The wheels locked and the Trekker slid on the damp black earth. We hit something, a boulder or the remains of a fallen tree, and our forward motion stopped suddenly. El Bastardo’s didn’t. He was thrown forwards off the roof of the Trekker.
“Yes!” Harmony and I celebrated together.
The creature hit the ground, rolling with its shoulder under it, slid on the ground, and then lay still on its side. I peered through the windshield, looking for any sign of movement.
“Is it dead?”
“Stunned,” Harmony said. “We should get out of here.”
The emergency siren was quiet now and the red warnings on the dash were fading one by one as things cooled down. The charge in our batteries had been severely depleted.
“He’s moving,” Harmony said.
I looked and saw a leg twitch.
“I don’t want it behind us again,” she said. “How fast can this thing go in reverse?”
“Not fast enough.”
The creature rolled onto its feet, shook itself. Then it turned its massive head towards us and opened its jaws. The roar seemed to shake the ground under us. El Bastardo’s top jaw was longer than the lower one and he had a serious overbite. Even when his mouth was closed you could see teeth sticking out. The biggest of them, jutting up from the lower jaw, was maybe six inches long. All of its teeth were thick and conical and had grooves running down them. They were used for crushing prey and I reckoned those jaws could chomp down like those things rescue teams use to cut you out of a wrecked car.
“You need to get a flame-thrower on this thing,” Harmony said.
“I don’t remember that being on the options list.”
The creature seemed to draw back a little and I knew this was a bad sign. “It’s going to charge!”
As the beast lunged towards us, Harmony put her foot down and headed towards it.
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
“Biggest game of chicken ever!”
Oh, squit!
For some reason my whole life didn’t flash before my eyes – just one random moment. A physical science class in school and a question that we were told was going to be on the next test. If vehicle a weighs x and travels directly towards vehicle b at fifty miles per hour, and vehicle b weighs y and travels at sixty miles per hour, what will be the force of their impact? I couldn’t work out the answer then and I had even less of an idea now. All I knew was that when a collided with b the result would be boom!
The impact was offset and that would have screwed up the equation anyway. Harmony’s side of the Trekker took the brunt of the crash. The rear of the car lifted off the ground and we were spun around through almost ninety degrees. All of the airbags went off and the inside of the Trekker was briefly filled with big pillows, a deafening noise, and white dust.
“Are we dead?” I asked.
“No, you can open your eyes.”
I opened them slowly. Tested my limbs and neck one by one for brokenness. I seemed to be pretty much intact. My neck was stiff and it felt as if someone had exploded balloons next to both of my ears, but other than that I appeared to have survived a head-on collision with a giant crocodile.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Seatbelt grazed my collarbone, other than that I seem to be all right,” Harmony said. She seemed as shocked by her okayness as I was by mine.
“Do you think the Trekker’s camera recorded it?” I asked. “Because there’s a show that pays for footage like that.”
“They’d think we faked it,” she said.
“Is he still out there?” I looked around, trying to see the crocodile.
“There!” Harmony pointed.
El Bastardo was lying on his back and one of his legs was bent at an awkward angle.
“He’s still breathing,” Harmony said.
If we’d had Floyd’s cannon we could have finished him off while his softer pale underside was exposed. And if we’d had a laser sword we could have carved him into cooked steaks and sold them off the back of a food truck.
“We should just get out of here before he comes to his senses,” I said.
“The Trekker’s dead,” Harmony said. “We’ve got no power.”
“I don’t have breakdown cover.”
“Do you want me to call Floyd and Skeet?” Harmony asked. The computer embedded in her brain wasn’t affected by the Trekker’s loss of power. If she could find a satellite to link to she could get a message to the truck.
I shook my head. “Let’s not put them at risk while that thing is still breathing,” I said.
“What’s the plan?”
“Sit here and hope it stops breathing.”
As we watched, El Bastardo’s tail moved slowly from side to side.
“We’ve got three hand grenades,” Harmony said. “Do you think they’ll kill it?”
“Only if we slit its belly open and drop them inside,” I said.
“What’s the biggest knife we’ve got?”
“I’m not going to attack that thing with a knife,” I said.
“I wasn’t expecting you to,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
Of course she would. And I’d just sit and watch her risk her life to save me. I was annoyed now. And not because she was trying to shame me into taking action – I knew she wasn’t. It didn’t help. Fate saved me from having to attempt any amateur butchery.
El Bastardo’s whole body shivered and then he rolled over onto the side that still had two good legs. He was moving a lot slower this time and it was clear that the front foreleg had been badly damaged in the crash. He rolled over onto his belly, keeping the bad foot off the ground.
Harmony sighed. She turned the key, trying to reactivate the Trekker, but there wasn’t even a flicker of life. We’d killed it.
When El Bastardo charged his movements were slower and uneven, but he was still two and a half tons of nasty heading straight for my side of the Trekker. We were sitting ducks.
