The Grip
Page 6
That female sounding shriek pierced the air again. Louder this time. It sounded pissed.
Tommy looked up. It was nearly on Buck. There was panic on the old man’s face. That knowing feeling that something is closing fast and you can’t look back, can’t look back or it’s over.
Just then, Buck did perhaps the only intelligent thing he could under the circumstances. He skidded to a stop, spun around, and started running in the opposite direction. The angle was too steep for the creature and it disengaged, whipping back up into the sky. Tommy pulled alongside and Buck jumped in. Tommy jerked the wheel and the car spun around to face the outbound road. Tommy punched the Firebird’s accelerator and a stream of gravel kicked up as the car accelerated. A single thought was ringing through Tommy’s head:
This is mission control, we have lift-off!
Buck was in the passenger seat, wheezing and coughing up yellow gobs of phlegm. He looked over at Tommy’s shoulder.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, pulling off his own shirt and tearing off a strip to use as a tourniquet.
Buck peered out the rear window. He had hoped to see it circling over the steel works and for a panicked moment it was nowhere to be found.
Maybe it was over the car.
And then he spotted it over Keisel’s, little more than a grayish form. It swooped down and landed on the roof by one of the smoke stacks and ambled into a hole and out of sight.
Like a fucking bird heading back to its nest, Buck thought to himself.
Tommy angled his wounded shoulder out of his checkered shirt and surveyed the damage. There were two puncture holes the size of silver dollars. One beside his pectoral muscle and the other behind his shoulder blade. Buck wrapped his torn shirt over the wound and under Tommy’s arm and then tied a sailors knot to keep it from coming undone.
“There’s no way in Sam Hill that was the one you killed, Buck, no fucking way.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Buck snapped, fighting to examine his handiwork in the bucking car. “Compared to that bitch, what I got seemed more like… a baby.”
Tommy shot him a wide-eyed glance.
What Buck said next came out more smoothly than he had meant it to. “I think we just met Mama.”
The implication took a moment to sink in.
“So there could be dozens of those things flying around? What if they get someone else…?” Buck looked away. “What? What is it Buck? What is it that you know?”
“Fast Eddy Fick. At least what was left of him, half sticking out of the bushes.”
“Oh Christ! We gotta call the sheriff.”
“And tell him a giant bird ate Fast Eddy’s face off and then took you for a joy ride? Come on, Tommy! By the time those chowder heads get their act together, who knows how many others are—”
“Then what? We can’t just pretend none of this happened.” There was a touch of desperation in Tommy’s voice. “You said yourself that when mother nature goofs-”
“I know what I said,” Buck cut in. His wound was still bleeding. “A five-legged deer, that’s a goof, no question. But that thing up there is no run of the mill goof; it’s a bloody monstrosity and it needs to be wiped off the face of the earth… before it gets hungry for something other than stringy old hermits.” He paused. “Before it moves into town.”
Tommy looked pensive. A bead of sweat rolled down his face and onto his jeans, forming a dark blue dot. He looked over at Buck. “We’re gonna need some help. And guns, lots of guns.”
Bird of Prey. Available on Kindle, Nook, Kobo and others.
Also by Griffin Hayes
Novels
Malice
Novellas
Bird of Prey
Short Stories
The Second Coming
The Grip
And Coming Soon
Nocturnal, a novel
To contact Griffin Hayes or to read samples of his other work, visit his blog:
http://griffin-hayes.blogspot.com/
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The Grip
The Grip
An Excerpt from Malice
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
An Excerpt from Bird of Prey
An Excerpt from Bird of Prey
Part II
Also by Griffin Hayes