Shadow Dragon (41 page)
Authors: Lance Horton
Kyle crashed through the undergrowth, limbs and branches cracking against his forearms. Time blurred as he stumbled through the luminous green netherworld. All that mattered was that he get down the mountain as fast as humanly possible in order to help Carrie. When he finally burst from the forest at the trailhead, he had no idea if it had taken him twenty minutes or twenty hours to reach the bottom.
He climbed onto the remaining snowmobile and started it up. Instinctively, he flicked on the headlights and was suddenly blinded by the blazing green-white light inside the visor.
Shit!
he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut. He turned off the lights and took off for the ranger station in the dark. He drove slowly at first, waiting for his eyes to adjust again. But as soon as he could see, he twisted the throttle until he was flying down the roadway. He glanced over his shoulder repeatedly, each time expecting to see one of the dragons hurtling toward him.
As he continued down the trail without encountering the other snowmobile, his hopes began to rise. Maybe Carrie and the doctor had made it to the ranger station. But why wasn’t Hank on his way back up?
When he came within sight of the ranger station, the first thing he noticed was the cabin door standing wide open.
Luminous green-white light spilled out into the night.
Carrie.
With a sick feeling in his gut, Kyle twisted the throttle more.
It was as if Carrie had fallen through a hole in space where time hung suspended between one moment and the next. She knew what was coming, and there was nothing she could do about it.
A massive black shadow shot through the window, slamming into Bennett. He was knocked across the floor, crashing into the counter, a rippling black mass atop him.
Bennett screamed in terror as he flopped about, desperately straining against the cuffs. The dragon rose above him, towering over its creator. The beast’s long snout opened wide, revealing row upon row of jagged teeth. It spread its wings and shook them as it released a piercing screech.
Bennett ducked his head into his shoulder, too terrified to look. The dragon struck, its mouth snapping shut on Bennett’s shoulder with crushing force. Screams filled the air. The creature slashed at him with its long claws, gutting him. Blood geysered forth, spraying everything.
A loud
boom
shook the room as a shotgun went off.
The creature shrieked as the upper half of its left wing was blown off. With incredible quickness, it launched itself up into the open beam ceiling. Gripping one of the logs with its talons, it flipped itself about. Its tail flicked out from beneath it as it spun, the glint of steel flashing in the light. The shotgun roared as it fell to the floor along with the suddenly severed arm. The man looked at his missing limb in disbelief as the dragon dropped onto him from above. The two fell to the floor in a writhing, shrieking frenzy.
Carrie scurried across the floor. Glass dug into the palms of her hands. She grabbed the door latch, which became slick with blood. Her hand slipped off. She grabbed at it again and finally managed to jerk it open.
She fled outside, chased by the horrific screams. She stopped on the porch and looked for signs of other dragons bearing down on her.
The snowmobile was parked in front of her.
But
where to go? And what if there were more dragons
?
Then it came to her.
The Hummer.
She took off around the building. She panned the dark skies as she ran, like a terrified rabbit running from a hawk.
The Hummer still sat out back, apparently undisturbed. All four of its giant tires still held air. Relief flooded through her.
She raced to it and yanked on the door handle. It was locked.
Damn it. The keys.
After Kyle had given them back to her, she had put them in the pocket of her jeans that morning. She unzipped the top of the snowsuit and then ripped it halfway off to get to her jeans. Relief flooded through her when she shoved her hand in her right pocket and felt the remote. She jerked it out and punched the unlock button.
Snap!
She jumped into the truck without pausing to pull her snowsuit back up. After she slammed the door behind her, she locked it. The keys slipped in her bloody fingers as she tried to shove them into the ignition. On the third try, she rammed it home. She cranked the ignition switch so hard she was surprised the key didn’t snap off.
The truck roared to life.
She flipped on the lights, threw it into reverse, and tromped on the accelerator. Snow and gravel spewed from under the truck, pelting the back of the cabin. She hit the brakes and then shifted into drive. She was going to make it.
Something heavy crashed down on the hood, crumpling the metal.
Carrie screamed. The long, toothy snout and the narrow, golden eyes of a dragon appeared before her.
Were there two of them now
? But then she noticed the shattered wing dangling at its side. Broken glass covered the hood of the truck. The cabin’s back window was now gone.
With an angry screech, the dragon bashed its forehead against the windshield, leaving a bloody smear across the glass. Carrie screamed. Snapped from her momentary trance, she stomped on the accelerator. The truck took off with a roar. The dragon sprawled across the hood, its head cracking against the windshield again.
She was heading straight for the cabin. She jerked the wheel to the left. The truck’s floodlights swept the back of the building, sending huge shadows of the creature flying across the wall.
