Read Online Flying by Carrie Jones - Free Book Online Page B

they’re being crushed, and the teeth … so many … dozens of teeth, covered in fire extinguisher spray but still ready to chomp or rip or tear. Its breath smells like mildewed books and blood, all mixed together.
    â€œGet off me!” I gag.
    â€œExterminate.”
    â€œShut up!”
    With my free arm, I smash the fire extinguisher into the side of its head. It does not seem to care. Letting go of the extinguisher, I take the knife and jab it up and in. It hits part of the thing’s body. Bone? Its weight shifts and I am free. I roll away, scrambling across the cement floor for the car and Lyle.
    It seizes my ankle. Claws slice open my skin. My knife dangles out of its chest.
    â€œLyle!”
    I’m not sure if I’m yelling because I want help or because I just want him to save himself, get out of here, get away.
    â€œCome on!” He revs the engine. Elevator music blares out of the car. My mom has the worst taste in music.
    The thing hauls me back toward it. I slide along the floor like a sack of nothing, not even potatoes. My fingers search for something to hold on to. There is nothing, just cement floor. I bend double, twisting until I can reach around, yank my knife back out of its flesh, and then slice it across the thing’s wrist. It lets go of my foot, howling. I somersault backwards into the car, diving into the backseat as Lyle reverses out of the garage. Instead of buckling up like a good girl, I clench the headrest.
    â€œHoly crap. Holy crap. Holy crap,” Lyle mutters. We’re almost all the way out to the road when the thing stands up again and leaps—once, twice, three times—and lands on the hood. Its spindly arm smashes through the windshield. The glass spiderwebs out from the point of impact.
    We scream.
    Lyle slams the car into gear. The creature falls off. Seconds later, the car thuds over it. There’s a sick lurch as the tire drives on top of it, and the sound of bones crunching, which is sort of beautiful when the bones belong to a hideous thing that thinks exterminate is the SAT practice word of the day.
    â€œCrap. Crap. Crap,” Lyle chants.
    I slip myself into the front seat. Lyle reverses and we thud over it again. The last thing I ate, a chocolate-covered pretzel, returns to my mouth. This time, Lyle reverses all the way out to the road and stops the car.
    â€œIs it dead?” I whisper, trying to see around the cracks in the front window to the body in the middle of my driveway.
    â€œMaybe? I hit it.” Lyle’s still clutching the steering wheel.
    â€œI know you hit it. But did you kill it? Like, kill it dead?”
    He bites the corner of his lip. “I’m not sure. In movies, these things never die.”
    â€œThese things?”
    â€œThese undead alien monster from hell things.”
    â€œLyle!”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou are supposed to be the expert. You .”
    â€œOkay. Um … I would say, yes? Yes. It’s dead.” His voice gets all fake low and overly confident, which I appreciate, but I know him too well to be fooled. If calm Lyle is faking it, then all hell has broken loose.
    â€œTurn your headlights on,” I demand.
    â€œYou sure?”
    â€œWe have to see.”
    â€œWhy? Why do we have to see? Why can’t we be all ‘Yep, nothing’s happened. Let’s go get some pizza, have a little teenage sex, drink a beer?’”
    â€œYou want to do that?”
    He nods. I wonder if he means it, especially the teenage sex part, but that’s only for a second. Reality slams back into me.
    â€œMy mom might still be inside,” I say.
    â€œI know.” He turns his headlights on. An unmoving lump waits on the driveway. He holds my arm in his hands. “Whatever you do, do not get out of the car to check it out.”
    â€œI am not an idiot.”
    â€œI didn’t say you were.”
    We stare at the lump. It still doesn’t