The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)
Page 47
Mack pushed down the clutch, rammed the car into gear, stomped on the gas, and bam—into the leg of the closest Gudridan.
The air bag exploded in his face, almost knocking him silly in its attempt to save him.
A roar of rage!
A bellow of pain!
Like ten lions together at feeding time when they really, really want some meat, the Gudridan’s outrage shook every living thing within a mile. It was awful and awesome.
Mack’s windshield was filled almost entirely by a single leg. A single leg now turning from pink to red.
To redder.
Mack jammed the car into reverse. Even in the midst of panic, a small part of his mind was thinking, Hey, I can drive as well as Stefan.
The car lurched back, sputtered, and stalled.
So maybe he wasn’t a great driver, either.
He started the car again, put it in gear, and rammed the Gudridan.
Smash!
Back. And again.
Smash!
This time the Gudridan had sidestepped, but Mack twisted the wheel and caught it in the Achilles tendon. Or at the least the Gudridan equivalent.
The knee buckled.
“YAAAAAARRRGGGHHH!” the Gudridan roared.
The second Gudridan was bounding over to help its friend/companion/homey/colleague when shots rang out.
They always say that, don’t they? “Shots rang out.” But shots don’t actually “ring;” they explode.
Blam blam blam!
A man in the natty uniform of the gendarmes was calmly firing up at the second Gudridan’s head even as the first tottered like a felled tree in a national forest.
It seemed to take forever for the first monster to fall, and all the while, blam blam blam continued, accompanied by stabs of bright orange.
Brave gendarme.
Unfortunately, bullets don’t matter much to Gudridan.
As the first of the monsters hit the ground so hard that stopped cars jumped from the impact, the second Gudridan snatched up the policeman, opened its hideous jaws, and bit off the top half of his body.
For a terrible, frozen moment, Mack just stared.
It was the most awful thing he had ever seen. And it was somehow his fault.
Mack climbed out of the car.
The Gudridan, still standing, red fur even redder from its gruesome meal, almost smiled at him.
“Gope-ma et stib-il belast!” Mack snarled.