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  Babies don’t usually eat their way out of their mothers’ stomachs.

  His favorite film, Alien, came to mind. He hurried backward to his car.

  The sound of flesh ripping was joined by an unearthly wail, a shrieking hornlike noise that couldn’t possibly have come from an animal’s throat, yet there it was. It stopped Charlie in his tracks. A slit had formed in the beast’s underside. Something was coming out of it.

  He knew it was foolhardy to stay any longer, yet that black oozing mass wriggling itself free of the deer’s twitching body captured his attention. Charlie could no more look away than he could walk on water. Covered in what might have been the deer’s blood, the dim lighting making it appear black, a fat, worming mass emerged from the animal’s belly. It resembled an organ, perhaps the deer’s stomach or liver—but why would it be moving?

  The mass folded on top of itself. Charlie would have believed it was looking at him, but there were no eyes. A dark cavity formed at its center. It was the size of a human eye but black and abysmal. When tendrils curling like fishhooks sprouted around it, Charlie had seen enough.

  He pulled open his car door. Before he entered, he turned for one last look at the vile thing that had murdered God’s good creature. He turned just in time to see it coming.

  Before Charlie could react, the slimy membrane had latched itself to his face. He screamed, his mouth opening wide to bellow out his agony. He wrestled with the creature but could not pull it free. It embedded itself in his forehead. Blurry spines thrashed before his eyes, a sliver of space separating them from certain blindness. His cheeks burned with acid heat. Then his mouth—Oh God, the thing is trying to get into my mouth!

  He tried to close it but was too late. His teeth bit into what felt like a water balloon covered in mashed banana. Its goop was secreted over his lips and onto his tongue. It smelled foul and tasted worse, with a burn like wasabi and a texture and flavor like warm, spoiled yogurt.

  Charlie tried to bite down, to kill it with the only weapons at his disposal, but the creature was too thick.

  It shimmied its way deeper, working slowly down his throat. Charlie gagged upon it. His lungs ached for air. His mouth tried to suck in oxygen around the creature, but instead, it only sucked the vile thing in farther.

  He fell against the side of his car. With all his might, Charlie yanked at the worm’s tail. He would pull it out even if he had to pull out his tongue with it.

  Or he’d die trying.

  Chapter 14

  “The noise… they’ve stopped.”

  Tyler listened. Dakota was right. If the creatures were still outside, they were taking a break, hiding maybe, waiting. He didn’t like them scratching at the walls. He didn’t like them silent either.

  “Do you think they’re gone?” Dakota asked no one in particular.

  “Why don’t you go check?” Mark grinned. His incisor bit into his lower lip.

  Dakota stormed over to him. “Why don’t you? A dirtbag like you would probably find himself in good company.”

  Not a very impressive comeback.

  Mark didn’t even flinch. He chuckled, evidently enjoying his ability to get under her skin. Whatever history existed between them, Tyler didn’t know or care. It suited him to have Dakota’s wrath momentarily redirected, though their bickering helped no one—and it was noisy. If the creatures had left, the last thing Tyler wanted was for some loud conversation to draw them back.

  You know they’ll be back, his father’s voice chided. None of your new friends are getting out of here alive.

  “Enough.” Merwin’s command summoned his attention. The ranger sounded like a real father should when disciplining his naughty children. Tyler nodded his agreement even though he hadn’t been part of the confrontation. Dakota crossed her arms and pressed her lips shut. Mark just laughed, but he didn’t fool Tyler with his tough-guy act.

  They won’t last the night.

  “Well, the bitch is right about one thing,” Mark said. “One of us should check if the coast is clear.”

  Tyler was quick to note that Mark had not volunteered. Tyler didn’t volunteer either. Where was the sense in it? Whoever went out there was dead, plain and simple. Maybe the slug things would attack the first person to step outside, or maybe they’d wait until more followed. Either way, dead was dead.

  They’re dead anyway. It doesn’t matter if it happens outside or inside. How Tyler wished his father would shut the hell up. He was wrong. He had to be. For whatever reason, the creatures weren’t coming into the shack. As long as the slug-leech purple people eaters stayed outside and the humans stayed inside, the humans stayed safe. Why upset the balance?

