Suddenly bright lights appeared from his left…
The car went twirling around. Peter’s breath was taken away as the safety bags inflated, slamming him into the back of the seat.
Darkness enveloped Peter. He was stunned, he tried to stay conscious, he could hear yelling and screaming. Light hit his eyes as the air bag started to deflate and was torn at by Maddie, Sophie and Alessandro. Maddie shook him.
“Come on, we gotta move,” she shook him and then slapped him.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Peter said trying to clear the cobwebs from his head.
He unbuckled his seat belt and fell from the car, the door went with him. He could hear Maddie, Alessandro and Sophie gasp and get out, coming to his aid.
“He needs a hospital!” Sophie said.
He touched his head and could feel his warm blood running down. He could feel the cool ground. He tried to stand up. His vision was blurred.
“Do you see any bloody hospitals?” Alessandro asked.
“Don’t be such an asshole!” Sophie yelled back.
Maddie helped him up and rested him against the car.
“You’re okay. We just got hit. We have to move okay soldier? We’re crawling with enemies. I’ll drive.”
He shook his head and his vision came back clear.
“I’m okay,” he muttered again.
“I’ll drive,” Alessandro said and helped him into the back seat. Maddie crawled into the back with him.
Alessandro and Sophie got into the front and they drove away from the scene that had crept on them so fast and unexpectedly.
Chapter 15
The car died a mile from the school and they were lucky to make it that far. It was quiet, thankfully, no howling out there.
“Did you see that?” Alessandro asked.
“We all saw it!” Maddie said sternly reminding him that he wasn’t the only one scared.
“We’re screwed,” he said again touching the Mercedes. The car had seen better days, that’s for sure. It didn’t even have a driver’s door anymore.
Peter and Maddie stayed in the back seat, she nursed his wounds.
“So what are you going to do now?” Sophie asked Alessandro.
“Figure out another way to get to Italy!” Alessandro said loudly, hysterics setting in, “Don’t worry about it, you were going to abandon me anyhow to go with these guys. Typical American, you want to cut and run.”
“Did you just see what we saw Alessandro? If you think you can still get to Italy alive you’re an idiot,” Sophie yelled.
Peter sat up and looked around and then up at the dark sky. The moon hung high, but was faint as usual due to the fact that there wasn’t enough sunlight to reflect off the moon. It looked like a blood red moon.
Maddie’s phone rang, it gave them all a start.
“Jesus!” Sophie muttered.
“It’s just my phone, calm down. Hello?” Maddie said and climbed out of the car.
Maddie started walking down the road a little.
“Don’t go too far!” Peter said and climbed out of the car. He stretched a little, trying to clear his head.
Maddie turned back to them. “That was Olivia. She and Lee are going to come and pick us up,” Maddie said.
Olivia and Lee were the only ones that no one could get a hold of. They had left messages for them.
Sophie and Alessandro were still trading quips, getting underneath each other’s skin.
“I couldn’t miss it,” Alessandro replied to a question Sophie yelled.
“I’m not saying this as a girlfriend, because well, I really doubt we’re there anymore, but as a human. If those things are all around the world like we’ve heard, what chance do you think you really have? The military’s going to have to deal with them.”
“If we still have one,” Maddie said closing her phones and interrupting, “We do have most of our army overseas, in guess where? Nice warm locales where these things probably have major roots. Maybe the National Guard can help, but they were in all the major cities helping with the food riots.”
In some of the cities, anarchists had assembled riots, just to hoard what they could, it was as close to civil war anyone could ponder. And the Police tried their hardest, but they were getting scared too, and many of them broke rank.
“So we’re all screwed, we’re going to die?” Sophie asked and leaned against the car.
Maddie walked over to her and hugged her and kissed her on the forehead.
“No, of course not. We can survive. We have a greenhouse and we have food. I’m assuming those bugs are nocturnal,” Maddie said soothingly, stroking Sophie’s hair.
“It’s always dark though!” Sophie cried.
“They could be aliens,” Alessandro suggested.
“I doubt they’re aliens, they’d have come from the sky, not the ground,” Maddie rebuked.
“I hate the idea that they’ve just been lurking there for God knows how long,” Sophie said.
“Maybe hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Maybe they even have a society and they were running out of food. Holes have been around for a long time, but they don’t get paid much attention to. And a lot of people have disappeared around the world. Maybe they’ve been planning this for a long time, just waiting for the right moment,” Maddie suggested.
“They must have been planning this, you can’t dig thousands of holes, just overnight. They planned his, whether or not, the whole sun thing was coincidence or not…” Peter started, but faded off.
“All a part of God’s plan,” Maddie said, her words almost maddening in the quiet country night.
“Where in the bible does it say that bugs will eat us and kill us?” Alessandro asked.
“Well this could be the rapture, maybe the bugs are only eating Christians,” Sophie lightly suggested.
“Oh god, I can’t believe I’m stuck with you people,” Alessandro complained.
“Well we know that’s not true, they did attack the Middle East.” Peter interjected.
“And in scriptures in Mathew twenty four nine it says that ‘The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give off light,” Maddie started on another scripture quoting.
