Jesse watched her uneasily. “What sort of sounds?”
“It must have been a bat. Or a bunch of them. One minute I was standing before an immense tunnel. I shined my flashlight down its length, but it seemed to go on and on. Then I became aware of a sound. Then there were many sounds. The next thing I knew the cave was full of strange shapes—huge, monstrous shapes—and then I was lying on my back, this terrible stinging all over my chest.”
Jesse hesitated. A brief image of the night before tickled uneasily at his memory. The black shape swooping over him by the river…the slow beat of vast wings…
“Did something attack you?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” Emma said. “But I’ve had the most peculiar sensations and…thoughts since then. My dreams last night were full of…I haven’t had dreams like that since I was little.” Her eyes flitted upward. “It was like being a superhero.”
Jesse waited for the rest of it, but Ruth had fallen silent.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.
Her eyes, for the briefest of moments, held a glaze of mockery. Then it was gone. “I’m fine, Jesse. I just need to rest.”
She moved away from him, and watching her go, Jesse realized something that disquieted him. He hadn’t told her his name.
So? She heard it from Clevenger. Or Greeley.
Jesse supposed that made sense, but the unease persisted. He pushed it aside and faced the playground.
Now, he thought, where to find Emma?
He glanced about, locating the rest of the usual suspects: Goliath pushing Colleen on a swing; Austin and Goatee doing body shots with a quartet of hotties; Clevenger regaling a group of students with some story; Tiara Girl, Light Blue Bikini, and another girl lying on a beige blanket, their brown bodies a curvy tableau of sweaty flesh; Ruth Cavanaugh sitting sadly on a large rock.
No sign of Emma or Greeley.
He was both surprised and embarrassed at the tightness in his chest. What the hell? an incredulous voice demanded. You gonna cry because your dream girl decided to have a quickie with a handsome stranger?
She’s not having sex with him.
Deal with it, the voice taunted, and quit being such a baby. If you looked like Greeley, she’d have sex with you instead. So why don’t you stop with the self-pity and hook up with someone too? Preferably some girl who’s more your speed.
But try as he might, he couldn’t ward off the sense of betrayal. What had been a cheerful buzz was now a sour weariness.
Dammit, Emma, Jesse thought. Why’d you have to do it this weekend?
He knew she dated. How could a girl that perfect stay at home all the time? But as long as he wasn’t aware of her social life, he could maintain the fantasy that she was waiting for him. But to meet a guy right in front of Jesse’s face and go off with him…
He needed to urinate.
Jesse meandered past the kegs and through a game of cornhole. Though the beanbag fluttered by Jesse’s face, missing him by only an inch or two, no one commented on his passing. He heard thunder again, louder this time, and continued on.
His sneakers stepped from the mulch to the wide concrete sidewalk encircling the playground. He moved slowly around the perimeter until he spotted a break in the pine trees. Sidling through the gap, he moved fifty feet or so up a gentle rise and stopped, his back to the playground. If he turned, he could take in the view of the partying, of all that female flesh.
Buck up, he told himself. The day is young, and the drunker the girls get, the better your chances.
Jesse unbuttoned his cargo shorts, got hold of himself, and began to urinate. Before him the tall grasses and weeds went on a little ways before the forest thickened again. The woods back there looked very deep, very dark. He shifted a little, his urine shooting out in a steady stream. Had he peed since he started drinking earlier? He strove to remember, and as he did he became aware of something to his right, a paleness that made him turn and stare at an object about twenty yards away.
Jesse’s urine flow stopped. He tried to breathe but found he couldn’t. He couldn’t even blink.
The creature was at least nine feet tall.
The skin was stark white. Its limbs were impossibly long, the arms hanging nearly to the ground. And though everything about the creature was thin—emaciated, even—its body radiated power. The tight, corded muscles swarmed down the arms and legs like pale ivy. The pectoral muscles were striated, defined, and they gave the impression of being stretched over the skinny frame and bundled tight by the pallid flesh.
