Before he had a chance to react, it closed in fast, confirming his suspicions.
Somewhere to the left of the group, maybe thirty yards away, the canopy shuddered.
Vargas froze. His eyes went to the source of the noise.
In a dark patch of woodland, leaves fell to the ground. Several birds burst into the sky.
“What the fuck,” Ryan muttered.
Within a heartbeat, branches thrashed, coming directly at them with alarming speed, as if a fast boat were racing over the top of the forest.
“Get down!” Vargas yelled. “Now!”
Megan dropped beside him.
Ryan and Emma, still close to the center of the clearing, simply stared at the approaching racket. Much like DeLuca and Vargas when they experienced the same phenomenon. No frame of reference existed for what to do, apart from running.
No one had time to think, though.
Rizzo looked at the tree directly above him. His eyes widened and his mouth hung open. He raised a shaking arm protectively over his head.
Something huge and black scuttled down the tree trunk. Smooth and lightning fast. A dull oval shell over a body the size of a large alligator. Eight chunky legs had moved nimbly down the trunk. A chilling, rhythmic movement that seemed unnatural.
But this was a living thing.
Vargas could scarcely believe what he was seeing.
The monster opened its mouth over Rizzo’s head, revealing two glinting yellow fangs like those of a saber-toothed cat.
In the blink of an eye, the fangs sank into Rizzo’s head, and blood sprayed everywhere.
The pastor’s arms flailed for a few seconds, then his body went limp.
Emma screamed. Loud, long, and bloodcurdling.
Vargas staggered backward and tripped. As he fell, he reached up and yanked Megan back, away from the creature. She landed hard beside him on the ground, but that appeared to be the least of her concerns.
The creature, which looked like some sort of huge prehistoric arachnid, scuttled back up the tree and was gone in seconds, easily carrying Pastor Rizzo’s body with it.
The last thing Vargas saw were the pastor’s sandals disappearing into the canopy, just as the deer’s hooves had done yesterday.
Branches thrashed overhead, and the disturbance receded back into the woods as fast as it had arrived.
The hissing grew quieter. Now its source was known—and more terrifying than Vargas had ever imagined.
Moments later, the forest fell silent once again.
Ryan stood in front of Emma, still holding the club, staring in disbelief. She had her hand cupped over her mouth. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Emma sank to her knees and screamed again, overcome with shock, grief, and desperation at what they all had just witnessed.
Now only four of them remained. And Vargas had a feeling that number would shrink to zero if they stayed here any longer.
“We need to move!” Megan shouted to the group.
“You read my mind,” Vargas said. “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
Megan scrambled to a standing position. “Ryan, Emma, I can lead us back to the bus. We have to go, now!”
Both stared at her for a brief moment, then looked back out into the forest.
The sound was growing louder again, the thrashing closer.
The thing was coming back.
And it was coming from the direction of the bus.
Chapter
Nineteen
Megan concentrated hard to accept the reality of the situation and not go into a meltdown. In less than a minute, her reality had been turned upside down once more. History was repeating itself in a different way—the impossible rearing its ugly head to destroy her world again. This time, however, the horrific threat remained firmly in play, and she had little doubt that it was coming for everyone.
Her throat tightened, and her limbs felt stiff and clumsy—much like what she had experienced during the disaster at the state fair.
Images of Ethan and Mike in the burning food stall flashed through her mind. The crackle of splintering wood and burning flesh . . .
The hissing in the forest grew louder, snapping her into the present. It grew so loud that she felt a splitting pain in her temples and ears.
The option of running to the bus had vanished about a second after she shouted the idea. That way was now cut off by the monster.
Vargas, Ryan, and Emma stared at the forest with fear in their eyes. No one moved. No one listened to Megan’s command to run.
Ryan, his face now pale as ashes, dumped his pack and fished out a tent pole. He clutched it in a two-handed grip.
No one uttered a word.
She guessed that everyone was in a similar state of shock.
Think, damn it. The bus is cut off. Where do we go now?
They had to do something, and fast if they didn’t want to go the same way as DeLuca, Rizzo, and probably the Johnsons. The time for making sense of what they faced would have to come later—if later found them still alive . . .
The speed of the thing’s approach meant they had no time to lose.
Reaching the bus was out of the question. Megan turned in the opposite direction. They couldn’t make it to the campsite clearing without getting attacked. And the river was a nonstarter—they would never survive the rapids.
Think . . .
The cabin.
For all she knew, the giant arachnid could blow through the walls as if they were Styrofoam. But it might provide some cover, and maybe even something to defend themselves with. It beat staying in the open. There was no other choice.
She grabbed Vargas’s arm. “Ricky!”
He glanced at her, then back at the thrashing in the trees, now maybe a hundred yards away. The fact that he had been proved right—in a terrifying way that no one could ever have imagined—didn’t make the slightest difference.
“The cabin!” she yelled. “It’s our only option!”
Emma looked over her shoulder. Her lips trembled as she tried to mumble a response, but she produced only unintelligible stutters.