Peter looked up at the dead moon.
“The stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of Heaven will be shaken. Now I can almost say as fact that the space cloud that has darkened the sun and made the moon give off no light will eventually cause meteorite showers, or even a huge asteroid to come crashing down onto earth.”
Sophie turned and looked at Maddie.
“So after all of this, we’re still going to have to suffer?”
“No pain, no gain,” Maddie said softly. Maddie could be a bit cruel, even if she didn’t realize it.
Sophie shook her head. “Oh my God, there seems to be very little gain,” Sophie sobbed.
“I never said it’d be our gain. But whether or not the bugs used this opportune moment to attack us, while we’re divisive and weak, which is also in scriptures, but regardless the space cloud will be destroyed. That is a fact! Whether or not the sun destroys it or we send nukes to destroy the layers, whatever, we’ll get out of this. This isn’t permanent. It’s just a reminder to mankind not to be so wicked.”
“If it is God sending us a message he’s reminding us that humans are the rulers of this planet, not some bugs!” Alessandro said.
“And then the creatures will leave?” Sophie asked.
“No, probably not, but maybe. Regardless, we’ll probably follow them back into the bowels of hell. Humans are like that. We all know, that no matter what, only one of us will be allowed to remain on this planet.”
Peter smiled at Maddie, she was so crazy sometimes. She sure didn’t mince words even for Sophie. Sophie turned and buried herself into Maddie’s shoulder.
“Anyhow, Olivia went to a play, that’s why we missed her, Lee went to pick her up and all hell broke loose. They just managed to get out of town. They’re meeting us here as soon as poss
ible. They’re going to take the long way though, just to get around.”
Peter nodded and looked towards the town. Once so peaceful and idealistic. New Haven had a lot of college kids, a haven for the world’s brightest and smartest, now they were probably just being hunted down, ripe for the slaughter.
A large fire flared from town as something exploded.
Peter touched his various wounds, Maddie had made him up some tourniquets and bandaged him up.
They all sat there in the quiet of the night, still processing the unusual turn of events, trying to reason it into their conditioned brains.
Suddenly the crunch of feet running down a gravel road woke them from their stupor.
“Turn on the lights!” Maddie ordered him.
Peter turned them on, it must have gotten the runners attention.
“Help!” A woman screamed and ran towards them.
“Crap,” Alessandro said.
They could barely make out something running behind her. Something else in town exploded, lighting up the whole area. He could hear a squirting sound and then a second one, suddenly the woman was on fire.
The attacker was fully illuminated. It was a large creature, with larger wings and two big sacks for a belly. It was a kaleidoscope of dirty earth colors. It stuck both of its large forearms into the woman and picked her up and then dropped her back onto the ground. It then squirted her again, putting out the fire.
“What the hell is that?” Sophie asked about this new breed of bug.
It looked at us as Sophie spoke. It looked like an armored samurai of sorts.
“That’s the heavy guns!” Peter said.
It flew at them and spit twice starting the car on fire. Everyone scattered in different directions, none going too far away. Maddie and Sophie threw themselves to the ground as the car exploded.
“Damn it!” Peter screamed.
The creature turned towards him, flying as fast as it could. It dived at him and started spitting. Peter ran back towards the car and got close enough to grab the Mercedes broken off door and swung it around hitting the creature, it skidded, but regained composure just as Peter was about to take the offensive.
It turned and stabbed at him, piercing the car door and ripped it away from him tossing it away. It roared up and then stabbed Peter in the chest. It was an agonizing pain as the barbed forearms dug deeper and then lifted him up, putting all its pressure on the wound.
Peter looked the creature in the eye. It was a bug though, and he didn’t see a lot of intelligence, just a soldier doing its job.
Smack! He could hear the less than solid strikes from behind it. From behind, Maddie, Alessandro and even Sophie were striking the creature with sticks, Alessandro had a tire jack from somewhere.
“Get off him!” Maddie yelled.
The creature tore its forearm out of him and leapt into the air. Maddie ran to his side.
“Are you okay?” Maddie asked.
“It’s not that deep,” Peter said scanning the skies all around looking for the damn creature.
Sophie hid by Maddie, looking him over. Alessandro looked around.
Peter caught the sight of the creature falling back to earth.
“Alessandro!” He yelled as the creature landed on him, knocking him to the ground. The tire iron went flying. He reached for it as the creature stabbed his arm.
Sophie and Maddie both screamed as the creature sunk its other forearm into Alessandro’s chest. That strike was deeper than the one that hit Peter.
Peter scrambled to his feet as the creature started towards Maddie and Sophie. It started spitting at them. Maddie picked up a hubcap from the wrecked car and shielded herself.
Peter grabbed Alessandro’s tire iron and smacked the creature in the back, cracking its shell. It flew into the sky again.
Maddie and Sophie sat huddled holding each other, both with tears rolling down their cheeks.
“Watch out!” Maddie choked out.
Peter saw a lone tree about twenty yards away.
“Come on!” Peter said and grabbed Maddie’s and Sophie’s hands.
He looked around.
“Run to the tree!” He yelled.
