CHAPTER 8
HOODLUM
The demons yowled at Chase, the two closest to him swiping at him with their talons. He did his best to avoid them, but their proximity to him made that tricky. Every third or fourth swipe, they struck their intended target, slicing into his clothing, his skin, or both. Luckily, none of the lacerations he received cut deeper than a centimeter.
He thrust the bottom of his foot into the former woman, barely knocking her against the pump. He then twisted about, caught the old man by the arm, and decked him in the gut with his right fist. As the demon wailed in agony, Chase threw three more punches to the same spot. Then the parking lot woman dug her claws deep into his back. In response, Chase relinquished his hold on the old man, squirming to shake the woman’s grip. Fortunately, all she did was rip the back of his shirt and cut him open with a slight scrape.
Such a shame Chase’s folks had never come up with an exception clause for demonic gals. Despite everything Ma and Pa had taught him about hitting women, he couldn’t stop his fist from connecting with the woman’s jaw. She flew backwards once again, right into the arms of a demon in grease monkey overalls.
The tow truck driver, Chase realized. No wonder no one had come to pick these cars up. Had this blight already spread throughout the town overnight? At least now Chase knew why the waitress had no customers this morning. They’d spent the night before transforming into monsters lusting for slaughter.
Seeing no way past the creatures to his truck, he backtracked toward the Mini-Mart. The howls and snarls behind him grew louder, suggesting that the demons were closing in on him. He shoved the door open, and then slammed it back in place once safely inside.
“Decided to fill up, did you?” Peddle asked, woefully oblivious to the chaos outside his shop’s window.
“Lock the door,” Chase yelled, lacking the patience to deal with Peddle’s ignorance at the moment.
“Why?” A trickle of uncertainty in the gas station owner’s tone proved that maybe Peddle was finally starting to wise up to the world around him.
“I’ve found the drivers!” Chase groaned while straining to pull a metal newspaper display toward the door. “Seems they didn’t wander too far away after all.”
Peddle gazed out the window, his jaw hanging as realization struck. At once he rushed to the front door with the key in his possession, inserted it into the lock, and twisted it back and forth, his hands trembling. The way he fumbled with the key inspired no confidence whatsoever from Chase. Then, after a few more jolts, the lock clinked.
Once Peddle withdrew, Chase shoved a display case in front of the door, just for good measure.
“That’s just in case the demons are actually smart enough to punch through the door,” he said. No way would he leave his life in the hands of a potentially incompetent gas station owner. It was sheer luck alone that the man’s store suffered no evident damage to either its structure or its merchandise, aside from a carton of cigarettes Peddle hadn’t yet accounted for.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Peddle muttered. “I didn’t start this business just to be cut down in the prime of my life.”
Chase didn’t have time to answer. The tow truck driver’s fist smashed through the door, shattering the window. Glassy shards and droplets of blood sprayed Chase and Peddle, both of whom shielded their faces with their hands.
The tow truck driver nabbed the inside handle, rattling it, trying to get it to unlock. The men retreated from the door as the tow truck driver moved through the broken space in the glass. A large and rather jagged shard snagged the creature in the abdomen, slicing his uniform and belly area open. Blood dripped unhindered from the wound, oozing down upon the glass, the newspaper display, and the floor.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got a gun stashed away somewhere?” Chase looked to Peddle for an answer.
“It’s in a padlocked drawer underneath the counter,” Peddle remarked, and then scowled, glancing back at the door. “Damn it! Of all the stupid things to do!”
Chase’s eyes followed Peddle’s stare, soon finding the reason for Peddle’s release of profanity. Peddle, in the rush to get away from the tow truck driver, had left his key in the front door lock.
So much for getting the gun.
“Can we get out another way?” Chase asked with distress growing in his voice.
Peddle bit his lip, glancing to the opposite end of the store. As he did so, two more windows on either side of the men shattered, the demons making their own entries into the building.
“Yes, but it’ll offset the fire alarm and might activate the sprinklers.”
“Who cares?” Chase said, reaching for the first thing he could grab—a glass bottle of apple cider from a refrigerated case—and chucking it at the tow truck driver’s head. The impact smashed the container and sliced the demon’s head open in several locations, delaying any further advance. A second later, the demon hybrid crumpled to the ground, the attack to his head knocking him out for the moment.
Chase paused to look the guy over, a tinge of remorse filling his heart at the sight of this unfortunate man with the fingernail daggers. Even with demon-like traits and mentality overriding the original humanity within these people, the afflicted were not yet fully invulnerable. If the head remained the most susceptible spot on these creatures, then the beasts could still be stopped.
