Page 42 of Creed
Now that I could see, it turned out it was only a single flight of stairs. Just sixteen steps stood between us and the outside.
Well, sixteen steps and a guard.
Creed tapped my chest and pushed me against the wall. “Wait here.”
I stayed exactly where he left me, listening in the dark as he vanished from sight around the corner. A moment later there was a small gasp, and then a heavy thud.
“Creed?” I called out, torn between avoiding detection and needing to know that he was all right.
My one-word question earned an immediate response, and Creed popped his head back around the corner.
“It’s all right. Come here and help me with this.”
Looking around the corner for myself, I found him standing there holding the unconscious body of the guard up by its arms. Under Creed’s instruction, I grabbed the guard’s feet, and together we dragged the man back down the stairs to our makeshift prison and locked him inside.
“Hopefully, I’ve timed this right,” Creed said once we’d finished. “They’ll notice something is wrong as soon as the guards change shifts, but based on the schedule Robyn told me, that shouldn’t be for a few hours. It’s not as much time as I’d like, but it should be enough for us to make our getaway.”
“Then let’s get moving.”
Grabbing onto Creed’s hand again, mostly for my own assurance that I wouldn’t lose him in the dark, we headed outside.
The village wasn’t just old-fashioned in its customs, it was also old-fashioned in its technology. There were very few outdoor lights, and the few that did exist were only used to illuminate the main path.
There was also very little natural light. Luck was on our side, and the moon was a mere sliver in the sky, barely any better than a new moon. This made the night even darker than usual. I could barely see my hand in front of my own face. So long as we avoided the center of the village, we could easily go unnoticed.
It was also eerily quiet. Even my own breathing felt like it echoed. I stepped as carefully as I could and leaned in to whisper directly into Creed’s ear whenever I had to speak.
“Where are we meeting Robyn?”
“He said to meet him at the abandoned schoolhouse. It’s near the edge of the village, but apparently, it’s been shut down for a while. Not enough kids to make it worthwhile.”
It was a comprehensive answer, but it didn’t really help me. I had no idea where the schoolhouse was located, or even which direction to go to get to the outer edge of the village. I was glad Creed seemed to know where he was going, because if I was left to navigate on my own, I’d probably have stumbled my way right into Chester Grieve’s bedroom.
Give me proper roads and street signs and I could navigate my way across any unfamiliar city. However, in places like this, where none of the streets had names and everything was described with a mere cardinal direction, I was completely lost.
It was only going to get worse when we left the village behind and headed out into the forest.
With this in mind, I clung tighter to Creed’s hand.
The old schoolhouse looked like something out of a picture book. It was a single room building that had once been painted red, though most of the paint was flaking off now, and even had a little steeple with a bell on top. I could easily imagine the idyllic setting it had once created, and almost understood how people were originally sucked into the cult.
Now, however, the building just looked sad.
Robyn waited for us just inside the schoolhouse door, angled so that he could see out without anyone else seeing him.
“You made it out,” he greeted us when we arrived. There were too many lines on this child’s face. He looked stressed beyondhis years, but some of those worry lines flattened out when he saw us.
His posture was also unnaturally hunched. At first, I thought this was also a result of the stress he was under, until we got closer, and I saw that he was carrying his sister on his back.
Mavis was small, even for a six-year-old, but Robyn was only twelve and his sister was half his size. There was also a large backpack sitting at his feet, completely stuffed to the brim. The bag was nearly the same size as his sister, and I had no idea how he’d managed to carry both out here.
Creed knelt beside the kids and placed his hand on the girl’s forehead. “Is she still not feeling well?”
Mavis didn’t even stir under Creed’s touch, and Robyn shook his head sadly.
“It’s just a cold. She’ll be fine.”
Worry gripped my heart. Robyn had told us about his sister’s illness before, but I hadn’t considered what that would mean for us. We were headed out into the wilderness with little more than the clothes on our backs. Even a simple cold could be dangerous for a child in that kind of environment.
