Coyote (17 page)

“Hey, there,” he said, then “Hey, who’s that?”

She looked at the man beside her, evaluating him. “An ally, for now,” she said. “Have you seen the others?”

With another look at the large man beside her, Bait took her at her word, turning to look once more in the direction of the lumbering beast.

“Not really,” he said. “I thought Medic was back where you guys came from. Mule and the Professor are up ahead, I’m pretty sure. I’d say Mule is another fifty yards past where that thing’s tossing around, but the Professor’s in that bunch of two bushes with a tree sticking up out of the middle there, right next to the thing. I saw him go in, and I’d say he’s likely to be stepped on any moment.”

She looked towards the beast, seeing the bushes Bait had been describing. They were right next to the area the beast seemed to be searching, and as she watched one of its legs actually brushed past the outer leaves of the bushes. If the Professor was in there, he was definitely in danger of being crushed.

“There is no time to wait,” she said. “We must go now.”
              The large man said nothing, but Bait was confused. “Go where?”

“You have your knife?” was her reply.

“Yes,” and Bait drew his machete from the sheath at his side, proving his words.

“Good. It is time to kill it.”

Not waiting for the others, she broke from the bushes, yelling “Come now! Drz!”

The dog broke from the bushes towards the beast, ears low, snarling. The man ran right behind her, quieter but no less intent. Bait, taken by surprise, was slower to react. He took one more breath, gripped his knife with white knuckles, and ran after them, catching up after several strides.

“What’s the plan?” he yelled when he caught up.

“Kill it,” she yelled back. “Circle it, go for the eyes, and keep moving.”

The dog, faster than any human, was the first to reach the beast and it threw itself into the fray as if possessed. It was a snarling, snapping fury too quick to keep track of in the dimming light. It snapped at the legs of the beast, finding no purchase for its teeth, but definitely gaining the attention of the beast. The beast turned, stomping toward the dog’s attacks.

The dog at first stood its ground, snarling and snapping and sure to be crushed at any moment.

“Dokola! Kroužit!” she yelled as she made her own approach. The dog began to run circles around the beast, still snarling and snapping as the others arrived. Soon the beast was spinning in its lumbering way, trying to face the four figures that surrounded it.

Each of them kept moving, running in circles around the beast, dodging its great bulk, and looking for their chances to get in close to one of the eyes. She was the first to strike, dodging past one great leg, and having to reach up as she came to the side of the beast, stabbing her knife into one of the black orbs that studded its body. Her knife sank in to the hilt, releasing a dark ooze and a terrible stench from the orb as it deflated like a popped balloon. The creature gave a shudder turning more quickly than she imagined it could and sending her tumbling as one of its enormous legs knocked into her.

She spun away, rolling through dirt and bushes. When she looked up, the man was standing over her.

“You OK?” he asked, reaching out a hand.

She slapped his hand away. “Do not stop!” she yelled. “Go! Kill it!”

The man gave her an inscrutable look before turning back to the fight.

She picked herself up and rejoined the group herself. It was to be a long fight.

They each continued dodging around the beast, darting in to stab when they could, keeping moving, and awaiting their next chance. The dog did the least damage of anyone, for its small teeth could do nothing to this great, lumbering thing. She and Bait both got several chances to dodge in with their knives, but it was hard to hit the eyes on the moving beast as they ran by, and more often than not their knives skittered off its hard exterior, completely missing the mark. The man had more chances with his long spear, but that length made it even more difficult to hit one of the eyes. But still they fought.

At one point she noticed that the Professor had joined them, darting in and out with his own knife, which she hadn’t even known he had. It was a folding knife with the blade now locked open, big for that kind of knife but still small compared to the hunting knives and machetes that others were wielding. She didn’t know how long he had been there—she was getting tired, and things were starting to run together. She saw Mule in the fight, too, but he was whacking at the beast with his bat, taking wild swings and probably doing as little damage as the dog.

Yet they were all there, all in the fight, and the beast did not seem to be able to tell which of them were the real threats, so it spun and twisted, trying to face them all, making the occasional lunge at one or another of them in an effort to crush them. The only one of the group that she did not see was Medic, but there was no time to wonder where the woman was.

The beast’s only weapon appeared to be its ability to crush things with its legs or even its whole body, but it was having no luck catching the smaller, quicker humans as they dodged around it. It could not focus on one long enough to seriously threaten that one without the others dodging in to attack it from their own angles.

The strategy was working, because more and more often she dodged in to one of the eyes only to find that it had already been ruined by somebody else. But there were many eyes, and they were small targets. Each time an eye was stabbed, the beast shuddered and spun, but she was getting tired. They all were. And as they tired, they slowed. The beast struck each of them with the occasional glancing blow through sheer bad luck, but as they tired these blows became more frequent and sometimes more serious.

The first evidence of this came when she saw the Professor, panting, stumble in to make a clumsy attack, standing still for a moment to aim at one of the black orbs. The beast spun, kicking at him and he was a fraction too slow to move. The kick sent him flying through the air away from the beast, turning a full somersault before he landed with a thump audible even over the snarling of the dog, and the yells and curses of the others. She did not see him rise again.

Soon they all were spending more time outside the range of the beast, and making fewer quick moves to attack it. At one point the beast was able to strike both the man she had met hiding in the bushes and Mule with the same leg, leaving only her and the dog attacking it. They both soon rose and came back to the fight, but she worried that they would all tire out before they brought this thing to the ground. What’s more, she did not know if these organs they were stabbing into were vital to the beast, of if they were actually just annoying it. It did not seem to be slowing.

