Monster by Frank Peretti

Author:Frank Peretti [Peretti, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 084991180X
Amazon: B000BLNP1E
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc
Published: 2005-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

eleven

For a microsecond, Reed forced himself to stop against every raging need to plunge forward. He gripped his rifle high, ready to sight down the barrel at so much as a squirrel if it dared to move. Between gasps for air, he listened for any sound, no matter how insignificant. Whatever Mills had encountered, it wasn’t the only one.

Pete was yelling, his voice distorted in the earpiece, “Mills! Just shoot. Draw a bead and shoot.”

“I can’t see him!” Then came a scream of alarm. Another shot.

Reed was moving again, eyes wide open, rifle ready. He came to a clearing, swept it visually, and dashed across.

“Mills?” Pete called. “Mills! Max, do you see him?”

Max didn’t answer. Reed checked his GPS as he plunged into the trees again. Mills was moving north, obviously running. Max’s blip had stalled. “Max, Sheriff Mills is northeast of you. Move northeast.”

Max finally answered, “I can’t get there from here. I’ve got to go around—”

They heard a scream, first piercing, then garbled, then muffled—

Then cut short. Silent.

A second scream followed: the woman—that same invisible banshee of Lost Creek—screamed as if she’d been cut open, the echoes of her voice layering one upon the other as the barren rocks sent the sound back and forth, back and forth, back and forth across the valley. Reed froze in terror, his back against a tree, his eyes darting, his hands nearly dropping the rifle.

The nightmare had returned in daylight. From out there, a legion of demons answered the woman from their haunts and hiding places, their guttural howls long and mournful like ghostly sirens following one upon the other, rising, fading, notes clashing, echoing, echoing, echoing.

The radios were silent as every man went speechless. Reed was petrified, wishing he could meld into the tree at his back. These were no strangers; he’d heard this eerie dirge before, and it was no less terrifying now.

Beck clamped her hands over her ears and cowered, unable to squirm out of Rachel’s iron grasp as the Sasquatch, head raised and jaws agape, howled with the power of a ship’s horn. Rachel was trembling, stinking. Her eyes swept about the brush canopy as if death hovered over their heads.

I heard shots, Beck thought. But still the woman screamed. What’s happening?

Just outside their hiding place in the brush, Leah crouched in the undergrowth and howled just as loudly, still anxiously looking for her son.

Reuben came bounding out of the trees, tattered shreds of toilet paper streaming behind him. Leah scooped him up; he clung to her, a frightened child, and Leah immediately plunged into the elderberry thicket, nearly trampling Rachel and Beck in her haste.

Pete called, “Mills? Sheriff Mills, can you hear me?”

No answer.

Reed checked his GPS. Max and Pete were moving again. Max would reach Mills first.

But Mills’s blip wasn’t moving.

Reed called, “Sing, are you getting anything from Sheriff Mills?”

Sing’s voice was tight with emotion. “His GPS is still working and I’m getting his radio signal, but he isn’t moving. He isn’t responding.”

Reed checked his bearings, dried his hands on his jacket, and plunged ahead, knees weak.

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