Reclamation (The Ravening #3)(4)
Author: Erica Stevens

It wasn’t the misty air that held my attention though but the amount of vehicles clustered within. There were more vehicles stretching into the tunnel than I’d seen in months. They were bunched in the middle of the road and lined the sides of the walls. My mouth parted as I looked at all of the vehicles before turning to look behind me. There were a few cars stretching back to the opening, but it wasn’t until here that they became thicker and more congested. We were going to have to zigzag through and climb over them in order to get out.

"What is this?" I squeaked.

Cade shook his head as he studied the confines of the tunnel. My claustrophobia was briefly buried under my growing confusion and uncertainty as we scrambled through the vehicles. Cade helped me climb onto the hood of a car as we reached an area that was completely blocked. Like a plucked guitar string, his body vibrated with tension as he landed next to me on the other side of the car. The fact that he was so unsettled by this new development did little to ease my anxiety as there was little that ruffled Cade.

I pulled Abby closer to me and held her against my side. Her doe brown eyes were wide as she wordlessly gazed up at me. My hand entwined with her small one as Cade moved before us unflinchingly.

"Wait." Darnell pulled up. He shifted his rifle and grasped it in both hands before him as his mocha eyes surveyed the crowded tunnel. His deep coffee colored skin gleamed in the flashlight beams as he crept forward. Beads of sweat had broken out across his forehead and trickled down his cheeks. He had recently shaved his head completely bald which emphasized his high cheekbones, narrow chin and handsome features. Years of being a soldier had honed his body into that of a well built killing machine, one that we all looked to for leadership.

"Everyone get your weapons ready." I squeezed Abby’s hand and reluctantly released it to pull my pistol free of my waistband. "Do not fire unless you have something to hit. Ricocheting bullets are just as deadly," Darnell ordered gruffly.

I could sense Cade’s displeasure as he watched Abby and I. He liked this even less than any of us, but what choice did we have? To double back now would take too much time and there was nothing to go back to. As of now there was no threat here, only haphazard cars.

Another fifty feet into the tunnel things began to change even more. Whereas the cars had seemed to have a certain order to them before there was no such order now. They were haphazard and askew, and appeared to be waiting for their final crushing at a junkyard. I gazed in incredulity at the vehicles tossed here and there, the shattered windows, and the twisted metal remains. Abby was shaking as she pressed closer to me and gawked at the wreckage.

It didn’t take a genius to know what had caused this much carnage and destruction. The octopus/jellyfish/tick/crab monster things that the aliens had unleashed upon us had obviously been through here. Though it had to have been some of the smaller ones; the larger ones, the ones full of human blood, wouldn’t have fit through the tunnel. It didn’t matter the size though as they were all deadly, and the small ones had developed the uncanny ability to mimic a human being.

Everyone stopped moving as Darnell, Lloyd, Bret and Mick moved cautiously toward the next bend in the tunnel. Cade’s nostrils flared with his inhalations, he glanced rapidly at our surroundings as the four of them disappeared from view. I found myself unable to breathe as I awaited gunfire or screams of death. I took a deep breath as Bret returned and gestured for us to come forward to join them.

The next bend in the tunnel didn’t reveal any less destruction. It did, however, offer an exit ramp that led to somewhere else in the city. In front of the exit was a large gap with mutilated cars shoved to both sides of it. These vehicles appeared to have already gone through the crusher as they were twisted to the point that they were almost unrecognizable.

"What happened?" Abby breathed.

"Someone tried to use the cars to block the ramp so that nothing could enter the tunnel from above," Cade answered. He pressed closer to me, his head tilted back to study the ceiling. A chill of trepidation coursed through me as I tilted my head back too. I was petrified I would see one of those things hanging above us waiting to pounce. Relief coursed through me when I discovered nothing but concrete and shadows.

I turned back to the mangled vehicles as my throat went dry. "People tried to blockade themselves within the tunnel," I croaked.

I couldn’t wrap my mind around such a notion. They had tried to keep themselves safe within these concrete walls, beneath the ground, trapped like rats. They’d had no hope if those things ever managed to get in here, which they apparently had.

"They must have repeatedly gone above to steal cars; they had to have been down here for awhile before they were discovered," Cade answered.

"They could still be down here," Molly whispered. She seemed more frightened by that notion than the one that they were all dead as her gaze flitted over the tunnel and she took a step closer to Aiden.

I had to admit that the idea of running into anyone that had been living down here for the past couple of months wasn’t that appealing to me either. "Those things broke through though," Abby breathed.

"They did," Cade agreed flatly. "There are other things that could still be down here, besides survivors."

I hated this tunnel more and more with every passing second. Whatever had been so awful up above seemed to have seeped into this underground world of shadows and destruction. I didn’t plan to stay down here for one minute longer than we had to, but they had spent weeks, if not months, living beneath the earth and skulking through these tunnels like rats.

Cade took a step closer to me. "I don’t smell death," he stated.

My head turned toward him as I inhaled deeply. The air was dank and reeked of mildew, gas, oil and something musky and feral, like rodents or other wild animals, but there was no cloying odor of decay within the tunnel. I imagined that within these confines the scent would be overpowering and sickening.

"You’re right," Lloyd said.

"Do you think they survived?" Abby asked hopefully.

"Maybe," Cade murmured.

There was something he wasn’t saying, something bothering him as he took a step closer to me and Abby. I wanted to ask him what was wrong but I bit my tongue. If he thought it was safe to say it out loud, he would. Instead he slipped a knife from its holster and flipped it into his free hand. Even with my newfound grace I would have sliced myself open if I’d attempted such a thing, but he did it with easy confidence and an elegance that was mesmerizing.

My hand shook on the pistol before I took a deep breath and steadied myself.