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And dying.
On the floor, Brett was wrestling with Superman.
With a tall, muscular man dressed as Superman.
They were locked together. Superman was clawing at Brett, tearing at his costume, scratching his face and throat. Superman’s face was torn by horrible slashes, and part of his upper lip was gone. Just . . . gone. The injuries seemed to either be nothing to him, or the pain had driven him crazy. Either way, he kept darting his head forward, snapping at Brett with bloody teeth. Brett was on the bottom, and he had his big hands locked around the man’s throat and was using sheer force to push the attacker upward away from him. The attacker, though savage and clearly undeterred by his injuries, was clumsy and awkward.
“Get off me!” screamed Brett. Blood ran from a dozen ragged cuts on his face. “Get off me.”
Rachael front-kicked Superman.
Very, very hard.
She launched the kick while running, throwing herself into the air, snapping out with the heel of her boot, catching the attacker on the side of the face. Everything she had, everything she was, went into the force of that savage kick.
Superman’s head snapped sideways and his body followed, his hands flailing but not trying to break his fall. He landed hard in the cleft between floor and wall, his head tilted over onto his shoulder, eyes bugging, mouth still trying to bite even though he was now more than four feet from Brett. Superman’s legs thrashed and his heels hammered the floor as if in the grip of a wild seizure.
“Brett—are you okay?” Rachael yelled, but didn’t even pause to listen. Superman was scrambling around to try to get up, and she kicked him again. This time it was with the flat of her foot, right in the face. The man pitched backward, hitting the wall again. His nose burst and his lip split, but instead of red the blood was dark and strange. Almost black.
Like Gayla’s.
It terrified Rachael.
Superman rebounded from the wall and hissed at her, the pain and injury seeming to be of no consequence. He flung himself forward, grabbing at her leg.
Rachael kicked at him. Kicking the hands, the fingers, the arms.
Brett lay on the floor,
too stunned to move, his mouth and eyes wide.
“Help me!” roared Rachael.
He didn’t move.
Superman caught Rachael’s ankle and jerked her foot toward his mouth, toward those bloody teeth. The sudden pull brought Rachael down hard and she landed on her side, facing the attacker. For one second they lay there and stared at each other. Her eyes met his, and she looked for some understanding.
There was nothing there.
Nothing.
No emotion, no expression, no connection.
It was like looking through an open window into the empty rooms of an abandoned house.
The mouth and the eyes seemed to belong to different faces. The madman’s lips peeled back in an expression of avaricious hate, but there was no corresponding malevolence in those eyes. There was absolutely nothing there.
The creature—for in that moment Rachael’s mind separated this thing from any connection to real humanity—darted forward and bit her. Its teeth sank into the soft leather of her boot, pinching her heel. The pain was massive. Huge.
Rachael screamed as she pulled back her other foot and lashed out, striking it in the face, the shoulders, the throat, the chest.
Over and over and over again while all around her the day was filled with blood and screams.
8
Now
Doylestown
