LAST RESORT
Part 19
Vivian kept both hands on the wheel, knuckles pale, eyes on the winding asphalt as if she could hold it still by will alone. Beside her, Xavier sat with his arms crossed, shoulders jamd up near his ears, his gaze fixed on the black shape of the tree line.
The boy had been gearing up to speak for the past ten minutes. She could feel it—like the shift in air before a storm. That restless throat-clear, the way he adjusted in his seat, exhaled like he was trying to push the words out by force. She wished he’d just choke on them.
“I didn’t an what I said,” Xavier finally blurted, his voice rough and slightly squeaky. Like a child who didn’t want to confess to an embarrassing mistake. “About Mom and Dad.”
Vivian didn’t look at him. She just reached forward, turned the volu dial until the low hum of so old late 90s R&B song swelled between them, a soft barrier between them.
Five minutes ticked past. The music faded into the background, replaced by Alicia Keys, and her mind went drifting into the place she didn’t like to linger.
They were dead. Her parents were dead. That part was undeniable. And maybe—probably—the stories on the news were true, too. That they had worn so creepy satanic robes (she didn’t know if this was even true), went into the woods with knives, and murdered a bunch of kids including a schoolmate of theirs, Mark Castle. That there had been a massacre in the woods that was partially their doing. That they also killed their neighbors. That it hadn’t been random.
But there was a fault line in her belief, and she couldn’t let it go. She couldn’t picture her mother, who made her favorite chocolate cookies almost once a week, to slitting a stranger’s throat. She couldn’t imagine her father, the one who cried at cheesy romance and Pixar movies, to kidnapping kids and took them into the woods.
Then Xavier’s voice cut through, pulling her out of the depths of her thoughts.
“Um, Vivian?”
She blinked back to the present.
“We’ve passed that before.”
“Huh?”
She followed his finger. A sagging sign, half-swallowed by pine, read: CEDAR PINE SUMR CAMP. White paint flaking like skin.
“So?” she said.
“No, you don’t get it.” His voice was high now, riding a tremor. “It’s the sa one. We’ve passed it like four, no, five tis now.”
“What? Are you—”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Just look at it.”
Vivian shook her head. “That’s impossible.”
“No, I’m telling you! Sa bent corner. Sa crack through the word sumr. Sa—” He cut himself off, twisting in his seat to watch the sign shrink in the rearview.
Vivian’s stomach knotted, the air in the car thickening until it felt like she was swallowing cloth. She realized she hadn’t found the road’s exit yet. When she took the ramp to head into North Cedar Lake and drove to the manor, it barely took ten minutes to reach the property from the highway. She should have passed the gas station by now and found the overpass and the south ramp to the highway.
Her fingers flexed against the steering wheel. The song on the radio had reached the end, Alicia Keys drawing out the last note until it sounded almost like a breath in the backseat.
She checked the GPS on her car. It said she was three minutes away from the exit lane. “See? We’re almost to the highway,” Vivian said.
“Are you sure?”
“Says the GPS.”
“Viv,” Xavier lowered his voice, “the GPS hadn’t moved a second closer. That’s weird as fuck.”
“It must be a glitch or sothing.”
“But that’s not it though.”
“What is it then?”
“We’ve been driving in a straight line for fifteen minutes.”
Unbeknownst to the Yates kids, about twenty minutes ago, Ray Klein opened the werewolf door in the manor. Unfortunately, their nas were automatically added into the delving list by the System. The players had to find their way out by themselves from now on, thanks to the dungeon’s Core upgrade that I purchased weeks ago, which was now in full effect.
