The staccato flashes of muzzle fire appeared along countless windows, and Ana could make out multiple (Dozens? It has to be dozens.) of unmoving figures on the ground. Dead nightcrawlers. She couldn’t see anything that looked like a human body, but she was too far away (Thank God) from the actual battle to be absolutely sure.
“Ana, Ana,” Chris was saying as she grabbed Ana by the arm. “We have to go. We have to go now!”
Ana turned back to the teenager, standing there with the ax in one hand, her hair plastered to her forehead in a layer of sweat.
“Come on!” Chris said and tugged at her.
“Wait, Randall!” Ana said.
Ana glanced back at Randall. The slayer remained unconscious, his body as unmoving now as all the other times she’d looked. Was he even still alive?
She was reaching for his neck to feel for a pulse when she saw the trail of blood. It was coming out of a hole along the side of his throat. At first, she thought it was a bite mark and imagined a ghoul feasting on Randall while she struggled, unnoticed, nearby. But no, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t teeth marks at all. It was round, and there was just one.
“Is he dead?” Chris asked behind her. “Ana?”
Ana searched for signs that Randall was still breathing, that his wound (Bullet. That’s a bullet hole.) wasn’t fatal. She hoped to find warm breath coming out of his nostrils, but there was none. He had no pulse either, and his chest wasn’t moving. Even his skin felt clammy to the touch, as if he’d been dead for days and not what must have been just a few minutes.
“Ana!” The teenager was tugging at her arm from behind. “Come on! We have to go! We have to go now, while they’re busy with each other!”
She’s right. Chris is right.
Ana turned around and locked on Chris’s eyes. The kid was terrified, and it was all over her face. And yet she’d braved everything to come out here—God knows from where—to rescue Ana. How much courage had that taken?
“Come on!” Chris said, turning and running off.
Ana ran after the kid, even as gunfire, screams, and the crackling of flames filled the night air behind them. But all Ana could concentrate on was what One Eye had said as it towered over her, smiling that gruesome smile.
“He’s here. He’s close,” the creature had hissed. “Closer than he’s supposed to be. I’ll go see him when I’m done here.”
Wash. It was talking about Wash.
It knows you’re here, Wash.
Run! Run away, before it’s too late!
Seventeen
She wasn’t sure how long they ran. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, but her legs were becoming rubbery, so it had to have been longer than that. It didn’t help that the crisp cold air was trying to suffocate her, or that there was simply nothing to look at once they abandoned the unnamed town and the last of the rooftops was absorbed back into the pitch-black night.
She could still locate the town whenever she glanced back, thanks to the fires that had begun to spread to even more buildings. The orange sky above the town grew larger and wider every time she peeked backward to make sure no one (no thing) was chasing them.
For now, it was still just them out here.
Stay that way. Please, dear God, stay that way.
She was running alongside Chris, and had been for some time, until the teenager began to slow down. Ana did too, until they were both walking, before stopping completely. They both took the opportunity to grab their hips and sucked in deep lungfuls of welcoming, cool air.
“Ana, you’re bleeding,” Chris said as she reached over.
“What?”
“You’re bleeding.”
Ana looked down at her forearms, at the scars from the bloodletting. The pain had numbed, allowing her to forget about them even though there was still blood coming out of the cuts. There was also something else she hadn’t noticed until now: A large splinter sticking out of her left arm, just above the elbow. She remembered a bullet striking the pole she’d been tied to, maybe from the same group of bullets that had struck the blue-eyed ghoul and, possibly, killed Randall.
“Does it hurt?” Chris asked.
Ana shook her head and pulled the splinter out and flicked it away. It didn’t hurt. Or, at least, she didn’t allow it to hurt. After what happened to Randall, and maybe Shelby, too, she didn’t have any right to whine about a little splinter.
“I have something,” Chris said. She took a handkerchief out of her pocket and began ripping it into smaller strips.
“Shelby,” Ana said. “Did you see what happened to Shelby?”
Chris shook her head before tying the strips around Ana’s cuts. It took four—two on each arm.
“What about back there? Just now?” Ana asked. “Did you see Shelby?”
“No,” Chris said. She finished up and handed Ana a couple extra unused strips before wiping the blood on her fingers on her pants legs. “I didn’t see anything. I was just trying to get to you.”
What about the blue-eyed ghoul? Did you see it out there? Ana thought about asking, but Chris hadn’t said anything about it, and she would have if she’d seen it. Ana was sure of it. You didn’t not talk about something like that.
Ana pocketed the cloth Chris had given her. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”
She took the teenager by the hand and they began walking again, putting more distance between them and the town. Ana glanced back one more time, but there was still nothing between them and the wall of flames except black emptiness.
Good. Stay that way. Just stay that way.
“After they attacked the truck, they grabbed me,” Chris was saying.
“Who grabbed you?” Ana asked.
“The ones that attacked us.”
“What happened then?”
“They took me to one of the houses. There were kids there. Some my age, some even younger. And women.”
“Women?”