“We need to move,” Megan said. “right now!”
“We won’t make it!” Ryan snapped.
The thrashing in the canopy surged past the clearing and made a wide arc coming back, like a shark honing in on its prey.
As the creature rushed through a patch of sunlight, Pastor Rizzo’s bloody leg swung briefly into view from the treetops. Limp, with a sandal hanging from the toes. Then it flipped back up into the greenery, thudding against a branch before disappearing from view once again.
Emma gasped. “no! We have to do something. I mean, he might still be—”
“Emma, listen!” Megan shouted forcefully. “There’s no time right now. We go to the cabin. Now, goddamn it. Everybody, run!”
Ryan grabbed Emma and forced her to run in the direction of the shelter.
Vargas didn’t move. He still stared in the direction of the bus, as if trying to figure out a route.
Surely, he couldn’t be thinking about going that way. He might be an idiot, but he was not a suicidal fool.
“Ricky!” Megan yelled. “Snap out of it!”
He shook his head. “Fuck it. All right, let’s go!”
Vargas spun away from the thrashing and took off at a sprint. Megan followed, back into the patchy light of the woods. Ryan and Emma had already covered a lot of ground, following their previous trail through the ferns.
The hissing thrum followed. No matter how fast they hurtled through the woods, it never waned. They could not outrun it.
Vargas took long strides and drew away from Megan.
Behind them, branches groaned and cracked.
Birds squawked and fussed.
Megan glanced back.
&nb
sp; Leaves and small branches drifted down from above. The thing had methodically followed their route, all the while carrying Pastor Rizzo’s body in its clutches. The thought of his corpse being hauled through the canopy, snagging on branches and deadwood, turned her stomach. She wanted to scream for help, but what would be the point? They were nowhere near where DeLuca had thought, and this time the sat phone was gone.
Megan drew in long breaths and watched the ground ahead. Her headlong sprint had slowed to a fast jog. She feared burning out at this pace and imagined herself slumped against a tree, wheezing. Waiting for the inevitable. Having no energy to put up a last, desperate fight for survival.
Not happening.
Ferns whipped her legs as she ran. Her boots sank into the soft ground. At any moment, she expected the thrashing to move directly overhead, and the monstrous bug to drop down and impale her on its horrid fangs.
Vargas and Megan closed to within several yards of Ryan and Emma. At last, the old ramshackle cabin loomed into view.
The couple’s pace had slowed when they got there. Vargas and Megan traced their steps.
The undergrowth was far thicker here. Tangles of blackberry dragged against her boots and scratched her shins. Grunting, Megan powered forward, snapping stalks and stems. Still two hundred yards to the cabin.
From here, the structure looked relatively intact. Thirty feet long with a rusty corrugated roof. The lower part of the log walls was covered in a thick growth of moss. The higher parts were darkened by dampness and the unforgiving passage of time. She saw no visible entrance on this side. Only a dust-covered window with a rotting frame.
The hissing grew to an unbearable volume as the group neared the cabin. Megan resisted the temptation to cover her ears again. She needed her hands to swipe foliage out of the way or to break her fall if she should trip.
Branches hit the ground somewhere close, but she dare not look. One wrong step might finish her. Gritting her teeth, she plowed through the last of the undergrowth, joining Vargas under the cabin’s eaves.
“Holy shit,” he whispered as he looked back.
Megan planted her hand against the wall, panting. “Is it close?” she breathed.
“It’s circling us in the treetops.”
She peered around the corner of the cabin. Sure enough, leaves dropped all around, like green snow.
“Found the door!” Ryan yelled from the other side of the structure.
Megan raced around the side of the cabin.
She saw no footprints on the ground. No sign of modern-day visitors.
The roof looked like an old-school Dutch design, hammered together with large hand-forged nails. The structure looked to be over a century old. Centuries, even, if it had belonged to the original Quaker settlers.
Emma stood behind Ryan. They had stopped in front of a solid wood door.
He slid a dark-red steel bolt along its rail, twisting and shaking it up and down to move it. The screech of metal against metal was like nails on a chalkboard, though it induced less of a shudder than the hissing that continued to home in on them.
Vargas raced to Ryan’s side. He slipped off his belt, looped it around the end of the bolt, and heaved as Ryan twisted.
“Hurry!” Emma shouted while glancing at the treetops.
The horror above was closing in on them in tighter and tighter circles.
Megan figured they had mere moments before the monster would descend and snatch its next victim. She glanced at the pocketknife in her hand. It looked pathetic—the equivalent of trying to stop a cannonball with a baseball bat.
The bolt on the door finally let out a hollow snap.
Vargas cocked his leg and kicked. The jamb shuddered, but the door stayed firmly shut.
“Out of the way,” Ryan snarled. He turned his side to the cabin and charged. He grunted as his shoulder connected and the door flew open.
Ryan staggered inside and turned. “Get the hell in here!”
Emma dived into the dimness. Then Vargas.
