Prophet of Bones (36 page)

Gavin gave Paul a questioning look. Paul shrugged. He couldn’t see anything.

Gavin called out, “Sorry to hear that. In that case, we accept your unconditional retreat.”

There was movement, then a muzzle flash from around the side of the bumper, and then
thwack!
Wood chips sprang from the table a couple of inches from Gavin’s head.

“You sonofabitch!”
came a shout from a different voice.

A heated conversation followed from the other side of the vans. It was unintelligible for the most part, though Paul was able to discern the word “prick” spoken loudly in a strained voice, then, “Calm the fuck down.”

A moment later, in a casual tone, the first voice spoke again: “My apologies for that errant shot. It seems my wounded comrade here didn’t particularly like the sarcastic tenor of your last statement and he chose to express himself through less than friendly means. And that is unfortunate, because the fact of the matter is that we’ve got instructions to bring you in alive.”

Paul met Gavin’s eyes again, another questioning look.

“So you see the predicament we’re in,” the voice continued. “If we kill you, well, that’s less than ideal. On the other hand, you must know that we can’t let you drive out of here.”

“Looks like we’re at an impasse then.”

“Oh, I think that’s the wrong way to look at it. You see, if it’s an impasse, then we really are stuck. If it’s an impasse, then we’ve got no choice but to go to Plan B.”

“What’s Plan B?”

“You’re not gonna like it.”

“Try us,” Gavin called out.

“No, really now, I’m telling you. Plan B is a surprise. And you’ll just have to take my word for it—it’s not a
good
surprise.”

Paul scanned the woods behind the pavilion, wondering if the thick underbrush would work for or against them in a foot chase.

The voice continued: “So we need to reach an accommodation here. What do you say you come out with your hands up? No more gunfire. Nobody else gets hurt. We bring you in, no muss, no fuss.”

“Bring us in where?” Gavin called.

“You haven’t figured that out yet?” It was a new voice. A third man stepped into view from behind the van. He had blond hair and a short, red beard.

“Shit,” Gavin hissed under his breath.

“What?” Paul whispered to Gavin. “Where do they want to take us?”

“This is as good an offer as you’re going to get,” the red-bearded man said. “I suggest you take it, Gavin.”

Somewhere in the distance a bird chirped. Wind sighed through the trees. Beyond that, there was no sound. No answer. Gavin kept his head down, silent.

After thirty seconds had passed, the red-bearded man spoke again: “Gavin, there’s one more thing I feel compelled to mention, since you’re taking time to think things over. It was really only Paul that was mentioned in regard to being brought back alive. Seems the old man wants to meet him. We were willing to include you under that general umbrella, though. As a courtesy. But the orders regarding the rest of you really didn’t specify.”

Gavin made a hand gesture that caught Paul’s attention. When Paul looked, Gavin motioned toward the woods just beyond the pavilion. “Run,” Gavin whispered.

Paul shook his head. “We’re not leaving you.”

“You go first, and I’ll cover you. I’ll be right behind you.”

“No. All together or not at all.”

“Paul, that’s just not gonna work.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Paul repeated. “We stand a better chance together.”

“No, we don’t. We stand no chance, just sitting here. I can cover your retreat, and with any luck, I’ll pick another one or two of them off. You make it to a road, flag somebody down, and then get the hell out of here. Get to a police station. That’s our only hope now.”

Paul said nothing. Just stared at Gavin.

“Do it for her.” Gavin cocked his head toward Lilli.

Lilli still sat with her back to the wooden support beam. She was hunched as low to the ground as she could go, legs extended out in front of her in a straight line. Her dark hair clung wetly to her face.

“What do you think?” Paul asked Lilli.

“I think I want a gun,” she said.

“Sorry, lass,” Gavin said. “I’ve just got the one.”

“Then that reduces me to target practice.”

“So we run?” Paul said.

She nodded. “I’m game if you are.”

“Shit,” Paul mouthed softly to himself. “Okay, on the count of three.”

Paul took a deep breath and shifted his feet, ready to spring. “One. Two…” He chanced a look around the steel drum and didn’t see any guns pointed at them. “Three!”