She wasn’t going to clear the corner. She braced herself just as the truck’s right front wheel slammed into the log that served as a parking stop. The front of the truck canted up crazily as it bounced over the log and slammed into the cabin. The airbag deployed with a concussive
bang
. Mortar and splintered timber flew as the truck rammed through the back wall.
The impact of the airbag stunned her and caused everything to flutter about crazily for a moment. The cabin of the truck was filled with a fine white powder.
Coughing as things slowly coalesced back into focus, all Carrie could see was the dark, pebbly skin of the dragon’s underbelly through the window. It wasn’t moving.
Crack!
Carrie shrieked as the dragon’s tail smacked against the windshield. She watched in horror as it rocked its body back and then sent its tail whipping toward the glass again. The steel blade struck the window with a
bang
,
launching a spiderweb of cracks across it.
Without waiting for the next blow, Carrie threw the truck into reverse and floored it. The Hummer’s massive engine roared as it strained to move, but it was wedged between the logs of the cabin’s back wall and the parking stop. The front right tire spun against the log, smoking and stinking of burned rubber. The truck shimmied from side to side as the other tires spun, throwing up plumes of snow and gravel.
The tail slammed into the windshield again. The safety glass cracked and crumbled along a three-foot depression where the tail struck. The thin plastic laminate between the sheets of glass was the only thing that kept it from falling into Carrie’s lap.
She let off the accelerator and then slipped between the bucket seats, over the center console, and into the backseat. The tail struck again. Safety glass exploded into the cab and pelted her with a spray of sticky pellets. Crackling and crumbling, the front windshield fell onto the dashboard and into the front seats.
The dragon’s head snaked down into the opening. Streamers of blood and saliva dripped from its snout. Its amber eyes narrowed as they focused on her. It emitted a shrill, coughing bark and then slithered into the truck like a crocodile slipping into the water.
Panting and trembling, Carrie shoved herself up and over the backseat into the rear cargo area. The gap between the seats and the roof of the truck was confining to the dragon, which helped to slow it down. Its claws raked across the seats and ripped large gashes in the leather as it struggled to pull and push its thick bulk forward. One of its long forelimbs slipped off the center console, and it dropped down, momentarily disappearing from view.
Carrie groped for the rear door’s latch, her bloody hand smearing the plastic as she searched for the handle. But there wasn’t one.
She was trapped.
She looked about the cargo area, desperately searching for something to break the window with. She grabbed anything and everything, including the leather gun cases, and tossed them up front to get them out of her way and hopefully slow down the creature.
Then she saw it. Mounted in front of the tire well against the backseat was the metal jack. She reached over and began frantically working to unscrew the large wing nut holding the jack to its mount, but it kept slipping through her bloody fingers.
Up front, the dragon’s head rose above the seat. Carrie became aware of a high-pitched, keening sound within the truck only to realize it was her own panicked whimpering.
The dragon pulled and clawed its way between the front seats.
The wing nut finally spun off, and Carrie jerked the jack free. She slammed it against the back glass, but it didn’t break. She slammed it against the glass again, but the thing just bounced off, slipped from her hand, and fell to the floor.
She screamed as the dragon lunged forward, snapping and ripping out a chunk of the backseat. She could smell the rank stench of blood on its hot breath.
She grabbed the jack again and rammed it against the window. This time, it shattered, showering her in sticky pellets of glass and plastic film.
Carrie squeezed herself through the crumbling remains of the window, past the massive spare tire mounted to the rear bumper. She turned as she went and reached up and grabbed the back rail of the luggage rack to pull herself out.
The dragon lurched across the backseat, its jaws clacking together as Carrie started to pull her legs out. Searing pain flared along the inside of her left calf as its teeth ripped through her snowsuit. She cried out and kicked wildly at its head with her right foot, but its jaws had clamped down on the snowsuit, and it wasn’t about to let go. She shoved against the back of the truck, struggling to free her leg as the dragon began to slowly pull her back inside. Jerking and kicking, she managed to work her left foot up through the leg about ten or twelve inches.
Then the dragon began to thrash and spin like a crocodile rolling its prey on the bottom of a river. The leg of the snowsuit twisted up and tightened around her boot. Carrie tried to pull it out, but her boot was caught in the ever-tightening noose of her suit. With her right leg braced against the tire well, she pushed with all she had and screamed with the effort. Her foot began to slowly slip out of the boot. There was the sound of ripping nylon, but the suit twisted tighter.
With one final surge, her foot came free. She fell backward to the ground with a heavy thud.