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
“I’m not sure. I think about half a dozen?”
“Did you see how many men there were?”
“Another half dozen? I’m not sure. They came and went. They were getting ready…” She glanced back at the town. “For that.”
“Did they do anything to you?”
“No. They left me with the women and kids. I didn’t even know where you and the others were. Not until they took you into the center of town and tied you and Randall up to those poles.”
Ana looked down at Chris’s hands. She was still gripping the ax in her right, clutching it so tightly the teenager’s knuckles were visibly white.
“How did you escape?” Ana asked.
“After everything happened, after the ghouls attacked, everything went nuts,” Chris said. “I don’t think they expected it to turn out like that.”
“Who? Did you get a name?”
“Just Mitchell. He’s the leader, I think. The one who knocked Randall out.”
Ana remembered an older man attacking Randall, while the younger Ball Cap struck her from behind with the butt of his shotgun.
Gunfire echoed from behind them, and it took a moment for Ana to realize the night air had been free of shooting until now. How long had it been since the last barrage? Five, maybe ten minutes? Whatever was still going on back there, it was definitely slowing down, even if the flames didn’t seem to be any closer to running out of fuel anytime soon.
“What else did you find out?” she asked Chris.
“They planned this,” Chris said. “They used you and Randall to lure the ghouls here so they could kill them. So they could kill it.”
It? Ana thought, but she didn’t ask the question out loud. The answer came a second later, and she shivered slightly.
“I can smell him on you,” it had whispered to her, its voice strangely…elegant? Was that the right word?
She felt another chill run up and down her spine and hoped Chris didn’t notice that one, either.
“Bu
t I don’t think they thought there’d be so many,” Chris was saying. “I think that caught them by surprise.”
“Where did they take you?” Ana asked.
“One of the houses in the back. It had a basement.”
“How did you get out of there?”
“It wasn’t easy, and they tried to stop me, but I managed to slip out.”
“Then what happened? Where’d you find the ax?”
“It was in the house I was being kept in,” Chris said. Then, glancing behind her, and in a softer voice, “I hope they got out.”
“Who?”
“The ones in the basement with me. The last time I saw them, they were still hiding down there.”
The teenager went silent for a moment, and the only sounds for the next five or ten seconds were the soft tap-tap-tap of their shoes on the hard Texas ground. The gunfire, again, had ceased momentarily.
“I hope they’re okay,” Chris said, so quietly Ana barely heard her.
Ana looked back at the wall of flames. It was reaching higher into the sky, maybe because it was finding more and more fuel to grow. Soon, there would be nothing left of the place, not even the house where Chris was being kept. Like the church that was used to lure the ghouls in, there would just be ashes in the morning.
“They planned this,” Chris had said. “They used you and Randall to lure the ghouls here so they could kill them. So they could kill it.”
Best-laid schemes, and all that crap, Ana thought.
She wanted to feel sorry for them. For Mitchell and Ball Cap, and whoever that second guard had been, but it was difficult to muster up the sympathy. She had no doubts those men back there would have done the same to Shelby if he hadn’t escaped. A trifecta of cheese.
“Ana,” Chris was saying. Then, when Ana didn’t respond fast enough, “Ana!”
She turned around and saw Chris pointing at a pair of lights. They were growing bigger and brighter, and at the same time, closer.
Headlights. She was staring at a pair of headlights coming right at them.
She grabbed Chris’s arm and shouted, “Run!”
They broke off into a sprint. Ana held onto Chris’s left hand, which allowed the teenager to maintain her grip on the ax in case they needed it with her right.
Oh, who are you kidding? You’re definitely going to need that ax!
They veered right, hoping to get out of the headlights’ path before they could be spotted, but that turned out pointless. The vehicle was also turning, those same pair of headlights pointing in their direction again.
He’s seen us. Shit, he’s seen us!
“Ana!” Chris was shouting.
“Keep running!” she shouted back.
“But Ana!”
“What?”
“Behind us!”
Oh, Jesus Christ, what now? Ana thought as she tossed a quick glance behind her.
Goddammit. When it rains, it pours!
There were two of them, and they were bounding across the flat Texas plain as if they had rubber for legs and springs for hands. The sight of them—low to the ground like black-skinned jackrabbits—made her wonder if this wasn’t all just some twisted nightmare, and maybe she was still tied up in the no-name town, waiting for the end.
Stop daydreaming, and run! Run run run!
She ran, and so did Chris next to her. Even though both of them were exhausted, they didn’t stop. They couldn’t. They couldn’t.
Either the creatures had spotted them, or they’d been lured to their position by the same vehicle that Ana and Chris were trying to dodge now. Not that the how of it mattered, because all Ana could do was run faster and make sure she didn’t lose her grip on Chris’s smallish forearm as she did so.
“Don’t stop!” Ana shouted. “Don’t stop, Chris!”
Chris didn’t shout anything back, maybe because she was too busy gasping for breath as Ana picked up her pace. It didn’t take long before Chris started to slow down, and Ana found herself tugging at the teenager’s arm more than usual.
