He wrapped his arms around the beast’s powerful tail, acting like an anchor, slowing the mutie reptile, making it obvious that the creature had an enemy.
It was like a roller-coaster ride through hell.
One moment Ryan’s head was out of the water and he was sucking in a frantic breath. The next second he was dragged deep in the midnight labyrinth, pulled through a knotted maze of mangrove roots, moving so fast he could hardly breathe.
He was knocked and bruised, but he still clung to the gator’s tail, managing to wrap his legs around it, acting as a drogue anchor, slowing the beast a little.
Ryan knew that it could be only a matter of seconds before the reptile got tired of this annoying encumbrance and turned some of its small brain toward removing him. The hope was that the distraction would give Krysty a chance, however slight, of making her own escape from the scissoring jaws.
Suddenly he was above water, though there wasn’t a flicker of change in his utter blackness. But he could breathe for a moment. And hear.
“For Gaia’s sake, let go and swim left, lover. Land there. Fifty yards. Go, for me.”
“Talk later,” he managed to gasp. The words were cut off as the gator dived deep again, going so far down that Ryan felt his ears popping with the pressure and the consistency of the muddy water changed to watery mud.
Now he sensed that the creature was moving more slowly, as though it were trying to figure out the problem and find some way of dealing with it. With an enormous effort Ryan managed to haul himself a little higher up the tail, until his arms were around the belly of the beast, barely spanning its huge size.
Something brushed his shoulder, and he guessed that it was one of Krysty’s feet, kicking out jerkily, at least telling him that she was still alive and fighting.
The gator jerked convulsively, wriggling its whole body from side to side, trying to flick off the irritating parasite that was checking its progress and get back to its underwater den, where it could examine its fine prey at its leisure.
From rapid movement it went to stillness, giving Ryan the half chance that he’d been hoping for during the battle.
He braced himself with his left arm, trying to get a purchase on the raised spine of the saurian, readying the panga in his right hand, probing with it to make sure the point was settled against the soft underbelly of the creature.
He lunged, feeling the liquid gush out over his hand and wrist.
Simultaneously the beast bucked against the stabbing pain in its guts, almost breaking Ryan’s hold and throwing him helplessly off.
But he had been ready for its reaction, gripping again with both arms.
The gator started to roll, over and over, making Ryan feel sick and dizzy. But he clung on tight, wondering how Krysty was managing. Once or twice he sensed that he was out in the air again, and he fought for a small breath.
Unable to throw him off, the giant mutie creature changed its tactics.
Suddenly, racked with the pain in its belly, it decided to head for its den. It opened its jaws and spit out the troublesome prey that it had been looking forward to devouring, brushing the woman out of its way with a flick of the gigantic tail.
It powered its way across the swamp, knowing that it could deal with any enemy once it reached its comfortable hole, burrowed out beneath the bank of the bayou.
Ryan held his breath, face pressed to the flank of the gator as it raged through the soupy water. Once there was a painful blow on his right shoulder from a gnarled root of one of the ancient mangrove trees, and he nearly let the panga slip from paralyzed fingers. But he pinned it against himself until the feeling seeped back and he was able to hold it once more.
He was dragged through a narrow tunnel that squeezed in on both sides, while the gator’s short, powerful legs scrabbled and kicked to get it through the slimy walls.
There was air, but not the fresh, humid air of the outer swamp. This was fetid and stale, stinking of rotting meat and fish. The odor of putrefaction was so strong that Ryan almost puked. He could feel soft, rotting branches brushing against him, creaking and cracking under the weight of the mighty saurian.
He had not a scintilla of doubt where he was.
This was the lair of the beast, the place where either he or the gator would die.
THREE HUNDRED YARDS AWAY, Krysty stood on the edge of the swamp, ankle deep in mud. She was soaking wet, clothes torn, streaked with the dark slime of the bayou. In her right hand was the empty Smith amp; Wesson 640, pointing to the dirt. Her fiery hair was dull, matted to her skull, like a cap of spun copper. Her vivid emerald eyes were wide with shock, her face as pale as Sierra snow. A vivid patch of bright blood was smeared across her forehead.
Her lips were moving slowly as she talked to herself. But you would have needed to be very close to catch a single whispered word.
“Great Gaia and all the Earth powers, help Ryan. Spare him for his courage. Mother Sonja, wherever you are, aid him to survive against the monster. Don’t let him die to let me live. Couldn’t bear that. Rather die myself if he’s really gone. Please, oh please, oh please”
Standing alone in the fading light, Krysty began to cry helplessly.
RYAN LET GO of the gator’s body, easing himself away, reaching up with his left hand to try to gauge something of the proportions of the den. He was standing waist deep in the water. The roof of mud was less than four feet above him, and one end seemed to be filled with a nest of branches and rotting bones.
He could hear the reptile breathing, heavy and harsh, close by, making the piggish snuffling that he’d heard as it had grabbed Krysty.
“You there, lover?” he said cautiously.
His voice was flat and dead.
“Lover?”
There was no answer.
Krysty had either escaped before they plunged deep into the bayou, or she was lying within reach of him.
Unconscious? Dead?
It crossed his mind to risk using the SIG-Sauer. The immersion in water shouldn’t have affected the sturdy mechanism. It wasn’t like one of the fragile cap-and-ball pistols that were still found around Deathlands.
But there was an overwhelming risk that he would only wound the creature, driving it into a maddened rage. Standing there, blind, Ryan knew he would have absolutely no chance at all.
No. It had to be the panga and it had to be the closest of contact.
The thrust with the needle-sharp point of the eighteen-inch blade had been shrewdly struck. He knew that, had felt it drive deep, grating between ribs, into the intestines. For all Ryan knew, it could have been a mortal wound and the gator would be lying there, life ebbing.
“Come on,” he breathed, bracing himself for a flurry of movement from the mutie saurian. But it was still. The water lapped around Ryan.
He took a careful half step forward, feeling with his combat boots for as solid a footing as he could find. Both hands were stretched out in front of him as he inched toward the noise of breathing, a noise that grew markedly faster and louder as the man moved across the subterranean den.
“Where the fuck are you, bastard?”
The water was growing a little more shallow. Ryan felt something brush the top of his head and winced, reaching up to find that the ceiling was becoming lower, as well.
The attack came without warning.
The power and size of the creature was unbelievable, throwing Ryan back off his feet, nearly knocking the panga from his hand. The jaws, fully six feet long, snapped at him, gripping across his upper chest, crushing his lungs so that breathing became instantly impossible.
But it was the murderous accuracy of the gator that gave Ryan his chance. Now he knew precisely where it was, and his blindness was no longer a handicap.
He had the free use of his right arm, and he brought the panga around and forced it between the jaws, feeling teeth splinter and snap. He turned his wrist, so that the keen edge of the steel sliced at the inside of the monster’s jaws and tongue.
The grip relaxed for a moment and there was a loud exhalation of breath, almost like a shriek. The gator backed off, hurt by the panga, but Ryan wasn’t going to let the creature get away.
He followed it through the foaming water, churned up by the gator’s rage and pain.