so Leon turned left, peering uneasily into the thickening shadows as he trudged onward. He shouldn't have let Claire go after Ada alone, he should have pulled himself together and gone with her… He stopped, hearing something. Shots, distant and hollow, coming from somewhere up ahead, distorted by the winding maze of tunnels that made up the sewer system. Still holding the Magnum tightly, Leon pressed his wrist against the bullet wound and started to run, the pain going sharp again, making him queasy. He couldn't manage much better than a shagging jog, the water slowing him down almost as much as the nasty bite of the wound, but as the last echo of the shots faded away, he somehow found the motivation to go faster. There was a dimly lit offshoot to the tunnel ahead and to the left, pale yellow light streaming out across the softly slopping water. Even before he reached it, he saw that he would have to make a choice. Straight in front of him was a platform of sorts, a heavy door set into the ragged bricks of the tunnel's end, water dripping down from the ceiling in slender rivulets.
An obvious choice, except…
Leon stopped in the elongated patch of murky light, looking down into the offshoot. Another door, and he didn't have time to decide, the shots could have come from anywhere… Barn-bam! To the left. Leon jumped up from the tunnel, feeling new pain, feeling hot wetness against his wrist as the wound started to seep. He ignored it, hurrying to the door and pulling it open, hearing more rounds fired as he started down a wide and empty hall. The corridor he'd entered was as shadowy and cold as the sewage tunnels, but much bigger, wider, pre– sumably some kind of transport hall for heavy equip– ment. It twisted left and then left again, boxes and a rack of steel canisters against the second comer, just past some kind of a loading door.
… acetylene, maybe oxy, good GOD what takes that many bullets and doesn't die?
He heard another string of shots, splashing water and a different sound, a deep and guttural hissing that chilled him to his core. Strangely familiar, but too loud to be possible.
A million snakes, a thousand giant cats, some pri-mordial, terrible dinosaur…
He ran, finally giving up trying to hold the bullet hole closed, needing his arm free to pump for more speed. The end of the tunnel was close, he saw a panel of blinking lights and an opening to the left, another huge loading door…… and he stopped just short of running into the line of fire as another rapid succession of shots sounded, as a thundering crash of water sprayed out, water
raining down on the floor in a thick sheet. 'Stop, I'm coming in!' He shouted and heard Ada's voice, and felt a sweeping relief in spite of whatever horror was ahead.
'Leon!' She's alive!
Magnum raised, his wound bleeding freely now, he stepped in front of the open door and saw Ada across a lake of churning muck, boxes and broken boards swimming through the turbulent liquid. She was standing on a small ledge of concrete be– neath a ladder, her Beretta pointed into the thrash-ing pool.
'Ada, what…'
Splash! A giant burst out of the lake and slammed him off of his feet, knocking him back into the corridor. It happened so fast that he didn't actually see it before he was flying through the air, his mind feeding him the picture as he hit the ground. He fell on his injured arm and cried out, as much from the shock of what he'd seen as from the stinging blast of pain.
– crocodile -
Leon was on his feet and stumbling away before he even knew he could get up and the giant lizard, the croc that was thirty feet long if it was an inch, stepped into the corridor behind him with a mighty, bellowing roar. The cement trembled as the mammoth reptile crawled up from the waters of its home, gallons of black water streaming from its toothy, grinning jaws.
– jaws as big as me, bigger -
Leon ran, there was no pain, his heart hammering in a primal panic. It would eat him, it would shred him into a hundred screaming, bloody chunks…… and the beast roared again, an impossibly low bellow that rattled his bones, that urged sweat to burst from every quaking pore…… and Leon shot a look back, and saw that he was much, much faster than the grinning lizard. It was still climbing through the loading door, its tree-trunk legs short and squat, its incredible bulk too huge to maneuver so easily. Leon swapped weapons in a daze of terror, his wound shrieking as he chambered a round into the Remington. He sidled backwards in an uneven gait, reaching a turn in the hall -
– and unloaded all five shells as quickly as he could pump them, the heavy rounds blasting the monster crocodile's hideous snout. It roared, swinging its head from side to side, blood erupting from its grinning face in buckets, but still it came, lumbering forward, dragging its armored tail from the pool of slime behind it.
