaking cover. If the driver of the sports car wasn’t a relative of Charly’s—and the glimpse he’d gotten of her as she pulled in made him seriously doubt there was any relation—who was she?
One of Eric Florence’s basketball players?
Two car doors thumping, muffled voices. Robertson and the girl talking. Another door closing, softer this time. The pair entering the house.
Sam stood beside the tree and gazed at the back deck. If someone came to the sliding glass doors, Sam would be easy to spot. If it was Charly, that was one thing. If it was the husband, well, he’d probably have to fight the man. Sam had let the guy pound on him the first time, but his charitable urges had just about run dry. Anyway, he got the feeling Charly wouldn’t mind if he gave her husband the ass-kicking he deserved.
The sliding door opened and a blue figure stepped out. Whoever it was, the whole body was draped in royal blue fabric, like someone had cut armholes out of a tarp. Sam was reminded of the way his kids used to put on his clothes and flap around the house.
The figure approached. Within the sagging shadows of the hood, he made out a pair of perfect pink lips, a heart-shaped chin.
Charly.
The blue poncho dragged the ground and sheathed her arms all the way to her fingertips. Her face peeked out of the drooping blue hood like a pink wildflower. She was irresistible.
Charly stopped and gestured down the length of her body. “Like my outfit?”
“Did that thing used to be a tent?”
“My dad’s,” she said. “He wore it fishing sometimes, but whenever it rained he made me wear it.”
“The blue brings out your eyes.”
Savage Species Page 13