Disorienting Overgrowth
The woods are not a delver’s friend. Once triggered, thick overgrowth of trees and vegetation materializes around the dungeon’s borders, making it harder to find the path to a True Exit. You may designate one (1) true exit each delve that the delvers must follow in order to leave your dungeon. If a delver has a low RESOLVE and fails to increase their WILLPOWER, they will be turned around and end up back to the heart of your domain (Selected: The Cabin). Duration: Until Dawn
For tonight’s scenario, I’ve chosen to simplify the True Exit: The starting location; Find the cabin; Head through Trail B; Find the Glade of Flowers..and walk into the fog to freedom. My domain was already massive that finding it would take hours of their ti—ti they didn’t have enough of, especially when they were being chased by my equally blood-thirsty archetypes. With the True Exit now set, the System and I were able to mold our magic to spread the “clues” or “hints” around my domain, which was the delvers’ job to find and interpret.
The first hint was the werewolf door itself!
All the archetype doors were designed to change in order to reflect the True Exit.
But following the path was not ant to be the easiest way out. Nothing was ever easy for a delver entering a Death Core’s dungeon. Delvers could still die along the way, and not many of them would survive.
Not many of them got to the ultimate prize.
For Vivian and Xavier, they were stuck in the Looping Road. No matter how far and how long they drove, they would always loop back to the fixed anchor (a mile past the sumr camp before turning to the manor), passing by the sumr camp, Lover’s Rock, the Sawyer farmhouse, and the driveway toward the cabin again and again and again…
I’ve installed a magical contraption on the narrow two-way road since it’s already swallowed by my border, which ant I could do whatever I wanted with it.
The Ouroboros Anchor I
This runic contraption twists the fabric of perception and geography, overlaying an area with an endless loop. Delvers who attempt to leave will find themselves returning to the sa road, trail, or hallway—never realizing they have circled back. The loop feels seamless: the sun keeps shifting, scenery changes subtly, but all paths fold inward. Food spoils at the sa rate, ti progresses normally, but the geography itself has no exit.
If maintained long enough, the loop erodes the victim’s sense of ti and direction, potentially causing madness and lowering their RESOLVE.
For archetype synergy: pair this anchor with a Colossal archetype. For example: A troll on a looping bridge.
Breaking the Spell: Destroying the contraption shatters the loop or bypassing the effect via divination magic. Teleportation will not negate the spell’s effect.
Duration: 5 Hours.
I didn’t have space for a troll, but I liked the contraction enough that I bought it for the road specifically. [ Disorienting Overgrowth ] did not cover the roads or highways, unfortunately; strictly for forest areas only. In the five scenarios I’ve ran, delvers rarely made it to the road anyway, but this was a contingency in case they did.
And in five hours, they could use it as another exit once the effects dissipated. Leveling the contraption would raise the duration in five-hour incrents, which was sothing to think about and plan on in the future if I had enough room in my budget.
Vivian stopped the car when they passed the abandoned sumr camp’s sign for the fifteenth ti, parking the vehicle near it. She got out of the car, hoping she wasn’t imagining it. She reached out and laid her palm on the wooden post, half-expecting her hand to pass straight through it.
“See?” Xavier’s voice had a ragged edge to it as he joined her. “I told you! We’ve been driving past it. Over and over.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Vivian muttered.
“I don’t care if it makes sense. We’ve got to get out of here. This place is fucking creepy!”
She rapped her knuckles against the billboard’s leg, the sound dull and hollow. The vibration crawled up her bones. “Alright. You drive this ti. I’ll ss with the GPS, maybe…maybe call soone. Hopefully soone will pick up.”
“Call who? What do you even say? ‘Hi, we’re trapped in a magic tiy-wiy road that never ends and can’t get out? Can you please send the police?”
“Just get in the car,” she snapped. “And stop freaking out. You’re freaking out.”
And then Xavier froze, his voice rising into a pitch she didn’t like. “Wait. Look. A car’s coming.”
Vivian turned. Far down the road, two pinpricks of light flared out of the dark. Headlights, slicing the black clean open. They grew steadily, stretching long slender shadows across the asphalt.
“Hey! Hey!” Xavier bolted forward, waving his arms in frantic arcs. He stripped off his jacket, tossing it aside to reveal his mustard-yellow shirt. A pathetic kind of beacon.
Vivian fumbled her phone out of her pocket, flashlight on, the white beam jerking across the night like a stuttering signal fire. “Over here!” she scread.
