The Children by Jonathan Janz

Author:Jonathan Janz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2013-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

“We’ve got to get her,” Emma said.

Greeley laughed. “Apparently you haven’t seen how those things operate.”

“Which is why we’ve got to help her,” Emma said, spitting her words into Greeley’s mordant face. “Have you forgotten the RV? How Jesse and Colleen saved us from those monsters? What if they’d let us die?”

Her desperate gaze flitted from person to person and eventually landed on Jesse. She entreated him with her big brown eyes, and for one terrible moment he was sure she’d come out and ask him to volunteer for the rescue mission.

From behind them came a weary sigh. “I suppose I better go.”

They turned and looked at Clevenger, who was already moving forward.

But Red Elk said, “You’re not going anywhere.” The larger man barred Clevenger’s progress.

Clevenger’s eyes were flinty. “You’re just going to let her die?”

“She’s dead already.”

“How do you—” Clevenger started to say, but movement from the forest choked off his words. From where they stood, they could see at least fifteen or twenty feet of the woods surrounding the Buick.

The trees seemed alive.

The creatures’ pale, wiry limbs resembled shifting, denuded boughs. Their bony torsos seemed to squirm forward, irresistibly attracted to the car. Within the Buick, Linda’s whole face was now visible behind the beaded glass, her gaze darting about her, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

“Ron?” she called. “Is that you?”

I hate to tell you this, a voice in Jessie’s head spoke up, but what’s left of old Ron is digesting inside one of those creatures’ bellies.

The shapes swarmed through the twisted old elms, their sinews pulsing with each step.

“Ron?” she said, all her smugness and authority gone.

“Why didn’t we bring her in?” Emma demanded.

Clevenger’s voice was tight, regretful. “I thought we’d be driving out of here.”

“Let’s go,” Greeley whispered, his voice husky with fear.

Emma fixed him with a fierce stare. “I’m telling you—”

“He’s right,” Red Elk said. “Now’s our best chance. While they’re distracted.”

Greeley didn’t need to be asked twice. He nearly knocked Jesse over as he followed Red Elk toward the kitchen. Clevenger guided Ruth across the room. Colleen came too. Reluctantly, Jesse peeled his eyes off the grisly scene in the yard, but stopped when he saw that Emma hadn’t left the window.

“Emma,” he said, gently grasping her arm, “there’s no time—”

“It’s so horrible,” she said, her voice thick.

They were surrounding the car, their huge, peridot eyes sly and gleeful. They’re savoring it, he thought sickly. They’re reveling in her terror.

And Linda Farmer was terror-stricken. One moment she was standing up in the roofless car, her squat frame jutting pitifully over the jagged back window; the next she was crumpling on the seat, knees bent in supplication, her hands pressed to her cheeks as she gibbered for mercy.

A creature stepped nimbly onto the Buick’s hood. Another peeled away the starred windshield as easily as a moist Band-Aid. Linda began to say something when one dropped from a tree behind her and smashed the glass of the back window.

Linda whirled, squealing, and backed against the dash.

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