He was now in view of Maxine, who yelled to him to get up, get up quickly —
He started to do so, but the breath had been knocked out of him by the blow, and before he could get to his knees the creature was on him a second time, her claws digging deep into the mass of his shoulder-muscle.
From her perch on the cage Maxine was attempting to get a clear shot, but it would have been difficult for anyone, however sophisticated their skill with guns, to put a bullet in the animal and not wound Sawyer in the process. But Maxine was ready to give it a try. She’d been taking lessons from an ex-cop from the LAPD for several months; she knew to keep a steady hand and her eye fixed on the target.
Sawyer couldn’t have moved if his life had depended upon it. The creature had him held in a death-grip.
Maxine fired. The sound was sharp in the still air of the Canyon, like a whip-crack. It echoed off the other wall of the Canyon, the blow of the bullet throwing Sawyer’s attacker off her victim. She lay, this not-so-distant relation to the exquisite Miss Turner, on the ground beside Sawyer, whom she’d loosed as soon as she was hit. Blood ran copiously from them both, mingling on the ground between them.
“Get up,” Maxine said to Sawyer.
It was good advice. The Lana was still alive, her breathing quick and shallow.
Sawyer wasn’t so badly injured that he failed to realize the danger he was still in. He rolled away from his attacker and started to get to his feet. As he did so the creature suddenly sat up beside him and opening her sizeable jaws, lunged. She took a chunk from Sawyer’s leg, twisting her head to take away the bulk of his calf. He screamed, and fell forward onto his hands.
Maxine had a clear shot at the beast, and took it. But her second shot was not as efficient as her first; it struck the creature’s shoulder, passing through the muscle without appearing to significantly slow the animal, which threw itself on top of Sawyer as though she were attempting to mount him.
Seconds later, the Lana opened her mouth and sank her teeth into the bones of Sawyer’s skull. The man’s sobs ceased instantly, and what little strength his limbs had possessed fled. He hung beneath the Lana’s body like a zebra’s corpse from the jaws of a lion, glassy-eyed and lifeless.
Todd heard Maxine say, “Oh Christ … oh Christ … ”
But the horror wasn’t over with yet. The creature apparently wanted to get her teeth into her wounder, because having dispatched Sawyer she let the body drop from her jaws and began to move towards the cage on which Maxine was crouched. Even in her hurt state there was no doubt that she had the physical power to get up onto the cage and attack Maxine. In fact, the wounds she had sustained didn’t seem to be hurting her that much; her hybrid face carried a look that was somewhere between an animal snarl and a human smile. Maxine didn’t hesitate. Taking a bead on the animal, she fired. The bullet struck the creature in the middle of her face, taking out the flat nose and the top half of the mouth.
For one long moment she seemed not to comprehend the fatal damage she had sustained. She lifted her front leg, which ended in a hand which erupted into claws, towards her face, almost as though she intended to explore the damage she had sustained. But before her corrupted limb could reach her face the creature’s system closed down, and she fell forward, dead.
There had been a good deal of motion in the foliage throughout this episode; Todd had the sense that there were several other creatures watching to see how this proceeded before they showed their own faces. Now, with the death of Lana, the thicket was still. Nothing moved; nothing breathed.
The only sound Todd could hear was the very soft sound of Maxine saying Oh God to herself, over and over. She quickly got control of her horror and her fear and started to clamber down off the cage where she’d been perched.