BAM!
Shirley's big tits wobbled beneath the sheer nightgown as she plugged the demon-possessed bull right between the eyes with a Remington 870P chock full of big-ball buck. The animal's head flew apart, splaying brains, blood, and mucus onto the fine avacado-and butternut wallpaper.
"Great shot, Shirley," Ajax wheezed. "What a fuckin' battle."
Dean felt a strange static crawl over his skin. "The battle might not be over yet," he said.
Thuh-RUNK, thuh-RUNK-thuh-RUNK...
"Oh no!"
They looked out the window and saw not four but six more two-ton Black Gertrudis monsters charging up the hill.
"Shit!" Ajax yelled. "Shirley! More guns!"
Shirley shrieked the final revelation. "Oh my God, boys! We're plumb out of ammo!"
Ajax liberally filled the back of his jeans with his last meal, but Dean—
"Dean, what are you—"
Dean dropped his empty gun and ran away, fleeing up the stairs.
"Thanks a lot, buddy!" Ajax shouted. He glanced quickly to Arianne, still asleep on the couch, then glanced to Shirley. Fuck that dirty skinny junkie, he thought. He grabbed Shirley, tried to haul her out of the room, but—
CRASH!
—it was too late.
Suddenly the room was full of crazy sharp-horned oxen. The beasts were as big as cars, and torns stretched nearly a yard wide, their points sharp as awls.
Shirley's big tits wobbled beneath the sheer nightgown. "Oh, Lord!" she cried. "We're gonna die, ain't we?"
Ajax kissed her on the lips. "Yes," he said. He hugged her tight. "But it won't hurt for long."
The lead bull stared at Ajax, its devil-red eyes like hot coals. Ropes of snot dangled from the silver-dollar-sized nostrils. Its front hoofs scuffed... then it began to charge—
"It won't hurt for long," Ajax whispered again and hugged Shirley tighter.
They squeezed their eyes shut, grit their teeth and waited for the end, but—
Ajax opened his eyes. The bull had stopped in its tracks, its deadly horn-tips a full foot away from Ajax' belly.
As a shadow grew before him, the bull reluctantly backed up. Ajax thought he heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
Dean stepped in front of them.
"Dean!" Shirley shouted in glee.
Dean walked confidently between the crazed bull and Ajax and Shirley. The bull kept backing up.
The bull was... scared.
Ajax wasn't sure but it seemed that the most vague lime-green light glowed off of Dean's head. There was one thing, though, that he was sure about: what Dean held in his hands, like a branch-cutter, was his rusty pair of horn-crankers.
He pointed them at the first bull. "I'm the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be," he told the bull. Then, for effect, he clacked the horn-crankers a few times. "I'll dehorn you like pulling toothpicks out of cocktail fruit, so go back to your evil mama." Dean's voice resonated, not a man's voice now but something almost godlike. He held the horn-cranker upward, a demented Moses raising his holy staff.
"Fuck with me," he said to the bull. "I dare ya."
The giant bull whinnied, jerked its huge head to and fro—then it jumped back out the window from whence it came. The other bulls followed suit, thrashing their mammoth bodies out the windows, exploding the frames, and disappearing into the teeming, thundering storm.
"God be praised!" Shirley said. "It's over!"
Ajax whooped it up. "Man, you've got some kind of magic! Those big motherfuckin' things just took one look at you and they were heading for the hills!"
But Dean stood agitated in the candle light. His horn-crankers—the nexus of his power—hung limp from one hand.
"Something—something's wrong," he sensed. Then he looked at the couch.
Arianne was gone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"You two! Halt!"
Dean and Ajax stopped cold at the muddy trail which wound down from behind Stoddard's Mill to the opening of the mine. They'd driven here posthaste in the rented Blazer, and were fortunate that the storm had blown over shortly after their wholesale slaughter of the demon-possessed cattle back at the mansion. Before they'd left, Shirley had managed to scrounge up a few more rounds for the shotguns. Then she'd waved teary-eyed as they'd driven off, her big tits wobbling beneath the sheer nightgown.
Dean had only one thing on his mind: saving Arianne. And he was well aware now of the supernatural intricacies draped around all that was happening.
He knew things now.
He knew who the smoke-woman was. He knew that she'd used her evil will to possess the cattle back at the mansion. And he knew that she'd been the one who'd abducted Arianne. She'd been the one responsible for all of the recent abductions about town. Dean could taste the answers in his brain. He could smell them.
But when he and Ajax had arrived at the trail to the mine, a uniformed state police officer in foul-weather gear had stopped them at once, gun drawn.
"I said halt!" he ordered through the pouring rain. "And drop those shotguns!"
Dean and Ajax obeyed, and held their hands up. "Great idea, hoss," Ajax muttered. "He probably thinks we're involved in the abductions and killings."
"I didn't know cops were out here. They weren't here before."
"This is a crime scene," the cop reminded them. "What are you doing here?"
Ajax stepped right up. "We're just concerned citizens, officer. We'd heard about the horrible things that've happened out here, so we wanted to come out and try to get the culprit ourselves." He could see five other cops surveying the perimeter around the mine entrance. "But since you fine officers are out, there's no reason for us to be here. So we'll just be on our way, sir."
"You'll be on your way to the back seat of my patrol car," the cop informed him. "You're both under arrest. I'm taking you in for questioning. Start moving—" but no sooner had the cop given the order, his colleagues at the mine began to shout. Several shots rang out. "Stay here!" he commanded to Dean and Ajax. "Don't move!"
Dean and Ajax froze with their hands up, watched the cop run off into the dripping woods. "We're leaving now, right?" Ajax asked. "We can get back to the Blazer and be the fuck out of here before he can catch us—"
More gunshots rang out, then—screams.
"Grab the guns!" Dean yelled. "They need help!"
Ajax stalled as more screams resounded. "Fuck those guys. Let's go back to your mansion and have a beer."
"Come on!'
They retrieved their shotguns—Ajax however reluctantly—and ran toward the skirmish. More screams sprang through the dark, after the gunfire died. By the time Dean and Ajax arrived at the wood-propped portal to the mine...
The six poncho'd police officers lay dead in the mud, gored to death, the high horn-holes still seeping blood.
"Fuck," Dean uttered.
"Yeah, fuck—as in let's get the fuck out of here, like now!" Ajax hotly suggested.
As he stared at the mine entry, Dean's voice sounded like bricks scraping together. "Arianne's down there somewhere."