Page 65 of The Last One
“What do you want?” My voice is steady, but I touch my amulet for reassurance. My itching shoulder blades and burning fingers alert me. I’m ready.
Johny grins. “Just enjoying the night out with some friends.”
That’s when a colossus of a man tromps beside him. He already smells dead, like mud and rancid meat. The knots on his thick arms are not all muscle. No, his body is revolting against him, making little boils that might explode.
“My favorite prisoner,” Johny says, coming closer now. “Maford’s own troublemaking mudscraper. Coming here, destroying our town, killing our people. Life was perfect before you came and fucked it all up.”
“I’d like some private time with her before the end,” another man says.
But not the giant standing with Johny. No, another monster lurks behind me.
I smell him. A pigsty smells better.
“I’ve been thinking, girl,” Johny says. “You burned down this town, and now you got a bunch of fines to work off. This time, you can work off your offenses in a different kind of way.”
Fingertips buzzing and pulse hammering, I take a step back.
“What’s your hurry, Gorga sweetie?” Pigsty creeps toward me.
My blood fizzes, and my breath leaves my chest. I hold up my hands, ready to blast wind again. “I’m not in the mood to do anything else with you tonight.”
“That’s too bad. Cuz I am.” Johny’s gaze turns from regular angry to leering angry.
The three men close in on me, their stench heavy on the wind that’s kicked up around us.
I keep my hands raised.
The trees of the forest behind us tremble, and the high grass rustles.
Johny grabs for me.
I hop back and slam into his accomplice.
The wind now shrieks around us, bringing with it sounds from the forest. Hissing. And a heartbeat.Sss-ba-bum… Sss-ba-bum…
Johny’s accomplice clamps a hand on my shoulder, but my attention is directed at the thing inching through the forest.
Do these men hear what I hear? Do they see what I see?
They must not, because they continue in their assault. Boil Man digs his fingers into my shoulder while Johny grabs for the fabric of my borrowed shirt. I throw my elbow into Boil Man’s gut, still watching what they cannot see: slithery amber slipping out of the forest, out of the woods, closer to us, closer, through the grasses, swaying, waiting,hungry.
“I’m pleading with you,” I say, breathing heavy now, “please go home.”
The creature in the grass slips closer still. Its giant head rises above the high grass. Its eyes are dark and deep, and suddenly, my fear is replaced by something else.
Knowing.
My jaw drops.
“What areyoustaring at?” Pigsty jeers.
“See for yourself.” Wrenching away, I drop to the dirt just as the giant snake, taller and wider than any tree, lunges at the three men. I roll out of their way and take a moment to behold the otherworldly creature before me.
Black bands, red bands, white scales; a head as big as a boulder; a tongue longer than the longest creek. And though this snake may be a giant, its scales look dull and ashen, and its belly doesn’t bulge with food.
“I’m hungry, so hungry.”The snake’s voice sounds hoarse, weak.
“Here’s dinner, then,” I say to the creature, not sure if I’m hearing what I’m hearing or imagining what a snake would say. “Go ahead. Enjoy.”
