by Leia Stone
“That thing is a sleeping ghoul?” Ronnie whisper-screamed, never taking her eyes off Maxine’s shoulder. Mercifully, the bleeding had stopped, but Maxine had passed out due to the blood loss. Ronnie had hung a bag of O-negative to help, but passing out in the Dream Wars wasn’t good; if she didn’t wake up soon, she’d be at risk for a coma.
Ronnie had closed the artery, and was now working on the tendons and muscle. It was making me kind of sick, but I couldn’t look away. I was too freaked out that Maxine was going to die, and somehow my staring at her breathing chest would keep her alive.
I looked over at the giant mountain. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t notice before, but those colored ropes were definitely hair. Those earthquakes before were those giant things waking, breathing.
“Yep,” I answered Ronnie, then shifted my attention to Damien. “Damien, can this dome hold up to a giant ghoul the size of a mountain?” I asked.
He looked at the huge mountain. “No way. They’re too large for the plasma shields to stand up to them. And the data dump might not affect them either. I’m not sure.”
I sighed.
“So when it wakes up in the next few hours, days, or weeks, what’s the plan?” Nox asked me.
Oh yeah, I’m in charge of this shit show. Fan-freaking-tastic.
I shrugged. “Run for our lives?”
Josephine had been watching me keenly the whole time. “Your friend said they eat any kind of meat, right? They don’t have an alliance with the other ghouls?”
I nodded. “That’s right. Dawn said they would even eat her. They can toss back a hundred fifty humans in one day, apparently.”
Josephine nodded, patting Jeremy’s back to soothe him. He’d been shuffling his card deck anxiously while watching Maxine with wide terrified eyes.
“So we bring him a sacrifice. When he wakes up, he’ll have a meal of half-starved ghouls at his disposal. Let these mountain ghouls take care of our problem,” she suggested.
I grinned. “That’s brilliant. When we wake up, we need to spread the word to all the news stations too.”
She nodded. “Kill the ghouls and drop them at the foot of the mountain.”
It might buy us a day or two before they went looking for live game.
The ground rumbled again then, and Ronnie pulled her hands away from Maxine, cursing. Performing surgery during an earthquake was not ideal.
I eyed the mountain warily. “Maybe we should start tonight. Who wants to go hunting?” I asked. I didn’t want to leave her side, but if this thing woke up with her in surgery, we wouldn’t be able to move her or protect her. A pile of ghoul bodies would be the only way to help her. Leave a snack for the giant.
“I’m in,” Brisk said, cocking his gun.
Nox glanced at Maxine. Her head had lolled to the side, a chunk of red hair fallen over her face. She looked so innocent.
“I’m in too,” Damien called out beside me, layering his body with more weapons.
Josephine looked at Mr. Hansen. “Can you take care of Jer?”
He nodded.
“Nox will stay with me and assist,” Ronnie declared, and relief crashed over Nox’s face. He didn’t want to leave her, that was clear.
The mountain rumbled again then, harder that time, and Ronnie swore. My eyes flicked to the hulking mass of rock, and I tried but failed not to imagine it coming to life and eating us all.
There was a fourth type of ghoul. Shiver.
I pulled a walkie-talkie off my belt and gave it to Nox. “Damien has the other one. Call us if shit goes down.”
He nodded. We so rarely split up in the Dream Wars, but the walkies were crucial when we did.
“Wait,” Mr. Hansen called out, then bent down to Jeremy, who was pulling on his arm. After whispering something in Mr. Hansen’s ear, Jeremy looked back at the ground and continued his peaceful rocking motion.
Mr. Hansen nodded. “He says we should put our blood into the tubing on our partner’s suit in case we wake up early. He wants to ensure he doesn’t wake alone.”
Josephine nodded. “Yes, of course.” She walked over and pulled the cap off the tubing that had been sewn into the shoulder of her suit. Without a word or even looking up, Jeremy produced his fingertip for her to prick. Once she drew blood, she placed his finger to the vacuum tip of the tubing and after a sucking sound, it beeped and Jeremy yanked his finger back, putting it into his mouth. Josephine replaced the cap and opened the tubing on Jeremy’s shoulder.
