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.
Jared muffled a grunt, shock sending his eyes wide, but the thud of his body against the wall was deafening, the plaster cracking behind him, indenting.
Suddenly, there were scuffles below, urgent feet, thuds of bodies running into each other — creatures following the noise, the telltale signs of life.
Jared's eyes were wild as he scrambled away from the creature, kicking out at it as he grabbed for his gun, and Leah lunged forward, pulling her knife from her belt and putting herself in the stairwell opening.
She cut through the next creature that appeared, slicing through its chest with efficient, practiced motions. It fell back, confusing the next creature that came after it, and it gave her a second to glance back.
Jared was still down, the creature towering over him, its arm raised for a killing strike.
Leah spun, about to throw her knife, but before she could Zarah darted forward and slammed her hands onto the creatures back.
There was an explosion of light, a burst of heat that travelled through Leah's body, bones and all, and then suddenly a girl stood over Jared instead. A frightened, confused teenage girl who clearly had no idea where she was or what she was doing there.
"Holy shit," Jared breathed, the panic leaving his body.
Zarah grabbed the girl by the arm and spun to face her.
"Get out of this house and as far from here as you can," Zarah said, forcing the girl to look at her, to see the deadly seriousness in her eyes. "Do you understand me?"
The girl was shaking, but she nodded, and after another confused moment, she darted to down the corridor, running for the door.
Leah could hear more creatures coming up the stairwell, and she grabbed Zarah's arm, jerking her to the side and into a doorway down the hall. Jared stood up, wincing, and followed them, closing the door quietly behind him as more creature emerged into the corridor.
They stood there silently, waiting, breath held, and once things quieted outside, Jared turned to Zarah.
"How many times can you do that?" he breathed.
Zarah shrugged. "I don't know. A few, I think."
Jared nodded.
"Good," he said. "We need to try again. I'll go first. Zarah, you follow me and do whatever that was as many times as you can, Leah, hold the back."
Zarah nodded and Jared cracked the door open and started for the basement stairs once again.
It was even darker in the stairs, the concrete walls thick and the lights out, and as they descended, Leah could hear Jared and Zarah clearing their way forward more than she could see it. Sometimes there was a scuffle or a sickening schluck of a noise — knife driving into flesh. Sometimes, it was a flash of light, a whisper, and another frightened person hurrying past her.
Leah kept checking behind her, waiting for some of the creatures Alice and Danny had diverted away from the house to return, but by the time they hit the basement, only one had appeared on the stairs behind them, and Leah took it down quickly.
And then they were there, emerging from the final step and into the room.
Leah felt her ears pop as she spotted the portal, its surface shimmering and shifting. Like the ocean at night.
There were no creatures in the room, nothing coming for them, and Jared and Zarah darted forward, knowing they had to act quick.
They stopped at its entrance, both looking at the shifting surface for a second.
Jared turned back and looked at Leah, his expression suddenly pained, and Zarah glanced between the two of them and then nodded.
"I'll see you soon," she said to Leah, and then she stepped through the portal, disappearing from sight.
Jared stared at Leah a moment longer and then he pulled her into a hug, burying his face into her shoulder.
"Remember what you promised," he said softly, his voice gruff, and Leah felt the finality settle over them.
He held her tight, as if he could crush her into him, and when he pulled back his eyes were red. And though Leah knew what it was to die, she had a strange sense of dying all over again, that her soul was draining out, drop by drop.
"Please," he whispered, and Leah nodded, holding back tears she wasn't sure would come anyway, that sat too deep.
"I will," she said.
And then he pulled away, his hands lingering on her as if he was stuck there. But then he stepped back into the portal and disappeared. Not taking his eyes off her once.
...
Next chapter out in two weeks!
- Skylar xx