Free Maelstrom by Taylor Anderson

screamed. He tugged at the Australian’s arm, and the two of them ran for their lives. They raced across the clearing, back to the trail through the jungle, gasping in the sodden air and at the unexpected, unaccustomed exertion. Silva reasoned that his shots must have had some effect or the super lizard would have caught them already, but even the confined space of the trail provided little impediment. The creature only lowered its head and surged after them, crashing through the brush and shattering trees. They gained a little, though, and Dennis managed to insert another clip and blast at the thing’s head periodically as it came for them, gnashing and snapping through the undergrowth like some insanely huge crocodile.
    “This close enough for you, Courtney?” Silva rasped.
    They could see only a short distance ahead, but after only a few minutes of running as fast as they could, the trail that earlier took them over an hour to cautiously follow widened as they neared the pipeline cut. Bradford was spent, gasping, coughing, staggering as Silva pushed him along. He couldn’t go much farther, and Dennis couldn’t leave him. If the goofy naturalist got himself killed on this trip, Silva knew he might as well hang himself. After all the fighting, there weren’t many destroyermen left. He was more than average valuable, but compared to Bradford . . . He emptied his gun at the ravening jaws yet again.
    They burst into the cut, and Silva was surprised to see a skirmish line of riflemen. Stites had somehow managed to stop the fleeing ’Cats, and he’d gathered the rest of the returning guards. Now a dozen armed ’Cats waited with the other man. Bradford collapsed when he saw them, and Silva managed to drag him aside before inserting another clip—his last—into the BAR.
    “I thought you were dead!” Stites shouted.
    “I thought you were yellow!” Silva growled in reply. Just then, shaking shattered brush from his back and roaring with a mindless, deafening frenzy, the super lizard appeared.
    It was hurt after all. One eye had been churned to goo and dangled loosely from a shattered socket. A long, three-fingered “arm” seemed useless, and even some teeth were splintered or gone. Blood streamed from dozens of wounds, but it was still on its feet when it saw the new prey arrayed before it. He lunged forward once again.
    “Open fire!” Silva yelled breathlessly.
    A ragged volley erupted, sounding dully anemic in the humid air. For the first time the great lizard screeched in pain and staggered under the simultaneous impact of more than a dozen high-velocity projectiles. Silva continued firing short, three-shot bursts, while the others worked their bolts. Focusing on Dennis as a continued source of noise and irritation, the creature roared and swerved drunkenly toward him. Silva retreated, but didn’t run—even though less than three full strides would see him devoured. The other side of the cut was at his back, and he had nowhere to go. Besides, this monster was Tony’s killer. He was finished running. He’d kill it or die trying. He continued firing, but with much more care, aiming at the roof of its open mouth. Its brain must be in there somewhere. A single pace away, the super lizard stopped and shook its head, apparently disoriented. Great gobbets of congealing blood rained all around.
    “Just die , you son of a goat !” Silva bellowed, and emptied his rifle down its throat. The bolt locked open with an audible clack! Out of ammunition, he simply pitched the rifle aside and drew the long cutlass, pattern of 1918, from his belt.
    “C’mon,” he breathed, planting his feet a little farther apart and raising the point of the cutlass. Vaguely noticing him once more, the massive beast took a tentative step in his direction.
    “Fire!” came Stites’s excited cry, and another volley, more carefully aimed than the first, slammed into the massive head.
    For an instant nothing happened, and the air in the cut