Read Online Hissers by Ryan C. Thomas - Free Book Online Page B

something stopped him cold. It wasn’t fear of pissing off the authorities or the possibility of causing more harm than good to the victims, but rather the sight of a large man with the bloody face running full tilt at them, running so fast he looked like a blur. The slap slap slap of the man’s shoes on the pavement rattled like gunfire.
    Something about the way he ran, hunched forward like a baseball player about to slide into base—arms thrust out, fingers splayed, his mouth opened as wide as it would go—it didn’t feel right.
    He’s not screaming , Connor noted. He’s not even flailing. He’s just running at full speed, straight for us, reaching for us. He glanced quickly at Seth and saw the same kind of confusion in his friend’s eyes. Amanita and Nicole saw it, too. Everyone watched, wondering what the hell was happening, nobody could put their finger on why it was strange.
    Then it hit Connor. The man was one of the flight attendants, the dark blue dress uniform melted into his skin, and he was hissing.
    Hissing.
    “Everybody run!” He grabbed Nicole and yanked her up the lawn to the burning pile of rubble that was once a house and ducked down behind a car that was now crushed and covered with broken two-by-fours. Seth and Amanita didn’t need a second warning and hauled ass to hide beside them. They peeked out to watch.
    When the flight attendant hit the edge of the lawn he changed course, veering toward the cop and plowed into him with everything he had. The cop flew over the teenager he’d been trying to put out, rolled into a ball and came up dazed. The flight attendant, still hissing and never losing his momentum, hit the cop again and took him down like a sack of laundry.
    As they hit the ground the flight attendant tore at the cop’s eyes, sending gouts of blood into the air, and bit down on the cop’s face, frantically shaking back and forth like a shark. The blood-curdling scream that let loose from the officer as the mangled flight attendant yanked his nose off and went for his throat was all but lost in the din of the surrounding scene.
    But Connor and his friends heard it. They heard it loud and clear, they just couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
    The flight attendant leapt off the cop and sat on his haunches, quickly scanned his surroundings, caught site of the firemen working on Carrie Williams, and bolted after them, now on all fours like a rabid dog.
    “Look out!” Connor yelled. But it was too late; the flight attendant tackled the two firemen and went for their faces with his teeth. All Connor and his friends saw were bursts of blood and pieces of flesh spitting into the air. It was over in seconds, both firemen lying still, and the flight attendant was off chasing another police officer.
    Amanita spoke through chattering teeth. “What the flying fuck was that shit! He ate that guy’s face! Did you see it? What the fucking hell was that! I wanna go I wanna fucking go I wanna-”
    Nicole grabbed Amanita and hugged her, the curse words still spewing into her shoulder. Seth and Connor exchanged worried glances. This was not right, not right at all.
    “Okay,” Connor said, huddling them together, “I don’t know what that was. I don’t even care right now. None of this is good to be around and I’m thinking everyone has their hands full so let’s leave this whole thing—” he pointed toward the burning plane “—to the cops and stuff. We need to get home to our parents. Then we can deal with what that crap we just saw was all about.”
    “You need to fix your leg.” Nicole put in. “We should run through the…” she stammered for a second but found her resolve. “Run through the back of the Drake’s house and get on the next street.”
    “Can’t.”
    “Why?”
    “Because if the plane slid into the Drake’s house that means the cockpit probably broke off and went further. The houses on the next street will be burning too. Maybe even the houses on the street