Get moving!
Run!
Run for your life!
Run as fast as you can!
Now!
God, she was exhausted. She had never been so fatigued.
But somehow Deena kept going, flailing through the tunnels, panicked to the marrow of her bones.
Once she’d realized she was free of the monster’s grasp, she had snagged her jacket again, thrown it on, left the area where she and the creature had fought, and started running. Blindly. Crazily. Certain the beast was on her tail. She had no idea where she was and the tunnels afforded her little light, so she didn’t even know which direction she was heading.
She just ran.
As far and as fast as her battered body would allow.
But now the familiarity of the tunnels became unrecognizable and she had to stop, dragging in deep, painful breaths, needing to get her bearings. Deena had to take stock and start thinking like a fighter or a survivor and not like a victim as she had been.
Squeezing her eyes shut tight, she grimaced, forcing the panic and pain to the back of her consciousness, trying like hell to find calmness, the cold, calculating side of her brain, all of her strength. She fought the urge to flee like a crazy person.
Sheer terror would not help her find an escape.
Think, Deena, think.
She opened her eyes. Took another calming breath. Felt the sweat run down her face.
Already she’d made a mistake.
Her tracks would be visible in the tunnels to the monster, she thought.
Whenever the son of a bitch returned, all it had to do was follow the broken trail of her tracks. It wouldn’t be hard for an underground creature like it.
Swearing under her breath, swiping the dirt from her eyes and pulling up the hood of her jacket, she stared at her all-too-visible tracks miserably.
Her tracks might as well have been marked with a bright neon sign: This way to Deena Hopping.
Pull it together, Deena, or else you will be eaten alive or simply just die inside these tunnels if you not from the monster or exhaustion, then from your own damned stupidity.
No way could she keep from making the tracks to cover them.
She had to go back. Circle around. Make it at least look like she was heading back toward the basement, then double back around hopefully to find another escape route. The problem with this plan was that she was completely lost. Deena had no concept of how far below ground she truly was.
Shaking, her body aching, she was frightened.
But she had little choice, in reality. To save herself. To escape a certain death. She had to find it inside her to fight and survive.
* * * *
Gary Chapel straddled the stool next to Mike Leopold’s. They were at the bend in the bar in Chapel’s house, farthest from the door, only a few feet from the rest of the team. Christmas music played on a boom box that was on the bar. Leopold, along with several members of the team, were nursing beers and staring glumly into his near-empty bottles.
“This is it,” Leopold muttered.
“Fucking A right,” Chapel said, shaking off the remnants of his beer and nerves. “You ready?”
Leopold eyed Chapel. “I don’t think we have much of a choice if we want to save this town and its people.”
“Oh, yeah.” Chapel shuddered. Took another drink.
Dan Roberts, a local carpenter and well-known hunter, his suspenders stretched tight over his huge belly, swaggered in to a stool near Chapel. “We doin’ this or not?”
“Hell, yes!” Chapel tossed back his drink and slid a glance toward Leopold, who nodded. With a fresh drink, Chapel warmed up. “If we’re all ready, there is no time to waste. Let’s get this operation under way.”
Leopold nodded again, and took a drink.
“Let’s hunt this killer down!” the team screamed in unison.
About damned time. Mike Leopold thought, this is what he had waited years for. Revenge.
Justice for his family…
Gary Chapel stumbled away from the bar. Two of the team members caught him before he fell to the floor.
“He’s not hunting down anything in his condition,” the larger of the two said.
Mike Leopold nodded. “We can let him sleep it off while we set up around town. We don’t even know where this thing may pop up at. So, leave him and let’s go.”
The team left Chapel on the sofa to sleep off his drunkenness. It was not long after the team had left that someone entered the house. Normally Chapel would have been on guard and his senses were honed to listen for signs of intruders. He was a cop after all. Yet he was barely conscious at the moment.
He heard a woman ask, “Do you want to see Deena Hopping? She wants to see you.”
When she mentioned Deena Hopping, Gary felt an immense sense of emotions, love, lust, and care for her. His eyes filled and his nose clogged. Gary Chapel was an emotional drunk. He tried to pull his arms away from the woman in his house, but they were weighed down like with a heavy anchor.
“Take it easy.” The woman had cautioned him.
“Where are we goin’?”
“To see Deena.”
Gary Chapel knew something was not right with the situation. He wanted to scream out and warm his teammates. Where were they?
He heard the door open to the house.
The woman’s voice became rough and said, “We’re close now.”
They walked to the middle of the road, then across again on winding streets. After a while he thought he may fall over. She eased him forward, and then tried to keep him upright.
Chapel didn’t know where he was or what they were doing, but he was suddenly scared. His mind began to clear a tad and he knew something was off. He had not seen the woman yet, and the thought of seeing her frightened him for some odd reason. It could have been the alcohol? He didn’t want to see her. He didn’t want to see any of this. He had had enough. Chapel wanted to go back home.
“I’m out of here,” he stammered.
Suddenly a hood was pulled over his head. He felt a slimy rope wrap around him preventing him from moving. Chapel tried to twist away, but was held tight.
It happened as fast as anything he’d ever seen. He was scooped up and carried through the air and then pulled down harshly, still being held so tight that he couldn’t make a sound. Whatever had him would not let go. He kicked and struggled as he was pushed into a dirt filled area, he could feel the earth scratch his arms. He tried to sit up, but he was pushed down again. He was dropped hitting the ground hard.
Chapel struggled to listen.
Something hard and strong raked over him with a scratchy claw like feel to it.
Chapel realized what was happening with an explosion of horror. He slammed the sides of his dirt prison, but he couldn’t get out. The sounds that rained down on him grew further away as the rocks and dirt piled deep above him. Gary Chapel was buried in the earth.
The monster had him.