Night Terror by Jon Sharpe

Author:Jon Sharpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2014-05-06T00:00:00+00:00

24

Fargo raised his Henry.

The creature called Cain suddenly lowered its hand and took a step back. He made sounds that might be speech. Then, wheeling, he placed his walnut-sized knuckles on the ground and lumbered off into the woods.

Eldrida called out, “Wait! Please! Won’t you take me back? I don’t want to be here.”

Cain didn’t look back.

The instant the giant was out of sight, Hosiah dashed toward the campfire.

“Damn it,” Fargo said, and followed. He would have liked to wait a few minutes to be sure Cain was gone.

“Miss Petrie,” Hosiah said. “You’re safe now. We’ve come to rescue you.”

Eldrida shot to her feet. “You fools,” she exclaimed, glancing anxiously at where the abomination had vanished. “You’ll get yourselves killed.”

“Nice to see you, too,” Fargo said.

Hosiah went to grasp Eldrida’s arm but she jerked her hand away.

“Get out of here before it’s too late. You were rash to come after me, and I won’t have your deaths on my conscience.”

“Quit your silliness,” Hosiah said. “We’re here to rescue you.”

“Silly, am I?” Eldrida said.

“Silly as hell,” Fargo told her.

“We’re wastin’ time.” Hosiah grabbed her arm anyway. “Now let’s light a shuck.” He pulled but she dug in her heels. “What in tarnation is the matter with you? Not a minute ago I heard you tell that critter you wanted to go home.”

“He’s not a critter,” Eldrida said. “He’s a Petrie, the same as me.”

“Tell us about him later,” Fargo said, “and move your ass.”

“I’ll be damned if I will. You don’t know what this is about. You don’t know what harm you can do.”

Fargo lost his temper. “You want harm?” he said, and before either of them could guess his intent, he stepped up and clubbed her with the Henry, a short, powerful stroke that felled her where she stood.

Hosiah caught Eldrida before she hit the ground and looked at Fargo in amazement. “What’s gotten into you? You could have busted her skull.”

“Not as thick as her head is.” Fargo gripped Eldrida’s other arm, hoisted her up, and nodded at the trees. “Get going before that thing comes back.”

Hosiah didn’t need urging. He fell into step, saying, “She’ll be mad as hell when she comes around.”

“Better mad than dead.”

“I couldn’t do what you just did. Our ma raised us to always be polite to womenfolk. A lady should be treated like a lady, she’d always say, even when they weren’t.”

“Hosiah,” Fargo said.

“What?”

Fargo looked at him.

“Oh. I reckon now’s not the time, huh?”

They hurried as best they could. Eldrida didn’t weigh much over a hundred pounds but there was a lot of growth to push through. They reached the inlet and the water’s edge.

“What do we do now?” Hosiah asked. “She’ll fall off the log unless she’s awake to hold on.”

From the vicinity of the clearing came a loud crash.

“Cain,” Hosiah whispered.

“Hold her,” Fargo said. Setting the Henry down, he slid the log parallel to shore, then took Eldrida from Hosiah so Hosiah could straddle the log. Swinging Eldrida up and over, he leaned Eldrida against Hosiah’s back.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.