Burial Ground

II

11:10 p.m.

Merritt inhaled the fresh air as he slipped past Galen into the spray of water. He stepped out from behind the waterfall and eased along the rock ledge, which was barely wide enough to accommodate his feet. He leaned back against the cliff and inched sideways. The cries of the creatures reverberated through the valley from where he could see their dark forms racing up the fallen section of the northern wall. Two men stood on the precipice, holding each other close as though in an intimate embrace. A heartbeat later, one of them was flying out over the nothingness. The advancing creatures leapt toward the falling man, colliding with him in midair and tumbling down the mound of bricks in a maelstrom of slashing claws and glinting teeth. An arm flopped several feet away from the melee. The ferocity with which they tore the man apart was terrifying. He had never seen anything like it. In a matter of seconds, there would be nothing left of the carcass.

Their window of opportunity was rapidly closing. The creatures would only be distracted for so much longer, and he couldn't afford to take the chance that their primal bloodlust would be sated.

The man above the fracas looked directly at him before turning away and merging with the forest, the black paint blending into the shadows.

"Hurry!" Merritt called back to Galen and Sam, who shuffled along the ledge behind him.

Below, the water crashed onto the rocks with the sound of thunder. The mist and white spray made it impossible to tell how far down the river might be, but if they slipped, they would surely be killed on the breakers. Ahead, the creatures savaged the man's remains no more than fifty yards away from where their treacherous path let out onto flat ground. They wouldn't have a prayer of getting past the flock, nor would they be able to survive a leap into the rapids from here. There was no possible way they could scale the fortification and sneak unnoticed into the fortress, and turning around to seek refuge in the lair of the beasts was suicide. He was out of incendiary grenades and didn't have a single bullet left for the rifle he had already abandoned in the cave anyway. That left only one possible means of escape.

They were going to have to follow the edge of the high bank toward the creatures in hopes of distancing themselves far enough from the rocks to risk leaping down into the river. If they could keep from drowning, they might be able to reach the shore downstream and pull themselves onto land. If not, at least he had a pretty good idea where their bloated corpses would end up.

As soon as there was solid ground below him, he jumped down into the mud. He barely managed to stay on his feet. The impact made every cut on his skin issue fresh blood. It felt as though they had pulled even wider, but there was no time to indulge the pain. Through the fracas of feathered bodies, he could already see sections of bare white bone. The carcass was running out of flesh to hold the attention of the monsters, which threw their heads back and choked down the bloody morsels with staggering speed.

He glanced back and grabbed Sam's hand as she splashed down into the muck.

Galen fell to all fours in the mire right behind her and fought to right himself again.

"Don't let go of my hand!" Merritt said. "Whatever happens, just hold on."

He urged her forward, slipping while simultaneously helping her maintain her balance. They needed to shoot for another dozen yards and hope that would be far enough to clear the worst of the rocks.

A skree summoned his attention back to the congregation of blood-soaked creatures. One of them had turned in their direction. Merritt caught a flash of eyeshine before it opened its mouth and issued a horrible cry. Other sets of eyes snapped in their direction, snouts dripping with blood and clots of flesh.

They weren't going to make it.