Reclamation (Book 3 The Ravening Series) (3 page)

"What the...?" Aiden's voice trailed off.

"We're going to have to dig our way through." Darnell didn't look at all pleased by the notion.

"What's on the other side though?" Molly asked.

I crept closer to the mound of junk. It had taken them awhile to do this, and then they had abandoned it.
But why had they left? Why had they done this? Where had they gone and what was on the other side?

I took a step away from the mounded rubble and doubled back to the bend in the tunnel. A sudden thought occurred to me as I peered around the corner. "What if it wasn't people that built the barricades? What if it was
them
? What if they built it to keep people from using the tunnel as an escape route?"

They all stared at me for awhile before turning back to the pile. "You think those creatures would be capable of doing this?" Jenna inquired.

I looked toward Cade for an answer but he was keenly studying the pile with his hand resting against a beam. "I think they're capable of anything," I answered.

"That they are, but they didn't do this," Cade informed us as he stepped away from the pile. "It was built by humans; there are dirty handprints on some of these things, and footprints all over the ground." He flashed his light over the old prints that marked the floor, and some of the materials in the pile that had handprints on them. "It's going to take awhile to dig through all of this."

"Are we sure we want to?" Molly wrapped her hand around Aiden's arm as she stepped closer to him. I quirked an eyebrow at my brother; I'd noticed that they had been spending a lot more time together recently but Aiden hadn't said anything about it yet, and until she touched him just now I'd thought they were only friends. Maybe they still were, but the gesture seemed entirely too intimate to simply be one shared between friends.

"We'll make a small hole and I'll climb through first," Cade volunteered.

"Cade..."

He shook his head to cut off my protest. The idea of him going through first was enough to make me want to hurl, not when we didn't know what he was going to be climbing into. He may be stronger than the rest of us, faster and deadlier, but he wasn't immortal.

"Give me a hand," Cade said.

Aiden shot me a glance but nodded his agreement. Bret and Lloyd joined Cade and Aiden while Darnell, Mick, and Frank fell back to the curve with me. I listened to the small grunts and muffled curses as they worked to dig a hole through the mound of materials. Metal clacked and clanged and grated on my nerves as I watched the tunnel with a growing sense of urgency.

"Think we're there," Aiden muttered after what seemed like countless hours but was probably only two.

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves before turning around. My heart was in my throat as Cade took off his rifle. "You have to take a gun," I insisted. I didn't realize I'd been walking toward him until I was standing before him with my pistol extended. He grasped hold of my hand and caressed it before he took the gun from me and handed me his rifle. "Be careful."

He flashed his dazzling smile that never failed to melt my heart. "Always." His cavalier attitude did little to ease the knot of anxiety growing in my chest. "I'll be fine."

He kissed me quickly before disappearing into the small hole they had carved through the rubble.

I anxiously peered into the hole as I watched Cade squirm his way through it. I kept the flashlight focused on him until he disappeared. My breath was trapped in my chest as I waited for some sign that he was alive and well. Aiden's head was bent close to mine as he tapped his foot. I could feel his breath as it heaved in and out of him. His honey hued hair, so similar to mine in color, was longer than I'd ever seen it as it hung about his handsome, angular face in sweat dampened curls.

The light flashed off of Cade's face as he reappeared on the other side. He slipped back into the hole and made his way toward us. I stepped aside when he reached the end and pulled himself free from the hole. Some of the color had faded from his face and his lips were pursed as he reclaimed his rifle from me.

"They barricaded themselves on the other side," he stated crisply.

"Are they still there?" Aiden inquired.

"No. It's safe over there, but I have a feeling we're going to encounter another wall of debris at some point."

I didn't like the look in Cade's eyes as they met mine. "How bad is it?" I asked.

"It's not good," he told me.

"Should we go back?"

"It's a long way back and then we would have to find another route. It would mean crossing a bridge, maybe two. Our best option is continuing on," Lloyd insisted.

"He's right; it's probably our best chance," Cade agreed. "Going back above is unsafe and it will only delay us in the city even more. What's left over there can't hurt us."

I flinched away from his words.
What's left, what's left!
The words echoed in an endless scream through my mind.

"Let's get some more of this stuff out of the way," Darnell ordered. His tone was brisk but there was a catch in his voice that revealed his inner turmoil. "Make the hole big enough for us to get everything through."

"The other wall of debris, it won't still be intact like this one, will it?" I whispered.

Cade touched my cheek as he rested his forehead against mine. "No, it won't be."

"Are they all dead?"

His silence was answer enough. I didn't want to go over there and I certainly didn't want Abby to see what was on the other side, but there were no other options. It took an hour before the hole was big enough to fit all our supplies and Barney, a dog I had adopted in Plymouth, but who had become more of Abby's pet recently, through. It was another half an hour before we were all standing on the other side.

