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The tension snaps clean in half as you sprint right, drawing <span class="mu-s">its</span> beaded eyes to the whip of your coat. Between <span class="mu-s">its</span> legs you can see Quinton keeping pace, jerking his head from side to side, following <span class="mu-s">its</span> twitching tails-limbs. You take aim at the eyes, one shot sweeps wide and you don’t try a second, running instead to clear an angle on the seeping wound left by Quinton’s first blow. You fire once, and fan the last three into the left foreleg. Each bullet accompanied by a rich splash of rust. <span class="mu-s">It</span> picks the leg up and drones a shrill whistle cracking the glass of the clear night air.
Seeing his moment Quinton rushes underneath, and finding his balance among the shifting trot of the hooves, drives his axe full weight into the right foreleg. <span class="mu-s">Its</span> whistle raises timbre, filling your head with resonant splinters. You circle around <span class="mu-s">its</span> front, reloading your cylinder as fast as you are able. Quinton makes for a way out from underneath <span class="mu-s">it</span>, but the tail-limbs drag wildly on the ground, hunting to answer <span class="mu-s">its</span> injury. He doesn’t see them. One pierces through his calf and he falls face down before he has time to scream. The tail-limb drags him over the frosty ground out behind the creature, hurling him like a child. You see him smash back first into the thick, half-uprooted pine tree.
You can spare no more thought for him as <span class="mu-s">its</span> full attention rounds on you. <span class="mu-s">It</span> rears up, droning <span class="mu-s">its</span> tin needle song, scales rising and ruffling like the hackles on a dog. The creature’s chest limbs stretch out towards you as you unsheathe your knife to meet them. You hack at the things, shoulder sore with the force you bring to bear, but they neither bleed nor give way to the mundane steel. You’re nimble enough to slip the ones that go for your neck and waist, but a stray catches your left leg, and two more catch your knife hand, winding themselves tight around your entire arm and hauling you closer. You dig in your unconquered right foot and try to pull back, a foolish thing to do and one you know well to be futile. Still, you remember Mack’s fate, and however foolish, you try to resist as mightily as you can.
In the end, your sinew is no match for <span class="mu-s">it</span> and you are pulled up, up to where it rears back on two legs, in front of <span class="mu-s">its</span> great horn mask. In front of <span class="mu-s">its</span> milk pale eyes. Your revolver is jarred from your grip, falling to the snow beneath. With your newly freed hand you reach for a fire on your chest. More limbs slither around you, trying to pin your last free arm and leg, Your hand scrabbles in desperation. Under your coat. It burns! <span class="mu-s">It</span> gives up trying to restrain you. A single, great chest-limb latches onto your head…and begins to pull. Your hand reaches the flame.
