As she drew closer to Millville her anxiety crept higher and higher. So many things could go wrong. She could be attacked again if there were still any hosts in the area. The police could be looking for her too. She tried to think of a better plan, but if she couldn’t get them on the phone there was no way to get them to meet her anywhere else. She had tried calling a few more times but the phone still continued to go to voicemail. She stopped leaving messages. She also began to wish she had a weapon. Glancing around the car, she didn’t see anything she could use to defend herself. Maybe in the trunk? She would search it as soon as she stopped.
The strip mall where she was attacked, Mill Center, was a mile inside the city limits and the closer she drove, the heavier traffic became. She checked the clock, 9:07. She was only a little late meeting her friends. But, more importantly, she was well past morning rush hour. So, why is there so much traffic? The energy of the traffic wasn’t focused. It wasn’t a mass of people on their way to a destination. It was a cluster of drivers who didn’t seem to know where they were going or how they were going to get there. Cars were stuck in intersections. Horns blared. Drivers were leaning out of their windows shouting at others. She passed two accidents as she tried to make her way through the mess.
What the hell is going on? Her scalp began to tingle with dread. Something is wrong here. This was what traffic was like when some kind of disaster gripped a city. People were confused, worried, and angry. Most of them seemed to be trying to leave Millville but it was hard to be sure. Sydney would have been relieved by the lack of police had there not been a clear need for someone of authority. As she crept through an intersection, the light turned red and she was stuck. As a result, several cars waiting to turn began honking at her. She shrugged helplessly then refused to look at them again.
It took over fifteen minutes to make it to Mill Center. The only reason she moved as fast as she did was because she was heading into town and most of the cars were heading out of town. The shopping center was within sight, but traffic had slowed to a halt a block away from the parking lot. She grumbled and thumped her hand against the steering wheel. I need to find out what is going on. “Oh!” she shook herself. She turned the radio on chastising herself for not thinking of it sooner. She had been so focused on getting to her friends she hadn’t even bothered with the radio. Millville was so small, she wasn’t able to find a station that could give her information about local happenings.
The traffic had still not moved five minutes after it had come to a stop. She was still stuck in the middle of the road and the other drivers were still honking at her. Her nerves and anxiety broiled inside her until she felt like she was about to pop. She couldn’t go forward or backwards. She began to feel claustrophobic, as if the frame of the car was bearing down on her. Not able to take the honking and gridlock, anymore she growled out loud, cut the wheel sharply to the right and gunned the engine. She barely missed hitting a car that was trying to turn left. The look on the driver’s face would have made her laugh under different circumstances. As she passed the car with just inches to spare she made eye contact with the shocked man. She held up her middle finger and shouted at him. “Fuck you!” That’s what you get for honking at people who can’t do anything!
The turn was so sharp and she was going so fast, she nearly lost control of the car. She fought the wheel and let off the gas. She veered towards the curb, stomped on the brakes, yanked off her seatbelt, and threw open the door. The only thing she grabbed from inside was her bag of supplies and the keys. She risked a few precious moments to check the trunk for a weapon but she couldn’t even find a tire iron. Cursing, she slammed the lid and stuck the keys in her pocket. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have a reason to come back to the car, but if she did, she wanted to be able to drive out of here.
Sydney took a few deeps breaths to rid herself of the anxiety that had gripped her and hurried across the road, cutting through a gas station parking lot. There were a few people standing outside smoking cigarettes and watching the traffic. They barely looked up as she approached them. “What the hell happened?” she called.
They all turned towards her, startled and surprised to see her. An older man dressed in overalls was the one that answered. “Where have you been? The city is a madhouse right now.”
“I don’t have TV and I just came out…” The excuse seemed weak, but the two men and woman enjoyed being able to tell her what they knew.
“I think its terrorists,” the woman said.
“Probably,” the other man smoked and nodded.
The first guy, the oldest of the three, shook his head. “Who the hell knows? People are losing their shit though. Last night there was some kind of riot at the coffee shop. Now, today, people are looting stores. There have been gangs attacking people…”
Gangs? She wondered. Why would there be gangs here. More like opportunists. “Why aren’t cell phones working?” Sydney asked. She unlocked the screen on her phone and saw that she no longer had service either.
The three shrugged. “Don’t know,” the woman answered. “They weren’t working when we got up this morning.”
“There is a cell tower, I think, on the north side of town. Something must have happened to it,” The younger man shook his head. “I was going to try to get the wife and kids out of here, but…” he trailed off gesturing towards the mass of stopped cars.
Sydney’s stomach sank further towards her knees. She had to find her friends. But how the hell was she going to do that in this mess? Just standing here isn’t going to help. She mumbled a thanks to the spectators and they barely acknowledged her leaving. She hurried across the street, weaving in and out of cars. There weren’t many pedestrians out on the streets and she knew that was a bad sign, but she kept going.
When she made it to Mill Center she realized she had no idea what vehicle her friends were driving. She couldn’t imagine they were in Xander’s truck. Shay didn’t have a car. Zak had an SUV he used for his grooming business, and she was pretty sure it was white, but that was all she knew. “Fuck,” she ran a hand over her mouth. There was a better chance of them seeing her, than of her seeing them.
