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.But in spite of her confusing behavior andprobable duplicity, he liked her; she was smart andconfident, she was beautiful and he had assumedthere was a good, decent person beneath that contra-dictory facade.and yet she left you to chase after the shooter,left you rolling on the floor with a bullet in your arm.Yeah, she's great; you should propose.He'd reached a split in the tunnel, and blocked outhis wandering attempts to figure out Ada's actions,reminding himself that he could ask her when hefound her - if he found her.There was a locked gateto the right, so Leon turned left, peering uneasily intothe thickening shadows as he trudged onward.Heshouldn't have let Claire go after Ada alone, he shouldhave pulled himself together and gone with her.He stopped, hearing something.Shots, distant and hollow, coming from somewhere up ahead, distortedby the winding maze of tunnels that made up thesewer system.Still holding the Magnum tightly, Leon pressed hiswrist against the bullet wound and started to run, thepain going sharp again, making him queasy.Hecouldn't manage much better than a shagging jog, thewater slowing him down almost as much as the nastybite of the wound, but as the last echo of the shotsfaded away, he somehow found the motivation to gofaster.There was a dimly lit offshoot to the tunnel aheadand to the left, pale yellow light streaming out acrossthe softly slopping water.Even before he reached it,he saw that he would have to make a choice.Straightin front of him was a platform of sorts, a heavy doorset into the ragged bricks of the tunnel's end, waterdripping down from the ceiling in slender rivulets.An obvious choice, except.Leon stopped in the elongated patch of murky light,looking down into the offshoot.Another door, and hedidn't have time to decide, the shots could have comefrom anywhere.Barn-bam!To the left.Leon jumped up from the tunnel, feelingnew pain, feeling hot wetness against his wrist as thewound started to seep.He ignored it, hurrying to thedoor and pulling it open, hearing more rounds fired ashe started down a wide and empty hall.The corridor he'd entered was as shadowy and coldas the sewage tunnels, but much bigger, wider, pre-sumably some kind of transport hall for heavy equip-ment.It twisted left and then left again, boxes and arack of steel canisters against the second comer, justpast some kind of a loading door.acetylene, maybe oxy, good GOD what takesthat many bullets and doesn't die?He heard another string of shots, splashing waterand a different sound, a deep and guttural hissing thatchilled him to his core.Strangely familiar, but tooloud to be possible.A million snakes, a thousand giant cats, some pri-mordial, terrible dinosaur.He ran, finally giving up trying to hold the bullethole closed, needing his arm free to pump for morespeed.The end of the tunnel was close, he saw a panelof blinking lights and an opening to the left, anotherhuge loading door.and he stopped just short of running into the lineof fire as another rapid succession of shots sounded,as a thundering crash of water sprayed out, water raining down on the floor in a thick sheet."Stop, I'm coming in!" He shouted and heard Ada's voice,and felt a sweeping relief in spite of whatever horror was ahead."Leon!"She's alive!Magnum raised, his wound bleeding freely now,he stepped in front of the open door and saw Adaacross a lake of churning muck, boxes and brokenboards swimming through the turbulent liquid.She was standing on a small ledge of concrete be-neath a ladder, her Beretta pointed into the thrash-ing pool."Ada, what."Splash!A giant burst out of the lake and slammed him offof his feet, knocking him back into the corridor.Ithappened so fast that he didn't actually see it beforehe was flying through the air, his mind feeding himthe picture as he hit the ground.He fell on his injuredarm and cried out, as much from the shock of whathe'd seen as from the stinging blast of pain.- crocodile -Leon was on his feet and stumbling away before heeven knew he could get up and the giant lizard, thecroc that was thirty feet long if it was an inch, steppedinto the corridor behind him with a mighty, bellowingroar.The cement trembled as the mammoth reptilecrawled up from the waters of its home, gallons ofblack water streaming from its toothy, grinning jaws.- jaws as big as me, bigger -Leon ran, there was no pain, his heart hammeringin a primal panic.It would eat him, it would shredhim into a hundred screaming, bloody chunks.and the beast roared again, an impossibly lowbellow that rattled his bones, that urged sweat to burstfrom every quaking pore.and Leon shot a look back, and saw that he wasmuch, much faster than the grinning lizard.It wasstill climbing through the loading door, its tree-trunklegs short and squat, its incredible bulk too huge tomaneuver so easily.Leon swapped weapons in a daze of terror, hiswound shrieking as he chambered a round into theRemington.He sidled backwards in an uneven gait,reaching a turn in the hall -- and unloaded all five shells as quickly as he couldpump them, the heavy rounds blasting the monstercrocodile's hideous snout.It roared, swinging its head from side to side, blooderupting from its grinning face in buckets, but still itcame, lumbering forward, dragging its armored tail from the pool of slime behind it.Not enough, not enough power.Leon turned and ran again, horrified at having toretreat, afraid of what would happen to Ada when heleft the crocodile behind, but knowing that it wouldtake another fifty rounds to stop it - that or a nuclearblast, and why was he still thinking, he needed to getaway and then worry about what to do.Hang on, Ada.The booming steps of the giant filled his ears as heran past the boxes, past the row of steel cylindersand stopped running.His instincts cried out forsanity, but he had an idea - and as the terrible lizardtook another twisting, thundering step, Leon turnedand went back.Let this work, it works in the movies, please God belistening.The row of five gleaming canisters was inset on athick shelf cut into the wall, held into place by a steelcable.There was a release button for the cable on theside of the shelf.Leon slapped it, and the heavy wiredrooped, one looped end falling to the floor.Dropping the shotgun, he grabbed the closest of thecylinders, his muscles straining, blood pouring fromhis injured arm.He could feel thin, trickling trails ofit sliding down his sweat-slick chest but didn't stop,rocking back on his heels to free the can of com-pressed gas.there!Leon jumped back as the silver can fell off the shelf,hitting the ground and rolling a few inches.He lookedup and saw that the croc had covered another fiftyfeet - close enough for him to see the dull, dirty pitsin its six-inch teeth as it roared again, close enoughfor him to smell the rotting-meat stench of its hotbreath only a second later.Leon raised one boot to the canister and shovedwith all he had, the can lazily rolling back toward thegaining lizard
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