Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 55551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Thorn
She feels a lot more subdued now. Maybe she has finally run out of energy to resist. Or maybe she has simply decided to conserve it. Regardless, we are almost at the rendezvous point. I will feel better when I have her behind at least a couple of locks.
On the final approach to the Ground Bar, fate, or whatever the twisted version thereof exists around this human, intervenes again. There is a rustling to the left, a sort of awkward lumbering sound that usually indicates some kind of animal presence. I expect to see some kind of night predator mistaking us for easy prey.
A beast comes lumbering out of the undergrowth. I say creature, because it is as big as a small primal, but completely unrecognizable as anything belonging to this world. It has a massive, round maw, no discernible eyes, chunky little legs, and a smooth, large body which I can only describe as being made to devour things. I see bits of food around its mouth, hanging from some of the outer teeth which appear to have been partially dislodged. I see scales and pieces of clothing. This thing has been feasting on saurians and is now rippling with their flesh.
“You’re going to want to run,” the human under my arm giggles. “He can sense respiration and body heat. It’s not like your movement-detecting beasts here. This thing knows you’re alive and wants you inside him.”
I am staring at the beast, which is now moving what passes for a head back and forth. It has no neck, so the entire front of it sways with the scanning motion. It catches our scent and rears back, small paws and sharp claws scratching at plain air for a moment before it slams to the ground and starts to charge.
I take Suli’s advice. I run. The bar won’t provide much in the way of shelter, I already know that. I’ve seen the way this thing treated its walls like nothing more than tissue paper. I’m not running for shelter. I’m running because I am the alpha of this land, and I know what happens next.
Somehow, it is gaining on us. That doesn’t seem possible. It is like being chased at high speed by a very rotund caterpillar with a horrific maw where a mouth should be. I can hear Suli laughing with a certain manic edge. She should be screaming, or better, staying silent. The last thing anybody needs right now is more chaos, but I don’t think she is capable of bringing anything else.
“It’s going to get us!” she yells back to me. “It’s getting really close!”
I do not waste energy replying. Instead, I run around the edge of the Ground Bar, hoping that the change of direction will be impossible for the creature to adjust to. It’s a move to buy some time, and it doesn’t work. Somehow that behemoth corners like my bike used to, maybe the short legs and the low center of gravity help that. At any rate, circling the Ground Bar only makes Suli shout all the more.
“What the hell are you doing!? Playing games!? This thing almost has my face off. Argh!”
I hear teeth snapping right behind me as I round the corner of the bar and head up and away.
“Is this creature of your doing?”
“Sort of?”
She manages to sound half-guilty even while nearly being eaten, and I know that somehow it is linked to her, even though it makes absolutely no sense. She claims to have wrecked her ship, but now I have to wonder what else was on that ship when she wrecked it.
There’s no real time to ask questions now, though. I decide to make a break for the city, though by the way this beast is giving chase it feels like outrunning it might not be possible. It is not acting like any creature of this world. It is acting like pure hunger made incarnate. Even primals don’t act with this much sheer determination in the act of consumption.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM
Just as it seems we are going to be overhauled by the alien abomination, light explodes out of the darkness as several large vehicles roll up over the ridge. Photonic energy bolts arc all around us as my soldiers open fire on the beast. White and gold energy snaps into the heavy white-gray flesh of the thing. The first hit lands and the creature stops dead, rearing back. It is followed by another volley of fire that further damages it, and prevents it from following us as I throw my bike into a sliding halt in front of the vehicle Avel is driving.
“It’s good to see you,” I say, speaking a pure dialect of understatement.
“I thought I should bring backup,” Avel says dryly. “Seemed like things could get out of control.”