The warning was one step too late.
As soon as Milo crashed through the screen of flowers, he slammed straight into something that rose up to blot out the morning sun. It was like hitting a wall. Milo rebounded from the impact and fell flat on his back, all the air knocked out of him. His walking stave went spinning off into the brush. For a moment all he could do was lie there and stare up at the monster who loomed above him, filling the whole world with horror.
This thing that had no place in the natural world. Unnatural seemed to define it. Or, simply wrong. At full height, it was seven feet tall. Dark. Massive. Hard and cold and so, so wrong.
A green jewel, like a burning emerald, glowed on his chest.
Milo’s mind felt like it was coming apart.
It was a Stinger.
This wasn’t Lizabeth’s wild imagination. This was real and it was here. Right now. A thing he’d never expected, hoped, or wanted to see in the flesh.
If you could call the glistening shell that covered it “flesh.”
If it were once a dog, it was a dog no longer. Instead of canine hair, it was covered in black-green mottled armor like the segments of an insect. Specifically, like those of a scorpion. The big barrel of its chest was wrapped in bands of the tough chitinous armor, and over the heart was a round socket set with a glowing green stone. The Earth Alliance had tried for years to acquire one undamaged, but never had. It was believed that these gems might contain valuable alien tech. This one was covered by a network of stiff wire, edged with razors. Small wiry hairs wriggled like black worms along the creature’s sides. Its forelegs were tipped with razor-sharp claws, but they were not the worst thing about the Stinger. Nor was the grinning mouth filled with teeth as sharp as screwdrivers. Nor even the pair of secondary forelegs that grew from its upper chest and ended with big snapping pincers. No, the worst part of this creature was the massive tail that rose all the way over the creature’s shoulder and was tipped by a bright red barb that was as long and sharp as a dagger and filled with paralyzing venom. One touch of that barb could drop a grown man and leave him helpless and vulnerable for hours. The same dose could kill a kid or a dog.
It was the very first monster Milo had ever seen. The first real one.
This wasn’t in a book. It wasn’t in a photograph or a video. This wasn’t something he’d made up for one of the stories he liked to write.
This was real and it was right here. Its lifelight pulsed with the beat of its unnatural heart.
Terror was an icy hand that reached into Milo’s chest and squeezed his heart with crushing force. For a moment he was frozen there, unable to move, unable to breathe.
The tail quivered in the air above him, and with a flash, it snapped downward, right toward his heart.
Then Milo moved.
He moved very suddenly and he moved very fast.
He moved faster than he’d ever moved in his life.
Which is why his life didn’t end right there and then.
Milo threw himself into a tight sideways roll, spun like an axle, and as he turned, he brought up his knees and elbows, and then he was on his toes and fingers, and then he was running on all fours like a sloppy dog.
The Stinger struck the ground exactly where his chest had been. The barb hit so hard, it took the Stinger a moment to tear it loose. A blow like that would have stabbed him through and through.
It was a terrifying thought to realize that he’d almost died.
Almost.
Died.
Not tapped in a game of combat tag. Not consumed by fire in a nightmare.
He had almost died for real. Right here. One second ago.
It galvanized him. He moved faster than before, scrambling clear as the Stinger raised its tail again.
He thought about going for his fallen stave, immediately dismissing that as a suicidal move. He didn’t go for his knife, either. A small hunting knife against an armored monster was just plain dumb. His slingshot was no good without time to aim and shoot. So, instead of fighting, he did what he had been trained to do.
He ran, ran, ran.
That was the plan. That was the training.
The Stinger struck at him with its tail, but Milo was already in motion and the daggerlike barb chopped into the dirt at his heels, missing him by mere inches. It jerked the barb free and jabbed again, tearing bark off a tree. And again and again, each time coming closer.
Milo dodged sideways and tried to slip around the creature by cutting around a stunted cypress. The mutant turned with him, snapping with one of its heavy pincers. Milo jumped backward, but the jagged tip of the insect claw snagged a fold of his shirt and tore it away with a huge ri-i-i-i-p.
