Free The Flying Eyes by j. Hunter Holly Page B

straight ahead. There was an almost imperceptible growl in his throat, and Linc’s foot stamped on the brake in reaction to the sense of danger.
    Up and over the trees, a shadow came, and resolved into the distended form of a giant Eye. It was blue—a watery blue—and it slithered its iris from side to side, sweeping the ground.
    Wes’ hand closed over Linc’s arm, and Wes was a shaft of stiffness to match his dog. The Eye zoomed higher and sailed on. Its blank gaze touched the truck and swept past. It wasn’t going to bother with them. It was going to leave them behind.
    Frantically, Linc leaped from the truck. This was his chance, and he was missing it. He hit the ground and started yelling and waving his hands in the air. “You devil!” he shouted. “You dirty, slimy devil. Come down and fight! Come down!”
    The Eye swerved in the air to peer at him, and he waved harder and cursed it. If it could be angered, he would anger it.
    The Eye moved closer, and he continued with his dares, his flaring insults. The Eye leveled off, picked up speed, and came at him. He jumped back into the truck and stepped on the accelerator.
    Wes yelled, “We didn’t come to run away from it.”
    â€œI’ve got to find some cover,” Linc explained quickly. “I’ve got to force it down to our level.”
    He maneuvered the truck off the road, and into the trees.
    The Eye couldn’t approach from the sky now, but would be forced to come down into the small clearing ahead. It had to come down—so they could get the net around it.
    He climbed out of the truck and Wes came to stand beside him, proffering a gas mask and two bombs. Linc took them, readying himself for the moment. Everything was quiet. There wasn’t even the sound of a bird in this woods. Overhead, he knew there was a shadow sailing, and the monstrous thing that cast it, but here they were in a world alone. The moment had come, and he was afraid.
    A movement through the leaves dragged his attention forward and up. Into the clearing before them, beneath the leaves, edged a pinkish lower lid, then a white iris, and then the watery blue of the Eye he had cursed. It sank down, more and more of it visible until it was all there, hovering two feet above the ground, staring at them with the blankness of its alien sense.
    Linc hated it violently in that moment. Its ugliness, its monstrosity, were a blight upon the earth. He hated it, but he couldn’t move. It fascinated him, it awed him, and it paralyzed him. Wes was silent beside him, and together they stared at the thing that had come down into their trees.
    Ichabod barked wildly from the truck and the sharp yaps pierced through Linc’s consciousness, shocking him back to reality. He felt the tear gas bombs hard in his hand. He raised them slowly, ready to throw, his left hand fumbling with the mask for his own protection. As the Eye settled, making no move except great, hypnotic blinks, he tightened the muscles of his arm.
    â€œNow!” he screamed to Wes, and heaved his bombs straight at the thing in the path. They hit and burst, and two spurts from Wes’ hand rose beside them. Linc pulled on his mask, started forward, and stopped. The whole clearing was obscured by the fog of the gas. The Eye was invisible behind it. Wes pushed one end of the net into his waiting grasp, but still he stood.
    â€œCome on,” Wes called. “We’ll lose our chance.”
    Linc stumbled forward into the smog, trying to hurry, yet trying to keep his feet in the blur. Then he couldn’t stand the suspense another moment. He ran headlong into the mist, the tug on the other end of the net telling him that Wes was keeping pace.
    The mist cleared briefly and something brushed his face, something soft and hairy, and he cried out and jumped backward. In the momentary clearness, he saw the thing that had touched him—the Eye, its great lashes twitching, water