Crimson Skies

Part 10 - Chased

“Ashire?” Sarla’s voice is low and hesitant.

            The light grows brighter still as it scurries forward.

            “Ashire!” She shouts happily recognising the soft glow as the mole. The small mammal glimmers as it hurries.

            Laughter cracks behind the girls and in the light they see bent and crooked humanoid-bodies crawling along the walls and cave ceiling towards them. Aila lets out a blood-curling scream. Oh, how the things laugh louder, spider-crawling their way towards the girls.

              Their grins seem cut into their faces from ear to ear, revealing rows of yellow jagged teeth. Their skin is smooth and sinister as shadow. Their movements disjointed and crouched as if their feet step over their arms each time they crawl forward. Their heads tilt to the side, regarding the girls with hungry and dead eyes.

            “Sarla!” Dyle cries out to them from somewhere within the darkness.

The ground shaking leaps from those things travel through the compacted stone floors and up the girls’ legs. They quiver like leaves in the wind. The small lose stones on the ground rattle at their feet. They turn forward again to where they heard Dyle and start to run, the things bounding faster along the tunnels behind them. Screeching as they close the distance between themselves and the girls.

            The girls race towards the bright mole; it peers up at them like a deer caught in headlights.

            “Ashire! Run!” Aila screams, pushing herself forward, moving closer to the frightened animal.

       Sarla ignores the pain shooting through her body and continues to run. Finally, the mole shakes its head and then turns, sprinting back towards the boys. As it draws nearer, the girls catch sight of two shadows up ahead.

           “Start running,” they hear Dyle command. “You’re the slowest Jex; I’ll wait.”

         One of the figures disappears from view. Moments later, they reach Dyle in front of them. He grabs Aila’s wrist, pulls back and launches her in front of him, giving her a few seconds of extra space between herself and the chasing monsters. He turns to Sarla; his green eyes soften immediately. The things laugh, hallow and broken.

        He looks behind her. A hand reaches out, claws coming down on Sarla’s back. The mole leaps up and bites one finger. The thing howls and pulls back, throwing the animal away from it. Behind that monster, the rest of them catch up.

          Dyle reflexively reaches for Sarla and tugs her along with him; they fast find Aila in their sights again, the mole scampering behind them, limping though they do not have time to notice that. They see light in front of them and in the daylight, they make out Jex vigorously pulling and kicking out stones around the cave’s mouth. Aila takes in a single deep breath to recover from the run before slamming her shoulder into the loosened rocks.

      Sarla and Dyle break into the sunlight as stones the size of golf balls begin to hail down on them. They dare to look back from the entrance to the tunnels. The glance reveals the spider-people mean to follow them into the light. Sarla hurries to help Aila dislodge a large foundation boulder from its place.  

         The laughter gurgles and sloshes around the darkness like a drain gulping down mouthfuls of water.

         Someone screams.

       The girls and Jex fall back as their work is done. There, in the last of the mole’s light, they watch the creatures through a shower of falling rocks. The things, twisted and bent, pay no attention to the people at the cave opening. It takes the girls and boys a second to realise the screams are not coming from any of them...

       “Ashire!” Dyle darts forward.

       Jex catches him mid-spring and tugs back with all his force.

     “Let go!” Dyle turns back, his arm crashing into Jex’s face sending the smaller boy tumbling backwards, nose bleeding.

      As Dyle turns back to the cave, the last thing he sees before the ceiling collapses is the sight of those disfigured inhuman things tearing his beloved pet limb from limb, shoveling the flesh into their crooked grinning mouths.