creature barely slowed as most of the bullets bounced harmlessly off of its stone body. I was going to need a bigger gun if I wanted to do anything other than just piss it off.
'Owen! Up here, quick!' Julie shouted from the fourth-floor balcony. She had her pistol in one hand and was guiding a strait-jacketed man with the other. Doctor Joan was behind them, aghast at the destruction being visited upon her facility. I clambered up the stairs toward them. I heard Julie order the doctor to take her father, and then gunfire broke out as she tried to slow the climbing gargoyle.
'Down that hall.' Julie gestured with her head as I reached her position. She was inserting a new magazine into her 1911. She dropped the slide. 'Elevator. Hurry.' My pursuer was about to reach the fourth floor. More noise rang out from the opposite corridor as another gargoyle tore its way through the building's walls.
I ran a few yards down the hall, gunshots banging away behind me as Julie tried in vain to slow the monster. I took up position, and waited for her to leapfrog past. She fired until her pistol was empty, and then turned and sprinted past me. At least three thousand pounds of unnaturally animated, living-stone destruction and pure evil came bearing at me, blank eyes wide, stone mouth gaping. I slowed it down as I placed bullets into its knees and elbows, splashing molten rock onto the walls, which immediately began to smoke and smolder under the superheated fluid.
The monster stumbled, limbs temporarily buckling, and face planted into the balcony floor. The sudden blow brutally shook the fourth-floor balcony. The old wood structure tore away from its supports with a dust cloud and a screech of bending nails and breaking boards, spilling the gargoyle over the edge. It clawed at the ledge, but the thing was far too heavy, and its talons pulled through the building materials. It fell silently, lacking the room to spread its huge wings, and a second later I was rewarded with a massive echoing crash as the gargoyle smashed through the floor tiles and into the basement.
'So long, sucker!' I shouted as I ran for the elevator. There was still another gargoyle on this floor. I could hear it breaking its way through the narrow halls to reach us, and there had been a third one on the roof that could be anywhere by now.
The ceiling exploded. A porous rock claw grasped at my head. I dodged under it and dived into the waiting elevator. Doctor Joan stabbed at the buttons frantically as Julie fired on the monster's arm. We had found our third gargoyle.
'Going down?' I asked as I rolled over and patted my pockets searching for another en-bloc clip. I was out.
'You got a better idea?' Julie asked. It was taking the doors forever to close. The nearest gargoyle was battering its way in from the roof; tiles and wood splinters rained down as it applied its bulk and fury against the feeble barrier. We only had seconds.
Gradually the door closed. Pulleys whirred as the elevator started down.
'What happens if it comes after us while we're still stuck in here?' I asked absently as I pulled myself to my feet and drew my pistol from inside my waistband.
'Have you ever stepped on a ketchup packet?' Julie asked rhetorically. 'Kind of like that, but a whole lot nastier.' She kept her 1911 pointed at the roof of the elevator car. Not that that would do us an iota of good if the gargoyle made it into the shaft. Dropping several thousand pounds of animated stone onto the car would probably kill us all instantly. It was a tense moment. I thought about telling the doctor about her husband's apparent heart attack, but I refrained. It wasn't like she didn't have enough other problems to worry about right then. Soothing instrumentals played over the elevator's sound system.
'Kenny G?' I asked, also keeping my CZ. 45 pointed upwards in a futile gesture.
'John Tesh,' answered Doctor Joan. Great. Not exactly the music I would have chosen as the soundtrack for my death. I had been hoping for something a little more dramatic. And with drums. It had to have drums. The elevator continued down. Crashing noises echoed down the shaft.
The third floor gradually passed. 'Why aren't we stopping?'
'The door is stuck on that floor. We were going to have it fixed,' the doctor explained patiently. 'Really, we were meaning to get around to it.' Wonderful. Our getaway vehicle was the slowest elevator in the world. We all jerked upwards in surprise as small bits of debris began to rain on our metallic roof. I did not think we were going to make it.