He and Lilli bolted for the woods. Gavin stood and aimed.

Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

Gunshots rang out as Gavin covered their escape. The men fired back, the sound of shots blurring together as both sides exchanged fire.

Paul and Lilli sprinted into the woods, knocking aside branches and shouldering their way through the underbrush.

From behind them, the sound of shots changed, the closer shots going quiet. Paul knew that either Gavin’s gun had run out of bullets or he was dead.

He let Lilli pull ahead, and he slowed to look behind. He heard the sound of branches breaking, then Gavin’s voice say, “Shit!”

“This way!” Paul urged as Gavin came into view through the underbrush. Gavin was barely visible, fifty yards behind them, his legs pumping.

“For fuck’s sake, run!” Gavin shouted.

Paul turned and ran full out. He leapt over a fallen log and dodged a bramble prickly with thorns. Low branches scratched at his cheek. He’d gained on Lilli a little when he heard a different sound from behind him. The sound of crashing limbs suddenly louder, as if something enormous was barreling its way through the woods.

Paul turned back, and what he saw changed everything.

Two things.

Demon things.

Different from what he’d seen before.

Different from anything he’d ever imagined. Faces like something older. Things that were not human.

For a moment Paul faltered. He missed a step, and his foot came down on something soft, and suddenly he was rolling. He sprang to his feet, turning again to look behind him, and the things were closing in on Gavin. Gavin’s face was white; he’d seen what was chasing him.

The things closed in.

“Run!” Paul shouted helplessly. But Gavin was already running, still thirty yards back. He was too slow.

The creatures converged on Gavin and dragged him to the ground. The screaming started—screeching—as heavy clublike arms rose and fell. Paul froze, his gaze wide with horror. The things lunged in on Gavin, mouths gaping, teeth bared. Blood sprayed. It happened in an instant. Paul started to move toward Gavin, an instinct to help his friend, but a hand grabbed at his arm.

“No! Too late,” she said. She was right. In that moment, the screaming stopped.

The creatures pulled and ripped at Gavin’s flesh. Blood covered their inhuman faces. They were like the thing on the bridge, but they were different, too. Smaller, darker. More animal. One of them lifted its face and glared at Paul. It rose up, baring huge teeth, and screeched—an alien, almost-human sound. A gravelly howl of rage.

Behind the creatures, the men from the vans broke through the underbrush.

“Come on,” Lilli told Paul.

She pulled at him, breaking his paralysis. They bolted through the trees.

“You really don’t want to do that!” the red-bearded man yelled after them.

Paul jumped a log and knocked aside tree branches as he broke his way through the woods.

“You can’t outrun them,” the voice called after them. “But you might outrun us. You don’t want
that
to happen!”

Paul jumped another fallen log.

The voice continued: “Because when they catch you, we’re the only ones who can make them stop.”

They burst onto a trail. Sudden openness. Without thinking, Paul reacted, following the trail to the right.

A moment later, the things burst out of the woods behind them.

There is a clarity that comes to you when you’re running for your life. Everything is condensed into a simple formula: How fast can you make your legs move?

Paul didn’t turn back. Wouldn’t turn back. Lilli was a few yards ahead of him again; that was all he cared about. His legs were on fire. He heard ragged breathing behind him, but none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was making his legs work, one in front of the other, as fast as he could.

But it wasn’t enough.

Paul was knocked off his feet by the force of the blow. He rolled, caught up in a gripping, thrashing tornado. He struck out with his hands and feet, but the thing was faster than him, stronger than him. A blow caught him across the side of his head—quick deafness, then a sound like a feedback whine. He swung wildly as his hearing returned. His fist connected, but the thing turned, grabbed his arm, and flung him—it felt like his arm was nearly torn off. He landed and rolled, and the thing was on him again.

For two semesters in high school he’d wrestled. He knew how to throw a man. Knew how to grapple. But he’d never felt strength approaching this. Nor speed. A thing smaller than him but multiple times stronger, faster. Paul swung again, and the thing bared its teeth and ducked away. The return blow sent stars spilling through his head.

