Project Hyperion (A Kaiju Thriller) (Kaiju #4)

I maintain my course, heading for the cabin’s bedroom window. Blocking my path is a wood pile, cut and stacked for the stove inside. I leap the pile as bullets tear into the wood, falling gracelessly on the far side. But I don’t slow as I roll back to my feet and come up with a ten-pound log. I heave the thing ahead of me.

The bedroom window shatters a moment before I arrive. I throw myself through while the glass is still falling. My feet hit the floor, but forward momentum pulls me onto the bed. I roll over the corner, grasping the thick, black wool blanket in one hand and snatching my gun from the nightstand with the other. Then I’m out the bedroom door and charging across the living room.

The back door is locked and barricaded to keep the bear from returning. And the front door will make me an easy target. So I whip the blanket around my arm twice, hold it above my head and leap through the window on the opposite end of the living room. I curl into a tight ball and let the blanket shield me from the broken glass.

As I hit the ground atop the blanket, I feel a pinch in my arm, but ignore it. I get to my feet and keep running. The blanket billows out behind me, which makes me easier to see, for the moment, but also disguises my body.

I half expect a barrage of bullets to turn the blanket into a Light Bright page in the hands of a maniacal child, but nothing happens. The house is blocking their view, or maybe they don’t know I exited the far side, though that seems doubtful considering the amount of noise I made. Still, I don’t seem to be a target for the moment, so I reel in the blanket and ball it around my right arm.

I round a tree and come face-to-barrel with a handgun. I try to stop, but the downward slope and leaf litter keep my feet in motion while my top half tries to stop. I fall on my ass, while raising my weapon, but neither gun goes off.

“Fuck,” Collins says, lowering her weapon.

I climb to my feet. No time for sharing apologies. “Let’s go.”

She pauses, looking uphill. “I see three of them.”

I take her arm and yank her back. “Now!”

The slope makes our flight a little faster, but we’re forced to slow down when the forest grows thicker or else we risk taking a fall. The bullets have stopped flying for the moment, but any delay on our part might change that. When we reach the base of the hill, I turn right. There’s no real logic behind it, there just isn’t time to think about a direction.

Turns out, it was the wrong choice. The woods end abruptly at the site of an old landslide. The wide arc of land curves for a hundred feet in either direction and the trees are sparse around the rim. We stop at the edge and look down. The grade isn’t too bad. We could make it. But we’d be easy targets on the way down and the forest doesn’t start again for another few hundred feet.

A branch cracks in the woods behind us. Without discussing our options, Collins and I both leap over the edge. But we don’t run. We duck. A tangle of roots dangle from the overhang of earth, and we use them to keep from tumbling down the slope. I place my handgun to my lips, “shhh.”

She nods.

Fast approaching footsteps slow as they approach the edge.

“Think I saw them go over,” a man says.

A second man, sounding a little winded, says, “Me too.”

“Careful,” says a third voice I recognize as the man from Kansas. “The cop was carrying.”

Dirt trickles over the edge as just one of the men approaches. “Not seeing them.”

“No way they made the woods,” Kansas says.

I see a forehead slide into view. Another inch and he’ll see me. More dirt falls from above. The earth flexes. The idea must strike Collins at the same time it does me because we both grab hold of the roots hanging from the flexing ledge of soil and pull. The ground bows forward and with a shout, the man falls over the edge.

I don’t watch him land. Instead, I spring up and level my weapon at Kansas’s surprised face. Then I erase it. A second, louder gunshot makes me flinch, but its good news. The second man hunting us spins away, a hole punched in the center of his chest.

I’m about to congratulate Collins when a hand grips my shoulder and spins me around. A fist like a concrete block finds the side of my head and spills me to the ground. I flip head over heels, tumbling down the slope. I strike a number of large rocks and scraggly bushes on the way down, but nothing slows me. The hillside is content to beat the shit out of me. I stop at the bottom and groan when I lift my head.

Collins tumbles to a stop a few feet away. She doesn’t move, but she’s breathing. I look for our guns. They’re both gone.

The good news is that the man pursuing us has lost his weapon, too. The bad news is that he’s built like a steroid addict. He’s got the seething rage to boot.