The stampede hit him when he was ten feet from the entrance. Anticipating the beasts would be chasing the crowd, he fought against the tide of bodies, trying to gain the doors and make for the back of the mob. He was almost foiled just before he could get inside, the doors clogging with frantic shoppers, and only slamming his tall frame into the crowd broke him through—although his impatient roar probably helped.
As he continued forcing his way inside, he heard the crowd’s screams change from uncertain fear to pain and terror. He jerked his head up.
What was once probably just another holiday customer clung to the wall overhead, exactly as he had seen. Apparently defying physics, it hurled itself across empty space to the other wall, its tongue snaking out of its oversized, disfigured maw as it eyed the herd below.
Nicholas shoved aside a fleeing patron and drew, thumbing back the hammer as he sighted the beast.
The deafening crack drew more screams from those around him, and the crowd dropped blessedly to the floor. But Nicholas’ shot had gone wide, merely grazing the beast’s grisly hind leg and ripping sheetrock loose from the wall. The monster howled and fled around the corner.
Nicholas picked his way through the cowering mob in silence, alert for any scuffling or signs that the monster was lurking in ambush. The people no longer concerned him; they would get out when their fear got the better of them. Or in this case as soon as he passed them, he noted, as people in his peripheral vision rose and bolted with each step he took.
It was the monsters that concerned him. They were known on the Net as ghast: vile creatures, bloodthirsty killing engines hidden by a normal human appearance until they went berserk. When they changed, their bone structure altered to quadruped, their fingers distending into the long gruesome claws that allowed them to cling to any surface, their jaws dislocating and twisting into vicious jowls with massive fangs.
Nicholas took a small modicum of grim pleasure in the thought that the transformation probably hurt like hell.
Ghast were also unbelievably vexing to kill. They were gifted with astounding regenerative abilities, healing minor cuts and wounds within seconds and broken bones in minutes; Nicholas doubted his attack had done more than startle the creature. Even what would be called severe physical trauma was merely a temporary setback. Nicholas had read of other Hunters who had left ghast with broken backs and severed limbs only to face the same beasts a week later. The only generally accepted method for destroying them, according to the collective Net, was to sever and destroy the head.
Nicholas preferred the classic zombie approach: put a hollow-point magnum round through their freaking skull. He knew of Hunters who still insisted on using automatic rifles with full-metal jacket rounds, and he had to laugh even as he hated working with them. Full-metals were falling out of style for a reason. You couldn’t drop a wild boar with a through-and-through, let alone a crazed four-legged stomach with teeth who had just decided you were lunch.
Five shots left. Nicholas stepped cautiously around the corner, checking for surprises hanging from the ceiling. He was at the end of the mall, the entrance to Sears directly behind him, stairs to the lower level a few feet to his left. Bodies of those unfortunate enough to be at the back of the herd lay strewn about the concourse, most missing large portions of their remains. Nicholas grimaced but forced himself to remain distanced, a skill he’d honed with time and experience, and which he was needing more often of late. The beast he’d grazed was nowhere in sight, but a second ghast was just stalking out of one of the myriad apparel stores that invariably infested large shopping districts. Spying the Hunter, it howled and charged.
Nicholas thumbed back the gun’s hammer and leveled it, waiting. Ministands flew through store windows, hurled from the creature’s careening path. Ten yards from the Hunter it leapt—and its chest imploded with the roar of the Blackhawk.
Nicholas pivoted smoothly to one side, letting the gun’s recoil swing his body around as the beast tumbled past, scant inches from his face. It crashed into a wall, and Nicholas put a second round into its stunned head, the hollow-point bullet turning the creature’s brain to oatmeal.
The concourse was quiet again, and it made Nicholas uneasy. He had hoped the other ghast would have been attracted by his noise, or at least that the one he had hit would have been aggravated enough to come hunting for him after shaking off its wound.
No such luck. And the mall was now their territory, putting Nicholas at an immediate disadvantage.
Nicholas hated disadvantages.