Aiden grabbed hold of Abby as she spun away with a disgusted cry and held her against his side. The urge to turn around gripped me but it was already too late. Even if I never looked again, the revolting images before me would forever be seared into my brain.

This side of the tunnel reminded me of a paintball course straight from a nightmare. The blood sprayed over the walls was nearly black in the beams of our lights as they played over the concrete walls and asphalt road. These people hadn't been killed, they'd been massacred. Rotting body parts littered the tunnel; limbs had been brutally wrenched from the bodies and tossed haphazardly about like they were no more than discarded tissues. Snapped bones, joints and muscles stuck out from the decaying remnants of the lost souls.

My hand flew to my nose and mouth as I tried, and failed, to block the stench. Molly spun to face the pile of debris at my back and vomited. Since The Freezing we had all seen, and survived, horrors that none of us ever could have imagined, but this was the worst. This was the sadistic and brutal destruction of the human body that served no purpose other than to entertain the monsters that had destroyed it. I could almost hear the echoing screams of agony and terror that had, at one time, resonated within these walls.

Aiden comforted Abby the best he could as she started to cry. My eyes burned too, but I found I couldn't master even the simple action of shedding tears right now. Cade's arm encircled my waist, he pulled me against his side as a tremor began to work its way through my system. It was so difficult for me to believe that he was a part of the race that had inflicted this cruelty upon our planet.

"Why?" I whispered.

He dropped his head against mine and nuzzled my hair as his fingers stroked over my arm. I wondered briefly if the tension in his body was from the tragedy surrounding us, or because it had triggered his hunger and killer instincts. He couldn't help what he was but looking at this place made me want to shriek with fury.

"There is no reason for this. Just focus on me, I'll get you through." Cade's words caused guilt to slither through me over my unfair and judgmental thoughts.

"We have to move," Darnell commanded in a clipped tone.

I kept my head bent as I pressed against Cade's side and gained strength from his unwavering determination. I tried to focus on his smell but even his scent of cloves and sweat couldn't block the hideous reek of this place. Molly and Abby were crying quietly, Jenna was as white as a ghost as her lower lip trembled.

Unlike the other stretch of tunnel, the street through here was relatively clean of all debris, except for the human remains. Lloyd's smattering of orange freckles stood out starkly against his pale face as he shifted his rifle onto his back and stopped to pick up a box full of canned food. His orange red hair stood out from his face and his blue eyes were large behind his glasses. There was a rare slouch to his shoulders as he hefted the box into his arms. I didn't particularly feel like eating anything that we'd found here but we couldn't turn down the extra food.

The dead had brought metal barrels into the tunnel and the ash remains of cooking fires filled the bottom of them and lent a smoky aroma to the air. We came across areas that seemed to have been people's sleeping quarters as we moved deeper into the tunnel. There hadn't been much privacy, but blankets and sheets had been hung to delineate small rooms. We moved by a door set into the side of the tunnel, but I had no interest in knowing where it went as I was certain it was only to even smaller places.

Cade's fingers dug into my waist and as I tilted my head back to meet his soulful eyes I saw true sadness there. It wasn't sadness for the dead around us, but for me. He was sad because
I
was sad. Along with his sympathy though, I also saw the hunger I'd wondered about earlier.

I shuddered as he pulled me closer against him and briefly rested his chin on top of my head. He wasn't cruel like the others of his kind, I knew he took no pleasure in the mayhem surrounding us, but he still had to survive. Being surrounded by all of this blood and death was fueling his ever present thirst, and though he wasn't inherently a cruel being, I knew that I was the only one he truly cared about. He would do whatever he could to keep the people I cared about safe, but I was his number one concern.

I was also the one he yearned to feed from the most, though he never did. No matter how often I offered him the nourishment he desperately needed, he refused it. Things were different now though, he had even less opportunities to satisfy his appetite than before. If we didn't get out of here soon he may have no choice but to allow me to satisfy him. I thought I should be troubled or repulsed by such a thing but I wasn't.
He
was frightened he might hurt me but I was positive he wouldn't.

Cade pulled his shirt over my nose as he urged me to move faster. I knew that being near me didn't help with the urges that pulsed through him, but somehow he managed to keep himself under control despite the steadily increasing tension I felt humming through him.

Time was rapidly slipping through our fingers; we had to get free of this awful place soon. It wasn't just the two of us starting to lose it but also the struggling group surrounding us. Even the more experienced soldiers were nearing their breaking point. Mick and Frank were bug eyed as they swung their guns rapidly back and forth. I was half afraid they were going to open fire at the first sound they heard.

Something clattered further down the tunnel. Before I could blink, or even react, Cade was shoving me behind him and whipping his knives out. Movement exploded around the turn at the end of the tunnel as one of the alien's monstrous creations charged out of the murky depths. Liz, a middle aged woman with dark blond hair nearly knocked me over as she bolted past me with the look of an untamed horse trying to escape a wolf.

