Ricky Turner's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

The grooves in the road led to a shape the size of a barn door. She walked toward them under the mushroom canopy, joints grinding with each step. Her skin pulled tight over a dead frame. Her sunken green eyes found Ricky and did not blink. Fletch went still on the road. "That's not for you to fight," the rabbit said. "Run. Run now." Ricky turned to run. Guater did not. The dog shot past his legs, straight at the giant woman. "Guater!" Ricky screamed. Guater planted himself between the creature and his master. He bared his teeth and held the ground. "I smell hate," the dog said. "I smell hate on her." The blue glow of the tower waited behind Ricky. One clear run and he was home. He had wanted that for days. But his dog stood in the dirt, small against a thing that had killed and gotten back up. Ricky's hands shook on the sword. The door home was thirty steps back. Guater was ten steps forward. He went forward. Ricky ran at the giant and swung the blade at her leg. The edge bit dead flesh and stuck. She looked down at him with no pain in her face. "Living," she said. One flat word. She swept her arm and knocked Ricky off his feet. The sword tore loose from her leg and spun into the vines. He hit the road hard and lost his breath. Guater lunged and locked his jaws on her wrist. She lifted the dog off the ground and shook him. Guater held. Ricky crawled for the sword. His fingers closed on the grip. Then the ground shook, and a gator crashed out of the trees. Fletch rode on her back, low behind her eyes. "Her ankle!" the rabbit shouted. "The stuck leg! Now!" The gator clamped down on the wound Ricky's blade had opened. Bone cracked. The giant woman toppled. She dropped Guater and hit the road, and the whole canopy shivered. Ricky scrambled up. Guater ran to him and pressed hard against his leg, breathing fast. "You came," the dog said. "You came back for me." "Move," Fletch said from the gator's back. "She gets up. They always get up." Already the giant clawed at the dirt, dragging her ruined leg under her. Ricky did not go to the tower. He grabbed Guater's collar and pulled him off the road, into the trees, away from the glow. The door home sat wide open behind him, and he ran the other way to save his dog. They crashed through the dead brush together, Fletch and the gator close behind. Behind them the giant woman rose. The tower's light shrank between the trunks. Ricky had reached the road's end and chosen his dog over the door. Now he was off the path, lost in the dark, with a thing that could not die hunting his scent.