Ravenous (The Ravening #1)(18)
Author: Erica Stevens

None of the aliens wore glasses, and it had been bantered about that they could possibly see at night. It was even rumored that they healed more rapidly. I didn’t know if these rumors were true, I had never seen proof of them, but I didn’t discount them either. I didn’t discount anything about the invaders anymore. For all I knew they could fly and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them do so.

I didn’t know what these things were that the aliens had unleashed upon us. Maybe the alien’s creations, or their pets even, but I didn’t believe that they were the aliens themselves. I didn’t for a moment think that the face the aliens had shown us was some kind of disguise. There was no way they could have been hiding this hideous, massive creature beneath their outer skin.

But where had these creatures come from? It didn’t seem as if they would be easily leashed and kept under wraps. Not for almost a year anyway.

I was baffled by the strange twist these awful things represented. But there was no time for deciphering what they were now. Not when one of those things was closing in on us, skittering through the woods as rapidly as a squirrel through a tree. If we didn’t do something, it would be on top of us in a matter of minutes.

The gun was draped over Cade’s shoulder; he wouldn’t be able to get to it in time. I don’t know what came over me, what possessed me, but I darted back to him. “Give me the gun.”

He blinked at me. “What?”

“The gun Cade, give me the gun,” I insisted impatiently.

“Bethany…”

“It’s useless on your back, and we’re going to need it.”

He didn’t shrug out of the shotgun strapped to his back, but somehow managed to juggle the plywood as he reached under his shirt and pulled out what I assumed was a revolver. It looked like the ones I’d seen on TV anyway. “Do you know how to use that?”

“I’ll figure it out,” I muttered, turning it in my hand as we jogged onward. I didn’t point it anywhere near me, or anyone else. It was the first time I’d ever handled a gun, and if the shaking of my hand was any indication, I wasn’t to be trusted with it.

I felt stronger with the gun in my hand though. Safer, even though I knew that it was only a false sense of security. None of us were safe right now; we probably never would be again. “You shouldn’t have done that!” Bret growled at Cade.

I knew that he loved me, but Bret seemed to think that I needed his protection at all times and that I couldn’t take care of myself. Though, I supposed my tendencies toward being a loner and incessantly clumsy helped perpetuate his belief. As did the fact that I had never really done anything to change his opinion. It didn’t annoy me all that often, and I hadn’t felt like arguing about it so I had allowed it to continue. It had been the wrong thing to do, because it was irritating me right now.

“She’ll be fine,” Cade told him.

“Bethany doesn’t know how to handle a gun, if she shoots herself…”

“She’ll be fine!” Cade interrupted briskly. I kept hold of the revolver as I jogged away from the elevated testosterone.

That thing was still stalking us, but it wasn’t ready to launch its attack yet. I caught up with Abby; she was still carrying the bag of food over her shoulder. Jenna Howe was toting another bag that I could only assume held more food, or perhaps weapons.

My mouth dropped as I spotted Jenna. Everything had been so hectic, frantic, and terrifying when we fled the house that I hadn’t noticed her until now. I didn’t know where she had come from, but I suddenly recalled the other voice I’d heard calling to us from the woods. This was the most disheveled I’d ever seen Jenna look, yet I was certain that she still looked ten thousand times better than I did right now. Like Abigail, she was slender and delicate, with a fragile air that made me wary of breaking her in my awkwardness. Her skin was as smooth as porcelain, and her eyes a striking emerald green. Her rosebud mouth trembled with the force of her exhales, her pale cheeks were flushed with exertion, and her strawberry colored hair was a disheveled mess around her heart shaped face.

Though we were the same age, Jenna and I were not friends. We never had been. We didn’t run in the same circles at school. Jenna was popular, perfect, and wealthy. She was always immaculately dressed in expensive clothes and her makeup and nails were flawless.

Jenna and Bret had dated a few years ago, and most people thought that they were the ones that belonged together. Including Jenna. She’d never made it a secret that she still wanted him, she had never tried to hide her flirtatious behavior with him, or her animosity toward me. I’d never really known how to react to her so I tended to ignore her, which was easy enough most of the time.

However, there were times when she was impossible to ignore, and so was her overt behavior. Times when even I had to acknowledge the fact that she would do anything to get Bret back. I honestly couldn’t understand why he wasn’t with her still, why he had broken up with her in the first place, or why he continued to choose me over her.

“Where are we going?” Jenna asked. It was probably the first time she had talked to me in three months. I was fine with that. I had few friends and I liked it that way. I tried not to think of them now, or the fact that I may never see them again. It would be ok, I told myself. I would survive their loss, I had survived worse before, but I still ached for them. I hoped that if they weren’t frozen they were able to get away, and that if they were frozen their deaths were as quick and painless as possible. I wished there was some way that I could go to them, some way to help them, but there wasn’t. My family had to come first, maybe later…

Maybe later I would be able to see them again, but I didn’t hold out much hope for that. This was not the world I had always known anymore, I was gripped by the knowledge that everything I had always known was gone. That nothing would ever be the same again and that there would be a lot more losses before all of this was over.

“The antique shop.”

“Where Cade works?” Jenna squeaked.

I blinked in surprise. Even Jenna had known that Cade worked at the antique store. But of course she had, she may have her sights set on Bret, but Jenna was one of the people that would know where everyone she considered of importance worked, hung out, or lived. “Yes.”

“Why?”

I didn’t answer that question. I wasn’t entirely sure I knew why we were going there. I glanced behind me, but the encompassing shadows of the night were enclosing in on us. The ship was fading into the distance; only the persistent slithering sounds alerted me to the fact that we were still being toyed with.