Carnivora

Carnivora Part 4 of 4

4

Jake stared at the machine as the wake of the Serbians' dives washed over the sides and splashed over his shoes. Dark shapes were already rising to the surface. A pair of foglamp eyes were locked on him.

Jake twisted the key again.

The motor caught. The metal sheet shuddered and began to travel again. It spread across the water just as a great head rose to surface. The sheet swelled up from beneath but didn't stop moving. An enraged sneeze was followed by the scrabble of paws on metal as the swell receded.

He fled for the door.

#

Jake punched the Emergency Open button with the side of his fist. The door swung open and he and Charlie darted out. Jake took a half-second to attempt shutting the door, but it didn't take, and they sped on.

As they tore past the bins, roars, tides of splashing water, scrabbling claws and the jangling of metal echoed from the Centre. Charlie raced ahead. Jake's right knee jabbed a sharp spike with every step. He tried to run on the tips of his toes but the spike only sharpened.

They ran madly down to the swimming centre's front corner, took a right. They met a brick path marked with an EXIT sign and an arrow pointing left. They scrambled down it towards a locked gate. Six feet tall, flat across the top, the welcome sight of sidewalk and the street through the bars. Charlie raced up, grabbed the bars and looked back. Jake was a good ten feet back.

Metal shrieked from inside the centre, drowned out by roars bellowed from furious throats.

Jake limped up, boosted Charlie to the top. Charlie swarmed over, climbed down like a pro. Jake clutched the top of the gate, jumped and pushed up using the same momentum. 

The thing in his back that had strained with the fire extinguisher pulled hard. He clamped his jaws shut and tried to swing a leg over, but the left half of his back seized up.

The stench of rotting meat barrelled to his nose.

"Hurry!" Charlie screamed.

Jake gave it up. He dropped and swung around with the knife. His mind was white with fear.

Hulking shadows were already upon him. Jake blindly slashed out and hit something. The smaller cat backed away, blood spraying from a gash across its muzzle. It licked it compulsively, shaking its head, probably imagining the sharp pain was a constant sting by some wasp.

The giant Serb crouched low, not even ten feet away, eyes deadly intent.

Jake's knees trembled. "Charlie, run," he said in a shaky voice. "Go."

The Serb watched him—and suddenly Jake knew what it was going to do. Not spring on him, but—

The giant cat fired out a paw. It was the same punching swipe that had tested the rooftop window. Jake ducked. The paw whammed the gate overhead with face-shattering force, denting the bars. Even as the wind-shear whipped his hair into his eyes, Jake speared the knife up and stabbed two inches of the tip into the pad of the Serb's seat-cushion sized paw. The monster Serb snarled and its paw shot back, dripping hot, sticky blood.

Jake flung the knife at it, sprang up, grabbed the gate's top horizontal bar, fought the taut knurl in his back with a scream of pain and hurled himself over the top. The concrete pavement jumped to meet him. Jake smacked down on his side, left hip and elbow cracking hard. Charlie had stayed and he grabbed Jake's head and saved it from hitting the ground. He stumbled too, ending up on his knees.

Roars exploded. Jake's hearing instantly switched to a high-pitched whine. Hot, stinking breath washed over them. Jake stared through the gate into red caves bladed with white knives. Two wet, furious monsters dripped hot blood and glared with hate so savage and furious that it turned Jake's bones to something more fragile than glass. They screamed deep-throated vengeance. Coarse whiskers brushed the gate and saliva dripped like white oil. It mixed with blood and became pink.

Jake became conscious as he'd never been at how vast his powerlessness was: it filled the world between the unforgiving concrete and the full moon in the sky.

He thought: We're dead.

But the Serbians came no closer.

One easy leap and the Serbs could savage them, but they stayed at the edge of Castor Hill Park, constrained by whatever instinct guided their unknowable minds. The smaller Serb headed away. The giant Serb sat on its haunches and studied Jake. Then it turned its attention to its paw and began to lick it. There was a sense of a reprieve.

Charlie tugged Jake's shirt. He'd turned away and looked only at the street, shoulders trembling. Jake hobbled to his feet and limped away with him.

#

Tiffany stood on the front stoop, the ajar door behind her. She ran to meet them, her face strained and white.

"What was roaring?" she asked. "What was that?"

"Big cats," Charlie said as they scrambled inside.

The door shut the night out. Jake's knee gave up and he dropped and took a clumsy seat in the foyer. His back felt twisted inside a rusted vise. A sleepy little girl in pink Adventure Time pyjamas watched him in surprise.

Tiffany fell to her knees and hugged Charlie, squeezing him to her. She kissed his cheek, followed by another tight hug. Charlie poked her to make her let go and she laughed through her tears.

"Don't ever do that again," she said. "Promise me."

"Okay."

Tiffany left Charlie, stooped next to Jake and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Thank you," she said into his ear. "Thank you so much."

Jake closed his eyes. He could pick up the scent of Tiffany's tears, and her anxious sweat. Below that was very little. Every product Tiffany used was either lightly scented or unscented—deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, laundry detergent. She'd even changed her perfume.

Tiffany had done that out of consideration for him. In the world Jake inhabited, such kindness deserved repayment.

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