She looked towards the coffee shop where she had been attacked last night. It was dark and clearly closed. Several of the windows were broken out and she stared, stupefied for a moment. How the hell has everything gone to shit so quickly? She heard shouting and turned in the direction it was coming from. The sound of breaking glass helped her pinpoint the disturbance. A group of people were fighting in front of the supercenter where she had purchased her phone.
Her heart was racing and she turned in a circle. Self-preservation told her to hide. But hiding would make it hard to find her friends. “Shit, shit, shit,” she chanted. A high pitched yowling sound caused her hair to stand on end—it came from directly behind her.
When she turned, the same blonde from yesterday was rushing her. The woman was dirtier and more disheveled than she had been last night. For a moment, Sydney’s body was too stunned to react. Then she snapped out of it and turned to run. Her boots slid across the asphalt, but it didn’t slow her. She was out in the open and completely exposed with no weapons and an insane, alien-host bearing down on her.
Chapter Ten
Sydney didn’t look where she was going when she bolted, and a car sat immediately in her path. Not thinking, just reacting, she used the bumper of the car as a step to climb onto the trunk in one fluid motion. She turned just as the blonde leapt for the car and Syd kicked her in the face, adding more bruises to the ones from the previous evening. The squishy, hard, feeling of her boot meeting flesh turned her stomach. But it didn’t stop her from kicking at the woman again when she immediately bounced back. The woman barely reacted other than to snarl again.
More cautious, the blonde circled the car looking for an opening to attack. Sydney climbed higher and stood on the roof, blocking the woman’s attempt to mount the car with either a kick or a swing of her bag. The blonde’s eyes were bl
oodshot and watery but were focused on her prize. As Syd watched, blood dripped from the woman’s nose and her growls went quiet as she stopped lurching for the car.
Sydney grew still, waiting for the woman to attack again. The hosts didn’t seem capable of planning, but what if the woman was just trying to lull Syd into a false sense of security? If Syd came down from the top of the car, it would put her within easy reach again. The woman wasn’t moving but her chest was heaving as hard as Sydney’s was. Neither woman moved. They were in a standoff waiting for the other to make the first move. But, after a moment, Syd realized something was happening to the woman—something more than already was, obviously. Her face twisted and her breathing became shallower.
A voice snapped Sydney out of the daze. “Syd?”
Her heart stuttered as she turned, forgetting about the blonde. “Xander?” She could hardly believe her eyes. There were her friends. They were driving a black SUV and Shay was leaning out of the passenger side with tears in her eyes and a hand over her mouth. Xander was opening the back door slowly, his long dark hair whipping in the air.
“Are you OK?” he asked, eyeing the blonde.
Sydney tried to take a breath, but the air hiccupped in her lungs. “Xander?” she repeated.
“Yep. It’s me, babe. We’re here to get you.”
“You guys shouldn’t have come here. It’s dangerous.”
“Clearly,” he nodded at the woman behind her.
Sydney turned back to the blonde who had still not moved. “We need to get out of here.”
“I know. Come down off the car. Slow.”
Sydney wanted to tell Xander to get back in the truck, but she knew he wouldn’t. Instead, she tossed him her bag. “Here.”
He caught it easily and threw it into the truck. “Come on.”
She stepped, carefully, from the roof of the car to the trunk. The woman still didn’t move but Syd kept an eye on her anyway. Even as she inched out of the woman’s line of sight, she didn’t react or turn towards her and she was grateful to have Xander watching her back. By the time she slid off the car and onto the asphalt, Xander was at her side. He gripped her elbow and they both began backing away.
Just as Syd began to feel they were home free, the blonde let out a long groan and lurched sideways. She stumbled over her own feet before bouncing off the car’s bumper and pitching forward. She stopped, and Xander and Syd stopped too. Both confused and almost fascinated by the woman’s actions. The entire parking lot seemed to go silent as the woman moaned in pain. More blood poured from her nose as her eyes rolled back into her head. In slow motion, the blonde dropped to her knees and fell face forward onto the ground.
“Shit,” Xander breathed next to her.
Before either of them could react, the woman’s body jerked several times, then went still again. A sickening crunching sound broke the silence and Sydney’s mouth fell open as the woman’s head cracked like an egg and a gush of blood spurted out of her skull. A long, bloody red tentacle slid out of the pulpy mess that was her hair and whipped through the air.
“Oh, fuck,” Sydney moaned.
“Get in the car!” Shay yelled from behind them.
Horrified, Sydney began backpedaling, dragging Xander with her. “Let’s go!” She pushed him into the truck first and climbed in after him. As she shut the door she looked at the woman again. She felt a scream bubble up from her throat as she watched a creature the size of a rat pull itself from the woman’s split skull. Its dark body was covered in gore and blood and resembled a spider as it used its tentacles to drag itself over the woman’s body. It moved slowly and with purpose. That, more than anything, was what filled Sydney with horror. The thing didn’t move like a frightened or newborn animal. It crawled towards the safety of the vehicles like it knew it needed to hide.
