Emily gunned the engine and drove straight at the thing. Its head swiveled momentarily in her direction as she accelerated toward it, that single extended eye boring into her with a dark malevolence that far outstripped the expressionless features of the creature, sending her stomach into free fall.
It was closing on the kids fast. Ben’s legs just couldn’t move quickly enough, and Rhiannon was half dragging her brother as they raced toward the house. Rhiannon must have heard the monster’s click-clacking footfalls closing on her because Emily saw her throw a glance back at the creature. Then her head whipped left and right as she searched desperately for somewhere else that would give her cover. She suddenly dashed to the left, almost pulling her brother’s arm from the socket as she tugged him along after her. She was heading back toward the driveway. Did she think she could make it to the forest beyond it? Rhiannon might have made it on her own, but Ben was slowing her down; they would never make it to the trees before the creature caught up to them.
The SUV was rattling and bouncing over the rough ground as Emily fought to keep the vehicle under control. Within seconds she was alongside the thing; the broken stumps of its reed-thin legs still spurted black liquid as it chased indefatigably after the kids. It was too close to the children now for her to try to get between it and them, and if she hit it, it could careen right on top of them. The best she could do was feint at it. She pulled the wheel to the left and swerved the Durango at the creature, pulling back just before she hit it, all the time hoping she would not inadvertently run over the kids. If she could just get enough room to get the SUV between them and it, she could buy them some time to get to the woods.
Emily saw something flash from the head of the creature and crack through the air like a whip. It was one of the tentacles the thing had used to control Simon. The tip of the tentacle fell just short of the back of Rhiannon’s head, spraying liquid across the shoulders of the two stumbling children. The thing wasn’t trying to kill them, Emily realized, it wanted to capture them. Use them like it had Simon. Maybe it thought it could use them as some bargaining chip to control Emily?
Wrong. She hit the accelerator of the Durango and swerved sharply into the path of the creature. It swerved away from her, momentarily slowing its pace, giving Emily the opening she needed. It was now or never. She wrenched the steering wheel hard left and forced the SUV between the advancing monster and the children. Pounding her foot down hard on the brake, the SUV fishtailed over the grass and came to a stop directly in front of the monster.
The creature tried to stop. Apparently realizing it wouldn’t make it in time, it tried to use its remaining legs to vault over the SUV. Emily stared through the open window as the thing passed overhead; its smooth underbelly flashed by and its trailing legs almost cleared the Durango. Then one slammed into the top rim of the passenger side door, sending Emily diving for cover and the thing crashing to the ground on the opposite side of the SUV.
Emily raised herself up and stared out the passenger window. The creature had come to rest about eight feet away from the right side of the SUV; the leg that had crashed into it was bent and useless as the thing tried to push itself upright again.
The children had come to a stop and now stood about twenty feet from the crumpled monster. Ben’s arms were thrown around his sister’s waist as he clung to her; Rhiannon’s arms held her brother close.
The creature began to crawl toward the two children, pulling and pushing itself forward with its remaining legs. It looked like a broken grasshopper, she thought as the creature’s legs scissored back and forth in the dirt.
But it was still moving and the kids weren’t.
“Run!” Emily yelled through the open window.
Pulling her brother behind her once again, Rhiannon began to sprint for the house. Emily pushed the gear stick into reverse and pulled the SUV back until she was sure she was where she wanted to be. Slipping the gear back into drive, she aimed directly at the crawling monstrosity and accelerated toward it.
Emily knew it must have sensed the onrushing vehicle, must have known that she was going to send it back to whatever hellhole of a planet it had come from, but the thing didn’t even glimpse at her, it just kept crawling toward the kids.
As the SUV’s four twenty-inch wheels rolled over the back of the creature, crushing its miserable life, Emily saw a tentacle flick out from its head into the darkness…and both kids tumble to the ground.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The SUV had barely come to a stop and Emily was out, sprinting to where she had seen the children tumble into the darkness. She was vaguely aware of something black and sticky smeared from the front wheel well all the way along the driver’s door. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she took deep satisfaction in knowing she had caused such grievous harm to the creature.
“Rhiannon? Ben? Where are you?” she yelled, her flashlight dancing through the darkness.
An almost silent whimpering came from just up ahead, and Emily flicked the beam of the flashlight to the source. Benjamin and Rhiannon were huddled together in the open mouth of an aluminum drainpipe used to direct flash floods along a culvert and away from the house. Rhiannon had the little boy pulled close to her, his head pressed to her chest as they cowered in the shadows.
They were both alive. Thank God. They were alive.
“Are you both okay?” she asked, her voice breathless. Ben’s head swiveled to focus on Emily, his big eyes like two bright moons above dirty, tear-streaked cheeks. “The bad thing hit me,” he said. Then, “Where’s Daddy?”
How do you tell a little boy his father is most likely dead? She couldn’t be sure if Simon was, but she wasn’t about to go over there right then and find out. So she chose to ignore the question, instead offering her hand to the children. “Why don’t you two get out of there and we’ll go back to the car, ’kay?”
Emily pulled them one by one from the mouth of the drainpipe. Ben flinched a little as she pulled him to the grass beside her, but Thor instantly began licking the boy’s face, which seemed to brighten him up a little.
“Did the”—she searched for the right word—“the bad thing hurt you, Ben? Let me see.” She gently took the quivering boy by the shoulder and turned him around, lifting the back of his shirt. She could see a small bruise just below his right shoulder blade, a small red bump at its center, barely visible in the light of her flashlight. It wasn’t anything serious. She pulled the boy’s shirt back down and tucked it back into his pants.
“You’ll be fine, kiddo. We have to get back to your house now and pick up the stuff we left there.”
“I don’t—” he began to object.
“It’s okay, dweeb,” his sister interjected, her voice rattling from her throat as she choked back tears. “We have to go with Emily and help her.”
“Don’t call me that,” the boy snapped back. The insult from his older sister seemed to pull him back to reality. “You’re the dweeb.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
Emily took a hand of each of the children and walked them back to the waiting SUV, leading them to the passenger side so there was no chance they would see the dead creature, then bundled them inside. Thor jumped in with them and sat between the two kids, who had lapsed back into a stunned silence.
Emily climbed into the driver’s seat, glimpsing back at the shadowy outline of the dead alien, its limbs sticking up like huge broken twigs from the ground, a faint steam rising still from its spilled fluids.
Beyond the creature’s remains, Emily could see the outline of Simon’s body. He was lying in the same crumpled position as when the creature had released him. One arm rested across his stomach, the other was draped across his face, his legs splayed on the wet grass. She stared at his still form. She knew she should get out and check whether he was still alive, but she knew already that Simon had been dead long before she’d found the kids.