Dark Zone by Jonathan Janz

Author:Jonathan Janz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2013-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Jesse couldn’t swing the cleaver again, couldn’t do anything. The creature seemed to whisper into his brain, hypnotizing him into submission. Its satanic eyes engulfed him, drowned him in their bloody depths.

Colleen placed the barrel of the revolver against its forehead.

Its face twitched in surprise.

She pulled the trigger.

A starburst of liquid exploded from the other side of its head, and for one terrible moment Jesse was certain the creature would keep coming. Its face loomed nearer, the discolored teeth somehow brilliant in the uneven glow of the mining helmet. It kept coming, the eyes sightless now, the noxious body tumbling onto Jesse. Gasping, he scrambled away.

More gunshots from behind. Screaming voices. A slew of capering shadows danced on the walls.

Greeley was the first to appear. Emma came next, dragging Ruth Cavanaugh along like a recalcitrant child. Debbie followed, Clevenger trundling after her and looking older than ever. Last came Red Elk, a fierce grin on his face.

“Didn’t like that, did they?” he said.

“Won’t stop them,” Debbie said, and for the first time she seemed afraid.

Jesse could relate. The first close-up encounter with the creatures tended to do that to a person.

“What are we gonna do?” Greeley said in his newfound falsetto.

“We need to decide,” Clevenger said. “Press forward or go back to the house.”

“The lady or the tiger,” Emma said.

“That’s easy,” Red Elk said. “I’d rather have the lady any day.”

“Wait a minute,” Clevenger broke in. “If we—”

“Listen,” Colleen said.

Furtive sounds from ahead, slithery and dry.

As one, they began to back away.

More sounds, a whole chorus of rasping noises.

“Sounds like a lot of them,” Jesse said.

They’d drawn even again with the gaping hole in the side of the corridor. They all stopped, and Clevenger shone his light inside. Wide at the beginning, it rapidly drew down to a narrow breadth. Jesse thought of a coffin, of being entombed forever.

“Oh hell no,” Debbie said. “I ain’t going in that OHHHHH FUUUU—” Her words devolved into an incoherent gibbering. They raised their flashlights in time to see the white taloned fingers clutching Debbie by the hair, hauling her toward the ceiling.

“Dammit,” Clevenger gasped. The creatures swarmed toward them from both sides. Red Elk dropped the gun to grab Debbie, who was half swallowed by the hole in the ceiling. Colleen whirled and blasted a creature in the face, its teeth shattering in a smoky black spray. Another pounced on Emma. Jesse brought the cleaver down without thinking and buried it in the middle of its steepled back. The heavy blade crunched through cartilage and vertebrae, the creature pawing at its back to disengage the cleaver. Jesse yanked the cleaver free with a pulpy rip and slammed it down again on the creature’s skull. It slumped on Emma, its spidery body convulsing in a seizure.

He reached down, pried up one shoulder to help Emma get loose, and then his blood froze at the sound of someone in supreme terror.

Jesse whipped his head around and saw Clevenger being dragged to the ground by two creatures.

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