The creature was gazing avidly at the playground. Jesse watched in numb dread as a long stream of spittle dangled from its bloodless lips. Its breathing was slow, the creature’s entire frame rising and falling with each respiration.
Hungry, he thought. It’s positively ravenous.
Though Jesse still couldn’t move, he was able to peer beyond the creature. What he saw made his lips quiver.
Four more of them, staring down at the playground.
Jesse swiveled his head slowly to the left and discovered four more creatures taking in the view. They’re going to attack, he thought. They’re about to descend, and no one down there has the first clue.
Run! a voice in his head shouted. Get your skinny ass out of here!
Do that and you’re dead, another voice declared. They don’t see you right now. For whatever reason, they don’t see you.
What, you think you’re Casper the Friendly Ghost? Of course they see you. They’re just waiting for the right moment to begin the carnage, and you’re gonna be the first appetizer.
Jesse was thinking this when one of the creatures broke forward. As it did, another followed suit. A pair of them straightened and bellowed a high-pitched, blaring scream that made his balls shrivel. The creature directly to Jesse’s right—the first one he’d spotted—was watching him now, a grin of predatory delight stretching its face.
I’m going to die, Jesse thought.
With a supreme effort, he tore his eyes off the creature staring at him and saw the other beasts closing on the playground. They moved in weird, loping strides, their arms propelling them as much as their legs.
Bad Company had begun to sing “Feel Like Makin’ Love”.
At the creatures’ first cries, several of the young people on the playground had turned and stared up the rise confusedly. One or two of them turned to run. The others simply stared openmouthed at the approaching beasts.
Jesse turned back to the creature nearest him. The eyes were huge, green, iridescent, the irises as large as hockey pucks. Its white face stretched in a fearsome grin, the teeth—holy shit—were of normal width but were as long and sharp as ice picks.
It grinned at him a moment longer. Then, with astonishing quickness, it crouched and sprang, its tall, wraith-like body knifing through the air and disappearing into the pine grove.
Twenty-foot jump, Jesse had time to think.
Then the screams began.
Chapter Ten
As near as Jesse could tell, the first person to die was a guy who wore baggy green shorts that revealed a good deal of his plaid boxers. The guy had an average build, which meant he was a bit stronger than Jesse.
He never had a chance.
The creature that had grinned so hideously at Jesse before hurdling the pine tree landed only a few feet away from the young man. Unlike some of his cohorts, Baggy Shorts hadn’t noticed the swarm of creatures approaching, so he must’ve been doubly shocked when he turned to find the nine-foot monster towering over him. He opened his mouth to say something—it was impossible to guess what; Jesse wasn’t a lip-reader—when the creature plunged his freakishly long fingers into the boy’s chest and pried open his ribcage. The creature buried its face in the boy’s torso, blood and hunks of lung dribbling down its neck and muscled shoulders.
A warbling scream diverted Jesse’s attention. He glimpsed a blur near the merry-go-round, a buxom girl in a pink bikini sprinting that way
as though if only she could get on, the spin of the ride would save her. A pale creature rode her down before she reached it, the razored nails pistoning at her bare back like a cat clawing a carpeted pole. Ribbons of flesh flew up like bloody streamers, the girl’s wild thrashing adding to the twisted gaiety of the moment.
There was a flurry of commotion atop the curly slide. The enclosure at the top of the slide had clear plastic bubbled windows, and within those windows, Jesse could see elbows and fists flashing. Then the plastic window was splashed with a syrupy gout of blood, the whole enclosure rocking from the carnage within.
Beside the curly slide was an open, straight slide; some poor kid had sought sanctuary up there, too. The boy—he seemed too young to be in college, a little brother maybe?—was pushing away from a creature whose feet were still climbing the stairs. The boy’s back was to the slide, and if only he could break away from the advancing monster, he could slide on his back all the way to the mulch. But the creature, Jesse now realized, had hold of the crotch of the boy’s blue shorts. It wasn’t digging or tearing yet, but that was because it was climbing into position, ensuring the boy wouldn’t get away.
Do something! some distant voice in Jesse’s head called. He’s only a kid.
