The Templar's Legacy (Ancient Enemy) (43 page)

As soon as Max's brain processed what he was seeing, he screamed and pushed himself back, or tried to. The force of his push lifted the lid enough so that it fell further open, but something stopped him from moving away. He looked down in horrific disbelief to see a bloated, white arm with ulcerous flesh hanging limply from the bones reaching up from the water. The half-skeletal hand connected to the arm grabbed his filthy, wet shirt and held on with inhuman strength. Max screamed in terror and instinctively brought the tire iron he still had in his hand down upon the arm. The arm squished and squirted nasty black fluid where he hit, but it didn't let go. In mindless panic, he pounded on the arm again and again with the tire iron. Finally, he freed himself and fell back into the water. In horror, he saw another bloated arm, with bones showing through tears in the gelatinous flesh, rise and grab the side of the box.

Max didn't wait to see what was going to come out of the box. In screaming panic, he threw himself to the side of the pit where the floor beam had landed and used the beam to launch himself out of the hole. He grabbed the floor above and scrambled to pull himself up. The horror of that thing grabbing his legs gave him a burst of frantic strength and speed.

He finally got himself all the way out and onto the wooden floor. Below him, only partially illuminated by the flashlight still sitting in the dirt, the white corpse continued to struggle to get out of the coffin. Max jumped up and ran out the front door, screaming the whole way. He left a glittering trail of gold as he stumbled out of the building into the fading light and fled to his car. He jumped in his car and looked down to find his keys. He screamed anew when he saw a hand and upper arm, loosely clad in sagging white flesh, still clutching his shirt. He tried to pull the hand off by grabbing the protruding ulna, but he couldn't get it off. He fell out of the car, ripped his tee off, and threw it to the ground. He leapt back into his car, fired it up, and sped away down the pock marked hundred-foot drive. This time, he didn't even notice the potholes. He hit 40 by the time he got to the broken gate.

Fortunately, there were no cars coming as he fishtailed onto the country road that led back to town. Unfortunately, a patrolman watched in disbelief as Max careened from the county road onto the highway and tore off at high speed.

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