"What about houses? Can you see the houses?"

"I can't see anything. She closed her eyes again and I don't know what the hell is going on."

Nick pinched a breast too hard. Britney broke the kiss and said, "Ow, that hurt."

She staggered back and opened her eyes, and the world spun. Nick was swaying, back and forth, and when he finally stopped, there were two of him.

It was then she realized that both of Nick's hands, all four of them, actually, were over there but her breasts were still being squeezed and pinched and her butt grabbed. She looked to her left and saw Josh, drunken grin on his face, saying something she couldn't understand, feeling her up with his hands. He kissed her on the mouth and rammed his tongue down her throat. Someone laughed and she shoved Josh away.

"Shtop that," she slurred at Josh. He stayed back but continued grinning and laughing.

Someone grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around; she stumbled and Brandon caught her and lifted her to his mouth, kissed her quickly and pushed her away.

She turned to Nick and said, "Nick, they're kishing me! You can't let them kish your firlgrien ... girlfriend."

Nick threw his head back and laughed, and she noticed something was different about him. Something was sticking out of his pants.

"You want to be my girlfriend, Britney? You want me to like you?" He walked toward her as he spoke.

"Yesh," Britney answered, staring.

"You like it?"

She didn't know if she did or didn't. What were girlfriends supposed to say when their boyfriends asked them that question?

"If you want me to like you and be your boyfriend," he spat the word out, as if saying it left a foul taste in his mouth, "you know what you gotta do ..."

Oh, that, Britney thought. Sarah and Kristy were right. Well, if Jenny Johnson and her friends had to do it to keep their boyfriends, and they were way prettier that her, she should have known she would be expected to do so as well. Whatever was necessary, whatever he wanted.

Stoveson and Howard passed the footbridge in Elk Park. Knowing what had happened here, they were on edge.

They lingered, staring into the illuminated canal, half expecting a giant snake to leap out of the water and attack them any second. All kinds of thoughts passed through their minds. A few made it to their mouths and out into the air.

"You think maybe it has a nest around here?" Steveson asked Howard.

"I don't know shit about snakes," he answered.

"Where do you think it came from?"

"If it's that big and that dangerous, it has to be some kind of military thing. Maybe some kind of genetic mutant weapon they were working on that got away."

"Sounds like a bad movie plot. Maybe they could get Matthew Broderick to do it as a follow-up to Godzilla."

"Who?"

She tried to think of another movie with Matthew Broderick, something he might know. "The guy in Ferris Bueler's Day Off, you know, the guy married to Sarah Jessica Parker, the Sex In The City chick."

"She's married?"

"What's that?" Stoveson said, suddenly moving the light.

Howard followed the beam with the shotgun: something dark floating in the water. He pulled the trigger and the gun roared, blowing a tire up onto the bank.

The blast echoed through the patrol car, making their ears ring.

"Damn," Howard said.

"Don't worry about it," Stoveson said. "Baskel said not to worry about wasting shells as long as we're shooting into the water. Better we fire a few extra times than one too few." She started the cruiser moving again.

"Yeah, but now we've got paperwork to do," Howard said.

The creature lifted its head, sensing a new surge of vibrations coursing through the water: one of its prey's machines. The machines did not threaten it so it ignored the vibrations and turned its attention back to the group of prey on the canal bank.

The emotions they emitted were not new, it had sensed them before while swimming in and around its prey's residences, but because the prey were right next to the water the emanations were much stronger, almost overpowering.

It sank back into the water and closed its eyes. Its hide, dry from prolonged exposure to the air, needed to rehydrate. Shutting down its visual sense intensified its ability to perceive psychically. It fed on the strong emotions, energizing itself.

Rehydrated, it sensed it was time to strike.

It slowly rose out of the water.

"Okay, we're back in business. Let's see what the perverts are up to now." The girl had opened her eyes again and Lawless could see the boy who seemed to be the leader, standing in front of him.

"Ah jeez, ah no. It's starting. He pulled his thing out and he's showing it to her. Ah..."

"Come on Danny, what else do you see?" Jensen pleaded.

"The new thing is it looks like she's going to get raped. Nothing else has changed. Wait, one of the other boys spun her around and is kissing her."

Upon hearing the girl was looking in a different direction, Jensen said, "What do you see now? Tell me about the houses."

"Big house. Two stories."

"What color? What's the roof look like?"

"Whoa. Someone else spun her around. She almost fell down. The other little prick is having his turn kissing on her. She's so drunk she's slurring her words. Oh man, what a little ... He just gave her an ultimatum: blow me or I won't like you. Kick him in the balls! Ah, man! Don't make me see this. If he lives through this I'm gonna' kick his little ass. Ah, jeez, no."

It wasn't so bad, Britney thought. It wasn't the tastiest thing she'd tried but it wasn't as bad as her mom's fried liver. She stared at his jeans, unable to close her eyes for fear the world would turn upside down.

She could do this, especially if it got her Nick.

He grunted and she heard the other boys cheering and Nick yelled and...

It was finally over.

She looked up at Nick and said, "Sho, are rou my foybrien now?"

"My friends have to like you, too," Nick said, looking a little like her dad after Thanksgiving dinner. "You have to make Josh like you or I won't be your boyfriend."

She felt someone nudge her left shoulder, Josh.

"No, Nick, pleash, I don wan-"

Josh forced himself on her while Brandon and Nick watched.

Josh looked down at Britney, who by now had tears running down her face, and yelled, "Oh, yeah! Oh yeah!"

Then her head and both his hands vanished.

