by Ike Hamill
Madelyn heard Harper gasp as she landed on the other side of the wall and streaked through the darkness. She had come for answers and she had found a lot of them trapped inside her own memories. Now her questions were for the man who had known her nature all along. She had to find Elijah so she could learn how she had become a monster.
Chapter 29
{Rescue}
HARPER GRABBED JACOB’S HAND and led him through the other door. She held the lantern overhead. They saw the dusty furniture that Logan and the others had pushed out of their way in the darkness. After one room and a hallway, they could hear someone trying to escape.
“Logan!” Harper whispered.
He poked his head around a doorway and squinted at the light.
“She’s gone,” Jacob said.
“Are you sure?”
Jacob shrugged. “She wasn’t going to hurt us anyway.”
“You can’t trust a ghost,” Logan said.
From another doorway, Brook and Isaac peeked out. When they saw Jacob and Harper there with the light, they emerged to the hall.
“That wasn’t a ghost,” Isaac said. “That was a demon.”
“She’s my aunt,” Jacob said.
“Still,” Isaac said.
“Shhh!” Logan hissed. They all looked to him. He moved slowly down the hall and then cocked his ear at another doorway. He waved Harper forward with the light. They were looking at an empty room that had a closed door on the other side. As they watched, they saw a light leak under the door. Harper quickly turned off the lantern and they watched as the shadows moved.
They retreated to the opposite hall.
“It’s not her,” Jacob said. “She didn’t have a light.”
“Could be Scarlett,” Logan said.
Harper shook her head. “I told you, Amelia and Scarlett went south.”
“Who else could it be?” Brook asked.
“I’m going to find out,” Logan said. He left the circle of light and went to creep through the room. The others followed. When he slipped through the other door, they could see the light disappearing around the corner at the far end of the hall. Harper hung back so the lantern wouldn’t draw the attention of the new person.
Logan took Jacob’s axe handle and went ahead.
They heard Logan scream and saw the light tumble. They rushed forward and heard a woman yell as Isaac, Jacob, and Brook got to the corner.
“You scared me half to death,” Amelia said.
Logan was rubbing his forehead. Amelia stooped to pick up her light from the floor.
“Am I bleeding?” Logan asked. Brook leaned closer to look. Amelia shined her light. “She hit me in the face with her light.”
“You shouldn’t have tried to sneak up on me,” Amelia said. “We were supposed to meet here. Why were you sneaking up?”
“I thought you might be someone else,” Logan said. “Where’s Scarlett?”
“I lost her,” Amelia said. “We got separated and I couldn’t track her down.”
“We’re going to need her,” Logan said.
“We don’t even know what we’re going to do,” Brook said.
Harper came up with the lantern and joined the conversation.
“I think I know what we have to do,” Jacob said. They all turned to him.
# # # # #
They moved to the interior conference room, so they wouldn’t have to worry about anyone seeing their lights through the windows of the place. Isaac moved to the corner and couldn’t stop his eyes from darting between the doors.
They all faced Jacob, who stood.
“Wait,” Isaac said. “Before you start talking, I’ll say it again—shouldn’t we move to someplace safer?”
Amelia answered, “Scarlett knows we’re supposed to meet here. If she shows up, I’d prefer we be here.”
Isaac turned to Brook. “She doesn’t know about Madelyn.”
“She’s gone,” Jacob said.
Brook nodded and leaned towards Amelia. “When we were talking before, we got jumped by Madelyn.”
“She’s dead,” Amelia said. “We all saw it.”
“She’s a demon,” Isaac said.
“That’s not true,” Jacob said. “I can’t explain it fully right now, but just know that she survived the hanging and gave us an important idea. That’s what we should be talking about.”
Harper squirmed in her chair and seemed like she wanted to say something. Jacob put out his hand and motioned for her to stay quiet for the moment. When he had their attention again, Jacob started.
“You’ve all heard about The Wisdom, right? We had that scare when everyone was assigned underground bunkers and we watched the weather stations so we’d know when it was coming.”
“It never came,” Amelia said.
“Maybe,” Jacob said. “Our team saw something yesterday from the hill. It looked like there was a cloud just north and west of the city that was stalled or contained there. The four of us saw it.” Jacob pointed to himself, Logan, Brook, and Isaac.
“And I saw it before that,” Logan said. “But I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Right,” Jacob said. “Well, we have reason to believe that the cloud might have come in this evening. It might have caused what Brook and Isaac saw at the library, and what Harper and I saw at the church.”
“What did you see?” Amelia asked.
They gave her brief versions of their stories before they continued.
Amelia folded her arms and seemed uncomfortable with the new information. Jacob was about to start again when she raised her hand.
“I saw something too. It wasn’t exactly like what you guys talked about though. It was more like what happened to Wyatt,” Amelia said.
“What happened?” Harper asked.
Amelia described how she and Scarlett had found the body of Penelope. For a moment, Isaac covered his face with his hands. Then, he returned to watching the doors.
Jacob swallowed. “Honestly, I don’t know if that’s the same thing or not. Maybe it’s a step farther than what the rest of us saw. Let me tell you what I think is happening.” Jacob described his theory.
