A burning dog. The size of a Shetland pony. Running straight at me.
I scrambled to my feet, my mouth dry and tasting like thick liquid copper. I bolted. My boots slapped the linoleum as the thing let out a howling growl with the rush and crackle of flame underneath it, belching with foul, sulfur-impregnated, roasted air.
I put my head down, barely aware I was screaming like a goddamn cheerleader in a horror movie, and ran for my life.
CHAPTER 9
I pounded down the hallway and jagged to the left as the mezzanine opened up in a well of darkness, my legs thick with terror and refusing to work right, the gun clutched uselessly in my right hand as my arms pumped. The escalators were turned off for the night, but I skidded around the corner and took the frozen stairs three at a time anyway, my hips and shoulders jolting each time I landed. The thing behind me—it’s burning, the rational part of my brain howled, and the other part, the part Dad had trained into me, replied with an iron imperative to fucking move I know it’s burning!—gave out another roar as it thumped into something with a crash, and the whole thing began to seem like a nightmare. I’d wake up any second now, safe in my bed, with Dad downstairs watching cable.
It smelled horrible, rotten eggs and burning foulness. I ran like a rabbit, fleet with terror, my boots slapping down with little squeaking sounds. Something that sounded like Dad was screaming in my ear, but I didn’t listen. I couldn’t listen.
Instinct saved me. I threw myself aside as a bullet train of compressed air screamed past, holding the smearing crimson and orange of the burning thing, stretched out in a full leap. I fell heavily, not bothering to try and stop myself, barking my head on something. Warmth dripped down the side of my face. I scrambled to my feet and tripped again, knocking over chairs—overflow from the food court, a nice little nook where people could sit and eat their fast food while looking at the fountain—
The fountain! The click inside my head was so loud I almost didn’t hear the burning thing howl again, a long, cheated rasp of ignited rage. I made it to my feet with hysterical speed and bolted, my back burning with pain and something torn loose in my side.
Behind me. It was behind me again, and it was fast. I couldn’t hope to outrun it. Twenty feet between me and the fountain, and I wasn’t going to make it.
MOVE! Dad’s voice bellowed in my head, as if we were in Louisiana again with the cockroach things scuttling in the basement and the ammo clips jittering in my shaking hands.
I moved. I don’t know how. One moment I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get there in time, the next I was there.
Water gushed up in a sheet as I threw myself over the lip of the fountain in a wide receiver’s dive, getting a sudden mouthful of chlorine and stale chill, my head barked something else—the concrete holding up some ridiculous Swiss-cheese sheet metal the water cascaded down while the fountain was turned on. More pain jolted down my neck. I was really racking up the score here. If this was a video game I’d be yelling at the stupid screen right now. Or throwing my controller at it.
The burning thing howled. Spattered with filthy mall-fountain water, it landed heavily as I scrabbled, a gout of foul-smelling steam belching up. Heat rolled through the water clawing at my arms and legs. I grabbed the sheet metal and pulled with both hands, my right clumsy because of the gun clicking against the rattling flimsy edifice. I pushed myself aside and fell again as the creature smashed spastically into the metal with a hollow bong that would have struck me as goddamn hilarious if the water hadn’t been boiling. I landed hard again, breath driven out of me in a howling scream, and heard a yammering electronic sound. Had that been going on the whole time?
It slid down the metal and landed with a splashing jolt.
Steam drifted in great eddies from the once-placid water. The fountain bubbled and buzzed. I scrabbled for the stone ledge and just made it, hopping up and perching like a frog with trembling legs.
“Holy shit,” someone was saying, someone with a high trembling voice very much like mine. I felt my lips shape the words, numbly. My hair dripped in my face and something warm and sticky was in my eyes. “Holy shit. Jesus Christ.”
I coughed, water blowing out of my nose. Red drops pattered in the bubbling froth of the fountain. I was bleeding, but it didn’t seem important. I was soaked to the skin and my fingers ached around the butt of the gun. My clothes were too heavy, full of blood and sulfur-stinking water now. I was shaking like an epileptic.
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered. “Jesus Christ.”
A slight movement caught my eye and the gun leveled itself, my finger cramping on the trigger. My gasping shallow breaths were suddenly audible even over the racket. Smoke and steam drifted in the air. Dots of coolness spattered me from overhead. The sprinklers were going. It was raining inside the mall. The burning thing lay in the water, twitching hard enough to send up little splashes and waves of froth.
Graves stared at me. He was on the other side of the fountain, wreathed in steam, his mouth ajar and his eyes wide.
Where the hell did he come from? The gun didn’t care. My arm was straight, my aim was good, and I could hardly miss from this range. I gasped, my ribs heaving as I struggled to breathe, to get enough air into my starved lungs. I made harsh racking sounds, coughing at the reek in the steamy air. It was a sauna in here, and the sprinklers weren’t helping.
Graves rose, his hands palm-out, the classic don’t shoot stance. His mouth was ajar and his eyes were dilated. His gaze kept flicking between me and the thing thrashing in the fountain as it drowned in something inimical to it, still superheating the liquid. It was dying; I knew it was dying. I choked on the smell, shaking, but the gun didn’t waver.