"Oh shit! Oh shit!" Josh yelled, looking at Britney's headless corpse, seeing twin jets of blood spurt ten inches into the air from her severed neck. He staggered back and she toppled forward and landed on his shoes, flooding them with warm blood. He screamed.

Then he felt a terrible stinging in his arms and crotch. He looked at his arms and saw blood pumping out, waved his stumps about and screamed.

Nick stumbled back and tripped over the bag of beer, falling on his butt, staring at Josh. All he could remember was a dark flash, a blur from the canal. And then there was blood everywhere.

Catching movement to his right, he turned and saw what looked like a huge snake hulking over the edge of the canal, blood dripping from its jaws. It opened its mouth and bore its teeth at him. They glinted and sparkled.

He screamed and shot up, turning and spinning in the sand, struggling to right himself. Now running, he looked over his shoulder and saw the thing move laterally through the water until it was ahead of him. He tried to stop and reverse directions but his feet slipped in the sand.

The monster's head shot forward and struck him with tremendous force, knocking him ten feet through the air. He landed hard, heard something crack in his side, followed by a sharp stabbing pain, then bounced and landed on Britney's corpse, pinning her quivering, jumping legs.

Brandon, who up until now had been frozen with fear, did an irrational thing: he jumped over Nick and Britney and ran at the monster. The monster hit him with its head as it had hit Nick, breaking his right arm and knocking the wind out of him. He flew back and landed on top of Nick, cracking another of Nick's ribs.

Josh was going into shock and lost his balance and fell back off the canal bank. He landed on his back with a thud, blood still pumping from his arm-stumps and crotch, though with less force. He did not, could not, get up. "Help me..."

The monster's head appeared over the edge of the canal and hovered above him. It blinked its three eyes and he screamed, "Oh God! Oh mother!" It opened its jaws and he screamed again and threw his bloody arm-stumps in front of his face for protection and the thing lunged and ate them. Terrified, he screamed louder and kicked at it with his legs and it ate them, too, before backing away. It looked at the dying boy, turning its hideous head one way, then the other, then went at him one last time and took his head.

Nick kicked and shoved Brandon until he could sit up. He watched the creature slide over the canal bank until its head disappeared. Moments later he heard Josh scream, then scream again. He jumped up and ran down the canal away from the monster. His heart banged in his chest, threatening to burst through his sore ribs.

He'd gone twenty feet when it occurred to him he should get off the canal bank. He jumped down into the sand and twisted his ankle, sprung up, and limped to the fence. Using the fence like a crutch, he hobbled as quickly as his injured ankle would allow.

Panting, in pain, he glanced back as the monster raised its head. He flattened himself against the fence and whimpered, but the thing had locked its eyes on him and opened its mouth and lunged, sliding its long massive body down the canal bank.

Unable to run, Nick continued his hobble-walk along the fence. Fear forced the air from his lungs. He heard scraping sounds behind him, too close, and hobbled faster. A fence board flipped up under his hand and he fell through the gap into someone's backyard.

He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain in his ankle and ribs, and ran as fast as he could. Boards splintered behind him but he dared not turn and look.

Nick almost made it to the Neubaum's patio when he was attacked from behind. The monster bit Nick in half. His upper torso fell on the patio, his arms, reaching out, grabbed a hold of Britney's sweater and pulled it down with him to the cement. The monster bit off his head and ate his legs, leaving his chest and arms, then slid back through the hole it had bitten in the fence and went hunting for Brandon.

Brandon watched the monster chase after Nick, got up and ran down the canal bank, trying not to move his broken arm.

He ran fifty yards before daring a glance behind him: nothing.

A pair of headlights cut through the darkness up ahead; he yelled and waved his good arm. Red and blue flashing lights, and he thought, for the first time since the monster had attacked, that he was going to make it.

The police car came around the corner much faster than it should have on the dirt and gravel canal bank, but held its course. When its headlights lit him up, Brandon cried for joy and yelled, "Here! I'm here! Help me!"

The police car was fifty feet away when he was taken down from behind.

Someone screamed and a shotgun blast tore through the night.

Something splashed in the canal.

Chapter 14.

"Man, why doesn't she close her eyes now? I'm gonna kick this little prick's ass when this is over. Don't think you're getting away with this, Nick. I'll find you buddy."

Jensen ignored his theatrics, knowing it was unlikely that he, or anyone, would ever see Nick alive. She couldn't imagine they had much time left before the creature attacked.

She listened to him rant at the boys for another thirty seconds, heard something beep, looked around to see what it was, found nothing.

"Now he's telling her she's gotta do one of the other little pricks. I told you they were going to gang up on her. Filthy little bastards."

"What do you see?" she asked, hoping the girl was facing a different direction.

"Okay. Let's see, I can barely see the big house again. The kid's arm is in the way. Okay, he moved it. Here we go. There's some kind of construction on the second story. Looks like a ... like a deck or whatever, off the master bedroom. Ah jeez."

Jensen heard the beep again, twice, and looked around again. Nothing. Another beep, and she realized what it was. She looked at the cell phone and saw the battery light was blinking. How much time before it went dead? He must have a charger somewhere in the car but she didn't think there was time to find it and hook the phone up.

"Wait! There's something on the fence! Looks like an address of some sort."

Beep, beep.

East Fairmont Avenue. I can't see the number."

The phone gave one last beep and shut itself off. She set it on the seat.

"Yeah, that's it. East Fairmont. Must be the street the house faces. Baskel get that?"

"I hope so."

"What's that mean?"

"Your phone died a second after you read the street the first time."

"Use the radio. Make sure he got it."

She turned to make the call, but never got to it because Lawless screamed, "Black! Picture's gone black! I'm blind!"

He thrust his arms into the air, groping like a blind man.