“Where are you getting all this?” Logan asked when Jacob paused for a breath.
“Mostly from my aunt,” Jacob said. “These are the deductions she made when she was fighting The Wisdom in her cabin.”
“Why should we believe her?” Logan said.
“For one, she survived it. I think that gave her some insight,” Jacob said.
“My grandfather had a pet dog one time that survived a gunshot wound,” Logan said. “That didn’t mean he understood how gunpowder works.”
Harper stood up.
“I’ll tell you what I know,” Harper said. “And I witnessed it first-hand, so you can believe me. That thing breaks down your will to live. It knows what frightens you, and it uses that knowledge to scare the life out of you. I think it has a reason for doing that. I don’t know if Jacob is right. I can’t tell you for sure that it wants you to give up on humanity so it can weaken the fabric of society, but regardless of what it wants, that’s what it does. It will move through this place, showing everyone the precise thing that they don’t want to see. Once it has done that, it may or may not go ahead and kill every last one of us.”
Her words echoed in the room.
“Theories,” Logan said. “What do we do?”
“We intervene,” Jacob said. “The common thread with both Harper and my aunt was that someone intervened. Yes, they were traumatized by what they saw, but before the thing could kill them, someone came and rescued them. In Harper’s case, when Elijah and my aunt came and found her, it restored her faith in humanity and saved her life.”
“What about Madelyn?” Amelia asked. “Did it restore her faith?”
“Maybe,” Jacob said. “That is debatable. She might have done that herself by an act of will, or maybe when she uploaded her life story on the ether. It’s unclear.”
“Forge
t about Madelyn. I think it might work,” Harper said. “Think of these things like really bad dreams. We just have to wake the people up before the bad dreams can overtake them.”
“How do we find the people?” Logan asked. “We just go door to door?”
“We start at the rally points,” Isaac said. “Some people must remember protocol. We should be able to find groups of people at the rally points.”
“What if they try to take us into custody again?” Brook asked.
“We have six people,” Logan said. “How many guards do they have? We stick together and we’ll be fine.”
“Which rally point is closest to the library?” Brook asked Isaac.
“Basement of the bakery on Pembroke,” Isaac said.
“Are you sure?” Amelia asked.
Isaac threw up his hands. “Don’t any of you remember your training?”
“That was when we were kids,” Logan said.
“I haven’t had mine yet,” Jacob said.
“Follow me,” Isaac said. He reached out and took the lantern from the table.
Chapter 30
{Nightmare}
“THERE ARE THREE ENTRANCES,” Isaac said. They were huddled in the overgrown alley next to the brick wall. “This stairwell to the back door, the loading elevator out front, and then an interior staircase.”
“We know,” Logan said. “We’ve all been here.”
“Forgive me,” Isaac said. “You people all acted like you had never heard of the place.”
“Calm down,” Amelia said. “We used to play in here when we were kids. We played everywhere. We just didn’t know that it was a rally point.”
“There’s also a ladder we stashed in the dumbwaiter,” Logan said. “We can go down that.”
“We’re not trying to surprise the people,” Jacob said. “We’re here to help them if they’ve been attacked.”
“Come on,” Brook said. “We’ll go down the rear stairs. We won’t sneak up on anyone that way.”
She led the way. The bricks of the old stairs were worn and loose. They had to use the iron handrail in the dark so they didn’t stumble as they descended. When they were all gathered at the bottom landing, Brook opened the door.
They saw about a dozen people, all packed into the far corner. One man in front was holding out his flashlight like a weapon. They were pinned down by a semi-circle of wolves. When Brook and the others came through the door, one of the wolves spun and bared his teeth at the group. The hair on the animal’s back stood straight up, making him look about the size of a small bear.
The group flattened against the wall when the wolf growled.
“Shoot them!” Logan shouted. A couple of the people on the other side of the room held rifles, but the barrels were pointed at the floor.
“We tried,” a man called. “Bullets don’t hurt them.”
“That’s crazy,” Jacob whispered. “Are they ghosts?” Jacob took a cautious step forward.
Harper put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back.
“Just because they can’t be shot, it doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous,” Harper said. She pointed across the room with her flashlight.
They saw the body. Where the far wall met the floor, someone’s lifeless body had bled out to a large puddle.
“This is your idea,” Logan said to Jacob. “We intervene, right? Now what?”
Jacob stepped to the side. The wolf’s head followed him. It growled again.
“A real pack of wolves wouldn’t attack greater numbers like this,” Jacob said. As he passed by Logan, he took back the axe handle that Logan had been carrying. “I saw plenty of them, and they’ll only take on a person if he’s alone. Two, maybe, if the people are sick.”
“Maybe the wolves are sick,” Brook said. “Let’s not assume they’re thinking straight.”
“They’re not real wolves,” Jacob said.
When he took another step forward, the wolf facing him took a step to close the gap. Everyone watched. Even the wolves focused on the corner cheated glances over their shoulders to see the showdown.
