She lay there dumbfounded, legs still spread, as he shot to his feet with a speed that astonished her.
“Get up,” he ordered.
Dusti couldn’t respond. She was still in shock as Drantos glanced down at her. Those terrifying fangs were still protruding from his mouth when he bent and wrapped his hands around her upper arms. He just jerked her upward into a standing position. Her knees miraculously locked to hold her weight when he released her.
His eyes were bright blue. They were glowing.
“Run,” he hissed. “Cross the river and just keep moving. I’ll find you.”
She gaped at his face. Those fangs sticking out of his mouth were real and his features had changed just enough to terrify her. His cheekbones looked denser, the shape of his eyes now appearing sunken in a little under a forehead that seemed to have thickened. A fine coat of black hairs darkened his temples, the sides of his face, and his chin.
“Run now!” he snarled, shoving her. “Get across the river. Forget the raft. There’s no time.”
The push broke her from her stupor. She stumbled but made it to the river’s edge. It was a long way across and the current appeared strong. It reminded her that she wasn’t the best swimmer. She hesitated and turned slightly, staring at Drantos. His back was to her as he faced the line of trees. She peered past him when movement caught her attention.
A big creature crept out of the thick forest and paused on all fours.
Dusti whimpered. It was huge and looked like some kind of screwed-up dog. Hell hound, popped into her mind. The fur that covered it wasn’t thick, so she could make out the muscular, meaty arms and legs. It had to weigh hundreds of pounds, far bigger than any normal dog she’d ever seen. Its shape was odd, too, maybe part human and dog. It was the limbs that reminded her of a human but it lifted one front leg and she couldn’t miss the claws protruding from its fingers. They looked razor sharp and inches long.
It growled, raising the hairs along the back of her neck.
Dusti was frozen, horrified. The horrendous-looking dog-beast turned his head a little and pure black eyes met her fearful ones. It looked evil and she had flashes of horror movies running through her mind. It did remind her of a hell beast.#p#分页标题#e#
Drantos moved between them, using his body to block her view of the thing right out of a nightmare. She didn’t miss seeing Drantos’s hands spread open at his sides or the long, sharp, pointed claws that somehow had grown from his fingertips.
“Do what I said,” Drantos demanded in a voice way too deep to ever be confused with something human. He didn’t turn to glance at her, instead kept focused on the thing that he faced off against. “Swim for your life. I’ll find you.”
She spun around, finally able to tear her gaze away from the clearing. The briskly moving water ran across a wide stretch of distance, with random logs floating near the center. It moved at a fast enough speed that she paused again.
Fear of drowning was strong but there was a hellish creature behind her.
I’m fucked.
Another ear-piercing roar sounded and a second one answered it. Don’t look, she chanted inside her panicked mind. God, don’t look. I’m going to have to swim. He said swim.
Drantos had ordered her to get to the other side of the river but it just looked too dangerous. She hadn’t even learned how to swim until her eleventh birthday, when her mother had signed her up for an after-school program. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been in a pool. It had to have been at least ten years.
Vicious sounds of a fight began and terror motivated her to rethink her fear of going into the river. Those animalistic snarls and growls were scarier than the possibility of drowning.
Guilt ate at her, too, because she’d accused Drantos of being insane. Multiple times. But that thing she’d seen in front of him wasn’t a typical animal. It was some really fucked-up looking monster.
A horrific pained scream erupted from behind her. It was the final straw. Her terror over what was happening next to the river overrode her fear of drowning. She waded into the icy water.
Her feet instantly sank into muddy earth, slowing her speed, but she trudged forward, motivated to live. Her shoes got stuck but she didn’t have time to bend and try to find them when the mud held them prisoner. She just stepped out of them and kept going.
The current pulled her in deeper once it was at her thighs. She lost her balance and pitched forward, completely going under the freezing water. She desperately kicked her legs, finally remembering she needed to, and used her arms in her fight to reach the surface to draw air into her lungs.