Chapter Forty-One
There was nothing we could do except brace for impact. I watched El Bastardo lumbering towards me. It was like watching one of those tricksy movie shots where the camera zooms in slowly on someone while the background falls away quickly. The creature just kept getting bigger and bigger until I couldn’t see all of it unless I moved my head from side to side.
Boom!
The point of impact was down low on my side of the Trekker. It felt less like a massive punch and more like someone had tied a rope around me and jerked me sideways. There was also a brief moment that felt like weightlessness as the car was thrown upwards and started to flip over on its side. I think we rolled two and a half times. We ended up on the roof. I felt battered and bruised and shaken every which way. The car stopped spinning but my head didn’t. I hoped that didn’t signify a concussion. I felt Harmony stir beside me and reached for her hand.
“Stay quiet,” I whispered, “it might think we’re dead.”
Yeah, right. I could hear it lumbering towards us.
“Can you see it?” Harmony whispered.
The glass of the side window beside her exploded inwards and the creature tried to push its snout inside. It was only a couple of inches away from Harmony’s bare arm.
“Never mind, I see it,” she said. I saw her reach for her revolver.
“That won’t even put a dent in it,” I said.
“What if I fire directly into its nostril?” she said.
“It will sneeze and we’ll drown in crocodile snot.”
“If the slug explodes near its brain, it might kill it.”
“And if it doesn’t, you’ll just swazz him off,” I said.
“I’m not hearing any ideas from your side of the car wreck.”
That was because my brain had been scrambled.
The Trekker started rocking backwards and forwards on its roof. I think he was trying to make us throw up.
“He’s climbing up onto the car,” Harmony said. That would have been my seco
nd guess.
“What’s that noise?” I asked. It was a sort of squelchy wet crunching sound. I don’t know how else to describe it.
“I think he’s chewing one of the tyres,” Harmony said.
“No! Doesn’t he know what those things cost to replace?”
I heard the tyre burst and the startled sound made by the creature.
“Don’t worry, there are three more,” Harmony said.
“But we’ve only got the one spare,” I said. My scrambled brain was certain we could still right the Trekker and drive away in it. As long as it still had tyres.
“Scrack,” Harmony muttered. She leaned out of the broken window and screamed. I mean, really screamed. She has a good set of lungs. That attracted the attention of El Bastardo. Harmony ducked back as he thrust his snout towards her again. She shot him in the nose. The slug exploded and she was splattered with blood. A lot of it.
The creature bellowed and staggered back from the Trekker. It shook its head and blood sprayed down onto the ground.
Harmony had her eyes closed. “Am I covered in snot?”
“It’s not all snot,” I said.
She opened her eyes and looked down – or rather up – at herself. “I liked this shirt,” she said.
“Cold water and salt,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s supposed to get blood out,” I said.
She looked at me and we both laughed.
“Can you see it?” she asked. “How did I do?”
“You certainly made an impression on him,” I said. I twisted around to look out of the side window. “Oh, that’s gross.”
“What?”
“I know you’re not squeamish, so I’ll tell you,” I said. “You blew out one of his eyes. From the inside.”
“Is he backing away?”
“I think you gave him a headache. But he doesn’t look like he’s ready to give up.”
“Can we get to those grenades?” she asked.
There were three of them rolling around in the trunk somewhere. I would have to get out of the Trekker to reach them. And would have to hope that the metal back there wasn’t so twisted that the trunk was jammed shut.
Harmony noted my hesitation. “Throw a grenade into its open mouth and boom! – crocodile meat everywhere!” she said. I was supposed to applaud this idea and risk my life to make it happen.
“If he eats me, you have to promise to deliver that whiskey,” I said. I would hate to have died for nothing.
“I promise.”
Under any other circumstance, I would have asked for a kiss – for luck. But she was covered in blood and slime. I unfastened my harness and dropped headfirst onto the roof. Which was now the floor. I squirmed around until I was sitting cross-legged in a topsy-turvy world.
“Your cleavage looks great from here,” I said. I meant it as a compliment, obviously.
“Gravity is on my side for once,” she said. “Now make like a knight and kill that dragon.”
“My lady.”
I pulled the handle and pushed open the door. It made a metallic grinding sound that it had never made before. Hopefully, the creature’s ears were still ringing from the impromptu sinus surgery.
“Ow!” Harmony said. She’d released her harness and was lying in a heap where the roof met the top – now the bottom – of the windshield.
“Have a rummage through that loose junk and see if you can find my sunglasses,” I said. “I lost them months ago.”
I didn’t hear what she said in reply, but it didn’t sound like ‘Yes, dear.’ I pushed the door shut behind me.
The creature sat motionless about fifty feet away. It was staring at the overturned Trekker with its good eye. I couldn’t guess what it was thinking. It was probably deciding that canned food was more trouble than it was worth. I wasn’t fooled by its lack of movement. I’d seen how quickly it could lunge and I didn’t think the broken leg would slow it much. I edged towards the rear of the Trekker, never taking my eyes off the beast. When I turned the corner, Harmony was there with the trunk open. Her expression said ‘What kept you?’ She was holding three hand grenades.
