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  But Joyce was doing something she’d never done before, something she’d dreamed of doing her entire life.

  She was taking a chance.

  She was risking something.

  She was transgressing.

  God, it felt amazing!

  But when Dan Clinton reached the creature, the stocky man moving in an ungainly sprint, Joyce realized she’d made a mistake.

  The beast snatched up Dan Clinton as though he were an irritating insect and hurled him into the flames.

  Chapter Eight

  Duane threw up in his mouth. He’d seen stuff like this in movies, but he’d sure as hell never witnessed anything like it in real life. One moment Dan Clinton was barreling toward the beast like a Viking in cargo shorts, his face frozen in a fierce, implacable grin; the next, the beast was plucking Clinton by the shirt and tossing him like a Frisbee into the jetting flames. The bonfire had been blazing too high as it was—Duane wondered earlier if the Marvin brothers were trying to summon some pagan god—but when Dan Clinton hit the mounded stack of logs, the bonfire erupted in a starburst of sparks and yellow sheets of flame so brilliant that Duane had to shield his eyes to keep them from being scorched.

  Had the fates been on Dan Clinton’s side, he might have entered the fire headfirst, perished quickly, and been spared the agony of burning alive. But fate was obviously not with Dan tonight. He’d twisted as he’d flown through the air, his arms windmilling like a hapless extra in an action film, and he’d landed on the seething stack in a belly flop. Duane actually saw Dan push himself up off the swirling flames before the bier beneath him gave way. Then his whole burning body descended into the fiery maelstrom. The sight of it made Duane want to cry, but the worst part was the way Dan’s scream continued for a full five or six seconds after he’d been devoured by the bonfire like a sacrificed virgin.

  The beast stalked toward Joyce, who held her ground.

  Duane held his breath.

  The beast towered over Joyce. “Give me your hand,” it demanded.

  Joyce said, “No.”

  In a motion so quick Duane barely saw it, the beast seized Joyce’s wrist and wrenched it sideways. There was a sick crunch as her wrist bones snapped. Moaning, Joyce fell against the beast. It sank its other clawed hand into the meat of her shoulder, blood bubbling around its saber-like fingernails.

  The beast’s body jolted and the crack of a rifle shot tore through the clearing.

  “Get away from her, you ugly son of a bitch!” Josh Roller snarled. He raised the rifle again.

  Three or four partygoers cheered.

  Yee-hah, Duane thought.

  Then the clearing devolved into chaos.

  The sight of the creature staggering sideways, knocked off balance by the rifle shot, must have emboldened the crowd, because several partygoers grabbed what was nearest them and made to hurl the objects at the beast. Hunter Marvin, who’d been one of the few to approach the beast earlier, went everybody one better. Ignoring the potential danger of being sniped by Roller, Hunter bolted straight at the beast, looking every bit as agile as he had the day he’d been crowned champion at the state wrestling meet ten years ago.

  Duane hadn’t been there that day, but watching Hunter’s nimble movements, it wasn’t difficult to imagine him dominating an opponent, countering every maneuver, pinning him to the mat in a flurry of limbs.

  Hunter hit the creature before it had fully recovered. Josh Roller shouted at Hunter to “Move! Move!” so he could get off another clear shot, but Hunter was too busy proving his valor. Hunter made a move to take the beast down, and Duane felt a cheer rising in his throat. The beast pumped a taloned hand into Hunter’s belly and straight through the small of his back. Hunter’s body went rigid, his arms and legs straightening spasmodically. Then the creature stood erect, Hunter hanging impaled on the crook of its arm, and flicked Hunter’s body aside like a booger.

  The beast turned toward Roller, growled.

  Roller took aim.

