Subway Ambush...Part 4

Staring face to upside down face with the creature I had been tracking, time seemed to stop. I can’t excatly say why, but the two of us remained frozen in place, unblinking. Perhaps we were both assessing the strange face of the other, or perhaps we were both just surprised and it took a moment or two before reaction could take place.

In my moments of analysis, I came to the full realization that whatever this creature was, it surely wasn’t natural, at least not in any world that I knew of. Its scaly skin was stretched tight over its reptillian face, its snout full of teeth resembled a cross between an alligator and a wolf. Its eyes were bulbous and wide and emitted an eery red glow that seeped forth from behind the largest, blackest pupils I had ever seen. Its forked tongue snaked out to taste the air as we remained locked into our little staring contest. Our faces were so close that we could have smelled each others breath, if either of us had the ability to do so. (I know I didn’t, I have no idea if it smelled me, but since I don’t have breath per se, I’d say that was a wash.)

Neither of us moved, neither of us even flinched as the mutual evaluation took place. Just before that timeless moment came to an end, I got the sense that there was a mutual recognition of Spirits that were in some unknown way kindred. I am sure that this thing had never before encountered a human that didn’t cower or scream in fear or terror at the sight of it.

I was just about to try something that I’ve since learned would have been my undoing, perhaps for good, by reaching out Spiritually to this thing when the moment was broken by the sudden squawking call from my pants. “Agent Bones, advise of your position please.”

Things became a blur of furious movement as each of us reacted.

The creature lashed out with both huge claws, grabbing at my one hand holding the flashlight in its face while I had decided that best course was to allow myself to fall from my current vulnerable position.

What resulted was a spinning, slow motion fall on my end that would have made any martial movie director proud. The bad part about that though was that what allowed me to spin so effectively was the beast’s grip on my hand that somehow went from its massive claws to inside its mouth in less than the time it took me to fall.

As I landed, I was swinging my baton with my other hand at one of its knee joints, which landed with a loud, thudding crack that seemed to buckle the critter momentarily. Its claws however remained wrapped around my wrist and my hand was still inside its mouth. Unable to pull m y hand out, I decided to try the other approach, throwing my weight into shoving that hand as far down its throat as possible, esepcially since I still had that small flashlight in my grasp.

That maneuver definitely caught the critter off guard as I used my much greater than normal strength and my heavier-than-it-appears bulk to push the thing back on its haunches. Unfortunately, the thing had its own hidden reservoir of strength and its own tactics.

With an awful crunching sound and violent twist of its head and jaws, my hand was severed and I was thrown past the creature to sprawl in the shallow stream of water behind it.

As soon as I landed, I twisted to get a view of the thing and bring my baton up for defense. In that short period of time, it was on me. It pounced towards me in one great leap, claws extended as it went for my head.

I was able to get my left leg up to keep it from reaching my head, while also bringing the baton up to smash one of its bulbous eyes. A spray of reddish black fluids showered my face and obscured my own optical lenses somewhat, but I was able to see and feel enough to know that its claws were in the process of tearing my leg up.

I kicked up with my other leg, smashing into the same side of the head that I had destroyed the eye on, giving me just enough of an element of surprise to knock the thing off of me, but not until it had pretty much shredded my knee and lower leg. I regained a small m easure of balance as I got on my one good knee and landed a series of blows on its head, snapping off one if it horns and a couple of fangs in the process .

It rocked back out of reach and we sat there facing each other, waiting for the other to make the next move. I was missing a hand , a knee cap and big chunks out of my lower leg. It was missing one eye, a horn, some fangs and had a gimpy leg now to boot.

I guess the creature decided I wasn’t worth the price of admission since it got up and lurched away down the tunnel, splashing heavily with each injured step. I was in no shape to go chasing after it at that moment, so I let it go, but I watched as it made a turn to the right, hopefully heading for its lair. I knew I would be coming back as soon as I could get repaired.

Now, it’s a damn good thing that I don’t have to worry about pain. The injuries I had suffered could well have killed me if I hadn’t already been dead, and if they didn’t I surely would have been in shock and suffereing from severe blood loss. Instead, these injuries were more an inconvenience than anything else. Getting my dead ass up and hopping over to the rusted ladder was frustrating, but not deathly urgent. Trying to climb a ladder with one hand and one useful leg wasn’t any fun, but was eventually manageable.