Maximum Ride Forever (Maximum Ride 9)

“Are those hyenas?” Gazzy asked.

“Or just ugly mutant steroid dogs?” Fang said.

The things were hideous, their furless pink skin wrinkled and speckled with flaky black spots. Their flat, massive heads were too big for their bodies—which, of course, meant bigger teeth, stronger jaws.

“Are they sort of hyena-ish?” I asked. “Either way, they look rabid, and they’re bad news.”

With our luck, it made perfect sense that these hellbeasts were the only other creatures that seemed to have survived the apocalypse, and that they somehow were thirty stories up a skyscraper, running loose in the hallways, ready to corner us.

Quickly I took stock. Small, windowless room? Check. Useless weapons, such as plastic cutlery? Check. Villains engineered specifically to destroy us… to be determined.

The first hellhound flattened its ears and bared its teeth, a low growl building in its throat. Even with me standing on the countertop, their heads came up nearly to my waist. And they were vicious. This was Cujo meets Marmaduke meets the Hound of the Baskervilles.

“How many?” Fang asked quickly. I barely heard him over the high-pitched whining, low growling, and eager, hungry barking.

“Um, somewhere between five and… like, twenty,” I said as more flat, slick heads pushed in through the doorway.

“What are they waiting for?” Gazzy asked. “Maybe we can intimidate them.” With a roar of his own, he snapped open his ten-foot wings, sending bits of crud flying. And this seemed to be what the animals were waiting for. Their attack instinct kicked in and they sprang to life, crashing through the doorway at us, teeth bared. Their growls became a frenzied, barking hysteria that was deafening in the tiny room.

I fended them off okay at first, with roundhouse kicks and evasive pivots. But then a particularly ugly beast with pink eyes reared up on its hind legs and dug its front claws into my chest, and the full weight of a two-hundred-pound animal made me stagger sideways.

I barely heard a sharp hiss from Fang as one of them sank its incisors deep into his shoulder, but I couldn’t spare a glance—I had a huge snapping muzzle inches from my face. Its tongue slobbered over its teeth in desperation, and its pink eyes bulged, crazed with hunger. They were starving.

For a second, I felt a wave of pity for them. But just for a second. In a choice between me and something else, I always choose me. So I gripped Pinky’s lower jaw with my hands and head-butted the mutt right between the eyes.

It skidded like an ungainly bowling pin into the giants behind it, but they weren’t down for long and when they sprang to their feet, there was a new hatred in their eyes.

“Hang on, Max! We’re coming!”

I snapped my head around to see Nudge and Akila pushing their way through the entrance. Nudge was wielding a desk chair in one hand and a marble statuette in the other. I’d never seen Akila look so fierce—she was snarling, her teeth bared, and seemed so much more doglike than she had, say, at her wedding. But even though Akila was fairly big, she was dwarfed by these monsters.

“Nudge! No!” I yelled. “Find a safe place!”

I gave one vicious kick to my closest attacker and then grabbed for the sink hose behind me. Slamming the water on full blast, I sprayed all around, aiming for eyes, ears, and open mouths. The barking and howling hit a higher pitch.

On the other side of the kitchen, Gazzy fended the animals off as best he could, which was pretty dang good, but he was covered with bites and scratches and looked like he was starting to tire. One vicious hellhound dove for him, huge jaws open like a vise. I quickly sprayed icy water into its ear, and Akila snarled and dove at the creature, tearing into its throat. Her fur was stained with blood, and more blood dripped from her mouth. She looked pure wolf in that instant, and as they leaped, her cry pierced the air.

I lashed out however I could—the sprayer, karate chops to noses, hard kicks to their ribs, and, yes, plastic forks to the ears—anything to hold them back, but they just kept coming.

“Max!” Nudge cried, and I watched, horrified, as one leaped at the side of her face and clamped on with those long yellow teeth, tearing flesh from bone. Fang stabbed at it with a knife and it yelped and jumped back.

Nudge stumbled into the fridge, her eyes wide and dazed. She held her hand over the left side of her face, but blood ran through her fingers and spilled down her shirt.

Fang gave one animal a brutal punch in the face that made it yelp and fall back. My own arms and legs were pretty torn up, and I started to wonder… if there were actually just too many of them.

So I did what you’re never supposed to do in a dogfight: I charged.

And then the room exploded.

Well, part of it. Before I got to Nudge’s attacker, chunks of plaster shot toward me as one of the walls blew inward. For just an instant, there was silence as we all stared at the destroyed wall in surprise.

On the other side of the gaping hole, Iggy stood in the hallway, waving dust away from his face. “Go!” he yelled, choking on smoke.

While the beasts were still stunned, Fang grabbed Akila, and I reached for Gazzy’s and Nudge’s hands. We. Freaking. Ran.

Another floor-shaking blast made a few more of the creatures fall back, but there were plenty of them still on our heels as we ran through the mazelike hallways, searching for a way—any way—out of this. Then straight ahead of us we saw a conference room lined with big glass windows, and there was no time to hesitate.

“Abandon ship!” I shouted.