“Sometimes, I think the apocalypse happened fourteen years ago and we’ve all just been waiting for it to get around toendingus.”
“I can understand why,” I admitted. “And there is a possibility everything we know might still come to an end, but we’ve worked relentlessly to keep the world going forthislong.”
“Yeah.”
Glass blew inward with a loud crash as something smashed through the windowbesideher.
ChapterTwenty-Four
Corson
“Wren!” I shouted and lurched toward her as a tentacle lashed through the curtains and wrapped aroundherarm.
She didn’t scream as she stumbled away from the wind whipping the curtains back. Rain pelted through the window, soaking her and the wood floor as whatever held her started drawing her toward the window. Jerking on her arm, Wren tried to wrench it free as she reached across her body for her knife. The Hell creature yanked her back, slamming her against the wall and knocking her blade free fromherhold.
The knife clattered to the floor, but Wren still made no sound as she dug her fingers into the blue-gray tentacle in an attempt to pry herself free. Arriving at her side, I unleashed my talons and sliced the tentacle, severing it in one swipe. The detached appendage flopped across the floor, spewing gray bloodfromit.
I spun toward Wren, my eyes frantically searching her to make sure she was okay. The arm of her shirt was ripped open, and red welts marred her skin. I’d slice this thing to shreds for touching her, never mind leaving marksonher.
Something screeched in the night, and my lips skimmed back. I realized what creature was outside before another tentacle emerged through the window and whipped into the living room. Seizing Wren’s arms, I pushed her behind me and released her. When the end of the tentacle brushed over my face, I sliced it off. Before I could stop her, Wren darted away from me and scrambled to retrieve herknife.
“Leave it!” I shouted as the front door burst open and more monstrous arms unraveled until they filled the doorway. They slithered up and down as they stretched intotheroom.
Wren released a startled cry and threw herself onto the ground. Rolling across the floor, she avoided the tentacle swinging toward her, reclaimed her knife, and bounded to her feet. When another tentacle shot toward her, she sliced off the tip before dashing out of the way of the spewingblood.
She ran toward me as I jumped over another tentacle to land beside her in the center of the room. I stepped forward to block her from the tentacles unraveling through the window. They slashed back and forth, extending further into the room as they searchedforus.
“What are these things?” she demandedbreathlessly.
“It’s a macharah,” I told her as I nudged her furtherbehindme.
“It? There’s onlyoneofthem?”
“Yes.” I leaned back to avoid taking a tentacle to the face. “We’d be surrounded by them if there was more than one outthere.”
“I feelsurroundednow!”
Shifting her grip on her knife, she swung it sideways to implant it into a tentacle. Her momentum pushed the tentacle into the wall where she embedded it there. The end of it flopped and curled over before Wren yanked her blade free and sliced thetipoff.
Snarling, I lifted my hands and swung them back and forth as I used my talons to hack my way through the tentacles and toward the door. The wind whistled as the appendages whipped around my head, seeking to batter me into immobility. I dodged back and forth to avoid having my brains littering the floor. Lifting my hand, I speared a tentacle before it could go over the top of meforWren.
As I worked my way forward, Wren stayed beside me. She stabbed and sliced her way through the appendages as she dodged the attack with ease. All around me, severed tentacles fell and flopped onto the floor where they melted into a gooey ooze that slid through the floorboards. The macharah pulled away its amputated limbs to allow them to regenerate, but no matter how many tentacles I cut off, more pushed throughthedoor.
When I neared the door and the source of the attack, I turned my shoulder to keep Wren partially behind me and better protected. I caught brief glimpses of the thing attached to the tentacles through the lashing appendages. The macharah had settled itself on thewalkway.
“What seal is this thing from?” Wren panted as she sliced off moretentacles.
“The macharah were behind the one hundred-thirdseal.”
The macharah drew some of its tentacles back and placing its arms beneath it, the creature lifted itself off the walkway and plopped down in front of the door. The color leached from Wren’s face when the tentacles peeled back to reveal more of the hideousbeast.
Thirty-plus, smaller tentacles circled the bottom of the macharah and propelled it forward until it stood in the doorway. The macharah moved fastest through large bodies of water, but it was capable of traveling on land too. The rain probably helped itsmovements.
Without any eyes or ears, the macharah navigated by scent and touch. Once the tentacles latched onto a victim, they drew their prize into the macharah’s mouth, which encompassed the entire top of its nearly four-foot-wide,flathead.
Thousands of teeth lined the inside of that mouth, and I could hear them all clicking together as the teeth swirled about in anticipation of a fresh meal. Looking at the beast, it was easy to tell it had feasted well on Earth. The blue-gray skin covering its torso was stretched so thin that it revealed the bodies of the macharah’s recent victims sloshing around itsstomach.
Rising on the smaller tentacles beneath it, the macharah’s blob-like shape filled thedoorway.