Ronnie was finally doing the last stiches on Maxine’s shoulder. It worried me that Maxine hadn’t regained consciousness yet, but I had to hold out hope that she would.
Ronnie glanced up at Nox. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to partner with her. When she wakes, I need to be there.”
Nox nodded and looked up at Brisk. The Marine walked over and clapped his best friend on the back. “I wanted to be your partner in the first place anyway,” he stated.
That comment had a small smile curling at Ronnie’s lips.
Damien pricked his finger and opened the seal on the tubing in my suit. After we had all paired up and exchanged blood, except for lonely Mr. Hansen, I smiled. “There. Now that should work, right? Worst-case, we wake up alone.”
Damien gave me a side eye. “I can think of a few more worst-care scenarios than that.
My eyes widened. “Like what?”
Jeremy started rocking harder, a low whine coming from his throat.
“Let’s move out,” Josephine said, giving Damien a sharp look for upsetting his brother.
Whoops. The last thing in the world we needed right now was for Jeremy to get wigged out and run off.
We walked out of the dome and used the remote to start it up again, keeping Maxine, Ronnie, Nox, Mr. Hansen, and Jeremy safe inside.
“All right, let’s collect some ghoulie meat,” Brisk said, loading a cartridge of heat-seeking bullets into his gun.
Josephine grinned and flanked my right as Damien flanked my left.
We were going hunting.
“Bastards are heavy as a bag of rocks,” Brisk stated, wiping sweat from his brow even as it poured down his face. We’d been ghoul hunting for two hours and only had ten grunts and one sentry in our ‘snack’ pile. It might at least distract the giant beast before he realized Maxine was lying there helplessly in a bubble he could easily pop. She had to wake up soon—she just had to.
Maybe the giant won’t even wake for another week, I tried to convince myself. Although Dawn seemed pretty alarmed, and her warning felt pretty imminent, so I highly doubted my forced optimism.
Just as I thought that, the ground shook again.
Okay, that’s not a good sign. Each time I glanced at the mountain, I could swear it looked less rocklike and more like a figure lying on its side. It was… transforming.
I dragged my dead grunt to the pile we’d made at the base of the mountain; about two hundred feet from the dome Maxine and the others were in. We’d done the best we could, and now we were all exhausted.
“Let’s take a break,” I told the crew. After hiking into nearby ghoul-concentrated zones, killing and dragging them almost a mile over ten times, I was ready to sleep for three days. The fact that I was already sleeping was more than depressing.
“Hey, can I talk to you?” Damien gently coaxed me away from Josephine and Brisk. Away from the creepy breathing mountain.
“What’s up?” I asked my eye candy. He looked insanely sexy right then, hair slicked back atop his rugged unshaven face.
“Can we talk about the fact that the sentries spoke? That they knew your name?” He totally popped my eye candy bubble with his reality check.
“I was hoping to never ever talk about that again. I put that in my deep dark place and told it to never come out,” I replied honestly.
He frowned, concern flashing across his face. “I have a theory.”
Oh Lord. Smart people and their theories. Being of average intelligence was nice; I didn’t get big t
heories, so I could just forget about stuff like everyone else did.
“Remember when you tried to link with their mind? When you got stuck?”
I nodded. “You slapped me.”
He winced, reaching out to caress my cheek. “I’ll never forget it. I’m sorry,” he said seriously.
I waved a hand, dismissing him. “It’s fine, I was kidding. Trying to keep this light.” I laughed nervously.
The freaking sentries know my name. Why is he reminding me of that?
Damien chewed on his bottom lip. “Kit, nothing about this is okay. They know your name. I think when you linked with them… they learned everything about you.”
Oh God.
His ‘theory’ was terrifying, and probably true. I would have to see Master Aki about it. He’d always said my gift was special, that it would be the thing that could change this war. But then he said a lot of stuff. I was feeling that familiar tightness in my chest, a dizzy head, sweaty palms. Oncoming panic attack—great. We had giant ghouls about to wake up, the US government had established a deal with the ghouls for alien oil, and now the freaking sentries had seen inside my mind.
