Uttering a startled cry, Aiden dropped the box with the mysterious stone back onto the seat and shrugged off the backpack. It appeared to be ablaze, except there were no flames. Instead, the strange, golden liquid seemed to mimic a fire, eating through the vinyl and producing a dense, acrid smoke. Unlike a fire, however, it produced no heat.
“What is this?” shouted Aiden.
Although it was the second time he’d encountered the stuff, Eric had no adequate answer. He had no idea what it was. He didn’t understand how it worked, how it could be so alive.
It spilled from the “burning” backpack like molten metal as Aiden pulled his arms free of the straps and pooled onto the floor between them. Eric watched as long, snake-like ribbons raced out from the shimmering, gold puddle, carrying the mysterious substance to the walls of the car, where it defied gravity by racing upward, fanning out in gleaming branches as it reached for the ceiling.
It was strangely beautiful.
But Eric felt sure that it was also quite deadly.
Aiden turned the backpack upside down and shook it, trying to douse the liquid flames, but he only managed to spill the contents across the floor of the rail car and splash the strange liquid onto the nearby seats where it sizzled and smoked on contact.
The clothes and snacks he’d packed for himself before fleeing the apartment were engulfed. Plastic wrappers shriveled and disappeared. A chocolate cupcake melted into a dark brown puddle. Tee shirts and socks disintegrated before their eyes.
“Throw it down!” shouted Eric. “Get rid of it!”
But Aiden was fumbling with the front zipper, struggling to tear it open.
“What are you doing?”
“We need it!”
Eric stepped back as a pool of golden liquid crept across the floor toward his feet.
With a grunt of effort, Aiden managed to withdraw the plastic bag he’d retrieved from the motel’s moldy wall. Then he gave the bag one final shake and tossed it aside, cursing as he snatched his hand out of the way of a spray of golden droplets.
“We have to get out of here!” shouted Eric, taking another step back to avoid the approaching liquid. In another few seconds they were going to be completely separated.
But instead of running, Aiden knelt down and began searching through the spilled contents of the bag.
“Come on!” Eric’s eyes were drawn to the ceiling. Above them, a large pool had gathered and was expanding at a startling rate.
Aiden snatched up the Taser and then stood up and ran back the way they came. At the same instant, the golden liquid began to pour down from the ceiling overhead in a dense rain, completely separating them.
Eric backed away, startled, and looked behind him. He was going to have to go the other way. He paused long enough to grab the stone from the box and then turned and fled.
But as he approached the end of the car, the golden fluid oozed down over the door, dripping onto the floor with a disturbing sizzle.
Eric stopped. Both doors were blocked. There was no way out.
The acrid stench of smoke caught in his throat, making him cough and threatening to strangle him.
Covering his mouth and nose, he looked behind him and saw that it was oozing across the ceiling, a burning, golden rain showering the seats as it crept closer to him.
Eric saw no other choice. Tucking the stone tightly beneath his arm, he jumped onto the nearest seat and hurled himself headlong through the window and out of the passenger car. The move might have been worthy of an action hero scene, if not for the slightly-too-high-pitched cry and the graceless, shoulder-jarring landing that left him flat on his back for several agonizing seconds, unable to move, his entire body racked with pain.
If I survive this, he thought, I really have to get into better shape.
Finally, and with considerable protest from his aching body, he sat up, wondering if he’d managed to break anything, and looked back at the passenger car. Golden flames poured from the windows and doors, reaching for the sky like real fire. Black smoke billowed upward.
With a loud, unearthly groan, the frame of the car bent and began to sag in on itself, as if it were slowly melting into the shiny, noxious goo.
If he’d hesitated to leap through that window…
He couldn’t stand the thought.
Then something emerged from the car, a long, serpentine shape twisting through the air, reaching out for him.
Eric scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain of his bruised back and shoulder, and fled into the woods, pausing only long enough to pick up the stone he’d dropped when he hit the ground.
Whatever this thing was, it was causing a lot of trouble.
What the hell did AG mean, anyway?
Tree branches slapped at his face. Thorns caught his jeans and shirt and arms. Dense brush threatened to tangle his legs, tripping him, but somehow he managed to stay on his feet.
Which way was he even going? He wasn’t sure anymore. He doubted that he would be lucky enough to emerge into the park, with Paul and Aiden waiting to jump into the truck and race to safety.
He risked a glance over his shoulder and immediately wished that he hadn’t. An ominous, golden shape was looming behind him, following him through the underbrush, eating through the branches and trees as it went, carving through the foliage and leaving an unnatural path in its wake.
What the hell was that stuff? Where did it come from?
The only thing that was certain to Eric was that it was not natural. There was nothing on earth like that stuff, as far as he knew. It seemed to be alive. It was intentional. He was convinced it was no coincidence that it attacked them as soon as they found the stone. Was it some kind of booby trap? Was it left there specifically to attack anyone who dared to retrieve this stone?
But that wouldn’t explain what he saw back at the asylum. The stuff there had seemed threatening, but in the end it had done him no harm. This time, it had not only attacked them, it was pursuing him, chasing him through the woods.
He was sure it wasn’t trying to apologize.
Keeping his head down, determined not to look back again, he pushed through the brush, forcing himself to ignore the stinging branches and keep moving.
Shielding his eyes with his arms, he peered ahead, hoping for some sign of where he was going. What he saw was a large shape hovering beyond the trees ahead of him and to his left. A building of some sort was over there.
He veered toward it, trying to remember where he was, and realized that he must be near the industrial park. There would be open spaces over there, plenty of room to run.
But as the shape of the building grew clearer through the trees, he glimpsed something else waiting for him there, too, an imposing shape standing against the backdrop of the building, a familiar form, wearing a western shirt and bloody bandages on his face.
Cursing, Eric turned sharply to the right and pushed deeper into the woods again.
Where the hell did he come from? How did he find him so easily? He was running blind in a dense wood. Even he hadn’t known he was going to be here.
This was bad.
Clutching the stone against his chest, he ducked under several larger branches and skirted around a dense thicket of thorny brush, only to glance forward and glimpse the cowboy once more. Again, he was right in front of him.
“How the—” He skidded to a halt and turned right again, looking behind him.
The mysterious liquid was nowhere to be seen. It seemed to have abandoned its pursuit of him.
But as he squeezed between two small trees, he found himself once again face-to-bloody-face with the bruised and grinning cowboy.
Eric cursed again and turned around, squeezing back between the trees and heading back the way he came.
What was happening? How could this man be everywhere he turned? It was as unnatural as the liquid gold that enveloped the train.
From somewhere to his left, he heard the cowboy laugh.
At least one of them was having fun.
He turned to the right, only to find the cowboy’s formidable shape pushing through the trees toward him. He turned left instead, veered around a large tree and felt a sting in his arm as a jagged branch snagged at his flesh.
Ahead of him, and to his left, he again saw the cowboy moving toward him.
How was he doing this? What was going on?
He turned right instead, his heart thundering, and skidded to a halt as he found himself standing right in front of the cowboy. His blackened eyes gleamed above the bloody bandages.
“Boo.”
Eric turned and darted in the opposite direction, but he only made it two steps before he found himself again standing before the cowboy.
This just wasn’t fair.
He took a step back, his mind racing, trying to understand.
Then he saw something from the corner of his eye. He turned. He saw the butt of the cowboy’s shotgun coming at him.
Then everything went black.