Can’t, Jesse thought dimly. Wouldn’t matter if I intervened. He’s already dead.
As if the creature had heard him, it positioned itself on its knees at the top of the slide and lifted the boy by the crotch. Gibbering in terror, his spindly arms flailing, the boy rose higher, his body upright as it floated toward the open jaws. The boy’s body tilted forward slightly, as if the creature intended to kiss him. With a sickening crunch, the creature bit down on the boy’s larynx. Freshets of arterial spray drenched the chewing creature. Its stringy black hair dripped with blood. Before Jesse could look away, it reached the back of the boy’s neck and the teeth snapped the spine with an audible click.
Jesse gasped as a siren-like wail erupted just on the other side of the pine trees he was gazing over.
“AGHHHH!” the voice screamed as it drew closer.
Don’t lead it over here, Jesse thought and felt a blush of guilt.
A girl burst through the pines and scrambled up the hill toward him. He took a step toward her, more out of instinct than a genuine desire to help. She was a plain girl who wore a yellow cut-off shirt and jean shorts. She was streaming blood from an ankle and limping badly. She’d gotten a few steps up the weedy hill before her ankle gave, pitching her forward onto her belly. She stared up at Jesse with huge eyes and yelled, “Help me!”
Jesse was taking another step toward her when a white figure exploded through the pines and landed at the bottom of the hill. She heard it but did not turn, instead emitting another siren howl. The creature pounced on her legs, then set to digging through the seat of her jean shorts, a frenzied red soup dousing its steam-shovel hands. Jesse whimpered, shoved a wrist to his mouth and strode unsteadily along the hill until the screaming carnage was behind him.
Twenty feet ahead a figure broke through the pines, followed by another. Young men both, neither of them familiar.
“Alex!” the trailing boy yelled, but the other boy—Alex, presumably—kept hoofing it toward the rise. He just might make it, Jesse marveled. The boy didn’t seem athletic. He had a straw-colored shock of hair and a bony, freckled torso. Yet he moved with an alacrity Jesse only wished he could match.
“Please, Alex,” the other boy begged. Alex’s friend was already winded. His pudgy gut rippled with each lumbering step, and to make matters worse, Jesse realized, the larger boy was drunk.
“Alex, I need your he—”
The boy never finished because a creature shot out of the screen of pine boughs and landed on the hill in front of Alex. Alex stared at the creature hulking over him, and just when Jesse was sure there’d be another bloodbath, the creature favored Alex with a malevolent grin, extended one knobby finger, and slashed a diagonal swath across Alex’s forehead. A crimson rill flooded the boy’s face as he crumpled. But rather than setting upon the boy, ripping him to pieces the way the others had done to their victims, the creature stood erect and glared down at Alex’s friend.
“Oh jeez,” the pudgy boy was whimpering. “Oh jeez no.”
The creature took two long strides, and just when Jesse thought the pudgy boy might escape into the pines again, a long, sinuous arm swept out and snatched the boy from the ground. The creature gripped the boy by one plump calf. Despite his girth the boy rose rapidly through the air, the creature handling him as effortlessly as one would an overstuffed rag doll. The pudgy boy yowled in terror as the creature swung him upside down toward its opening mouth, the teeth crooked and mottled with brown. In one brutal motion the creature bit into the boy’s beefy thigh and wrenched its head to remove the meat. Then the teeth snapped again, splintering the boy’s femur, and his body, sans leg, tumbled headfirst to the earth.
The boy wailed in an inhuman voice, a fountain of blood jetting from his femoral artery. The creature held the severed leg by the knee and began gnawing at the twitching, hairy calf.
“Oh shit,” Jesse muttered, half in horror, half in nausea. He turned and made for the pines separating him and the playground. If the jutting branches poked his eyes out, at least he’d be spared the sight of this bloodbath. The soft needles brushed his skin as he waded forward under a pine tree, then a thin branch came zinging toward his face and thwacked him on the bridge of the nose. He doubled over, his eyes instantly full of water. He swayed on his feet, remembering he himself had drunk quite a bit of beer, and a new sound grabbed his attention. Jesse opened and shut his eyes to shake off his disorientation, and as he regained focus he caught a glimpse of something waxen moving on the other side of the tree trunk. Despite the fear roiling in his guts, Jesse staggered forward, taking care to dodge the thick branches. It was very dark under the sheltering pine needles, but when he came around the corner of the thick trunk, he saw what was happening all too well.
