The windshield wipers squeaked in time with the country music playing softly over the radio, and the engine hummed contentedly in the background. I glanced at the digital clock in my dashboard, blue-green numbers apathetically declaring the time: 6:44 PM. My stomach rumbled, and I chuckled. Home was only a minute away, but apparently my stomach couldn’t wait that long.
I looked up just in time to hit the brakes. The transmission groaned as my truck came to a full stop and I squinted through the downpour.
It towered above me in tattered clothes, with eyes that glowed deep green within the bowels of its skull. Its stony face was expressionless, but its green eyes gleamed with ominous meaning.
Like a flash of lightning, its massive fist smashed into the rust-bitten, silvery blue hood of my truck with a deafening screech. My skull slammed into the ceiling as the whole truck quivered from the impact and the windshield shattered, leaving red streaks on my bare arms.
An ear-splitting scream tore from the monster’s throat and its fist came down again, sinking into the hood as though it were made of tin. I released my seatbelt and dove into the backseat just as the ceiling caved in and the dashboard and wheel disappeared under a blanket of steel and faux leather lining.
My hands fumbled under the seat and found the smooth polished wood of my Winchester rifle. I pulled it out, pushed the safety in, and shot a hole in the back window. I rammed the butt of my rifle into the web of glass, then dove onto the hard steel bed of my truck.
A million pieces of glass dug into the side of my face, arms, and hands. My ears rang, and the metallic taste of blood was in my mouth. But I couldn’t stop.
I grabbed my rifle and jumped out of the bed, turning just as the monster smashed the rest of the cab flat, its shriek echoing through the bowing evergreen trees. Thunder reverberated in the distance, and lightning beamed on the horizon, for one moment casting the world in ominous blue-green electric light.
I raised my rifle to my shoulder, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
Dark red blossomed on its shoulder, a little to the right of where I was aiming. Its green eyes slowly turned away from the wreck to where I stood. I raised my rifle in a heartbeat, my finger on the trigger. For a single moment, all things held their breath. The only sounds were the pattering rain and the thundering of my beating heart.
The monster turned and ran.
I released the breath I’d been holding and lowered my rifle, watching the monster bound over puddles and pot-holes, shaking the earth and sending clods of mud into the air.
It lumbered down the road straight to a clearing, where a bright yellow house stood with a light shining through the window.
An ice-cold shiver shot up my spine like a bolt of lightning. I didn’t think. I ran.
I shot at it from behind even as I ran with all the strength I had in my body, my arms pumping and my legs moving faster than I thought they ever could.
The monster reached the clearing and made straight for the house. My heart skipped a beat as I realized I was too far away. It was going to reach the house before I would reach it.
My eyes flicked to the yard light that had just blinked on. It was attached to a leaning wooden pole, broken at its base. A mostly severed oak branch leaned remorselessly into the pole, trying to wrest it from the grasp of a stubborn electric line that refused to let it fall.
I stopped running, mud flying as I ground to a halt. Falling to one knee, I pressed the butt of the rifle into my shoulder, sighted down the barrel, and whispered a prayer.
I pulled the trigger.
The line snapped in a flash of blue sparks and the pole fell like lightning, striking the monster in the neck. Stunned, the monster tripped and toppled to the ground, sending mud and gravel airborne.
It stirred, but I was already there. I cocked my gun and pulled the trigger, but the monster released a screech and swept my legs out from under me with its massive arm. My ears were ringing as I lay flat on the ground, gasping for air, feeling through the mud and pebbles for my gun.
The monster got up slowly, towering over me like a skyscraper against the stormy sky. It gritted its teeth, green eyes flaring, and gripped the yard light pole with a single brawny hand. Wood and splinters cracked in its grip as it raised the pole into the sky.
My searching fingers closed on a handful of mud instead of smooth wood and cold steel. I tried to move my limbs, but they refused to budge. I couldn’t move.
A shot echoed through the clearing, and the metallic flash of a bullet tore through the monster’s throat, scattering droplets of blood like rain. Its green eyes widened, then flickered out. The monster fell back, crashed into a tree, and lay still.
I lay still too, staring up at the gray clouds fringed blue with every flash of lightning. Then my little girl’s freckled face was before me, and I could feel relief washing over me like a cool rain. She smiled down at me through the curtain of her red hair, but her eyes searched my face, betraying her smile.
“I’m supposed… to save you,” I choked out, as a grin spread over my face. “Not… the other… way around.”
Her eyes shone—whether with tears or raindrops, I couldn’t tell. “You did teach me to shoot.” She paused. “Are… you going to get up?”
“I think I’ll lie here… for a minute. Then we can… have dinner.”
She lay down beside me in the mud and gravel, her warm hand touching my arm.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” she said.
I found her slender hand with my own and squeezed it. And we gazed up at the sky of a stormy summer as the lightning flashed, the thunder clapped, and rain fell on a grateful earth.