CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO #2
There he was. His form resembled the shadow creatures in so many ways that my instinctive reaction sent me scrambling to put a few paces between us. As I watched, he flickered in time with the entities’ hits on the sphere.
“Hurry!” he yelled after a particularly strong one, his voice echoing from everywhere. “I can’t hold them much longer. Go. Now!”
The sole destination was the half constructed building behind me, the epicenter of everything.
My savior flickered again with a hit, making the decision for me. I went.
The structure loomed above as I neared, sad and broken, forever unfinished. I’d thought the same thing the first time, like the person who haunted it, perhaps?
While the upper floors only contained skeletal, rusted framing to hint at the idea of its shape, the bottom floor had been a few steps ahead—perhaps to secure the site sooner?
Either way, it had graffitied, cracking concrete walls, and appeared fortress like and foreboding.
A single metal door allowed entrance, and it stood wide open, beckoning me into the pitch-blackness beyond.
My feet dug into the dirt, skidding to a halt near the entrance.
Indecision and wariness of the unknown warred with my need to flee.
An echoing BOOM shook the area. Bits of mortar dust and larger fragments rained down, as if the edifice itself had taken a hit. I whirled.
An army of those shadow creatures piled on top of each other, a writhing mass that scaled the now glowing shield straight out of any zombie game.
“Yeah, nope. Unknown concrete fortress for the win.” I darted inside and turned to close the door but hesitated, searching for the man that, so far, had been helping.
“What are you doing?” he asked from somewhere over my shoulder, scaring the holy bejeezus out of me. He paid my scream no heed, brushing past me to slam the door shut just as the perimeter bubble shattered in a glittering, deadly waterfall of fragmenting glass jewels.
The man hadn’t sealed us off a moment too soon. Bangs and thumps rattled the metal, actually concaving it until it bowed inward. He swore and pushed himself against it, as if he alone could hold off the horde of angered beings.
“Upstairs!” he gritted out. “You have to.”
“What about you?” I protested half-heartedly.
The creatures’ howling, along with the abuse they barraged the door with, drowned out our sense of hearing.
“Don’t worry about me. You need to see!”
The terrifying growls went a long way to making his case for him. After one more second of indecision, I turned and ran. Most of the bottom level hid in the dark, but light trickled down a set of stairs, illuminating it like a staircase to heaven.
I charged forward, racing up.
And up.
More steps passed than would have been used for construction, so many that I lost count. Then, just when I resigned myself to being trapped inside the stairwell, the light grew stronger.
The landing opened into a second level that screamed with wind. That hurtling force whipped between metal I-beams and framing, ringing an eerie, whistling vibration through the air.
I stumbled, needing to catch myself on a pillar. “Hello?”
The call echoed and twisted.
A figure at the edge of the floor turned. Until their movement caught my eye, I hadn’t noticed them. They’d been staring out over the grounds like a captain at the helm of his ship.
I froze, recognizing the person even before he’d fully turned.
Standing there was George Orten, mayor of Fairview, and the man that Ben’s ghost—or at least my mind’s representation of him—warned would kill me if I didn’t run.
What in the actual world was happening? Mayor Orten wasn’t dead, at least, not as far as I knew, but he was here. What was his connection to this place? What was it about this construction site?
The answers hovered just out of reach.
A resounding clash reverberated from downstairs, and the sound of screeching, terrible joy clanged up the stairwell as shadow creatures rushed the first floor.
I stumbled away, unsure where I could go from here. There was nowhere to hide.
My savior, even more translucent than before, materialized in front of me, startling a scream from me that audibly sent the creatures below into a frenzied bloodlust.
“Did you see?” the man asked, unconcerned with the paralyzing threat rushing up to consume us. He sounded exhausted, wounded even. I didn’t answer, but he nodded. “Yeah, you saw. Time to go.”
He crowded closer.
I paced him, backing up a step.
“Wait, wait. What? I have so many questions.”
“I know, but—sorry, this didn’t work out like I’d hoped, but you must go now.”
“What about you?”
For a second, a smile brightened his features, affording him more definition. Brown eyes stared back at me. “No worries. I’ll be fine.”
“But—”
I broke off. The first of the creatures crested the stairwell, lunging at us with the focus of bloodhounds on a mission.
Their obsidian forms moved both like something solid and incorporeal, unlike their claws.
As long as scythes, the sharp talons dug into the cement flooring with cracks and pops as it, and others, bounded our way.
The man moved into my line of sight, blocking them from view. “They are after you, Willa. Wakey, wakey.” With that, he rushed me, his spirit passing through my body.