The Dyian snarled and bounced off the wall to come at her again. She lurched to her feet and picked up the breakfast counter stool and had just enough time to swing it towards the Dyian. She was too weak and injured to put much force behind the hit, but it was enough to spin the creature away and through the doorway into her room. The stool flew out of her grasp when she hit the creature and luck was with her for once since it tumbled through the doorway ahead of the creature. The Dyian stepped in between the legs of the stool, tripped and fell heavily to the floor.
Whatever Sydney was going to do with the Dyian went out the window in her desperation. She wasn’t going to be able to reason with the creature. Doc had done enough damage to it the possibility of trying to reason with it was ruined. Torture, experimentation, forcing it to hunt its offspring. The look of fury in the dark eyes and twisted gash of a mouth made her blood run cold. And hoping to contain it in her room was just as ridiculous. It had already proven it could bust through wooden doors. Regretting what she had to do, Sydney pulled the grenade out of her pocket, yanked the pin free, tossed it inside the room and slammed her door shut just as the Dyian was climbing to its feet.
Doc always left the key in the lock when she wasn’t in the room, and she used it to lock the door just as the creature slammed into the other side. Her only hope was that the door held long enough for the grenade to explode. Her knee screamed in agony as she forced herself to put enough weight on it to hobble across the room. She yanked two cushions from the couch and threw herself towards the front door. Once she hit the ground she hid behind the cushions and held her breath and waited.
When the grenade exploded the world went silent and bright white then black. The force of the bomb felt like a speeding truck slammed into her side. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t hear and she couldn’t move. But she knew she was alive. As the world came back into focus, so did the pain. Her side that had faced the explosion throbbed brutally and, on top of that, points of sharp stinging jabs were breaking through. She took a deep breath and could smell burning and blood and something else bitter and moldy smelling. Her vision was blurry but the smoke was beginning to clear enough for her to see the damage to the cabin. She had been lucky that the kitchen and breakfast counter had blocked her from the blast.
The world was silent except for a ringing in her ears and Sydney hoped she wasn’t going to be permanently deaf. She pushed the cushions off and tried to sit up. Her entire left side complained every time she tried to move it, but she had to get out of the cabin as she was pretty sure it was on fire. The couch cushions had stuffing poking out of them and she looked down to see several places where shrapnel had torn through and pierced her arm, leg and another place on her hip. Smoke and dust swirled through the air and bad it harder to breathe.
Sydney ignored the wounds and tried to climb to her feet, but the world tilted and swayed and she fell back to the floor, renewing the waves of pain that radiated all throughout her body. She coughed as the smoke grew thicker and the desperate need for fresh air drove her to her feet again. Using the wall for support, she made her way back towards what was left of the kitchen.
The side wall of the cabin that marked the beginning of her and Doc’s rooms was gone. A gaping hole edged in crackling flames greeted her as she hobbled into the living room. The kitchen was full of debris and smoldering rubble and even though the window was broken the bars were still in place. As air rushed into the cabin from outside it caused two things to happen. One, it helped clear the smoke enough for her to see that the back was of her bedroom was gone. But it also fanned the flames and they grew in response. Knowing she didn’t have much time she hopped and limped her way towards her room, falling twice on the way when she stumbled over the crumbled debris of the cabin.
She hesitated before crossing her missing threshold into her old room. Pieces of the walls and furniture littered the floor. Wet looking splotches of blackish organic material were smeared across several surfaces and she knew the Dyian was dead. She didn’t know what was left of its body, but there was no way it could survive the explosion, she was pretty sure some of the shinier black spots were pieces of the creature spread throughout the room.
She dreaded trying to get across the floor but didn’t have any choice. This was her only way out. Whimpering she pushed forward and tripped over a piece of mattress and landed face first on part of the door. Giving up trying to walk she crawled and rolled towards the hole in the wall. She rolled over the jagged edge and felt the broken wood digging into her body but ignored the pain. Once she was outside in the grass she took several gasps of only slightly smoke tinged air. Her lungs burned and her entire body was in agony, and she still couldn't hear anything other than the high pitched ringing, but none of it was worse than the excruciating pain in her head.
Fearing that the cabin would end up exploding if the fire caught a gas line, she mud crawled away from the building trying to make it to the van was. At the very least she might be able to hide on the other side of it until she was strong enough to come up with a plan. It felt like it took an eternity to make it, but once she was safely on the other side she let herself collapse in exhaustion. A weird shift in the air stirred her and she groaned and rolled onto her back. She didn’t know what had changed but something was different. The air felt like it was vibrating which made her feel nauseous on top of everything else. Climbing to her good knee she surveyed her surroundings.