Wearing only a collar, sleeves, and the flapping back of the shirt, Milo dodged two more swipes of the pincers and then had to leap over a thick bush as the scorpion tail whipped at his head. Small spots of fire seemed to ignite all over his scalp as droplets of venom from the quivering barb splattered him.
Milo hit the ground on the far side of the bush in a very bad roll that sent him tumbling and bumping ten feet down the side of shallow ravine. Roots and half-buried stones punched him in the back and chest and ribs as he rolled down to the bottom.
He lay there, gasping and dazed.
Get up and run!
Those words—the voices of everyone who’d ever trained him—yelled in a chorus inside his head.
The scorpion dog began moving along the edge of the ravine, testing it to see if it would bear its weight. Hot drool swung in lines from the corners of its mouth.
Milo struggled to his feet and began running along the bottom of the ravine. A heavy thud behind him told him the Stinger had jumped down, landing hard on the spot where Milo had been lying.
A whimper of shear dread broke from Milo’s chest.
As he ran, Milo tore the slingshot from his belt and dug into his pouch for a good stone. Found one. Pulled it free. Fitted it into the leather pad. He twisted around midstride, pulled back on the rubber band as hard as he could, and fired. Milo had won prizes—canned food, baked pies—in games like this. Running and shooting. It was the only thing he could do better than any of his friends. Better than Barnaby. And his skills did not fail him now. The stone whipped through the air and struck the Stinger in the face.
And bounced off.
The Stinger howled. Its green lifelight throbbed with the beat of its heart, urgent and furious. If it felt pain, there was no trace of it in that howl. All Milo could hear was hunger and fury.
Oh no, thought Milo.
The monster dropped down to all fours to chase him, and immediately began gaining ground.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
Milo fired one more shot, hoping to hit the lifelight, but it struck an inch too high. He turned and ran. A fallen tree blocked the ravine ahead, but there was a narrow gap beneath it. Milo dove for it and slid through like a runner trying to beat the throw to first base. As he climbed to his feet on the far side, he felt the ground shudder and pitched sideways as the scorpion tail slapped down over the trunk and buried itself ten inches into the ground.
Milo twisted and fired a stone, then another and another as he backed quickly away. Each rock hit the Stinger in the face, and for a moment, the creature seemed to hesitate. Milo saw a single bloody tear leak from the corner of one eye.
I hurt it, he thought. I actually hurt it!
Then the Stinger leaped atop the tree trunk. It bared its teeth and bit at the air with its mouth pincers as its tailed snapped back and forth overhead.
It didn’t look hurt at all.
Only furious.
Milo wasted no time looking back. He shot to his feet, grabbed the stub of a broken limb, and pulled himself onto the tree trunk.
There was a massive shuddering impact as the Stinger slammed its full weight into the tree. The shock knocked Milo off and back down into the mud.
“Owww!”
Milo got up, spun, and raced for the deepest part of th
e ravine. He knew this gulley. It angled down, and there were marshy spots that would still be wet from the morning dew. Down that far, the sun hadn’t yet burned off the last of the fog. Milo hoped he could lose himself in the mist and maybe trick the Stinger into the mud pools. With its weight, it might get stuck. Milo knew where the rocks were that would bring him through.
He ran.
The Stinger howled loud enough to shake the world, then leaped from the tree and raced after him.
For the moment, its sheer bulk worked against it. The ravine was narrow and filled with storm-shattered trees and thick vines. Milo was skinny and agile, and this was no more difficult than the obstacle courses he ran in Survival 101 class.
He plunged into a waist-high fog bank and immediately ducked down beneath its surface. He felt for the ground and picked his way, letting his feet follow the trail his fingers discovered. The ground was even marshier than he’d thought. That was good.
Milo reached the point where the ravine split into two directions. The left arm went southeast toward the bayou, the right rose to dryer ground and an easy way out. It was a tough call. Try to trap the Stinger in the swamp or make for flat ground where he could make a run for the bolt-hole.
