Avery screamed as the impact rocked the tunnel and knocked her off her feet. When she landed on her stomach, the air was knocked from her lungs and pain burst through her bruised ribs, hips, and knees.
Freezing saltwater and small shards of glass rained down to soak her clothes. The hole the shark created in the tunnel wasn’t large enough for the monster to break through, yet, but jagged cracks spiraled away from the hole. It was only a matter of time before the glass caved in.
“Avery!” Reid yelled.
When he grabbed her and pulled her up, her feet slipped on the glass and water, and she almost went down again. He helped steady her as she searched for the shark, but it was gone, and so were all the fish. She brushed her soaking hair away from her face and wiped the water from her eyes as she focused on him. Water matted his hair to his face and clothes to his body; blue tinged his lips from the cold.
“Come on,” he said.
Her feet slipped on the wet glass, but she quickly found her balance as she sloshed through the water already rising to her ankles. The hole wasn’t very big, but the tunnel was filling up fast as they slogged their way toward the elevator only thirty feet away. They would make it before the tunnel collapsed or the shark returned; they had to.
A shadow spread across the tunnel until it blocked out the light, and though they continued to splash through the water, an eerie silence seemed to encompass the tunnel. Avery’s heart sank, but she refused to look at the shark again; she might wet her pants if she did.
A loud, sickening crunch resonated throughout, and the tunnel quaked when the shark delivered its next blow. The tunnel rocked to the left and shifted off its foundation enough that water sprayed down from the broken seams above the elevator doors.
Avery threw her hands out to ease her impact when she fell against the side of the tunnel. Vibrations shook the glass beneath her palms as fissures raced from the ceiling and spread out beneath her palm.
Her mouth went dry as water seeped through the spiderwebs spreading across the glass. The cool liquid pooled against her hands and slipped through her fingers. From the growing hole above, more of the arctic water poured over them.
The seawater surged up to her knees before progressing to her waist and sweeping her off her feet. The salt stung her eyes as water filled her nose. She gagged and struggled to stay above the water as it smashed her off the side of the tunnel before spinning her away.
She finally succeeded in righting herself enough that she saw Mario, Sandra, Isla, and Karen crash into the elevator doors with a loud bang. Kicking her legs and flailing her arms, Avery tried to slow her progression toward them, but her strength was nothing compared to the water current.
Isla threw out her hands to try to protect herself before Avery hit her, but it did little good as her arms bent from the impact and Avery squished her against the door. Bangs sounded around her as Reid, Eric, and Talia crashed into the others. The spray of water from overhead drenched her further and made hearing more difficult as it pelted the water around her and plastered her hair to her face.
“Get off me!” Isla yelled as she pushed against Avery’s back.
Planting her feet on the floor, Avery tried to pull herself away from the tiny girl, but the force of the water kept her shoved against Isla. “I can’t!” she cried.
Avery lifted her chin to keep her mouth and nose free of the rising water as more of it poured through the large hole the shark created. When the glass wobbled, Avery held her breath as she waited for the tunnel to shatter.
“Get the door open!” she shouted.
“I’m trying to find the button!” Mario yelled.
Avery gave up her futile attempt at standing and kicked her feet as she tried to swim away from Isla. Her efforts only succeeded in turning her legs to rubber and robbing her of breath. Exhausted and battered from the water hammering her, it took everything Avery had to keep some of her weight off Isla.
Another loud bang sounded, and the tunnel shuddered. Avery held her breath as she waited for the tunnel to finally collapse and plunge them into the ocean with the shark. If the creature didn’t eat them, they would surely drown.
Then, a fin emerged in the tunnel only fifty feet away from them. The startled cry she emitted was choked off by her mouthful of the sea. The fin slicing through the water was mesmerizing as it glided toward them. The shark moved like it had all the time in the world to devour its prey, and perhaps it did, as they were trapped here.
Pure, blind terror seized her as she pictured those teeth sinking into her flesh and rending it from her body. She could almost hear the cracking of her bones as this monster crunched her within its colossal jaws.
“Hurry!” Talia shrieked.
“I think I’ve got it. Hold—”
Avery plummeted backward as water flowed beyond her and through the open, elevator doors. She had only a second to breathe a sigh of relief before she hit another wall and the current pulled her under. Kicking, she clawed at the water as she tried to break free, but it continued to pummel her into the ground. Her lungs burned for oxygen as her arms and legs flailed for something to pull her free.
Air! I need air!
But she couldn’t find any, and the darkness behind her closed eyes became punctuated with white starbursts as all of her cells screamed for oxygen.
I don’t want to die!
The words became a loop in her head as hopelessness filled her. Avery thought she was still fighting wildly to break free, but when she closed her eyes and opened them again, she realized her hands were moving in slow motion through the water.
Breathe. I have to breathe.
No!
But no matter how much she told herself to keep her mouth closed, her lips parted, and water flowed into her mouth. The first cold inhale of it hit her throat and lungs as hands grasped her arms. She was pulled up until air rushed over her icy skin. She gagged and choked as she tried to inhale the precious air while spitting out water.
“Are you okay?” Reid shouted as he pushed her soaked hair away from her face and cupped her cheeks.
