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door.
"Hey," I said, "you can't do that!"
"I can't?" it purred. Purred like a lion, that is.
"I didn't invite you in!"
"File a claim with the grievance committee." It was taking some effort:
seven-foot doors do not easily accommodate nine-foot monsters. Still, it would
be on top of me before I could reach the basement stairs.
I made it as far as the den, picked up an end table and tore off a sturdy
wooden leg. I turned as it crouched to work its way through the interior
doorway. As the one arm was momentarily positioned behind him to push against
the frame, I darted forward and drove the splintered end of my makeshift stake
into the center of its massive chest with all the preternatural strength I
could muster.
It should have pulped the creature's heart. Instead, there was a muffled
"clank" and the chair leg rebounded in my grasp. The monster paused and
waggled a finger at me as if to say "naughty, naughty." I
glimpsed the glint of metal through the ruined patch of flesh in the middle of
its chest.
There was no way I could get to a weapons locker in time, unlock it, and load
something that had a prayer of stopping this thing. If I lured it out and into
the cemetery it would only make a puree of The
Neighbors. I could blow out the pilot-light in the stove, turn up the gas, let
it build up, and blow us all to kingdom come if the monster was willing to
wait around for a half-hour.
Indecision had paralyzed me and now the thing was through the doorway and
reaching for me with impossibly long arms. I leaned back and it staggered on
its next step forward. A slimy beige band
encircled its neck and it grew a second, smaller head beside its own:
Deirdre's. Her face and hair were spattered with river mud and a steady
trickle of brackish water dribbled behind the monster's massive legs as though
her arrival had rendered him suddenly incontinent.
I grinned through my terror. "What kept you?"
"What do you mean, what kept me?" she gritted. "Who invited it in?"
The thing sniffed. "Ah." It grinned. "Smells like team spirit . . ."
Deirdre moved higher on the creature's back and her other arm came up, a
hunting knife in her hand.
Before I could open my mouth to warn her, she leaned across its huge shoulder
and plunged the knife into its chest.
The blade snapped off and dropped to the floor.
"Now that's interesting," she said just before our Goliath threw himself back
against the interior wall. Oak planks covered with plaster snapped like a
string of firecrackers and, as it leaned forward, I
could see Deirdre was embedded in the wall, pushed halfway through the other
side.
I didn't call to her, asking if she was okay. If I couldn't find a way to stop
this thing in the next few minutes, none of us were ever going to be okay
again. I turned and ran for the library.
Kyle was coming toward me from my study, a pair of automatic weapons in his
clenched hands.
"Down!" he shouted, and I dropped into a home plate slide across the hardwood
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floor as the Uzis made a thunderous, tearing sound.
He stepped past me as he emptied his magazines and I scrambled on into the
next room. I had no faith that bullets or even grenades could stop our fanged
juggernaut.
Think!
my brain screamed as my gaze darted around the room.
How do you stop a two-legged freight train?
The bookshelves mocked me. I checked the desk. Letter opener? Scissors? That
was it: if I could just get the thing to run through the house with a pair of
scissors . . .
The fireplace was cold: not even a winking ember much less a burning brand to
wave in its face. I
reached for the heavy iron poker just as the Uzis fell silent and Kyle
screamed. It was a short scream, terminated by a sickening crunch. I looked
back through the doorway just in time to see his bloodied face hurtling in my
direction.
I went down with his mangled corpse on top of me. He was wadded up like a
crumpled piece of paper and it cost me precious seconds to extricate myself
from his wet and tangled remains. I was up on one knee and suddenly looking
into the face of my own death. It smiled. "Goodness, gracious," it rumbled in
a happy voice, "that was thirsty work! I need a drink . . ." Its cavernous
mouth opened and its three-and-a-half-inch fangs actually moved
, growing another inch!
Even worse, the daggerlike teeth had the color and reflective qualities of
stainless steel, not the ivory hue of natural dental enamel.
This time there was no war cry, just an abbreviated roar as an Oriental lion
stuck its demonic head between the monster's massive thighs. It twisted its
fantastic visage upwards and its fanged and tusked mouth snapped shut on
Frankenvamp's crotch.
The monster stopped and stood very still for a moment. Perhaps it didn't have
a heart but it did appear to have balls. "That hurts," it announced
conversationally.
As if the rest of its scorched and punctured flesh was mere illusion.
"Then maybe you should lie down!" Deirdre announced from behind it.
The thing suddenly pitched forward and only my enhanced reflexes got me out of
the way in time. It crashed, facefirst, into the floor. Deirdre stood just
beyond in the den, holding the bunched end of the carpet runner that led from [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]