Claws Read Online Free

shadows that took on whatever shape his imagination sculpted, while his ears worked overtime to sort the rustles and groans whipped up by the wind. When Ed finally entered, a charge of electricity combed the hair on his arms and neck. He squeezed the M4 and swiveled the short-barreled Colt from side to side.
    As he moved slowly down the center, Ed felt himself stepping on a lush jungle path instead of barnwood, smelled pungent fish sauce instead of dry manure, felt the weight of a fully automatic M16 in his hands, his body young and strong and his senses as sharp as the knife in the sheath strapped to his leg. Left. Right. Slow and careful. In the jungle the survivors move silently. Left, right, left, right, left. He heard a crunch and stopped. If it was a Bouncing Betty beneath his foot, and he moved, the landmine would explode. He looked down, but he didn’t see Army boots. Instead, he saw familiar black police brogues. For a moment there, my god, it had felt so real, thought Ed, that he had tasted the danger of Vietnam again.
    Ed lifted his foot and stepped back to see what was beneath it. It looked like a rabbit’s foot – small, furry,and – no, not rabbit. It was a cat’s paw. The realization and the sound reached him at the same time.
    The animal looking down at him from a twelve-foot high overhang was neither a monster nor a fantasy. It was Ted and Dolly Cheney’s road to riches – one of the giant cats intended to be the feature attraction at a drive-through safari park that federal, state, and county officials had blocked from opening. Ed had seen the liger before, one of a pair held in a disgusting cage at Safari Land. He had seen their claws shred a metal barrel and seen them chomp through frozen chickens, bones and all, like they were potato chips. He knew the huge creature was dangerous.
    Ed swung the Colt M4 around as Kali lunged. Her heavy body flattened him, and his breath was squeezed out with a whoosh. Then her claws clamped his head like a vice set with spikes. A tiger has the jaw power of one thousand pounds per square inch, and lions and tigers often kill their prey by severing the spinal cord. Kali’s bite had far more power, enough to break open a bowling ball. When she bit Ed’s neck, his bones snapped like dry twigs.
    Ed’s final thought was about the cigarette butt left on the mat of his police car. He had failed to pick it up and throw it out. That secret he had planned to keep.

Three
    Jackson heard Iris call to him as he neared the Jeep and turned to see her approaching. She wore suede boots, a khaki skirt that brushed their tops, and a thin, cream sweater that clung to her curves. He felt the same jumbled emotions he always felt when his eyes remembered her body.
    “You didn’t make any friends in there, you know,” Iris said. She stopped two feet away from Jackson.
    “Ed has a lot of friends in there.”
    “The town is broke, Jackson. We may have to borrow money just to make it through the fiscal year.”
    “Well, don’t forget you sleep with the banker.”
    “And don’t forget I’m your boss either.” After Iris had said it, she looked away. She couldn’t let him goad her. She couldn’t afford a public fight, not in her town. Iris had come to Buckhorn when she was eight. That’s when her father retired from the railroad in Pocatello and moved the family north. She had remained here until Dell broke her heart, and she begged her parents to send her away to college in Colorado. Fort Collins, Colorado is where her romance withJackson began and for her where it had ended. “We need to talk about Jesse. You seen her today?”
    Jackson nodded. “At the football field.”
    The purse strapped across Iris’ left shoulder had somebody’s initials artfully splashed across it. She reached inside the bag. When she brought her hand out, she showed Jackson the purple foil wrapper of a condom.
    “Thanks, Iris, but I don’t really need one.”
    She jiggled her hand. “This was in