But then, that wasn't their job. That duty belonged to the soldiers perched up on the roof of the parking garage across the street. The four policemen on the lower roof were, to put it plainly, bait. Their purpose, although the Brass had not put it in so many words, was to draw the enemy's attention so that the army boys could pump rockets into it from behind. It was a lousy job, but someone had to do it, and frankly nobody had been able to come up with a better plan on such short notice.

The first thing that darted into view were people. News reporters, they looked like, the goddamned idiots. No sense to come in out of the rain, let alone stay the hell away from the thing that was chasing them, the thing which just then caught up to them. It was every little kid's B-movie nightmare, a hairy, fang-toothed wolfman, or manwolf, or whatever, but blown up fifteen times. A hundred feet tall or more, it looked as though it had somehow stepped right off of a giant drive-in screen showing a Saturday horror matinee. Just as suddenly as that it had shown up and started running wild through the streets, killing people left and right, smashing buildings down, moving so fast that there was no time for the population to react. The wolf caught them as they fled, and though Bradley hadn't seen any of it himself, he had heard as he raced to the scene that what it did to them was ungodly gruesome.

Now he got to see it firsthand. The people below were running for their lives, but compared to the furry monster on their tail they might just as well have been crawling. The wolf caught up to them with just two paces, and then took an awkwardly long stride to try to step on them. His foot came down but missed its mark.

The other one did not. Bradley and his crew watched, stunned, as the people squealed and covered their heads with their arms before they vanished abruptly beneath the giant paw. The beast barked thunderously and wagged his tail and gave his foot a vicious twist, making awful stuff squirt out from under his toes before he raised it up and took aim on his next victims. He stomped them flat, one and two at a time, as deliberately and as gleefully as a cruel kid wiping out a nest of ants.

Their command post was gone, probably flattened into the pavement themselves, but Bradley and his comrades did not need orders to open fire. "Aim for the motherfucker's eyes!" the man on Bradley's left said. Their rifles chattered and jerked in their arms as they poured lead into the massive wall of fur at the end of the block. Every bullet found its target -- how could they not? -- but spent themselves in an unimaginably thick layer of matted fur, which merely ruffled with their impacts as though the beast was standing out in the rain. It was appallingly clear that they were not hurting him in the slightest.

But they did get his attention.

Growling, the wolf tucked his ears down, showed his teeth, turned and stalked angrily toward the three little men. The roof upon which they stood sat atop a five-story building, but the wolf still towered over them by more than double their height. As he approached he brought his ears forward and his snarl turned into an unholy grin, an expression of pure sadistic delight. Their guns were still popping, still making raindrop-hits in the thick fur, and to his horror every time Bradley took aim at a blazing yellow eye he saw a flash of blue as some sort of membrane flicked down over the orb. It did not even slow the giant down.

What the fuck were the army boys waiting for? "Jesus Christ" Bradley shouted at the top of his lungs, "Get him while his back is turned, you assholes!"

As quick as the muzzle-flashes erupted on the roof of the garage the giant wolf spun about to face them. His attention had been on the tiny men on the house below. There was no way he could have seen the soldiers on the roof behind him. Holy Mary, could the brute have understood what Bradley said?

The soldiers opened up with every rocket they had, never figuring that something so enormous could be so nimble. Like the skinny kid in gym class the wolf was the King of Dodgeball. He leaped left, then right, his body arching to let a trail of flame race past him. Explosions erupted in the empty lots on either side of Bradley's building, and then one went off deep inside and made the whole building lurch as though it would fall apart. Or maybe that had just been the impacts of the giant's feet as he danced out of the way of the barrage.

Soon the launchers were empty, and the giant was not about to give the soldiers time to reload. They were right at his eye level, so all he had to do was lunge forward, and when he drew his head back there was a green-clad body clamped tightly between his teeth. With a playful growl he shook his head so violently that a helmet with a head still contained went sailing off in a grim home run into the distance; then he bolted the rest eagerly into his throat and swallowed. Gulp-gulp-gulp, and nothing was left.

A rocket shot wildly past his head and the wolf thrust a hand onto the roof. It appeared again a second later clutching a shrieking figure. The shrieking stopped when the wolf gave a powerful squeeze, then dropped the body and grabbed for another. Within a few ghastly seconds the soldiers were gone, torn to pieces between the monster's teeth and hands, or -- the poor bastards -- swallowed whole.