  Dakota surprised him. “I’ll do it.” She headed toward the door.

  Tyler started to move, but Merwin already blocked her path. “I wouldn’t. Those things… they aren’t natural. It’s probably best we wait out the night.”

  Dakota set her jaw, grumbled, “Cowards,” and followed it with a few muttered curses. The hate flamed in her eyes again, but at least this time, it seemed directed at everyone in the cabin, not just Tyler.

  He chuckled. A room full of men, and she’s the only one who has any balls.

  Dakota shoved her way past Merwin. Tyler followed her movements as if watching a silent film in slow motion. She reached for the doorknob. Spots of silver shimmered across a field of rust. Their twinkling glimmer had her in a tractor beam. The knob disappeared into her hand. She turned her wrist.

  “Don’t open it!” Abigail cried from the floor, scaring the shit out of Tyler. He wasn’t the only person to jump. Her eyes had lost their haziness. Her skin remained pale, but the purple rivers under it had receded.

  “If you do, you’ll die.”

  Dakota stopped. Her head hung low. For a moment, she just stood there. Then her hand released the doorknob. She returned to the group, shuffling through a walk of shame.

  Tyler offered her a friendly smile as she passed. It didn’t matter that she wanted him dead. Dakota was still braver than the rest of them. That merited some recognition.

  With her gaze cast upon the floor, Dakota didn’t see him. Tyler was glad for it. She probably would have thought he was mocking her.

  “This is bullshit,” Mark said, shoving past Dakota toward the door. “They’re gone.” He laughed, but anxiety, not mirth, fleshed out the sound of it.

  “They’re waiting,” Abigail said flatly. Maybe it was her matter-of-fact tone. Maybe it was the dire certainty in her voice. Her words made Mark shrivel like genitals in icy water. He froze then dropped his hand from the doorknob.

  “How could you know that?” he asked, his voice high-pitched and wild. “How could you possibly know that? They’re just animals. Stupid, mindless animals.”

  “Kind of like you?” Dakota asked.

  Abigail fixed her stare on Mark in a way that seemed to hypnotize him. He didn’t take Dakota’s bait. The injured woman sat up as straight her damaged flesh would allow. “I know because I… I can feel them. I can feel their hunger. They’re in my head. I can see them.”

  “She’s hallucinating. That thing must have poisoned her good,” Mark said.

  “Maybe,” Merwin answered. “But she seems pretty lucid now.” He took Abigail gently by her arm. “What is it, Abigail? Do you know something about these creatures? What do you see?”

  Her eyes rolled up into her head, exposing blank white sheets. “Death. Piles of bones picked clean. Human bones. Our bones. This is what it wants. This is how it lives.”

  Abigail’s eyelids fluttered. Tyler couldn’t tell if she was conscious or not or how she remained standing.

  “It?” Merwin asked. “Not they?”

  “She’s lost it, man.” Mark huffed. “Look,” he said, waving his hand in front of Abigail’s face. Abigail didn’t flinch. “Nothing. The girl’s gone. Am I the only one who sees this?”

  “He may be right, Merwin,” Frosh added. “She’s feverish. That thing did a number on her. Who k
nows how its poisons worked on her mind?”

  Though Abigail had spoken her words clearly enough, Tyler could see that their meaning had been lost on the majority of the people in the cabin. They’re afraid, his father’s voice whispered. They should be.

  “Finally, someone else with some sense.” Mark shot the twins a dirty look as if to ask them why they hadn’t backed him up.

  Abigail’s eyes returned to normal. Her emerald-green irises shimmered with confusion. “Where am I? Who are you?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Where are my clothes?”

  Frosh approached with caution. For whatever reason, he had taken on the role of Abigail’s caregiver. “You were bitten by one of those slug things. This man carried you in here. He saved your life.”

  Abigail faced the park ranger. “Merwin? I remember. Karl… he fell. He didn’t make it?”

  Merwin made an attempt to answer, but he choked up and looked away.

