Free Mad Cow by J.A. Sutherland Page B

the bikers must have fallen. He held his hands out in front of him even though there’d be no one standing for him to run into. It just made him feel better for some reason.
    There was a snort and then a sharp crack from within the cloud of flour.
    “What was that?”
    “Probably nothing,” Frank said. “Find the money.”
    “‘Probably?’”
    “Maybe you stepped on a twig or something.”
    “I didn’t step on anything, did you?”
    “No, but —”
    More cracks sounded, along with wet, tearing sounds, like a steak being ripped apart and dull twocks like you get when pulling a drumstick off a chicken.
    “What the actual hell?”
    “Frank, I don’t like this. This ain’t right.”
    James was starting to get scared — before he’d been worried, tense, nervous, but now he was scared. The hand still clutching the glowing amulet beneath his shirt was shaking. His legs felt weak and he had a sudden, intense desire to use the bathroom — not just pee, either, it felt like his bowels had turned to water and he desperately needed to squat somewhere.
    “Man,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “What’s going on … Frank, let’s just get the hell out of here.”
    “I’m not leaving the money. You know how hard it was to find these guys and set this up — you want to go through all that again?”
    “I just want to —”
    James was interrupted by more cracking and thwocking, then there was more than just the white light of the moon and the green of their amulets shining through the fog of flour. Ahead of them a pair of red pinpricks glowed, then another, and then a third pair. All at about chest height and each spaced a few inches apart.
    James froze. He felt a trickle in his pants — not sure just what he’d lost control of and really not caring at the moment.
    “Oh —” Frank said.
    James spun his gaze back and forth between the pinpricks of red, baleful light and where he thought Frank’s voice had come from.
    “‘Oh’? What’s ‘oh’? What’d you do, Frank!?”
    A low rumble sounded through the fog and James felt like someone had replaced his blood with ice water as the growl turned to a rumbling voice.
    “Not cool, man. No, I don’t think you boys are cool at all.”

    * * *
    “ O ops .”
    James turned toward the sound of Frank’s voice.
    “‘Oops’? What do you mean, oops? Don’t say oops, dude!”
    “ Run! ”
    James’ first thought was that ‘oops’ was actually better than ‘run’. He’d much rather Frank said ‘oops’ again, rather than that terror and urgency filled ‘run’. His second thought was that Frank’s voice no longer came from beside him … it was behind him, rather closer to the truck than it had been before. Quite a bit closer to the truck, in fact. Much too-closer to the truck for James to even consider shoving Frank behind him as he ran, as he’d thought about doing before.
    James ran.
    “Get in the truck! Get in the truck! Getinthetruck! ” Frank was yelling now.
    James ran out of the cloud of flour and spotted the truck. Frank was already in it, swinging his door shut and fumbling for his keys. James made it to the passenger side and yanked on the handle, but the door refused to open.
    “Open the door! Open the door! Openthedoor! ” James yelled.
    James saw that Frank had no intention of either listening or opening the door. The key went into the ignition, the truck rumbled to life, and James, determined that he was going to make it out of whatever this was alive so that he could beat the living hell out of his friend, flung himself into the truck’s bed.
    “ Shifter shifter shifter ,” Frank was muttering under his breath.
    James could hear him through the truck’s half-open rear window.
    “It’s an automatic! Go!” James yelled, clutching at the front of the truck bed and wondering if he could fit through the rear window’s opening — it looked pretty small, but he was feeling pretty exposed in the truck bed.
    “Not the