Chapter 19

Clay ran through the city park. His headache was blinding. Every stride crashed through his skull, threatening to bring him to his knees. But he couldn’t stop. No way. He’d shot Danny. He needed to make sure the ambulance found Danny and transported him to the hospital. But running through these woods was taking too long. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say he was lost.

He stopped to get his bearings.

He should’ve stayed on the jogging trail. Cutting through these woods was a bad idea. He’d lost any idea of what direction he was going. The jogging trail where Danny and he had shot each other was nowhere in sight.

He started walking. Was that a light off to his right? It could be from one of the light poles on the jogging trail. He pushed through a thick stand of bushes, trying to get a better look. The light disappeared as he ducked his head, pushing through a snarl of thorns and brambles. The ground turned soft. Stinking mud clung to his shoes, adding the weight of wet cement to each step. Thorns tore at him. Something sharp caught his ear, tearing flesh in a bright streak of pain.

He lowered his shoulder, driving forward. The light was gone, blotted out by the knot of vines and thorny branches choking his path. Ankle-deep muck gripped his ankles. His lungs worked like bellows, struggling for oxygen. Despite his best efforts, his momentum slowed, and then stopped. He felt as if he’d been caught in quicksand. He wiped sweat from his eyes.

Tired. Head pounding. Lost.

Footsteps moved somewhere off to his left. He turned. The footsteps stopped.

He carefully unwrapped a thorny branch from his arm, listening.

Maybe it was Danny, injured and stumbling through the forest.

He lifted his head to yell. But someone beat him to it, calling his name instead. He searched the landscape. Through the tangle, he saw a figure slipping through the trees, moving toward him. It mumbled, “Danny doesn’t need you anymore.”

Sweat ran down Clay’s face in sheets.

Whoever, or whatever, it was sounded like a barely tuned-in radio station. Words mixed with a hiss of static, as if its voice was leaking in from another dimension.

The figure slipped into the latticework of vines, thorns, and branches surrounding him. He backed up a step, nearly losing a shoe in the mud. A smell of rot wafted over him. He covered his mouth and gagged.

Clay squinted to get a fix on the figure. It, he, she—whatever—was moving at an angle to get in front of him. To cut him off.

Clay pushed forward with purpose. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew without a doubt that he couldn’t let that thing get in front of him. He looked over, catching sight of it moving faster, struggling to push through the snarl of thorns and stunted trees. It lifted its head and rasped, “He’s ours. Leave him to us.”

The voice of the thing was all hiss and distortion, formed into a parody of speech. Fear tingled up Clay’s spine. He slowed, feeling the fear grip him. What would it matter if he let the thing get ahead of him? Who would know that he gave up and let it get to Danny before him? Then he got mad. He spit on the ground. This thing couldn’t stop him. He had to get to Danny before it did. He was Danny’s last chance.

Straightening to his full height, not caring if it saw him—wanting it to see him—Clay started running, ignoring the thorns that ripped him and the mud that sucked at his every step. The thing pushed into the thicket, trying to keep pace with him. It hissed, pulling back something that might’ve been a hand.

Clay grinned. The thorns hurt it as much as they did him.

That realization gave him renewed strength. He ran through the thorns. His headache was still there, but it fell farther into the background with every stride. The swampy ground grabbed his foot, tripping him. He sprawled in the thorns and muck—and jumped right back up. Nothing was stopping him. He lifted a forearm to cover his face and tucked his head against his shoulder, bulldozing his way forward. The smell of rot fell over him, bringing tears to his eyes.

Off to his left, almost close enough to touch, he caught a sidelong glance of the thing running alongside him. That glimpse nearly froze him. It couldn’t be real. Its face boiled with worms and maggots. One view was all he needed. He looked away and ran with all he had.

For a span of ten steps or so it stayed even with him. Only a tangle of branches with fishhook thorns separated them. The thing was silent, unnervingly so, as it kept pace. Then it moved a step ahead of Clay and reached a hand molded from a twisting mass of worms through the thorny branches.

Its fingers whispered past Clay’s face and brushed his shoulder. Its cold, rancid breath almost dropped him. And then it screeched, caught in a snarled web of vines and thorns. He ran past it, leaving it screeching and writhing in the foliage. He felt giddy with relief. The thing had outrun him, but it hadn’t been able to get through that last tangle of thorns. He’d beaten it.

He ran out of the woods onto the jogging path. Chest heaving, he stopped for a moment and licked his lips, tasting blood and sweat. The thing screeched, pushing him back into a run. No way was he letting it catch up to him now. The trail straightened and Danny appeared before him, laying in a pool of light cast from one of the streetlamps illuminating the trail.

Clay sprinted the last stretch, dropped next to Danny and grabbed his hand. “C’mon, man. Open your eyes.”

