Gus couldn’t run anymore. His breath was coming in shallow gasps, his feet had been numb for so long he might as well have been running through Marshmallow Fluff, and all his muscles were cramping so hard no one would ever be able to straighten out his corpse. And still the Thing was coming through the woods towards him.
He took a deep breath and stepped away from behind the tree that had been holding him up. The creature’s puffing breath had changed to a bellow. The Thing was close. The sound reached a crescendo, and Gus caught his first glimpse of the Beast as it blasted through the brush.
Chapter Two
It was as black as tar, and its skin was as shiny hard as a massive beetle’s. One bright eye in the middle of its face blasted light at Gus.
Gus crouched down in a fighting stance, trying to understand what he was seeing. What was this Thing coming for him? He had expected a bear, or a dire wolf, or even a sabertoothed tiger. But this was long and low, stretching back for what seemed to be thirty feet. And most disturbingly of all, it bore a rider. This wasn’t a wild Thing at all, but a beast of war, trained for combat and for killing. No wonder that in all the times he’d dreamed this moment, Gus had never seen what was chasing him. The image would have been too frightening not to wake him up.
And yet, there was a familiar aspect to the creature. Somewhere beneath all the panic signals his brain was trumpeting out to his nervous system, Gus’ rational mind was running through a catalog of images, trying to connect one to the Thing that was rushing towards him blasting steam out of an infernal blowhole.
There was no time for that, however. The creature was almost on him. Gus crouched down and prepared to leap away from the hideous black teeth that tore along right above the steel rails.