She snapped her mouth shut and settled down in the bottom of the boat, turning away from me, and I did the same, our backs to each other signifying the end of what could have been before it had really had a chance to begin. Sekou leaned over the motor and turned the switch. It roared to life, and we were off, cutting through the water, hitting the tiny swells, water spray and wind hitting our faces.
The mainland loomed in the distance, reeling us in over the dark water.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Sheriff Lyle’s private dock was a bright beacon, guiding us in like a lighthouse. Sekou jumped out of the boat, the shallow water going just below his knees in the marshy brine. He grabbed the rope I tossed to him, pulling us in so he could secure the line to one of the thick round posts built into the dock.
I made sure my backpack was firmly on me and that it was still zipped, after I’d poked my hand in to make sure the cuffs were still there. Luckily, they were.
Lyle was supposed to pick us up from the dock, but I saw no evidence of him or his truck.
It was really quiet. A sort of dead stillness that was saying something was a tiny bit off. Sensing a disruption in the balance of nature here. And I was hearing something. Something moving through the woods on unsteady feet.
Maybe it was a hurt animal. I sniffed the air, trying to catch some sort of scent, but I couldn’t tell exactly what was there. It was a faint smell of something diseased and malignant.
“Be careful,” I said softly. “Watch out for animals. I think something’s hurt out here and it could—”
I didn’t get the rest of my sentence out because something slammed hard into my chest and I was sailing through the air. The once-faint scent of disease and rot was now heavy and oppressive, covering me like a dirty blanket. It was in my nostrils and my mouth as whatever it was wrapped itself around me.
I crashed to the ground, my backpack squished between me and the grassy earth beneath me. I kept my arms out straight to keep the thing as far from my face and neck as possible.
Sekou and Hailey were shouting as the thing over me came into focus. A pale snarling, snapping, clawing thing that kept gnashing its fungus-filled uneven teeth at me. No canines. It was like the things that had chased me and Hailey at the campus. How was it able to find us? What was it doing here out in the middle of nowhere?
Its nails were long and jagged like talons, and its face was a gruesome mask of bites and tears. It was a Black man from what I could tell. Or used to be. But its skin was pale and ashen, as if it’d been sitting in water and its melanin had lost its luster. Snaking up its neck were thick black lines. Its eyes bulged, the black pupils so dilated none of the whites showed. In the light of Sekou’s bouncing flashlight, its eyes had barely a speck of gold that had lost its luster. They blazed bloodred.
It lunged for my throat. It was powerful, a shark, all muscle and power… an eating machine with thoughts of nothing else.
I struggled to fight it off, the blood I was able to take that nightreinforcing my strength and letting me keep it from tearing a hole in my throat, but barely. It was either it or us if I released it, and it nearly overpowered me. I hadn’t come this far to let one of these things beat me. I hadn’t put everything I had on the line just to die here. It clearly had a one-track mind. Long ropes of saliva, thick like molasses and smelling like rot, dripped from its gaping mouth onto my face. It was all I could do not to gag.
Sekou was over it, smashing a large branch over its back. It lashed its arm backward at Sekou to get off, jerky like a marionette, and I scratched at it, digging my nails deep into the side of its throat. Blood, or something like it, seeped out, and I dug in deeper.
The thing let out an unholy howl that echoed in the treetops, and I was afraid more would come. It moved way too fast, but jerkily, like it couldn’t control its limbs. With one gnarled hand, it tried pawing for my shoulder and the strap of my backpack, trying to hook its nail through.
I balled my fist and beat at its face while Sekou came back with the stick again. Hailey stepped forward, making small noises, unsure what to do.
The. Alarm.I wanted to yell. There was no way I was opening my mouth. No way that foul spit was getting in there. Bad enough I had to keep my eyes open and look into the empty, vacant, hungry ones of the thing above me.
“Alarm!” Sekou commanded Hailey.
“What?”
“Your alarm! Be useful for a change and sound the damn thing.”
She dug in the pocket of her jeans, pulling out the small cylinder and pointing it toward the thing. The sound pierced theair, echoing among the treetops and sending bats fluttering into the sky. The thing above me reared back, howling. It clutched at its ears with its hands, covering them. It was enough that I could buck it off me, and it heaved to its side. I rolled up, wiping at my face to get the sticky, tacky substance off as I got to my feet.
Hailey’s alarm died down and the thing immediately began to reorient itself.
But I was ready for it.
It jumped up to its feet, hulking and breathing hard. The saliva dripped to the ground. It bared its teeth. It zeroed in on me, the prey in its crosshairs. Behind me, Sekou readied his stick, having my back as he always had since we were little. And Hailey, surprisingly, stood beside him, her hands balled to her sides as if she, too, were ready to fight.
I crouched, preparing to launch myself at the thing and rip its throat out with my bare claws. My fingers had grown into talons. My energy crackled and I opened my mouth, allowing my teeth to let down, long and curved. My muscles coiled, and just as I was about to fly at it, a pair of high beams appeared out of nowhere attached to a black Dodge Ram.
The Ram bumped a high patch of packed dirt, bounced up into the air, and sailed into the thing as it leapt at me. The Ram’s grill smacked into the thing, and its body zipped in front of us, smashing into a nearby cluster of trees. It hit one, and the tree shook violently from the impact. Its leaves rained down on the thing as it fell to the ground in a stinking, monstrous heap. It did not move.
The lights of the Ram illuminated the mound as I swayed sideto side, watching it, waiting for it to recover and resume its attack. Still, it did not move.
Particles floated in and out of the high beams as they remained trained on the unmoving figure. The driver’s door opened and Lyle climbed out, rifle in hand. He trained it on the mound in case it jumped up. Like all monsters did before their final end.
