Free The Damn Disciples by Craig Sargent Page B

all together
     without looking too closely or worrying much about where he placed the tails or the mane or stuff like that, then he might
     have come up with something like the animal that roared in the highway dead ahead and exhibited jaws that would make Godzilla
     get dentures.
    If it thought it could stand up to an overloaded Harley going fifty miles per hour, then let it try. Stone shot ahead, aiming
     right at the thing. He gave it a long burst from the .50 caliber up front. But even as the slugs flew, the creature sprang
     to the side with the lightning speed of a cheetah. Stone breathed a sigh of relief as he shot past. Which was replaced by
     a gasp of horror within a split second as he heard the thing growl as they shot past—and then heard the damn dog behind him
     return the challenge. Stone felt the seat spring up, and he knew that the crazy Rambo of a dog had jumped into the fucking
     fray.
    By the time he screeched the bike to a halt, he had gone another thirty feet. He slammed his booted foot out on the ground
     and swung the whole bike right around him. The match was already a blur of fur and howls and foam. Stone couldn’t see what
     the hell was going on. He pulled up to within about ten feet and sat on the bike, his finger on the trigger, praying for a
     clean shot.
    Suddenly the air cleared for an instant and Stone saw them both clearly, about five feet apart, looking at one another as
     if they wanted nothing more in this life than to tear the other one’s face into noodles. And though Excaliber had taken on
     bears, lions, whole packs of dogs—and if he didn’t always win, was at least able to walk away—at last it looked as if he had
     met his match. For the pit bull was already gored along one flank by the mutation’s huge tusks, twelve inches long and standing
     on each side of its ugly face ready to gore again. And Stone could see as well that, though the dog had ripped its formidable
     teeth into the thing’s throat area, it had no throat. The pit bull had ripped up some dark black neck fur but hadn’t penetrated
     anything. There was nowhere on the damn thing to penetrate, as far as Stone could see.
    Both animals reared back to have a second go at it. Stone didn’t have time to be chivalrous—or fair. Whatever the hell that
     meant. He got the atomically created thing in the sights of the .50-caliber and let loose with a stream of slugs that sliced
     into the mutant’s stomach and chest. Even that seemed to hardly be enough. The thing lurched backward, snarling and creating
     quite a fuss as Excaliber stood back, his hair bristling and his jaws wide apart, snarling as he watched the mad dance of
     agony. But even the most armored of Mother Nature’s monsters can’t take a whole gutful of .50-calibers. And suddenly everything
     just exploded out of it and the animal collapsed in a bloody pile, its head jerking violently as its tusks dug into the road
     as if digging out a grave.
    “Get up, you asshole,” Stone snapped angrily as he pulled the bike alongside the dog. The pit bull glared up at him with its
     own anger as if to say, “You should have let me take the bastard on. I was just about to kick his ass. Didn’t feel a thing,
     didn’t feel a thing.”
    “Right,” Stone snarled back as he looked at the dog’s side. The tusk had gored about twelve inches along it. Not too deep,
     though, the pit bull was made of pretty hard materials himself. Stone released the throttle and the bike squealed around,
     the dog almost falling off as it clamped down hard with its legs. He drove hard, not looking back at the mountain of ugliness.
     He made a mental note not to come this way again.
    It didn’t take long for the warthog thing to die. Not that it couldn’t have survived a few days falling to pieces if left
     on its own. But it wasn’t left alone. Within minutes, the tubes with teeth were snaking down around the bottom of the crater
     where the still-twitching thing lay.