  The beast broke into a series of wolflike bounds. Josh Roller was an experienced hunter, but the defenseless does and bucks he’d bagged, Duane knew, moved nothing like this beast did. Zigzagging with an appalling blend of speed and unpredictability, the beast reached Roller’s left flank in less than three seconds. Roller fired just as the beast thrust a forearm against the rifle’s barrel. The shot cracked, but zinged harmlessly into the overhanging foliage, and then the rifle was in the creature’s grip. Like a jealous child, Roller actually reached for the gun. The creature raised the rifle above Roller’s head, barrel down, and plunged its tip straight into Roller’s upturned left eye. The barrel plowed through Roller’s brain and split the long hair at the base of his skull, the hunter already jittering in his death throes.

  Brian Marvin, compelled into action by the slaying of his brother, rammed the creature in its side. Though not a decorated wrestler like his twin, Brian was nevertheless an imposing guy.

  But he never stood a chance. The beast was driven sideways perhaps three or four feet, but then it gained traction, reached down, and sank its talons into the base of Brian’s back, just under the rib cage. With an upward tug, it splintered Brian’s ribs and flayed open his back. Brian toppled, pawing at his exposed lung and gasping for air.

  Numbly, Duane turned to Savannah, who had rushed forward to save Joyce before the beast could finish her too. Joyce was kneeling and apparently disoriented. Duane took off toward them. There were still dozens of people in the clearing, though a good many had run off screaming into the forest, and just when Duane thought the beast would turn and make him its next victim, it disappeared into the forest after a group of partygoers.

  The sounds of shrieking soon followed.

  “Help me,” Savannah said. She’d hooked her wrists under Joyce’s armpits and was attempting to haul her to her feet.

  “I’ll get her,” Duane said. His only experience with saving lives had come vicariously from war movies. The fireman’s carry, Duane remembered, was the position of choice in those films, whether it was John Wayne doing the carrying or Robert DeNiro. He bent down to scoop Joyce up and promptly felt his jeans give way with a farty brrrrrrip!

  Nice job, hero! he told himself, but Duane ignored the taunting voice, concentrated on hoisting Joyce onto his shoulders. Once he’d gotten her good and balanced up there, he turned to face Savannah. From that angle she wouldn’t be able to see his tighty-whities through the gaping hole in his jeans.

  “Lead the way,” he said.

  Savannah nodded and set off toward the main trail.

  As Duane made to follow, he identified several problems. The first was the fact that he was a pretty slow runner to begin with. In PE he’d usually get lapped by the speedsters when they ran the mile. Now, with a full-grown woman weighing him down, he was worse than slow—his progress was damn near glacial. Savannah, by contrast, had been a good athlete in high school, sectional champion in the long jump and the hundred-meter dash. And watching her pull ahead of him, he decided she hadn’t lost a step.

  Another complication was the darkness of the night and the narrowness of the dirt trail they were on. He couldn’t see a thing, which meant he kept stumbling over rocks and exposed tree roots, and several times he only avoided pitching face-first onto the trail by the grace of God. Not only that, but the woman on his shoulders made navigating the slender trail a dicey proposition. He kept knocking her feet into the trees, and once he almost brained her on the trunk of a big sycamore.

  There was also the fact that the screams were currently coming from directly ahead of them.

  “Think we should take another route?” he called ahead.

  “And end up the middle of nowhere?” Savannah answered over her shoulder.

  Duane panted. “But it sounds like that thing is ahead of us.”

  Savannah didn’t respond.

  Duane co
ntinued to chug forward grimly, a sharp pain corkscrewing into his side. It wasn’t as though Joyce was a heavy girl. No more than average, he figured. But as a physically unfit director of technology for the Lakeview school system, he rarely found himself performing tasks that required stamina. Unless staying awake at his desk qualified as an act of stamina.

  “Can’t you go faster?” Savannah called back.

  Of course I can, he thought angrily. I was just taking it easy on you. You know, since you’ve got the body of a Greek goddess and aren’t fucking carrying anyone.

  “I’ll…try,” Duane grunted.

  They continued on, the woods growing darker and darker the farther they strayed from the clearing. He was acutely aware of how much his manboobs jiggled.

  “I think we could make better time if you put me down,” Joyce said.

