Page 47 of All Your Days
“Move.Move!”I grunt, picking up the pace when Cale—from the size I’m sure it’s Cale—makes his way past the tents, heading right for us.
Completely blind, we try to lose ourselves in the darkness, but Cale doesn’t have to rely on shitty instincts like sight. He doesn’t have terror making him stupid.
No, all he has is the mindless drive to hunt down his prey and consume them. He can’t think. He can’t feel. There is only the need.
His snarling is too close. Too close. Cale is rapidly gaining on us. We dodge a bush only because it’s already catching our pants. Our boots skid on the pebbly dirt.
“You motherfucker!”The words rip through the night. A body slams into another body.
Cale growls furiously.
We both turn back, even though we can see almost nothing. I can feel Eli’s twisting body next to mine, our feet never stopping. In the black, I can almost see the shape of two men wrestling.
“Go! Get out of here!”
Ryan.
There is no time to think. We pick up the pace, running further into the night.
When we hear the gun blast, we just keep going.
“I—can’t—go—any—more—” Eli pants, slowing to a standstill. I don’t know how long we’ve been running. I don’t knowwherewe’ve been running. We’ve just run.
I have to let go of him when he bends over. My fingers ache as they unfold from their vice-like grip. There is no pain in my legs, I’m beyond that now. I don’t even feel them at all. Only the pain searing the soles of my feet.
Sweat drenches my body, and in the frigid air of the night, it’s rapidly cooling on my skin, making me shiver despite the heat of my blood.
I can’t talk around the gulping breaths I’m desperately sucking in. With trembling hands I fumble with my emergency bag, then give up and drop to the ground and just open Eli’s instead.Rooting around amongst the things he’s shoved in there I try and find what I need—the small wind up torch.
The whizzing sound when I wind it up sounds like a horrible joke. There is a risk turning on a torch—who knows what else is going to come after us? But there is nothing else we can do. We need to know where we are. There are too many dangerous things creeping around in the night.
Thank God, the bright white light doesn’t show any danger lurking. There are no sounds out of place. If anything, it’s too quiet. Like the creatures that usually come out know what happened and have hidden in their burrows for the night.
There’s a tree close enough, straggly and thin trunked; it's not in any way a form of protection, but with no other options in the seemingly endless, flat plains, that’s where we head.
“Come on.” I nudge Eli, still hunched over, hands on his knees. I don’t know if he’s going to vomit or if he’s just catching his breath. Scooping up his bag, I lead us to the tree.
“Take this.” Handing him the torch, I dig out his emergency blanket. The strange silver sheet crinkles so loudly it makes me flinch. I lay it on the dirt and carefully take off my gun and emergency bag.
“Sit.” I don’t have any more in me than one word commands.
“How’re you so calm?” Eli’s voice cracks almost as badly as the sheet when he sits. In the torchlight he looks sick.
I take a moment before I answer, methodically unpacking my emergency blanket and zipping both bags up before settling down beside him with our bags at the ready. My blanket goes over both of us, tucked securely around Eli. I can’t tuck myself in because my rifle is out and at the ready.
“I’m not.” I whisper eventually.
“Coulda fooled me.”
He snipes, but he also clings tightly to my arm.
I don’t answer, because I don’t know how to. My body, my brain is empty. There is only survival.
The crash will come, when he’s safe. I just need to survive until then.
Chapter fourteen
Eli
