“Good boy,” he said quietly.
All at once the dog froze. Its lips peeled back in a snarl that grew into a new growl and it backed away from Rory. For a moment, he didn’t notice that the dog wasn’t growling at him, and then he saw its eyes and realized something else had spooked it. Something behind him.
Slowly, Rory turned… to see a very different sort of dog.
Ice filled his gut. For the first time, he understood how someone could piss their pants from fear. He didn’t—but it was a very near thing.
This dog was no pit bull. It wasn’t any kind of dog Rory had ever seen before. In fact, one glance at its massive haunches and the insectoid mandibles that clicked and stretched open across its face, and he knew it wasn’t a dog at all. Rory had been brilliant since birth. He knew more about biology than ninety-nine percent of the adults he’d met, including every science teacher who’d ever tried to teach him. Whatever this monster-dog was, it hadn’t been born on Earth.
Alien, he thought breathlessly. Or genetically engineered. Or both.
The monster-dog snarled, its intent viciously clear. Its mandibles snapped open and shut and it advanced a single step. The pit bull whimpered and backed further away. For a moment Rory hoped, perhaps unkindly, that the monster would chase the ordinary dog. Unfortunately, it seemed only to have eyes for Rory.
He backed away, up the dugout steps and onto the field, keeping the monster-dog in his sights… and then he heard a voice behind him.
“Kid. Walk to me. Slowly.”
Rory turned to see a security guard standing about ten meters away, armed only with a flashlight and a nightstick. The guy, stuffed into his uniform, was overweight and over fifty, but at least he was brave. Nine out of ten guys in his position would most likely have locked themselves in their nice warm office and called the cops.
“Shhh,” the guy said, as if Rory was causing a commotion instead of just standing there. “Come on, now…”
Rory was about to obey—though he wasn’t sure what good it would do—when he noticed something that the security guard hadn’t. Movement in the shadows under the bleachers. The stealthy movement of something big and predatory inching forward, readying itself to spring.
Before Rory could shout a warning—before he could even open his mouth—there was a blur of movement, and suddenly the security guard was on his back, arms outflung, nightstick and flashlight spinning away into the grass on either side of him. And there was something on his chest—a second alien animal, just as big, and just as mean-looking, as the first. Lowering its hideous face, all stretched-out mandibles and rows and rows of shark-like teeth, the creature bit into the security guard’s shoulder and throat. It ripped a chunk away, as easily as Rory would take a bite out of a cupcake.
Until that moment, the guard had been screaming, howling in a voice that was hideously high-pitched for a man of his size and age, but as soon as the monster snapped back its head with a sizeable piece of him between its jaws, he stopped. Now there was blood, a shockingly vast amount of blood, that gushed from the hole in the man’s body, and kept gushing, spreading out through the grass like an oil spill through the sea, a dark, gleaming purple in the meager light.
Rory was frozen by the sight of all that blood. He’d once seen a bird, standing on a wall as a cat stalked toward it, and he’d wondered why that bird didn’t just fly away. Now he knew.
I’m going to die, he thought with utter crystal clarity. I’m going to die just like that man on the ground.
At first, when he heard the screech, he thought it was the attack cry of the other monster rushing in for the kill. But then he realized it was coming from the opposite direction, and turned his head to see his mother’s Subaru barreling across the grass. Its engine roaring, the car smashed right through the scoreboard. Shrapnel sprayed across the ball field as the car accelerated straight for one of the monster-dogs, smashing into it and sending it flying through the air.
Even before it had landed, the Subaru had slewed to a halt on the grass. The doors burst open and two people leapt out. In the light of the moon and stars, and the glow from the Subaru’s headlights, Rory recognized the car’s driver immediately.
Dad?
McKenna and Casey jumped out of the Subaru, weapons leveled at the Predator dogs. He pulled the trigger, blazing shot after shot across the baseball field. The alien hound darted to the left, staying ahead of his aim. McKenna swore loudly, heard Casey doing the same, but then he heard another engine roar and had to throw up a hand to shield his eyes from the brightness of blazing headlights.
The RV hurtled across the field from one direction. McKenna spun to see another vehicle—the patrol car Nebraska had hijacked—sailing over the grass from the other edge of the baseball diamond. Behind the wheel of the patrol car, Nebraska aimed the vehicle directly for the chain link fence lining the diamond and slammed through it with a clang. The fence furled up in either direction, springing back as if it had been waiting years for someone to crash through it.
The patrol car fishtailed onto the field. Nebraska flung open the door and dove out, rolling on the grass and leaping to his feet, gun in hand, without even slowing the car down. The vehicle kept rolling.
The RV slewed to a ragged halt, tearing up the turf, and the rest of the Loonies piled out, laden with all the weapons they’d acquired from the RV’s owner in the parking lot of the Iron Horse Motel.
“Three o’clock!” McKenna shouted, gesturing toward one of the Predator dogs, which had started across the field along the same path Rory had taken. “Ten o’clock!”
It was all the Loonies needed. McKenna clocked everyone’s locations, kept Rory in mind, made sure his back was to Casey but also checked to be certain she could handle herself. A hailstorm of artillery tore up the field as they opened fire on the Predator dogs. McKenna saw bullets strike home, saw chunks of flesh and blood spray, though just as often the bullets seemed to do little more than nudge the monsters. The Predator dogs kept moving, but at least now they were distracted by their attackers—the focus off Rory.
McKenna ran toward his son, and Casey backed him up.
Still pale with shock, Rory called out to him, more out of curiosity than fear. That was Rory. McKenna packed away any regret or shame he had about his past with the boy, or about putting him in danger. Rory stood frozen on the grass and McKenna raced toward him.
Then he saw one of the beasts make a beeline for Nebraska, snarling, those hideous pincers around its mouth snapping. Its intent was clear.
“Casey!” he snapped, gesturing for her to grab Rory.
“I’ve got him!” she called.
McKenna barely knew the women, but he trusted the confidence with which she carried herself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Casey scoop Rory up into her arms. For half a second, it looked as if Rory might fight her. There was a real dog on the field, a terrified-looking pit bull, and Rory seemed to want to save the mutt.
Then there was no more time for distraction. McKenna had run almost into the path of the Predator dog as it raced toward Nebraska. Now he faced the beast, swung his M4 and pulled the trigger, unloading. Bullets tore the ground, pounded the monstrosity, smashed the air and his eardrums. The alien creature staggered and McKenna thought maybe, just maybe, he’d kill the damn thing. Then he clicked on an empty chamber.