Frank slid out from his refuge behind the fallen tree and used the trunk to help pull himself upright. The concussive force of the explosion had knocked his equilibrium off kilter for a moment, but the large tree managed to protect him from the dangerous shards of flying debris. By comparison, he’d fared better through the blast of the car bomb than the cell phone explosion.
He flexed the fingers of his damaged left hand, grateful for the pain and the throb of sensation.
But the fight wasn’t over.
He looked to the graveyard, knowing it was only a matter of time before the entity found another body and resumed its attack. If only he could stall it long enough to—
Frank tensed at the sound of a girl’s voice.
“No, Dad! Come back!”
He looked to see Paul Wiess step off the church’s staircase and break into a run, no doubt coming to help, despite the danger.
Frank stood up, waving him back. The man was already halfway across the lot before he got close enough to see.
“Paul, don’t leave your daughter!”
A look of relief softened Paul’s face when he saw Frank was unhurt, and his run slowed to a jog. “Frank! Thank, God, you’re all right. I thought you were dead.”
Frank inhaled, about to reply, but the words stopped in his throat when he saw the trees swaying at the edge of the forest. The ominous crackle of broken branches swelled out of the dark.
“Paul, run!”
The monster burst from the forest ten feet to Paul’s left, leaping into view among a downpour of shredded plants and knocked-over trees. Its feet hit the ground and punched twin craters in the dirt.
Overhead, lighting slashed a jagged wound in the clouds. The blaze revealed the monstrous proportions of the entity’s new form and the ghastly product of its exploits.
Frank gasped. “An amalgamate!”
The buried past erupted from Frank’s memory, and he staggered away from the onslaught of unwanted emotions that welled up in his mind. Terror trapped him in a merciless grip.
In the parking lot, Paul Wiess slid to a halt. He gazed at the beast, mouth agape. Frank saw his own fear in the man’s face, magnified beyond all understanding. The gun in Paul’s hand seemed utterly forgotten.
The creature lunged.
Paul shrank away from it, but Frank saw he couldn’t take his gaze off the madness before him. The thing swept him up with ease, clutching his throat in a huge, inhuman hand.
“DAD!”
The girl’s cry struck Frank like a slap in the face. His fear of the past vanished in an instant, replaced by the dread of what would happen if the entity succeeded in using Paul to coerce—
Mallory stepped away from the church.
“No!” Frank shouted.
The other teenager, the boy, held her back, needing to wrap his arms around her waist to keep her from breaking free.
Paul thrashed in the monster’s grasp. He clung to its fetid flesh when it lifted him upward, bringing his face level with its head. His feet kicked in the open air two feet off the ground.
Frank bound over the fallen tree and rushed forward.
The monster’s voice rumbled out of the tomb of its body, each word filled with an alien loathing for all human life.
“Mallory, your father needs you.”
Frank charged onward, closer and closer. He tore off his jacket and shoulder holster, abandoning what remaining weapons he had, knowing they’d do him no good.
Thirty feet away Paul aimed the pistol. Frank knew the weapon would be useless against the monster’s dead flesh, but the creature chose to snatch the man’s firing arm out of the air before he could shoot. Its grip tightened, cinching down on his forearm, and Paul bellowed with pain as the bones snapped in a series of five horrible cracks.
Mallory screamed, begging the creature to stop.
The boy continued to cling to her.
“Come save your father,” the thing called. “You have the power to heal him, Mallory. Just as I healed you.”
Frank neared within ten feet—
“Or…”
—Five feet—
“You can watch me tear him apart!”
Frank struck.
The beast swung around to meet him, but Frank anticipated its awareness. He ducked the assault and rammed his shoulder into its midsection, feeling the ungodly husk of meat and bones succumb to the impact. Its putrid outer skin stretched, pulling apart seams that expelled noxious odors of the grave.
But he knocked it off balance.
It took a step backward, suddenly battling gravity. Frank claimed the advantage and plunged his fingers into a row of stitches over its bicep. He seized handfuls of fibrous muscle. With a tremendous shout he yanked a huge slab of meat from the arm holding Paul, simultaneously unfettering other strands of black sutures. A sickening chorus of wet tears and sinewy rips declared Frank’s success, and the arm cracked in half, dropping Paul to the ground. The remains dangled from leathery tethers.
“Go!” Frank shouted.
No sooner had he spoken when the monster’s broken arm snapped back into place. The shredded tissue bound together like a cluster of octopus tentacles while the stitching rethreaded itself. The beast flexed its claws and turned its eyeless gaze toward Frank. He suddenly found himself staring up at a mouth large enough to engulf his whole head.
He gazed back. “Oh, shit.”
The beast lunged.
Frank parried a slash from one of the smaller arms then dodged a fist that punched a pothole in the dirt. He retaliated with a barrage of quick jabs. Each strike pulled away a wad of more stitching. Reeking liquid splashed from the ruptured sutures and droplets of gore cascaded over his face.
Frank growled through his disgust and snared another fistful of bindings, tearing a bundle of muscle from the monster’s right leg.
“Not so strong now,” Frank shouted.
One of the human appendages reached for him. He grabbed it and held fast. The beast pivoted for a second assault and he ducked, twisting the joints, executing an arm lock. He braced one foot on the thing’s thigh and tore the captured limb off the body. It pulled away to the sound of snapping twine and ripped fibers.
A pestilent river of yellow fluid spilled from the hole.
Frank flung the severed arm aside. “For a ‘god’ you don’t seem to be holding together so well. Also, you smell like an asshole!”
The monster roared. It swung a massive paw and raked Frank’s back with its talons as he attempted to dodge. Adrenaline muted the pain, but the impact spun him around—throwing him into the other claw-tipped extremity. Its razor sharp points sliced across his chest.
They cut deep, severing muscle, scraping bone.
Night air rushed into the wound, chilling his nerves before being flushed out by a deluge of hot blood.
Frank staggered and fell to his knees.
The creature caught him before he hit the ground, clamping his body in its arms. He twisted and kicked, squirming to break free.
Frank’s struggle slowed when he became aware of other movements pushing against his body. He looked down to see the creature’s hide bulge and swell, stirred from within.
A line of stitches unfurled along the monster’s right side and the half-skeletonized head of a dead woman emerged from the gash. It sprung forth on an impossibly long neck, trailing slime-soaked purple hair that dangled from the remnants of her scalp. Frank stared in horror. Trapped by the beast, he was unable to avoid the head’s lipless teeth when they bit into his abdomen.
On the other side, a mummified dog’s skull burst from the creature’s huge chest. Its jaws gnashed, sinking fangs into Frank’s shoulder.
He screamed and thrashed in its grasp, fighting to escape.
The creature laughed in his face. Its vertical mouth disgorged a foul breath of postmortem gases along with the bodies of five dead rattlesnakes that nipped at his face.
One tore off his eye patch, exposing the empty socket beneath.
The beast’s demonic voice boomed. “Now we’ll see how well you hold together.”