by Box Set
A wall of ebony skin and iron feathers stood less than ten feet behind us. Heaving, with deep black blood dripping off their bodies and pooling at their feet, they stood still, their yellow eyes trained on me, waiting for their chance to attack, their eyes intent and focused, making it obvious they did not think I could see them.
Not until now.
I looked at them with fear, with understanding.
With one glance, they knew I could see them. They knew their cover was blown just as ours was. They knew their trap was as useless as my idea was.
“Travis.” I could barely get the word out. “They’re here.”
Everything was tense as I stared, waiting for them to attack, waiting for us to move. Waiting for the bell to ding, and the battle to start.
It wasn’t a bell.
It was a scream.
In sync, all of the Tars’ wide mouths opened in a scream that rang through the hollow warehouse with an echo that dragged on and on, buzzing through my head and bringing back the pain with a rattle of agony.
“Go!” I screamed as they did, the one word ripping past my pain like a wrecking ball.
Travis said nothing, only revved the engine with a roar, pulling the bike into a speed much higher than we had originally planned, my head pulling back into my brother’s chest with the force of the movement.
I screamed in fear, my eyes trained forward as I desperately tried to keep us upright, to keep the bike steady, to keep us from running into any walls.
“Slight left,” I screamed, knowing right now Travis’s order of ‘slightly turning’ on my own wasn’t going to help. I needed to move quickly. Either that or we were going to run into a pole.
Travis followed without question, pulling his body weight to the side and guiding us around a large pillar and down a small ramp that remained invisible to him.
The bike shook and rattled from my inept guidance, and Travis issued a steady stream of profanities from behind me, the sound only drowned out by the scream of the Tar that seemed to be following us. The sound grew quickly, as if the dark itself was magnifying it.
I didn’t dare turn around to see how close they were. It was all I could do to keep the bike upright.
Travis held onto the handlebars as I did, his hands right beside me as he kept the bike in gear, kept the gas pulled. My shoulders tensed as I continued to pull and roll and keep us in the right direction.
I leaned to the right as the Tar screamed behind us, Travis following my lead as we burst through a large, open service door and back out onto the derelict streets Travis had led us into.
I half expected an army of Tar to be waiting for us there, a barricade of claws and blood and wings to keep us in place. However, the street was strangely empty, the endless night oddly quiet. The screams of the Tar had dissipated as though a switch had been flipped. There was nothing but silence. All except for the purr of the engine, the sound echoing off the windowless skeletons of the brick mansions.
It was as though we had exited the warehouse, and the Tar had forgotten how to follow. The Tar had forgotten how to scream, though.
I could feel Travis tense from behind me, a move that I mirrored. At least he sensed the change as I did, even with his sight taken from him temporarily.
“Should I head for the freeway?” I barely dared to speak above a whisper. Thank goodness he was close enough to hear me.
“I don’t trust this.”
Neither did I to be honest, but what choice did we have?
If we wove our way through the city in an effort to lose the creatures who already seemed to be lost, then we were already wasting gas. Then again, if we simply headed back to the highway, and they were watching us, we would lead them right to Blood Rose.
I exhaled heavily and urged the bike into a turn, Travis slowed it down enough for us to make it safely before he pushed it back up to where we were, the bike carrying us through the streets like a dark shadow.
Travis said nothing more, so I turned again, fully expecting to head back to the highway, only to round the corner and come face to face with the army I had expected before.
They were there, but they weren’t an army. They weren’t ready for a war. They were simply a wall of black, the ebony only broken by beady, yellow eyes. The wall of Tar standing before us was acting the same as they had in the warehouse.
Not moving.
Not attacking.
Just silent.
Still.
My heart tensed in panic as I saw them, half expecting them to make a run at us, but they merely stood and stared as we barreled down the road toward them.
My eyes flitted around in a panic as I tried to find a way out, not trusting myself or the width of the road enough to make a U-turn.
I was about to yell at Travis to stop the bike when I caught sight of an alley off to the side of the beasts. The bike was going so fast I knew I could barely make it. The thought was merely born out of panic.
We were almost there.
Please don’t let them attack.
I pulled the handlebars to the side, tilting precariously in an attempt to make the turn, grateful when Travis leaned into it, his foot gliding against the ground as some sort of tri-pod.
The sound of the engine became deafening as we plunged into the nearly pitch black alleyway. The buildings on either side of us were so close I could have reached out and run my finger along the old, grimy brick if I had wanted. I didn’t. I only focused forward, ignoring the claustrophobia that being trapped between these two monster buildings was giving me, trying to ignore the way the sound was bouncing around, trying not to let my imagination go wild with the way all of those things had stood before us, so still.
No matter how hard I tried to fight it, the panic inside of me was swelling as the possibility of what we might be riding into grew.
“What’s going on?” Travis asked from behind me, causing me to tense even more. “I can hear your heart beat from here.”
