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,