Ana looked over at Chris’s sweat-slicked face. Perspiration whipped off her cheeks and chin and hair despite the chilly environment. Chris was doing the best she could, but she was losing the battle. They’d been running since the town, with only that brief walk-and-talk. Ana was tired, too, but she just couldn’t afford to slow down.
Can’t stop. Can’t let us stop!
She glanced back again.
They were closer, their forms growing in size. She thought she could make out the black of their eyes against all that darkness, but maybe that was mostly her imagination at work. She could, though, start to smell them, and it stood up every hair along her arms.
We’re not going to make it. We’re not fast enough. Either that, or they’re faster.
She looked forward, then around her. There was nothing out here, no place to escape to or buildings to hide inside. They were going to have to run and run and run until morning, because the nightcrawlers wouldn’t get tired. She would. So would Chris. They would run out of steam long before—
“Ana!” Chris shouted, just before she collapsed to the ground.
It was all Ana could do to let go of the teenager’s hand, otherwise she might accidentally pull Chris’s arm out of its socket. She slid to a stop and spun around, the brightening headlights getting even bigger out of the corner of her left eye (It’s still there. Of course it’s still there! When it rains it pours, remember?), while her right fixed on the two black forms racing toward them.
“The ax!” Ana shouted. “Give me the ax!”
Chris held the weapon out to her, the sharp blade gleaming in the moonlight, and Ana thought, Is it silver? Damn, I hope it’s silver!
The sharp edge didn’t have to be all silver, just enough coating the right parts to be effective. She would have asked Chris to be sure if she’d had the time, but she didn’t.
Five seconds.
Two. Just two ghouls. That was the good news.
Four seconds…
She told herself it could have been worse. There could have been three or four or a dozen instead of just the two she could make out with the naked eye. Take one out first, then handle the second. Yeah. That’s all.
Three seconds…
She tightened her grip on the ax’s wooden handle. It was a small and compact weapon, but she could feel the nice balance. It was a fine tool. Made for cutting. Made for chopping. Made for surviving.
Two seconds…
Ana didn’t step away from Chris, who was struggling to get back up on her feet. She couldn’t do that, otherwise the teenager might end up a separate target. This way, the monsters would have to come at them, and with her standing in front of Chris, they’d aim right for her. They were predictable that way. It didn’t matter that she had the ax. All they would see was her: Prey.
One!
Spittle flew out the corners of their mouths as dark black eyes, devoid of anything that even resembled humanity, widened exponentially as they pounced.
Ana swung, aiming for the neck of the nearest nightcrawler, but the creature jerked back its torso at the last second, and the blade sank into its chest with a sickening thwack! instead.
Shit!
With the ax still embedded in the ghoul’s body, Ana continued with the momentum of her swing and lifted the struggling creature up with a grunt and swung it into the second one even as it tried to leap past the first. She just barely clipped the other undead thing in the legs, but it was enough to knock it off course.
The ghoul with the blade buried deep in its torso slammed to the earth on its back first. Before it could get up, Ana smashed her boot down on top of its shoulder and attempted to pull the ax out. It should have been easy. The monster should have lain still, the silver in the weapon having done its job, except that wasn’t what happened, because there was no silver in the ax’s blade.
Shit shit shit!
The monster thrashed against the end of the blade, still buried halfway betw
een where its breasts used to be, as Ana struggled to pull the ax free. Finally, finally, she managed to jerk the ax loose. Without wasting any time, she cocked it backwards and over her head before driving it back down and into the ghoul’s skull as it attempted to rise up from the ground.
Her aim was true the second time, and the blade cleaved the nightcrawler’s head in two, from the forehead down, before slicing through its jaw. Blood sprayed everywhere, including Ana’s clothes and chin, but she refused to let the disgust register.
The monster sagged against the ax, but it was still alive, still standing despite its head having been separated into two sections. Gravity was already pulling each half of its head to the sides and downwards, making it stumble like a drunken idiot. It was a grotesque sight, and one that Ana was sure would give her nightmares for years to come if she survived this.
If I survive this! she thought, and swung again, the bloodied blade lopping the stumbling monster’s head off its shoulders.
Ana was sucking in a deep breath, wondering how many chunks she was going to have to chop the creature into before it would no longer be a threat, when a voice screamed out, “Ana!”
She spun toward the sound of the voice (Chris!) and found the teenager fleeing with the second ghoul chasing behind her.
“Chris!” Ana shouted, and took off after them.
Even as her legs pistoned and she tightened her grip on the ax, afraid she might lose it, Ana knew she wasn’t going to reach the teenager in time. At least not before the ghoul did, because it had a head start and Chris was already tired, already slowing down…
“Faster, Chris, faster!” Ana shouted.
She wasn’t even sure if Chris could hear her. She could barely register her own voice with the wind howling in her ears and her heartbeat racing uncontrollably against her chest, pounding away like a drumline on crack.
After The Purge: Vendetta Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 65