“We need to go now!” Peddle said as he snatched Chase’s arm.
The men retreated to the rear exit, stopping dead in their tracks seconds later. Through the thin pane Chase spotted two more demons swiping madly at the door, spewing puke-mucus fluid from their throats. Behind them in the store came the scuffle of beasts who’d gained access at the front end.
“We’re trapped!” Peddle cried.
Disgusted by the way the owner seemed ready to call it quits too soon, Chase snatched Peddle by the collar and jostled him a little.
“Snap out of this. We’ll find a way to escape them. One of these creatures just about killed me last night, but didn’t. Now I don’t know why that was, but maybe we still have a chance.”
Peddle drew in a breath, then patted Chase’s hand as though grateful for bringing him back to his senses. Upon being released from Chase’s grip, he blurted out his next question without hesitation.
“You think you can reason with them?”
“I can give it a shot.” Chase clenched his fists tight in a display of bravado.
Peddle grimaced, evidently not believing Chase’s claim.
Chase turned away from Peddle, listening for the invaders. Realizing that none of the altered people had chased them to the back of the building, Chase crooked his head around the corner. The creatures were busy using their claws for slashing apart bags at the front display case, the area alive with the dance of potato chips no longer confined inside air-tight sealed sacks.
Peddle whimpered a protest at the way the demons were tearing up his store. “They’re not gonna pay for that stuff, are they?”
Chase couldn’t believe Peddle’s complaint. Was money really far more important than their personal well-being? Provided he lived long enough to see it, he vowed never to run the family farm the same way that Peddle ran this gas station.
“Just be grateful they’re filling their bellies with all that junk food instead of us,” he remarked, watching the old man demon scour for chocolate candies another creature had dumped onto the tiled floor.
Peddle winced at the loss of profit from the wasted food, burying his head in his shoulder.
At this, Chase gritted his teeth and concentrated on getting the both of them out of there. He spun back to the fire escape exit, discovering no one guarding it now. With a rush of energy he stepped toward the handlebar, rested both hands upon it and pressed inward.
A siren blared throughout the store, alerting the demons to Chase and Peddle’s escape. The men darted out of the building, toward Chase’s truck. Odd, it seemed to Chase, how Peddle tailed him rather than head straight to hi
s own vehicle. Maybe the gas station owner finally understood the severity of the situation.
That makes one other person besides me, Chase thought, fighting back against the resentment he still carried toward Dylan from back at the diner.
They quickly climbed into the pick-up, each slamming the lock down on his side. For a second or two, it appeared the demons weren’t interested in hunting them further.
Then the tow truck driver landed on the hood of Chase’s truck with enough momentum to dent the hull. A spray of blood from the creature’s untended wound splattered against the windshield.
“Shit!” Peddle shot a look of disbelief at Chase. “You didn’t tell me they could fly!”
“They can’t,” Chase said, firing up the engine once more. “I think they’re just really good jumpers.”
“You think?! You mean you don’t know for sure?” Peddle threw himself back against his seat, keeping as far away from the windshield as was possible.
Chase tore out of the parking lot, swinging across to the other lane and back, praying that he might shake the creature from his truck. Unfortunately, the tow truck driver dug his talons deeper into the hood, clinging tightly to the vehicle.
“Hopefully they’re not super-strong, too,” Peddle said. He dug his fingers into Chase’s seat, unwittingly mimicking the creature’s action.
“So far they’re not,” Chase said, deciding not to follow that thought to its conclusion.
He swerved back and forth across the main street again, still trying to buck the demon right off. Thank god there still were hardly any cars out on the roads, or else he’d have had other motorists to contend with on top of the demon weighing down his hood.
A howl of protest ripped through the wind. Chase couldn’t tell whether it belonged to the creature, or the tires, or a combination of both. The beast withdrew one set of claws from the hood and threw them against the windshield, scratching the surface and cracking the glass. A couple more swipes would shatter the already battered barrier and expose the truck’s occupants to demonic danger.
Chase floored the accelerator. His tires shrieked another protest, his engine rumbling angrily. He hated harming his pick-up, but what other choice was there?
The tow truck driver, still hanging on by one hand, looked about ready to lose control. He drew his free hand back to the hood, but couldn’t regain his grasp on it. A second later, the guy’s other set of claws loosened their hold on the hood. He whipped about and went tumbling off the side.
Chase stopped for nothing until he reached the motor inn, ignoring the fact that Peddle gawked at the rearview mirror the whole time.