Taken Over (The Ravening #2)(18)
Author: Erica Stevens

“Your parents may still be out there, there is a chance you will see them again,” I elaborated, gently pulling my hand away from Bret’s. “At least we know there were other survivors that moved through this town.”

“And we had better get moving too,” Lloyd said. “If we want to try and get to the hospital before sunset.”

“Just let me say goodbye to my aunt,” Jenna said, spinning swiftly on her heel.

“Who?” Lloyd asked in surprise.

“Her aunt. She’s frozen,” I explained.

Lloyd’s eyes widened, his mouth dropped as he gaped at me. “What is she!?” he demanded sharply.

I glanced nervously at Bret, thinking that Lloyd had flipped, that perhaps something in his mind had snapped. Lloyd knew about the frozen people, we had done nothing but encounter them for the past month. Hell, they had been nearly impossible to avoid, in the beginning, if we moved further than five feet at a time. How could Lloyd possibly have forgotten about that, and why was he looking at me as if he was about to strangle the life from me?

I took a frightened step back. I had become more competent with weapons, and fighting over the past few weeks, but I sure as hell didn’t want to take on a man that was highly trained by the army for at least a year. “What is she!?” Lloyd demanded again, but this time his voice was low and gravelly.

“She’s frozen, you know one of the frozen people,” Bret said slowly obviously as weary about Lloyd’s strange reaction as I was.

Lloyd let loose with a flurry of curses that would have caused even the most hardened truck driver to blush. They sure as hell made me gape, and even question what a few of the things he said meant. “We need to go!” he declared sharply at the end.

“We’re going in a moment,” Bret told him.

“No! Now! We need to go now!”

Lloyd shoved roughly past me, he stormed down the hall at a rapid pace that left Bret and I staring after him in disbelief. “What the hell was that?” I whispered.

“No idea,” Bret responded, shaking his head slowly. “Let’s hope our trained killer hasn’t flipped his lid though.”

“Bret…”

My words were cut off as Jenna began to protest vehemently from the bedroom. Lloyd ignored her protests as he pulled her forcefully from the room. His hand was wrapped firmly around her upper arm as he began to drag her down the hall toward us. “Move out!” he snapped.

“Lloyd what is going on?” I demanded. I was unwilling to go anywhere with him until I knew where his sudden, and seemingly irrational, fear had come from.

“We can talk as we move. Now move!”

I turned and hurried down the hall, more frightened by the look in his eyes than by his behavior. He was speaking like he was angry, like he was on the verge of snapping completely, but there was pure terror blazing from his eyes. I fled down the stairs, Lloyd’s fear propelling me rapidly forward. Bret followed close behind and Jenna had stopped protesting by the time I reached the bottom floor.

I rushed into the kitchen, realizing only belatedly that I had been too distracted by the note to check inside the fridge. I didn’t think there was much hope for anything in there, but it was worth a peek. I flung the door open and froze. The power hadn’t gone out in this area of town so some of the food had managed to stay good, but there was green ooze seeping from the crisper and an awful smell assaulted me. There were also two boxes of Cheerios, one of Special K, and a Raisin bran sitting on the shelf amongst the mess. In front of them was a post-it that read Jenna.

“Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Howe,” I whispered. I didn’t know why the hell her parents had placed them in the fridge, perhaps they’d hoped to keep them fresher, but I didn’t care. I swung my backpack forward and began to shove the boxes inside as the other three entered the room.

“Bethany,” Lloyd hissed.

“One moment,” I retorted, shoving and pushing the third box into my bag. It wasn’t going to zip all the way closed again, but I didn’t care. The cereal would keep us going for a few more days, maybe even a week or more if we were careful with it.

“Bethany let’s go!”

I tried to pull my arm from Lloyd’s iron tight grasp. Though he was thin, he was far stronger than he appeared as he clung to me. “The cereal!” I snapped.

He shoved his face into mine. “Screw the cereal!” he snarled.

I blinked in surprise as he tugged the zippers on my bag closed and threw it onto my back. The last box of Cheerios fell to the floor. Barney had already been on his feet, but now he surged eagerly forward as the little O’s scattered across the linoleum. “Wait!” I gasped as I was pulled roughly forward. “Barney.”

Lloyd wasn’t listening to me though as he drug me toward where Jenna and Bret waited by the door. Jenna looked fearful; Bret just looked completely baffled by everything. “What the hell is your problem!?” I demanded breathlessly.

“The aunt is frozen,” Lloyd responded, not at all slowing down.

“So are a lot of other people,” I retorted growing more fearful of his erratic behavior.

Lloyd glanced back at me. “She’s frozen and she’s still here. The rest of the town has been cleared out already.”

I gasped in horror, the niggling feeling I had experienced upstairs suddenly came surging to the forefront. Though I hadn’t quite understood what had been bothering me at the time, I understood it now, and I cursed myself for being an idiot. Every other place we had come across in this area had been damaged, and completely devoid of human beings. But not here, in this frozen Mayberry of peace and tranquility. No, here everything was still perfect, still intact, still as everyone had left it before the moment that had shattered our lives. Everything was as it had been, including the people unable to flee from the monsters heading their way. The monsters that would seek them out in order to drain them of their life.

Monsters that would be heading our way.

“Crap,” I breathed.

“Yes crap, now let’s go.”

I didn’t protest anymore, didn’t argue with him. I fled out the door, pounding down the steps of the porch. I turned back, wanting to call out to Barney as Bret and Jenna raced across the street toward the woods. My voice froze in my throat though as I realized that everything had gone oddly, deathly quiet once again. My terrified gaze swung to Lloyd, I saw the answering panic in his bulging eyes.

Barney emerged onto the porch, his ears pricked, his nose raised into the wind. The hair on the back of his neck stood up seconds before one of the monstrous things rose up from behind the house. It was not as large as the house, or at least its main bulk wasn’t, but this one had become big enough so that one of the tentacles was able to reach the second story windows. It was only that tentacle I could see at first, as the rest of it was blocked by the home, but it slowly began to emerge from the back.