Hunter by S.J. Bryant Page A

solid metal
tables. They roared as they broke the glass and burst into the
station.
    Shards rained
down on the police officers. A piece cut into Nova's cheek leaving
a sudden sharp pain. She gasped as a trickle of blood ran down her
face and dropped to the floor.
    Gunshots
echoed throughout the station. The standard rounds slammed into the
lecheons, but barely slowed them down. Lecheons darted through the
shattered glass door and surveyed the room. As they poured through
the door, two collapsed with screeches of agony.
    Nova cheered
under her breath for the expert shots of the men with the wooden
bullets. But it wasn't enough. There were too few bullets and too
many lecheons. Nova's stomach clenched. There were so many of them,
they were like an unstoppable tide.
    She swallowed
and pushed the thoughts from her head. All she could do now was
focus on the threat at hand.
    Corvus and a
woman to his left leapt forward. They grabbed hold of the two
closest police officers and their thick black tongues extended out.
The lecheons locked their teeth onto the officer's necks and ripped
the flesh. Chunks of meat, muscle and blood splattered across the
room. The officers dropped to the floor with solid
thuds.
    Nova aimed
her own gun and fired at Corvus. The blast of energy hit him in the
shoulder. It left a hunk of burned flesh, but before Nova's eyes
the skin began to heal.
    Corvus glared
at her. His mouth widened, revealing a bloody smile. Blood poured
onto the floor from the officer at his feet. The man's face became
whiter and the life drained from his eyes.
    "Bastard!"
Nova yelled. She squeezed her trigger and fired a volley of shots
at Corvus.
    He dove to
the side and avoided the bullets completely.
    Officers
collapsed under the weight of the lecheon onslaught. Screams echoed
about the station as bodies fell to the floor. The lecheons moved
so quickly that their bodies were blurs in the darkness. They
darted between the police officers, slaughtering them with sudden
slashes of hidden knives or their vicious teeth.
    The officers
with the wooden bullets fired at the shadows, but most of the shots
went wide. The racing lecheons were too fast to pinpoint amid the
chaos.
    "Nova, we
can't hold this position!" Briggles yelled. He fired shots at the
lecheon attack, but like most of the bullets they barely slowed the
creatures down.
    "Throw the
bags!" Nova bellowed.
    Two burly men
ambled from the back of the station carrying plump bags. They
pulled back and hurled the open bags over the heads of the officers
and into the midst of the lecheons. The bags exploded in puffs of
sawdust.
    The tiny
specks of wood lifted into the air and floated on the erratic
currents. The dust blew around the room and coated everything,
including the lecheons. Some of the dust was sucked straight into
the lecheon's lungs.
    The room
filled with the sounds of choking. Two lecheons bent over double.
Lines of dribble fell from their lips as they coughed and hacked.
They drew in ragged breaths interlaced with pain.
    "What has she
done?" Corvus bellowed.
    The affected
lecheons were in too much pain to respond. They'd stopped their mad
rampage and had become sitting ducks for the officers. Those with
wooden bullets took careful aim and fired. The two incapacitated
lecheons collapsed, dead.
    Briggles
ambled to Nova's side. "That's all the sawdust we could find. It's
about as rare as unicorn piss."
    "I know,"
Nova said with gritted teeth.
    "What else
can we do? There're still eight of those bastards and now they're
angry."
    Nova took a
deep breath.
    "Duck!" she
bellowed.
    She didn't
have time to check if the officers obeyed her command. She reached
behind and lobbed one of her weapons towards the front of the
station. Most of the lecheons were still gathered in that area,
tearing at the front line of police officers.
    The ball
soared through the air, completely unnoticed by the battling
forces. It sailed over the barricades to the area just in front of
the main door. Nova