Ray Shackleford sat on the floor, staring blankly off into space. He was a surprisingly big man. In his prime he must have been nearly as muscular as I was. His nose was hooked, and had been broken many times. His hair was prematurely gray, long and unkempt. His face reminded me of the senior Shackleford, and vaguely of Earl Harbinger. Julie must have taken after her mother. Thank goodness.
'Since we're about to die together, my name's Owen. Nice to meet you,' I told him.
He regarded me sullenly for a moment before responding. 'And I'm Napoleon Bonaparte. Nice to meet you… Chill out kid, just kidding. I'm not that kind of crazy. Julie, please tell me this moose isn't your boyfriend.'
Julie kept her eye on the ceiling. 'No, Dad.'
'Good. Damn, he's ugly. Now will somebody get me out of these restraints? I can help here.'
'Not a good idea,' Doctor Joan stated.
'Joan, you old biddy. I'm not gonna wring your neck. You and Lucius have been right kind. But I can help, damn it.' Something heavy rebounded off the top of the car, shaking all of us, causing the lights to flicker and the easy listening music to stop. Finally. I shot two quick rounds through the roof. The sound from the silver. 45 slugs inside the narrow confines was brutal. I was glad that I had put my plugs in.
'Hold your fire! That was just the doors coming down. Cut him loose, Doc. Get ready to bail,' Julie ordered. The doctor moved to unlock Ray's restraints. The digital display stopped at 2. A chime sounded. I knew that at any second, several thousand pounds of gargoyle were going to land on us. The doors gradually began to slide back, not fast enough. I wedged my body between them and forced them to open faster.
'Go!' We spilled into the hallway. A horrible screech of metal on stone came from the shaft as one of the gargoyles finally forced itself into the narrow passage. The elevator car was crushed as the massive creature smashed into it. The car and the monster disappeared down the shaft, hurtling toward impact in the asylum's basement. Dust billowed up as car and monster collided with the concrete floor.
'They're after my dad,' Julie said as she glanced down the now-open shaft. The dangling cable jerked wildly. 'Crap. Monster's already starting to climb. Wish I had a satchel charge.'
'I think one of them is after me,' I said. 'They seem to be ignoring everybody else who isn't shooting at them. If we can get out of here they'll probably follow. The van got stepped on, but it should still be driveable.'
'Let's go.' Julie quickly led us to the main room balcony. The stairs curved down to the common area and our escape. There was a huge hole in the floor from where the first gargoyle had crashed from the fourth-floor balcony. 'Clear,' she said after a quick scan revealed no giant monsters. If the sound coming from behind us was any indication, the elevator gargoyle was almost free.
We ran down the stairs, jumping carelessly over wreckage. Doctor Joan gasped when she saw her dead patient, Barney, nearly cut in two. But she was a former Monster Hunter, and she did not shake easily. I stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder.
'You need to tend to your husband. He's down that hall.'
'What do you mean?' Her eyes widened and her head bobbed as she swallowed in surprise. 'What happened to Lucius?'
'I think it's his heart.'
'But, but…' she stammered. Her eyes blinked in confusion. She was wearing bright blue eye shadow. 'Not Lucius.'
'You'd best go.' She nodded and ran in the direction I was pointing. She was fast for an older lady. I sure hoped that her husband was okay, and I also hoped that this worked and these damned evil things followed us out of here and away from all of the defenseless patients.
I ran around the edge of the massive hole in the floor. Wild sparks flew from severed electrical cables and water poured from busted pipes. I saw a slippered foot sticking out from under some wreckage. Not all of the patients had run after all. Damn. Julie was at the smashed doorway, with her father standing right behind her. He was breathing heavily, not used to the physical exertion.
'I don't see any of them. Let's head for the van.'
'I'll drive,' Ray offered.
'Oh, hell no,' she responded.