“Ye-yes,” she stammered through her chattering teeth.
“Close the doors! Close the doors!” Talia shrieked.
“We’re trying!” Mario shouted. “The water is keeping them open.”
With their powers burnt out from using them, Avery didn’t think the others had enough left in them to get the doors shut. Or maybe they were like her and couldn’t get their terror under control enough to gather their powers.
“Go. Help them,” Avery managed to get out as more water spewed out of her.
Reid hesitated before kissing her forehead and releasing her. He half ran/half swam to where Sandra, Mario, Isla, and Eric were frantically jabbing at buttons to get the doors shut. Beyond the doors, the shark loomed ever closer.
Twenty feet… fifteen feet…
Teeth, black eyes, and gray skin filled Avery’s vision while its endless hunger for flesh hammered her. And it was their flesh it craved. The idea of this monster chowing down on her friends caused her power to well up within her. As she pictured the doors closing; she set her power free. The doors shook as they groaned against the weight of the water keeping them open, but they started to slowly slide out from where they were hidden.
Ten feet…
The flow of the water began to ease as the doors slid further shut, but it wasn’t enough.
Eight feet…
Only two feet separated the doors now; narrowing her eyes and fisting her hands, Avery ground her teeth together as she urged the doors faster.
Five feet…
Water slid through the inch separating the doors before they finally shut completely, and the water stopped pouring in. Avery slumped against the back wall, but she had only a second of relief before the shark slammed into the doors. The elevator rocked backward as the metal doors screeched and bent inward.
The impact rocked Avery into the back wall. She grasped the railing to keep herself fr
om going under as the others swam away from the doors and flattened themselves against the walls. Avery didn’t move as she waited to see if the shark would bust through the doors and devour them. But it didn’t hit the doors again, and the elevator remained eerily quiet as she stood in the chin-high water.
“Now what do we do?” Talia whispered.
A growing uneasiness filled Avery’s stomach as she stared around the tiny, airtight space. There wasn’t much breathable air in this thing. Reid floated over and wrapped his arms around her.
“I’m not going back out there,” Mario said through chattering teeth. “I am not going to be an appetizer for that thing.”
“We may have to,” Reid replied.
The look Mario sent him clearly said he believed Reid had lost his mind. Then his eyes landed on Avery. “Didn’t you ever see The Little Mermaid? Couldn’t Flounder have scared you?”
Avery chuckled. “There was a shark in that movie too.”
“I can handle cartoon ones.”
“Are you really scared of a little shark?” Reid inquired.
“Little?” Mario scoffed. “Greyhound buses are smaller than that thing!”
Avery chuckled, but the squeal of the elevator silenced her when it quaked, and the water sprayed her face as it sloshed back and forth around her. She hugged Reid, and her eyes fixed on the ceiling as the elevator groaned before sluggishly rising.
“Now what?” Sandra muttered when the elevator came to a grinding halt.
A minute or two later, the dented doors started to shake. Avery winced as an awful screeching noise rent the air before the doors wrenched themselves apart. Avery clutched Reid and the railing to keep herself from being swept outside when the water gushed out of the elevator.
Silence descended as they all remained huddled and shivering inside as the doors opened to reveal the pitch-black night beyond.
CHAPTER 30
Avery poked her head out of the elevator to take in their new surroundings. The branches of the scraggly trees decorating the landscape were barren, and their limbs were twisted and bent.
Then one of the limbs uncurled and plunged into the ground. Something squealed, and the branch retracted to reveal some kind of rodent dangling from the end of it. The creature squirmed as the tree brought it toward its trunk. She couldn’t see what the tree did with the rodent, but when the branch rose to coil in the sky again, the animal was gone.
“Did that tree just eat whatever that was?” Karen asked.
“I… uh… yeah, I think so,” Avery said.
“Oh, what the hell,” Mario muttered. “Is everything in this place flesh eating?”
“I think so,” Reid said.
“We’ll stay away from them,” Isla said.
“That might be easier said than done,” Sandra said as she pointed at the decrepit farmhouse a hundred feet into the trees. “I think we have to go in there.”
Rising from the earth, the giant monstrosity of a house loomed over the trees surrounding it. Most of the house’s white paint had chipped away to expose the graying, rotted boards and holes beneath. Hanging crookedly beside the numerous broken windows, the remaining few shutters were a fading black.
The front porch looked like it would collapse if she blew on it, and over its steps hung a large sign proclaiming HOUSE OF HORRORS in vivid red letters. The sign creaked as it swayed back and forth, though Avery detected no breeze.
“Guess it’s my turn,” Mario said.
Avery didn’t want to go in there, but they had no choice. “Let’s get this over with and go home.”
She stepped out of the elevator and onto a winding stone pathway covered in rotting leaves. The warm air helped to ease the chill in her bones, but her teeth still chattered, and goose bumps covered her arms as she walked toward the house.
When the tree limbs groaned ominously, she froze and eyed them warily. “I’ll torch your asses if you try to eat us,” she muttered, and one of the trees made a noise that sounded as if it were laughing at her.
