Page 4 of The Zagorath
A snarl vibrated his chest as it rolled through him, his eyes slitting earnestly. His three tails whipped the air around him and he watched the dwelling. A familiar urgency rose within him, clawing at his mind, feeding his hunger and driving his instinct, but this time he ignored the demand from the woods. He would not throw himself on the dwelling, crippling himself little by little with his desire to crack it, and every single human dwelling he encountered, open and feast upon the warm meat of those inside. There was time enough for that… later. First, he would get what was his.
The branches of the trees swayed with a hissing rustle of leaves, furious with him, but he ignored it… and he waited.
Chapter
Four
Liv drew back the blanket covering the window ever so slightly, leaving just the smallest of gaps, and peered outside. Her heart had been beating a rapid tempo for a while yet, but it had at least slowed down from its earlier racing. At least no one was screaming in a blind panic anymore, though there were quiet sobs coming from at least a couple individuals among those who were huddled within the cabin.
“Do you think Gray is really dead?” Jessie whispered, and Liv nodded mutely.
There was nothing to wonder over there. They had both seen the way the truck had dropped into the ravine. Even obscured as it was amid its numerous trees, its fall had been hard to miss. So had the bat monsters that had immediately converged on it like vultures on a fallen calf. There wasn’t a chance that he had survived that.
“Are you really that worried about him when he straight up went and left you?” she murmured instead and felt an immediate pinch of guilt at the look of humiliation that rushed to her friend’s face.
“No, I mean… maybe? Shouldn’t we be worried about him? He is one of us, after all,”
Jessie quietly replied. “Besides, it was a scary situation. He probably wasn’t thinking straight.”
Liv shook her head but kept her opinion to herself. It wasn’t just panic. Gray had looked right at Jessie and had made the conscious decision to leave her there because he had been unwilling to wait for the two minutes it would have taken her friend to cross the short distance between them. And what did it get him? He was deader than a doorknob and currently probably being shitted on by those giant bat things. Or being shitted out of them depending on whether they ate their kill or just killed for the pleasure of it. Either way, at least that visual made her feel a little better, though she had a sneaking suspicion that Jessie wouldn’t see it quite the same way.
In any case, they weren’t the only ones that he had abandoned. Her gaze moved over the room, taking stock of the survivors. There was a couple she hadn’t yet met seated nearby, the woman on the verge of a full-blown panic attack by the looks of it. A chick called Tracy was at her side, whispering quietly to her in an attempt to calm her as her partner crouched in front of her, holding her hands tightly in his. Just a short distance from them stood a couple of guys she’d only glimpsed from a distance who had their phones out and talking to each other in quiet voices as they, their brows furrowed in frustration. Signal must be down. That fucking figured.
Her gaze drifted from them to a small group of guys seated awkwardly in the chairs that they had dragged from the dining room into the living room so as to remain close to the group. She recognized them immediately. They had spent much of the afternoon hovering over the grills, drinking and laughing among the large group of guys that had congregated there. They had been too loud to forget. Of that group, only three of them madeit back to the cabin. If she remembered correctly, they were Tyler, Zane, and Bobby. Then there was the girl seated in a lone recliner by the corner. She was huddled on herself as she rocked in place—going into shock, no doubt. Chastity… or Charity, maybe?
Out of thirty-two people, coven members and their guests for the solstice celebration, in addition to a few unaffiliated individuals who apparently showed up for the festivals according to Jessie, they were all that was left. Eleven people huddled inside the cabin while the majority of their belongings, tents, and gear were trampled in the dirt outside.
“What were those things anyway?” Jessie crept forward, pressing close to Liv’s side so that she could also peer around the blanket.
Liv shrugged and shifted a little to the side to give her room as she turned her attention back to the window. “Mutant bats? Maybe there’s some secret radioactive wasteland around here that made them grow to monstrous proportions.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jessie squint up at her. “Seriously?”
“Why not? It’s as good an answer as any,” Liv replied, her eyes scanning the yard and the forest just beyond it. “Isn’t that what they always said in movies and old comic books? Some sort of mutagen carried within toxic waste or that it’s caused by a burst of radioactivity following some sort of nuclear disaster.”
“I’m not going to even remind you that your obsession with media from the 80s and 90s flies right past retro and straight into weird—but giant, man-sized bats?” Jessie hissed.
“It worked for Master Splinter,” Liv joked. She bit back a sigh when Jessie glanced up at her blankly. No one appreciated the classic cartoons. “I guess not everyone can have the coolest dad on Earth,” she muttered to herself.
“If that’s what you call it.” Jessie’s lips thinned as she leaned closer to the window in an effort to get a better look. “What about that guy that was out there? The one built like a linebacker for hell’s football team.”
Liv snorted with amusement. That wasn’t a bad description. There were others that would additional work too—berserker, ogre, titan. She froze and swallowed sharply. What if he was some sort of primal being, like a titan? No, that didn’t make sense. If he was something with godly powers, he would have already peeled the cabin open like a sardine can.
“I don’t know,” she muttered. “I don’t see him now, though.” Her gaze trailed over the trees. “I don’t see anything.”
“What do you think it means?” Jessie glanced up at her worriedly.
“It could be a trap, that they are trying to lure us out, “Liv said slowly. “Or maybe they gave up for the time being and it’s our best chance of getting out of here.”
“I vote for getting the fuck out of here,” a guy said as he straightened from where he had been crouched, attempting to calm a hysterical girl sitting in the chair in front of him. “I need to get Wendy away from this place.”
Liv glanced over at Wendy and noted her pallor. She didn’t look well at all. “Is she sick with something?”
“Pregnant,” he replied shortly between stiff lips. His jaw visibly clenched with the anxiety running through him. “Gray talked us into coming out here for summer solstice saying that the magic raised would be valuable for our growing baby. I didn’t want to bring her this far out into the middle of nowhere when she is this far along, but?—”
“But I wanted to come,” Wendy replied in a low voice. “Fuck. This is all my fault, Jack.”
Jack shook his head and clenched her hands once again. “Don’t even say that. It wasn’t unreasonable to want to come,especially not when Gray offered us one of the cabin rooms. No one could have predicted this. Just try to keep calm for the baby, okay?”
