Chapter 13 #2
Then, a crackle. Not from the undergrowth, but from above—two meters up, where the branches cross and the night is thickest. I look up just in time to see the curve of something pale and sinewy slink along the bough.
The shape is wrong for a dog or a coyote.
It’s too human, too deliberate in the way it tracks us, ribcage pressed to the wood, head lolling side to side as if testing for the direction of fear.
Maven signals: drop, stay low. I obey, and the world contracts to a tunnel of cold mud and the smell of iodine from the cut on my hand.
The thing in the tree waits. Then it barks—a wet, broken sound—and I hear the reply from further down the path. A second Ghoul, then a third, closing the triangle around us. They don’t rush. They’re old enough to remember patience.
I clamp a hand over my mouth, breathing through the pain.
The world narrows. I remember something from the last flashback—about the pheromone haze that precedes an attack.
I scan the trees, the air, the dirt under my knees, searching for the oily sheen or the pattern in the wind that might mean a break in the circle.
Maven’s hand trembles, just once, then goes still. “We can’t outrun them,” they whisper.
I nod, and the science starts up in my brain, a frantic churn: What did the labs use to mask scent? What chemical tricks did they employ to disrupt Ghoul hunting patterns? The only thing I can recall is the experiment with blue sap and the catalytic residue from the Spheres.
I fumble in my pack, praying the bottles didn’t shatter in the run from the lab.
My fingers find the emergency kit—a roll of absorbent pads, a half-used vial of potassium nitrate, and the last, precious sample of blue resin from the tree at the settlement perimeter.
I rip the top off the resin, douse the pad, and sprinkle the nitrate over it. It hisses, the heat spiking in my palm.
Maven watches, mouth open. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Disrupting the hunt,” I say, and stuff the pad into the crook of a branch five meters behind us. “If we’re lucky, it’ll screw their scent mapping.”
Maven’s eyes go wide. “If we’re not?”
I don’t answer, because by then, the Ghouls are moving.
The one in the tree drops, lands on all fours, then snaps upright and strides forward.
It’s more human than I remembered—face sunken, jaw dislocated, but the arms and hands still shaped for tool use.
It’s naked, skin mottled with old burns and fresh scars, a lattice of black veins running from collarbone to wrist. The eyes are blue, but not in a way I’ve ever seen before.
There’s no iris, no white—just a solid orb, glowing faintly with the same energy as the Spheres.
It smells the resin, sniffs once, then recoils. The noise it makes is less a scream and more a protest—a child denied a toy. The others echo it, and for a moment, they hesitate.
Maven grabs my wrist. “Now,” they say, and we run.
We make it fifty meters before the pad’s effect wears off.
Then the Ghouls are behind us, loping with a terrifying silence, their feet barely touching the ground.
I count the seconds between each bark, calculating speed and trajectory, but it’s a lost cause.
they’re not operating on time, or space, but on the certainty of the kill.
We hit the edge of a dry irrigation ditch and Maven shoves me in first, rolling over the lip and dragging me into the tangle of dead vines at the base.
The impact knocks the breath out of me, but I keep my hand locked on the pendant.
The first Ghoul slides into the ditch without a sound, landing a meter from my face.
It doesn’t look at me. It looks past me, at Maven, and tilts its head in the universal gesture of “this is going to hurt.”
I think of the flashback again—what did I use in the lab? A solvent. Something basic. I fish the Sphere fragment from my pocket, crack it against the stone, and let the dust scatter into the air. The Ghoul inhales, staggers, then reels back.
Maven has a knife, but it’s little more than a glorified can opener.
They slash at the Ghoul’s arm, opening a shallow cut that leaks black fluid.
The Ghoul screams, high and bright. The sound draws the others.
I mash the Sphere dust into the wound, hoping the chemistry will slow the spread.
It doesn’t. The Ghoul wrenches away, but now it’s angry, not cautious. It barrels into Maven, claws extended.
Maven fights like a cornered rat, going for the eyes, the throat, anything soft. I jump on the Ghoul’s back, grab a handful of hair, and jam the RadShield pendant against its neck. The blue glow flares, then sparks, and for a split second the Ghoul freezes, paralyzed by the overload.
We tumble in a heap, three bodies and a chaos of limbs.
I lose track of who is who until Maven yells, “Now!” and I roll off, scraping my hands bloody on the concrete.
The Ghouls regroup, three of them now, all circling the ditch with a weird, predator patience.
They’re waiting for us to make the next move.
I know there’s no escape. The only option is to try the resin trick again. I crack the second vial, drench another pad, and throw it at the nearest Ghoul. It catches it, sniffs, and for a second I think it’ll work. Then the Ghoul grins, wide and broken, and stuffs the pad into its mouth.
Maven’s face goes pale. “They’re learning.”
The Ghouls charge.
I have one shot left—the last Sphere fragment, the one that burned me in the lab.
I bite the pain, snap it in half, and lob the shards at the first Ghoul’s eyes.
The blue light detonates, filling the ditch with a blinding, electric haze.
The Ghouls screech, retreating, but the one with the pad in its mouth just stands there, grinning, eyes blazing with new intelligence.
“We’re dead,” Maven says.
I don’t argue. I curl up, arms over my head, and wait for the pain.
But it doesn’t come. Not at first.
Instead, there’s a new sound—the sharp, mechanical bark of a drone, slicing through the night. The Ghouls freeze, then scatter, vanishing into the trees like they’d never existed.
The ditch goes silent.
I look at Maven. Their face is cut, bleeding, but their eyes are alive. “You did it,” they say, voice shaking.
“No,” I say. “We survived. There’s a difference.”
In the distance, the drone keeps barking. And for the first time, I hope it’s Authority, not something worse. We crawl out of the ditch, dragging our packs and our battered bodies behind us. The trees are thinning, the lights of the settlement ahead.
Behind us, the Ghouls wait. They’re patient. They know we’ll be back.
And so do I.