The Stinger made the choice for him.
It appeared as if out of nowhere, and the poisonous barb slashed past his right ear.
Milo screamed and ran to the left.
Forty feet along that arm, he saw a tumble of rocks on the near side of the ravine. They were bigger than the small stones he carried in his pouch. He jammed the slingshot into his belt, snatched up several of them, and began pelting the Stinger, still hoping to smash the lifelight. The Stinger used its pincer arms to swat the rocks aside.
Milo adjusted his grip on the next one and pitched it like a split-fingered fastball. The rock burned past the flailing pincer and hit the Stinger in the mouth. Milo saw something dark pop into the air and realized he’d snapped off the tip of the creature’s mouth pincer.
This time the Stinger bellowed in pain.
Green blood flowed from the break. The mutant reared up and tore at the air with its legs and pincers as if demonstrating how it was going to tear him apart.
Milo stumbled backward, dropping the rest of the rocks, and when he tried to turn to run, his sneaker sank to the ankle in mud. It stopped him right there, and Milo pitched sideways. It was only luck—if he could call what he had “luck”—that he didn’t snap either ankle or knee.
But he flopped into the mud with his leg stuck as surely as if it were chained to the ground.
The Stinger uttered a cry of triumph that came close to cracking Milo’s head open. The leaves on the trees lining the ravine shook as if in fear. With blood dripping into the mist, the Stinger began stalking forward, certain of the kill and delighting in the fear he could probably taste on the damp air.
This was it, and Milo knew it.
He struggled to pull his foot free, but he knew he had no time left.
Then a howl of animal fury split the air behind him, and Milo turned, certain that a second Stinger had come to share in the feast.
As he twisted to look, something leaped over him, coming out of the mists in the deepest part of the ravine, sailing over him, passing between Milo and the distant sun. It was big and gray and it seemed to be made of teeth and claws and hate.
The wolf!
It slammed into the Stinger.
The wolf hit the Stinger like a gray thunderbolt, and the two of them went rolling and tumbling, snarling and snapping down the slope.
The mist swirled and boiled. Milo could see only part of the fight. The whip of the segmented tail. A clawed and furry foot. The flash of white teeth and the bulk of a dark pincer arm.
The howls and screams rose out of the melee to fill the morning air with horror and pain.
There was a crashing sound to his right, and for a wild moment Milo thought that there was a second Stinger, but then a bulky form crashed through. It was Shark. He held his walking stave in his hands like a baseball bat. He stared past Milo at the battling creatures. For a moment the Stinger’s back rose above the level of the churning mist.
“I got him!” growled Shark, raising the stave for a hearty swing.
The Stinger’s tail slashed out of the fog and struck the ground directly between the toes of Shark’s sneakers.
“Oh, wait. No, I don’t,” he amended, backing up as fast as he could. He turned and ran to help Milo out of the mud.
Milo’s foot came free from the muck with a wet pop! His sneaker was a high-top and laced up well, so it stayed on, but it was filled with muddy water.
“Run!” yelled Milo, shoving Shark back the way they’d come.
Killer came yipping and barking out from under a shrub. The little Jack Russell was fierce and brave. He darted toward the dueling creatures as if he were going to join in.
“Killer—no!” Shark and Milo both yelled. The terrier ignored them and began edging toward the oncoming monster.
Once more the Stinger rose up from the fight, and this time it bent low and roared at the dog. The green glowing gem on its chest pulsed like a heartbeat.
Killer instantly stopped barking and seemed to take a moment to consider the realities of the situation. Then, as his master had done, he turned tail and bolted, zooming past Shark and Milo and vanishing into the brush.
The boys, no less terrified, followed.
The Stinger’s tail quivered in the air, ready to strike, but then the wolf leaped up again and dragged the mutant down. There was a fresh wave of screams and howls.
Then something came flying out of the mist, twisting and yelping, and went hurtling into the foliage on the side of the ravine.
