The Regulators - Stephen King [105]
They did another half-turn, and Steve's feet tangled in each other. For a moment he tottered on the edge of balance, still holding off the lunging mountain lion with his crossed arms. Beyond them, Entragian had reached the cactus. He butted the top of his bleeding and horribly distended head into its spines, then collapsed and rolled over on his side. To Johnny he looked like a machine that has finally run down. Coyotes wailed, still out of sight but closer now; the air was tangy with smoke from the burning house.
'Shoot this fucking thing!' Steve yelled. He had managed to catch his balance, but before long would be all out of backing-up room; he was at the edge of the path. One step into the thorny under-brush, two at most, and he would go over. Then the nightmare would rip his throat out. 'Shoot it, please, it's tearin me apart!'
Johnny had never been so terrified in his life, but he nonetheless discovered that only the first step was actually hard; once the lock on his body was broken, the terror didn't seem to matter much. After all, the worst thing the creature could do to him was kill him, and dying would at least stop the feeling that an earthquake was going on inside his mind.
He scooped up Entragian's rifle — considerably larger than the one the cat had ripped out of the longhair's hands — saw the safety was on, and flicked it the other way with his thumb. Then he socked the .30-.06's muzzle against the side of the mountain lion's bulging head.
'Push!' he bellowed, and Steve pushed. The cat's head rocked up and away from his throat. Its bristle of teeth shone like poison coral. The sunset light was in its green eyes, making them look as if they were on fire. Johnny had time to wonder if Entragian had chambered a round — he was probably never going to write another Pat the Kitty-Cat book if Entragian hadn't — then turned his head slightly away and pulled the trigger. There was a satisfying whipcrack sound, a lick of fire from the barrel, and then Johnny could smell frying hair as well as burning house. The mountain lion fell sideways, its head mostly gone, the fur on the back of its neck smoldering. What was inside its lifted skull was not blood, bone, and tissue but fibrous pink stuff that reminded Johnny of the blown-in insulation he'd gotten for the second floor and attic of his new house the year after he'd moved in.
Steve tottered, waving his arms for balance. Marinville reached out a hand, but he was dazed and it was only a token effort. Steve went sprawling in the bushes at the side of the path, beside the mountain lion's twitching rear paws. Johnny bent down, grabbed his wrist, and hauled. Black spots flocked in front of his eyes, and for one awful second he thought he was going to pass out. Then Steve was on his feet and Johnny's vision was clearing again.
Wh-wh-whoooooo . . .
Johnny looked around nervously. He could still see nothing, but the sons of bitches sounded closer than ever.
2
Dave Reed kept thinking that pretty soon he would wake up. Never mind that he could smell the cop's blood and sweat as he knelt beside him, never mind the tortured sound of the cop's breathing (and his own), the cop's one dying eye, or the sight of his brain — his gray and wrinkled brain — pushing through a shattered window in his skull. It had to be a dream. Surely his brother could not have shot the guy from across the street, a crooked cop, yes, but also the guy who had once told Gary Ripton to try throwing a baseball with his fingers across the seams instead of lying along them . . . and who had then demonstrated by throwing a brain-busting rainbow change.
Smells like