field beyond the forest. The shape was just a silhouette of motion, backlit by the afternoon sun as it darted swiftly between the trees, leaping over the roots. It was another of the creatures, she supposed, come to join in the kill.
The shadow vaulted over a particularly large root, using it as a springboard to launch itself through the air towards her. She closed her eyes and waited for the end to come.
Instead, the weight of the creature suddenly lifted from her as she felt rather than heard something heavy collide with the creature on her back, knocking it away from her and tearing its claws from the backpack and her shoulder. The relief was instant and she sucked in a huge gasp of air. The blackness began to recede and pain flooded in its place as she found herself once again in the driving seat of her own body.
“Oh, good God,” she moaned, through teeth gritted so tightly in pain she could feel the enamel beginning to buckle.
The dirt was cool against her cheek and she was tempted to simply lay there, close her eyes again and sleep, but she couldn’t do that, not if she wanted to live.
And she
So, instead, she rolled over onto her back, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and ribs, and turned her head in the direction she thought her attacker had been knocked.
The creature was still there, crouched low as it sidestepped around the trunk of a tree, its lipless mouth bared in a snarl, tentacles quivering, muscles tensed and ready to leap. But the beast’s anger was no longer focused on Emily. Its attention was squarely on the thing that had saved her.
The dog, a male, was almost as large as the alien creature it now faced down. Its dense light-gray fur shot through with stripes of darker gray, and its broad chest was a tabard of white stretching from its throat under its belly back to its muscled haunches. The dog’s head was also gray, broken only by a mask of white fur around his eyes that stretched down his muzzle to his jet-black nose, while a thick gray tail curled proudly in a question mark above his back.
He was the most beautiful thing Emily had ever seen.
Emily recognized the breed as an Alaskan Malamute. Her uncle had owned two on his farm when she was child. It looked kind of like a Husky but it was bigger and far stronger. Originally bred as sled dogs, Malamutes were incredibly powerful and highly intelligent. Where it had come from and how it had survived the red rain, Emily had no idea, but she owed this dog her life and she’d be damned if she was simply going to lie there and let him take on the alien bastard on his own.
The dog was crouched low to the ground between Emily and the alien, his lips pulled back in a silent snarl as he eyed the creature while it continued to circle around, unsure of how to deal with the dog.
While the Malamute and the alien faced off against each other, Emily sat up and rolled over onto her knees. She had to find the shotgun. It had fallen somewhere nearby, but in the struggle that followed, the alien must have knocked it away because it wasn’t where she had last seen it. Flipping back onto her butt, Emily scanned the other direction and spotted the stock of the shotgun protruding from beneath the root of a tree. She willed her shaking legs to stand but they just would not obey. The best she could do was to get on all fours and crawl towards the weapon.
The alien must have figured out what she was going for because it let out an ear-piercing shriek, leaping toward her.
The dog leaped too. Emily saw his jaws open wide, his white fangs flashed as he collided in mid air with the alien, sinking his teeth deep into where the throat would have been if the thing had had a neck. The momentum of the dog bowled the creature over and the two entangled animals rolled off into the underbrush, both snarling at the other as they tried to land a killing bite.
It was now or never, Emily decided and pushed herself to her feet, ignoring the tingling pain that ran from her shoulders all the way down into her legs. Limping the final few feet to where the shotgun lay, she pulled it from between the tree’s roots. She quickly checked to make sure the barrel was clear of any debris then racked another round into the chamber, ejecting the spent shell.
She turned back towards where the two animals were fighting in time to see the alien erupt from the underbrush, closely followed by the dog. The Malamute snapped ferociously at the monsters hindquarters as they both raced toward her, the dog’s ears flat against his head, white froth coating his muzzle and flying from his mouth as he pounded after her attacker.
Emily drew a bead on the rapidly advancing monster and eased her finger onto the trigger… then released the pressure. If she fired now she risked hitting the dog following so closely behind the charging alien, and she would be damned if she was going to be the one who risked killing what very well may be the last specimen of humanity’s best friend. Instead, as the advancing monster ate up the final few feet between its quarry, Emily breathed in what felt like the deepest breath of her life but in reality must have been the shortest intake of air she ever made and then yelled…
“Down, boy. Get down.”
The Malamute instantly obeyed, dropping to the ground and forcing the flat of its jaw tight against the earth while tucking its tail around its flank. It only took a second for her to issue her command and the dog to obey, but that was all she needed to ensure sufficient space between the dog and the charging monster. The creature’s butt-ugly face seemed to take up her entire vision as she squeezed the trigger on the Mossberg and then it disappeared in a spray of green gore, as the 12-gauge buckshot obliterated it. Momentum carried the body of the alien past Emily and she felt the spray of green arterial blood splash over her as the dead body sailed past and crashed into the undergrowth behind her.
The dog was still lying where she had commanded it to stop. Its mouth was open as it panted hard, its tongue lolling between its front canines. Its left flank was smeared with dirt and stained with red blood, but the dog’s eyes were bright and clear and fixed directly on her as she limped her way over to it.
A wave of gratitude washed through her as she noticed the dog’s tail begin gently swooshing back and forth, sending a small cloud of dusty soil into the air. Emily knelt down on one knee, using the butt of the shotgun shoved into the ground to help steady her.
“Come here, boy,” she called quietly. The dog immediately jumped to its feet and ran to the woman he had just saved, ramming his head under her arm and almost bowling her over while his tail swished back and forth with joy. Emily threw her arms around the dog and pulled him to her, burying her face in the thick ruff of fur around his neck.
She pulled back and planted a kiss on his muzzle. The Malamute responded by covering her face in wet slobber as he licked at her, bouncing back and forth excitedly.
“I’m happy to see you too, boy,” she said between a fit of giggles.
A blue dirt-stained leather collar hung around the dog’s neck and she heard the tell tale jangle of identity tags lost somewhere in the mass of fur. “Keep still for a second, would you, you big oaf.” she laughed as she felt around until she found the metal tag. She tugged on the collar until she was able to read the information engraved on it.
“Thor?” she said, reading the name aloud. At the sound of his name the dog’s tail wagged even faster, sending a cool waft of air across Emily’s face. Someone had obviously taken living in Valhalla to heart, naming him after the Norse god of thunder.
She took the dog’s head in both hands and stared deep into his brown eyes: “Hello Thor,” she said. “Thank you for saving my life. Now, what do you say we blow this joint?”
Judging by the dog’s single excited bark, he was as ready to leave as she was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Emily limped back to where she had dropped her bike. Thor followed obediently by her side, stopping only to sniff at the dead aliens and occasionally to nibble at the wound on his side.
“We’ll get both of us fixed-up as soon as we’re out of here,” Emily told the dog. He glanced up at her, his tail wagged in understanding.