The girls ran and he followed walking backwards and looking to every side. They reached the relative safety of the tree. Peter looked around while the girls huddled together.
“We shouldn’t leave him, he needs our help!” Sophie said. Maddie held her tight.
“Peter you need cover!” Maddie implored him.
“I need to keep us safe!”
It was quiet again and the burning from the city was faint here. He could hear Maddie’s labored breathing and Sophie’s sobs. The deep rumble from Lee’s Civic pierced the new calmness.
“Call and warn him!” Peter ordered Maddie.
She flipped open her phone and dialed.
He turned and saw the creature behind Maddie and Sophie.
“Duck!” Peter yelled as it spit at them.
Maddie whirled around, dropping her phone, but deflecting the spit onto the tree with her hubcap, and then the second mix. The tree went up in a blaze. It jumped at Maddie and Sophie knocking them down.
Peter stabbed his tire iron as far as he could into its cracked exoskeleton. It turned and knocked him down.
Lee’s car skidded across the grass and came to a halt, Lee jumped out, he had a gun and fired at the creature. Green blood splashed all over the place and the creature fell to the ground. Lee ran to Peter’s side.
“Never thought I’d be so glad to see you!” Peter told Lee as he helped him up.
“Man it’s hell out here,” he said looking around.
Olivia got out of the car and walked over.
“Behind you,” Olivia said breathlessly.
Maddie turned around, the bug stabbed Maddie in the chest and then bit her on the arm.
“Ahh,” Maddie screamed as blood flew.
Lee shot at the creature. Peter ran over and smashed at its head. It feebly tried to fight back, but it was too wounded, it fell from the blows. Lee came over and pushed Peter back.
“I got this,” Lee said and shot it in the head.
The creature had retracted from Maddie’s chest and Peter was working to stem the flow of blood. It wasn’t as deep as he initially thought, but she was bleeding and would need stitches.
“Oh my God!” Sophie cried as she ran to Maddie and hugged her.
“Are you okay?” Peter asked her.
She nodded as she hugged Sophie back, “Just a flesh wound,” she said.
Peter moved in between Maddie and Sophie and picked Maddie up.
“We should get back though, we all need to be looked at,” Maddie said in her typical coolness, even after being stabbed by a horrifying nightmare creature.
Chapter 16
“It’s known as blood poisoning.” Jack told Peter. Jack wanted to be a doctor all his life and he was the first person Peter brought Maddie to. Jack helped even stitched him up. “Those creatures in my belief have a bacterium in their mouth, in their bite, that causes Septicemia, it’s designed so that if the initial attack doesn’t kill its prey, and in this occasion, Madison, that the prey will get an infection and if not treated will die. It’s designed so that the prey can be moved at another time.”
“Well, fix her!” Peter said.
“It’s not that easy man.”
“So she can die from this?” Peter asked.
“It’s not, not life threatening,” he shrugged and gave Peter a small smile. Jack sighed and looked around at the greenhouse.
“What? What does not, not life threatening mean?”
“My sister once cut her hand, just what I thought was a small cut, well actually a pretty good gash I guess, but nothing that I thought was life threatening. It got infected and one thing led to another and she ended up having kidney failure and had to go on dialysis,” Jack explained, “And that was just a normal cut, not having to worry about lord knows how many different strains of b
acteria in her system right now.”
“And?” He asked worried, this was starting to sound serious.
“She got better, but…” he cocked his head, “We used a kidney dialysis machine to, well I would explain to you how it works, but I’m sure you’re not into details, but it does involve more or less cleansing the blood.”
Peter nodded, “So we need a dialysis machine? Can you actually cure her? I mean, no offense, but you’re not a doctor.”
“No I’m not Peter, that’s kind of my point here. But if we can get one then at the very least she’ll have a fighting chance, but if we don’t get one, she’ll have no chance, I don’t even want to bother you with the details of her eventual system shutdown without it.”
It’d been two days since they had come back to the school and although Maddie’s wounds were minor, it was one of those things, she’d gotten an infection and it just kept getting worse. She was getting more and more tired and sicker by the day. She was now bed ridden.
They came back to a blood soaked high school. Bodies littered the corridors and teachers were strewn all over the place. The creatures came in and attacked, they attempted to spirit off the bodies and that was when they came back. There were only a handful of them and between Peter and Lee and a couple of the students, they managed to kill them all, after they trapped them in a double door corridor. They were just sitting-ducks and Lee shot them all.
Madison had taken charge almost immediately, but then started feeling sick. She tried to downplay the whole thing, saying it was just a cold and the stress of the situation.
“I assume the hospital will have one?” Peter asked Jack.
“They should.”
“Then me and Lee will go get it. I’m assuming you can operate one.”
“I can, but do you know what a dialysis machine looks like? I should probably come,” he suggested.
Peter shook his head and put his arms around Jack’s shoulder.
“Jack you should know, my friend, that your stock has greatly improved in this new dark world of ours, I can’t let you in harm’s way.”
“Aww shucks Peter, what a friend I have in you hey?”
“Don’t be pushing your luck. I’ll get you your machine, just make sure Maddie’s all fixed up okay?”
The Complete Creeping Darkness Page 7