He had other things to look at.
'Forty seconds.'
It swung. He stepped. The fist went past his ear and into the river and the river jumped. He didn't hit back. He didn't do anything. He stepped, and stepped, and stepped, and made it chase him, and spent nothing.
'Nobody watches a drip. Fifty. Fifty-five.'
The thing's chest was heaving. The green skin on its arms had begun to hang a little, the way a sail does when the wind drops.
'Sixty.'
The swelling ran out of it all at once. It sagged. For a breath it stood there in the water, with its shoulders down and its mouth open.
And on the left side of its chest, where the muscle had shrunk back, the ribs stood out like the bars of a gate, and there was a gap between them.
He saw the gap. It was as wide as two fingers, and under it something was beating.
He went for it.
