Helltown - Jeremy Bates Page 0,90

on either side of the neck. It was as effective as striking stone. He dug his thumbs into the brute’s eyes. Goliath roared in pain and launched Beetle through the air. He landed on the wet gravel, the sharp pebbles tearing the skin off his chin and both elbows. He rolled over to find Goliath rushing toward him. Rage had transformed his ugly, blunt face into something inhuman.

Beetle scrambled backward, splashing through shallow puddles, away from the impossibility barreling down on him—I shot the fucking guy point blank—but he was too slow. Goliath reached him in a few strides and lifted his booted foot, as if to squash him like a bug.

Beetle slipped his legs around the man’s ankle, locked his own ankles, and corkscrewed his body. Goliath fell like a tree, stiffly and inelegantly, issuing a strange womanly yelp when he struck the ground.

Beetle climbed onto Goliath’s back and locked his arms around his neck in a chokehold. Despite Beetle’s size and strength, Goliath lumbered to his feet with monstrous ease. Beetle squeezed his arms tighter, in an equal effort to subdue the man and hold on. His feet dangled in the air.

Goliath reached a hand over his shoulder and swatted Beetle with powerful blows. Then he staggered, and Beetle filled with hope. Either the gunshot wounds to his chest were finally exacting their toll, or the chokehold was cutting off sufficient airflow to his brain.

Goliath spun left and right, trying to shake Beetle free. Beetle felt like a cowboy, riding a maddened bull. He held on with all his willpower and strength.

The blows became weaker. The spinning lessoned.

Then Goliath staggered again, this time dropping to one knee.

His calloused fingers pried at Beetle’s arm in a final, desperate attempt to free himself. He was making a dry, wheezing sound that was almost lost in the drumming rain.

Beetle wondered if he was trying to speak, to beg for his life.

Finally he shuddered, then collapsed to his chest, dead.

While the stranger wrestled with the giant, Cherry attacked the man named Cleavon, shrieking like a woman possessed. She had never wanted to kill another person in her life, but she wanted to kill Cleavon right then. She would claw his eyes from his face if she could, she would spit in their bloody sockets, and she would laugh while doing it.

The man lay on the ground, cupping his injured shoulder where he had been shot, trying to rock himself to his knees. He saw her coming and kicked. She dodged his foot and fell on top of him, unleashing a fury of blows.

“Bitch!” he growled, shoving his hand in her face.

She bit his fingers to the bone.

He wailed, tried to yank his fingers free. She bit harder and tasted sweet, coppery blood. She shook her head, trying to sever the digits.

“Cunt!” he gasped and walloped her in the face so hard he might have broken her jaw. She seemed to fall through space, seeing stars.

Greta had picked up the wet, slimy branch Beetle had used to work the chain free from the church doors. Now she stood indecisively with it raised in a threatening gesture, unsure whether to help Beetle or the naked woman. When the man with the muttonchops walloped the woman in the side of the head, Greta made up her mind, rushed to the woman’s aide, and began striking the man with the stick. He shouted obscenities at her and tried to protect his face. She got three solid licks in before he grabbed hold of the end of the stick and tugged it free from her grasp. He struck her with it across the shins, flaying the bare skin below the hem of her dress. She cried out and fell as he rose to his feet. He whipped her several times before the stick snapped in two. He tossed what remained away, then started toward one of the vehicles.

Wiping blood and rain from her eyes—the stick had sliced a gash across her forehead—Greta staggered after the man. She didn’t know what she was doing. He was obviously fleeing the scene, and maybe it would be for the best to let him do so. But she was filled with adrenaline and hate, and she grabbed his hair from behind, yanking it as hard as he could.

“Aiyeee!” he said, stumbling backward.

She released his hair and gripped his injured shoulder, digging her nails into the bloody bullet wound.

He shrieked louder.

Nevertheless, he was not only muscular and wiry, but resilient, and he