Megan rushed in last and flung the door shut behind her. She breathed in musty air and blinked in the murky light.
The place looked full of dark clutter.
More importantly, the door’s inside bolt had a lot less rust. She shot it across, locking it in place. But she had serious doubts that this decaying structure would repel anything with such frightening strength.
She prayed the cabin would hold.
Chapter
Twenty
Vargas shivered at the nightmarish thrum coming from beyond the cabin walls. The creature knew their exact location. He was sure of that. The fact that they were no longer outdoors didn’t ease any of his internal terror. They had simply gone from exposed to trapped in a flimsy, decrepit cabin.
The sheer size and strength of the thing . . . How was this possible?
Everyone else took a second to catch their breath while standing with their backs against the door. From what he could see in the thin light, the wooden walls were covered in scratches. Maybe someone went insane in here, driven to madness by the deafening hiss outside. Maybe it was the arachnid. Whatever the case, it made this place feel only marginally safer than outside.
Vargas shook as if from an awful hangover. The humid, cloying air made him sweat. He swallowed hard to wet his parched throat.
Now that he had a moment to process the events of the past few hours, his mind raced at warp speed. He tried to blot out the image of the ungodly monster. Never in his wildest nightmares had he conjured such terror in his mind’s eye. He pictured the thing scuttling down and grabbing DeLuca, right behind his back. And him standing there, oblivious to the danger while it dragged the useless guide upward.
Vargas didn’t want to imagine what had happened next.
He had thought the drug lords and wiseguys in the Bronx were brutal. They were like Bambi compared with the unrelenting brutality of the hissing demon outside.
So what to do now?
It didn’t matter that he’d been proved right. Or that he was off the hook as a suspect in DeLuca’s disappearance. As far as he was concerned, they all would soon disappear unless an unforeseen twist of fate somehow saved their asses.
“Barricade the windows and door with anything you can find!” Megan ordered.
Her tone surprised him. He’d thought she was a mouse. Granted, a smart mouse, but since the attack on Rizzo, she appeared to have more balls than everyone else put together.
At the far end of the cabin, weak light streamed in through the filthy window, revealing an ornate wooden cabinet and some old-fashioned hoes and adzes propped against the wall. Ryan and Emma moved in that direction. They slid several mold-spattered tea crates out of the way then began walking the cabinet, one side at a time, toward the window.
Vargas flicked open his Zippo lighter and thumbed the flint wheel. The flame illuminated a million dust motes in the thick, musty air around him. He stepped away from Ryan and Emma, toward the darker end of the room. Megan moved by his side, scanning from left to right.
Cobwebs covered everything. Two leather satchels. Different-
sized wooden barrels. Decaying tools. Frayed rope. Rags that were once probably someone’s clothes. A solid desk and chair at the end.
Various objects cluttered the desk. An inkwell. A brass balance. Other things he didn’t recognize but guessed might bring a few dollars in an antique store.
“That’ll do for the door,” he said, kicking the thick wooden leg.
Vargas moved to one end of the desk, Megan the other. He wrapped his fingers underneath and lifted.
The weight surprised him. Sure, it wasn’t as heavy as the particle board from Ikea, but to haul this piece of furniture into the wilderness seemed impractical. Could it have been made out here? Regardless, it would do just fine for a barricade.
He spun the desk t
oward the door and dragged it across the floor. His right knee buckled, and he silently cursed his unsteady legs. It wasn’t the weight of the furniture that had made him sink down. It was the weight of his fear.
“Keep going,” Megan encouraged, pushing from the far end.
The legs scraped on the wooden floor planks, making a racket, though not enough to compete with the infernal hissing outside.
It seemed only a matter of time before the abomination crashed through the roof.
Or through the door if we don’t get this in place.
Vargas joined Megan at the other end of the desk. They turned it on its side and shoved it firmly against the door.
The natural light from the window vanished shortly afterward as Ryan and Emma moved the cabinet into position.
Next, they moved the tea crates behind the desk and cabinet for added support. Maybe it was pointless, maybe not. There was no way to barricade the damn roof.
Vargas wished he had his Glock to blow that spider motherfucker back to whatever hell world it crawled out from.
He swiped several cobwebs from the corner of the room, revealing a pile of horseshoes. He went to pick them up.
The whole cabin shook, as if it had been jolted by an earthquake.
Vargas swept his lighter from left to right, checking for damage to the walls. All eyes followed the lighter’s flame.
Ryan, Emma, and Megan were crouched near the center of the cabin. They all peered up at the shuddering roof.
Dust sifted down from the support beams, showering everyone below.
The heat from the Zippo’s metal case grew painful against Vargas’s fingers. He flicked it shut.
The cabin shook again.
Cracks of natural light streamed through several gaps in the planks, only to close again when everything went still.
A flashlight blinked on.
Megan angled the thin white beam toward the ceiling.
“Will the roof hold?” Emma cried out.
No one answered. No one took their eyes off the ceiling.
“Ricky,” Megan whispered loudly. “Get over here.”
“Why?”
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