They needed a new plan.

She ran to where the man was crouching, breathing hard, waiting for his next opening. She saw that one side of his face had an abrasion across it as if he had been scraped across asphalt, and one eye was starting to swell shut. Looking at him, she had her doubts.

“Can you still fight?” she asked.

He grinned at her, seeing where she was looking. “I’ve got another eye,” was all he said.

“Stab it then,” she said.

“What do you think I’ve been doing?”

“Stab it, and leave the spear in.”

He looked at her a moment, then nodded.

She went back to the attack, still darting in to stab when she could, but now knowing she was just a diversion. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the man. He feinted and moved, looking for an opening. Then he lunged, missing, the spear skittering off the beast’s skin.

Again he stepped back, moving, dodging about, and looking for his opening. This time when he lunged he did not miss. The spear struck one of the black orbs, releasing the squirt of blackish goo they had seen before. The man dodged away, leaving the spear swinging wildly up and down as the beast moved back and forth. He drew his large knife, and began to fight again, but looked to her as if to ask “now what?”

She ran to the side of the beast that had the spear sticking out of it, waited her chance, and dodged in, grabbing the spear and pushing with all her might. It went in a few more inches, feeling more solidly stuck, but she could do no more. The beast shuddered again and spun, forcing her to dodge away again, leaving the spear to flail in the air again.

“Drive it in!” she yelled. “Drive the spear in!”

The man heard her and looked to the spear, awaiting his own chance. When it came, he took it, grabbing the haft of the spear, and pushing it deeper into the orb. She could see his muscles bunching, but could not see the spear moving any deeper. She dodged in to the other side of the beast, stabbing at it to keep up the distraction, as did Bait, the Mule, and the dog. When she spun back out, she could see the man still with his hands on the spear, still pushing as he danced to one side or another to dodge the legs of the beast, but the spear was going no further.

Then from the other side she heard the Mule yell “Hold it!” as he came running around the beast. The man saw him coming too, and must have divined the Mule’s intent, for he held the spear steady for a moment, aiming the butt end at the Mule as he came running around the beast. The Mule ran onto the spear full speed, hitting it with his chest and trusting in the armored plates of his jacket to protect him. As he struck, there was a cracking sound and the spear was driven a good three feet into the beast. The Mule fell, clutching his chest and moaning as he rolled away from the area where the beast’s legs continued to come down.

The beast spun wildly, reacting to this new jab, and threw the man off his feet. He rolled away as Mule had, but kept hold of the spear, which made a squelching pop as it was pulled from the beast’s side. At this, the beast gave it’s greatest shudder of all, thrashing wildly, now no longer aiming at the people that still circled it, but seemingly driven mad by this latest assault.

From the hole torn by the spear, a dark liquid spurted, as if from a hose under great pressure. As the beast turned, this liquid squirted across each one of the people around it, as well as liberally coating the trees and bushes.

When the spray washed across her she learned that not only did it smell even fouler than the liquid behind the beast’s eyes, but it wasn’t all liquid, either. It was more the consistency of cottage cheese, with some larger chunks and some smaller ones in it. She had to work to hold down the contents of her own stomach as she backed off, wiping the disgusting mess off of her face.

They all backed off, watching the beast in what now seemed to be its death throes. Having had its armor pierced by the spear, it seemed like most of its insides were being forced out the resulting hole, most likely pushed by the pressure of the beast’s own massive body, like an above-ground swimming pool that spills its contents through a rip in its side. The hole soon grew larger under pressure, growing to the full eight-inch size that the original orb had been.

And as the flow continued, the beast slowed. Each of its steps was more sluggish, until finally, still leaking fluids from the wound in its side, its legs collapsed and it settled to the ground with a great thump. It lay there for some time, its legs kicking ever slower and the flow from the wound slowing to more of an ooze than a stream, until finally the flow stopped altogether, as did the beast’s kicking and shuddering.

It finished its violent, gory death throes, still never having made a sound. She wondered what it would be like to die without being able to scream or groan, or call out your last, defiant words. She hoped she would never find out.

When the beast finally settled into stillness, seemingly dead, they all gathered about the corpse. They shared looks between them, each wondering at what they had accomplished, and each with a different emotion on their face. It was the man that had helped kill the beast who broke the silence.

“Hah, haaa! Got you, bitch!” He gave a whoop and climbed atop the body of the beast, drawing the attention of all that were gathered. Without another word or any acknowledgement of his audience, he knelt on the beast’s carapace and began sawing at it with his knife. Everyone watched, wondering what he was about.

The man was digging away at one of the black orbs higher up on the beast’s body, where their stabbing knives had been unable to reach while the beast was alive. In a few minutes, it became obvious that he was trying to extract it without popping it. Unfortunately, as he worked to pry it out he accidentally pierced it with his knife, releasing another spurt of the same foul-smelling goo that had been in the other orbs. He gave a muttered curse, but finished pulling the ruined orb from the beast’s body and proceeded to wring out all the foul goo he could, then rinse the deflated orb with water from a canteen strapped to the back of his belt.

When he was done he had a brown, floppy sack in his hands. Still crouched on the beast’s body held it up triumphantly to show the others.

“How’s that, huh?” he asked.

For a moment nobody responded. Eventually, as the man kept looking around the group and waving his grisly prize, the Mule spoke up.

“So what are you doing with that?” They all could hear the disgust in his voice.

“It’s my prize, man! My trophy!” He smiled around the group, then pointed at the crude necklace around his neck, and the several dangling things tied onto his vest as well. The necklace and bracelets each had a variety of objects tied onto them.