  “You sure?” Duane panted.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  Thank Christ, Duane thought.

  Setting her down and feeling that weight leave his aching lower back was such a wonderful sensation that Duane was tempted to moan in pleasure. But he figured that might hurt Joyce’s feelings and kept his jubilation to himself.

  “How much farther to the road?” Joyce asked. She sounded a little groggy, and she winced as she spoke, but as far as Duane could tell, she looked spry enough to run on her own. He sure as hell hoped she was. He didn’t relish the prospect of lugging her down the trail again.

  Savannah shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. We have to go.”

  Duane couldn’t argue with that. They took off again with Savannah leading the way. He was alarmed to note how easily she pulled away from him even without the burden of another human on his shoulders. Even worse, Joyce ran apace with Savannah, so that Duane was soon left far in the rear, which made his pulse race even faster. Because now it was pitch-black. Now he was alone.

  Now—

  He gasped as he slammed into Joyce’s stopped form. Joyce went blundering forward and landed on her injured wrist. She hissed in pain, teeth bared, and thrashed her head about, obviously attempting to keep silent.

  “I’m really sorry,” Duane whispered.

  But neither of the girls was listening to him. Savannah stood on the trail beyond where Joyce lay clutching her wrist. He figured Savannah was merely listening for the beast, but when he pulled up next to her, he discovered what had made her stop.

  On the trail before them lay a severed human leg. A few feet farther on, there was another leg.

  The worst part was, they’d come from two different people.

  “Should we turn back?” he asked her.

  Savannah licked her lips, continued to gape at the legs. Both of them were right legs, one slender and swathed in blue jeans, the other one bare and obviously male. Unless some woman did a hell of a lot of squats and hadn’t shaved in years.

  “Watch out for the barbed wire,” a voice said.

  He turned and saw Joyce, who was still rubbing her injured wrist. Then, with a glance toward where Joyce was looking, Duane discerned a mangled barbed-wire fence, the posts having come loose from the ground and lying in a bed of weeds.

  “Hey,” he said to Joyce, “I really am—”

  “Thank you for saving me,” she said and smiled wanly up at him.

  Duane almost managed to smile back.

  Then two figures darted toward them, and Duane’s smile vanished.

  Duane recognized the pair right away. Dalton and Carrie Green. They’d been two of the biggest partyers in Duane’s class ever since junior high. Duane remembered the way Dalton used to brag about how far he’d gotten with Carrie back in seventh grade, a fact that Duane now considered pretty creepy. Dalton had always been regarded as one of the coolest kids in school, a dope smoker and hardcore barefoot skier. Hell, he still barefooted during the summers in the Beach Land ski show, the epitome of the suntanned stud.

  But now he was shrieking like a toddler fleeing a tarantula.

  Dalton was easily outpacing Carrie, who was shouting for him to “Wait for me, goddammit! Wait!” But Dalton had no such inclinations. It was obvious his plan was to save himself so he could live to ski another day.

  As Dalton swept past, Duane and Savannah parted to let him through. A moment later Carrie blasted through the same gap, still bellowing outrage at her husband.

  Dalton disappeared around a bend and Carrie was about to follow when an enormous shape pounced on the trail ahead of her. How the beast had gotten ahead of the Greens or how it had moved so stealthily through the woods, Duane had no idea. But now it rose up, the remains of its black clothes in blood-drenched tatters, its hairy face dripping with viscera.

  “Dalton!” Carrie screamed. She backpedaled slowly away from the creature. “Dalton, goddammit, you come back here and help me!”

  Dalton had evidently decided on a different course of action.

  Carrie pulled even with them, and Duane had time to think, Why aren’t we running away too? before the creature strode forward, smiling ferociously, and pushed Carrie onto her back. Ignoring everyone else, the beast climbed on top of her and pinned her wrists down on either side of her face.

  Do something! Duane told himself.

