The Unkillables Read Online Free PDF Page A

bleeding from the temple—one of those stones had hit her, and she seemed woozy and off-balance. Damn that Big-Brow bitch! Why couldn’t she retreat under her own power, instead of slowing down the Jaw that way?
    Meanwhile the shining-green invader had another victim in its teeth—a woman; men were retreating, spears raised as they moved backwards, in their panic abandoning anyone outside their perimeter. The woman howled and shook just as Pebble’s corpse had done. The green Big-Brow had only been able to grab her by the arm. He was trying to drag her resisting body closer so he could reach her head, and had almost succeeded when a spear meant for him slammed into her and knocked her out of his grip. With an angry roar he flung himself at the line of young men. They stabbed at him desperately with their spears, and shrieking women ran from behind the line and struck the Big-Brow with their knives, but the Big-Brow seemed not to notice as he nabbed one of the hunters and hugged the boy to him, chomping loudly through the skull to get to the brain.
    Chert raced around the flank of the hunters’ line—they were so keyed-up he felt that if he’d run straight at them, expecting them to part, they would have impaled him instead. The Jaw was still helping Gash-Eye to the cave. She seemed to be pleading with the Jaw about something, as he angrily dismissed whatever she was saying.
    “Come on!” shouted Chert as he reached them; to Gash-Eye, he said, “Move on your own if you’re coming with us, damn you!”
    It wasn’t like the screams had ever stopped. But they reached such a crescendo that all three of them turned to look behind. One-armed Pebble was completely black now, too, like the Big-Brows had been, and was eating the brain of his spasming sister Acorn. Others of their friends and families, the ones whose skulls hadn’t been emptied, were already covered in those expanding webs of black lines and were rampaging among their yet-unbitten former fellows.
    In a panic the surviving hunters were running up the hill. Chert, Gash-Eye, and the Jaw were between them and the mouth of the cave. Pebble, green now that he’d eaten a brain, launched himself at the runners from behind, tackling some of them. They in turn fell into the Jaw and his parents, knocking them down and landing atop them. The green hunter (it no longer felt right to call it “Pebble”) snapped among the fallen until it had a man’s head firmly in its jaws. With its remaining arm it grabbed at the air, trying to get hold of one of the people scrambling away.
    Chert rose, hauling the Jaw up with him. He started to drag the Jaw toward the cave again, but jumped back when the green arm swiped near him. He saw that the other Big-Brow, bright green still, as well as some of Chert’s former brethren, were running away from them and up the hill, pursuing the People to the cave. Looking down the slope, Chert saw nobody. He decided that away from those things was a good direction to run, and started pulling the Jaw after him.
    “No!” the Jaw shouted, pulling back. “My mother!” But Chert was stronger, and forced his son to come with him.
    Till they heard Gash-Eye howling something in her strange accent, even more incomprehensible now than ever, as if she were reverting to the language of her childhood. At that sound, the Jaw dug in his heels. “No!” he shouted again.
    Chert realized that the Jaw was going to escape from him, or else delay them both so much that those things would notice them and come bounding down the hill. Soon there would be lots of them, too—it was plain to see how the evil black-web spirit and the green-glowing spirit were sweeping through and consuming the People. Chert spun the Jaw around by the shoulder and punched him as hard as he could in the face.
    The Jaw tumbled onto his back, dazed eyes rolling in confusion. For good measure, Chert knelt and punched him once more. Now his son was more or less unconscious.
    Chert