Feast (26 page)

But then there was something else.

Something bigger.

Its arrival shook the house.

Something
much
bigger.

35

In every conflict, there was a point of no return. When a soldier had to take action, damn the consequences, or things would get FUBAR faster than could be corrected. That moment was rapidly approaching Peter, about fifty feet per second, as the galloping horror closed in on the immobile truck.

But what could he do, really? Shooting the creature wouldn’t have that much effect, unless his aim was impeccable. And that would be nearly impossible. Despite the long legs, the gator’s long body and snout made it run in a kind of awkward vertical slither, like a reptilian ferret.

He could run, but there was no way that would extend his life beyond a second or two, and it would mean abandoning Boone. They could attempt to scale the gate, like Feesa had, but that would likely end with them being plucked off the wall and gobbled up.

If we survive this, I’m picking up some grenades,
Peter thought. He’d passed on the explosive devices before, because unlike most projectile weapons, they couldn’t be sound suppressed. The best way to kill ExoGenetic creatures was to not invite more to the party. The machine gun mounted in the back of
Beastmaster
was the one exception to that rule. It was a weapon of last resort, and was generally used on the move.

Peter looked down the machine gun’s sights, shifting his aim up and down, attempting to match the rhythm of the gator’s gait. But its head moved in jerky circular motions, so he held his aim steady. He timed his trigger finger with the moment his small target slipped back into the kill zone, or in this case, the wound zone. He had no illusions about killing the beast. He just wanted to slow it down.

Fire,
he thought as the gator’s black eyes slipped in and out of view.

Fire.

Fire.

He let his finger twitch with each pass.

Fire.

Fire.

He pulled the trigger, letting loose a burst of bullets that started low and traced a line upward. He saw the gator’s skin bend and ripple as the large rounds punched against it. The eye snapped shut for a moment, but it was just a flinch. The thing didn’t even slow down.

As he looked down the sights again, Peter’s ears perked up. He could hear the gate’s locks sliding away, one by one. Feesa was doing her job, but maybe not fast enough. Then, over the din of helicopter blades, he heard gunshots. And shouting. He felt a moment of confusion, as his mind backtracked. The battle inside the compound had begun, while he was aiming at the gator, but he’d filtered it out.

The hell is going on in there?
he wondered, but he already knew. Choppers meant ExoGen, and if they were here, and Kenyon was here, Anne and Ella were in grave danger. They might not be killed, but they would certainly be taken. For Peter and the rest of humanity eking a living outside San Francisco, that was a very bad thing.

He pushed all his worries aside and focused once more on the gator.

He had just seconds before its arrival.

Fire.

Fire.

He pulled the trigger again, this time holding it down and following the gator’s circular motion, peppering its face and snout with three rounds every second. Four seconds in, and just four more from being bitten in half, the gator convulsed.

Mid gallop, the monster pawed at its face. With the limb raised up, the body crashed down to the road, grinding to a stop just forty feet away from Peter. It scratched at its face, trying to dislodge what had caused it such sudden pain. But the bullet was too deep and too small to retrieve. The gator just ended up smearing the gooey remains of its ruptured eyeball.

The creature opened its jaws wide and let loose a guttural growl of frustration, plastering Peter with a wave of fleshy breath. Tufts of Woolie fur dangled from its traffic cone-sized teeth. The mouth snapped closed, the sound clapping against Peter’s ears. Then the beast death-rolled with nothing in its mouth. It flailed across the road, churning into the swamp, where loosely rooted trees toppled beneath its girth.

Then it stopped.

The waters settled.

The creature’s belly heaved with each breath, but it seemed to be calming, regaining its monstrous composure.

C’mon,
Peter thought, but he dared not say anything. The gator’s simple reptilian mind had forgotten them for the moment.

And that was when Boone revved
Beastmaster
’s engine. The rumbling exhaust sounded angry and alive.

The gator twitched its head to the side, looking directly at Peter with its one good eye.

Damnit, Boone,
he thought, and then he noticed the truck was moving. He glanced forward and saw the gates opening. They were through, but too late. The ExoGator exploded from the swamp, slipping in the muck for a few steps before launching back onto the road.

The truck heaved forward in time with the creature. Peter fired at the healthy eye, but missed as the truck shook from an impact. Feesa had leaped onto the cab’s roof. She was crouched and ready to leap, spear in hand. But she wasn’t looking at the gator. She stared straight ahead.

Peter risked a quick look and saw the farmhouse, the familiar blue Black Hawk on the ground, an Apache in the air with its back to
Beastmaster,
a collection of Chunta on the ground and—

“Jakob!”

The boy broke into a run.

Several Chunta dove for him, hackles raised.

The Apache opened fire.

Blood and carnage ruptured like a fireworks display, fanning red in all directions, much of which splattered across the farmhouse’s white exterior.

Peter screamed in time with Feesa, as their families were mowed down.

Small arms fire responded from the home’s windows.

