Rise of a Valkyrie

Part 5

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When Kayla came to, she was lying on the truck's roof, surrounded by broken glass, with her seat hanging above her head. A hand grabbed her arm and hauled her through the smashed window. Her father sat her up against the side of the truck, and checked her for injuries, though she was only covered in scratches. His left arm was strangely bent, and he didn't use it.

The sight of her father badly injured made Kayla want to cry.

"Dad—" she whimpered, but he clamped his free hand over her mouth.

From somewhere nearby, there was a snorting sound.

The truck had rolled over the roadside bushes into a field, and, from the other side of the foliage, Kayla heard the scraping and shuffling of something big approaching.

"We're hunting now, understand?" her father whispered. "You need to hide in the hedgerow over there, and don't let anything find you. No matter what you see or hear, stay hidden."

She wiped her eyes and nodded.

He picked up his shotgun from beside the truck. Kayla followed his gesture and moved quietly toward the foliage a dozen yards away. Her hands shook as she hid herself in the bushes and smeared dirt on her face to camouflage her skin.

She knew her father had lied to her. They weren't hunting; they were the prey.

Her father moved around the truck, craning his neck to get a glimpse of whatever had hit them in the road.

A terrible roar pierced the evening air, and Kayla almost yelped. The sound was louder than anything she'd heard from an animal. Her father disappeared into the bushes separating him from the roadside, and for some time, she couldn't hear anything at all.

A rapid series of gunshots broke the silence, followed by a snarl and the sound of something smacking against concrete.

Then silence.

Kayla fought back tears and begged for a sound from her father. A cough, a yell, or the snap of the shotgun as it reloaded—anything to let her know he still lived. Every second that passed broke her heart a little more.

After a while, the stomping and dragging sounds of the creature resumed.

Her father had to be dead.

Too frightened now to feel anything, Kayla didn't sob or shed a tear—she lay as still as the earth around her. Nothing would dig her out of her hiding place.

As time passed, a ball of molten rage settled in her gut. She'd survive, and one day kill this evil creature, along with every single member of its species, and anything else that wanted to hurt Calderans.

Ran hung silently in the sky, a bleeding eye watching the night's horror. Only the brilliant line of a meteor proved that time still passed.

A distant but gentle noise broke the silence.

Suddenly, a black shape darted out of the tree line on the opposite side of the field. A figure was sprinting toward the truck, faster than Kayla had ever seen a human being move. The figure leapt impossibly high through the air and landed on the inverted vehicle.

A weapon pointed toward the road, and a rapid staccato of snaps rang out, like gunshots, but quieter than Kayla had heard before. There was a distant roar, and the pounding of heavy feet. The creature charged through the hedgerow, smashing into the wreck as the mysterious assailant rolled away.