Endurance - Jack Kilborn [52]
“The styptic, Ma! The styptic!”
The dog lunges again, biting at the back of George’s thigh, clamping down tight and shaking its head back and forth.
The freaks are in a panic, a wall of misshapen bodies climbing all over each other in an effort to get away. They’re flooding out the exit. Some of them are being trampled. Eleanor looks at George, then at Maria, radiating hate.
“Get the girl!” she yells at her brood.
Maria knows she’s terribly outnumbered, and there’s a mad dog loose, but she decides then and there to die before she lets them take her back to her cell. She reaches for the dropped cattle prod.
Most of the monsters ignore Eleanor, but a few form a circle around her. Maria swings the prod, keeping them at bay, turning this way and that way so none can sneak up behind her. With her free hand she unbuckles the ball gag, lets it fall to the floor. She’s light-headed, and the nausea is starting to take hold. Normally, after an ordeal in the Room, she sleeps for a long time. Maria fights the feeling, keeping on the balls of her feet, determined to stay alert.
Someone grabs at her, and she sticks him with the cattle prod. The burst of light and the accompanying sizzle and scream give her strength. She whirls around, stabbing the prod into a creature’s bloated face. Then an avalanche of sour flesh rams into her, forcing her to the floor, pinning her under its weight. She twists the prod around, zaps whoever is on top of her. There’s a cry, but she’s still trapped. There are too many freaks on top of her. She can’t move.
She can’t even breathe.
Maria grunts, pushing with all of her strength. She’s not going to smother. Not now. Not this close to escape. But the fetid, shifting mass of flesh atop her is too heavy to move. Her hair is yanked. A filthy, malformed baby’s arm with seven fingers tugs at the corner of her mouth as her face is pressed into the dirt floor.
She tries to suck in some air, but the weight is too much.
I’m sorry, Felix. I tried.
And then, miraculously, the mass shifts. One monster rolls off, screaming. Then another. Maria pushes herself onto her side, gasping for oxygen. She watches as the dog—the beautiful, terrifying dog—tears into another freak, pulling him off of her.
They’re all scrambling for the door now, dragging their wounded, of which there are many. The dog is on top of the last freak, one with a blockish, Frankenstein head and hands that look like pincers. It’s tearing at the monster’s throat. Maria looks at the door, trades a hateful glance with Eleanor as she abandons her child and closes it shut.
Maria sits up, clutching the prod in both hands. The dog bites the freak until it stops moving, until a good portion of its neck is hanging limp from the dog’s jaws.
The dog shakes its head, releasing its prize. Then it looks at Maria and snarls.
“Good boy,” Maria manages to say. Her voice is raspy. She can’t remember the last time she’s spoken.
The dog hunkers down, the hair on its back standing up. It growls, low and deep, its lips raised and bearing teeth.
“Sit,” Maria orders.
The dog stalks forward. It’s not looking at Maria. It’s looking at the cattle prod.
Maria sets it down. “Sit!” she says again.
Incredibly, the dog sits. Its tongue lolls out of its mouth.
“Good dog! Come.”
The dog bounds forward, and Maria almost screams when it pounces on her.
But it’s a happy pounce, tail wagging. The dog’s bloody tongue is warm on Maria’s cheek. She grabs its muzzle and hugs it tight. The feeling is so good, so pure, she can’t stop the tears from coming.
“Good dog. Can you shake?”
The dog offers its paw. Maria shakes it gladly.
“What’s your name, boy?” She fumbles for his collar while he licks her. “JD. I swear to God, JD, if we get out of this, I’m buying you steak every day for the rest of your life.”
JD approves of this, wagging his tail even more.
Maria stands up. She knows Eleanor