Assassin's Apprentice: Chapter 21-22

21.

Lowry, still desperately hugging the specimen carrier to his bare chest, hurtled through the night sky toward the ground until his fall was broken by a giant ponderosa pine tree. The first branch snapped his back, shattering three vertebrae like a baseball bat smashing ice cubes. He was still alive, screaming in pain as his naked body continued to drop through the merciless, clawing branches. He smacked into the second and third branches, breaking both his legs. A fourth branch tore off his right hand and the carrier with it. The fifth branch flicked him like a pinball flipper, sending him somersaulting face-first into the tree trunk, where his face scraped along the rough bark for a few feet, ripping the flesh from one side of his head. The next branch formed a thick V, which snagged his head like a snake wrangler, holding it immobile while the rest of his body continued to plummet downward. Lowry’s neck snapped, the spine jerking clean apart at the base of the skull, killing him instantly.

The carrier, slowed and buffeted by the tree, thumped to the ground intact. The door was pinned facedown against the ground.

No movement. No sound. Nothing.

At first.

Then a scraping sound against the door. Not clawing, for the creature had no claws. But a sandpaper-against-glass sound. Then that stopped. No movement for a minute, as if the creature realized the futility of pushing against the door. Silence stretched. Suddenly, the carrier began to shift as the creature jammed its weight against one side until the carrier toppled over and the unlocked door swung open.

The creature skittered out.