I wouldn’t doubt that.
“The Tar,” I began, trying to figure out how to explain in as few of words as possible. “They were just standing in front us, blocking our way…”
There were a million other explanations that I didn’t need to give, not with the way Travis’s hands tightened around the handlebars, his knuckles turning white, his deep, panicked breath of fear running over my neck.
“Where are we now?”
“In an alleyway,” I said, my eyes focused on the break in the brick before us, the tiny, claustrophobic space preparing to open back up to a road.
“Did they follow us?”
“No.” The way he was talking was worrying me. “The road is just ahead”
“Are there more in front of us?” His voice was so tense he almost didn’t sound like himself.
“I don’t know. I can’t see yet.”
“If there are, you have to go toward them. You can’t go where they want you to go…”
“Travis?” I asked, my eyes focused on the end to the alleyway, the last few yards being ripped away from us. “What’s going on?”
“We are being herded.”
My heart dropped, fear ripping through me as we broke out of the alleyway into a street that was lined with Tar. Dozens of them were standing in a line to my left, their bodies frozen while their yellow eyes stared me down.
I turned away from them on reflex, desperately trying to find another path, another possibility, but finding none.
“There is nowhere else to go!” I yelled, not caring who heard us at this point.
“You have to look, Lex!”
We were quickly approaching another intersection, the way directly ahead already barred. I couldn’t go straight, and judging by the line of yellow, beady eyes that were trained my way, I couldn’t go right, either. Left it was, I guess.
“We are going left,” I warned Travis quietly, still looking away from the creatures for another option, not really wanting to see them standing so still.
&
nbsp; They looked like gargoyles standing there—crudely carved gothic statues that were cracked and broken bits of stone, rivers of blood flowing from their ancient surface. They stood still, keeping vigil, keeping us from where we needed to go.
I looked away, looked down the road we had just come from in a desperate need for an escape, only to see the line of Tar we had met at the alley end was gone. The street was clear.
The second we had passed them, they had left.
I could use that. That was our escape.
“Travis.” I tried to keep my voice down, but my nerves were making that difficult. “I need you to slow down.”
He responded immediately as the road bent to the left, putting us dead on with another wall of stone monsters, another forced herding. Another dead end with no options.
Or so they thought.
I took one quick look back at the blocked intersection we had just come from, my stomach twisting in nerves to find it bare. The Tar had gone.
This could work.
“We are going to flip a U-ie,” I whispered, praying that the evil things in front of us couldn’t hear me. “And then I need you to go as fast as possible.”
Please let this work.
“Okay. Tell me when.”
Please let this work.
“Go!” I practically screamed the word, ready for him to flip around and gun it in the opposite direction, my body tensing for what was to come.
Instead, he cranked the gas, the throttle sputtering as he opened up the engine and sent us into the line of Tar before us.
Into the line of claws.
And razor sharp wings.
Obviously, Travis hadn’t heard everything I had said.
He never was a great listener.
“No!” I screamed as we sped toward them, half expecting the line to just attack us, to end us. Instead, they merely broke open like water from a dam, their screeches breaking through the silence in mad anger, the bike sliding safely past them.
At least, that was what I thought until the screams increased, until the calls echoed in my head, until the creatures took flight into the sky. Suddenly, we were surrounded by dozens of them: in the sky, running behind, each one screaming, chasing us down.
And each one wanted to destroy.
“Faster, Travis!” I screamed, needing him to understand what I was saying this time, not that it would make any difference.
It was clear from the way the bike shook underneath us, the way it rattled and groaned and the smell of exhaust and burning oil increased. The bike was already being pushed to its limit; any faster and we would lose it.
We didn’t need that, not now.
We just needed to get back to the freeway, to Blood Rose.
There was only one thing for us to do.
I would have to lose them.
“Slow down, Trav. Not too much. This is going to get interesting.”
I had played plenty of racing video games in the past. I didn’t necessarily play them well, but I had gotten good at these, if only to have something to play with my brothers. All those hours of honing the skill were about to be put to the test.
I mean, they had to be good for something, right?
God, I hoped so. Otherwise, all that was left of us would be macaroni stains in a dust filled house somewhere in the middle of Texas.
“Hold on.” I wasn’t sure if I was talking to him or myself, but right then, it didn’t matter. I could see the freeway through the break in buildings on my left; therefore, as long as I worked my way toward it while keeping ourselves as unseen as possible, we might make it back there.
Please let that be enough.
“Left,” I growled as I began to turn, the monsters swarming behind me like moths to a flame, their screams increasing as I guided the motorcycle down another alleyway, this one thankfully wider, although I knew at once that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
The engine roared as the alley filled with sound, the screams of the beasts echoing around us as they continued to follow. The tiny space was filled with sound: the flapping of distorted wings, the screech of claws against brick and stone. It all grew in volume, echoed. It all pounded in my still injured head, pulsed through my frightened heart, and tensed in my bones.