Peter tried to swivel the machine gun around to blow the Apache from the sky, but he was still locked in place by the rubber bands. And that was a good thing. Had he not been, the truck’s rapid acceleration would have thrown him into the gator’s open maw, just twenty feet back.

Filled with anguish and desperation, Peter screamed and held the trigger down, punching bullets into the Apex predator’s throat. The massive tongue twitched and flailed, rising up over the throat like a meaty shield. But Peter kept on firing, digging a crater into its flesh.

The truck bucked as they rocketed over the bound logs bridging the wide stream. Peter’s aim went high and he stopped firing.

The gator stepped down on the logs, shattering them. Its leg dropped into the stream, slamming its chin into the scorched earth. Ash billowed up around it, and in
Beastmaster
’s wake, but it was quickly swept away by the Apache’s rotor wash. As the creature scrabbled in the stream bed, trying to pull itself up, the truck pulled away.

Peter unclipped himself from the rubber bands and ducked to the window. “Stay on that chopper!”

“But the gator!” Boone protested.

“Do it!” Peter said, burning with rage that dwarfed the gator’s.

Boone didn’t look happy about it, but as the Apache canted to the side and fled the gunfire coming from the house, the truck turned hard to follow it.

Peter clung to the machine gun as the truck’s motion threatened to spill him over the side. When the truck straightened course again, Peter had the weapon turned forward, ready to fire over the cab and take down the Apache. The attack helicopter was tough. Built for war. They weren’t easy to take down without a missile, but the M249 could do the job, especially if you knew where to aim. But the view between Peter and the chopper was brown and hairy.

He nearly fired through Feesa to take out the Apache. If the chopper hadn’t killed his son, the Chunta clearly would have. And the females still left alive were assaulting the house, and the people within it. Feesa might have made peace with Peter, but her sisters hadn’t. They were still aligned with Eddie.

“Get out of the way,” he shouted at Feesa’s back.

She reared around and roared at him, her face twisted with a fury that matched his own. She’d seen most of her tribe get decimated today, most recently by the chopper, but what could she do against a killing machine like that?

The Apache stopped and turned, its body now ninety degrees to the truck, its weapons aimed at the house, but not firing.
They have people on the inside,
Peter thought
.

The pilot must have seen them coming, because the chopper suddenly swiveled in their direction. But the angle was wrong. It wasn’t aiming at the truck, it was aiming behind it. Peter glanced over his shoulder. The gator had not only freed itself from the stream, but had also closed the distance.

Vengeance or survival? He had just a second to debate the matter. But it was Feesa who made the call.

Vengeance.

The warrior tribeswoman leapt off the truck’s roof, denting it inward and soaring thirty feet in the air, bringing her face to face with the Apache and the shocked pilot behind the windshield.

Machine guns whirled, prepping to fire.

Feesa cocked the spear back.

Peter opened fire, punching a string of holes through the empty passenger’s seat, distracting the pilot long enough for Feesa to lob the spear.

The idea of a spear taking down an Apache was ludicrous. But when it was thrown by a hulk of a woman, with a force greater than Peter could get out of his compound bow, it wasn’t impossible. That was the lesson learned by the pilot when the spear punched through the windshield, and then his chest, just inside his left shoulder. Pinned back against his seat, and in mind numbing pain, the pilot lost control.

As Feesa landed on barren earth, the chopper twisted, tilted and descended straight for the truck.

Boone turned a hard left, plowing in the shanty village, sending sheets of metal flying like giant throwing stars. Peter ducked as a corrugated metal square spun over his head and struck the gator’s side, digging in deep. But Peter barely noticed the fresh wound as he saw the gator’s attention had shifted from truck to chopper, which plunged on a collision course with the massive reptile.

The gator lunged into the air, its jaws open wide.

The Apache spun in tight circles as it descended.

As the cockpit turned to face the attacking super-predator, the behemoth bit down. There was a crunch as the armored vehicle momentarily repulsed the immense crushing power. The spinning rotor blades struck the snout, cutting deep, but shearing away, one at a time. Angered by the fresh wounds, the gator bit down hard, and the cockpit began to fold inward as the locked pair dropped back down to the ground, but never made it.

Peter could only guess what went through the pilot’s mind. He had been speared and then locked in the crushing embrace of an alligator as large as the Apache he thought would keep him safe. But the man’s response, whether it be a calculated risk, or sheer panic, was deadly—to both man and gator.

The Apache’s rocket pods flared to life, spewing a cascade of explosives that struck the predator head on and burst. Flesh and metal rained down in a tangled mess of monster and modern marvel. As the two killing machines burst into flames, Peter looked over the truck’s cab and saw the farmhouse dead ahead. A moment later, the man named Hutchins barreled out of the front door and sprinted for the Black Hawk, which was spinning up for takeoff.

Peter was tempted to engage the second chopper, but there was still a second Apache around. He was also almost out of ammo, and he couldn’t stop thinking about his son’s fate.