Page 5 of The Zagorath
Liv’s gaze drifted over her, noting for the first time the bulge of her belly straining against her shirt. She wasn’t just a little pregnant. She was holy shit she’s about to drop any moment pregnant.
“Who gives a fuck?” one of the mystery guys snapped as he impatiently lowered the cellphone he’d been tinkering with. He flashed its screen toward them. “There’s no signal—no one to call for help. I don’t care if she’s about to give birth to goddamn royalty, no one is leaving here without me. Especially not in my truck.”
Jack’s jaw hardened and he began to straighten but Wendy caught his arm, keeping him with her. “Jack, don’t.”
“No one is going anywhere without anyone,” Liv flatly replied. “Don’t imagine that you will be given priority either, asshole. The truth of the matter is that we have no idea how many vehicles out there are still functioning, much less whether or not your truck is one in piece. Don’t let your mouth be the reason you get abandoned out here.”
Cellphone twin number two grimaced at her apologetically. “Ignore him. David is still wired on all the caffeine he drank on the ride over here. I’m Josh.”
She nodded to him in greeting. “Liv.”
The sketch of a faint smile appeared briefly on his face before disappearing again. “Liv. Excellent. So, do you have any ideas about what we can do from here? David may talk big, but we are both from the city and have never even been out in the woods before. Becoming one with nature was a lot more attractive from our fifth-floor apartment when monsters were just something from bedtime stories.”
“No ideas yet,” she replied apologetically.
“Of course not,” David grumbled, but she pointedly ignored him.
“That said, not much can be decided when we can’t ascertain clearly what the hell is going on out there,” she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. “Does anyone have a count of how many vehicles there are total out there?”
Josh frowned thoughtfully. “I believe David and I were the last to arrive. There were five cars, including Grey’s pickup, and then our own, which made six.”
“Right,” Jessie replied, her voice wobbling from stress. “W…we chartered a bus that brought in most of the coven, but they aren’t supposed to be back to pick anyone up until the end of the weekend. There weren’t many of us who drove in. It was arranged that way to keep traffic around the cabins down.”
“Cabins?” Liv glanced at her curiously.
Jessie nodded. “While this is in the main cabin and in the best condition, there are four other cabins not too far away from here that are available for folks to bunk in who didn’t want to rough it in a tent.”
“Yeah, the three of us and a few others were planning on crashing in cabin B,” Tyler replied as he moved in closer with his buddies, joining the conversation. “We scouted out the site with Grey last week and took a good look at all the cabins. This was originally built back in the 70’s as a summer camp, I think.”
“Do you think any of the survivors might have managed to flee to any of the other cabins?” Live asked.
Tyler shook his head. “No. We were all running in basically the same direction—away from those things spilling out from the woods. The main cabin here is the only one close to the road. No one would have run toward those things to get to another cabin—if they even knew that they were there,” he added with a grimace. “The cabins were supposed to be a surprise. Gray had it all planned out, so I don’t think he told anyone.”
“Ok,” Liv murmured. “We can assume that we are all that’s left, then. So, that just leaves us with not knowing whether or not we have any functioning vehicles left to us.”
“And the matter of getting to them,” Jessie quietly pointed out. “The designated parking spot is not exactly right next to the cabin or people who have made it to the vehicles. Other than Grey, that is,” she said quietly.
“And assuming that something doesn’t take us like they did him,” Josh added. “Anyone have any ideas?”
“What it is, it’s probably going to include live bait,” Zane loudly interjected.
Liv gave him a dismissive look. “No one is going to be ‘live bait.’”
“Thank the gods for small favors,” Tracy replied with a nervous laugh. “If this was a horror movie, some poor fool is shoved out the door to be the distraction while everyone gets away.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen,” Liv assured everyone. “But we do need to get a lay of the land. So, someone is going to have to step outside and take a quick look around.”
David crossed his arms over his chest. “And just what sort of idiot do you think will volunteer to do that?”
She met his gaze with a flat stare. “Me, naturally. It is my idea.”
“Liv, no,” Jessie whispered, her hand twisting in the fabric of Liv’s shirt. “You can’t go out there. There are monsters out there.”
That was quite true. And she didn’t have the time to think of something more horrifying. That was it, right there at the top of her list. A genuine fucking nightmare. Being scared out of her wits wasn’t going to keep her, or anyone else, alive, however. Liv smiled reassuringly at her and gently unhooked Jessie’s fingers from the fabric of her clothing.
“I’m just taking a peek and then I will come right back inside,” she assured her. “You can stand guard at the window and just bang the shit out of it to warn me if you see any mother fucker out there move—alright?”
Jessie’s mouth opened to protest, but then snapped closed again and tightened as she quickly nodded her head. Good. Jessie was using her head. That would keep her alive. Now if only she could be certain that something wouldn’t try to chew her soul right out of her body the moment she stepped out the door.
