Chapter 8: Bronze

Marta went down on the concrete with both hands pressed to her side.

The big one put its head down to her.

I got there first and went under it, the way I'd gone under the beam in the church.

My shoulder found the soft place behind its front legs, and I stood up.

It came off the floor.

It was the heaviest thing I'd ever lifted, heavier than the church roof, and all six legs were trying to take my face off.

"Shoot it!" Lou yelled at Ironworks. "Somebody shoot it!"

Nobody did.

Ray's right-hand man and his five men had backed up to the loading door with their guns up.

They were watching to see if it ate me.

If I hit it, my strength would go, and it would come down on Marta.

So I carried it.

There was an old grain pit in the floor near the wall, a square hole with a rusted grate half off it.

I walked the big one across the silo on my back, one step at a time.

I tipped it into the pit.

It went in head first and stuck there with four legs waving, too wide to turn around.

I ran back to Marta.

There was so much blood on the concrete that Lou's flashlight shone in it.

Her face had gone the color of the silo.

"Pressure," she said. "Press. Hard."

I put both hands over the wound.

It was ten inches long, and I could feel her pulse coming out through my fingers.

"Danny." She grabbed my wrist. "Listen to me. I've seen this. Tell Shane..."