Two terrifying long arms shot out towards me; arms that seemed to stretch like elastic. I thought I was well out of his reach, and was waiting for him to jump me, but the arms came as a surprise. Two hands clamped on my wrists. They felt as if they had been welded to my flesh. He jerked me towards him.
He had twice my strength and the jerk nearly snapped my neck. I cannoned against him, felt his hands whip up to my throat. He was a shade too slow. I got my chin down, so he gripped that; before he could dig his claws into my neck, I sank a punch into his belly with all my weight behind it. He doubled up, snarling, and as I rushed him, he swung his fist, clouted me on the side of the head. It was like being hit with a hammer. I found myself lying on my side, bells ringing in my ears. I twisted over, saw through a red mist the misshapen legs moving towards the door. I grabbed at them, hung on, pulled him down. He fell close, squirmed around and uncorked another sledge-hammer blow. I ducked under it, felt it whizz past my head. My right hand yanked out the .38; holding it in my fist, I punched him in the face with it.
He gibbered with pain, got close, his evil-smelling head under my chin. He clawed at my body with steel fingers. I continued to hit him about his face and head with the gun butt. I couldn’t get much steam into the blows because he was lying on top of me, but I succeeded in making a mess of his face.
He got sick of it before I did, scrambled away, opened his mouth to yell. I rammed the gun barrel into his open mouth.
“Make a sound and I’ll blow your top,” I said.
The cold gun barrel in his mouth terrified him. He gagged, tried to wriggle away, but I forced the barrel further down his throat. He grabbed my wrists, yanked. The barrel shot out of his mouth, but the gun-sight caught his front teeth; they shot out too. He yammered in his throat, flung me off, raised himself up, half crazy with rage and pain, slammed down at me with both fists. If they had landed he would have flattened me, but I rolled against him, stabbed him in his belly with the gun barrel.
He gave a croaking howl, fell back, holding on to himself. Blood oozed between his fingers.
I knelt over him, panting, belted him between the eyes. He passed out.
Getting to my feet I fought to recover my breath. My legs felt weak, my heart thumped furiously. We had only fought for a couple of minutes, but it had been an experience. He had been as strong as an ape.
I left him, made for the stairs. I started up, my hand on the wall, treading cautiously. The stairs were in a bad way, gave under my weight. I kept on, mounted to the first floor, listened.