  Abigail’s eyes filled with tears. Then, as if her body just remembered its hurt, she gasped. “My back,” she cried, twisting to look over her shoulder. “It burns. Is that monster still on it?”

  Monster? To think those black slimy slug things were some long-lost relative of a leech was quite a stretch. But monsters were the creations of books and movies. In the real world, men were the only monsters.

  “Not this again,” Mark said, rolling his eyes.

  Frosh put out a hand to silence him. Amazingly, it worked. “No, it’s gone,” he said, handing Abigail her shirt. A long strip was missing from its back. He gave her his sweatshirt as well, smiling weakly. “I promise.”

  “I can still feel it, sucking and tearing, like it’s trying to get inside me.”

  “It got you pretty good, but you seem to be getting better. We were all worried for a while there.”

  Tyler and some of the others mumbled their agreement. The truth was probably that only Frosh and Merwin were genuinely interested in the woman’s welfare. Mark didn’t even bother to fake it.

  “Speak for yourself,” he said.

  Frosh balled up his fist. “Do you ever have anything useful to add?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  He came at Frosh, but it was Abigail who reacted. She kneed Mark in the balls so hard that they might have found a new home in his stomach. He bent at his knees, grunting in pain and anger. He pulled the knife from his belt.

  “Don’t,” was all Merwin said. It was enough when combined with the hand he tapped against his rifle.

  Mark moved into the corner. “You said they were still out there.” He spat. “I want to know how you know that.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Bullshit. How can you feel them? How can you see them? What the hell did they infect you with? Maybe we should just throw your whore ass out there and see what comes a-knocking.”

  “Why do you always have to be such an asshole?” Dakota twirled the point of her blade on her fingertip. Tyler hadn’t noticed her draw it. He’d have to start paying more attention to those sorts of things if he wanted to live—and for some reason, he did. Maybe the prospect of being eaten alive had cured him of his suicidal tendencies.

  I need a weapon. He sighed. As if I don’t have enough to worry about.

  “I’m not going out there,” Abigail stammered. “I’m never going out there.”

  “No one is.” Merwin turned to Mark. “Unless you want to go yourself?”

  Mark shied away. He looked as though he were going to explode.

  Used to getting your way? What a spoiled rich kid. Tyler doubted that Mark was capable of ever being anything more.

  Distracted by his thoughts, Tyler didn’t notice Merwin approaching until he was right in front of him. Dakota stood beside Tyler, still twirling her knife on her finger. Frosh was busy filling in Abigail on all that had happened since she fell in the woods. Abigail listened as she dressed. One of her sneakers was missing.

  Mark hung back, whispering with the twins.

  “Look,” Merwin said, meeting Tyler in the eye. “I know who you are, and I can pretty much guess who she is.” He pointed at Dakota. “I’ve been working these woods here since before the ill-begotten loads that produced you two were spent. Tyler Kendrick, your face was plastered all over every newspaper and television station in the state when you shot that Coogan boy. Hell, I was working the day you did it.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Tyler saw Dakota tighten, her jaw and hands clenching. Tyler tightened in response. He offered no admission or denial.

  Merwin looked Tyler up and down. “Yeah, you’re older now. I didn’t quite place you right away. But I remember now.”

  Tyler wasn’t sure where the park ranger was going with the conversation. His muscles tensed, ready to act if they needed to. Merwin was Tyler’s best bet at finding an ally among those present. Who else would there be? Abigail? The kid maybe? His pickings were slim.

  Though he kept his anxiety hidden, Tyler squirmed beneath Merwin’s gaze. The memory of that day had haunted him enough, and in the last twelve hours, it hadn’t stopped haunting him. He flexed his fingers and bounced on his feet. Only an old man and a girl stood between him and the door—an old man with a rifle and a girl who had taken on three attackers at once. If he made it by them, would he be leaping out of that infamous frying pan?