Sydney bit back her scream while Zak slammed on the gas and peeled rubber out of the parking lot. He didn’t even try to merge into the traffic of the main road. Instead, he headed for the side road that was relatively clear. They were all silent as they tried to process what they had just seen. Sydney turned towards the cars they passed, envying them for their ignorance. They just thought their city was under attack by terrorists or crazy people. But the truth was worse—so much worse.
Finally, she turned to Xander and he was staring at her as if he could hardly believe she was real. She was surprised to see his eyes shining as if he was about to cry. “Syd?” he breathed.
“It’s me,” she almost laughed with relief as all the emotions flooded her. She was glad to see her friends again, terrified of what she had just seen, and confused as to what to do about it.
Xander grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. “Oof,” she grunted. But the pressure only got worse when Shay threw herself into the back seat with them and joined in on the hug.
“God! We thought you were dead!” she exclaimed.
“I didn’t,” Xander scowled at her over Syd’s shoulder.
“Well, I didn’t either really. But I was afraid you were.”
“We all were,” Zak spoke up from the front.
“I was afraid you guys were too.” She wiped at the tears that were slowly spilling over her lashes.
“What the hell just happened?” a new voice asked.
“Ack!” Sydney jumped as a young man’s head popped up over the back seat from the cargo space.
“Sorry!” the kid raised his hands.
“This is ET,” Xander explained. “He’s from Colombia. He was at the Quimbayan dig. He’s been able to help fill us in on what happened there.”
Sydney eyed him warily. “You know Doc?”
“You mean Robards? Or Horowitz?” The kid’s accent was thick but his English perfect.
“Either of them, I guess.”
“I kind of knew them both. They killed my father.”
Sydney’s suspicion softened. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.”
She finally noticed the broken back windshield and the hole in the roof of the truck. “Is that a bullet hole?”
“Yeah,” Shay admitted, climbing back into the passenger seat. “We’ve all got a lot of catching up to do.”
Xander
Xander couldn’t stop staring at Sydney. He was amazed that she was alive and looked healthy. In fact, she looked healthier than he had seen her for a while. “You’re OK?” he asked her.
Syd took a deep breath and considered the questions. “Mostly. I mean…that was some fucked up shit. But, I’m not really hurt.”
Xander looked her over for the first time. He was finding it had to believe she really wasn’t hurt. Dark spots on her neck caused him to do a double-take. He pulled open the collar of her jacket even though she protested.
“Hey!” She tried to pull away but he put a hand on the back of her neck to stop her.
“What happened?”
“I told you I was attacked last night. A host tried to strangle me. I’m OK now though.”
“Any other injuries?” he asked. He wanted to pull her clothes off and check every inch of her, but he knew better than to even try it.
“A scraped elbow. But, really, that’s it.”
Xander finally asked the question of the hour. “Where the hell have you been?”
“And what the hell took you there?” Shay added.
Sydney took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”
Xander felt himself deflate. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I’m sorry.” Syd shrugged. “The last thing I remember is seeing you guys run out of the woods. Then the next thing I know, I’m waking up near the lake again.”
“You don’t remember anything?” Shay asked.
“No.”
There was a hard edge to her voice and Xander didn’t have to guess why. Having more of her memory stolen was a slap in the face on top of everything else that had happened. Sounding as bitter as he knew she felt, Syd spoke again after a few moments of si
lence. “What did you guys see?”
Xander and Shay shared a look before he tried to answer her question. “Well, you basically disappeared into a black void. Something grabbed you, pulled you in—and poof—you were gone.”
Syd groaned and put her face in her hands. “I was really hoping you would have some answers. You guys couldn't tell what grabbed me?”
"Not really," Shay sighed. "Pretty much, as soon as it happened everything exploded in light and we...passed out or something."
“We were hoping you would be able to tell us,” Zak finally joined the conversation. “Where exactly are we going? I’m basically driving in circles here.”
“Are there any open roads out of town?” Xander asked.
Zak shrugged. “Hell if I know.”
“I can’t get any service to check a map online,” Shay dropped her phone into the console. “Do you happen to have an actual map—an atlas or something?”
“Who the hell still carries maps around?” Zak shook his head and ignored the dirty look Shay was giving him.
Syd looked uncomfortable. “Well, however we do it, we need to find a way to get out of this city.”
“Agreed,” Xander pulled Syd towards him and she only resisted for a second before resting against his side.
ET climbed over the back seat and settled in next to Syd. Xander saw her look at him from the corner of her eye, but he squeezed her shoulders reassuringly. “Have you seen anything like that before ET?”
After a long pause, he finally answered. “No.”
“You?” Xander asked Syd.
“No,” she shook her head looking like she wanted to throw up.
“OK, let’s start from the last moment we were all together,” Shay leaned around her seat. “Zak, you just try to get us out of here.”
Show No Fear (The Dyian Series Book 2) Page 7