Henry’s gnarled arms and dangling head all twitched with a collective set of muscle spasms. His upper body swelled outward until the top of his head almost brushed the ceiling, and then he contracted in what seemed to be a deep exhalation until he was only slightly taller than seven feet. This allowed Paige to cinch her grip around his neck and wrap one leg around his shoulder. Every time she drove the pointed weapon into Henry’s body, the wound puckered up and closed on its own. Pasty fluid dripped from Henry’s mouth and dribbled from his chin. It looked like poorly mixed paint, mostly black but with traces of dark red. Henry finally managed to grab hold of Paige’s jacket and used it to throw her to the floor. She extended both arms and landed with a solid thump, but broke her fall well enough to work her way back to her feet.
Henry looked around with glazed eyes to survey the grisly mess within the diner, and his loud panting caused his entire frame to rock back and forth.
“They were loud. God…God told me to kill them!” he shouted, using a voice that was dredged up from the belly of a prehistoric beast. “You won’t lock me up again!” With that, his chest swelled and his arms flailed up over his head. Henry’s fists were only loosely balled, but they still took out chunks from the counter as they knocked against it.
Seeing that Paige had put some distance between herself and the flailing creature, Cole fired his remaining bullets into Henry’s chest. The impacts caused the gnarled tangle of humanity to take a few steps back, which bought enough time for Paige to draw the second club from her boot. Smoke from the gun along with everything else must have affected his eyes, Cole realized, because the club now looked like a sickle, complete with long, curving blade and a handle that wrapped around her knuckles.
“What do you want me to do?” he shouted.
Before Paige could answer, a glancing blow from one of Henry’s arms knocked the wind out of her. She slashed at Henry’s stomach with the sickle, stabbed him with the first pointed weapon, then ducked out of Cole’s sight to avoid a powerful swing from Henry’s forearm.
“Paige!” he shouted.
“…help…me…”
Those words hadn’t come from Paige. They were weak little mumblings coming from the counter in front of the shattered section of wall where the order window used to be. Looking in that direction, Cole found the first man who’d been tossed into the dining room.
“Please,” the man creaked. “Help.”
For the moment, Paige didn’t need any help. She was cracking the handles of both weapons against Henry’s head to make it looser than ever at the end of his neck. Henry wheeled around to face her, which placed him between Cole and Paige. Once Henry stepped aside, Cole could see that Paige was now carrying a sickle in each hand. Although the curved blades looked more suited for cutting wheat, they sliced Henry just fine. Paige bared her teeth in a half snarl and half grin as she continued to swing.
“I can handle him while you reload,” she said to Cole. “If I don’t make a dent after a few more tries, aim for his head. Not anywhere else, you hear me? Just the head.” Without waiting for so much as a nod from Cole, she swung her right weapon toward Henry’s ribs. Henry turned and batted her away with ease.
“Reload,” Cole grumbled. “Reload with what?”
As he tried to decide if he should run back to the car and look for more bullets, he felt something grab his shirt. He looked down to find the man who had been begging for help a few moments ago.
Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, Cole reached down to support the man under one arm. “All right,” he said. “We’re going outside. You gotta be quick, though.”
At first it looked as if the man was agreeing with him by nodding weakly. After letting his head fall back, however, he revealed the fangs on his upper and lower jaws. There was no mistaking the hunger in the Nymar’s eyes as he set his sights upon Cole’s neck and lunged for it.
Throwing the wounded Nymar away from him, Cole nearly tripped over a few of the closest bodies. Chunks of their necks had been torn out as if flesh had simply been scooped away from bone. That sight only confirmed what he had already guessed as to the grip of those lower fangs.
The Nymar’s teeth clamped shut, but only after his back had hit the floor. Having missed Cole without so much as scratching him along the way, the Nymar arched his back and let out an anguished moan.
Henry snapped his head toward Cole so quickly that it looked as if it might come off. When he caught sight of the Nymar at Cole’s feet, he cocked his head to one side until it was almost level. His gaze was knocked off-kilter once again as Paige dropped the handle of her weapon onto his temple and followed up with a kick that snapped his chin straight toward the ceiling.