Oh no, he thought. His scrotum tightened in terror and revulsion.
It was Tiara Girl, her black bikini top still on but her bottoms nowhere to be seen. She was on her back, her throat opened in a bloody, meaty smile. The creature that licked at the wide slit, its tongue dragging the length of the gash in forceful scoops, was also raping the dead girl, its skinny, muscled ass flexing in rhythm to the Bad Company song. Jesse could see how long its phallus was, more like the forearm of a tall man. It was grunting, moaning, defiling the poor girl’s limp body as it slurped at her death wound. Her eyes were fixed open in a permanent stare, and Jesse noted with helpless sorrow that the sparkling tiara had somehow remained fixed in her black hair.
Before he knew what he was doing, Jesse reached up and snapped off a branch.
The creature didn’t look up.
Jesse lifted a sneaker over a low bough and crept closer.
What are you doing? a voice in his head screamed.
I have no idea, he thought, but he kept moving anyway. He stepped over a branch, and finding it was higher than he’d thought, he ended up straddling it and having to wiggle his hips a little to distribute his weight to the other side.
When he lowered to the ground and turned to the raping monster, his stomach plummeted.
The creature was grinning at him.
Jesse froze where he stood, unable to go through with it. What the hell did he think he was going to do, anyway? He stared dumbly down at the branch in his hand. It was two feet long, not very thick. More like a baton than a bludgeoning weapon.
I’m dead, he thought. Dead in just a moment.
The creature stood, its jutting phallus glistening with blood. The thought of the monster tearing up the girl’s insides was what finally did it, brought the toast and banana and coffee and beer geysering up into the back of his throat. The creature reached for the stick in Jesse’s hands, but Jesse wrenched it away, then jabbed. Somehow, the sharp, broken end of the branch pierced the creature in the abdomen. It snar
led, ripped the branch out of Jesse’s hands, and before it could open his ribcage or rape his dead body, Jesse wheeled and plunged through the pine branches. He heard it roar, then came a chorus of snapping branches and throaty growls. The growls drew nearer, but Jesse refused to turn now. It would land on him and pin him and eat him but by God he wouldn’t look into its wicked green eyes as it did. Jesse spied the leaden sky stippling the wall of branches, knew he was about to emerge onto the playground, and once out there he’d be dead within seconds, the thing leaping on him and tearing him apart.
Something hooked Jesse’s ankle and sent him sprawling headfirst into the blanket of dead pine needles. He flopped onto his back, realizing he’d simply tripped over a root, and watched the monster leap onto a branch directly above him. For a moment, it sat perched over him, its snarling face lusting for his blood. Jesse screamed. The thing plummeted down at him. He rolled over to evade it. The white salamander body thumped down where he’d just been. Jesse clambered forward and discovered how close to the open air he was. Something slapped the heel of his sneaker, the creature groping for him. Jesse shot out a hand, bellowed for help. His elbow broke through, his head.
The creature caught him and hauled him backward.
Jesse stared up as its leering face loomed closer.
Don’t kill me! he wanted to scream, but the sight of the mad, iridescent eyes stole his voice. The teeth, he noted with clinical fascination, were inward curving, like those of some species of sharks. That way, he remembered from watching Shark Week, the predators would be able to hook their prey, batten onto them so that even if their victims were able to disengage their bleeding bodies, the damage would be so great they’d be easy to finish off.
The hooked, scythe-like teeth drew closer. Jesse felt a droplet of rain on his hand, realizing with sick irony that he’d almost made it outside the sepulchral darkness of the pine tree, that part of him had made it outside the shadows. If only he could’ve gotten to the daylight…if only he could’ve—
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