Velocity (28 page)

I grabbed his arm. “We’re not murderers. We don’t have to be like them.” He hit the safety on the gun and stowed it away in the waistband of his pants. Then he bent over, his face twisted in pain, sweat breaking out across his forehead.

“What is it?” I asked, supporting him by his arm.

“It’s just a stitch. I’m fine,” he said, the grimace of pain smoothing away. “Ever since that bastard McPherson stabbed me, I get a cramp in my side when I exert myself too much.” He straightened up to his full height, although I was still worried. “It’s gone. Let’s go.”

We went back to the car, but when he tried to start it up, the engine wouldn’t turn over. We got back out on foot.

“The battery’s dead,” Henry said grimly.

A small explosion went off in the ballroom. The front windows burst and glass sprayed out on the street. Henry and I were knocked back, and I stumbled into him. He put his hands around my waist to steady me.

“Is this ever going to stop?” I shouted. I peered into the ballroom’s front window, where a sizable fire was burning.

“Not until they’ve satisfied their itch for carnage,” Henry said. “There’s a car over there that’s abandoned. It’s still running.” We ran across the street. The car was still idling, the door open. I recognized it as Vanderlip’s from the teacher parking lot. Henry was lead foot on the gas pedal all the way to Theo’s house.

“I feel like I’m losing my sense of time,” I said after several minutes of tense silence. The clock on the dashboard said 11:45, but it felt like it should be nightfall with how much had happened.

“I think, if this realm or whatever it is called Dark really caused this, that time is just going all wonky,” Henry said. “There’s no way that only two hours have passed. And you said time was different with your necklace and the grounding stone.”

I opened my mouth to speak, when I saw a car barreling at us out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t have time to scream. Henry twisted the wheel and the car fishtailed out of the way, spinning in the street. The other car flew past us with mere inches of clearance. Clouds of smoke rushed up from the tires.

Henry and I were still in our seats, breathing hard, aware that we had just almost been hit.

“Do you think that was someone from Thornhill?” I asked.

Henry looked shell-shocked, staring off into nothing. I shook his shoulder. “Are you okay?” I asked.

His eyes seemed to clear and he looked at me, managing a weak grimace of a smile. “Yeah. Sorry. I think that was definitely someone from Thornhill.”

The lights on the dashboard flickered. He put the car into drive again. “We need to keep moving.”

We got to my street a few minutes later. I barely waited for Henry to stop the car before I ripped open the car door and ran up the steps. I banged on the front door frantically.

Please be here. Please be here,
I repeated in my head. I waited as my anxiety grew to a fever pitch. There wasn’t a sign that anyone was there.

CHAPTER 26

THE CURTAINS IN
the living room window twitched. Then the door cracked open and Theo was throwing her arms around me in a huge hug. Her face was scared and strained. Lucy looked just the same, hovering behind her in the dark with a scented candle clasped in her hands.

“If I had known the zombie apocalypse was going to be today, I would have prepared better,” Theo joked weakly.

“I know I should have paid better attention during
Dawn of the Dead
,” Henry said, coming up behind me with his hands in his pockets. Theo smiled weakly in response. We walked into their foyer, leaving the door cracked.

“Golem’s dead,” I told them.

Lucy put her face in her hands and let out a sob. Theo put her hands over her mouth.

“But he left a note about going to the thrift store as a safe house. Does that sound right?” I asked.

Lucy nodded. “We spoke of several different safe houses in case of emergency. If Thornhill was actually able to pull off something big. I guess that’s what happened. Hugh must have thought the thrift store was the best, safest option.”

“Hugh’s in jail,” I said, feeling like I just kept breaking bad news.

“How did that happen?” Lucy asked, a tinge of desperation finding its way into her voice.

I shook my head. “I don’t know the specifics. Dr. Briggs told me. We had a crazy night last night, I still feel like this is a dream.”

That’s when Theo noticed the bandages that wrapped my wrists. “What happened?”

“Somebody attacked me. Made it look like I was trying to kill myself,” I said, self-consciously pulling my sleeves up to my hands.

“That’s insane! What is wrong with these people?” Theo said, her voice sounding like a scream. Lucy hugged her daughter and Theo started to cry. I felt helpless in the moment, an ache surrounding my heart.

“Our cats won’t get out from under the bed. It’s like there’s a storm that won’t go away,” Lucy said to no one in particular.

There was a boom from far off on the street. The four of us crouched down low, and Henry gently pushed the door shut. He turned back to the rest of us. “We need to get out of here and to the safehouse, pronto. Things are only going to get worse before this is all over.” He addressed me. “The battery on the car finally died. We should check and see if one of yours works. But first, we need to arm ourselves.”

Lucy nodded, picking up a baseball bat that was leaning against the wall. Theo held up a sharp nail file. “Good to go on that count.”

They led us through the kitchen to the garage. All of her cute country decorations, the roosters and the barns and cows, cast garish shadows all over. Those shadows seemed to move of their own accord, and I stared closer. They were definitely restless.

In the garage, Henry wrenched open the main door.

“There should be a full tank of gas,” Lucy said. “I filled up for work before I came home last night. God―work―what is going on?”

“We will get through this,” I said as evenly as I could muster. I wasn’t so sure anymore, but I wouldn’t let my doubts consume me.

“Do you want to drive?” Henry asked Theo’s mom.

She shook her head and held up her trembling hands. “I don’t trust my reflexes right now.”

Henry got in behind the wheel and the rest of us filled the car. As he turned the key, the dashboard lit up weakly. It was making the same grinding noises as the other car.

“We think that all of the electronics and batteries are affected by that Dark energy out there,” I explained.