Just up the trail, Lilli screamed. The other thing had run past Paul to grab her, flinging her to the ground. Her dress ripped. Paul struggled with the beast in front of him, trying to pull free. He fought with every ounce of strength in his body, but it was too strong. Too fast. Lilli screamed again.

The creature moved in, landing another sidelong blow to Paul’s head, and he lost time for a moment—one second standing, the next with leaves in his mouth, face in the soil. Lilli was screaming again, louder. He turned his head. She was trying to get away, but the thing was on her. She’d been pulled almost completely out of her dress now. Exposed bra and panties—screaming and kicking. The thing screeched in maniacal frenzy.

Paul staggered to his feet and saw the men coming up the trail. He turned toward where Lilli fought with the creature. He ran full out and landed a vicious kick to the thing’s side, knocking Lilli free.

The other creature launched itself at Paul, knocking him off his feet. It loped away on strange legs, circling around. Paul spun in the dirt so he wouldn’t expose his back to the thing.

“Jesus, you really just need to stop,” the red-bearded man said. “You’re not going to win.”

Lilli screamed, and the second creature grabbed her leg and pulled her along the ground.

“Stop struggling,” the man said. He was standing only a dozen feet away now, observing the fight with detached interest. “Seriously, for your own good, stay down.”

Paul dragged himself to his feet. The thing moved in again, knocking him down again, raining punches on him. Paul did his best to cover up, to protect his vital organs, but the blows kept coming, and then he felt a bite on his arm, and the thing was away.

“See now, look,” the man said to one of his comrades. The tone was conversational, as if they were discussing a child who needed punishment. “I told them not to run.”

Lilli screamed again. Paul spit dirt from his mouth and turned his head. She was nearly naked now, bra pulled loose in the struggle. She was kicking and thrashing, still trying to get away, but the thing still had her by the leg. It flung her over. Her panties came apart in its grip.

The two beasts were distracted by her struggle. Paul rose to his knees, looking for some weapon. Any weapon. A few feet away, a thick tree branch angled from the detritus at the edge of the trail. It showed the mark of a chain saw, part of a limb fall that had been cleared away by park workers. Paul’s hand curled around the branch. He stood, bringing the branch with him. It was five feet long, heavy in his hand. Solid. Nearly as thick as his forearm.

As Paul stood, the creature in front of him reacted. It bared its teeth and spun itself just out of reach, finding new reserves of rage. It knew what a stick was. But it wasn’t Paul’s target. Paul made momentary eye contact with the red-bearded man. The man only stared at him, making no move to stop him.

The second beast grabbed Lilli’s legs and forced them apart. She shrieked, “No!”

Paul turned and launched himself toward Lilli’s attacker. The thing behind him followed but would be a second too slow. Swinging the branch high as he ran, Paul brought the wood down on the creature’s skull with every ounce of strength in his body. The skull made a sickening sound as it caved in on itself. Paul let go of the branch, and it hung suspended for a moment, buried in the thing’s skull. The creature toppled next to Lilli.

A moment later, the other creature struck him like a train, sending him flying, and the world went away.

He heard gunshots then. Two gunshots in quick succession.

Then: “That’s about enough of that.”

Paul opened his eye and saw the red-bearded man pointing his gun at the creature that stood over him. Puffs of dirt were still settling around its feet where the shots had churned the soil.

“I said, enough. The boss wants him alive.” The man was talking to the beast.

The thing turned its head away from the man and looked down at Paul. Its eyes burned into him with an insanity that Paul had never experienced in life. Flecks of foam shot from its mouth with each exhalation.

“Alive,”
the man stressed, a scar twisting his upper lip. “So stop.”

The beast’s eyes never moved, never lost their laserlike focus. A few feet away, Lilli curled into a ball to cover her nakedness, crying softly into the dirt. The beast’s lips peeled back from its teeth. Its hands curled into fists as it stared down at Paul.

The man took a step forward. “I will fucking shoot you.”

The thing’s head snapped around. It stared up at the man—murder in its eyes.

It looked at Paul again, muscles still twitching. On the edge of decision.

The man fired his weapon a third time, and dirt exploded in front of the thing’s feet.

“Next one is in your skull.”