Daniel staggered backwards and dropped to one knee. The raptor kept coming at the door to the hallway.
"Heads up!" the woman cried, taking a bead on the charging raptor.
Crack! Crack!
The raptor didn't even slow down. It reached the doorway and slammed into the woman. She staggered backward slightly, then fired again, point-blank range. The force of the impact pushed the raptor back half a step. It hissed, baring two-inch-long teeth, and lashed out at her with a heavily-clawed arm. She cried out, stepping to one side to keep her balance, and then it was pushing past her, knocking her entirely off balance. She fell, bleeding from claw cuts across her stomach -- not deep, but deep enough for the poison to get in.
"Block the hallway!" Daniel cried. "Don't let it --"
Crack! Crack! Crack! Bradley had already risen from his crouch while he was getting his rifle aimed at the raptor, and now he got off some shots, while backing further into the doorway, letting the open door shield him on one side.
The raptor circled to the side, next to the wall, facing into the opening of the half-closed door. Bradley watched it warily, his knee braced against the door so it wasn't resting against his arms as he held his rifle at the ready.
It was obvious that, despite having seen how ineffective bullets were, he was still trusting his own rifle to keep the raptor at bay. Daniel had seen how quickly the raptors could move, and it wasn't going to have any trouble getting past him.
"You fool," he muttered, taking aim with the shotgun and pulling the trigger.
He was only about twenty feet away. The shotgun blast caught Bradley in the legs, knocking them out from under him. He screamed as he fell over. The raptor, caught off-guard, tried to take a swipe at him as he fell, but missed. Bradley hit the ground with a meaty thump, the rifle clanging to the tile floor next to him.
Then the door began to close. It hit his injured legs with a fair amount of force, and he choked out another scream and pulled his legs out of the door's path.
"Taylor!" Daniel screamed in the direction of the hallway. "Shut the door and lock it! And get out of there!"
The door slammed shut. Daniel swayed once and collapsed to the ground.
"Daniel!" Kelly cried.
The deadbolt snapped home. Taylor's face -- suddenly seeming impossibly young -- looked through at them for an instant. Then she was gone.
The raptor screeched and lashed out at the door, but Kelly barely noticed -- she suddenly realized that she was still holding the pieces of sheet. She dropped to her knees next to Daniel, pressed the folded-up section against his side, now thoroughly drenched with blood, and then wrapped the strip of cloth around him. He was conscious, but only barely so, and she had to lift him to get the cloth under his torso.
When she tied the strip tightly enough to keep pressure on the wound, the pain seemed to revive him slightly. "Oh, God," he said, looking over at the raptor, which had begun to pace up and down the wall. "We've got to get out of here."
Kelly stood and reached for his arm on his good side. Then she looked over at Bradley and at the woman, both lying on the floor, both bleeding.
She walked quickly over to the woman -- the closer of the two -- and picked up her rifle.
Then she crossed back to Daniel, using the rifle as a walking stick as she went.
"Careful," he murmured. "Keep the barrel down. You jolt that thing too hard, it might go off, and we don't need you with an extra hole in your side."
She hastily took his advice, flipping the rifle so it pointed down instead of up. "Come on," she said, taking his arm and pulling him up. She put his good arm around her shoulders and walked him to the hole in the bars, big enough for a raptor -- or a person -- to step through.
He winced as he raised his leg to step through the gap, then again as he brought that foot down and put pressure on it. He gritted his teeth and pulled his other leg through as quickly as he could, then sagged heavily against the bars while Kelly followed.
She was scarcely through when a piercing call came from above them. She looked up, and then ducked instinctively. A gray raptor was flying down the street toward them.
"Get down!" she called to Daniel. He looked where she was pointing, and wordlessly slid his back down the wall until he was sitting on the ground.
They watched silently as the raptor circled overhead, once, twice, three times. Finally it let out its call again and turned to fly away.
"Boy, we're popular today, aren't we?" Kelly muttered.
Daniel shook his head. "I don't know about that one, but I don't think those first three were looking for you or for me."
She stared at him. "You think they were looking for Taylor? But she's a Guardian! They're supposed to be weakened when they get near her!"
He started to say something, then paused. "You know, I don't actually have anything to back this up," he said slowly. "It just... feels right. They were after her. I can feel it." She gave him a skeptical look, and he shrugged. "As for her being a Guardian, I don't know. You'd think that would keep them away, but I don't know."
He shifted his sitting position, and suddenly gasped in pain. "Oh, shit," he panted. "Oh, that hurts." He looked up at Kelly, meeting her gaze. "We should probably get moving so we're not in unfriendly territory any longer than we can help it."
She rose, took his hand, and pulled him once again to his feet. He clung to the bars as he got his balance. Then he put his arm around her shoulder, and they began the laborious task of beginning to walk as a pair.
"Hey!" Bradley screamed from behind them. "What about us?"
Daniel turned and glared at him. "Tell me," he said, breathing heavily between words, "did you know what Lance was going to do to Taylor when he took her into his bedroom?"
"Jesus, man," Bradley said weakly.
Kelly pulled Daniel's arm around her shoulder, and they began to stagger away down the street.
"Hey," Daniel said before they'd gone fifty feet. "Where is Taylor? Shouldn't she be out here by now? There was an outside door from that hallway, wasn't there?"
Kelly turned and scanned the street. "Maybe she went out a different way," she suggested.
"But isn't the only other way back through that theater building? Through Lance's headquarters?" Daniel panted, leaning heavily against her.
She hesitated. "Yeah, we'd better go check that outside door," she said. "Just watch out for the --"
Behind them, the raptor exploded out of the hole in the bars and took straight to the air, screeching its frustration to the sky. It rose quickly into the sky and was lost among the buildings.
"Never mind," Kelly said, carefully helping Daniel turn around. She stumbled partway through the turn, not used to supporting so much weight, but finally they were heading back toward the front door to the building that housed the pawn shop.
Kelly wasn't sure whether it was just her imagination or not, but Daniel seemed to get heavier with each step. Either way, his breathing was definitely getting more ragged.
They had only gone about halfway back to the building when the building's door opened, and Junior stepped out. As soon as he caught sight of them, he dropped to one knee and trained his rifle sights on them.
They stopped. "Shit," Daniel said softly. "You don't suppose he was with Taylor in the hallway, did you? Damn, I hope she got away."
Kelly uneasily did the best shrug he could with most of Daniel's weight pressing down on her shoulders.
Then the door opened again, and Lance stepped out. He turned to face them. "Hello," he said, in a voice that was quiet, but that carried quite well down the deserted street. "Going so soon?"
| < Chapter 21 | Chapter 23 > |