The headlights didn’t falter. If anything, they seed to sharpen, bearing down harder, twin eyes locked on them.
“Yo, they’re not slowing down though,” Xavier said. His hands dropped, jacket forgotten at his feet. His voice broke.
“Xav!”
“Vivian…are they—” He didn’t finish.
The Aston Martin ca into full view, sleek and predatory, paint flashing silver-white in the glare of its own beams.
“Shit!” Xavier scread.
The engine roared, a snarl tearing up the road, and then the car veered straight toward them. Vivian’s body reacted before her brain did. She shoved Xavier hard, sending them both sprawling into the asphalt as the impact exploded behind them.
The Aston Martin hit their parked car like a charging bull. tal shrieked, glass burst in white-hot shards. The sound felt like the world itself split in half. Vivian rolled through dust and stone, every nerve screaming. A flash of heat kissed her ankle as their car flipped, tal groaning, tumbling off the road into the ditch. Her palms tore open on rocks. Her head rattled. She bit down on a cry. Beside her, Xavier scrambled up, his shirt streaked with dirt, eyes blown wide like a terrified child’s.
Behind them, the wreckage sizzled in the ditch, headlights broken into spidery fractures, one beam flickering like a dying star.
Vivian’s lungs burned. She turned to her brother, and scread, “WHAT THE FUCK?!”
Thirteen minutes ago…
The highway was a black ribbon twisting through nowhere and only the Aston Martin’s headlights to convince them they weren’t floating in the dark. Kate kept her gaze on the dotted lines flashing past them, pretending not to watch Henry behind the wheel. They had been sitting in silence for what felt like years since they left Brighton.
Suddenly, his phone buzzed; a call from Oracle. They were only a mile away from my domain. Henry slipped on his AirPods and answered the call.
“This is Henry.”
Oracle’s report was brief, but Henry stayed on the line for another minute before he dropped the call for good. “That was the security company,” he lied smoothly, like he’d practiced it so many tis. “They told there might be so kind of ergency at the manor.”
“Is everything okay?” Kate feigned ignorance.
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“God, I hope not. I’ve gotten a call from them a couple tis in the past. It turns up to be nothing. One of my staff probably tripped sothing by accident. But I have to check it out because their system is down on their end.”
“Why can’t they do it?”
“Ehh, I don’t mind.”
“Are you sure? I could be dangerous?”
“Why would it be dangerous?”
Kate didn’t answer.
“Anyway, we just need to stop by my place first. Don’t worry; it’ll be quick. I’ll still drive you ho after and you can be on ti for your shift tomorrow.” He thumbed through his phone calling Jessica, but no one answered. “Huh. She’s not answering.”
“Oh?”
“It’s not really like her to miss a call.”
Kate shifted nervously on her seat. “I hope everything’s okay.”
“I hope so, too.”
Kate kept her expression bored, just a shade of irritation. In her mind, she was calculating how fast this could go wrong. Henry’s blinker clicked, steady as a heartbeat, as he guided the car off the main stretch and onto the exit for North Cedar Lake. Kate felt it in her stomach. The closer they got, the fewer moves she had left to stop him from getting there. She sat rigid, keeping her face blank, eyes straight ahead, while her mind beca a whirlpool of panic. If they showed up to the manor now—before Sheila, Kevin, and the others had ti to clear out—there’d be no explaining it. Kate was afraid of what they might do to Henry.
She was afraid of what Kevin would do to him.
She tried running through other outs: a fake phone call? Too risky and her phone’s already dead. Pretend to drop sothing out the window? Stupid. None of it would buy enough ti. Then her brain snagged on sothing small and human: the sudden, queasy oh no of an upset stomach. Weakness that even a man like Henry could understand, especially when they’re driving a really expensive sports car he probably didn’t want to get ruined by a woman’s projectile vomit.
“Oh my gosh, Henry, I think I’m gonna be sick,” she blurted, her voice wavering just enough to sound unplanned. “Sorry, but I think I drank too much tonight. My stomach’s killing .”
