Free Crossover by Jack Heath Page B

closer
and closer. The soldier stared into the darkness beyond the fence,
looking for the source of the noise. She saw nothing.
    'Heads up, guys,' she
said.
    Other soldiers could
hear it too. Heads turned. Gun barrels raised.
    She settled into a
half-crouch, finger within the trigger guard of her carbine, head
weaving from side as if she could see around the darkness. Her
heart went into overdrive, filling her system with adrenaline as
the roaring got louder.
    She saw it. A car,
headlights off, rocketing toward the fence with a boy poised on top
like a ludicrously oversized hood ornament.
    The sight was so
bizarre that it took her a moment to react. She had been trained
not to aim at anything she didn't definitely want to kill. But she
had been ordered to shoot anyone or anything who approached the
fence.
    'Open fire!' she
roared, and pulled the trigger. The carbine kicked in her hand. But
the first three shots hit too low, punching into the dirt below the
license plate of the car, and she didn't have time to adjust her
aim. The car was about to slam into the fence–
    And the boy jumped.
    He cleared the fence,
legs straight, arms locked to his sides. The momentum from the car
left him hurtling through the fog above the soldier's head, as
streamlined as a nuclear missile.
    But the soldier was
more worried about the car. She fired again, and this time struck
the windshield. The glass became an opaque web of cracks. The sedan
smashed into the chain-link fence with the force of a truck filled
with sledgehammers, showering the soldier with torn up shards of
wire – and then it stopped, tangled in the fence.
    She started jogging
toward it, hoping to confirm that she'd hit the driver. But when
she was less than a metre away, the vehicle lurched into motion
again – backwards. The car careened through the dust, the hood
scarred by bullets and wire, before swerving, skidding through a
180 degree turn, and shooting off into the darkness.
    The soldier spun back
toward the building, looking for the boy who had jumped off the
bonnet. She expected to see his broken body on the ground, or
splattered against the wall of Byre's facility.
    She didn't. He had
vanished.
    She peered into the
yawning window. Was it possible that he had flown through that gap
into the building? Surely not. But where else could he be?
    'Fan out,' she yelled.
'Sweep the perimetre.'
    If he was inside, it
didn't matter, she told herself. The monster would finish him
off.
     
    * * *
     
    Six slammed into the
floor inside Byre's facility, sending a shock of pain through each
of his limbs. His head throbbed, as though his brain was swelling
up. His stomach was a tight knot in his abdomen. He couldn't stand.
He could hardly breathe.
    Shut
off the machine, he told himself. Then you can die.
    He clambered shakily to
his feet.
    The facility hadn't
changed much since he last saw it. The metal floor was still warped
by the supermagnetic event. The pipes which lined the walls had
been dented and torn by the flying debris. Only the broken chunks
of concrete had been swept away, clearing a path to the
machine.
    Six staggered forward.
One step. Two. His pulse thundered in his ears–
    Then he heard something
else. A slow thumping, getting louder. Part of Byre's machine?
    No. Footsteps. Too
heavy to be Byre. Too heavy to be human.
    Six threw himself into
the shadowy gap between two fat pipes as a Taur rounded the corner
up ahead. It was bigger than the last one he'd seen. Its arms,
roped with bulging muscles, hung almost as low as its massive feet.
Its head hung down, the back of its leathery neck dragging across
the ceiling.
    Six held his breath,
hoping that the creature hadn't seen him.
    Thump. Thump. The pipes rattled
around Six as the monster got closer.
    Can't fight it, he
thought. Can't run from it.
    He thought of his
escape from the Taur at the checkpoint. The creatures were
intelligent – perhaps he could negotiate with it?
    But if he tried and
failed, the beast would