Danny didn’t move. But he was still breathing, and his skin felt warm. The snap of a branch split the night air. Clay looked back. That thing had broken free of the thorns and was on the trail, coming toward him. He leaned over Danny. “Something’s coming. You have to get up.”

He looked over his shoulder. The thing was almost here. Even worse, footsteps sounded from the opposite direction.

Clay’s heart galloped. It had to be more of those things. They were coming from both sides.

The one that had chased him through the thorns slowed as it approached the pool of light illuminating Danny and Clay. It moved around in the shadows, circling them.

Clay stood, tracking it, wondering what he’d do—what he could do—if it attacked.

The thing stopped at the edge of the pool of light. It moved around the perimeter, toward the shadow of a tree that cut through the light, falling across Danny’s legs. Clay wasn’t sure but it looked like the thing didn’t like the light. Which was why it was moving toward the shadow that touched Danny.

He spun, reached down, and grabbed Danny’s hand, struggling to pull his legs out of the shadow. Danny was all dead weight, slipping from his grasp. He adjusted his grip under Danny’s armpits.

The thing slipped into the shadow, moving toward Danny. Footsteps pounded behind Clay, but he ignored them. If more of these things were coming, it didn’t matter. One or one hundred—who cared? If he got Danny in the light, they couldn’t touch him.

He lifted Danny, dragging him. The thing reached for Danny’s foot from inside the shadow. A tiny white worm dropped off its hand and disappeared in a puff of smoke as it hit the ground, leaving behind a smell of ammonia. Its fingers closed on Danny’s ankle.

Light exploded, blinding Clay. He dropped Danny and fell, covering his eyes. Something grabbed his arm. He struggled, ready to fight. An unfamiliar voice boomed.

“Did you call for an ambulance?”

Clay looked around in a daze. The whole area was lit up by box lights held by a squad of paramedics. Two emergency medical personnel were already on top of Danny—a woman with a ponytail and a bald guy with a moustache. The woman counted silently, doing chest compressions on Danny. The bald guy rifled through a tackle box of supplies.

The thing was gone.

Clay kneeled. He grabbed Danny’s hand.

The bald paramedic tugged his sleeve. “You gotta get out of my way, buddy.”

Clay pushed the man’s hand away. “No. I promised his wife I’d bring him back and I’m staying with him until I make good on that promise.”

Another man grabbed his shoulder. “We’ll get him back to his wife, but we’re gonna need room to work. How ‘bout you back up just a little bit?”

Clay looked up. The guy was more mountain than man. A wide, weathered face covered in a brown beard. His wavy hair was combed back, shot through with streaks of blonde.

Clay nodded and stepped back. He looked down the path and yelled into the night. “Hear that? We’re taking him back to his wife!”

The medics stopped and stared at Clay. The big man’s beard split with a smile. He turned to the other medics. “You heard him. Let’s move. We gotta get this guy back to his wife.”

The big man hooked up an IV bag while the others gave Danny oxygen and hooked him up to an IV. For all the work they were doing, Clay couldn’t help but notice that Danny stayed limp and lifeless. Even when the girl with the ponytail poked a big needle into Danny’s arm for the IV, he didn’t make a sound. Didn’t move a muscle. The big guy knelt, talking in whispers with the two medics, stopping once to nod toward a stainless-steel gurney on the jogging trail. Their whispering gave Clay a bad feeling. He stepped close and grabbed Danny’s hand. The girl with the ponytail stood and wheeled over the gurney. The big, bearded guy nudged Clay. “What’s your name, sir?”

“I’m Clay.”

The bearded guy clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Well, Clay, we’ve got to move your friend now. Can you let go of him so we can put him on the stretcher and take him to the ambulance?”

“Sure. But I’m riding with him.”

The bearded man nodded. “That’s a great idea.” He cocked his head, looking at Clay. “What’s with the blood on your face and neck?”

Clay wiped his neck and looked at the blood. “It’s nothing.”

The big medic turned toward his crew. “Let’s get this guy on the gurney.” He hooked a thumb at Clay. “And somebody look this guy over while we’re enroute. He’s bleeding from the neck and head.”

The paramedics hoisted Danny onto the gurney. Clay followed the big, bearded guy, walking single file behind the medics rolling Danny down the path. Clay grabbed the man’s arm. “Is my friend gonna be okay?”

The man’s face knotted. “I don’t know. But we’re going to do everything we can.”

Clay nodded, then quickened his pace to catch up to the gurney. Walking alongside it, he grabbed Danny’s hand and bent over, talking to him as the medics rolled him down the path. “If you want to see your wife and kid you gotta hang with me, man. Long as you keep fighting, I’ll get you home. I’ll stay right with you, the whole way. But don’t you give up. Don’t you ever give up.”