Still a chance to get out of this.
Unless there were more of them, already drawn by the noise, the gunfire…
The machine gun jammed. Or maybe it was out of ammo too. How long had he been madly firing, his finger locked on the trigger?
The thoughts again.
Christie, Kate, Simon.
The neck protector reduced the sound around him. The grunts, the near-human sounds they made. The Can Head nearly hopping toward him seemed to flash on the fact that the gun had stopped firing.
The thing opened its animal-like mouth, screamed, and leapt forward boldly.
Jack stood his ground.
Not from bravery on his part.
He stood his ground. There was nothing else he could do.
The Can Head grabbed at Jack’s face but Jack turned away, the clawing fingers only inches away, now pawing at his armored body.
Those protective layers needed to be peeled away.
If he was to be eaten.
Another squeeze of the trigger. Still jammed.
The tugs threatening to rip Jack’s arms and his legs right out of their sockets.
The Can Head held Jack’s right leg fast. Armor roughly peeled off. Then it bit down hard.
Jack screamed, kicking at it with his other leg, pounding the useless gun against the thing’s head.
The pain—a white heat that made the apartment vanish.
Instinctively, he pulled the useless trigger again.
And now the gun responded with the oh-so-beautiful rat-a-tat-tat burp of fire.
“Fuck you,” Jack said, pressing the automatic rifle’s muzzle right against the head of the thing eating him. He watched the head explode into a fireworks display of bone and blood and smoke.
A look over his shoulder.