I tried to block it out, but I couldn’t. My mind was too focused on the opening of the alleyway and the black beasts that were beginning to congregate there.
I could tell in the shimmer of their yellow eyes that they thought they had won, and any other time, they would be right, but they obviously didn’t see what I saw.
“There is an open door ahead on our right. We are going to go there.”
Please let this work.
“How tight of a turn?” The trepidation was clear in his voice.
I wanted to tell him that, if we had any other choice, I would go with that, but I already knew we didn’t. He couldn’t see the army that was forming before us, but he could hear the thunderous herd that charged behind.
“Tight.”
“Tell me when,” he didn’t even hesitate to answer, something I prayed was good. As long as we didn’t end up as a grease spot on the brick façade that was right beside the entry…
It was too late to second guess; it was now or never.
“Now!” I screamed as he dug his right foot into the ground, leaning heavily to the right as he spun the bike around.
“Go!” I screamed when we were lined up, and like I had flipped a switch, he lifted his foot, opened the throttle, and sped us into another warehouse, this one made up of more nightmares than the one we had left outside.
It was full of dolls.
It was full of a million glass eyes that were staring at me, of a million vapid smiles and faces in every emotion, of every age and every size. They sat on boxes, leaned against walls. Some were even propped in chairs.
And they all stared. They all looked. They all waited.
They all watched us ride by, the creatures ripping into the space in their mad attempt to follow us.
I pulled the bike over a ramp, dodging a pole and a large bedroom set that was covered in dozens of the creepy figures, my eyes searching for some sort of way out.
I knew we had said we needed to lose them, but at this point, I didn’t think that was possible.
I just needed to focus on getting us out of here alive, on making it to Blood Rose with the quarter tank of gas we had left. On somehow surviving.
A break in the black wall just ahead caught my attention, the only possible exit in a sea of frightening faces. I didn’t even stop to question if the door would lead us into a confined office. I only lunged for it with my heart beating, teeth clenching, turning us into it without so much as a whisper to my brother.
I expected the office. I expected a flight of stairs even. What I didn’t expect was open air and the bike to launch itself into the darkness and a drop of what looked to be five feet. It was a tiny height from where you stood on the ground, but flying through the air on a motorcycle, it was equal to skydiving to me.
I screamed as we raced toward the ground, fully aware of Travis’s high-pitched squeal behind us, of the way he pulled the bike back in an effort to land us in one piece.
I had seen this happen in the movies.
I knew we could survive it.
But in the darkness when I was the only one who could see? I knew our chances were slim.
My scream increased in panic as the back tire hit against the cement, the impact rippling through me in a wave of sound and pain. I braced for impact, braced for the bike to fly out from underneath us and the Tar to descend upon us with claws and teeth gnashing.
Instead, the front tire hit with a thud, the bike shaking uncontrollably underneath us. Travis somehow balanced it just enough to keep us upright.
His high-pitched scream died as mine did, replaced by one word that I couldn’t make out above the screams from the monsters. Even without hearing him, though, I knew what he meant. I knew what needed to b
e done.
We had to get out of here.
I pulled the bike to the right as I scanned the sky for the freeway, grateful to see it right before us, the high hill of grass leading upward. I didn’t care that it wasn’t an on ramp. I didn’t even care if there might be a fence. I was going to make this work.
“Hit it!” I yelled.
Travis took the cue and gunned the bike forward. Hands tight around the handle bars, I kept us in a bee-line for the road that would hopefully lead us to Blood Rose.
The bike bobbed through the uneven grass as we began our ascent, Travis holding on even tighter as he stared blankly into the darkness before him.
“You need to be on the side with the power lines on your left, driving against the traffic.” Confused, I kept driving up the hill, trying to make sense of the instructions, only to have them stare me in the face when I reached the freeway. The street was littered with abandoned cars and wide rings of ash.
There, before me, were the power lines and all the cars facing the same direction, as if they had just stopped due to traffic.
Power lines on the left meant I had to drive against traffic.
Now it made sense.
I quickly faced the bike in the right direction, guiding it forward as we wove our way through the graveyard, plowing our way toward Blood Rose, both of us knowing we were too far away to make it with what little gas we had left.
I didn’t care. It wasn’t worth it to worry about. I would get us as far as I could.
I could still hear the beasts screaming behind us, could still hear the echoes of what they had hoped to be death. I knew they were chasing us, knew there was no escape.
There was no escape from them, no escape from the man who stood in the middle of the road before us. He was standing in the dark, looking like he had just left a dinner party, right down to his patent leather shoes.
A dapper Hispanic man that part of me just wanted to run over with the bike and leave for dead.
If only that were possible…
If only his minions hadn’t brought us right to him.
“Travis,” I whispered, the dread in my voice growing, “It’s Abran. He’s standing right in front of us.”