Freeze by Daniel Pyle Page B

off, and flung it at the monster. 
    When the coal stopped smoking, she pulled back the tongs, let the chunk of cooled wood drop to the floor, and swung the empty tongs. They thunked into the creature’s head, and a long fissure opened up in the ice, running from the impact point to the middle of its mouth, breaking its head almost in two.
    The thing reached up for the tongs again but couldn’t seem to find them. Its limbs curled, whipped, and waved from one side to the other, searching, reaching, finding nothing.
    Tess lifted the tongs over her shoulder and swung them into the monster again. The tongs hit the creature right in the split running down its face. If she’d been chopping wood, it would have been the perfect swing. And really, she guessed this was basically the same concept. The tool thunked into the thing’s wound, widening the gap, pushing the two halves of its head farther apart. Before the monster could pull free or try to tug the tongs out of her hands, Tess gripped the handles and jerked them apart. The end of the tongs spread, the creature shrieked and shuddered. A long, wet cracking sound came from somewhere in the vicinity of the thing’s neck (or where’s its neck would have been if it’d had one), and then one half of its head broke clean off. The chunk of ice slapped against the wall, broke in half again, and fell. The creature let out a wet, guttural sound, something almost like a burp, and toppled to the floor.
    Tess didn’t wait to see if it was still alive; she grabbed the other half of its head with the tongs, squeezed the handles, twisted, and decapitated the little son of a bitch. Then she smashed the remaining torso and tentacles into slush.
    From the other end of the house came the loudest cracking sound yet. A thump followed, then a series of scrapes and a triumphant-sounding roar.
    Tess dropped to her knees beside Bub.
    His eyes were closed, his fur covered in blood. She slid her hand under his head and cupped the side of his neck, feeling for a pulse, not sure if that even worked for a dog. She felt nothing.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” And then she was crying. Tears ran down her cheeks and into her mouth, hot and salty. Snot dripped over her upper lip and from there to the floor. She wiped her face with her arm and cried harder still.
    Quit it! Get out of here now and mourn later, or stay here and die beside him.
    She wiped her face again and took a few long, gasping breaths. 
    Where was she supposed to go?
    She heard the monster sliding through the house, heard the taps and bangs she guessed were its tentacles hitting the floor and the hallway walls. She thought the fire might keep it at bay, at least for a while, but then remembered there was no fire. Not anymore.
    You’ve got to go. Go, go, GO!
    She pulled her hand out from under Bub, still crying. She guessed she had two options left: stay here and fight the thing with nothing but the tongs and her bare hands (which wasn’t an option at all if she wanted to live past the next five minutes; she’d been lucky so far, but she was no kind of monster slayer) or go out into the storm. Out with no warm clothes. Out to where the larger kitchen monster had fled, to where there might be dozens more of the things. Out to almost certain death.
    It’s certain either way, and you know it. That bedroom monster has cut you off from the rest of the house. You can’t go around it, and you can’t stay here and fight it. Going out into the storm is a sucky option, but it’s the only option.
    She stood up and reached for the door.
    And Bub moved.
    No, you imagined that.
    She wiped more tears from her eyes and looked again.
    Bub’s back leg flinched, and he opened his eye.
    Tess huffed out a sound: half laugh and half disbelieving sob. She dropped back to her knees and ran her hand down Bub’s side, trying to avoid his wounds. He lifted his head an inch or two off the floor, whined, and then lowered his face back into