by Erik Hyrkas
Chapter 15. Max
The Wendigo swallowed, and for a moment the creature looked triumphant. Then his expression changed to a weird animal combination of hunger and panic. My ploy worked. Even a creature of his size couldn’t consume that many metabolic boost pills without feeling overwhelming hunger. He’d have to eat five times his bodyweight simply not to starve, and my blood would push his metabolic system even harder. The beast was going to either eat me, Tyler, and his own friends, or he was going to starve. I was okay with the first outcome, as long as Tyler was on the menu.
“Where is my payment?” Tyler demanded.
The king dropped me on the ground and grasped his throat. I landed on jagged rocks with bone smashing force and was too dazed by pain to move.
A smaller Wendigo charged forward toward me, a greedy look in its eyes. The king snatched the creature up and swallowed it whole.
“You would trick the king of the Wendigo?” he demanded of Tyler.
Tyler now looked scared and confused. “I brought you exactly what I promised.”
The king lunged toward Tyler, who pulled his pistol like a gunfighter in an old western and sprayed the king with antimatter blasts. Giant craters of flesh vanished on contact but healed almost instantly. Tyler’s robots also opened fire with smaller proton blasters, but they were doing no visible harm to the Wendigo. The king opened his mouth to devour Tyler, but four antimatter shots to the back of the throat left a hole clean through to the top of the king’s head and the king collapsed. Tyler hit the ground hard, gained his feet, and started to scramble for the ship while his robot guards covered his retreat. The largest of the Wendigo moved toward the corpse of the king, but the smaller Wendigo in the clearing charged forward with elation. I assumed these beasts must have the same drive to run down escaping prey as predators on Earth. They ignored me lying prone on the ground and followed Tyler.
The robots did more damage to the smaller Wendigo than they had the king, but none of the blasts were lethal. Surging Wendigo crushed the robots as Tyler neared the ship. The ramp lifted just before Tyler reached it, and even from here I could see he was stunned by this turn of events. He spun back to face the mob of Wendigo charging at him and fired antimatter blasts with precision, killing a dozen as they neared him—but more came. When his pistol finally made a hollow clicking sound, he panicked and banged on the bottom of the ramp as the ship slowly began to rise. “Let me in!”
The pilot of the ship either couldn’t hear him or ignored him. A massive hand scooped Tyler up. He struggled against the grip of the larger creature, but the beast simply bit Tyler in two. I looked away. As much as I hated Tyler, I couldn’t watch him get eaten. The ship’s full-size proton cannons unleashed a flurry of blasts that scattered the Wendigo as it flew low at them, then continued to fire as the craft hovered above me. The bay doors opened, and I saw John the sheriff looking down at me.
“Time to go.” He dragged me aboard without care for my pain. The moment we were clear of the door he shouted, “We’re good! Get out of here!”