Black Holes - The Mors Mortis Trilogy Book 3

Chapter Fifty Four

Leah darted onto the porch and stopped beside Zarah.

Creatures streamed from Jared's house, bursting from the front door, crawling out the windows, all running up the road, following the stench of smoke and the billowing grey clouds on the horizon.

Explosion after explosion went off, and it was sending the creatures into a frenzy.

First ten emerged, then twenty, then fifty. Leah stopped keeping count, just waiting for the flow to ebb.

Zarah was pale beside her, but Jared watched them with a calculated indifference, and she could tell he was going into that zone that made him so deadly in battle, so ruthless and emotionless.

"What did Alice end up using for the explosions?" he asked.

"Gunpowder," Zarah said, her eyes flicking to the horizon, watching pillars of smoke rise and then diffuse. They were growing further away, dragging the creatures with them. "Danny emptied out some of his bullets for her."

Leah grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

"Alice will be fine," she said, hoping her own uncertainty didn't leak into her voice. "The creatures won't catch her."

The flow of bodies from the house was petering out, infrequent enough now that they could slip inside without running straight into a creature if they timed it right.

"Come on," Leah said, giving Zarah a tug, forcing her gaze from the horizon.

Leah moved quickly but quietly to Jared's house across the road. She stopped by the side of the door, waiting as one creature lunged outside, then another.

When she didn't hear another immediately following, she slipped inside, darting to the side of the doorway just before another creature barrelled past.

Jared entered next, sneaking through another break, and then Zarah followed.

Their progress down the corridor was painfully slow. They hugged the walls, moving only when no creatures were in range, the world around them settling into a strange nightmare-like quality. The dim lighting, the hushed steps, the creeping and held breath and constant sense that disaster hung over their heads.

But they got down the corridor without incident.

Leah could feel Zarah's breath on her neck when they reached the basement stairs, shallow and strained.

Jared ushered them against the wall, signalling for them to wait and poked his head out, scanning the dark passage. The stairwell was clear, but that didn't mean much. There could still be plenty creatures down there. In fact, Leah was positive there were from the thuds and thunks she could hear.

It wasn't a revelation she particularly enjoyed.

They'd hoped that the creatures — all of the creatures — would be so bothered by the explosions that they'd abandon the portal. But it seemed some had stayed back, guarding it.

The things that implied about the creatures intelligence and their ability to work together was worrying. Ever since Danny's sickness, they'd known the creatures were people — people who'd been trapped in the in between long enough that something horrible and transformative had been done to them. That meant there was a chance they were intelligent too, even though the animal ferocity the creatures had acted with so far hadn't suggested so.

But they couldn't worry about that now. They had to act while they could.

Jared clearly felt the same urgency, because he stepped into the stairwell and started creeping down, crouched and tense. He'd just turned back, gesturing for Leah and Zarah to follow, when a creature lunged up the stairs, barrelling into Jared and smashing him into the wall.