“Are you a pitcher or a catcher?” she asked.
It wasn’t the first time I had been asked that question.
“I have a strong right arm,” I said.
“Why doesn’t that answer surprise me?” She handed me one of the grenades. “When he opens his mouth, see if you can get it inside.”
I sniggered – I couldn’t help it.
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Harmony said.
“Do you think throwing one of these down its throat will kill it?” I looked down at the explosive in my hand, it was about the size of a baseball and weighed only a little more.
“Either that or cause the biggest crocodile fart ever.”
“You’re really classy,” I said. “How do we get him to open his mouth?”
“Just step out there and try to look edible,” she said, patting my arm.
“Bite me,” I said.
Harmony snapped her teeth at me. Even covered in blood and snot she was sexy. But I still didn’t try for the kiss.
“Hey, you ugly scracker! How would you like a piece of...” The words died in my throat. The creature was a lot closer than it had been. It had silently halved the distance between us and it. Sneaky Old Bastard.
It regarded me with its eye and slowly opened its jaws – but only a little. Perhaps it was the crocodile equivalent of a smile. I didn’t smile back. I vaguely remembered hearing that you shouldn’t do that. The gap between its upper and lower teeth wasn’t very wide. Not enough for me to be sure of getting the grenade in there. And ideally, I wanted to throw it right into his throat. If I judged this wrong, he might just spit the grenade back at me. I needed to be a lot closer to be sure of the shot. Or he needed to open up wider. My preference was for the latter option.
“What are you waiting for?” Harmony asked.
“His mouth isn’t open wide enough.”
“Typical male,” she muttered. She came out of hiding with a hand grenade in her left hand and her revolver in the other. She aimed for the crocodile’s snout and fired the gun. She missed the nostril this time but the explosion caused El Bastardo to roar in pain and anger, opening up his jaws to let the sound out.
“Now!” Harmony shouted.
We both drew back our arms to throw the grenades.
“Stop!” a voice shouted.
Chapter Forty-Two
Harmony turned, distracted. “What?”
I was going to throw my grenade anyway but a red laser spot appeared on my chest. I lowered my arm.
Alina was standing on top of a slight rise. Mayuko was beside her, pointing her rifle at me.
“You want to kill it, be my guest!” I shouted. If she wanted to avenge her husband’s death, I was happy to let her.
“Kill it? Why would we do that?” Alina asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe to stop it killing us?”
El Bastardo was still thrashing around and roaring. Very soon he would focus his attention on us and start chomping.
A figure stepped out of the mist to the right of us. He was armed with something big.
“Is that...?” Harmony said.
“Zap gun,” I said.
The gunman was wearing a bulky metallic suit and helmet that would insulate him from any sparks that came from the blast. It was like the military version of something a linesman would wear. It had to be Isak behind the mask – he was the only one big enough to carry that weapon.
“I didn’t know they made them that big,” Harmony said.
It was probably a custom job, made for big game hunting. The main part of it was six feet long and had to be supported in two hands. Thick wires led to an immense battery pack that stuck up behind him like the backpack on an antique spacesuit. But did it have enough juice to bring down El Bastardo?
The creature was now aware of the other peopl
e around it and was clearly agitated. Whatever it did next would be unpredictable and fast. Isak only had one shot and had to make it count. He stepped closer and closer, holding the zap gun in front of him like a flame-thrower. If he got this wrong, the giant croc would lunge and snap him up like a dog-treat still in its wrapper. He was almost within striking distance of its claws. A swipe from them would tear the suit and render it useless.
El Bastardo drew back, preparing to strike. I hoped Isak saw this too – his vision would be limited in that helmet. The beast opened its jaws and let out a bellow that echoed around us like thunder. As the head came down and forwards, Isak provided the lightning. A fat blue stream of crackling energy shot towards the croc. Isak’s aim was good – straight into the beast’s mouth.
The electricity split into dozens of tiny threads, arcing along the inside of the jaw and dancing between the teeth. The creature convulsed, thrashing its massive head backwards and forwards, the huge tail whipping about in counterpoint. It rose upwards, arching its back. As it started to come down, I thought Isak was doomed. The zap from the gun faded, the batteries spent. El Bastardo’s head crashed down to the ground, did a little bounce and then was still. We all waited, wanting to be sure. Isak had no doubts – he strode forward and placed one foot on the snout of the fallen monster: he was the all-conquering hunter.
“It’s still breathing,” Harmony warned. “He should finish it off.”
Alina came down the slope towards us. “It’s worth more to us alive,” she said.
“I’ll pay you to kill it,” I said.
“We’ve been offered a million,” Mayuka said.
“Alliance?” Harmony asked.
“We don’t work for anything else.” Mayuka smiled at her.
“You want to capture it?” I was still having trouble getting my head around this idea. But then the final piece clicked into place. “You used us as bait!”
“I hate it when people do that,” Harmony muttered.
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