Coda by Keith Knapp

Author:Keith Knapp [Knapp, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-12T22:00:00+00:00

30.

Jillian closed the door behind her and joined Mike at the top of the staircase.

“You really think this is such a good idea?” she asked.

“No,” Mike sighed.

They looked down at the lobby. The skylight let in more than enough moonlight. They could see the fat one still stuck in the window. It had given up trying to squirm free. Instead it hung there, waiting to lose a few pounds so it could squeeze itself through.

Diamond Patch caught their scent and lifted its head. Another growl emitted from its throat, but the sound was a bit more labored than it had been before. It was getting tired. Maybe dying. Good.

Please let the ugly thing be dying, Mike thought.

He started down the stairs. “This shouldn’t be so tough.”

Diamond Patch watched the two of them as they walked down the staircase, slowly approaching, slowly getting closer. It didn’t move its head at all, it just followed them with curious yellow eyes that Jillian could now see were, in fact, glowing.

When they got to the ground floor, Mike raised his gun and trained it on the dog-thing’s head.

“Get closer,” Jillian said.

In order to make the best of what few shots they had, each one had to count—that meant being as close to the nasty thing as possible. Getting right up to the animal and placing one bullet between its eyes would guarantee that they had some bullets left over for its friends outside.

In no particular hurry—the dog-thing wasn’t going anywhere—Mike inched nearer to the beast. With each step he got a little more nervous. Not only had he never fired a gun before, but he’d never killed an animal before. Sure, there was that time on I-95 during a road trip where he had run over a turtle (Alison had been asleep and Mike had decided to not share that bit of an otherwise perfect vacation with her), but he couldn’t be sure that the turtle had died. But it probably had. It sure felt like it had—there was an audible crunch under the tires as Alison’s Honda hatchback rolled over it—but he couldn’t be sure. And even if he had, did that count? It had been a mistake, he hadn’t had the chance to think about what he was doing at the time, hadn’t had time enough to steer clear of the animal, he didn’t even see it. It just happened. A mistake.

But this would be no mistake. This would be one animal taking the life of another.

Survival of the fittest and all that, right?

Passing one of the decrepit couches, Mike was pleased to see Jillian right by his side, her gun aimed forward at the dog-thing. They shared an eyes-wide-opened glance. Mike’s heart was pounding, he could hear it in his head, and he bet Jillian’s heart was doing the same heart attack dance, too. The hell with coffee and energy drinks; all you needed to get yourself going was to face one of these fucking things and your heart was sure to race for hours.

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