I didn’t have time to look around and see where we’d come out at much less think of what to do next. Huddled together like a flock of helpless lambs, we faced the slaughterhouse that was awaiting our arrival.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I never got to ask the man who helped us for his name. If not for Dion shoving me out of the way, I would’ve caught part of the arrow that was now protruding through this stranger’s face.
The impact sent his body careening backward. His head bounced off the metal door, body sinking down as he confusedly grasped the piece of thin steel implanted just above his right brow. His expression was like all the others. Of everyone I’d seen die since this all started, their expressions always conveyed shock and confusion.
They didn’t understand why they were dying, being brutally executed like animals.
I caught a glimpse of the leviathan mask from the Inn and that was enough to get me moving. With not even a second to wipe the dead man’s blood from the side of my face, I was running again. Lungs burning like I’d downed a bottle of kerosene and no idea where I was going, I ran.
Grace, Morrigan, and I went one way while Mel, Dion, and the brown-haired man went the other. It wasn’t planned, it’s just how things happened. If it were possible to close my eyes and still see in front of me that’s exactly what I would’ve done as I heard the tell-tale sound of a familiar ice-cream truck and motorbike.
This fucking city was truly hell on earth, a nightmare that wouldn’t let up until we were all rotting away as corpse.
“What is going on?” Grace breathed heavily, running beside me.
I couldn’t answer her. If I tried to speak, I was positive my lungs would burst into flames. We emerged from behind the Sanitorium just as Mel and Dion vanished from view, running from the man who rode the motorbike and a few masked people on foot.
We couldn’t follow them.
That would be suicide.
I wasn’t sure where to go, but if the motorbike was going for them that likely meant the twisted metal truck was coming for us. We continued running, moving away from the building. Once out on one of the main roads again, we came to an intersection.
“Which…way?” I wheezed, placing my hands on my knees.
God, I felt like a beached whale. Grace was faring much better than I was.
I blamed that on her not having to run from place to place since waking up in the middle of the woods.
And Morrigan?
She didn’t look in too rough of shape either. But she was probably an athlete like her boyfriend. I was just a girl who enjoyed margaritas on Sundays while binging SVU marathons. To think I once thought that my life was boring. I would die happily doing that forever over this madness.
As I expected, I could hear the ice-cream truck getting closer. I knew a few lurkers had to be closing in on us as well, the ones moving on foot.
“We should go that way,” Morrigan suggested breathily.
Using my hands, I made a sweeping motion to indicate she needed to start moving. She broke into a jog, making her away across the street to the sidewalk.
For a moment I thought we’d been keeping pace with each other when it was really my speed dropping dramatically to her sluggish pace. There was no sign of Mel, Dion, or the man that had split off with them. How did I gain one sad excuse of a person and lose three good ones?
Without warning, Morrigan dipped off to the right and entered an alley.
“What the fucks she doing?” Grace rasped.
I shook my head to say I didn’t know, taking the same path. I shouldn’t have. There was an unwritten rule somewhere that said entering alleyways in life-or-death situations typically resulted in the latter.
I veered around a shiny dumpster, my arms barely pumping at this point. At the end of the alley Morrigan stood in front a piece of chain link fence blocking her path.
“Why would you come down here?” I fumed.
I turned and placed my back against the brick building beside us. There was a stitch in my side that had me ready to keel over.
“We can’t stay here,” Grace stated, doing the same thing opposite of me.
I used the bottom of my shirt to wipe the sweat from my face, swallowing a few times as I struggled to catch my breath. That’s all I needed to do, take a few minutes to gather my bearings.
The universe was not on my side.
Tires squealed from out on the street. I didn’t need to look to see who or what it was. I could hear the ice-creams truck ominous tune crystal clear. The sinister melody made its way down the alley to where we were trapped.