As the car pulled onto the street, we saw another group of hooded figures gathering at the end of the street. Henry made the vehicle soar past them, dodging through the random people and around parked cars. An oil drum was on fire on the side of the road.

“So many more people are a part of this than you thought, aren’t they?” Theo asked her mom.

“It’s like they really did recruit a whole army,” Lucy said, staring with scared eyes out of her window. “All of those people in hoods…half the town must be involved. I honestly thought your father was exaggerating when he told us about their support.”

Someone ran across the street, and Henry skirted swiftly around them. His face was staunch and serious, but he seemed to have regained his calm.

“You’re a pretty good driver,” I whispered, impressed.

“All of that practice playing racing games wasn’t for nothing, right?” He grinned a little at me.

We made it to the jail and parked in the back parking lot. It looked completely undisturbed, and there was no one around. I ran up to the back entrance, expecting it to be locked. But the glass was broken and it was hanging open. A horrible feeling settled on my chest. I pushed forward with Henry and the others behind me.

Using a lighter I’d found in Vanderlip’s car, we searched the building. Hell didn’t have a very big jail, and all of the cells were empty. No one was in the office, but drawers had been pulled open and their contents spilled all over the floor. More windows were broken in the front. I didn’t see any blood, though, or any sign of someone getting hurt.

“Do you think they transferred him out of town?” I asked the others hopefully. “There’s not even any drunks sleeping off their hangovers.”

“Maybe. It would be a good reason to get him out of the way,” Lucy relented. She patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sure he’s okay. Hugh is a smart and resourceful man, just like his daughter.

“Why are those shadows so close?” Henry said suddenly. I turned and saw that shadow figures had drawn up out of the corners and were moving in on us.

“They’re just normal shadows, chill out,” Theo said.

But Henry and I stepped backward. Red glowing eyes appeared in the shadow’s heads, and they grew more into humanoid shapes.

“Or not!” Theo corrected fearfully.

The four of us swiftly turn and ran back where we came from, pushing out the broken door. Across the street, a big white propane tank seemed to change and morph into a bear. I screamed, but none of the others seemed to see it. I looked again and saw it was just a propane tank.

In the middle of the street, a hooded figure was lying in a pool of blood. We crept closer, but I didn’t recognize the person’s gray face. Three shadows crawled across the ground to the body, and began to pull glowing lights from the body with the strong suction of their mouth-holes.

“What are they doing to him?” Theo asked in horror, looking at us with her green eyes wide and frightened behind her glasses.

“They’re eating his soul,” I said, wrinkling my nose. On the opposite side of the street was a line of lilac bushes that hadn’t bloomed yet. Standing among them was the dark figure of Ambrose Slaughter. He stared at me knowingly, his head tipped down, his eyes boring into me. Then he was gone.

“Was that Ambrose?” Henry asked, frowning in shock.

“Yes. Let’s get to the safe house,” I said, the hair on my arms creeping up. We piled back into the car, knowing we didn’t have much time. I thought I saw beasts running on far off streets as we passed and closed my eyes, hoping I wasn’t go crazy like the rest of them.

###

A quarter of a mile away from our destination, the car slammed into something unseen on the road. We jerked against our seat belts. The front of the car was smashed.

“What the hell…” Henry muttered, and unbuckled his seat belt. All of us dazed from the collision, we stepped out onto the road. A blockade made out of car parts and scrap metal was stretched across the road.

“I definitely don’t remember that being there,” Lucy said.

“The battery was about to die anyway,” Henry said, nursing a small cut on his head.

A girl in a hood stepped out into the middle of the road. The members of my group froze. I squinted and saw with confusion that it was Becky Long, a girl I’d been friends with since middle school. The black hood framed her freckled face, and she wore a wicked expression.

“I’ve found them,” Becky shouted to dead air.

“Shit. We need to move,” Henry said, grabbing my arm.

Becky looked back at us, muttered something under her breath, and held her hands out. Green light shot out and hit the fire hydrant on the curb, and water sprayed like a curtain in front of us.

“Split up and go around the alleys. They all lead back to the same place,” Lucy whispered loudly.

She and Theo took off running, and with one look, Henry and I split up. It was not a good time to be alone as I raced down the alley way. My heart pounded painfully in my chest and my already overworked feet stung. I didn’t know if I was being chased, but it felt that way. I wasn’t a great runner, but I moved as fast as my legs would carry me.

The alley was empty, gray on both sides. It seemed to go on forever, but I came out to the back and could see the thrift shop in sight across the road. I saw Henry pop out of an alley on the other side, and then Theo and Lucy together came running around. We converged on the back of the thrift store by the truck delivery exit.

Henry’s side stitched again and he double-over and clenched the area below his ribs.

“Are you okay?” I asked, rubbing his back. He nodded at me after a minute.

Lucy was looking behind us. “We need to keep moving. Just a little bit longer, Henry, and we should all be able to sit down.”

He stood back up and we continued our run to the thrift shop. We followed Lucy around the back of the building.

There were cars. Five of them, all parked at the back of the building. Just the sight of them gave me an injection of hope.

We were all out of breath. Lucy banged on the door three times, then stepped back as if a bomb might go off. We all looked over our shoulders, paranoid that they might pop out and get us. Above the birds fluttered circling like vultures intermittent caws. Sweat was dripping off my forehead. Henry grabbed me and held me close. I could feel myself being looked at in the peep hole. At the same time I saw shadows shuffling around in the shadows. They started to creep towards us, and now everyone could see them. Theo cowered against me and Lucy’s eyes widened.

“The dark force is growing stronger. Those things are coming out of their hiding places”