Not enough, not enough power…
Leon turned and ran again, horrified at having to retreat, afraid of what would happen to Ada when he left the crocodile behind, but knowing that it would take another fifty rounds to stop it – that or a nuclear blast, and why was he still thinking, he needed to get away and then worry about what to do.
Hang on, Ada…
The booming steps of the giant filled his ears as he ran past the boxes, past the row of steel cylinders and stopped running. His instincts cried out for sanity, but he had an idea – and as the terrible lizard took another twisting, thundering step, Leon turned and went back.
Let this work, it works in the movies, please God be listening…
The row of five gleaming canisters was inset on a thick shelf cut into the wall, held into place by a steel cable. There was a release button for the cable on the side of the shelf. Leon slapped it, and the heavy wire drooped, one looped end falling to the floor. Dropping the shotgun, he grabbed the closest of the cylinders, his muscles straining, blood pouring from his injured arm. He could feel thin, trickling trails of it sliding down his sweat-slick chest but didn't stop, rocking back on his heels to free the can of compressed gas.
… there!
Leon jumped back as the silver can fell off the shelf, hitting the ground and rolling a few inches. He looked up and saw that the croc had covered another fifty feet – close enough for him to see the dull, dirty pits in its six-inch teeth as it roared again, close enough for him to smell the rotting-meat stench of its hot breath only a second later. Leon raised one boot to the canister and shoved with all he had, the can lazily rolling back toward the gaining lizard. By some incredible stroke of fortune, the corridor floor had some slant to it; the two– hundred-plus pounds of cylinder seemed to pick up speed, spinning in the croc's direction in a loose semicircle. Backing away, he yanked the Magnum from his belt and pointed it at the shining can, forcing his fingers not to pull the trigger. The crocodile plodded forward, its tail slapping the walls so hard that stone dust rained down with each violent whip. Leon was in a state of total awe, in the grip of an instinctual terror so deep that it was all he could do not to turn and flee.
Come on, you bastard.
Less than a hundred feet away, the crocodile and the canister met and Leon pulled the trigger. The first shot pinged off the floor in front of the rocking can and the grinning jaws opened, the massive beast lowering its head to catch at the obstacle, to push it aside.
– steady -
Leon fired again, and… KA-BOOM!… was thrown to the ground as the canister ex-ploded. In a blast of curled steel and igniting gases, the creature's head was obliterated, disappearing like a popped balloon. Almost simultaneously, a wave of steaming gore hit Leon, bits of tooth and bone and shredded, smoking flesh clapping over him like a thick wet blanket. Gagging, his ears ringing and arm bleeding, Leon sat up as the headless carcass settled to the floor, the legs crumpling beneath the brainless weight of the reptilian monster. He pressed his blood- covered hand against the wound, exhausted, sick, in pain and as deeply satisfied as he'd felt in quite some time. 'Gotcha, you dumb shit,' he said, and smiled. When Ada came jogging up the corridor a moment later, that's how she found him staring at his handi– work in dazed and dizzy triumph, bloody and bleed– ing and grinning like a little kid.
TWENTY-THREE
Leon was wearing a white undershirt beneath his uniform; Ada tore it into strips and bandaged his arm with it, fashioning a kind of sling for him to wear once she'd slipped his ruined shirt back on. He'd lost enough blood to be dazed, almost helpless, and Ada used his mild shock to explain herself as she tended to him, feeling mildly shocked herself by the complex emotions that warred inside of her.
'… and I thought she looked familiar. I thought I'd met her through John, and I almost caught up to her, but she must have slipped past me. I got lost in the tunnels, trying to find my way back…'
Nothing of truth, but Leon didn't seem to notice, just as he didn't seem to notice the gentle, careful way she touched him, or the very slight tremor in her voice as she apologized for a third time, for leaving him behind.