“Hey. It’s okay, we’ll figure this out.” Damien reached out and brushed a tear off my cheek.
A tear? I was crying? I didn’t fucking cry. What was happening to me? I’d gotten soft. I think the whole thing with Maxine had messed with my emotions.
I wiped my cheek dry. “I’m fine, just worried about Maxine,” I said, and started to walk away.
It was stupid of me to try and mentally connect with the flesh eaters. They were a freaking hive-mind alien race. What had I been thinking!
The ground shook again and I was thrown to the left, forcing me to spread my legs to keep from falling over. The shakes were getting stronger and closer together. That could not mean good things.
Peering over my shoulder, my eyes widened in horror as I made out the distinct body of the giant. Each time the ground shook, rocks fell away from him, and now his form was revealed. He was like a humongous sentry, lying in the fetal position with colored ropes for hair and a big-ass mouth full of teeth. That mouth now hung open, slack, and he was… snoring. By the mercy of God, his eyes were still closed.
I barely had time to think before Damien was hauling me over, and we were running back to the group. Josephine and Brisk were right on our tail.
“I think there’s a reason the ghouls are staying away from this place,” Damien said from beside me.
Yeah. A very large reason. The plasma shield dome was only about two hundred feet from the base of the mountain, but there was so much foliage, alien trees and pods that you couldn’t make it out in a direct line of sight. We were zigzagging through the pods when I pulled the walkie from Damien’s belt.
“Prepare Maxine for transport,” I ordered, a little out of breath. I ran three miles a day, but I was beat after dragging those heavy-ass ghoulies so far. There was no doubt about it, we were going to need to move out. I just hoped our beauty queen was stable enough.
“What? Why—” Ronnie’s words were cut off by a roar. An honest-to-God size-of-the-mountain roar.
I didn’t have the balls to look behind me, just kept running. Damien’s face went as white as a sheet, as the ground shook harder, tossing me into him. Together we struggled to get to the dome where Ronnie and Nox where setting up the medic cot. A quick glance left and right told me there were no ghouls around, so I lowered the plasma shield using my remote.
A shiny glint of metal brought my eye to Mr. Hansen, who was just slipping the handcuffs on himself when Jeremy looked up toward the mountain. A shriek flew from his throat, and suddenly he bolted upright, knocking Mr. Hansen onto his back.
“Jer, no,” Damien cried out, but it was too late. Jeremy ran. He took off at lightning speed, unarmed, straight into the Dream Wars.
Oh God, no!
“Go!” I screamed at Damien, who seemed frozen in fear. At my command, he took off after his brother with Josephine right behind him, screaming his name.
I bent down, trying to put sweet Jeremy out of my mind, and helped Mr. Hansen up.
“I should never have taken the cuffs off,” he said, horrified. His eyes were wide and reminded me of a scared child, so lost and helpless.
I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have lowered the shield,” I told him.
He was in shock, as was I. If anything happened to Jeremy, I wouldn’t be able to live with it. None of us would.
“Jo will get him. She always does,” Mr. Hansen said suddenly, a bit more optimistic. I just nodded and patted his shoulder.
“Let’s get out of here,” I told our small group as Ronnie and Nox slowly lifted an unconscious Maxine onto the cot.
The roar came again, and the ground moved with such force then that I thought it might swallow me whole. That time I had to look, the self-preservation instinct within me forced me. Craning my neck, I pinned my eyes on the beast before me.
Holy mother of God.
The mountain had woken, and he was ugly as hell. Like a dinosaur with dreadlocks. He was sitting upright now, glowing red eyes open and blinking down at the snack we’d left him.
Good, maybe that will hold him off while we—
He picked up the ten or so dead ghouls in one hand and opened his mouth, tossing them all in at once. He didn’t even chew. They were like potato chips to him. Then he looked out into the open expanse of the Dream Wars, seemingly planning his main course.
“Run!” I shouted.
