Monster (Gone 7)

Erin drove up onto the gravel walkway, sideswiped a handicapped parking sign, bounced back onto the pavement, and flew down the hill. They passed the second ranger vehicle, the driver eyeballing Erin suspiciously. Down the winding road, faster and faster, the heavy vehicle—heavier by far with the morphed Justin—reached the bottom, narrowly avoided a cyclist, and fishtailed toward the Golden Gate Bridge.

Now the question was one of time. Could they get across the bridge and through the tollbooth into the city, where they could at least hope to get lost? Or would the park rangers have time to alert the California Highway Patrol down on the bridge?

They zoomed onto the bridge. Midday traffic was light, but a wall of fog was rolling in from the ocean, so that the massive red cables were half hidden, swooping up in graceful arcs only to disappear in pearly, translucent mist.

The bridge was 1.7 miles long—they crossed it in two minutes, but as they neared the automated tollbooths on the San Francisco side, Erin spotted the CHP car on duty there turning on its light bar and gliding swiftly to cut them off.

Erin cursed, and Justin, unable to see in his awkward position, rumbled, “What?”

“Cops!”

A second car was racing from the city to join the first, and these were not park rangers, these were California Highway Patrol, and the CHP were far more accustomed to violent, high-speed confrontations on open roads than park rangers.

Traffic slowed at the tollbooth, with cars rolling straight through, but at no more than thirty miles an hour, and as the Volvo neared the toll sensors the first CHP was directly in front of them. Erin swerved to go around, but the second CHP, closely followed now by a San Francisco Police Department car, swooped in to block traffic beyond the toll kiosks.

“We’re blocked!”

Erin turned a dramatic, tire-squealing left, bounced crazily over a concrete rise, sideswiped a white van, and plowed into a Prius. She aimed the Volvo back toward the bridge and floored it, and angry horns blew.

“What are you doing?” Justin demanded, seeing things at a tilted angle as his huge head crammed up against the back lift gate.

The CHP on the San Francisco side were momentarily blocked by their own traffic jam, but now, ahead, there were more red and blue flashing lights and sirens were everywhere.

A CHP SUV directly ahead drove straight at them on the wrong side of the road, swerving back and forth as it came, a rolling roadblock. It was impossible for her to get around, and in any case there were still more cops coming from the Marin County side: park rangers, CHP, local cops from Sausalito.

“Go at ’em, straight at ’em!” Justin bellowed.

Erin floored it and hit the left side of the swerving CHP SUV, spinning it, exploding the airbags in the Volvo, momentarily stunning Erin, and knocking her hands from the wheel.

She wrestled the steering wheel, but the Volvo was on just two wheels, cantilevered crazily, and for a heartstopping moment Justin was sure the Volvo would topple over on its side, but the Volvo did not topple and instead dropped back to all four wheels with a spine-rattling impact. Steam billowed from under the hood and the engine made a hard metallic sound that could not possibly be normal.

“Go! Go!” Justin ordered.

Erin floored it again, but the Volvo was barely moving, jerking, rattling, and then, finally, it stopped with a final cough and rattle.

Justin roared, a sound of pure frustration, and kicked and punched the side of the Volvo until the metal tore, and with that he ripped and punched and kicked the rest of the steel and plastic out of the way, then rolled out onto the bridge’s concrete road surface.

The cops on the San Francisco side had broken free of the stalled cars and were coming on at speed. Those on the Marin County side were advancing more cautiously, but the bottom line was that Justin and Erin were blocked, and on foot, with very angry CHP, SFPD, park rangers, and Sausalito cops closing in from both sides.

Justin tore the dangling side panel from the Volvo and hurled it at the nearest CHP, who skidded to a stop and popped out with pistol leveled behind the inadequate cover of his car door.

The Marin-side cops took the cue and halted their vehicles, too, and jumped out to level their own weapons.

A voice on a loudspeaker said, “Down on the ground, both of you. NOW!”

“Don’t shoot!” Erin screamed. “He can’t help it!”

Now Justin rose to his full ten feet and spread his arms wide. From the tip of his blade to the tip of his claw, he was twice as wide as he was tall. He held high the blade and the claw and, in a voice that made the vertical cables quiver, roared, “Behold! I am Knightmare!”

The Golden Gate was a suspension bridge with the two massive vertical towers carrying the weight of the two swooping, three-foot-in-diameter main cables. At fifty-foot intervals so-called suspender ropes, actually groups of four three-inch-thick cables, hung taut from the cable. It was these suspender ropes that attached to the road supports and carried the road suspended from the main cables, which in their turn hung from the two great towers.

Justin swung his sword arm and sliced through the nearest set of four suspender ropes. The steel ropes twanged and whipped wildly like electrified snakes.

“Let us pass!” Justin demanded.

“Get down, down, on your face!”

Justin sliced through a second set of cables, and beneath his claw feet he felt the roadway shudder and sag just the slightest bit.