Jacob took another big step and swung the axe handle. The wood whistled through the air. The wolf came forward. Jacob had fully committed to the swing. When the axe handle sailed right through the wolf’s body, it took Jacob’s balance with it.
Jacob’s front foot slipped as his torso twisted. He started to go down. The wolf didn’t waste any time. It rushed forward and grabbed Jacob’s jacketed forearm. The young man screamed as the thing dragged him towards the center of the room, where the rest of the pack was still circled.
The whole thing happened in an instant. Harper was the first to move. She ran forward without regard for her own safety and threw a savage kick at the side of the wolf’s head. She hit it just right. The blow sent the crack of crunching bones through the basement. The wolf yelped and let go. When it turned towards her, it let out a series of angry snarls and barks.
With his good hand, Jacob tossed the axe handle to Harper.
She didn’t hesitate. She brought the thing down in a chopping motion. The wolf tried to pull away, but she tagged its snout with the wood and it yipped again as it flew backwards towards its group. The animal backed straight into one of the other wolves. Startled, the wolf turned and delivered a bite to the injured animal’s hind end. The skirmish didn’t last long. The wolves reordered themselves into a growling line.
Jacob got to his feet and the six rescuers regrouped as well.
“You didn’t hit it, but she did,” Logan said.
Jacob nodded. His eyebrows went up with a thought. “Throw us a gun,” he shouted across the room. The people in the corner seemed confused. Nobody moved to comply.
“You saw it—she can hurt them. Slide us one of your rifles,” Jacob shouted.
The wolves mobilized. They spread their line and advanced towards the corner. The people there compressed into a smaller group, trying to shrink from the threat.
“Throw it!” Logan said.
One of the women was crouching, holding out her gun.
She gave it a little push. It slid less than a meter. Logan threw up his hands.
“Someone throw us…” Logan began. He didn’t finish. Someone else stepped forward and kicked the rifle. The thing slid, barrel-first right between two wolves, towards Logan. He moved forward to intercept, but Brook held him back.
One of the wolves turned to snap at the rifle.
Harper moved forward with her axe handle and drew the wolf’s attention. Logan ducked from under Brook’s hand and shuffled forward to grab the gun. As soon as his hand touched the barrel, the wolf lunged. Harper drove it back with a swing and a miss.
Logan snatched the rifle backwards and tossed it to Harper. She dropped the stick.
Across the room, one of the wolves lunged forward and grabbed a man’s shoe. He kicked at the thing as it lowered its body and tugged. The wolf shook his head from side to side, trying to throw the man off balance. One of the other cornered people held his shoulder to keep him upright.
Harper chambered, aimed, and fired.
The sound was deafening in the small space and the flash burned into her eyes. A couple of the wolves crouched at the sound, but none tumbled. She reloaded. The wolf jerked back and pulled the man to the ground as Harper took aim. He was about to advance. In a fraction of a second, her shot would be impossible without hitting the man.
Harper fired.
The wolf was driven to the side with a puff of fur and blood. The man pulled himself back to the group with the help of a few hands.
The other wolves didn’t give up. As Harper tried to take aim, they all went for broke, moving forward in a flash. She didn’t have a good shot.
Jacob ducked under her gun and took the axe handle around to the side. A man screamed as a wolf jumped and latched onto his arm.
Some people continued to press into the corner. The ones on the perimeter were pulled towards the center by the attacking wolves.
> Jacob swung the axe handle tentatively, afraid it would pass right through his next target.
It hit a wolf right in the side, but not with enough force to dislodge it from the woman’s shirt. The animal was trying to drag the woman away from the group. Jacob swung again and the wolf turned to him as it dodged the swing.
That was enough distance for Harper. She fired again, hitting the animal in its hindquarters. It spun and Jacob swung. He clubbed the injured wolf in the head, sending it towards the floor.
Brook and Logan moved in to help.
# # # # #
Jacob stood on the neck of the last wolf. Harper had killed five with the rifle, and he had beaten one to death with the axe handle. The last one wouldn’t die. It was still squirming under his boot.
“Ready?” Harper asked. She came around after reloading, checked the chamber, and the raised the rifle. On the count of three, Jacob pulled away and she fired. Jacob swallowed and yawned to try to clear his ears. The rifle shots were still ringing.
They turned to the others.
Isaac and Amelia were trying to treat the only person who was seriously injured. A man’s throat had been gashed by one of the wolves. He was bleeding through the wrap.
“Don’t waste another one on him,” a woman said. “He deserves what he gets.”
“What?” Isaac asked. He had his hands pressed on the man’s wounds as Amelia prepared the next wrap.
“Nora’s right,” a man said. “When they attacked, Benny was the one who pushed Claire in front of himself.” He pointed to the dead woman who had bled out before they arrived. “He sacrificed her to save himself.”
The man, who had a decent bite on his leg, tried to take the second wrap from Amelia.
“No more fighting,” Harper yelled. “We’re not going to fight amongst ourselves.”
Jacob moved and stood beside her. He didn’t need to support her—after she had killed the majority of the wolves, everyone obeyed her orders. Still, they held a grudge.