Brisk took one look over his shoulder, then grabbed the bottom of the cot Maxine was strapped to, as Nox lifted the top.
“Kit! RPG launcher!” Nox tossed me his duffel.
I caught it midair and started jogging next to them as we made our way through the foliage and as far away from the giant ghoul as possible.
“You brought an RPG?” I said in awe.
Thank God for Nox’s unhealthy obsession with blowing shit up.
It was hard to open the zipper while running, but with Mr. Hansen’s help, I was able to get the launcher out.
Off in the distance, I could hear Josephine and Damien calling Jeremy’s name. I needed to focus on this giant asshole and forget about Jeremy. I had to trust that Damien would find him and he’d be okay.
Pulling the RPG launcher from the bag, I spun around.
Holy crap! The mountain ghoul was so close. The ground shook as he slowly stumbled forward, like a drunken baby who‘d forgotten how to walk. He stood over a hundred feet tall, probably one fifty. And he was as wide as a house. His skin was lizard-like and scaly but looked very tough, almost like rocks. The only thing of beauty was its hair. Thick hyper-colored ropes that reminded me of the Galadrias, hung in stocky chucks around its face.
He tipped his head back then and roared just as he started to run right for us. He was fast, and with those wide footsteps would be on us in no time. I quickly scanned his body for any soft-looking spot in his skin, a place where I could do the most damage.
“Kit!” Nox growled.
I hoisted the heavy thing over my shoulder, double-checking it was pointing in the right direction, and moved backward slowly.
The giant was coming so fast, the ground shaking violently the closer he got. The bastard could probably smell us a mile away with that gigantic snout on his face. The spot around his neck looked lighter in color and of a softer flesh, so I aimed my weapon to take his head clean off. Once I had it lined up as good as it was going to get, I stopped and planted my feet, pulling the trigger. With a jerk, the projectile sailed through the air but missed its mark, sank into his armpit. After a bang, it detonated, cleaving his left arm clean off. Green hyper-colored liquid, same color as most of the stuff all over this planet, oozed from the open socket, creating a river of gushing giant blood.
Yes!
But just when I thought he might keel over from blood loss, he tipped his head back and roared… and fire came out.
Oh shit.
He was
like a sentry-Galadria hybrid.
He isn’t smart enough to make a tourniquet or anything, is he? Dear God, please let him have the brain capacity of a grunt.
Something funny was happening with his arm socket as we waited for him to succumb to his injury. It had stopped bleeding and I squinted to focus, leaning forward to make sure I was seeing correctly.
“Why isn’t he falling over?” Nox asked, from a few feet away.
“Run!” I shouted and spun on my heels.
His arm… was growing back.
May God have mercy on our souls.
Five
The night had gone from bad to worse. We were running from a freaking gigantic ghoul that could spit fire and regenerate, and Maxine was still in a coma. My recovering ankle was starting to hurt like a mother, and I knew Ronnie and my physical therapist were going to kill me for balls-out running on it like this.
Ommm. Find a happy place.
“Head for that building!” I shouted to Nox and Brisk, who were carrying Maxine on a stretcher, her head banging up and down as we ran for our lives. A quick glance to my left showed Ronnie was about ten yards behind with Mr. Hansen, but I knew she’d heard my order when she hollered back her agreement.
The giant had stopped to let his arm regenerate, then plucked a few ghouls off the ground to eat right before we’d started running. Now I could see him, maybe two hundred yards away, ugly mug stuck up into the air, sniffing around. We’d lost Damien, Jeremy and Josephine, but I had to believe they were okay. When I could stop and take a breath, I would think of a plan. Hopefully quickly.
The building ahead didn’t look run-down and blown up like most of the others. It seemed relatively new. And for some reason, that unsettled me. Did our military build it or theirs? Judging by the materials used and the thin layer of green stuff covering the outside, I was going with theirs. Still, it was our only cover. We’d blasted past the forest and were now in open air, so this place could buy us time to rethink our plan. Maybe I could call Master Aki again or something, though I wasn’t sure what good it would do since we were in Bisbee.
Dammit, I needed a waker again!