“Wait, are you serious?”
“Yeah! I’m serious! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I need to go to a bathroom now. Can you pull over? Please?”
Henry cut her a flat, unreadable glance and then turned back to the road. “Hold on. There’s a gas station up ahead,” he said, sounding a little irritated.
Kate nodded, letting her body slump slightly, playing into the image. She pressed a hand to her mouth as if swallowing back bile, all the while counting the seconds until they saw the fluorescent halo crowning the gas station. Henry slowed under the overhang, tires crunching gravel. The place looked like it was clinging to life out here in the dark. There were no other cars out here except for the Aston Martin.
“Hurry,” Henry said, his fingers drumming once on the steering wheel before going still. “I’m almost out of gas so I’ll fill my car up while I wait and give my assistant another call.”
“I’m sorry. Got to go!”
Kate pushed the door open and stepped into the stale-lit interior. The air slled like burnt coffee and those cinnamon-scented car fresheners shaped like Christmas trees. A girl with pink highlights, a nose ring, and dark purple lipstick stood behind the counter, hunched over her phone, chewing a reddish gum with the kind of bored ferocity that made Kate feel instantly invisible. The tag pinned to her polo shirt read PENELOPE in cheerful handwritten cursive. It was hard to imagine the sa woman wrote it.
“Where’s the toilet?” Kate asked.
The woman didn’t speak. From the wall, she pulled out a large stick with a single key dangling at the end and slid it across the counter toward Kate. She pointed to the back of the store. Kate ignored how rude she was for not speaking to her.
Kate breezed for the bathroom in the back. She locked the door, but once she knew she was alone, she just stood there, hands braced on the sink trying to catch her own breath. Her pulse was quick, jittery. She could picture it so clearly: Henry’s car sliding up the long drive of the manor, his gaze taking in every wrong thing, every misstep. Kevin’s dumb grin frozen mid-smirk, Sheila still in the middle of stuffing jewelry into the car. Maybe Lope and Ray carrying a painting that turned out to be Henry’s mother’s portrait or sothing.
She checked her watch—only four minutes gone. Not enough. She needed more ti, needed to warn them. Her phone was sitting in the passenger door pocket, useless now unless she wanted to walk back out there and tipped Henry off.
Then she thought of the cashier.
Penelope.
Just a bored goth girl on the night shift, probably with an iPhone with a full battery and zero interest in whatever was going on in the world outside her counter. Kate could say she couldn’t use her phone because it’s dead, ask to make a quick ergency call, you know, sothing harmless. She had to make sure that Henry didn’t see her through the window though, but luckily, there’s a couple shelves and advertisents taped to the windows to block the view. She just had to be quick about it. She hoped the girl would let her borrow her phone. People these days had forgotten how to be nice and helpful to each other.
She yanked the door open and strode back to the front. Penelope was still there, lounging behind the counter, chewing gum with slow, lazy patience. Wired earphones around her ears listening to pop music.
Kate hesitated, then said, “Can I use your phone? I just need to make a quick call. My phone’s battery died, and it’s an ergency.”
Penelope’s eyes flicked up, calm and unblinking. To Kate’s surprise, the cashier slid her phone across the counter toward her.
“Thanks,” Kate said.
“Sure. You may use it, miss...” the woman sang.
Kate blinked, caught off guard by the sudden tune.
“...But I need it back in five minutes.”
Kate recognized the tune, mimicking Mariah Carey’s Christmas song. I just want you for my own…more than you can ever know…Trying to ignore the weirdness curling in her gut, Kate took the phone and dialed Sheila’s number. The line rang once. Twice. Then the cold disconnect click.
No answer.
She tried again.
The sa dead line.
She decided to leave a voicemail telling her that she was coming back to Point Hope, and hoped to see her at the house. She clearly ntioned that she and Henry were just coming by the manor first to see about an ergency, and then he would drive her ho after.
