Ravenous (The Ravening #1)(17)
Author: Erica Stevens

I was glad for all of these things, and I was especially glad that I seemed to be the first one that they were going to take down. I couldn’t stand to watch as they took my siblings, and Bret. I was tempted to let go of the board and bolt in a different direction, but I knew it wouldn’t do me any good, and I wasn’t about to go down like a coward.

No, I was going to die brave, or at least make an attempt at it.

CHAPTER 9

A loud bang rang out, causing me to jump as Abby let out a startled scream. I ducked low as another bang shattered the air and the weird, echoing screams of the creatures filled the night. They hissed and screeched as another reverberating bang erupted. I was finally able to place the source of the loud, startling explosions, as gunshots.

I looked rapidly around, but though the vivid illumination had faded somewhat with the start of the gunshots it was still tough to make anything out. Another shot thundered through the air. Bret cursed loudly; he was half bent over the plywood as we continued to rush forward. I caught a brief glimpse of Abby as she dashed off the trail and disappeared into the woods. My shoulders slumped, at least Abby was safer.

The strange screaming increased in intensity as another shot rang out. We were almost to the end of the path, almost to the thicker woods when my eyes finally detected the source of the gunshots. Cade stood at the edge of the woods, a shotgun leveled against his shoulder, his gaze focused on something beyond us. I was finally able to easily breathe again as the constriction in my chest eased. I didn’t know where he’d gotten the gun from, and I didn’t care as he fired another shot.

His black eyes briefly met mine before he dropped the gun and rapidly reloaded it. “Hurry!” Abby called from the woods. “Please hurry!”

Cade raised the gun again and fired another shot that caused the odd, hissing type of scream to explode in a torrent of rage and pain that made my eardrums throb. “This way!” someone else shouted from the woods.

Aiden left the trail and plunged deeper into the forest. Cade slipped into the shadows, disappearing as he blended in with the night. We slipped through the forest, unnaturally loud as we crashed through the trees, and underbrush, desperate to escape the monsters that followed us. I didn’t see Cade again until he appeared as suddenly as a ghost beside me.

“Give it to me,” His hand was against mine as he tried to take the plywood from me. “Let go Bethany.”

“No, my mom…”

“I’ll keep her safe, just get ahead of us.”

“Cade…”

“Go.”

The brief caress of his fingers against mine sent a firestorm of sensations throughout me. I stared at him as I tried to understand what exactly was going on, but I failed miserably. “Listen to him Bethy,” Bret urged. I fought against the guilt filling me as I relinquished my hold on the plywood. “Stay with Abby.”

I turned from them, unable to meet either of their gazes as I ran from them. And it was the two of them I was running from right now, not the aliens.

For the first time I chanced a glance over my shoulder to see what pursued us. It was one of the smaller ships, a little larger than a bus as it hovered over the forest. The lights had been toned down, but there were five of them still bouncing over top of the trees as it relentlessly searched for us. It wasn’t that far away, but I sensed that it might possibly be heading in the wrong direction. The creature that had followed us into the woods, the one eager for blood, was not going the wrong way though.

I could hear it crashing through the trees, stalking us, scenting our blood as it trailed us. Then I realized what was happening. The ship was moving off because it knew that we wouldn’t escape. It wasn’t worried about us evading the creature it had left to destroy us. It was off to hunt other prey while it left one of its monsters to hunt us. And it was a monster. I could see it now, not clearly, but it was there. I sensed that it was different than the one I had seen earlier.

It seemed larger, but it moved with startling speed for its massive size and cumbersome build. It wasn’t so much tall as it was wide. It skittered through the woods, shaking the trees as it bumped roughly against them and rattled the leaves in their bowers. Though the tentacles made it appear as if it were an octopus on dry land, its flattened head quickly squashed any octopus resemblance. Two giant pinchers extended from what I could only assume was its mouth. They were about three feet long and made a nail on chalkboard kind of noise as they clicked eagerly together.

A tick maybe? I thought wildly. Was it a giant tick? But no, it wasn’t even like that, not with its pulsating red color that was nearly translucent at times.

Then, ever so slowly, I began to realize that the red trickling through it was not its normal hue. The red color in it was blood, human blood, and this thing was not full yet. Its normal color was the nearly opalescent shade that rippled throughout the creature, flowing with its movements. An opalescent shade that made it appear jellyfish-like, but other than the color it looked nothing like a jellyfish either.

For a second I couldn’t move, I could only stare at one of the monstrosities that the aliens had unleashed upon us. It didn’t appear to have eyes, at least not any that I could make out from here. But it knew where we were as it hunted us like dogs on the scent of a rabbit.

I dimly acknowledged the fact that if the aliens had shown us these things upon first arriving we would have known instantly that they had not come in peace. We would have known what they’d intended all along. We would have been prepared for this betrayal. Whatever they had done to make people freeze had to have been a lengthy process. That had to be the reason they had pretended peace for as long as they had. They just hadn’t known that some of us would survive their silent attack.

Before this had happened, we had only seen the friendly versions of the aliens, versions that looked very similar to us, and induced trust. They didn’t have bug eyes, a giant head, and small bodies like so many movies had led us to believe. Instead they were of average height, the tallest one I had seen was only six feet and he appeared to be a rarity. They had light olive to dark complexions, dark eyes, and dark hair. This fact had led many people to believe that whatever galaxy they had come from, their planet was closer to a sun, or suns, than ours was.

Beside the fact that their coloring was not as varied as ours, there were other differences between them and us. It was rumored that they were physically stronger and faster than us, that they could see and hear better. I had never seen a display of these statements, but there had been a few news reports speculating on it, and claiming to have witnesses before the news had been shut down.