Three hundred feet behind them, in the area they had just been running, the creature burst up from the hovel-line, in the midst of the thirty runners who careened from an alley.
Its mammoth body rose higher, like a cavern-sized snake with spears protruding from its sides.
Its girth cast men and women aside like pebbles. A few stuck to the side of its body, impaled by the spikes.
A handful people landed in the creature’s mouth, where it swallowed them whole.
The creature arced higher, spraying sand on those lucky enough to survive and knocking them over, crushing others. And then it was back in the ground, carrying some screaming colonists with it into the earth.
“Come on!” Darius yelled, pulling the boy along faster while the mother and daughter followed.
They moved along at a rapid, frantic pace.
They didn’t stop until they reached the cave’s mouth.
Chapter 61: Raj
Everywhere around Raj and Samel was destruction.
Bodies covered the main path. Structures lay in ruins. To Raj’s left, a group of people knelt around a fallen old woman, crying. To his right, others tried picking up a family member who was obviously dead. A few catatonic women wailed. Staring at any one thing for too long gave Raj a paralyzing fright. Every step came with a new obstacle to avoid: a mud brick, an overturned cart, or a piece of broken kitchenware.
“Come on, Samel!” he said, tugging his brother’s hand as they skirted around a large hunk of fallen stone.
Seeing the broken hovels made him question whether returning to Helgid’s was a good idea. But he had to find Helgid and Neena. It was the only thing he could think to do.
The incessant rumbling was a reminder to keep moving. A few times, they saw Watchers running amidst the crowd, but none paid them attention. The tanned men held onto their spears as if losing them meant instant death, even though those spears would do nothing against a cave-sized beast.
Even Raj knew it.
Surprisingly, Bailey and the hook-nosed boy were still next to them. Bailey looked as if he might keel over from fright. Gone was the taunting, sneering boy; in his place was a boy who might soil his pants. Raj fought his own roiling fear.
Weaving around a pile of fallen mud bricks, they encountered one of the large, gaping holes left behind by the monster. The people ahead skirted around its edges, in the five-foot space between the opening and an intact hovel. Raj pulled Samel after them.
“Watch your step!” he warned.
He led his brother to the right, next to the hovel wall, where he would be safer, while the other boys followed. Sand and loose rocks slid into the large crevice. Raj peered into the cave-sized opening as they passed it, terrified he’d find glowing eyes or sharp teeth. He saw only blackness.
Ahead, the people they followed made it safely to the other side
“I’m afraid, Raj,” Samel said, distracted by the seemingly bottomless pit.
“Don’t look at it,” Raj said, projecting bravery. “We have to get past it.”
A rumble underfoot gave them a new panic.
“Hurry, Sam!”
A shoulder bumped into Raj’s.
He pin-wheeled, losing his balance.
He and Samel fell sideways, landing against the hovel wall, fighting to stabilize themselves. They groped the mud-brick to steady themselves while Bailey charged past them.
“Get out of my way!”
The hook-nosed boy followed.
Raj had no time for a reaction as the other boys made it by the hole, rushing after the other people. A rumble grew louder. The ground past the hole fissured; the dirt pushed upward.
Bailey, the hook-nosed boy, and the people past them screamed.
The path beneath the leading runners exploded, taking several of them with it into the air. Men and women went in different directions. Blood sprayed. The beast swallowed several colonists and kept rising. A few steps behind, Bailey and his friend toppled against an intact hovel, knocked over by the erupted ground.
They shouted and tried to catch their footing.
The side of the hovel collapsed.
Mud bricks rained down on top of Bailey and the hook-nosed boy as the building caved, burying them in a landslide of debris. Raj saw one of their hands, groping for freedom, and then the two boys were covered in a cloud of dust, their screams silenced.
Nothing moved underneath the pile.
Past them, the creature continued sliding out of the ground with a speed Raj never would have imagined, from a huge demon. They watched the beast’s tail writhe in the open air a hundred feet away, and then the creature descended, landing and burrowing a new hole beyond where it had come up.
More people screamed as its massive girth crushed them, or threw them aside.
And then it was underground again and moving.
Raj and Samel stood in the center of the path, shaking.
“Bailey and his friend!” Samel said, pointing at the pile of debris. No signs of life came from beneath.
“They’re gone, Sam,” Raj said, a lump in his throat. “If we stay here much longer, we’ll be gone, too. Let’s go!”
Chapter 62: Neena
The brutal, ground-shaking rumbling seemed to have become as familiar as the sunlight, or the breeze. Too many times, Neena ran toward groups of scared, frantic people hovered around a body, fearing she might find one of her brothers, or Helgid. She saw none of her family among any of the living, or the dead.
“This way!” she said, directing Kai through a group of hovels she barely recognized.
Dozens of houses were damaged, or downed. The monster’s massive body had knocked down the meager mud-brick dwellings like pebbles, making her familiar colony look a wasteland through which she and Kai had to find their way. A few times, Neena changed directions, thrown off by dust clouds or throngs of people.
Passing by a few colonists, she scanned their faces for anyone she recognized, but saw no one.
