“Crap on a kickball…”
The thing leaped off the wall like a cricket, landing atop a car behind Pedro. Its mouth opened to issue a hissing scream, revealing its human teeth and orange gullet.
Pedro threw another rock as it lunged toward him, then raised the can of hair spray, waiting to push the button until the damned thing was nearly face-to-face with him.
The burst of aerosol drew another shrill hiss from the creature and made it scuttle backward. One gnarled limb punched through the sunroof of an SUV, trapping it for the moment.
Yoshida had more range with the fire extinguisher. He sent a ropy stream ten feet with one burst. Perhaps owing to the deputy’s marksmanship, the fluid met the second creature directly in the eyes before it could pounce off the wall. The foam expanded, thoroughly blinding the creature.
“Come on!” Pedro and Yoshida ran into the breezeway and up the stairs to the second floor. Pedro kicked the door to Ophelia’s apartment off the hinges and dashed into the darkened dwelling with the hair-spray can raised like a flamethrower.
Two thick forelimbs, invading through the window, crashed around the living room in search of prey. A broken body lay near the door, the tiny handgun they had heard lying nearby.
“Pedro?” The little girl peeked out from her hiding place, a lower cabinet in the kitchen.
Yoshida flip-rolled across the living-room floor and came up with a blast of the fire extinguisher, right down the monster’s maw.
“Where’s your ma?”
“It got her!” cried Ophelia.
Pedro pushed her back into the cabinet and ran to help Yoshida. The deputy lay pressed flat against the wall under the window, too close for its long, sweeping limbs.
Pedro charged, grabbing the extinguisher to bash the monster.
Screeching, it fell away from the wall, crashing onto a car with a distressed squeal.
“The one on the roof!” called Pedro, as he pulled the crying Ophelia out of the cabinet and held her. “It’s gotta have her mom!”
“How do we get up there?”
Pedro stood and set Ophelia on the floor. “We’re going to get your mom.”
Ophelia crawled back into the cabinet as they ran out to the breezeway. “We gotta hurry. The rain is washing that shit outta their eyes.”
Pedro arced the spray can over his head and onto the roof, then pulled himself up on the walkway’s iron rail and deftly leaped up to grab the lip of the gutter and hoist himself up.
Yoshida did the same, raising his head over the roof’s edge just in time to see the plump orange spider slashing down at him. He moved his head just in time.
Pedro tackled one of its appendages and tried to drag the thing away so Yoshida could finish his climb. It spun and plucked Pedro up with two whip-quick tentacles.
Yoshida pulled himself up onto the roof and dove for the fire extinguisher. Hearing a scream, he followed it—to see Ophelia’s mother, Camilla, hanging from the end of a jagged leg out over the edge of the roof. With her eyes closed and lips mashed tightly closed, it was clear she needed to scream. Yosh understood that the only reason she didn’t was Ophelia.
Pedro’s dropped his spray can—just before a thorny-clawed limb descended to crush it.
Yoshida tried a blast of the fire extinguisher, but the monster moved too fast, darting away from the stream. At least, it also brought Ophelia’s mother back across the edge.
Ducking behind an air-conditioning unit, Yoshida found a collection of spare pipe lengths lying haphazardly around the base, the longest around five feet.
Pedro briefly tried to power out of the rope-like tentacle but lost heart when the gourd focused its maleficent stare on him, an uncanny snarl blooming from its lips. It opened its mouth to engulf his head.
Then it projected a stinger from its tongue.
No, not a stinger…
A pipe, penetrating from below. Shocked by the sudden pain, the thing dropped Pedro—and Camilla.
Pedro landed on his hands and legs, splashing into a shallow puddle. A quick glance told him Yoshida had thought one move ahead, leaping to catch Camilla after stabbing the demon.
The horror wrapped a tentacle around the pipe and pulled it out. It swung the weapon at Pedro’s head.
“Let’s go!” he called as he ducked. They dashed back to the roof’s edge. He grabbed the gutter and swung himself down to the walkway, waiting there to help Yoshida and then Camilla.
As she began to lower her feet, a gnarled vine-tacle whipped down and belted Pedro in the side, sending him rolling away—and Camilla dangling like a ragdoll, soon to fall, and likely smashing across the iron rail en route. Pedro picked himself up and lunged, catching her around the waist and spinning her away from the rail. “Get inside!”
“Yoshi!” he called, watching the edge. Just as he decided to climb back up to help, Yoshida was there, reaching for Pedro’s hand as he made the awkward leap.
“Move!” Yoshida pulled Pedro along as he ran away from the thick leg hooking toward them.
A split second later, they were back in Ophelia’s apartment. Mother and child had their rushed reunion as Yoshida went to check the man on the floor, while Pedro up-righted the front door and pushed it into the frame, leaning heavily against it.
Yoshida’s expression told him that Ophelia’s father was dead. “Better get away from that window, dude.”
Yoshida went to Ophelia and Camilla. “Lost the extinguisher. You folks have one?” Opening the cabinet under the sink, he found it.
“Fire extinguishers and hair spray ain’t cuttin’ it, Yosh.”
“Yeah? What’s your big strategy, Sun-Effing-Tzu?”
“You ain’t gonna like it.”
“…I already don’t.”
Chapter 26
Too Fast for Blood
“If we live through this,” Yoshida began, “I’m having you committed.”
“I don’t know if you noticed, genius, but they’re growing,” said Pedro. “I think it’s the rain.”
“Your point?”
“Desperate times
