Grey pivoted and fired four shots at the approaching pteranodons, the rounds punching through folded wings and hitting one in the chest. The creature roared and reared up, then staggered against another monster. Wounded or dying, Grey couldn’t tell.
“What about that damn fancy rifle of yours?” he gasped. “Seems like a good goddam time for it, don’t you think?”
“Shite!” cried Looks Away. “I’m a bloody fool. I’ve been carrying it all this time and forgot about it.”
Looks Away slid the loaded shotgun into its holster and jerked the strap to swing the Kingdom M1 rifle from his back and into his hands. He began fumbling with small brass and crystal switches and dials.
“Do you even know how to work that thing?” demanded Grey.
“In theory, in theory…,” muttered Looks Away under his breath. A series of small green lights sparkled to life along the gun’s sides and Grey could hear a low hum as the rifle began to vibrate.
“Should it be doing that?”
“Probably not,” said Looks Away nervously. “But we have to try. I just hope the bloody thing doesn’t blow up in my hands.”
“Is that likely?”
Looks Away answered with a sour grunt.
“How many rounds do you have?”
“Two magazines. One full one, which has five rounds; and one with only four. Plus two gas canisters. That should be enough to fire what we have.”
One of the pteranodons began chopping at the mushroom caps in order to get at them. Two of the others watched for a moment, and then they joined it. Their sharp beaks tore at the spongy fungus.
“Will it stop them?” Grey said, backing away.
Looks Away shook his head. “I have never used it before. I’m not one hundred percent certain it will work at all.”
Pieces of the mushroom cap began to rain down on them as the monstrous pterosaurs hammered away. Grey could already see the faces of the monsters. Their eyes glittered with hunger and bloodlust.
“Come on, damn it… we’re out of time!”
Looks Away was still fiddling with the dials and controls. “I don’t know where to set the gas pressure,” he said between gritted teeth.
“Then take a wild goddamn guess and — oh, shit.”
Grey shoved Looks Away to one side as a huge beak stabbed down through the ragged gap. It speared the air a scant inch from the Sioux’s unprotected back. The gun fell and slithered halfway out of their niche. Looks Away dove for it, scrabbling with fingernails as the stock slid away. He caught the very end of the brass butt-plate, but then he snatched his hand back as a savage beak snapped at him.
Grey grabbed his collar and hauled him back to safety as the beak of one of the monsters locked its powerful jaws around the stock of the Kingdom rifle. It lifted the gun up, and with a mighty jerk of its head flipped it into its mouth and tried to eat it.
“Grey!” cried Looks Away.
“I know,” he snapped. He leaned halfway out of their niche, dug the barrel of the Colt into the throat of the pteranodon, and fired. Deathless monster or not, the bullet tore a big red hole in the leathery flesh and exited at a sharp right angle, sure evidence that it had ricocheted off of heavy bone. The pteranodon’s head suddenly canted sideways and flopped onto the creature’s upper wing, and Grey knew which bone his bullet had struck. With a broken neck and two bloody holes in its throat, the giant creature toppled slowly sideways. The other pterosaurs sent up an ululating cry of indignation and fury.
“Did you see that?” yelled Looks Away. “A head shot and trauma to the spinal cord will do for those buggers.”
“Great, we’ll throw a party later. You lost your damn gun.”
As the dying beast struck the ground the Kingdom rifle fell from the yawning beak and landed hard. The rows of little lights flickered, flickered, flickered… but then they steadied.
The rifle lay ten feet outside of their niche.
“Oh…
Above them the two mushroom caps that formed their ceiling were falling to pieces beneath the renewed assault of the pteranodons.
“They’re going to get us,” cried Looks Away, fumbling for his shotgun. His hands were shaking badly, and Grey could not blame him. His own trembled with the palsy of genuine terror.
“We need that gun,” he growled.
As if in conscious defiance of their needs, one of the pteranodons placed a foot over the weapon. Grey knew that it couldn’t be more than happenstance, but it felt like a statement to them.
You are our meat.
It terrified him.
It infuriated him.
As he reloaded he thought about what Mircalla had said about his life. He thought about what Veronica had said. The martyr.
Martyr.
The gun lay there, ten feet away. He could reach it. If he could get it away from the monster then maybe he could throw it to Looks Away before the pteranodons killed them both. They would kill him, of that there was no doubt.
No doubt.
Was this it? Was this the moment predicted by the witch and the manitou? Was he destined to sacrifice himself and to die here in the fetid darkness, the meal of monsters? Was that a tragedy or would it redeem him in the eyes of the universe? And what then? Would he join the band of wandering vengeance ghosts and drift along the fringes of the living world until the sun burned itself out and time ran down to its last few ticks?
Those thoughts flashed through his mind even as he felt his body moving.
Moving.
Rushing toward the cleft, toward the gun.
This is a better death than I deserve, he thought.
And then he was falling sideways.
Something buffeted him and sent him crashing against the tree-like stem of a giant mushroom. He fell hard and saw Looks Away throw him a madman’s grin as he dove through the cleft.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
“No!” cried Grey as he struggled back to his feet.
When Looks Away had shoved him out of the way, Grey had dropped his gun. He scooped it up now and prayed that the barrel was not clogged.
It all happened fast.
So fast.
Looks Away had his shotgun in his hands and as he dove he fired both barrels into the face of the towering pterosaur. The creature towered ten feet above him, but the spray from the sawed-off barrels spread wide, and the entire flight of pellets struck beak and eyes and throat and head, and all of it exploded into a cloud of pink mist. The recoil from the poorly braced weapon hit Looks Away in the center of the chest and sent him into an awkward, crashing fall. He landed hard and his head banged against the ground as the headless pteranodon toppled the other way, slamming into two others and dragging them down.
There was one single moment of absolute stillness.
The Kingdom rifle was five feet from where Looks Away lay, but he lay there, shaking his head, dazed, hovering on the edge of blacking out.
“Looks!” shouted Grey as he flung himself out the niche just as three huge beaks stabbed down. He opened up with the Colt and fired at the pteranodons who were recovering from their shock to realize that fresh and helpless meat lay there for the taking.
Grey scooped up the rifle and thrust it at Looks Away, who had managed to prop himself up on one elbow. His nose was bleeding and he was wheezing like a dying trout.
“Here, damn it!”
Grey fired his six rounds, unable to miss at that range.
Beyond the closest pteranodons there were more.
So many more.
At least fifty of the living dead things were crawling through the forest or perched atop the mushroom caps. More circled in the humid air, jealous of their brothers who were close enough to join the impending feast. The stench of their rotting flesh was stifling, overwhelming.