Believing she was clear enough, she dropped the call. Kate handed the phone back, avoiding Penelope’s piercing gaze. The girl began humming the sa tune again, but the sa line over and over.
“Make my wish co true…Make my wish co true…”
“Um…thank you for the…um, yeah. Have a nice day, er, night, I guess,” Kate said awkwardly.
When she turned around, Kate rolled her eyes. Goth kids, she thought. Probably so self-appointed dark queen with a flair for weirdness. She was probably gonna laugh about this later. Behind her, Penelope was still humming the song. Kate pushed past the counter, through the door, stepping out into the night.
Henry’s car sat where she left it.
But Henry was gone.
Kate strode toward the car. The nozzle was already connected through the filler neck; the gallons ticking upward on the dispenser screen. Suddenly, the fuel dispenser made a reverberating click after filling up the tank. Kate pulled out the nozzle and closed the lid, pocketing the receipt coming out of the fuel dispenser to give to Henry once he returned.
A couple of minutes passed by, but there was still no sign of Henry.
Her brain leapt to the easiest explanation: bathroom. He probably also wanted to use it since she made him wait for several minutes. Feeling the chilly night air seeped through her jacket, she climbed back into the passenger seat and waited for him inside the car. She turned on the dial of the heater, blasting her face with warm air.
This is good. This gives us ti, she thought. Hopefully he has so kind of stomach bug.
Hopefully, Sheila picked up the voicemail and listened to it because she was now out of luck and ideas. She made sure to delete the phone number on the girl’s phone before she handed it back.
Maybe I could knock him out? Once the thought entered her mind, she really felt like she was going to be sick. How could she even knock out a man who was taller, stronger, and had almost a hundred pounds over her? She’d be lucky to even land a punch, let alone knock him out in a single blow. And what if she went too far? What if she accidentally killed him? Kate’s head was swimming. She didn’t want to think this way, and she blad Sheila for dragging her into this ss.
But then—there it was. A dull, irregular thump.
Kate paused, listening.
THUMP.
THUMP.
There it was again. Louder this ti.
What the hell was that?
Another thump.
She knew it ca from the back this ti. Was it coming from the trunk? Can’t be…The realization filled her with dread. Itcould be luggage, she rationalized. Maybe it got tipped over during the turn? But why would Henry have luggage back there?
Kate unclipped her seatbelt and eased the passenger door open, the cold mountain mist pressing against her skin again. The thumping ca again and her heart seized. That definitely didn’t sound like luggage. She climbed out and took another step closer to the rear of the car. Slow, trembling hands reached out, and lifted the trunk hatch—
—and inside was a man.
His eyes were wide, darting back and forth in a frantic panic. A gag was stuffed in his mouth, a strip of duct tape holding it in place, and his hands were bound.
A high-pitched shriek ripped from Kate’s throat, raw and abrupt. She slamd the trunk lid shut with a tallic clang. She scanned the dark, looking for Henry, but he was still nowhere in sight. The only sound was the frantic pounding of her heart.
Oh my god, Oh my god! Kate’s brain went into overdrive. Did Henry…? Did Henry…?
Kate couldn’t finish the thought because it was too awful to think about. She ran back to the gas station and breezed through the door. “Help! Help !” She scread.
But Penelope had disappeared.
Her gaze scanned through the empty aisles, but the girl had vanished. Not losing the chance, she ran behind the counter and dialed 911, but she realized there was no dial tone.
“Oh, you got to be kidding !” She crouched down and tried to find the phone’s cord, pulling it up toward her face. It was not connected to the wall at all.
She heard the pipes groaned as if soone was flushing the toilet. It was probably coming from the bathroom where Henry was. Kate was running out of ti. She tried to find Penelope’s phone on the counter, hoping she could use it, but the woman probably took it with her, and she still didn’t see where she went. Kate ran out of the gas station again and headed toward the Aston Martin.
That’s when she noticed it.
Henry’s keys were still resting in the cup holder.