  It was Savannah who acted first. She leaped atop the creature’s broad back and began digging at the base of its neck with her fingernails. She shouted curses at the beast, used language Duane had never heard her use before. Snarling, the creature pivoted, the force of its twisting torso launching Savannah into the weeds. The beast climbed off of Carrie Green—who had lost most of her throat—and clambered toward the place where Savannah lay, stunned, on the ground.

  The only thing he could think to use for a weapon was one of the fence posts still partially attached to the barbed wire. As the beast climbed atop Savannah’s supine form, Duane dragged the muddy post toward it. He feared the barbed wire still attached to the topmost section of the post would prevent it stretching far enough to do any good. But by digging the heels of his sneakers into the soft earth and straining with all his might, he was just able to make it reach.

  As Duane raised the post, which was tapered at one end, visions of the many cinematic Van Helsings he’d seen over the years flitted through his mind:

  Edward Van Sloan.

  Peter Cushing.

  Herbert Lom.

  Anthony Hopkins.

  Hugh Jackman.

  And now, Duane McKidd.

  Aka Short Pump, Werewolf Slayer.

  He thrust the post toward the beast’s back.

  With a blur of movement, the beast whirled, seized the post.

  Hurled Duane to the ground.

  The creature’s bestial face loomed closer, its noxious stench clogging Duane’s nostrils. He shoved against it, attempted to buck it off, but it was like trying to dislodge a collapsed overpass from atop a crushed car. The barbed wire from his failed weapon had gotten trapped between them, the jagged, rusty spikes puncturing Duane’s chest, tearing him open. Blood trickled down his rib cage. He realized he was going to die.

  The creature opened its jaws.

  Its eyes shot wide.

  Duane felt the barbed wire embedded in his chest tug, then grind sideways. The pain was excruciating, but the effect on the beast was somehow more pronounced, the creature now roaring in fury. Then its roar abated, its eyes filling with panic. Its talons dug at its neck, and Duane finally understood why. Someone had wrapped a section of the barbed wire around the beast’s throat, was tightening it. The creature tumbled off, a deep, anguished rumble issuing from its wide-open maw.

  In disbelief, Duane pushed onto his elbows and looked at his savior.

  Savannah gripped the barbed wire like the reins of a horse, straining backward, the beast’s muscular body bowing dramatically. Duane hoped the beast would give in then, but with a desperate jerk, it detached the barb
ed wire garrote with a meaty shlick. The barbed wire tore free of Savannah’s fingers and, judging from the way she cried out and clutched her hands to her stomach, also removed a good deal skin from her palms. Duane knew the beast wasn’t fatally injured, knew it was only a matter of time before the son of a bitch continued with its onslaught.

  So he strode over to it.

  The beast rose to its full height. Duane positioned himself between the beast and Savannah.

  “Run,” he muttered to Savannah.

  “Fuck you,” she said.

  Then I guess we’ll die together, he thought.

  The beast extended its enormous arms, bellowed at them in triumph.

  Duane steeled himself for the impact.

  And watched in shock as the creature went dancing backward, the forest around them erupting in a fusillade of gunshots. He and Savannah stumbled away and burrowed into the weeds as five, eight, ten more shots sounded, the reports deafening in the peaceful country air. The beast roared, twisted, its eyes vast with outrage. Then it scrambled into the shadows.

  “Let’s go,” a voice said to them.

  Duane looked up, saw Joyce hauling Savannah to her feet, and just had time to think, Where the hell have you been? when another surge of gunfire shattered the night.

  “Over there!” someone shouted.

  “It’s heading for the creek,” someone else called.

  No fewer than seven hunters scampered away in pursuit of the beast.

  “We’ve got to go,” Joyce urged.

  Duane looked at her. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” she said. “Savannah, we have to—”

  Savannah nodded. “I want to see my son again.”

  Duane started down the trail behind Savannah and Joyce. As they picked up speed, he considered Savannah’s little boy and wondered for perhaps the thousandth time if Savannah might someday view Duane as a potential husband and stepfather.

  Then Duane’s thoughts dried up like a sunblasted lake bed.