The Second Intelligent Species: The Cyclical Earth by Dale Langlois Page A

be missed, and really shouldn’t be allowed to be involved in creating the next generation of men. Man didn’t need their DNA in the gene pool.
    I let them both get closer to me. My staff was about six feet long. I figured I could let them get at least eight feet away and then strike.
    “Looks like he’d be pretty tuff, don’t he?” the skinny one said. I recognized the bogus southern accent.
    “Tuff like he might kick our asses, or tough like we might have to chew him longer,” the bigger one said.
    They both laughed the way crazy people did in the movies.
    “Keep laughing boys,” I said just low enough so they couldn’t hear.
    “Bring us all your cats, and we’ll give you water.” They seemed to be stalling, sizing me up. I had to act fast.
    “Blow me asshole.” I said defiantly hoping to draw a confrontation.
    Amazed at the cockiness of a crippled man, they decided to teach me a lesson. “Git that cocksucker,” one of them said.
    They both charged at me. As soon as they were about ten feet away, I drew my secret weapon. With one swift, well-practiced move, I slid the flashlight down my sleeve and turned it on. I shined it into their eyes. It stopped one of them.
    As the light flared, I swung my staff. Because I had it anchored against my shoulder, I could swing it with leverage and power.
    It connected with Tex, knocking off his hat. He dropped in his tracks. When it collided with his head, the sound reminded me of a pumpkin when it hits the road at thirty miles an hour. I know. I tossed pumpkins when I was a kid. The impact jarred my hand and I dropped the pipe.
    I tried to shine the flashlight in the face of the bigger one, but all it did was to let him know exactly where I was. He bulldogged me onto my back. I landed on some jagged metal, and dropped the light. It rolled over to where Tex was laying. I reached for my knife. His hands were around my throat, and I couldn’t breathe. His right leg had my left arm pinned to my side. I could feel my knife but I couldn’t move my hand enough to break it free. I was not going to let go of it for anything. My right hand was all I had to protect myself with.
    I wasn’t just fighting to save my own life, but to save the life of those four children and their nurses. One of them was Beth.
    I reached up with my right hand and dug my finger into the eye of this big bastard who was trying to kill me. My finger went into the orbital socket as eye goo ran down my arm. He still didn’t let go. I clawed, punched, and dug at him as fiercely as I could. A tidal wave of fear overcame me. Not the fear of dying, but the realization that I had failed the others. I started to black out when he just went limp and fell on top of me. When he fell, he released his death grip on my neck. I could feel warmth all around him. He was all covered in blood and so was I. Close to passing out from lack of oxygen, I still had enough consciousness left to be confused by the blood. I could smell it. Other than his eye, I had done little damage.
    It took a few attempts to roll his limp corpse off my chest. I saw Beth, shaking, vomiting and crying all at the same time. She had the Leatherman in her hand.
    She had killed the big guy before he killed me. Being a nurse she knew just where to stab a man for the quickest, most efficient kill. She had stuck him under his arm and lacerated an artery, then again in his chest under his arm, piercing his lung. One last jab in his mid back sliced his liver.She never had time to reach his carotid artery. He collapsed before she could.
    “Nick, Nick, I’m sorry I followed you, but I couldn’t let you leave us alone.” She bent down to pick up the flashlight that was still on.
    I tried to talk but my windpipe was crushed and I was worrying about breathing, let alone talking. Air was getting in, but only enough to make me crave more.
    “Breathe, Nick, breathe.” She shined the light into my eyes. “You’ll be fine in a couple of minutes.” After