Sudden Fury. William W. Johnstone

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СКАЧАТЬ crashed through the brush. Somebody else yelled, “Don’t shoot anymore!”

      Frank breathed a little easier now. Both groups of hunters had ceased fire. Maybe they wouldn’t start shooting indiscriminately again before they found out what was going on.

      Three riders came into view, carrying their rifles at the ready. Frank stepped out from behind the huge log and raised a hand.

      “Was that you we were shooting at, mister?” one of them asked.

      “Yeah, but you were also shooting at another bunch over there,” Frank replied, pointing with a thumb in the other direction.

      That was where more shots abruptly sounded, and a man screamed at the top of his lungs in sheer terror.

      Chapter 3

      Frank wheeled in that direction. He had heard shrieks like that not long before, and six men had died. He jerked his Winchester from the saddle boot and broke into a run toward the sounds.

      As thick as the woods were, he could move just as fast on foot as the other men could on horseback. He charged through the trees for several moments, then had to leap aside as a runaway horse suddenly loomed up right in front of him. The animal’s eyes were wide and rolling with fright. Foam drooled from its mouth. It wasn’t paying any attention to where it was going, and only Frank’s superb reflexes kept the horse from trampling him.

      He heard more crashing in the brush, as if other horses were bolting through the woods in panic-stricken flight. The gunfire had stopped, but the screaming continued. Frank couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was a different voice now.

      As if something had already stilled the first one.

      Another shape appeared in the shadows before him, coming toward him at a fast rate of speed. Frank stopped and swung the rifle up, ready to fire if whatever it was attacked him. It wasn’t a monster, though, or even some sort of wild animal. It was a man, running for his life like Satan himself was after him. A crimson smear of blood covered his face, and he kept looking behind him as he plunged heedlessly through the forest.

      Frank lowered the Winchester and called, “Hey! Stop! You’re all right!”

      The man never slowed down. Frank stepped to the side so that the hombre wouldn’t barrel right into him, leaned the rifle against a tree trunk, and then reached out to grab the man as he went by. Frank wrapped his arms around him, the muscles in his arms and shoulders bunching under the butternut shirt as he jerked the fleeing man to a halt.

      The fellow wasn’t going to settle down without a fight, though. He was too hysterical from fear to do that. He struggled frantically to get loose, twisting in Frank’s grip and flailing at him. The fists thudded into Frank’s shoulders and back and didn’t really do any damage, but he got tired of it in a hurry anyway. He grabbed hold of the front of the man’s shirt, shoved him back a step, and drove a short but powerful punch into the hombre’s jaw.

      The blow snapped the man’s head to the side and made his eyes roll up in their sockets. Frank let go of him. The man’s knees unhinged. He folded up and crumpled to the needle-covered ground at Frank’s feet.

      The riders had arrived while Frank was struggling with the stranger. They looked down at the stunned man, and one of them asked, “Who’s that?”

      “I think his name’s Scott,” another rider said. “I’ve seen him in Eureka.”

      “Man, looks like somethin’ tore into him.”

      That was true. Most of the blood on the man’s face came from a hideous gash that slanted across his forehead, but he had some smaller cuts and scratches on his cheeks, too. His shirt was torn and bloodstained, like something had tried to claw it off him.

      Frank realized that the screaming had stopped. He picked up his rifle and said to the men on horseback, “A couple of you come with me. The other one stay here and keep an eye on this gent.”

      “Who are you to be givin’ orders, mister?”

      “The man who’s giving the orders,” Frank snapped. “Come on.”

      The tone of command didn’t allow for any argument. One of the men shrugged and said, “I’ll stay here with Scott. Just don’t you fellas be gone too long. That critter’s still roamin’ around out here in these woods, unless I miss my guess.”

      Frank led the way, stalking forward with the Winchester at the ready. In a few minutes, he spotted what looked like two heaps of old clothing lying on the ground ahead of him. He had a bad feeling that there was more to the heaps than old clothes, though.

      Unfortunately, he was right. He saw the torn and mangled bodies as he came closer. Blood formed reddish-black pools around both dead men. Not only had their flesh been shredded, but their throats were torn out as well. These injuries looked more like something an animal would inflict. Frank was getting back to the bear idea again. The killer hadn’t taken the time to rip the bodies apart this time.

      “Holy Mother o’ God!” one of the riders who had trailed along behind Frank exclaimed when he saw the mutilated corpses. Frank heard retching behind him, but didn’t look around.

      “It was the Terror, that’s what it was,” the other man said. “No doubt about it. The damn thing’s gone on a real rampage this time.”

      Frank thought that eight dead men in less than an hour qualified as a rampage, all right. But he still wasn’t convinced that some sort of monster had done this.

      “There’s nothing we can do for these fellas,” he said. “Let’s go back and see about that other one.”

      They returned to the spot where they had left Scott and the third rider. The injured man had regained his senses, at least to a certain extent. He sat with his back against the trunk of a redwood. He had his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them. He swayed back and forth and made soft moaning noises.

      “I was gonna try to clean up those wounds a little,” the third man said, “but he won’t let me touch him. I figured if I tried too hard, I might spook him and make him run off again.”

      Frank nodded. “It was good thinking to leave him alone. I’ll see what I can get out of him.”

      He went over to the man and hunkered on his heels, not getting too close to him. The man rolled his eyes in Frank’s direction and cringed away.

      “It’s all right,” Frank told him in a calm, steady voice, the sort of tone he would use on a frightened horse. “The thing that killed your friends and hurt you is gone. You’re safe now.”

      The man’s teeth chattered. “N-nobody’s safe,” he stammered. “Nobody’s s-safe in the w-woods. The T-Terror’s out there!”

      “Did you see it?” Frank asked.

      Scott jerked his head in a nod. “It…it came out from behind a tree…knocked Billy off his horse…I never saw anything move so f-fast.”

      “What did it look like?”

      “Big! Hairy! Must’ve been…nine feet tall…and it had these…claws…” A shudder ran through the СКАЧАТЬ