CHAPTER 31
ANOTHER ROAR CUTS THROUGH THE NIGHT AIR. through the walls of the school, a roar that makes my blood turn cold. The ground begins to rumble under the
footsteps of the beast that must now be on the loose. I shake my head. I saw firsthand how big they were during the flashbacks of the war on Lorien.
"For your friends' sake and ours," Six says, "we better get the hell out of this school while there's still time. They'll destroy the entire building trying
to get to us."
We nod to one another.
"Our only hope is to get to the woods," Henri says. "Whatever that thing is, we might be able to escape it if we can stay invisible."
Six nods. "Just keep ahold of my hands."
Needing no other motivation than that, Henri and I each take a hand.
"As quietly as we can," Henri says.
The hallway is dark and silent. We walk with a quiet urgency, moving as swiftly as we can while making little noise. Another roar, and in the middle
of it, another roar begins. We stop. Not one beast, but two. We continue on and enter the gymnasium. No sign of the scouts. When we reach the very
center of the court, Henri stops. I look over but can't see him.
"Why are we stopped?" I whisper.
"Shh," he says. "Listen."
I strain to listen, but hear nothing aside from the steady hum of blood filling my ears.
"The beasts have stopped moving," Henri says.
"So what?"
"Shh," he says. "There's something else out there."
And then I hear it too, slight high-pitched yipping sounds as though coming from small animals. The sounds are muffled, though obviously growing
louder.
"What the hell?" I ask.
Something begins banging at the stage hatch, the hatch we are hoping to escape through.
"Turn your lights on," he says.
I let go of Six's hand, snap them on, and aim them towards the stage. Henri looks down the end of the shotgun barrel. The hatch bounces up as
though something is trying to force itself through but lacks the strength to do so. The weasels, I think, the stout-bodied little creatures that the guys in
Athens were terrified of. One of them hits the hatch so hard that it breaks away from the stage and rattles across the floor. So much for thinking they
lacked strength. Two of them come bursting forth, and upon catching sight of us, come racing our way so swiftly that I can hardly make them out. Henri
stands watching with the gun aimed, an amused grin on his face. Their paths diverge and both leap from about twenty feet away, one jumping at Henri, the
other coming at me. Henri fires once and the weasel explodes and covers him with its blood and guts; and just as I'm about to rip apart the second with
telekinesis, it is snatched out of midair by Six's unseen hand and spiked to the ground like a football, killing it instantly.
Henri cocks the shotgun. "Well, that wasn't so bad," he says, and before I can respond, the entire wall along the stage is smashed in by the fist of a
beast. It draws back and punches again, smashing the stage to smithereens and exposing the night sky. The impact pushes both Henri and me
backwards.
"Run!" Henri yells, and he immediately unloads every shell in the shotgun into the beast. They have no effect upon it. The beast leans forward and
roars so loudly that I feel my clothes flutter. A hand reaches out and grabs hold of me, turning me invisible. The beast charges ahead, moving straight for
Henri, and I'm gripped with terror at what it might do.
"No!" I scream. "To Henri, get to Henri!" I twist under Six's grip, finally grabbing hold of her and pushing her away. I become visible; she stays
hidden. The beast surges towards Henri, who stands firm and watches it come. Out of bullets. Out of options. "Get to him!" I scream again. "Get to him,
Six!"
"Go to the woods!" she yells back.
All I can do is watch. The beast must stand thirty feet tall, maybe forty, towering over Henri. It roars, pure wrath in its eyes. Its muscled and bulging
fist rushes high in the air, so high that it breaks straight through the rafters and the roof of the school gymnasium. And then it falls, speeding down with such
swiftness that it becomes a blur, like the blades of a spinning fan. I cry out in horror, knowing that Henri is about to be crushed. I can't look away, Henri
seeming tiny standing there with the shotgun limply at his side. When the fist of the beast is a split second from him, Henri disappears. The fist crashes
through the gymnasium floor, the wood splintering, the impact sending me crashing into the stands twenty feet away. The beast turns to me, blocking from
view the place where Henri had just stood.
"Henri!" I yell. The beast roars so that any response that might have come is drowned out. It takes one step towards me. To the woods, Six had
said. Go to the woods. I stand and run as fast as I can to the back of the gym, where the beast had just broken through. I turn to see if the beast is
following. It is not. Perhaps Six has done something to divert its attention. All I know is that I'm on my own now, alone.
I leap over the pile of rubble and sprint away from the school, running as hard as I can for the woods. The shadows swarm around me, following
like villainous wraiths. I know that I can outrun them. The beast roars and I hear another wall crumble. I reach the trees and the swarming shadows seem to
have disappeared. I stop and listen. The trees sway under a light breeze. There is a wind here! I've escaped whatever dome the Mogadorians have
created. Something warm collects at the waistband of my pants. The cut I suffered at Mark James's has reopened on my back.
