Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #11 February 2015 | Page 17

set like a man and two more of equal size set to the
sides like a horse .
The mouth was ringed with... ,with… I staggered back
and grasped at the closest crate for balance as my
stomach heaved and everything I had eaten for the
last two days burned its way up my throat and out my
mouth.
I gasped as soon as I could draw breath and glanced up
to see the creature much nearer, all four of its eyes set
deep within the heavily armoured head stared straight
at me and the short writhing tentacles that ringed both
sides of the mouth were reaching towards me.
My stomach turned again and even though there was
nothing left I heaved again and again, my belly a band
of tearing pain.
Crack, Crack. The shots of a police .36 rang out close to
my face. One bullet vanished into the gloom, the other
bounced off the thick plates on the creature’s chest.
It moved toward me and came into the light falling
through the grated hatch overhead.

Of its own will my right hand had found the butt of my
revolver and drawn and fired from the hip.

My mind struggled to understand what my eyes could
see, it seemed to blur and become clear but each time
I could see it clearly it was somehow different from
before.

Realising what I had done I brought my arm up and
sighted at the creature now no more than a dozen feet
from me.

It was tall, a head taller than me and perhaps seven feet
in height. It was huge, twice my width, the vast bulk of
its shoulders some four feet wide, even without counting the spikes that covered the huge plates of scale or
bone that overlapped across its upper body.

Crack, Crack. Both rounds bounced, I saw one glance
off the head just above one of the eyes on the front.
Crack. Crack. Click. Click.
My revolver was empty, but my mind took seconds to
recognise the sound.

I knew this, I had seen it. Before, in the hotel. When it
killed Garrety. When it killed me.

This close the smell struck me. Death and decay, flesh
and blood left to rot. The stench of a great carrion
beast, the stench of the grave.

Its face, its face, twisting, swirling, I wanted to be sick,
no. I must be strong, dizzy, falling, no. Its face was
broad; the entire lower half was a mouth of fangs larger
than my fingers, dizzy, my stomach churning. The upper half of its face was bone or scale covered in spikes
or horns jutting out sideways and to the back, two eyes

My stomach again fought against me, I could not stop
it but I was exhausted and did no more than gasp and
choke as the muscles across my belly spasmed and
could do no more.

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