"Don't run!" Jenna yelled after her but Liz didn't appear to hear her.

I jumped as shots reverberated through the confined space. My ears rang incessantly as my heart beat a rapid staccato against my ribs as another creature barreled around the corner. These monstrosities were on the smaller side, but they were just as deadly as, and far faster than, the bloated larger ones that had gorged themselves on human blood. Cade threw back his arm and released one of his knives. It made a whistling sound as it whipped through the air with swift and deadly accuracy. A sickening squishy sound followed as it punctured through the monsters spongy outer body. Blood, most likely human, sprayed out of the wound but it didn't slow its rapid pace. I aimed my gun at the other one and fired rapidly as it skittered perilously close to Lloyd.

Lloyd swore loudly as he dove out of the way of a swinging, jellyfish like tentacle that whistled as it sliced through the air. It scarcely missed crushing his skull as it slammed down with enough force to rattle the walls and leave a large crack in the asphalt. I suddenly understood what had happened to these people, understood how they had been so violently overrun as two more creatures emerged from the gloom.

Guns or not, they were going to overpower us.

Abby started screaming as my gun emptied and my heart broke. I didn't care what it took; I was
not
going to let them get their deadly tentacles on my little sister. Moving hastily, and with far more calm than I felt, I grabbed more ammo from my pocket.

I had just finished reloading when two strong arms wrapped about my waist and spun me around. My tailbone screamed as I landed on my backside with a solid thud and my hand went numb when my elbow cracked off the asphalt. Cade and I bounced and rolled over the surface. He somehow managed to get my gun and flip over on top as he kept me pinned beneath him.

Sitting up, he fired at the creature looming over us on its hind legs. My blood ran cold at the spectacle of the mouth-like hole in the center of the creature's midsection. I'd never seen one from this angle, and as the blood drained from my brain and face, I wished that I never had. The mouth opened to allow tentacles to slither forth in search of one of us to snag hold of and drain dry. Thousands of bristles that resembled the coarse hair of a wild boar rolled and bowed over like dandelions in the wind. It took me a second to realize that they weren't actually hairs but rather teeth that chattered in eager anticipation of sinking into one of us.

It didn't seem to recognize Cade as one of its masters, and I supposed that most of them probably wouldn't when confronted with him looking entirely human, and fighting for us. When his eyes were black and his veins were filled with whatever alien power that surged through him, they knew immediately that he wasn't one of their victims. Now though, it unknowingly dove at him as it eagerly sought to get at both of us.

It hissed and howled with pain as it fell back beneath the barrage of bullets Cade fired into it. Its legs folded in on itself as it sought to protect the hole in its center. Most of its tentacles retracted but one whipped out at us and almost took off Cade's head. His hand slapped the feeler away as he somehow managed to reload my gun, with inhuman deftness, and fire again.

A human scream of suffering ripped through the air. Panic clawed at me as I fought to see who and where the stricken sound was coming from but Cade continued to keep his body pressed protectively against mine. Another scream split the air as Cade launched to his feet with the grace of a cat, grabbed hold of my arm, and pulled me up so fast that I barely had time to blink let alone register the fact that I was standing again.

Cade's jaw clenched as he wrapped his arm around my waist, lifted me off my feet, and spun us so that we were facing the creature he had just emptied my gun into multiple times. It was still coming, but it was more sluggish now and oozing blood from the many holes puncturing it. Cade pulled his other knife free and deftly released it. The creature reeled back as the knife pierced through its chest region.

Cade bent over me, his hand wrapped around my head as a slashing tentacle slammed into his back. He grunted and was knocked forward by the blow. A cry of alarm escaped me as I clutched at him frantically, I was certain he had been flayed open. The force of that blow would have broken a normal man's back but it barely did more than slightly faze him. His lips brushed over my temple before he abruptly released me.

For a moment I thought the thing had grasped hold of him and was trying to take him from me again, but then I saw Cade's eyes. Black filled both of his eyeballs as he began to lose his firm restraint upon himself. Words escaped me as I was hit by the certainty that something bad was about to happen. Thrusting my gun at me, he spun away and moved rapidly beyond my grasp.

My heart was in my throat as he launched himself at the creature and scurried up to the top of it. In one ferocious motion he ripped the knife he'd flung free from the thing's flesh. Weak from its numerous cuts, the monster stumbled beneath Cade's weight but didn't go down. With a savage cry, Cade raised his knife above his head and slammed it down. Blood drenched his face and clothes as he was saturated in the life force of those that had been lost. I didn't want to see the brutality that encompassed him, but I couldn't tear my eyes away as he ripped the knife free and plunged it down again.