“How far is this woman’s house?” Kai asked, still favoring his wounded ankle.
“A few more alleys…” Neena pointed past a crumbled pile of stone that used to be a structure.
The door to the next house opened, and several disheveled colonists ran from the inside, darting in the direction of the river, perhaps thinking better of their place of refuge. Neena watched them flee with a fading sensation of hope. She squinted through the spreading haze.
People walked like specters, covered in sand and debris. Some helped the wounded. Others staggered by themselves, looking lost and confused.
A figure in the haze coughed and waved their hands.
This one she recognized.
“Helgid?” Neena’s words were caught in her throat as she darted toward a familiar woman.
Helgid recognized her at the same time, moving toward her as fast as her old legs were able. They embraced in a moment that Neena wished meant the end of danger. Of course, it didn’t. Stepping back, Neena looked Helgid up and down, checking her for injuries.
“I’m fine,” Helgid reassured her.
Kai came up behind them, knife in hand.
“Is that the stranger?” Helgid asked, a realization flashing through her eyes.
“This is Kai. He’s helping me,” Neena said. The look in her eyes showed that they had no time for explanations. “Where are Raj and Samel?”
“I went back to your house to look for them, and for you,” Helgid said. “Nobody was there.” Panic flickered through her eyes.
“You weren’t together?”
“I went looking for you when I woke up. And then there was a meeting…” Too many thoughts ran through Helgid’s mind.
“We should get back to your house and make sure they aren’t there,” Neena said.
Helgid nodded.
They headed in the opposite direction, picking up as speed much as they were able to, slowing for Helgid. They wound through more broken houses and debris, stepping over scattered bedrolls and tattere
d laundry.
They came across fewer people. Neena figured they’d taken shelter, run across the bridge, or died. Her bad feeling grew worse as she looked around at the silent alley leading to the one in which Helgid’s house was stationed. It felt as if she’d entered a graveyard. More than one home lay in ruins. A few were ablaze, presumably from out-of-control cooking fires.
Dread took their feet faster as they hurried past them, to the spot where Helgid’s house should be.
A pile of wreckage lay in its place.
“By the heavens!” Helgid explained, hurrying to the rubble.
Frantic tears fell down Neena’s face as they knelt next to the large pile of debris, sifting through piles of cracked mud brick and scattered kitchenware, searching for her brothers. Her eyes flitted from place to place in the wreckage, certain that she’d find Samel’s reaching fingers, or Raj’s long, curly hair.
Kai took up next to her, flinging aside the mud-bricks and stones. They dug until their hands were sore and bleeding, their breath heaved, and more bricks lay outside the pile than within.
Nothing.
“I don’t see them,” Kai said, gasping for breath.
“Neither do I,” Neena said. It made sense her brothers would be elsewhere. It had to. “Maybe they went to the bridge.”
A voice shouted in the distance.
Neena spun.
Two small, familiar figures wound through the haze, spotting her and skirting around debris. They opened their arms when they got close, as if Neena might disappear.
“Raj! Samel!”
Neena collected them, squeezing them so tightly that she thought she might never let go. Stepping back, she appraised Raj and Samel. Samel was unharmed, but Raj’s clothes were bloodstained.
“What happened?”
“I’m not hurt,” Raj assured her.
“We have to get back to Darius,” Neena said, looking toward the cliffs. “If we stay here much longer, we’ll die.”
“Where is he?” asked Raj.
Rather than answering, Neena said, “Follow me.”
Chapter 63: Darius
Darius looked out from the mouth of the cave. Behind him, the mother and her children shivered and cried, holding on to one another for support. Fear coursed through his heart as he scanned the ruined colony. Many of the hovels on the eastern edge of the town had collapsed, their foundations ripped from beneath them. Dust rose like ash clouds. A few fires burned as buildings collapsed on untended hearths. Some people ran through the alleys, but most congregated near the bridge, or on the other side of it. The water that had served as a meeting place and a source of life had become a place to flee.
However, the colonists had made a mistake.
In their haste to make it to safety, they had unwittingly followed the leader’s rules and avoided the caves.
To them, the caves and the cliffs were an equally threatening place.
They thought they might be safe by the river.
But death waited on the other side, if the creature made its way across. Darius had no doubts the beast could tunnel beneath it. Or maybe it would jump the river as if it were nothing. Perhaps it would destroy every last soul who waited there, thinking they had found a place of refuge.
A whimper pulled his attention back to the woman and children. They met his eyes with fear, seeking comfort he couldn’t give. He imagined the fear that struck the hearts of the colonists, who had no idea that such a monster existed.
Even his preparation hadn’t staved off his terror.
Swallowing back those unhelpful emotions, he considered one of a few options. The logical part of him said he should take the family back into the caves. He wanted to save his old skin and find refuge in the rock formation. Perhaps they could wait it out until the beast left.
But he’d made a promise to Neena and Kai.
And he couldn’t stop staring at all those people across the water.
He couldn’t stop thinking of how they’d die.