Wheeling around in a crazed flurry of arms and fists, Henry knocked over tables and chairs with one wild swing after another. He hunkered down until he was closer to the size of a normal man, but the shape of his body was more gnarled and contorted than ever. His left fist sailed toward Paige, but she was able to hop away. Henry’s knuckles sent a chair flying, but his next attack was quicker.
Even though Paige was able to raise one of her weapons as a shield, there was more than enough force to send her skidding across the slippery floor. She grabbed onto a table and pulled it down with her so it could shield her from Henry’s next swing. A meaty fist cracked the thick plastic tabletop. Paige waited for the next blow, but it didn’t arrive. Instead, Henry loped over to the Nymar on the floor.
Cole circled around Henry and reached for Paige’s arm to help her up, but almost got one of her weapons jammed down his throat. “Easy,” he hissed. “That thing’s distracted.”
Paige blinked furiously and gathered herself up so she was crouched behind the table and ready to spring. “What’s distracting it?” she asked.
“Looks like our friends with the fangs are good for something after all.”
Taking a quick glance over the table, Paige watched as Henry stood in front of the Nymar and lowered his head. He then wrapped both arms around himself as if hugging his own stomach. The Nymar tried to scoot away, but Henry flew at him before he could get far. Shouting incoherently, Henry swatted at the floor and sent tiles through the air. With the same reckless abandon, he swiped at the Nymar’s chest and ripped away several layers of flesh and bone. “You!” Henry grunted. “Justliketheothers! Justliketheothers!”
The Nymar grabbed onto Henry’s wrist and had just enough strength to keep the gnarled fingers from reaching into his exposed rib cage. Once Henry’s hand came free, the Nymar flipped over and got to his hands and knees. Dropping his face to the floor, he lapped up some of the blood that had pooled there and then sent his leg straight back to pound against Henry’s midsection.
Henry skidded backward and crashed against the counter. His head lolled crazily as he stood up and swelled to something even bigger than when Paige had been on his back. He howled something that could have been words but were wrapped up in too much snarling to make any sense. Gripping the back of the Nymar’s head, Henry slammed the guy’s face against the floor, his other hand sinking wrist-deep into the middle of the Nymar’s back. He pressed down even harder against the Nymar’s head and pulled his other hand up to send several chunks of vertebrae through the air amid a spray of oily, blackened blood.
“You seen anything like that before?” Cole gasped.
For once Paige was speechless. She shook her head as Henry stuffed his face into the breach he’d created and started gnawing.
Come.
The word rolled through the air, causing Cole and Henry to snap their heads up and look toward the kitchen. Henry’s mouth was covered in Nymar blood, and rubbery chunks of the spore dangled from his teeth. Without a moment’s hesitation Henry stood up and leapt for the order window. His second jump took him out of sight completely.
“Come on!” Paige shouted as she hurdled the overturned table.
Cole was moving before she’d given the order.
The kitchen was a smaller area than the dining room, but was in an equally messy state. Pots and pans were scattered everywhere. Blackened hockey pucks that had once been burger patties sizzled on the grill, and a man in a white apron and T-shirt lay on the floor with his neck torn open. Cole led the way through a hole in the wall that might have been a doorway before Henry had shoved through it.
The back of the diner was a gravel-covered lot with several cars parked in a row. There were a few more parked off to one side, but they weren’t arranged as neatly as the first bunch. Pushing past Cole to emerge from the diner, Paige held her arms up with her weapons flipped over her forearms to protect her face. But there was no attack coming and nobody was there to ambush them. Cole’s attention was drawn to a dark, late model four-door speeding away from the diner. Henry bounded alongside that car like an obedient dog, then got in front of it with his next leap. The car left the diner behind amid a spray of loose gravel that wasn’t quite loud enough to drown out Paige’s fierce swearing.
“We can still catch it!” Cole said. “Let’s go!”
“This place is right off the interstate. They’ll be in the fast lane before we get the car started.”
Cole wanted to argue and drag Paige to the car, but after running around the side of the building, he saw she was right. The highway was less than a hundred yards away, and Misonyk’s car was already pulling onto it. “So we just let them go?” he asked.
Paige let out the breath she’d been holding and nodded. “There’s a survivor inside. I saw her at one of the tables.”
“And what if the survivor isn’t human?” he asked.
Holding up the weapon in her right hand to show Cole that it was the straight, sharpened stake, she replied, “One more body in there won’t make much difference.”