Shadowfires. By: Dean R. Koontz

Rachael was afraid that its reckless advance was justified that the fire

would do it no more damage than the bullets.

It was already halfway along the forty-foot length of the pool. When it

reached the end, it would only have to turn the corner and come another

fifteen feet before it would be upon them.

The lieutenant had not finished reloading his revolver, but he snapped

the cylinder into place anyway, apparently deciding that he didn’t have

time to slip the last two cartridges into their chambers.

The beast reached the corner of the pool.

Benny gripped the bucket of gasoline with both hands, one on the rim and

the other on the bottom. He swung it back at his side, brought it

forward, and threw the contents all over the face and chest of the

mutant as it leaped across the last fifteen feet of concrete decking.

Peake had hoped that Sharp would send him off after Hagerstrom and the

unknown man that the cop had loaded into the back seat of the rental

car. Then, if shooting took place at the abandoned motel, it would be

entirely Sharp’s responsibility.

But Sharp said, “Let Hagerstrom go. Looks to me like he’s taking that

guy to a doctor. Anyway, Verdad is the real brains of the team. If

Verdad’ 5 staying here, then this is where the action is, this is where

we’ll find Shadway and the woman.”

When Lieutenant Verdad headed back along the motel driveway toward the

lighted office, Sharp told Peake to pull down there and park in front of

the place. By the time they stopped again on the shoulder of the

bonlevard in front of the dilapidated signoLDEN SAND iNN-they heard the

first gunshots.

Oh, hell, Peake thought miserably.

At a run, Peake followed Sharp past the motel office and into the

courtyard just in time to see Shadway throw a bucket full of something

into the face of Of what? Christ, what was that thing?

Sharp, too, halted in amazement.

The creature screamed in fury and staggered back from Shadway. It wiped

at its monstrous face-Peake saw eyes that glowed orange like a pair of

hot coals-and pawed at its chest, trying to remove whatever hadway had

thrown on it.

Lieutenant Verdad stood on one side of Benny, hastily reloading his

revolver.

Rachael stood on the other side, sheltering the box of wooden matches

from the relentless rain. She had the match was lit, she dropped it

straight into the bucket, and the residue of gasoline burst into flames.

Lieutenant Verdad, who had been waiting to do his part, stepped in fast

and kicked the bucket at the Eric-thing.

The flaming pail struck one of the beast’s jean-clad thighs, where some

of the gasoline had landed when Benny had thrown it. The fire leaped

out of the bucket onto the jeans and raced up over the creature’s spiny

chest, swiftly enveloped the misshapen head.

The fire did not stop it.

Screaming in pain, a pillar of flame, the thing nevertheless came

forward faster than Rachael would have believed possible. In the

red-orange light of the leaping fire, she saw its outreaching hands, saw

what appeared to be mouths in the palms, and then it had its hands on

her. Hell could be no worse than having those hands on her, she almost

died right there from the horror of it.

The thing seized her by one arm and by the neck, and she felt those

orifices within its hands eating into her flesh, and she felt the fire

reaching out for her, and she saw the spikes on the mutant’s huge chest

where she could be so quickly and easily impaled-a multitude of possible

deaths-and now it lifted her, and she knew she was certainly dead,

finished, but Verdad appeared and opened fire with his revolver,

squeezing off two shots that hit the Eric-thing in the head, but even

before he could pull off a third shot, Benny came in at a flying leap,

in some crazy karate movement, airborne, driving both feet into the

monster’s shoulder, and Rachael felt it let go of her with one hand, so

she wrenched and kicked at its flaming chest, and suddenly she was free,

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