“Get to the tunnel!” Trevor yelled, giving Owena shove in the right direction. “We’ll try to hold them off long enough for you to get a head start.”
Owen didn’t even think about protesting. He simply started running toward the way out, the beam of his flashlight bouncing in every direction, strobing off the floor, walls, and ceiling. Trevor got his attention back around to face the threat just in time as a three-foot ball of clawed fury came flying his way. He put three bullets right in the creature’s face. It was enough to knock it aside but not damage it.
“Move!” Trevor shouted in Hale’s direction, shoving the 9mm in the holster at his back and letting his claws extend to their full length. “It will be easier to keep them off us once we’re in the tunnel!”
He and Hale covered each other as they continued to fall back toward the sloping tunnel. Then they started moving up it, one slow step at a time. The creatures threw themselves at him and Hale with wild fury, claws whistling through the air like knife blades. It was more luck than skill that kept him and Hale from being sliced to shreds.
They made surprisingly good time retreating up the sloping tunnel, punching, kicking, and slashing to keep the creatures at bay, but it still seemed to take forever. It was exhausting, but knowing that every step took them closer to daylight and safety, Trevor kept fighting. The ghouls were coming at them hard as hell, like they were desperate to keephim and Hale from getting away. In between snarling and growling, the creatures let out an endless series of chirps and grunts. Trevor was pretty sure they were talking to each other.
He glanced at Hale to see his friend fighting right there with him, claws and fangs fully extended, smashing creatures into the wall over and over again. It still didn’t hurt them, but at least it slowed them down a little.
Trevor thought this might actually work out. By his guess, they only had four or five hundred feet to go to reach the intersection where they’d split from Mike, Connor, and Isaac. If everything went according to plan, the guys would be waiting for them. Their increased numbers would hopefully scare the creatures off their pursuit.
Then he heard the thud of running footsteps.
At first, he thought it was his pack mates coming to the rescue. Then he picked up an incredibly familiar scent, and suddenly every scrap of hope he had for a good outcome to this situation blew up in his face.
Trevor barely had time to force his fangs and claws to retract before Jenna ran up to him, a hiker’s light strapped to her forehead and an aluminum softball bat in her hands. She immediately started swinging it at the closest ghoul, looking about as freaked out as Trevor was.
Esme and Maya were right behind Jenna, eachcarrying their own bats, with lights on their heads. Owen raced after them, flashlight bobbing like wild as he tried to run forward and look backward at the same time.
“They’ve gotten behind us!” he shouted, a frigging rock clutched in his free hand for a weapon. “They popped out of those little holes in the walls and are coming this way. We’re cut off from the rendezvous point with the others!”
Well, crap.
CHAPTER 11
“So what’s with the softball bats?” Esme asked curiously as she and Maya led Jenna through the alleys toward the manhole cover Trevor and the others had disappeared through well over an hour ago. With all the twists and turns, Jenna was surprised they’d remembered the way.
They’d gotten the bats Esme was referring to a few blocks from their present location at a sporting goods shop on Maple Avenue. Along with three sets of those fancy LED lights that you can wear on your head so you can keep your hands free. Jenna wasn’t sure if she would look cool—or stupid—in the thing. But if she was going underground—as terrifying as that idea might be—she was bringing the brightest light she could find.
“I have it on good authority that these creatures have a problem with metal,” she answered. Stopping in front of the open manhole cover positioned in the middle of the alley, she pulled the aluminum bats out of the duffel bag she’d bought in the same sporting goods shop. “I hope we never have to find out one way or another, but if it comes down to it, I’d like us to be able to protect ourselves if we run into one of those things.”
It was like the air temperature dropped as Esme and Maya suddenly froze right in front of her. Maybe they’d come to the unsettling conclusion that this was for real and that they were going to climb down into the same hole that an extremely dangerous creature had disappeared into a few days ago. And while the idea of coming to the rescue of their friends might have seemed like a good one at the time, she got the feeling they were scared right now.
“Maybe they’ve already come out,” Esme said softly, almost hopefully. “You know, while we were going to get you.”
“I think they would have closed the manhole cover if that was the case,” Jenna pointed out, even though she was sure the other women already knew that.
Esme took a deep breath. “So we’re really going to do this?” She looked down at the aluminum bat Jenna handed her with wide-eyed intensity, then at the inky blackness that filled the hole in the asphalt. “We’re really going to go down there looking for them?”
Nobody said a word, but then again, an answer wasn’t necessary.
Jenna gazed down into the hole, barely able to see farther than the first rung of the ladder stuck in the side of the concrete wall. But that was all it took to make her heart beat faster.
“Okay,” she started, taking a step closer to the opening. “In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably mention that I’m deathly afraid of tight, dark places, and the thought of going down in the sewer makes me want to pass out—or throw up—or both.”
Esme blinked. “Then why are you doing this?”
“Because Trevor is down there and so are my brother and two of their friends,” she said. “They could be in trouble, so I have to go after them.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Esme answered. “I feel the same way about Isaac and Owen. It’s just that I can’t help but wonder what the three of us are supposed to do down there that the four of them can’t?”
Taking another deep breath, Jenna leaned down to slip her foot through the sewer entrance, one toe searching for the ladder rung on the curving wall of the tunnel beneath her. “I guess we’re about to find out,” she whispered, breathing getting harder and faster the deeper she descended into the darkness, like she was slipping into freezing cold water.
Jenna almost forgot to turn on her headlamp, only remembering it when she was completely below street level and the darkness threatened to overwhelm her. She felt silly wearing the thing but was glad to have it all the same. The bright light from the multiple LED bulbs filled the space around her, revealing filthy walls and sludge-covered ladder rungs.
When she reached the bottom of the tunnel, Jenna forced herself to take a few steps to the side to make room for Esme and Maya. The already-tight walls began to close in on her and her legs refused to listen to her any longer. Then her lungs started to pump like two bellows and the dark space began to get even darker.