Breaking his attention from the crowd, he unslung his bag filled with torches, food, and water, and handed it to the woman and her children. “If I don’t make it back, stay in these caves.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m going to help those people.” He paused to add, “I’ll be back.”
Before she could ask another question, he hobbled out of the cave with his cane.
Chapter 64: Thorne
Thorne clutched his spear and surveyed the carnage and destruction. The people left at the northern end of the colony were either incapacitated, dead, or wished they were. One man wandered around with a dazed expression, clutching the bloodied stump where his arm had been. Another grabbed his stomach to stop his insides from spilling out, impaled by something, or cut by falling stone. Everywhere he looked, people died, or limped on wounded limbs.
He looked up to the cliffs, where some of his Watchers had led some survivors to safety. After the initial attack, they’d collected whom they could, leading them up the long, winding path to the top of the eastern formation, where they were beyond the creature’s reach. He hoped. On the ledge, Thorne saw the first handfuls of people making it to the top.
But too many colonists had fled south, toward the river, or split off in other directions.
Looking around, he saw no healers.
Most were dead, dying, or fleeing for their lives.
Thorne swallowed and looked at the two giant holes in the ground, surrounded by dozens of dead, crushed bodies, or the staggering injured. He surveyed the remains of the platform that had once contained the men to whom he had pledged his loyalty.
The Heads of Colony were dead.
The thought was unbelievable.
He walked over to the gaping crevice and looked down, as if he might find a leader he could save. The only things he saw were blood, bile, and splattered entrails. The remainder of the tunnel was black and menacing. The creature had erased his leader’s existence in an eye’s blink.
Only one body remained.
Walking over to the pile of scattered boards, the only thing left of the platform, Thorne surveyed Wyatt’s crushed body underneath. The leader’s mouth hung open in a deathly grimace; his tongue lolled to the side. Dust coated his eyes and his blood-covered cheeks. A hollow feeling built inside Thorne’s gut as he listened to the screams from the southern portion of the colony.
Fear and anger warred inside his heart.
He wanted to shove his spear into the creature’s eyeless face and watch it bleed. He wanted to find its heart and pull it out for all those left in the colony to see.
But he knew stupidity would lead to death.
Three-dozen of his Watchers circled around him, gripping their spears and assessing the scene. Too many of their brothers had fled with the crowd, sought refuge elsewhere, or been up on the cliffs and never come down. Some were on the bottom of the eastern structure, guarding, but perhaps hiding now, or dead.
Only his bravest, most loyal guards were left.
“What should we do, sir?” asked one of The Watchers, pushing his words past trembling lips. He glanced over to the horizon, at the cliffs where the other Watchers brought survivors. “Should we follow the others to the cliffs?”
“Maybe we can head to the Comm Building,” suggested another.
Thorne clenched and unclenched his spear. The Comm Building walls would be thicker than any of the hovels, but the building wouldn’t be safer than the cliffs.
A long, wailing scream echoed from somewhere in the center of the colony, amidst a rolling clouds of dust. A hovel collapsed. Through it all, the eternal rumble.
Thorne’s hollow feeling became a rage.
Gideon’s words echoed through his head.
‘Preservation at all costs.’
Thorne had pledged his life to Red Rock, and failed.
Hiding wouldn’t save his people.
Pulling his determination into his face, he said, “We’ll save whomever else w
e can. We’ll find the beast, and kill it!”
Silence met his words. Fear lit the eyes of too many faces. In a long, loud shout, he said, “We will do our duty to our people! We will pierce the beast’s hide!”
Thorne stabbed the air with his spear, and then again, contorting his face in a way meant to inspire.
His men looked from him to the holes, and the crashed podium.
“Raise your spears!” he shouted, repeating the words of their Induction Ceremonies.
The Watchers thrust their spears into the air. Slowly, a hesitation became strength, as they picked up on his determination. Reciting from the oath he had taken with his men—the oath which all of his men took—he said, “Our lives, to save Red Rock! Survival at all costs!”
“Survival at all costs!” his men repeated.
“Kill the beast!” he screamed, his voice quivering with anger.
“Kill the beast!” The Watchers answered.
In a flurry of pounding boots, Thorne led his brave men through the center of Red Rock and toward the monster.
Chapter 65: Neena
Neena, Kai, Raj, Samel, and Helgid ran in a tight group toward the eastern side of the colony. Abandoned buckets, carts, and chamber pots littered the alleys. Hovel doors swung back and forth. The colony was lifeless, until they reached the end of an alley and saw something.
They stopped.
Shock hit Neena.
Looking out, she surveyed an unexpected scene.
An enormous funnel of people crossed the patch of desert between the bridge and the cave they’d left behind, running. Following the line of people to the back with her eyes, she saw what must be hundreds crossing the bridge, hurrying east and for safety. The flow of bodies looked like a second river. Parents carried children. Relatives helped the elderly. The other side of the bridge was empty, save the vacant Green Crops and an empty patch of desert.
“What’s going on?” Kai asked.
Neena scanned the moving crowd until her eyes stopped at a point to the left of the line, where a solitary man stood, directing them with his cane.
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