Once Henry had ripped away the last layer separating him from his prize, he stopped and gazed down into the hole he’d made, tears welling at the corners of his eyes. Although his face was vaguely human, the way it swayed loosely at the end of his neck made the sight completely alien. It only got worse when he reached into the savaged chest cavity and pulled out something that looked like a black eel. Dozens of thin black tendrils reached desperately into the blond woman, causing her to twitch and squirm as they fought to pull the rest of its slimy black mass into her. Unable to extract the black eel thing completely, Henry leaned down and sank his teeth into the biggest section. As soon as they punctured the filmy skin, a greasy liquid rushed down his chin and into his mouth.
Although she’d been ready to fight Paige a little while ago, Racquel accepted her invitation now by jumping into the backseat of the car.
As soon Racquel’s backside hit the upholstery, Paige jumped behind the wheel and slammed the door shut. “Watch yourself, Cole,” she said as she gunned the engine.
Cole looked through his window to find the bald man reaching out for him with hands that were like skeletal claws wrapped in smooth, pale leather gloves. When the car sped away, the man leaned forward and allowed his nails to scrape noisily against the glass. Straining to get one more look, Cole was able to see the figure casually wave back at him. “What in the hell was that?” he hollered.
“That’s Misonyk!” Racquel shouted as she stabbed her finger toward Cole’s window. “That’s him. Oh my God, get out of here!”
“Who the hell is Misonyk?” Cole asked.
“Meeshonyick,” Racquel corrected. When she pronounced the name, it wrapped around her tongue and made her voice drop to an intimate purr.
“I don’t care who he is or how you say it!” Paige shouted. Hooking her thumb toward Henry, she snapped, “What was that?”
But Racquel wasn’t able to answer any of the questions. Her face had lost its color, which made the black lines beneath her skin stand out even more. As if reacting to the chaos around her, the lines retracted beneath the part of her that was covered by her shirt.
Paige gripped the steering wheel in one hand and took a corner almost fast enough to put the rusted Cavalier onto two wheels. Ignoring Racquel’s swearing and Cole’s involuntary, somewhat girlish yelp, she handed her pistol to him and said, “There’s fresh clips in the glove compartment, Cole. Can you reload this?”
Desperate to rebuild the dignity he’d just lost, he grabbed the gun and flipped open the glove compartment. “Yeah. I can do that, no problem.”
“Good, because that thing with the appetite is coming after us.”
Both Cole and Racquel twisted around to look out the back window. Sure enough, Henry was bounding down the street behind them, closing his distance from the car several yards at a time.
“Start talking, Racquel,” Paige snapped. “What is that thing?”
Sitting upright and straightening her top and skirt, Racquel slid back into her street persona. She showed Paige a bratty scowl and asked, “Why should I tell you anything? Just who the hell are you?”
“I’m the one taking over Gerald’s territory, and your friend should’ve known better than to feed in public. If that blond bitch hadn’t already been torn apart, you know damn well I’d be putting her down myself!”
Although Cole was completely lost in the conversation, he wasn’t about to turn his back on Racquel for long. Looking up every couple of seconds from what he was doing, he could see the Latina twitch at the sound of a solid impact behind the car. Racquel didn’t even look behind her to see what had hit the cement in the Chevy’s wake. As soon as Henry landed close enough for Cole to make out the slick black ooze hanging from his chin, the Chevy was thrown into a sharp turn and the engine roared toward the upper limit of its performance.
“That thing’s Henry,” Racquel said.
Struggling to get control after the maneuver she’d just performed, Paige asked, “What the hell is Henry?”
Racquel sank down into her seat. “I don’t know what he is, but most of us didn’t even think he was real. Wendy used to talk about him. She said…” As much as she tried to fight it, Racquel couldn’t keep herself from wincing before her words stuck in the back of her throat. She swung her hand toward the back window and then pulled it back again when Henry landed behind the speeding car and took a swipe at the Chevy’s bumper. Calcified nails screeched against rusted metal before the car was once again out of his reach.
Cole held the gun out toward Paige and said, “Here you go. I think it’s ready.”
“Good,” Paige replied as she twisted the wheel to take another corner, scattering the group of kids who had been standing there. “Now do me a favor and shoot that thing.”
Cole rolled down the window and stuck his arm out before pulling it back in again. He shifted in his seat and started to aim out the window but caught a very surprised glance from a bar they were driving past. He tried shifting again, nearly dropped the gun, then fell back into his seat with a frustrated grunt. As much as he wanted to lean out the window and fire away, he grudgingly had to admit it looked a hell of a lot easier in the movies.
“So, what about Wendy?” Paige asked as she looked at Racquel in the rearview mirror.
Racquel pulled in a breath to steady herself. “She’s been listening to Misonyk and preaching all his bullshit to me and anyone else who’d listen.”
“Okay, tell me about this Misonyk,” Paige said.
“Gerald knew about him,” Racquel replied. Didn’t he tell you?”
“No. What’s Misonyk been spreading around? And will you shoot already, Cole? That thing already took my bumper off!”
“I’m trying! I don’t do this every day, you know!”
“Fine,” Paige snarled. “Both of you hold on.” With that, she blew past an expensive looking SUV and gunned her engine down a long stretch of road. She had to blaze through a few red lights along the way, but it was late enough at night and in a bad enough neighborhood for there to be a minimum of other cars around. The only police car Cole spotted was parked outside a Jack in the Box four blocks ago.
Paige stared at the road intently, pulled the wheel to the left and slammed on her brakes. She only needed to watch the rearview mirror for a few more seconds before Henry landed on the street with a loud thump and began slamming his hands against the trunk. Throwing the car into Reverse, she stepped on the gas and drove the Chevy right into Henry’s gut. She kept the car moving until she pinned him against a telephone pole. “There,” she said as she looked over to Cole. “Easy enough target for ya?”
Twisting around to lean out the window, he gripped the gun with both hands and took aim. Henry’s lower body was crushed between the pole and the back end of the Cavalier, but he was still squirming and slapping his hands against the trunk as if he wasn’t so much hurt by the impact as confused that he couldn’t move. Cole fired and missed his first few rounds. Cars screeched to a stop somewhere nearby and sirens wailed in the distance. There wasn’t a lot of time before more people would be dragged into this mess, and he knew it would be better for the cops to find a bizarre corpse than a live, heart-eating freak. He let a few more bullets fly and saw them hit their mark amid a fine spray of dirty hair and a hint of blood.
Gritting his teeth as he pulled the trigger again, Cole shook his head and fired his last few rounds. “This isn’t doing much,” he said. “I don’t even think I’m hurting it.”
The moment his gun was empty, Paige drove the Chevy forward a few feet, slammed it into Reverse and backed into Henry again. The impact rocked everyone inside. Henry moaned and wailed, but wasn’t losing steam.
Paige shook her head, threw the car into Drive and sped away. Looking into the rearview mirror, she nodded quickly and said, “I think that shook him up a bit.”