She opened the trunk. “I’m gonna get you out,” she said, pulling down the gag over Suraj’s mouth.
Suraj coughed and puked out a glob of saliva. “You gotta get out of here, lady!”
“I’m going to, I’m going to!” She tugged on the ropes loose. “He’s in the gas station using the bathroom, but we don’t have much ti.”
“Where am I?”
“North Cedar Lake.”
“Where’s that?”
Kate ignored his question. “Just shut up. Did you get hit on the head? Are you okay to move?”
“I…I think so?”
Suraj swung his legs over the edge of the trunk and tried to stand, but his legs, weak and unsteady from who knew how long cramped in that tight space, betrayed him. He wobbled, arms flailing, grasping at air. He fell onto the gravel, the stones biting into his palms and knees.
Kate lunged forward, hands on his shoulders, steadying him before he could slam his face into the dirt.
“Got you,” she said.
He blinked up at her, confusion and pain swimming in those wide eyes, and finally let himself lean into her grip.
“Thanks,” he said.
“We need to move.” Every second out here was a second closer to Henry’s return, and whatever that ant for both of them. She hauled Suraj upright, wincing as his weight settled against her. “He left the keys in his car. I think I can drive us out of here.”
“I can’t drive.”
“No, I’m driving us out of here.”
Kate helped him into the passenger seat before climbing behind the wheel. The engine snarled awake. A sound too loud in the dead quiet of the night, like a beast announcing itself. Kate’s pulse thudded against her throat. Any second now, Henry could co striding out of the bathroom, zipping up his fly, catching her in his car with his prisoner.
“C’mon, c’mon!” she hissed under her breath, shifting into drive.
Beside her, Suraj slumped against the window, his breath shallow and raspy, sweat streaking his temples. He looked wrecked, color drained, his wrists raw where the ropes had chewed through his skin. “We gotta go…” he mumbled. “He’ll kill us.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Kate pressed her foot down hard.
The car shot forward, gravel spitting out from under the tires. She risked one glance in the rearview mirror. No one got out of the gas station. No Henry. Not yet.
She took the road fast, hugging the center line, heart hamring. The exit ramp wasn’t far. Just half a mile. If she could hit the highway, she could find people, lights, police—safety.
“Hold on,” she muttered, more to herself than to him.
The road bent, then straightened, and her heart surged with it. There it was. The exit ramp. A clean stretch of asphalt cutting away from the dark trees like a lifeline.
But then the trees moved.
Kate slamd her foot on the brake. The tires scread, the wheel shuddering in her hands. The car fishtailed and stuttered to a stop, smoke curling off rubber. Suraj jerked awake, head almost slamming against the dashboard. “What—what the hell—”
Then, sothing uncoiled from the tree line.
At first, Kate’s brain refused to make sense of it. A cluster of bark and branches, maybe a fallen tree. But then it shifted, unfolded, and rose higher, higher still. A thing made of wood and sinew, slender as famine and wrong in every proportion. Twelve feet, maybe more, its body spidered with knots and ridges that writhed like veins. Six limbs. Four dug into the earth, clawing at the pavent like hooked roots. The other two were arms, too long, tapering into javelin-sharp appendages that glinted wet under the high beams.
Kate couldn’t breathe.
The thing bent forward, its head—or what looked like one—angling unnaturally, cocked like a question. Splinters shifted inside it, rasping against each other. And then it stepped fully onto the road, blocking their way.
Suraj let out a strangled sound. “What the fuck is that?!”
Kate’s brain scread: Reverse. Run. Do sothing! But her hands wouldn’t move. The Aston Martin’s engine growled beneath her, waiting, but her body had locked up, paralyzed by the sight of sothing that shouldn’t exist standing right in front of her.
The monster swayed once, then slamd one javelin-arm into the road with a crack like thunder. The pavent split, dust lifting in a choking cloud.
“Fucking drive, woman!” Suraj scread.
