Banished To Earth Book One (34)

.”  He pointed toward a sewage grate, just twenty feet away. They finally managed to roll Tucker over and drag him toes down toward the grate. Chase quickly lowered him beside their sole escape route when the beast stopped, reared, shrieked and slung his head back.

     Determined to move forward, it staggered and wobbled, clawed at its throat and shredded away most of the heavy scales protecting it. Then slung its massive head about as if frantically trying to dislodge a giant fishbone from its throat.

    Waddling and stumbling, it clawed at its neck again. Its watery green eyes glazed and swollen with effort. Trembling now, it swayed like a tall pine in a hurricane. And like a pine felled by a lumberjack it toppled over onto its side, quivered and died.

    Tucker’s eyes fluttered open. Dazed, he gave his head a quick jerk, reenergizing his lethargic flesh.

     A crimson necklace of blood squirted from the monster's throat. Mesmerised, the three of them sat back on the cold, damp pavement, dumbstruck by what happened next.

   Blood suddenly gushed from the beast's throat as it opened and became a gory, lipless grin. Tucker was about to speak but fell silent as the impossible continued to play out before his eyes. It was practically a resurrection. But not really.

    Something glinted in the milky light as the big pie-faced moon peered through a shredded sheet of clouds. Her knife wriggled through the crimson gash, a second before her right arm punched through the grisly mess. It slid down, ploughing through the gore as it pushed the wound open and birthed Silhouette back into the open air. Her long black hair plastered to her by bloody mucus, making her truly look like a newborn.

    Pushing and squirming, she finally managed to free her upper body. Then, like a woman wriggling from a girdle, she pushed the dead beast’s slimy raw meat over her hips, past her knees, finally freeing her feet.  

   Clearly dazed, but still managing a prideful smirk, she grabbed a double handful of raw meat. It was slimy but soft. The pliable tissue afforded her a good grip. And that was all she needed. She picked her way down, careful not to scrape her arms and legs on the creature's razor-sharp scales.  They fought the urge to applaud. That was the last thing she needed.

126

     She tried to backflip to the pavement, but fatigue stole her purchase, forcing her to kick her body away from the scales. She tumbled backwards onto the cold, hard pavement. It struck the back of her head hard.

    They heard a thud but not a crack. They rushed to her side. Pry kneeled and gently cradled her head. Bloody mucus covered her entire body. Her face was a mask of gore. But it wasn’t her gore.

    “There she is.” Silhouette grinned up at Pry. “Know what I can do?” Her tongue snaked out, ran over her lips and raked up a big wad of nastiness. She promptly swallowed it and smacked her lips. “I can eat anything and make it taste like anything.” A giggle managed to slip past her greasy lips just before she passed out.

    They struggled to free their minds from the incredulity of what they had just witnessed.

   “I’m not doin’ that,” Tucker drawled.

  “What?” Chase asked.

  “Eat monster snot, hope I never see that again. That gal is flat-out loony.”

   “She saved our lives, Tucker,” Pry chided.

    “Don’t care, you can’t trust crazy.”

   “She's coming with us.”

   Tucker heard nothing but rock-hard insistence in her voice.

   “We still haven’t looked for survivors.”

  “Pry, sweetie, I really don’t think there are any. I don’t hear anyone. Do you?”

   “No.”

  “I’m good to shift,” Tucker said, “I guess she is too.” Tucker rolled his eyes when he spoke. “If anybody survived, they’re long gone by now. If this crazy lady can cut her way out of a monster's gullet, I think she’s okay to shift.”

   “You’re hoping she’s not.” Said Pry.

   “Maybe a little.”

   “She could have killed us all; she saved your life.”

    “Yeah, but why?”

   Pry did not respond. It was a fair question, with no obvious answer.

127

    Despite Silhouette’s insanely heroic act, her hate-filled words regarding regular people still echoed through Chase’s mind, if only they were loud enough to silence his mother’s words. And those words, unlike Silhouette’s, were true. He was the first of his kind to kill a regular person, which made him not just a murderer, but a hypocrite. So far as he knew, Silhouette or Stayner had never killed and unchanged. That was his past. It would always touch him, hurt him, and dare him to undo it, an impossibility, of course. The present, however, belonged to him. And he was not about to let it go. Therefore, he was not about to do anything that might endanger Nikki Beth or Trudy. They were his present, his redemption and his heart. Mable’s son, he could not know what became of him. Death was the only reasonable assumption. But he forgot what they say about assumptions …

  “I’ve gotta beach house. We can go there. Need to check it out anyway.”

  Tucker seemed a bit wary, “Why don’t we just go to the beach near your house. Do you really want her to know where you live? Kinda in the wrong direction, but there’s probably no right directions left. I’m thinkin’ something rural, further inland, way out in the country.”

     Chase looked at Tucker with his best poker face, and he sucked at poker. He could see that he was holding something back.

 “You don’t trust me?”

  “It’s not just you. “Silhouette came right-out  and said people aren’t people anymore.”

   Tucker nodded, glanced around, and checked the area yet again for any possible threat. He had not sensed anything. But he preferred his God- given senses. They struck him as cleaner.

   “And, you got people stashed away somewhere far from here, don’t you?”

  Chase said nothing.

  “That’s a yes.”

   “Do you think she might hurt ordinary people?”

  “I sure do. That woman is not just crazy, she’s reckless. Crazy comes from somewhere. And recklessness means she doesn’t care. I heard her when I was healing, my eyes were shut, my body down, but my ears and brain were working just fine. I wouldn’t trust her with a dead dog.”

    “We cannot just leave her.” Pry glared at Tucker. “She saved us. “I do not think she is that much of a threat. My hair did not move against her; in fact, it has barely moved at all.”

   “She’s female.” Chase replied, “That might make a difference