The Borderkind by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online

an earthquake. It was too regular, too rhythmic, to be anything of the sort. It was more like he imagined a battlefield would be, the impact of mortar shells or bombs not too far away.
    “Let’s keep going,” he said.
    They walked more quickly now, moving along the river’s edge beneath the shade of branches of the trees along the bank. The tremors continued at a slow, steady march, but they were growing in intensity.
    “It’s getting closer,” Julianna said. “Ted, maybe we should go a different way.”
    Halliwell shook his head, not in disagreement but simply in confusion. He had no idea what to do. Again, they faltered and came to a halt. Now the branches and leaves all shook with each tremor. The shaking of the earth was not strong enough to throw them off of their feet, but if it kept growing, it soon would be.
    “Maybe,” he said at last. “Through the woods. West, I guess it is.”
    Julianna turned to go into the trees, away from the river. Halliwell went to follow her but took one last look downstream. As he did, he saw the albino giant come around the bend in the river, towering as high as the trees.
    The giant was hideous, the bones in its bleached white face jutting through taut leathery skin, eyes gleaming pink like a fresh scar, the bones of its ribs so sharply defined that they seemed about to tear through the flesh. It bent to snatch at something in the water and Halliwell saw jagged ridges of bones that protruded from the skin along its spine.
    His hands shook, one going to his mouth as if to keep himself silent, the other to his chest, which tightened with a sharp, unfamiliar pain. Halliwell froze and stared at the thing, unable to breathe. He had never known terror before, and it engulfed him, unknown and unwelcome.
    The thing had frozen as well. From a hundred yards downriver, it stared at him. Then it stood and cocked back its head. He was sure it was sniffing at the air, catching their scent on the wind.
    “Weird,” Julianna said, a few feet away in the trees. “The ground stopped…”
    Her words trailed off. He glanced over and saw that she had seen the thing now. She screamed, the sound tearing the air like fabric. The wind died in that moment, as though it were composed of spirits who stopped to listen, to watch.
    A breath burst from Halliwell’s lips and then he was sucking another in, learning how to fill his lungs all over again.
    The giant threw back its head and screamed in return, as if mimicking Julianna. Then it began to run toward them, a thunderous gait that was far swifter than Halliwell would have imagined. Its eyes were narrowed and its lips pulled back in a snarl that exposed a jagged mess of teeth.
    He grabbed Julianna’s wrist. “Go!”
    The two of them fled into the trees together. Low branches scratched at him and he held up his free hand to ward them off. They plummeted through the woods on a roughly westward path. Julianna was shouting questions at him, clutching his hand with such terror that he thought his fingers would break.
    The ground shook now with each pounce of the towering monster. Once. Twice. They made it half a dozen feet between each impact. On the third one, Halliwell heard the splintering of wood behind him and bits of the forest crashed down.
    He was not a man prone to prayer. Now he whispered to God; thought of the daughter he had not seen in so very long, who had never really understood how much he loved her, and stopped. Julianna cursed loudly, madness in her eyes, hair wild, face scratched. She struggled to be free of him, but he held her fast.
    “We can’t—”
    Its shadow fell upon them, swallowing the sun, and then it landed ten feet away, trees crushed to pulp beneath its mass. It stared down at them with those revolting pink eyes and snarled, baring its filth-encrusted, jagged, broken teeth. It slid its tongue out and a thick string of drool dripped to the ground.
    It looked hungry.
    Julianna staggered backward, still wild-eyed; there