The wolf.
Bloody and defeated.
With a scream louder than anything that had come before, the Stinger rose up on its hind legs and bellowed its triumph.
Milo pulled his slingshot, twisted as he ran, and fired two more stones, hoping to hit an eye.
He hit the thing’s chest and its nose. Blood erupted from the Stinger’s nostrils, but the only effect was to make it scream louder, with greater hatred.
“Stop . . . ,” gasped Shark, “. . . doing . . . that. . . .”
Milo didn’t shoot any more stones because in the next instant, the Stinger was running on all fours, using its dog muscles to devour the distance between them.
Stingers could run very fast.
Way too fast.
Milo and Shark cut left and right, ducking under low cypress limbs, dodging around towering live oaks, trying to confuse the line of pursuit.
“Head for da bolt-hole, you!” came the yell from far off to their right.
Barnaby.
Shark and Milo turned on a dime and slanted down-land, using the slope to build momentum. BH-8 was on the banks of Bayou Teche nearly three hundred yards away. It was a steel-lined rabbit hole waiting for the rabbits. If they reached it and got inside, not even a Stinger could get them.
Three hundred yards, though. Three football fields.
That seemed like an impossible distance.
Milo was already breathing hard, and between sheer terror and exertion, his heart was hammering faster than a woodpecker.
“Come on,” he growled to Shark, pulling at him.
“I . . . I . . . can’t . . . go . . . any . . . faster . . . ,” gasped Shark, whose face had turned bright red. With each step, he was doing more staggering than running.
Milo pulled even harder, tried to help Shark run.
Killer raced ahead, stopping to turn and scold them with sharp barks, urging them to move faster. Out of the corners of his eyes, Milo could see other kids racing down to the bolt-hole. Lizabeth was out in front, running like a deer, her blond hair floating on the breeze. Others chased her down to the rally point.
Behind them the Stinger let loose with another of its dreadful hunting cries.
It chilled the blood in Milo’s veins.
It was s
o close.
Then the leaves parted and the wolf jumped out of the brush once more. Its pelt was crisscrossed with slashes, and the gray fur was soaked with the red of her blood and the green of the Stinger’s. It landed between the boys and the Stinger and stood four-footed on the trail. The wolf’s body trembled—either from exertion or fury or pain. Milo couldn’t tell. Probably all three.
The boys slowed to a breathless walk and then stopped to stare.
The Stinger slowed to a stalking pace, and Milo could see that it was also injured. Some of the armor was gouged and slashed. There were deep claw marks and fang punctures as deep and dark as bullet holes. The flesh around its lifelight was torn to ribbons, as if the wolf somehow knew that to destroy that gem would end the creature. However, the gem still glowed its ghostly green.
In Milo’s mind, he heard his mother saying that the two Dissosterin shocktroopers had been clawed apart.
She had thought it couldn’t have been a wolf, but Milo wasn’t so sure.
After all, this wolf, this hundred pounds of fang and claw, had done terrible damage to a mutant more than twice its size.
Somehow.
But . . . how?
The Stinger was wary of the wolf. Perhaps confused by the fact that a defeated enemy had come back.
Even so, it kept moving forward.
Killer cringed down and peed all over the ground.
“Milo,” gasped Shark, tugging at his sleeve, “we have to go.”
The wolf tensed and sprang, moving with incredible speed as it drove toward the Stinger’s throat.
“Kill it!” snarled Milo.
But the Stinger was ready. As the wolf leaped, the Stinger wheeled sideways and snapped out and down with the barb. Even from fifty feet away, Milo heard the sound of the dagger tip bury itself in muscle and bone. The wolf shrieked in pain, and for a moment, its voice sounded more human than animal.
The Stinger jerked its barb free as the wolf landed badly, tried to stand, wobbled, and pitched off the path into the fog.
“NO!” screamed Milo, and if Shark hadn’t been there, he would have charged the mutant.
Shark dragged him back, and together they stumbled and fell and got up and staggered along the path.