Hole by Matthew Doggett

Author:Matthew Doggett [Doggett, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

The Benelli M4 Tactical shotgun Bessum held was one of two the department had. During his years in Seven Springs, they’d only had cause to use the pistol-grip, semi-auto shotguns a handful of times. During his first year in town, there had been a problem with meth labs, and the Benelli provided a good way to breach locked doors so they could raid the poison-manufacturing facilities.

The breaching rounds commonly used for this purpose were designed to destroy hinges or a deadbolt before the load dispersed into a powder. The idea behind these rounds was that you didn’t want to kill someone accidentally on the other side of the door, as could happen with slugs or buckshot.

This was just the opposite of what Bessum wanted. Which was why he’d loaded the shotgun with six 2 ¾” shells containing double-aught buckshot. The nine pellets in each shell could do some serious damage to the human body. And he was hoping it would work just as well on the thing inside the holding room.

Last he’d checked, which was about two minutes ago now, the thing had pulled itself all the way out of the cell. When he’d glanced through the grate, he saw what looked more like a flattened human whose disparate parts were held together by thin but strong-looking strips of flesh reinforced with a mottled dark-gray-and-red muscle-like substance. It had been moving around the room in unbalanced lurches, tentacles moving frantically as it searched for a weakness it could exploit.

“Ready?” Sharice asked now. She was standing by the door, ready to unlock and open it so Bessum could step up and blast the freaky thing back to hell.

“Want to switch with me?” he asked.

Sharice smirked, momentarily hiding the stressed expression she’d been wearing.

Smiling, Bessum nodded. She pulled the heavy-duty metal lock back and yanked on the door, flattening herself against the hallway wall as Bessum moved forward.

The thing had been waiting. It launched itself out, tentacles whipping all around as it flew toward Bessum’s face.

He pulled the trigger, blasting the thing out of the air. It landed with a splat, then wasted no time in rushing toward him like a giant spider with a dozen uneven legs and no discernible body.

Sharice, being the smart lady she was, had already high-tailed it down the hall. So Bessum didn’t have to worry about her as he backpedaled and fired again, the gas-operated shotgun having automatically loaded another shell into the chamber for him. The second shot separated about a third of the thing from itself. The rest of it kept coming.

He fired again. And again.

Then one more time for good measure.

With only one shell left, he surveyed the mess in the hallway. Each shot but the first one had blown more of the thing apart. Now the pieces in the hallway looked less like a crushed human and more like the floor of a slaughterhouse where none of the employees knew what they were doing.

Some of the bits were still twitching as Bessum took more shells from his pockets and loaded them into the Benelli, getting it back to six.

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