Ravenous (Book 1 The Ravening Series) (29 page)

   “Huh?” Abby asked.

   “There has to be some military still around, there are most definitely other survivors out there. It could have been either group that destroyed the bridge.”
   “But why?”

  
“To deter others from attempting to cross it. To ruin the trap, to keep more people from getting killed.”

   There was a long silence before Bret finally spoke. “Either way it
’s a good thing that the bridge is gone. Either someone made it safely to the other side and is seeking help, or there are others on the other side looking to hurt the aliens, and they could help us. At least no one else will be hurt again.”

  
“We should get out of here. No matter which side did it, it’s going to attract a lot of attention and we aren’t that far from the bridge.” Molly worriedly bit on her bottom lip as she stared wearily at the window.

   She was right
, of course, but the last thing I wanted was to go back outside. I felt even more exposed and vulnerable right now, though that made little sense. Everyone seemed to feel the same way, as no one moved. I finally broke out of the paralysis that was clinging to me. Slowly, shaking slightly, I pulled away from Cade and made my way to the front door. I pulled the blinds apart as I peered out at the dark night. I could see nothing, but I had the unsettling feeling that there was a menacing presence just waiting for us out there.

   I backed away from the door
. Goose pimples broke out on my skin as a cold chill swept down my spine. “How long will it take you to read that thing?” I managed to croak out.

   “I don’t know, an hour maybe two.”

   “I don’t think we have that long.”

   “
Betha…”

   Aiden’s words were cut off as another rattling explosion rent the air. I jumped back, nearly following over my own feet
as I staggered away from the door. The glass window exploded inward, littering the store with shards of sharp glass. Cade lurched forward, grabbing hold of my arms he pulled me down, covering me with his body as another loud bang rent the air. I curled into a ball beneath him, throwing my hands over my ears as I tried to protect them from the noise.

   Cade scrambl
ed slightly over me for something I couldn’t see. He returned, pulling my hand away he pressed his mouth to my ear. “We need to go Bethany.”

  
“Where!?” I cried over the resounding explosions.

   Cade didn’t answer as he seized hold of my hand and helped pull me to my feet. Another loud bang shattered one of the windows at the far end of the store. The explosions
seemed to be getting steadily closer, and we were in a room filled with oxygen tanks. Horror filled me, cold terror seized me.

   Cade released me, stumbling forward as he
staggered toward the wall containing the scuba gear. “Give me a hand!” he yelled at Bret.

   Bret and Aiden lurched forward. They
helped Cade to tear the equipment from the walls. I seized hold of one of the boxes containing an assortment of floaties and tubes. The contents scattered across the floor as I hurriedly dumped them out. I tossed the box to Aiden, searching for another one as they began to fill it.

   Another explosion shook the earth; I could barely breathe through the terror filling me. My ears were ringing from the continuous onslaught of noise. The ground beneath my feet was vibrating. I jumped slightly
as a hand wrapped around my arm, Bret pulled me against his side. “This way Bethany!” he shouted above the noise.

   I search
ed for Aiden and Cade, but they were struggling to carry the equipment and the box. “We have to help them!” I gasped, struggling against his hold on me.

   “We have to get out of here!” he snapped back.

   “Wait…” I struggled to break free of him, but he would not let me go. “Cade.”

   Cade’s head whipped around, his eyes narrowed upon us as his lips clamped tight. “Get her out of here!” he snarled with such ferocity that even I was stunned.
“Now! Get her out
now
!”

   Bret tugged on my arm, and this time I relented
to him. Abby was already by the back door, holding it open for us. Bret pulled me rapidly forward; I nearly tripped over my own feet as I struggled to keep up with him. I was stiff, braced for further explosions, but no more rent the air. I staggered out the door, inhaling giant gulps of air that was nowhere near as fresh as I had hoped it would be. It smelled rancid, it tasted foul. There was a bitterness to it that caused me to recoil. My lungs burned from the tainted air, my nose hairs were singed as the horrendous smell and intense heat burned into my nostrils.

   For a brief, entirely disorienting moment, I thought that it was snowing.
But it couldn’t be snowing, not in August anyway, could it? Then again, far stranger things had happened over the past few days, snow in August didn’t seem entirely impossible at the moment. I reached my hand up, blinking against the fine particles coating my eyelashes, falling across my face, and turning the night sky completely black as they blocked out the stars and moon. The fine particles were pungent against my lips, bitter on my tongue. It took me a long moment to realize that it was not in fact snow, but fine, flowing
ash
.

   I turned to the right, the building blocked some of my view but the sky
behind the building was a vivid red orange hue. Whereas the night around us was as dark as midnight, it was as bright as the sun over there. And it looked angry, malevolent, and deadly. We all stood, staring in silent awe at the glowing, malicious sky. We had been so eager to flee the building, but now I found that my feet would not move. I didn’t want to see what the building hid, what was sheltered from our view.

   “Awful,” Abby breathed.

   “What
is
that?” Molly croaked out.

   “Flames from the bridge must have spread,”
Bret said softly.

   “The gas station,” I whispered.

   “And the other buildings close to it. Those were the explosions. The fire is going to keep spreading. It will reach other propane tanks, gas tanks, oil tanks. We need to go before it reaches us.” I dropped my hands, dismayed by the coating of soot that clung to them. “We have no choice but to swim now.”

   He tugged me back a few steps. For a moment I was frozen, and then self preservation kicked in. Bret’s hand slipped away as we hurried down the hill, struggling to stay on our feet in the rough, dark terrain. I had to keep wiping the ashes from
my eyes; they stuck heavily to my lashes making it even more difficult to see. The hill became slick with the material coating it, I slipped and slid, waiting for the inevitable moment when I lost my balance.