The wind knocked from her, Carrie struggled to her feet. Inside, the dragon had finished shredding the snowsuit, and when it realized there was no longer anything in it, it began pulling the rest of its bulk over the seat into the cargo area. Its head poked out the missing window beside the spare tire, but the space was too small for it to fit through easily. It shrieked in anger. Its burning eyes focused on Carrie.
She took off, hobbling across the frozen ground, one boot still on and one off. She wasn’t sure where to go now, but it would only be a matter of moments before the thing managed to slither its way out again.
Running around the US Forest Service’s Suburban, she thought about trying the doors, but she didn’t have the keys. And after she had seen what the thing had done to the Hummer, she wasn’t going to make that mistake again. She continued on around the cabin, desperately trying to think while keeping an eye on the skies above her. It was hard to see through the swirling snow. Another dragon could be diving toward her, and she would never see it. She ran on, wracked by shivers as the wind cut through her clothing like the dragon’s teeth through her snowsuit.
Thirty yards ahead, the dark, steel framework of the lookout tower loomed before her.
Carrie raced for the tower. She felt certain the thing couldn’t fly with one of its wings blown off. She just hoped it couldn’t climb a ladder.
The cold metal burned her skin as she climbed. Searing pain shot through her calf, but with each rung she passed, she began to gain confidence that she was going to make it, which only encouraged her to push herself higher.
Two-thirds of the way up, she heard the victorious screech of the dragon.
Seconds later, it came loping across the ground below, its powerful legs churning up chunks of snow. It flapped its wings as if trying to take off, but the shattered stump and tattered skin flopped about uselessly, keeping it grounded. Even so, it headed directly for the tower and Carrie as if she had been tagged with a tracking beacon.
At the base of the tower, it looked up and shrieked angrily. It moved closer, tentatively touching the steel framework a few times, as if unsure of what to do. Then it grabbed hold. Carrie watched in shock as the thing mounted the ladder. Slowly but surely, it began scaling the tower.
“Goddamn you!” Carrie screamed, cursing the creature and everyone responsible for creating it. The thing was unstoppable.
She started back up the ladder with renewed urgency.
When she reached the observation deck running around the outside of the perch, Carrie looked down again. The dragon was only a third of the way up, but it was still coming, slowly raking and clawing and pushing itself up. It used its tail as a safety line as it came, wrapping it tightly about the beams as it worked its way up.
Carrie pushed on the door leading into the observation perch and was relieved to find it unlocked. Inside, she looked about the octagon-shaped room. It was still filled with construction materials—stacks of sheetrock and ceiling tiles, spools of cable, sections of metal ductwork, crumpled plastic and tattered brown paper piled in one corner. To the left, opening from one of the back walls was a small toilet. Beyond that, sweeping around the front of the perch were six large windows, which were angled outward to maximize the viewing capabilities and gave the place the impression of an air traffic control tower.
She scanned the room for something to use as a weapon. Unfortunately, there weren’t any shotguns left lying around or hanging on a rack against the wall just waiting for her to come along. She considered trying to use a section of the sheetrock to drop on the creature, but, it was too bulky and heavy for her to lift alone, and the ductwork and ceiling tiles were too insubstantial to be of any effect against the dragon’s immense strength.
She looked at the built-in console/desk running around the room beneath the windows. It had been turned into a temporary plan table during construction, with rumpled blueprints and fast-food wrappers scattered across its surface. Beside the plans sat a metal toolbox. A wooden desk chair like the one in the cabin had been hauled up and shoved into the knee space.
Carrie grabbed the toolbox and picked it up to test its weight. Filled with tools, it felt heavy enough to do the trick. It took both hands for her to slide it off the counter and lug it out onto the catwalk.
The dragon had made it halfway up.
She hefted the toolbox up onto the railing and leaned it out over the edge. After she did her best to judge the distance, she waited until she thought the creature was within range before she let it go. It hurtled downward, twisting and tumbling. It crashed into the tower just above the creature’s head and bounced off the steel structure. The lid flew open and sent screwdrivers, wrenches, and hammers raining down on the creature. The dragon screeched as the tools bounced off its thick, bony skull before the box sailed harmlessly to the ground and disappeared into the snow.
Carrie fled back inside and struggled to control her rising panic.
Giving up on the idea of knocking the dragon off the tower, she closed the door and locked it in an attempt to barricade herself in. She slid the chair over and did her best to wedge it firmly under the knob.
She looked around again, hoping for inspiration. She knew the door wouldn’t hold forever, and while the tower’s glass was thicker than ordinary windows, she wasn’t sure they were impenetrable.
Then she saw the rungs leading to the hatch in the roof.