Shadowfires. By: Dean R. Koontz

devastatingly powerful as the .357 Magnum was inadequate, Ben fired the

final round.

Again the beast went down, but this time it was not still for even a few

seconds. It writhed and squealed and kicked in agony, the carapace-hard

portions of its body scraping and clicking against the concrete.

Ben would have liked to believe that it was in its death throes, but by

now he knew no ordinary gun would cut it down, an Uzi rigged for fully

automatic fire, perhaps, or a fully automatic AK-91 assault rifle, or

the equivalent, but not an ordinary gun.

Rachael pulled at him, wanting him to run before the beast got onto its

feet again, but there was still the problem of Whit Gavis. Ben could

save himself and Rachael by running, but in order to save Whit, he had

to stay and fight and go on fighting until either he or the mutant Leben

was dead.

Perhaps because he felt as if he were in the midst of a war again, he

thought of Vietnam and of the particularly cruel weapon that had been

such a special and infamous part of that brutal conflict, napalm.

Napalm was jellied gasoline, and for the most part it killed whatever it

touched, eating through flesh all the way to the bone, Slumped against

the retaining wall, facing out toward Tropicana, Whitney Gavis felt that

the rain was washing him away. He was a man made of mud, and the rain

was dissolving him. Moment by moment, he grew weaker, too weak to raise

a hand to check the bleeding from his cheek and temple, too weak to

shout at the dishearteningly few cars that whisked by on the wide

boulevard. He was lying in a shadowed area, thirty feet back from the

roadway, where their headlights did not sweep across him, and he

supposed none of the drivers noticed him.

He had watched Ben empty the Combat Magnum into Leben’s mutated hulk,

and he had seen the mutant rise up again. As there was nothing he could

do to help, he had concentrated upon pulling himself around the corner

of the four-foot-high wall of the flower bed, intending to make himself

more visible to those passing on the boulevard, hoping someone would

spot him and stop.

He even dared to hope for a passing patrol car and a couple of

well-armed cops, but merely hoping for help was not going to be good

enough.

Behind him, he had heard Ben fire two more shots, heard him and Rachael

talking frantically, then running 36

THE FORMS MANY OF FIRE scoring the bone all the way to the marrow. In

Nam, the stuff had been dreaded because, once unleashed, it brought

inescapable death. Given enough time, he possessed the knowledge to

manufacture a serviceable homemade version of napalm, he did not have

the time, of course, although he realized that he could put his hands on

gasoline in its mundane liquid form. Though the jellied brand was

preferable, the ordinary stuff was effective in its own right.

As the mutant stopped screeching and writhing, as it began to struggle

onto its knees once more, Ben grabbed Rachael by the shoulder and said,

“The Mercedeswhere is it?”

“The garage.”

He glanced toward the street and saw that Whit had presciently dragged

himself around the corner of the retaining wall, where he was hidden

from the motel.

The wisdom of Nam, Help your buddies as much as possible, then cover

your own ass as soon as you can.

Initiates of that war never forgot the lessons it taught them. As long

as Leben believed that Ben and Rachael were on the motel property, he

was not likely to go out toward Tropicana and accidentally find the

helpless man hiding against the wall. For a few more minutes, anyway,

Whit was fairly safe where he was.

Casting aside the useless revolver, Ben grabbed Rachael’s hand and said,

“Come on!”

They ran around the side of the office toward the garage at the back of

the motel, where the gusting wind was repeatedly banging the open door

against the wall.

hanging from a hook on the wall, which was even more suitable.

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