Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [17]
And then the fish went crazy.
The handcuffs clattered on the ground, and the fish got up and started doing some serious kung-fu fighting. The pooches leapt right at her all at once, and she jumped out of the way, runnin’ along the walls, looking like Spider-Man or somethin’. She did her some backflips, some side jumps, she even swung around the support beams like the dancers used to at the strip joint.
With snarls and barks, the pooches kept jumpin’ and leapin’, but they couldn’t get her. At one point, two of ’em came at her from opposite sides, and she went and ducked at the last minute. The two pooches collided headfirst and went to the floor, whimpering all sorry-like.
But they kept getting closer each time. Murph bet that the fish could feel the pooches’ hot breath on her pretty face, and sooner or later they’d get her.
Spiff had come over from the ropes and was watching alongside Margie and Murph and the rest of them. “The fuck she doin’ with them cables?”
Murph hadn’t noticed anything about the cables; he was just enjoying himself. Nobody’d lasted this long without getting bit, not even the big guy who broke Avi’s leg.
Heck, this fish might be better than NASCAR.
And then Murph realized what Spiff was talkin’ about. The way she was jumpin’ around reminded him of the girls in the club for a reason. Back then, he’d taken the job ’cause he thought he’d get to see nekkid girls for free. But the novelty wore right off, ’cause they was all doin’ the exact same routine around the pole like fifty times a night. Got borin’.
This fish was also doin’ the same thing over and over with the support pillars and the pooches, and once Spiff started yappin’ about the cables, Murph figured it out.
She was tyin’ them to the cables, like they was on leashes in some backyard.
Them pooches started yowlin’ somethin’ fierce, tuggin’ at the cables, but they wasn’t goin’ nowhere.
Murph frowned. Somethin’ was wrong.
The fish leaned against a wall, breathing a sigh of relief.
Margie grinned. “Get her now, get her now.”
Then it finally hit Murph: only three of them were tied up. The other pooch was lurkin’.
Definitely as good as NASCAR.
Out of nowhere, the last pooch leapt at the fish’s back.
A thrill of excitement ran through Murph. This always happened right before the big moment. He’d felt it when he beat up the mayor’s kid, when he strangled that stripper, and every time the pooches got first blood.
Except this one didn’t.
At the last second, faster than Murph had ever seen a human being move, the fish whirled around and slammed the heel of her hand into the pooch’s head. It fell to the ground, and it didn’t move.
It was dead for real now.
Damn.
Now they had only three. And they was all tied up.
Murph found himself torn between excitement at watching this all happen and worry about what they was gonna do next. This fish had already lasted longer than anyone else had in the pit, and she’d tied up three pooches and killed the other one.
“We may have to shoot her,” Margie said, like she was readin’ his mind.
Reluctantly, Murph nodded. Heck, he might’ve asked her to join ’em—she’d be great at luring folks here, he bet—but after her killing Eddie, he doubted the others’d go for it. He wasn’t sure he was too keen on the idea, neither, but damn—she was somethin’.
Then the ground shuddered.
“What the fuck?” Murph blurted without thinking. Then he put his hand to his mouth.
Aw, hell, this was disastrous.
About two years back, when everything went to the toilet, Murph made a promise to the Lord. He knew he was a sinner and that he was goin’ straight to hell when he died—for the stripper, if nothin’ else—but for whatever reason, the Lord had seen fit to let Murph live. In gratitude, Murph had promised Him to go the rest of his days without cussin’. He figured it was the least he could do.
But when the ground shook like that, he spoke without thinkin’ and cussed for the first time since he got to Utah.
The ground shook again, and he looked down to see that the pooches were pulling against