  Merwin came no closer. “The Coogan boy had a sister. I couldn’t remember her name until I heard yours, Dakota. Ain’t too many Dakotas running around, I figure, least not with a hard-on for Tyler here. Given that he was all handcuffed and cut up, this place littered with more cutting utensils than a Swiss army knife, I’m guessing you were just getting started on some good old-fashioned revenge.”

  Dakota gaped, speechless. Tyler kept his poker face, neither confirming nor denying Merwin’s assessment. He awaited the old man’s next move.

  “He killed my brother.” Dakota’s voice came out low and growling.

  Tyler could keep silent no longer. “I shot your brother. I did not kill him. At least, I didn’t want to, but I’ve been living trapped in that single second, when my finger squeezed the trigger and your brother fell, for the last six years of my life.”

  “Aw. Do you expect me to feel sorry for you?” Dakota stopped twirling the knife. She raised its point toward Tyler. Merwin grabbed her wrist softly but firmly.

  “I remember the events of that day perhaps as well as the two of you. Three people went missing. Only your brother came out of those woods. The day he died was the first of many I spent searching for his friends. They were never found, not by me, not by no one. In all likelihood, they’re still in these woods, dead and buried… or digested.”

  “I bet you he knows where they are.” Dakota tapped the flat side of her blade against Tyler’s chest. The anger and hate in her eyes had returned. If she so chose, not even Merwin could stop her from killing him then.

  Merwin raised his hands in front of him. “But here’s the thing. Your brother’s friends weren’t the first to go missing in these parts, and they weren’t the last, neither. Now, I’m not excusing anything Tyler has done, but I saw your brother that day. And I’ve seen what those things outside can do—what they did do to that poor woman’s husband.”

  The three of them looked at Abigail. She was out of earshot, still talking with Frosh.

  Merwin took a deep breath. “I’m not saying he didn’t kill your brother, and I’m not saying he did. But I’m guessing those creepy critters didn’t just spring into existence overnight. I’m guessing they’ve played a part in some, maybe most, of the disappearances. I have no proof of that, of course, but—”

  “No,” Dakota said, crossing her arms. “You don’t.”

  “Be that as it may, I had thought you two were going to be the glue that held this group together, so to speak. Whether you believe me or not, the way I see it, we have to stick together. We have to stay strong. And we may have to fight… them, not each other. From what I’ve seen, Abigail is a lot tougher than she looks,
but man, the shit she must be going through in her head right now. And who knows how that creature’s juicy juices are messing with her brain.”

  He pointed at Frosh. “That boy seems like a good egg, too, but soft. Hard to say where his loyalty will lie when push comes to shove. And those other three? Shit, you’d have to be blind not to see what they’re made of. Wolves in frat boy clothing.”

  Tyler couldn’t argue with that, though he thought Merwin was too optimistic if he expected Dakota to put aside her murderous intent, even for just a little while.

  “So that leaves you, me—”

  “And the Devil makes three?” Dakota cast Tyler yet another hostile look.

  “Something like that. Come on! Neither of you wants to be worm food any more than I do. We’ll have an eternity for that after we’ve lived long and hopefully happy lives. Our best chance of getting out of here is by working together. You know, strength in numbers and all that bullshit. All I’m asking is that you two table your differences for now and help me get this group to safety. Can you do that?”

  Yes, Tyler. Help lead them to safety.

  Tyler nodded, choosing to ignore the voice in his head. He’d never wanted to harm Dakota. If he had known she would follow him there, he’d have kept miles away. But whether she agreed with Merwin or not, Tyler knew better than to trust her.

  Her arm relaxed. Merwin released it and took a step back, studying her closely.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “For now.”

  “Guys,” Frosh called. “I’ve found something.”

  Chapter 15

  Dakota was wondering how the night had gotten so fucked-up. It was supposed to consist of her, her brother’s murderer, and payback for a wound that would never heal. She had stabbed Tyler deep—at least she thought it had been deep—but the son of a bitch showed no signs that it even affected him. His shirt still looked damp where she had sliced through it, though. With any luck, he’d bleed out before the night was over.

  No. With any luck, those fuckers outside will rip him apart piece by piece. It doesn’t look like I’ll get a chance with all these other douchebags hanging around.