The Taste Makers by Jon Frater

Author:Jon Frater [Frater, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780997611205
Publisher: Desperate Measures Press
Published: 2016-05-11T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Return to Rector Street

The walk from the church to Ponzick, Fitch was only a few blocks, but the lack of vision and the chaos of the situation made it seem much longer. Twenty or so snakes surrounded Julie’s little band as they headed south down Broadway. She was beginning to think that they might make it unscathed when the sound of Slicers erupted from the north, followed by the extended rattle of gunfire.

She slowed down to listen. Past the clicks and hisses, past the sounds of scales on the pavement, she heard a distinctly mechanical sound. The noise of a car engine. And boots. Lots and lots of boots running towards them. She was assaulted by competing thoughts—hiding, as anyone who’d drive while blind was dangerous, and running to minimize the time spent in the open. Boots meant cops or soldiers. Neither group would handle the arrival of giant snake-men well.

Julie whispered her little company to a halt just short of the end of the block. S’zakk sidled up next to her, with Dave and Myra flattening themselves along the wall of the bank they were passing. A loud explosion punctuated the gunfire. The screams seemed to be growing in strength, however. Julie chanced a very quick look around the corner of the building, gasped and pulled back as quickly as she could manage.

“Trouble. Someone called in the cavalry,” she said.

Dave perked up. “Army? Cops? What?”

Julie strove to keep her voice down, but it wasn’t easy to do against the background noise. “A bunch of soldiers in black. Private security, maybe? They have one of those wide jeeps, too.”

“A Humvee,” Dave offered.

“Right. They have a machine gun on top of that. Everyone is packing scary looking rifles, lots of ammunition, combat vests…the works.”

“How the hell can they be seeing anything well enough to shoot at it?” Myra demanded.

“No idea,” Julie said.

“But you can see,” Myra pushed. “You have to. Otherwise we’d have stayed in the church. How does that work?”

“I can barely see. I must have some immunity to whatever it is.”

Myra grunted something unintelligible. Julie let it pass. Myra had every right to be pissed off after Julie had lied about her sight, limited though it was. The squinting and blinking had real limits.

S’zakk ducked around the corner, and then snapped his head and torso back like a rubber band. “Too many to fight here. We run.”

The decision quickly became academic as black-clad blurs came into view at the end of the block they’d just passed. Julie could hear the soldiers now, calling to each other, shouting orders and acknowledgments. Another explosion, this time very close by. Julie felt the wind in her face and only dimly realized it had been a blast wave from a grenade or something similar. Screams came from across the street.

S’zakk gave commands of his own and six of the snakes slithered out from shelter into the intersection. They hissed their defiance at the newcomers. The soldier shouted orders and his troops opened up with their automatic weapons, spraying the entire street with bullets.

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