The Influence(121)

“Unc?” Kevin said quietly.

“Yeah?” They were all whispering now.

“I need a hose. I need some water.”

He frowned, confused. “To drink?”

“No. To put in those bottles.” He nodded toward the carton Ross was carrying. “That’s what makes them work.”

He wished his nephew had said something earlier, but he only nodded and passed the word along.

“Hopefully there is one,” was all McDaniels had to say.

The bed of the wash had gotten rocky, slowing their progress, and, ahead, a tree stump marked a change in the direction of the dry stream. They followed the turn—

And stopped.

Squatting in the sand, waiting for them, was a man with the head of a jackal. He was wearing muddy jeans and a flannel shirt that looked familiar, and Ross was pretty sure that he used to be Fred Hanson, the guy who’d cleaned out Lita and Dave’s septic tank. Ross glanced over at McDaniels, whose blanched face told him that he’d recognized the man, too.

But that didn’t stop McDaniels from raising his rifle. “Stop right there,” he said. “Don’t move, don’t say a word. I hear a peep outta you, I’m takin’ off your head.”

The jackal man was not alone, Ross saw. Behind him, several small creatures cavorted in the wash, jumping from rock to rock. They looked like miniature rat-faced kangaroos, but it was difficult to see them clearly because they kept moving.

Hec was counting. “…three, four, five… I see five of ’em.” His rifle, too, was raised.

“What do we do now?” McDaniels asked Ross. “It’s kind of a Mexican standoff here.”

Then the jackal man roared like a lion and leaped forward, the creatures behind him scurrying in his wake, squealing in high-pitched voices and showing fangs.

This close, the report from McDaniel’s rifle was deafening. Hec’s followed instantly after, or maybe at the same time—it was hard to tell because he was firing over and over again. The jackal head exploded in a burst of blood, fur and flesh, and the little leaping monsters were blasted into nothing.

“They know where we are now,” Kevin said, hefting his box.

“In for a penny, in for a pound.” McDaniels pointed up the sloping side of the wash. “It’s now or never. Let’s do it.”

That was the last word any of them spoke as they ran out of the dry stream bed, across an open area, and along the east side of the barn. In the lead now, Ross stopped and peeked around the corner of the building, looking toward the place where the smokehouse should have been. He quickly pulled back. There was an army out there. Literally dozens of men and women, seemingly all of them armed, some with farming implements, some with firearms, were stationed in front of, behind and to the sides of what looked like an enormous black egg the size of a small car, a situation so daunting as to seem nearly insurmountable.

As of yet, they did not appear to have been spotted, and no one was coming up behind them, so Ross gestured for the others to follow him and backtracked several yards. Crouching down along the side of the barn, his box in front of him, he explained what he’d seen. “We’re outnumbered ten to one. Anybody have any ideas?”

Kevin nodded calmly. He was already opening his box. “I’ll create a distraction. I’ll set up an explosion in the barn. Everyone will come running, and that’s when I’ll go in and take out that…angel?...demon?...whatever it is. You guys just cover me.”

“I don’t have a gun,” Ross said. “And wouldn’t know how to shoot it if I did,” he admitted.

Kevin smiled, pointing to the box in front of his uncle. “That’s what those are for. And that’s why we need some water.” He picked up one of the two-liter Coke bottles. “There’s Drano crystals in here. And aluminum foil. All you do is add water, shake and throw. Basically, it’ll explode and spray acid all over. It won’t start a fire, but it’ll take care of anyone in its way.”

Ross felt uncomfortable about actually hurting anyone. Cameron Holt had always been an asshole, but that didn’t necessarily hold true for everyone here. And even assholes didn’t deserve to die. These were just people who’d gotten sucked into the monster’s orbit, maybe the people who’d been there New Year’s Eve when it had been shot down. Chances were, if they could pull this off and destroy that black monstrosity, those individuals would revert back to normal once it was all over. They couldn’t do that if they were dead. Or scarred by acid.

That jackal man—Fred Hanson?—was already on his conscience.