Movement from the tree line caused her to freeze in alarm. Doc? The Dyian? The South American drug lords he had been working with? But it was none of them. The best thing she had ever seen stumbled from the edge of the trees. Shay burst through the dark forest followed closely by Xander who was practically carrying Zak. A sob of relief racked her body but then she saw the looks on their faces. They were horrified at something and Sydney assumed it was the burning cabin until Xander dropped Zak and he and Shay rushed forward pointing at something over Syd’s shoulder. Their mouths moved but she couldn’t hear what they were trying to tell her.
Xander
Shay, Xander and Zak fought their way through the woods for another thirty minutes. Every muscle in Xander’s body ached and was ready to give out. Zak did the best he could to support himself and Shay helped as much as she was able, but they were still moving slowly.
“We’ve got to be close to the clearing,” Shay assured them.
Xander grunted. “I hope so.”
Another ten minutes later the ground shook and the silence of the woods was broken by the sound of an explosion. “What the hell?” Xander came to a stop and the three of them looked at each other in stunned shock. “That was close.” Breaking out of the shock, he shouted at Shay and Zak. “Go, go, go,” he urged them forward. Some instinct told him that the explosion was connected to Sydney and he knew he needed to get to her.
Tripping, stumbling and groaning in pain they rushed headlong towards the clearing. As they suspected, the break in the trees held a cabin that sported a gaping, fiery hole in one side of it. In front of the cabin a familiar white van was parked and on the other side of that was Sydney. Battered, dirty and clearly in pain—but alive. Shay gave a shout and Xander, in desperate need to get to Sydney, dropped Zak. They rushed forward but drew up short when they saw the shimmer in the air behind Syd. Like ripples across the surface of water, the air shifted and blurred.
A crack appeared in the air directly behind Sydney and it was clear she wasn’t aware of what was happening. Shay and Xander tried to warn her but she only stared at them in confusion as if she couldn’t hear them. A rectangle filled with blinding white light grew to the size of a door and a dark figure appeared silhouetted by the light. Sydney finally realized they were pointing behind her and she turned with a look that said she was anticipating horror. The light was too bright to clearly see but Xander rushed forward, not caring what he was facing.
A long thin arm reached out and caught Sydney by the hair and moving with fast, jerky, speed, dragged her inside t
he distorted space of air and light. “Nooooo!” Xander screamed. But as Sydney and the creature were swallowed by the glaring white light, it surged causing him to have to look away in pain. Along with the light, a shock wave slammed through the air and knocked him onto his back and the world went black.
***
Xander woke with someone shaking him. Shay and Zak leaned over him trying to get him to regain consciousness. Zak had his hand reared back to slap him and he suspected it wasn’t the first time. “What happened?” he groaned.
“They took Sydney!” Shay sobbed.
“What was that?” he gasped, trying to sit up. But any movements he made him nauseous and his stomach lurched.
Neither Shay nor Zak tried to answer his question. “Get up, man,” Zak told him. “We've got to get out of here before the cops show up.”
Xander looked at the cabin and it was burning, nearing the point of collapse. He could feel the heat and smell the acrid burning smell of wood and synthetic materials. “Shit. How do we get out of here?”
Shay held up a set of keys. “These are to the van. We can drive the van out of here.”
“How did you get keys?” he asked, letting Zak and Shay pull him to his feet.
“They were on the ground,” she answered sounding as confused as he was.
Something about that didn’t sit well, but he was too fuzzy headed to figure out what it was. He let Shay and Zak get him to the van. Since there were only two bucket seats in the front he had to lay in the back. There were rings mounted to the floor and the sides as if something had been chained up here and his stomach turned when he realized it had probably been Sydney. He lay on his back as Shay started the van and floored it way from the cabin. The rocking and tilting of the van made him sicker. What had that light done to them? How long had they been unconscious? Bitterness hardened his body when he realized how badly he had failed Sydney.
*** One month later ***
Xander sat at his desk in his office scrolling through blogs. His arm was in a sling helping his cracked collarbone heal and his head throbbed—the effects of his healing concussion. He wiped a hand across his face in frustration. Sydney had been gone for a week and his brain spun with all the possibilities of what could be happening to her. He had been scrolling through blogs and webpages for days with no luck.
When his phone pinged with a notification he nearly jumped out of his skin. The sudden movement caused pain to flare through his shoulder. He switched tabs to log in to his email. He had one message from someone named ETFinder. He scowled but opened the message.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
I know what you are looking for. I can help you find them.
The only other thing in the message was a phone number. Xander grabbed his phone to call it, but hesitated. What if it was a trap? And did he care? When he realized he didn’t he unlocked his phone and began dialing.
Thank You
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Don't Let Them Find You Page 36