Unfortunately our loss of speed put us right next to the gargoyle clinging to the trailer. It launched itself, smashing into our van with the force of a car wreck. I lost my balance and flopped about in the cargo area. Claws pierced through the side wall as the gargoyle latched on. I shouted for another grenade and Ray thumbed through the case. When he found one of the yellow painted shells he handed it over. I could not use the grenade against a target so close, and the shotgun shells would be virtually useless. The van swerved back onto the road behind the weaving trailer. Julie looked in the mirror, saw me loading the grenade and shouted something.
"What?" The grenade clicked into place. Farmland and forest flashed by. One stone arm came searching for us, tearing through the van like it was made of tinfoil, ripping through the still smoking center seat and sending foam bits into the rushing wind. Ray pushed himself as far away as he could without falling out the opening where our sliding door had been.
"Hang on!" She stepped on it, and we pulled behind the accelerating semi. She timed it perfectly, waiting for the end of the trailer to sweep past, red-flagged log ends only feet from her open windshield. The van pulled alongside the rear of the trailer, and Julie swerved toward it. She was going to attempt to scrape the gargoyle off. I pushed myself against the far wall as claws swept past. The arm was still stained with red. It was the gargoyle who had gotten poor crazy Barney. The van shook as Julie played bumper cars with the eighteen-wheeler.
Ray looked at me with wild eyes. "I taught her how to drive," he said.
Julie leaned on the wheel, forcing the gargoyle into the rear set of trailer tires. The van screamed in protest. Truck tires popped in a moving cloud of smoke and rubber. The giant claws were sucked away from my face as the gargoyle was pulled and partially crushed under the trailer. Much of our van was peeled away with it. We swerved from the trailer, back onto the shoulder, but then back again as our monster-side tires blew and sent us out of control. Somehow the gargoyle was still hanging on. Chains snapped and logs spilled onto the narrow road.
For an instant, time seemed to stand still as we tilted, then it sped forward as we rolled onto our side in a fury of sparks and tearing metal. I fell as down changed to sideways. Somehow I managed to hold onto the back seat for dear life, a torn opening gaping below me, hard pavement flashing by.
Luckily we only rolled onto our side and no further. The van gradually slowed as our remaining energy was spent against the pavement. The seat cushion tore in my grasp and I slipped from safety.
Crying out, I fell through the gap and onto the road. Rolling, pain, tearing, everything a wild flashing of movement, cracking myself against the pavement and leaving inches of skin behind. I slid and flopped to a wet stop.
I lay there in the road.
It hurt to think.
Excruciating agony. I looked at my hands. Blood. All down my arms, a bloody road rash. Bits of gravel were imbedded deep into my skin. I tried to sit up. I realized that my clothing hung in ragged tatters, torn away by the gripping pavement.
"Son of a bitch! Worthless fucking monster bastard asshole!" Blood splattered as I shook my fist in the air. I forced myself to stand. Grimacing against the road rash, I stumbled down the road. The van was thirty feet away, resting on its side. The logging truck disappeared around the bend, torn tires flopping madly. The driver was no doubt glad to be away from the crazy people who had been shooting at his load. A few huge logs lay splintered, blocking the way. A tranquil and cozy farmhouse stood a hundred yards to our side, behind a small pen full of goats. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. I had to reach the van. There was still one uninjured gargoyle somewhere and I was fresh out of big guns.
The van's wheels had stopped turning. The engine had died. There was an eerie silence punctuated only by ticking noises coming from the hot engine. A green pool of antifreeze was spreading. As I approached, my pain-fogged mind realized why the van had not kept rolling when we had flipped on our side.
The gargoyle was wedged underneath. Its massive bulk was partially crushed into gravel, silver liquid poured from its interior, steaming and smoking on the pavement. One of its arms was missing. The other ended in a jagged stump. Its lower half was trapped under the driver's side. It continued to stab at the roof with its stump, searching for Julie and Ray.
My hand flew to my holster, only to discover that at some point of my road-rash roll my CZ had been knocked loose and lost. I spotted the.50 lying in the road, scope shattered, scuffed and battered. It looked operable, but it was empty. I picked it up to use as a club. The gargoyle shoved its pointed stump through another spot in the roof directly over where Julie would have been buckled in. I heard a scream of pain come from the van. The stump came out.
The jagged end was splattered with blood.
The pain stopped. My anger focused like a laser beam.
"Hey!" I shouted, limping toward the wounded beast. Its gray eyes turned in my direction. "Yeah. I'm talking to you." It tried to move against me, but it had been hopelessly damaged by the truck. It did not matter. I was coming for it. I was not going to let it get the others.
I raised the heavy rifle over my head and charged. It swung its stump. I stepped out of the way as it crashed into the asphalt. I smashed the rifle into the stump, again and again. The butt stock broke off, so I shifted it in my hands and used the barrel like a bat. I pounded the stone arm until it quit trying to move, and then I stepped over the dusted remains and with a cry of rage swung at the monster's head. I struck it again and again. The barrel bent, and my hands bled as I swung at the unyielding rock, steel bar against stone face, over and over. Muscles straining, I continued to shout as smoking fluid spilled from the creature's broken face and splattered me with burning bits. "Die! Die! Die!" I raised the barrel and drove it forward like a pack bar. The creature twisted its powerful neck and I lost my weapon. I spotted something else that had spilled from the back of the van. I left the creature for a moment, retrieved the tire iron, and then went back to work. I hammered the creature as it twitched and thrashed.
Finally it quit moving. The molten stone that served as the creature's blood formed a smoking puddle, and then gradually solidified as it cooled. Cracks formed in the stone body. Perhaps it had never truly been alive, but it was certainly dead now.
"Can anybody hear me?" Gasping, shaking, I went to the front of the van and knelt before the shattered windshield. Julie was trapped on her side, and there was blood on her shirt. Far too much. "Are you okay?"
"I whacked my head. Then got stabbed." She gestured weakly at the hole the monster had just punched through the roof.
"How bad?" I asked frantically as I tried to gently pull her through the window.
"Hurts…" She had her hand pressed against the top of her shoulder. "I can still move."
I pulled her out and helped her sit. The entry wound appeared to be through the flesh above her collar bone, and into the muscles of her back. It was bleeding, but not very fast. I did not know squat about anatomy, and I had no idea how deep it had penetrated.
"Dad? Where's my dad?"
"I don't know. Just keep pressure on it." I kept scanning the sky. There was one gargoyle left somewhere.
"Find him, please."
"What about you?" I asked.
"I'm fine. I don't think it's that bad. Find him, Owen. Keep him safe…" Her eyes rolled back, and her head dipped forward. I caught her.