Free Tunnels 02, Deeper by Roderick Gordon, Brian Williams Page B

man's arm. Sarah blinked, and the next instant his arm was gone, his weight lifted. There was the oddest silence; he didn't seem to be shouting anymore.
    It was as if time had ground to a halt.
    She couldn't understand it. She wondered if she'd lost consciousness. The she glimpsed two massive eyes and a blaze of teeth like a stockade of sharpened stakes. She blinked again.
    Time restarted. The policeman let out a piercing scream and slid off her. He struggled clumsily to his feet, one arm hanging uselessly at his side as he tried to defend himself with the other. She couldn't see his face. Whatever was attacking him had wrapped itself around his head and shoulders in a storm of claws and hairless limbs. She saw long, sinewy hind legs raking furiously. The policeman fell flat on his back like a bowling pin as the onslaught continued.
    Fighting her dizziness, Sarah sat up. She pushed her bloodsoaked bangs from her eyes and squinted, trying to see, trying to make out what was happening.
    The clouds parted, allowing the weak moon to cast its light on the scene. She caught an outline.
    No, it couldn't be!
    She looked again, not believing what she was seeing.
    It was a Hunter, a type of large cat specially bred in the Colony.
    What in the world was it doing here?
    With the most immense effort, she crawled over to a nearby gatepost and used it to drag herself up. Once on her feet, she felt so groggy and confused, she waited for several moments as she tried to collect her wits.
    "No time for this," she chastised herself as the reality of the situation came back to her. "Pull yourself together."
    Ignoring the groans and stifled pleas of the policeman as he continued to roll with the Hunter on top of him, she tottered unsteadily up the garden to where she thought her knife had landed. Retrieving it, she also gathered up the letters. She was determined not to leave anything behind. Feeling a little steadier on her feet, she turned to check on the first policeman. He lay unmoving on the patio tiles where she'd dropped him, clearly not posing any sort of threat.
    Back at the end of the garden, the second policeman was on his side, his hands pressed to his face as he moaned horribly. The Hunter had detached itself and was sitting next to him, licking a paw. It stopped as Sarah approached, coiling its tail neatly around its legs, and regarded her intently. It flicked its massive eyes across to the groaning man, as if it had had nothing to do with his condition.
    The fact that both policemen were injured and needed help was neither here nor there to Sarah. She felt no pity or regret at what had happened to them; they were a casualty of her own survival, nothing more, nothing less. She went over to the conscious policeman, stooping to unhook the radio from his jacket.
    With a speed that took her by surprise, he grabbed her wrist. But he was weak. She broke his grip without much effort and then tore off the radio -- he made no move to stop her. She threw the radio down and stamped her heel into it with a crunch of broken plastic.
    With some nervousness, she took a step toward the Hunter. Although they were born killers, it was rare for them to attack people. There had been stories of them going rogue, turning on their masters and anyone else who happened to cross their paths. She had no way of knowing if this Hunter could be trusted after what it had done to the policeman. From the appearance of its bare skin stretched over its ribs, it was badly malnourished and hardly in the best condition. She wondered how long it had been fending for itself up here.
    "Where did you come from?" she asked it softly, keeping a safe distance.
    The animal angled its head toward her, as if trying to understand, and blinked once. She ventured closer, tentatively reaching out her hand, and it leaned forward to sniff at her fingertips. The top of its head was almost on a level with her hips -- she'd forgotten just how big these animals were. Then it suddenly leaned