Normally, she loved trees, but she wanted away from these creepy, flesh-eating monstrosities with their ridged, black bark that reminded her of a stegosaurus. In the center of their trunks was a horizontal, red slash that must open to become the tree’s mouth. Avery held her breath while she waited for the trees to attack, but none of them moved.
Avery was the first to make it to the porch; she gingerly tested the first step before putting her full weight on it. The board sagged and creaked beneath her, but it held firm. As she moved cautiously forward, she tested each board before climbing to the porch. When she was under the sign, she noticed words she hadn’t seen before.
HOUSE OF HORRORS
AND DEATH
Avery swallowed to get some saliva back into her parched mouth as she now realized it wasn’t red paint; it was blood. Tearing her gaze away from the sign, she studied the rotting wood beneath her feet as she tried not to think about what they were entering.
When she sidestepped a gaping hole in the center of the porch, the shadows below shifted as small squeaks were followed by an ominous growl. Eric cursed, and the rest of them moved further away from the hole as Avery finally made it to the sagging door with a lion’s head knocker in the center. The lion’s teeth were bared, and she swore she saw a glimmer of amusement in its brass eyes.
Ignoring the knocker—she was convinced it would try to eat her hand if she touched it— Avery rested her hand against the door and pushed it open. The rusty hinges creaked as the door swung inward to reveal the dark interior of the house. Avery waited for something to jump out at her, but when nothing did, she stepped inside.
A metal turnstile, like the ones used at amusement parks to count the number of people who entered, stood a few feet inside the hall. To enter the house, they would have to go through it. The old floorboards groaned beneath her feet as she approached the turnstile.
The dust kicked up from her passing clogged her nostrils and left the taste of mildew on her tongue. Worried about what the noise might attract, Avery pinched her nostrils together to keep from sneezing.
No lights were on this side of the turnstile, but fifty feet past it, a lantern hung from the wall. The dim light illuminating the hall cast an eerie glow over the metal as she reached the turnstile and placed her hand on its cool surface. The small red numbers on top of the box read, 5,665. She was about to become 5,666.
Great. Six, six, six can’t be a sign of good things to come.
Taking a fortifying breath, she shoved through the metal before she lost her nerve. The arm clicked as she walked through it and into the hall. She crept a few feet down the hall before halting to take in her surroundings while she waited for everyone else to enter.
The grimy, blue-and-white flowered wallpaper had peeled away in large sections to reveal holes in the plaster beneath. The once cheery wallpaper was out of place in this world of decay and disuse, but somehow it made this house creepier.
The scraping tick of claws and squeaks issued from behind the walls as whatever creatures lived within them scurried around. After some of the animals she encountered when they last dealt with Regan, she hoped these stayed inside the walls.
When everyone had passed through the turnstile, she lifted her hand before her. “Ignite,” she whispered, and a small blue flame burned above her palm.
“Ignite,” the coven chorused, and their colorful fires ignited to reveal more of the ancient house.
“The hall is only wide enough for single file,” Sandra mumbled.
“I’ll go first,” Mario volunteered.
“I think it’s better if you stay in the middle,” Karen said. “You’ll be the one Regan will go after the most.”
“I’ll go first,” Reid said. “Then Sandra, Talia, Isla, Mario, Avery, Karen, and Eric.”
Avery didn’t like the idea of being separated from Reid, but the order made sense, and Avery would be near Mario if he required help. When Reid started forward, they fell into line behind
him.
Dust and cobwebs covered the small, brass lanterns hanging on the side of the wall. The lantern’s flames danced in the eyes of the countless spiders watching them from the shadows. She kept a nervous eye on the spiders, which were the size of her hand and had inch-long bristly hairs covering their fat, brown bodies, but none of them skittered out of their hiding spots.
Turning a corner in the hall, the lanterns became fewer and the shadows thicker as the walls closed in on them. The oppressive, humid air continued to warm her, but it was also more difficult to breathe.
Flecks of the wallpaper peeled away and stuck to her sodden clothes and skin when she brushed against it. Her countless lacerations and bruises made every step excruciating, but she gritted her teeth and continued.
“There’s something up here,” Reid warned.
Sloshing sounds filled the air. Avery had only a moment to puzzle over what lay ahead before her feet sank into a thick, chilly ooze. The muck-filled her sneakers as it poured over the tops of them. When it squished between her toes, she wrinkled her nose at the reek it emitted. It smelled like sewage and rotting seafood had created a baby designed to kill people with its stench.
“It’s just mud. It’s just mud,” Talia repeatedly whispered.
Avery’s hand flew to her nose in a useless attempt to block the stench permeating her pores and burning itself onto her taste buds. She couldn’t begin to contemplate where the sludge had come from; she preferred not to know.
Behind her, Karen retched, and the vomit plopped into the muck. Avery wished she could do the same thing. She’d rather taste vomit on her tongue than this disgusting odor, but her throat seemed to have closed.
“It ends here!” Reid called back.
Avery sloshed eagerly forward when the line ahead of her moved faster. Her feet found solid ground again, and she stumbled out of the ooze sucking at her shoes.
“That was disgusting!” Sandra panted. “I’m never going to get this smell off me!”
The Maze (The Coven, Book 2) Page 16