Old Growth lurched forward, a grotesque lunge that seed to eat distance in a heartbeat. Kate snapped out of her paralysis and slamd the gear into reverse, flooring the accelerator. The Aston Martin roared like a caged animal, tires shrieking, smoke curling as the car hurled backward.
“Hold on!” she shouted.
Suraj clutched the dash, his fingernails clawing at the leather. “Oh God! Oh God, it’s coming!”
Kate stole a glance into the rearview and saw nothing but the pitch-black maw of the road swallowing them whole. Old Growth slamd one javelin-arm against the pavent again, sending cracks spiderwebbing across the road as he surged forward, closing the distance between him and the car. The Aston Martin jolted, the steering wheel jerking in her hands. She fought to keep control, her shoulders taut, jaw clenched so hard it ached.
Kate twisted the wheel, spinning them around in a spray of gravel. The car fishtailed but caught, and then they were flying forward, headlights cutting through the mist.
Branches whipped across the windshield as the road curved, and then—
Her stomach dropped.
The gas station.
The neon sign flickered, the OPEN glowing weak and useless, and there, under its sickly glow, stood Henry. As if he had been waiting there for a long ti. Hands to the side, posture calm, that smile stretched across his face like a razor. He lifted one hand and waved. Casual. Friendly. Like they were old friends passing each other on a Sunday drive.
“Jesus Christ,” Kate breathed as she drove past him.
Henry turned, looked at Old Growth tearing through the road after them, and with one lazy gesture, pointed straight at them.
The creature obeyed.
It veered onto the road, its limbs clattering and skidding, keeping a good pace with the Aston Martin. It was almost elegant, horrifyingly graceful, its javelin-arms whistling through the air as it swiped. One missed the car by inches, slamming into the road shoulder, showering them with sparks and stone. Suraj scread, ducking low, hands over his head.
Kate’s hands were steady on the wheel now, her instincts overriding the terror. She jerked the wheel just enough to avoid the next swipe, the Aston Martin hugging the road like a predator. The speedoter needle crept higher, higher.
Suraj looked behind the seat. “Oh fuck! It’s still coming!”
Another swing. The javelin-arm screeched across the passenger side, carving a gouge into the door. Suraj yelped, pulling away as if he could fold himself smaller.
“Ahh!” Suraj scread.
“Hold on!” Kate spat.
The monster lunged again, and this ti its shadow engulfed them. She cut the wheel hard, the car swerving into the opposite lane, the rear bumper kissing the javelin tip before snapping free. The whole chassis shuddered, but Kate kept it straight, kept it moving.
Old Growth suddenly slowed down.
At first Kate thought she was imagining it. Her eyes tricking her, her brain too fried to process the nightmare sprint they’d just survived. But no. The thing was still back there, its movents no longer urgent, the javelin-arms dragging lazy scars into the road's surface.
“Why’s it stopping?” Suraj rasped, twisting in his seat. “Why the hell is it—”
“I…I don’t know…maybe it ran out of steam?”
Kate turned around. The thing stood there, receding in the distance, massive fra shrouded in fog, watching, and vanished from their view. She craned toward the rearview again, searching for its silhouette, hoping to see it again and avoid it.
“Do you see it?” Suraj asked.
Kate’s pulse thudded in her temples. Every nerve in her body scread at her to keep driving, but sothing about the sudden reprieve clawed its way under her skin.
“I don’t think it’s chasing us anym—”
The words left her lips just as her headlights flared against sothing ahead. A flash of movent—arms waving, frantic. Two figures screaming in the road, one swinging a jacket, the other a flashlight.
“What the—?” Kate didn’t have ti to finish.
“Watch out!” Suraj shouted.
The Aston Martin slamd into a parked car with a tallic shriek. The world convulsed around them. Airbags bursting, glass spiderwebbing, bodies snapping forward then jerking back. Kate’s teeth clacked together so hard she tasted blood. The car spun, montum whiplashing them sideways.
For an instant everything was soundless, weightless. Then the crunch of tal folding, tires skidding into gravel, the jarring lurch as the car rolled and slamd into the ditch...
...then darkness.
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