“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” McLeod yelled and pushed himself forward, feeling the massive thuds of the padded feet on his tail. Up ahead the Loch met the North Woods, and there was a mile of trees, where McLeod desperately hoped he could make his stand.
“I don’t like this one bit,” Agent Blaine groused from inside the modified Bell 412 helicopter, its flat black paint melting into the shadows of post-midnight Central Park North. The helicopter still sat on the sidewalk outside the main northern entrance to the park. Wilcox sat in her pilot’s seat, the flight helmet off, but the thick, metal headset still firmly clasped around her short-cropped hair.
“If anyone can take this thing out, the Shadows can,” Wilcox said evenly, trying to keep the hostility out of her voice. Yeah, her team knew the risks, they always did, but it was still this shitheel’s fault her team was out there maybe dying. Meanwhile, she was stuck behind the fucking flightstick as usual.
“Wilcox!” the voice was sharp and loud in her headset. She recognized the British twinge anywhere.
“McLeod! What’s going on?”
“I’m coming through the North Woods, half a mile out! It’s right the fuck behind me!”
“Where you want me, boss?” she asked, leaving her seat and venturing back into the cargo area.
McLeod was huffing and puffing through the headset, his words interrupted by short bursts of breath. “I want you gone! Get the fuck out of there!”
“Tough shit, I’m not going anywhere,” Wilcox said simply. She knelt next to a metallic box by the rear cargo door as Blaine stood from his own seat and seemed suddenly anxious to depart.
“Wilcox, I’m not fucking around! I just saw this thing eat Landry alive!”
Wilcox shook her head and sighed. “All right. Do what you gotta do.”
She clicked the switch on her headset to turn it off and turned around to talk to Blaine. “You may want to be elsewhere, chief.”
McLeod’s lungs burned. His chest felt like an elephant was gently pressing one foot on it. He was a well-trained soldier, but that didn’t include two-mile sprints in the job description, especially with an eight-foot beast hot on his heels.
He still couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it – or smelled it – before. The smooth, slimy skin and that long, thick tail. This fucking thing was amphibious. It hadn’t run to Central Park, it had swam there. Jumped in the ocean and just swam all the way to the fucking New York City coastline.
To this point, McLeod had used the trees to his advantage, darting in between sprouting trunks, while his pursuer had been forced to barrel her way through, probably the only thing that had slowed her down and saved his life. But in a quarter mile, the trees would be gone, and he was going to have to figure out something pretty damn fast.
Then he was there. The trees had vanished, and he was lunging, stumbling forward out into open air. East and West Drive met in a fork before him and reached out to West 110th Street, his advantage suddenly gone. A black shape stood looming on the pavement about 300 yards away, and McLeod focused on the Bell helicopter, pushing himself faster forward. Seconds later a loud, ramshackle crashing signaled the beast’s own exit from the trees, and the slamming of huge paws grew louder on McLeod’s trail. He could feel the force of the creature’s momentum behind him, almost feel the hot breath on the back of his neck and smell that awful dead fish smell.
He wasn’t going to make it. The copter was still far away, and the monster was too close, she was going to tackle him and drag him to the ground well before he made it to his destination. Then he did feel the hot breath. He did smell the sour salt water stench, and he could sense the slick fish skin of the creature wrapping itself around him.
But the world opened up in a series of jerking, spasmodic flashes of light before him, followed by swift repeating echoes of noise. Gunfire!
“Keep moving, boss!” shouted Wilcox as she stood in a half-crouch in the doorway of the Bell 412. She held a large Squad Automatic Weapon in her arms, the M249, bronze cylinders coughing and flying from the side of the weapon as it barked, sending a stream of deadly bullets just over McLeod’s head and toward the creature.
The ex-SAS operative could hear the swift thumps of bullets eating into fish skin flesh, tearing into the musculature and ejecting spewing grime out into the air. The thumping footsteps slowed but did not stop.
McLeod gave it one final burst, pushing himself forward, running as fast as he could, his lungs burning, his legs aching.
“Clear out, Wilcox! Get out of the copter!”
Wilcox looked at him curiously, adjusting the aim of her M249 automatic slightly, then squeezing off another burst. The creature tucked its head as more wounds burst open, next to a protruding spine that almost threatened to burst through the thin layer of skin.
“It’s still on you, boss!” Wilcox shouted.
“God dammit, Wilcox, move!” the Bell was only feet away, and he could feel the creature charging closer. But Wilcox wouldn’t, she held her place, firing on the monster, whose pace had quickened even as a dozen ragged bullet holes tore open the skin on its back. Her mouth pried open, forcing a growling scream from whatever lungs were contained within this freaky bag of flesh. It started off as a lion roar, but broke off into a crazed half growl, half eagle screech, spittle flying from its toothy, opened mouth, and spattering across the nape of McLeod’s neck. It was on him again, right on him.
He jumped, throwing himself toward the Bell as the creature lunged. The side cargo door of the helicopter was just wide enough for a pair of gunners to sit, even when completely empty. Tonight, Wilcox sat crouched to McLeod’s right, and the opening seemed quite narrow indeed. McLeod’s feet struck the metal grid floor of the interior of the helicopter, and he surged forward once again, throwing himself through to the other open cargo door. The beast followed.
Wilcox suddenly understood what was happening, and started to backpedal, but too late. With a snarl, the broad, slick-skinned beast slammed her against the metal frame of the copter, her lips pursing and spitting dark blood. McLeod began to slide through the other end, his pursuer’s momentum slowing. It was too large and unwieldy to slip through the two cargo doors, and with a growl and lunge, it was lodged inside the copter, the stump of its thick tail pinned against one side of the entrance door, while its shoulders slammed forward against the inside of the far wall, catching it in a metallic, boxy hug.
McLeod started to fall out the other side, reaching down and clutching the two grenades had had liberated from Berger’s corpse. He pulled them free and with one skillful hook of his fingers, snagged the pins and wrenched them both. The ground was coming up to greet him, and he tossed his arm back, letting go of the two grenades, and more importantly the two firing pins he had held down until their release.
Pain ripped through his left leg, jagged snarls of hot needles, right above the ankle, sending roaring agony up through the muscles of his calf and thigh.
Five seconds.
McLeod twisted in mid-air, slamming back-first onto the ground, the creature’s massive jaws clamped tightly around his lower left leg. Too close! He was too damn close!
Four seconds.
He popped the clasp on his leg holster and slipped his nine-millimeter pistol free.