  
Surprisingly, I was not the first one to go down. Instead, Molly let out a small cry as she lost her footing. Her arms pin wheeled in a useless attempt to keep her balance as her feet flew out from beneath her. I winced for her as she landed hard on her butt, bounced a few times before doing a complete ass over teakettle somersault. 

   Bret and Abby made an attempt to grab hold of her, but she quickly catapulted out of their reach.
Molly let out a soft cry of pain, but remained terrifyingly quiet as she plummeted out of view. “Molly!” Abby cried.

  “Hush!” Bret hissed sharply.

   “But…”
   “Shut up Abby, Molly did.”

  
Abby grew quiet but I could almost hear her tears. My heart hammered in true panic. Was Molly ok? Had she been hurt in the fall? I had no way of knowing what the hell was at the bottom of the damn hill; I could barely see a foot in front of me due to the inescapable blackness. Were there rocks down there? Was the damn ocean down there?

   I chanced
a glance over my shoulder; I could barely make out Cade and Aiden struggling down the hill behind us. Their breathing was loud in the oppressive air, but then, so was mine. My lungs labored, my throat burned. It could not be good to be inhaling this crap, but there was little I could do about that now. Little that any of us could do.

   A loud pop sizzled through the air. A
bright burst of light and fire leapt high into the air over the burning glow behind the store. A propane tank perhaps? I tried to recall the buildings in the area of the bridge. There was the IHOP, a hotel; no there were
two
hotels, a laundry mat, convenience store, gas station, funeral home, tourist traps, woods, and plenty of homes. There were so many things to spread the growing flames, things that would rapidly catch fire without anyone to stop the flow of the fire.

   And the aliens would not stop it. Not when they knew it would flush out the remaining people like rats fleeing a flood. And that’s exactly what we were now, trapped rats that they would narrow in on quickly.
Especially if we continued to head toward the water.

   My heart flip
flopped; I tore my attention away from the hated flames. Was that the real reason the aliens had destroyed the bridge? Had they wanted to ruin any chance of escape, and set fire to the land in order to draw us out?

   I wanted to cry, I didn’t dare. We still had some hope, some time, no matter how small it was.
We just had to get away from here before the flames reached us.

   I was so intent on my thoughts that I didn’t realize the ground had begun to level out. Molly came into view, standing at the bottom of the hill. She was dirty, disheveled, and her bottom lip was bleeding but she appeared otherwise unharmed.
We raced across the street, fleeing into the backyards of residential homes, staying parallel with the railroad tracks that ran near the beach. The tracks followed the water and the roads, yet the trees surrounding them offered us enough protection to stay hidden from anything above.

   Our breathing grew labored, my lungs were burning from the arid air, but no one asked to stop. No one said they couldn’t go on.
It simply wasn’t an option right now. I don’t know how long we ran for, pounding over unseen ground, trying to escape the dark ash and deadly flames. I didn’t dare look back, I didn’t want to know how close the fire was, didn’t want to know how much time we had left.

   “This way,” Aiden gasped.

   We followed silently as he took a sharp right; he darted through someone’s yard before stopping at the edge of the woods. I stared out at the dark parking lot before us. Dread filled me at the thought of running out there. We would be exposed, vulnerable.

   Aiden and Cade dropped the equipment they had been carrying. They shuffled between
each other, muttering softly, and then a small flashlight clicked on. “Aiden!” I hissed.

   His mahogany eyes were dark, piercing as he gazed at me over th
e beam. I was pinned by that stare, frozen within its desperate depths. “Do you want to use this crap or not!?” he demanded.

   I bit my bottom lip as I finally turned back to the hungry fire. Above the tree line I could make out the angry glow of
the flames. We had gained some time, but there was too much kindling and fuel in between the fire, and us, to think that it had been much. We had an hour, maybe two, before those flames came far too close for my liking.

   “Why are there only four tanks?”

   My head snapped around at Jenna’s question. I strained to see into the box that Cade had been carrying, hoping that I had missed something, hoping that fear had caused me to lose my ability to count right. One, two, three, four… No, no, there had to be more. One, two, three, four…

   But no matter how I turned that box, no matter how I twisted it in my head, I still only saw four tanks within it. “They were the only ones,” Cade said softly.

   “I saw at least ten tanks in that store!” Jenna retorted fiercely, terror causing her bitchier side to reemerge in front of Bret. But then again, I was feeling pretty damn terrified and bitchy right now too.

  
Cade’s dark eyes were piercing; Jenna recoiled slightly from him as he leveled her with his hard gaze. “They were the only ones with oxygen in them,” Cade elaborated.

   My heart plummeted; my legs suddenly became so weak I could hardly stand. I slumped to the ground, despair fill
ing me, tears burning my already burning eyes. The ash was not as thick here, but it would be soon. I stared out at the parking lot toward the glimmering, beckoning ocean beyond. There were still some boats floating out there, bobbing silently on the small waves that lapped against them. They taunted me with their presence; they would be so useful right now. One of them could save us. But to climb on one, start it up, and use it would be certain death. We were trapped, stuck, and staring at the things that could rescue us.

   “What are we going to do?” Abby breathed.
   “Share them,” Molly answered simply as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.
   I swallowed heavily at the suggestion. It was such a long swim to be sharing tanks, especially when most of us didn’t have a clue as to what we were doing. I turned to Cade, trying not to give way to my panic. His eyes burned into mine. Though he wasn’t within reach, I could feel the soothing caress of his presence on my raw soul. Simply looking at him gave me strength.