Are you hoping that the boys are fleet-footed, or that the chupacapra is? Well... you get to find out which of them moves faster in the penultimate paragraph :-p
Fleet-footed Jimmy's words were brave, braver than I felt in fact. I would have liked some evidence that our guns would work first, rather than just the evidence we had of how strong these creatures were. Maybe they were better when there was a mob of them, but again, this didn't seem like the way I really wanted to find out. Ben and Jimmy moved to the side slightly, and then Jimmy found a staircase at the side of the building and ran up a floor, standing a little precariously on the edge at a corner in order to have a good shot along the street and some height. Which left me standing in the middle; either the cowboy in the film waiting for the duel, or the idiot being used as bait by his friends. I had a suspicion it was the latter. The hooting started up again, and it was definitely closer. I tensed, and felt my stomach twist as though I was going to throw up, and for a moment I had a flashback to the first time I met Shanghai Suzie; my stomach had twisted then as well, and I had thrown up as I recall -- straight into her laundry hamper. Ben had started laughing, she had started screaming, and we ended up being kicked out of that brothel and being told not to come back. Then Ben was told in no uncertain terms to come back and bring the girl he was leaving with back as well and... well, I'm supposed to facing a chupacapra. Not reminiscing about the good times. The hooting got louder and then stopped abruptly and the shadowy shape appeared at the end of the street. It paused, seemingly looking at me, and then moved slowly forwards, cautious and wary. It moved like an ape of some kind; there were four limbs and the front ones seemed long enough to be used as extra legs without the creature having to bend over much. Its head was a dull blob from this distance, but there were bumps on it that might be short horns, like a goat's. Which kind of made sense, I thought. There was a musky smell tickling my nostrils as well, something like aged beef mixed in with peat or compost; maybe what you get when a cow falls into a peat bog and spends a decade there. I rubbed my nose; the smell wasn't exactly unpleasant, but I didn't like it either. The creature swayed a little from side to side as it edged forward, and I realised suddenly that it was trying to figure out why we'd stopped running. It moved again, and I noticed that its pelvis was twice as wide as a man's and that was giving it it's odd, swaying gait. Jimmy fired and the gunshot broke the air like a thunderclap. I jumped, even though I knew it had to be coming, and the creature dodged! I stared as it moved like a streak of lightning, so fast that it was hard to follow, but it had definitely moved so fast that Jimmy's bullet struck sparks off the stone pavement where it had been stood and ricocheted off behind it. The Ben fired, and the creature blurred into motion once more, leaping effortlessly onto the side of the nearest building and clinging there like some vast, obscene spider. "Oh tommyknockers," I muttered under my breath.
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Are you hoping that the boys are fleet-footed, or that the chupacapra is? Well... you get to find out which of them moves faster in the penultimate paragraph :-p
Fleet-footed
Jimmy's words were brave, braver than I felt in fact. I would have liked some evidence that our guns would work first, rather than just the evidence we had of how strong these creatures were. Maybe they were better when there was a mob of them, but again, this didn't seem like the way I really wanted to find out. Ben and Jimmy moved to the side slightly, and then Jimmy found a staircase at the side of the building and ran up a floor, standing a little precariously on the edge at a corner in order to have a good shot along the street and some height. Which left me standing in the middle; either the cowboy in the film waiting for the duel, or the idiot being used as bait by his friends. I had a suspicion it was the latter.
The hooting started up again, and it was definitely closer. I tensed, and felt my stomach twist as though I was going to throw up, and for a moment I had a flashback to the first time I met Shanghai Suzie; my stomach had twisted then as well, and I had thrown up as I recall -- straight into her laundry hamper. Ben had started laughing, she had started screaming, and we ended up being kicked out of that brothel and being told not to come back. Then Ben was told in no uncertain terms to come back and bring the girl he was leaving with back as well and... well, I'm supposed to facing a chupacapra. Not reminiscing about the good times.
The hooting got louder and then stopped abruptly and the shadowy shape appeared at the end of the street. It paused, seemingly looking at me, and then moved slowly forwards, cautious and wary. It moved like an ape of some kind; there were four limbs and the front ones seemed long enough to be used as extra legs without the creature having to bend over much. Its head was a dull blob from this distance, but there were bumps on it that might be short horns, like a goat's. Which kind of made sense, I thought. There was a musky smell tickling my nostrils as well, something like aged beef mixed in with peat or compost; maybe what you get when a cow falls into a peat bog and spends a decade there. I rubbed my nose; the smell wasn't exactly unpleasant, but I didn't like it either.
The creature swayed a little from side to side as it edged forward, and I realised suddenly that it was trying to figure out why we'd stopped running. It moved again, and I noticed that its pelvis was twice as wide as a man's and that was giving it it's odd, swaying gait.
Jimmy fired and the gunshot broke the air like a thunderclap. I jumped, even though I knew it had to be coming, and the creature dodged! I stared as it moved like a streak of lightning, so fast that it was hard to follow, but it had definitely moved so fast that Jimmy's bullet struck sparks off the stone pavement where it had been stood and ricocheted off behind it. The Ben fired, and the creature blurred into motion once more, leaping effortlessly onto the side of the nearest building and clinging there like some vast, obscene spider.
"Oh tommyknockers," I muttered under my breath.
Greg - I figured, with the proper motivation, they'd all be moving pretty fast.
Well, this creature seems to only be getting more terrifying, which is a concern, I reckon.
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