Then, very slowly, the head turned, and the black eyes, as cold and rational as ever, focused on Darryl anew.
“Jesus.” Darryl stepped backward. The animal still had something left. It still had a lot left.
He eyed the tiny knife in his hand. He had to get away; he had to get away immediately. He turned and sprinted.
The creature threw itself into the air. And landed on the rock. Its wings weren’t working. The eyes shifted, barely able to see Darryl now. Then they slowly closed.
Sprinting awkwardly, his shoulder in agony, Darryl glanced back. He thought the predator had just closed its eyes, but he didn’t care. He’d blow the explosives he’d left on the tunnel’s floor and trap it. He ran as hard as he could. He was halfway there.
The body flinched. Then the eyes blinked and opened, focusing on Darryl anew. They could see him now. The animal coiled its front half off the rock, pushed off, and, like a wobbly airplane, rose on the diagonal.
Darryl turned back. The creature was flying again. Out of control, but flying. Clutching his knife, he ran as hard as he could. The explosives were a few hundred feet away. He could make it.
The predator veered back and forth, its rippling muscles out of sync. Then it smacked into a wall and seemed to right itself. It flew straight. It pumped its wings and suddenly surged ahead.
Darryl turned back and couldn’t believe it. The predator was really moving now.
He turned forward. The explosives were less than a hundred feet away. He could make it; he knew he could make it.
The animal flew faster, closing rapidly.
Darryl ran for dear life, chest heaving, arms pumping. The knife slipped from his hand. He just ran. The explosives were fifty feet away. Then forty, thirty, ten…
He ran past them and stopped at the fork.
The Demonray hurtled closer, ripping over the halos of light, seconds from the bombs.
Darryl reached for the remote.
It wasn’t there.
He frantically patted his pockets.
He found a lump, removed it, and positioned his finger over the button.
The speeding animal looked right at him and let out a deafening roar.
Darryl stared right back at it. “Yell all ya want. You’re done.” He pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
He pressed the button frantically. Nothing.
The predator sped forward, refocusing on its prey.
Darryl sprinted away. As he rounded a corner, he focused on the offshoot tunnel he’d ignored earlier, praying it had a place to hide. He ran in….
Banking around the corner like a fighter jet, the animal focused on the offshoot tunnel….
Darryl ran hard, looking for someplace, anyplace. He froze. It was another dead end, a solid rock wall. He turned back as the creature rocketed in….
Darryl scanned the wall frantically. There had to be an opening, a crevice, something. There was nothing, just solid rock.
The predator rushed closer, dipping slightly, eyes locked, mouth opening.
Darryl backed against the wall.
The animal sped closer, dipping, a few feet above the rock.
Darryl braced himself.
The predator dipped farther, inches above the floor, a hundred feet away.
Darryl raised his fists.
The Demonray dipped again, suddenly on the rock, sliding very fast, like a train on ice. It skidded for a hundred feet and stopped a yard from Darryl’s boots.
His back against the wall, Darryl just stared at it.
The predator didn’t budge. It just lay there, eyes open, looking right at him.
He slid off the wall.
It didn’t move.
He held his breath and listened to it. There wasn’t a sound. The body wasn’t rising and falling anymore. He noticed the eyes again. They were still looking straight at the wall.
He stepped toward it.
It didn’t move.
He stepped again.
It still didn’t move.
He kicked it in the head.
No movement of any kind. The Demonray was dead.
Darryl fell hard to the floor and laughed his head off. “Just like I planned it.”
CHAPTER 93
“YOU TWO still awake out there?”
Lisa and Jason shared a stunned look. Darryl Hollis’s voice had just crackled from the little walkie-talkie, glinting slightly in the late-afternoon sun.
Jason fumbled to grab it off the rock. “Darryl?”
“Better get in here fast.”
“Why?”
“You wanna see this thing before rigor mortis sets in?”
Jason couldn’t believe it. “My God, you killed it? You actually killed it?”
“I thought you could trust people now.”
A smile. “How do we find you?”
“Just follow the light.”
I MUST have banged my damn knee somehow, Darryl thought, staggering into the central cavern. With the burning flares lighting the way, he lumbered into the middle of the giant space and lay down, wondering how much blood he’d lost. He was tired. He’d lost his wife, his best friend; he was so very tired.
Minutes later, he heard Jason’s stunned voice.
“My God, look at the size of this place.”
Lisa looked around, marveling. “Wow.”
“Impressive, huh?”
They turned, trying to see him in the flickering space. Darryl Hollis was invisible.
“Where are you?” Jason called out.
“Over here. In the middle.”
Lisa pointed. “There.”
They trotted over to him.
Jason looked down at him and smiled. “You did it. My God, you really did it.”
Darryl nodded sadly on the floor. “Monique and Craig deserved it. So did Phil.”
“They all deserved it.”
Lisa noticed Darryl’s soaked shirt and crouched. “Are you OK?”
He leaned back painfully on the rock. “Fine, Soccer Mom.”
She moved in to examine him. “Holy cow, your shoulder. We better get you a doctor.”
“Did Monique get a doctor?” Darryl turned to Jason. “Better start calling you Charlie Darwin from now on, huh?”
Jason shook his head, noticing a pair of explosives and a remote on the rock. “Leftovers?”
“Souvenirs. Take ‘em.”
Jason did, then looked around the vast cavern. “So you really killed it?”
“Body’s over there. Just follow the flares.”
Jason paused. “Will you be all right?”
“Go. You too, Lisa.”
She looked uncomfortable, even sick. “Darryl, I really think you need to see a—”
“I’ll see one later, OK? I just need some rest now.” He exhaled painfully and lay back.
Lisa nodded to Jason, and they followed the flares. Into one tunnel, then the offshoot.
From a distance, they saw it in front of the dead-end wall, something huge and dark, facing away from them. It didn’t move, but as they walked closer, in the sparkling golden light, Lisa wondered if somehow it was still alive. She stopped walking, but Jason continued until he was just a few feet away. He saw the animal wasn’t breathing. It had to be dead, and yet… He reached down to poke it. Then jolted back.
“Jesus!” Lisa jolted, too. “What’s wrong?”
“Its skin’s still warm.”
Lisa stepped backward. “What’s that mean?”
Jason paused. “Nothing. Its blood’s still settling.” Of course. Darryl had just killed it.
Jason poked it again. It didn’t more. He walked to the predator’s front. The eyes were wide open, as cold and black as ever but somehow devoid of life now. He surveyed the rest of it. Darryl’s arrows were sticking out from everywhere—left wing, right wing, the middle, the head, the horns, the face. “You want to see it?”