The man on Bradley's left choked, "Oh God, oh God." At that moment, though, God was apparently busy elsewhere.

The wolf took a single step forward, crossing the street and gazing down at them. He had the look of a dog that had just dug himself up a warren of rabbits, mixed with the sneer of a playground bully, all rolled up in the form of a giant that could not be stopped and knew it.

That was not the worst of it. The giant had an erection. It was as big as a stretch limo, and from the height that the policemen stood on the rooftop it was pointing straight at them. Bradley got the idea that the wolf did not necessarily have it in mind to eat them.

The other men got the same idea at the same time, and all four of them wheeled and made a mad dash for the stairway door. The wolf was faster, though. Before they had run three steps an enormous hand swept over their heads and came down on the flimsy shack that covered the stairwell, crushing it like a tin can and blocking their escape. The crunch of metal was followed by thunderous, inhuman laughter from above. A bucketful of warm, slick drool fell from above and splattered messily on Bradley's shoulder.

At least, he hoped it was drool.

Heroes are usually the ones who stand and fight against impossible odds. They are also the ones who earn the title posthumously. Bradley was in no mood to be a hero that day. Casting about wildly, his eye fell on the rusted shell of a blower housing. There was an opening in one side, probably the hole through which scavengers had made off with the rooftop blower unit years ago, leaving the metal box behind. The rational part of his brain told Bradley that it would not be suitable cover, that he would only be trapped in there and allow the monster to catch him at its leisure.

The other part, the instinctive part, the scared rabbit part, shouted for a hiding place, and that is the part he listened to.

Bradley dove headlong into the square hole and wormed his way to the furthest corner where he cowered, shivering and panting and wide-eyed. Through the ancient grating he could see his three comrades racing about the roof with desperate shouts. Immense furry hands followed them, batting them around, catching them when they tried to leap off the side of the roof and knocking them back into play. It was a savage game that Bradley knew would only have one outcome for the losing side. With each passing moment the men's cries became more shrill, more frantic, less human.

At one point one of the men was caught by the leg between two big fingers. They lifted him ten feet or more off of the rooftop, shook him until there was an agonizing crack, and then dropped him. He landed with a meaty thud and howled, then started crawling away, dragging his limp leg behind him. The sky darkened as a powerful thigh swept forward into view, and then through the grating Bradley watched helplessly as the wolf crouched and buried the stricken man under a pair of testicles that must have weighed more than a ton apiece.

The other two men together made yet another wild dash toward the edge of the roof. They were easily caught, one in each hand, and lifted, flailing, high and out of sight. Bradley could not see what was happening to them, and for that he was grateful, but he could still hear it, no matter how hard he pressed his hands to his ears. The awful screams, and other sounds even more awful than those, went on for several long minutes. Bradley recoiled and squeezed his eyes shut, his hands pressing so tightly to his ears that it felt as though his skull would pop.

Then there was silence.

Bradley gasped, shocked by the abrupt lack of sound. Trembling, he crept forward and peered through the grating. The body of the officer that the monster had sat on lay immobile on the roof. There was no sign of the wolf anywhere.

He felt a flicker of hope, and that was quickly snuffed out when a massive hand, now streaked with red, swept down into view and plucked the limp figure off the roof and hauled it skyward. He heard the sickening sound of bones being chewed, and then almost screamed out loud when the monster's head suddenly dropped down into his sight. A baleful, beachball-sized eye studied the rooftop with an air of uncertainty. Nostrils flared and touched against the tarpaper and sucked in scents like a black hole.

Bradley's heart was pounding so loudly that he was afraid that the wolf would hear it. With his hands pressed to his chest in the desperate hope of silencing it he watched as the gory muzzle tracked to and fro, and then pressed against the remains of the doorway as if suspecting that the last rabbit had gone down the hole. The great head was near enough that he could touch it. Just inches away from the opening of his tin box was the wolf's ear, a big nacho-shaped slab of fur whose warmth he could feel radiating through the metal walls. So close. It was only a matter of seconds before the beast figured out where he was hiding, and then God only knew how long it would take for him to die.