The Ruins Part 2 (Sequel to The Ruins)

Chapter 42

"Go! Go... GO!" Bellowed Mal as she grabbed the kids and Benny and shoved them toward the forest wall. "Into the trees."

"I'm sorry!" Yelled Benny.

"Shut up and run!"

The ground shook as seven thousand pounds of furious muscle rumbled toward them. Despite its size, the animal was incredibly fast. Lalon flung his spear at it, but the blade merely slashed a red groove along its armored shoulder. It did nothing expect make the rhino madder.

"Oh," he said softly, and then he was running.

Mal lingered a split second longer, sighting along the barrel of her gun at the rhino's black eye. Then she whipped the gun away, shoved it into its holster, and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. She caught up with the others and yelled at them to cut left so they were running almost parallel to the road.

The rhino tried to turn sharply to intercept, but the angle was too sharp. It's huge feet skidded on the dried mud of the road. Then, with a roar, it headed straight into the forest. The rhino's shoulders slammed into a pair of slender pines, snapping them at the base.

"Use the trees," yelled Vix. "Circle around the big ones."

Sam was in the lead, and he shifted his angle to head toward a gnarled old sycamore. He dodged behind it, then spun and pulled Benny and Max in behind him.

The rhino spotted them and charged. It veered at the last second, so instead of hitting the tree full on, its horns slashed a deep gouge in the woods and shook the old sycamore from roots to leaves. The rhinos whirled and rammed the tree again, and Max threw his arms up to shield his eyes from the spray of splinters the impact out of the gouge. The animal tried to chase them around the tree, but they were more agile. It snorted and trotted away, then cut left and rammed again, and this time there was a crack and the sycamore canted sideways and crashed down on the grass with a huge leafy whumpf!

"Now what do we do?" Whispered Benny in a strangled voice. Sam shot a look at him and saw that his friend's eyes were wide and jumpy with fear that was very quickly going to overwhelm him.

The beast galloped forty feet away and then cut right into a right circle. This time it didn't attack the tree but instead began angling to come around the trunk and go straight for Benny. The rhinos came at them like a thunderbolt.

"HEY!" Sam yelled as he stood up and waved his arms over his head. Instantly the think changed the angle of its charge and came straight for him. "Come on!" He cried to Max, and then he was racing away from the fallen tree.

"What are you doing?" Max yelled in panic, but as soon as he said it he understood. Sam tore across ten yards of open field toward a line of massive oaks. The rhino could never hope to knock one of them over.

Max turned to pull Benny over the trunk so they could follow, but Benny was gone. Max caught a glimpse of him running away from the oaks, heading toward a cluster of pines.

"Benny, no! Not that way!"

The rhino slowed to a trot and looked from Max to Sam and then at Benny. Sam was vanishing behind the trunk of a monstrous oak. Max was still partly covered by the huge bulk of dark roots from the overturned sycamore. Benny had a longer run ahead of him, and the only protection he had was a line of pines. Their bushy branches would hide him, but the soft pines offered no protection at all.

The rhino charged after Benny.

Max broke from the side of the sycamore and began shouting as Sam had. "Hey! Big and ugly! Over here!"

But if the rhino heard him, it didn't care. Chasing Benny was a straight run and an easy kill. It thundered after Benny, crushing huckleberry bushes and saplings under its ponderous bulk.