Page 7 of A Very Monstrous Desire

A movement.

A shimmer.

It lasted only a brief moment, but it was something.

And one thing was for sure. It was far too big to be a munching monster.

Chapter

Five

“What the bloody hell happened?” Joel demanded the moment they stopped somewhere he deemed to be safe. It was late afternoon by that point, and the small, wooded area they had paused in was already darkening.

“Saw them from the back window,” Dimitri said. He was sat on a log, leg propped up, looking down at his wound. It was quite substantial and had already darkened his cargo pants with blood. Simon had tried to stop him a while back to investigate, but he’d refused, insisting they’d deal with it once they were well away from the munching monsters. “Hole there in the building wall and a mass of glistening purple behind it.”

“Let me see that leg now, mate,” Simon said.

Dimitri waved the words away. “It’s nothing.”

“Let him see,” Joel commanded.

Dimitri complied, and Simon had a good look at the thing. “Not a bite,” he said after a moment.

Did Dimitri blush? “I caught it on the edge of the newspaper stand,” he said. “Scraped the skin right off! I swear one of those monsters laughed as I did!”

They all chuckled a little at that, perhaps as Dimitri had intended them to. It relieved the tension slightly, but they were all on edge. Theo didn’t think it helped that they had paused in the woods where the bare trees looked a bit creepy in the late afternoon light. Plus, it was winter, it would be dark properly soon, and Theo didn’t fancy camping out here. Surely, they were better off in the middle of a field where they could see anything and anyone coming, he thought, and soon suggested as much.

“And they’ll see us!” Joel said just as Simon confirmed that Dimitri was fine.

“Yeah, but on balance…” Theo said.

Joel ignored him, saying instead, “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“How do you mean, boss?” Gill asked.

“They’re never in small groups like this,” Joel said. “You saw the drone feed from the beach, there are hundreds down there, and these ones should be down there too. They stay together, that’s how they work.”

“This could be a new infestation?” Dimitri suggested.

“Unlikely,” Joel said. “Not unless you spotted a queen anywhere?”

Dimitri shook his head.

“Maybe they just got separated from the whole then?” Gill proposed.

“They wouldn’t have been in that shop then,” Julia said. “They’d have been trying to get back to them. Joel’s right, they stick together.”

She had a small amount of purple goo on her forehead. Theo suspected it was munching monster flesh, and he gestured for her to clean it off. She pulled a face as she rubbed at it.

“Perhaps they were waiting for us,” Dimitri suggested as Simon applied a bandage to his leg and gave him a pat to confirm he was fine.

“No,” Theo said after a moment just as Julia flicked the goo off. A piece of it landed on his thigh. He brushed it off with a sigh. “I don’t think they were.”

There must have been something in his tone because Joel turned and shot him a look. “What do you mean?”

“There was someone…something else there,” Theo said.

“Where?”

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