Taken Over (Book 2 The Ravening Series) (16 page)

  
“Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Howe,” I whispered.
I didn’t know
why the hell her parents had placed them in the fridge, perhaps
they’d
hop
ed
to keep them fresher,
but
I didn’t care. I swung my backpack forward and began to shove the boxes inside as the other three
entered
the room.

  
“
Bethany,
” Lloyd hissed.

   “
One moment,
” I retorted, shoving and pushing the
third
box into my bag. It wasn’t going to zip all the way closed again, but I didn’t care
.
T
he cereal would keep us going for a few
more days, maybe even a week or more if we were careful with it.

   “Bethany let’s go!”

   I tried to pull my a
rm from Lloyd’s iron tight grasp.
T
hough he was thin, he was far stronger than he appeared
as he clung to me
. “The cereal!” I snapped.

   He shoved his face into mine. “Screw the cereal!” he snarled.

   I blinked in surprise as he tugged the zippers on my bag closed and threw it onto my back. The last box of Cheerios fell to the floor. Barney had already been on his feet, but now he surged eagerly forward as the little O’s
scattered across the linoleum. “Wait!” I gasped as I was pulled roughly forward. “Barney.”

   Lloyd wasn’t listening to me though as he drug me toward where Jenna and Bret waited by the door. Jenna looked fearful; Bret just looked completely
baffled
by everything. “What the hell is your problem!?” I demanded breathlessly.

   “The aunt is frozen,” Lloyd responded, not at all slowing down.

   “So are
a
lot
of
other people,
”
I retorted growing more fearful of his erratic behavior.

   Lloyd glanced back at me. “She’s frozen and she’s still
here
. The rest of the town has been cleared out already.”

   I gasped in horror, the niggling feeling I had experienced upstairs suddenly came surging to the forefront. Though I hadn’t quite understood what had been bothering me
at the time
, I understood it now
, and I cursed myself for being an idiot
.
Every other place we
had come across
in this area
had been damaged,
and
completely devoid of human beings. But not here
,
in this frozen Mayberry of peace
and
tranquility. No
,
here everything was still perfect, still intact
, still as everyone had left it before the moment that had shattered our lives.
Everything was as it had been,
including the people unable to
flee
from
the monsters heading their way.
The monsters that would seek them out in order to drain them of their life
.

  
M
onsters that would be h
eading
our
way.

  
“Crap,” I breathed.

   “Yes crap, now let’s go.”

   I didn’t protest anymore, didn’t argue with him. I fled out the door, pounding down the steps of the porch. I turned back,
wanting to
call out to Barney as Bret and Jenna raced across the street toward
the woods.
My voice froze in my throat though as I realized that
everything had
gone oddly, deathly quiet once again. My terrified gaze swung to Lloyd, I saw the answering panic in his bulging eyes.

  
Barney emerged onto the porch, his ears pricked, his nose raised into the wind.
T
he hair on the back of his neck st
ood
up seconds before
one of the monstrous t
hing
s
rose up
from
behind the house. It was not as large as the house, or at least its main bulk wasn’t, but this one had become big enough
so
that one of the tentacles was able to reach the second story windows. It was only that tentacle I could see at first, as the rest of it was blocked by the ho
me
, but it slowly began to emerge from the back
.

   It
s opalescent and red bulge
began
to
squish
and push its way
in between Jenna’s aunt’s house and her neighbor
’s.
Boards were ripped free, windows shattered, the front porch caved beneath the weight of the bulging creature pressing upon it. This was what had caused the antique store my mother had died in to collapse. This was what had ripped the roof free, snapped bracings, and ruined the building with seeming ease.
I
ts progress
was
hin
dered by its size
, but
tha
t was not going to stop it
as part of the house gave way to its heavy bulk
. I
t seemed
that as long as the
se atrocities
continued to suck up blood, they
also
continued to grow in both width and height.

   Barney leapt off the porch as one of the tentacles whipped toward him. He let out a startled yelp, barely manag
ing
to avoid
the things
hungry grasp. “Barney,” I whispered as I slid to a stop.

   “It’s a damn
dog
!” Lloyd barked. “And he’s faster than you!”

   I was torn between going back for the dog
,
and listening to the complete and utter logic that Lloyd spewed. In the end, it was Barney’s speed and cunning ability to avoid the whipping tentacles that made sane reasoning finally return. The dog leapt and bound forward with grace and speed.
H
e nearly beat
me
into the relative safety of the woods.  

   I plunged
into the forest at the same time that three more of the monsters emerged onto the street. Two of them came straight at us.

CHAPTER 6

   “Zigzag,” Lloyd ordered.

   He didn’t have to tell me twice as I raced in and out
of
the trees. I didn’t know what good it was going to do us though, those damn things were fast, and their freaking tentacles were even faster.
We had no position to stand and fight, not right now anyway. We needed higher ground, but the last thing I was going to do was climb a freaking tree. I’d never survive then
, a tree was no obstacle for these things
.

   Unfortunately there appeared to be no other high ground around us. My gaze searched wildly around the forest, looking for something,
anything
that would give us some sort of protection or shelter. I glanced over my shoulder, Jenna was already starting to lag a little, and I could feel the burn in my lungs and legs.
We couldn’t keep this up for much longer, and judging by the rapid snapping of trees resonating
behi
nd us, we weren’t putting much ground between us
,
and them.

  
Lloyd jumped onto a set of boulders; he turned partially around, his eyes narrowed as he surveyed the woods. He leapt off the boulders, disappearing momentarily from sight. I pushed myself to keep going, but the backpack was becoming steadily heavier, and my legs hurt more and more with every step I took.

   Barney darted past me for a moment, brushing briefly against my legs before surg
ing
ahead. Th
e
saying that
a person
didn’t have to be the fastest
in the group when
being
chas
ed
,
they j
ust
have to be fastest than the slowest member
,
flashed through my mind.
Apparently
Barney knew this saying
,
and lived by it.
Then again, Bret was staying behind me and though I couldn’t see her, I knew that Jenna was falling
even further
behind
.

   Maybe some people wouldn’t mind just being able to beat someone in order to survive, but I sure as hell did. There was no way I was going to allow Jenna to be lost, not like this anyway.
And I certainly wasn’t going to lose Bret.
There had to be something that we could do.
Even if these things did catch Jenna, they weren’t going to stop with just her
anyway
. They would take us all down one by one.

  
Lloyd suddenly reappeared, he was standing on another set of boulders, his rifle raised, his eye pressed to the scope. The boom of the shot was startling in the forest
,
but no birds took flight
.
Where the hell did they all go when they felt the approach of these damn things? I suddenly,
and uselessly, wished for wings too.
Though I didn’t think there was any chance he could hit one of them through the trees,
Lloyd
fired off another shot
. He
probably just hop
ed
to make them hesitate
;
I didn’t think
for one minute that
it would work.

   I leapt onto the boulder beside Lloyd, struggling to catch my breath as I studied the forest. I could see trees bending and hear them snapping, but I could not see the monsters causing it
through the thick
foliage of the trees
. I
may not be able to
see them yet, but they were noticeably closer. “Keep going,” Lloyd commanded, sounding annoyingly less out of breath than me and my rapid panting.