The school's silhouette is faint from where I stand. The entire gymnasium is gone, a pile of brick. The beast's shadow stands tall in the rubble of
the cafeteria. Why hasn't it run after me? And where is the second beast we all heard? The beast's fist falls again, another room demolished. Mark and
Sarah are there somewhere. I told them to go back and I realize how foolish it was. I didn't anticipate the beast destroying the school if it knew I wasn't
there. I have to do something to get the beast away. I take a deep breath to gather my strength, and as soon as I take that first step, something hard hits
me in the back of the head. I fall face-first into the mud. I touch where I've been hit and my hand is covered in blood, drips of it falling from my fingertips. I
turn around and see nothing at first, and then it steps out of the shadows and grins.
A soldier. This is what they look like. Taller than the scouts--seven, maybe eight feet tall--its muscles bulging beneath a black ragged cloak. Large,
raised veins traverse the length of each arm. Black boots. Nothing covering its head, and its hair falling to its shoulders. The same pale, waxy skin as the
scouts. A grin of self-assurance, of finality. In one of its hands is a sword. Long and shimmering, made of some kind of metal I've never seen here on Earth
scouts. A grin of self-assurance, of finality. In one of its hands is a sword. Long and shimmering, made of some kind of metal I've never seen here on Earth
or in my visions of Lorien, and it appears to be pulsing, as if it is somehow alive.
I begin to crawl away, the blood dripping down my neck. The beast at the school lets out another roar, and I reach for the low branches of a nearby
tree and pull myself up. The soldier is ten feet away. I grip both hands into fists. It motions the sword nonchalantly towards me, and something comes out
of its tip, something that looks like a small dagger. I watch the dagger twist in an arc, leaving a slight trail behind it like smoke from a plane. The light casts
a spell that I can't look away from.
A flash of bright light devours everything, the world dimming away into a soundless void. No walls. No sound. No floor or ceiling. Very slowly the
shapes of things return, the trees standing like ancient effigies whispering of the world that once was in some alternate realm where only shadows reside.
I reach out to feel the nearest tree, the only touch of gray in an otherwise white world. My hand goes through it and for a moment the tree shimmers
as if it were liquid. I take a deep breath. When I exhale the pain returns to the gash on the back of my head and the tears down my arms and body from the
James house fire. A sound of dripping water comes from somewhere. Slowly, the soldier takes form, twenty or thirty feet away. Giantlike. We take each
other in. Its sword glowing more brightly in this new world. Its eyes narrow and my hands again clench into fists. I've lifted objects far heavier than it; I've
split trees and I've caused destruction. Surely I can match its strength with my own. I push everything that I feel into the core of my being, everything that I
am and everything that I will be, until I feels as though I'm about to burst.
"Yahhhh!" I yell, and I thrust my arms forward. The brute force leaves my body, raging towards the soldier. At the same time it sweeps the sword
across its body as though swatting a fly. The power deflects into the trees, which dance for a brief moment like the grain in a wheat field waving in a light
wind, and then they become still. It laughs at me, a deep, guttural laugh meant to taunt. Its red eyes begin to glow, swirling as though lava filled. It lifts its
free hand and I tense myself against the unknown. And without my knowing what has happened, my throat is in its grip, the gap that had separated us
closed in the blink of an eye. It lifts me, one handed, breathing with its mouth open so that I can smell the sour stench of its breath, the smell of decay. I
thrash, try to pry its fingers from around my throat, but they are like iron.
And then it throws me.
I land on my back forty feet away. I stand and it charges, swinging the sword at my head, which I duck and counter by pushing it as hard as I can. It
stumbles back but stays standing. I try to lift it with telekinesis but nothing happens. In this alternate world my powers are dimmed, almost ineffectual. The
Mogadorian has the advantage here.
It smiles at my futility and raises the sword with both hands. The sword comes alive, turning from shimmering silver into ice blue. Blue flames lick
across the blade. A sword that glows with power, just as Six had talked about. It swings the sword in my direction and another dagger comes flying off the
tip, straight at me. This I can do, I think. All the hours in the backyard with Henri preparing for this very thing. Always the knives, more or less the same as
a dagger. Did Henri know they would use them? Certainly, though in my flashbacks of the invasion I had never seen them. But I had never seen these
creatures, either. They were different on Lorien, not quite as sinister looking. On the day of the invasion they looked sickly and starved. Is it Earth's fault for
this convalescence, have the resources here caused them to grow stronger and healthier?
The dagger literally screams as it rages towards me. It grows and becomes consumed in flames. Just when I am about to deflect it, it explodes
into a ball of fire, and the flames jump to me. I'm trapped within it, consumed in a perfect sphere of fire. Anyone else would burn, but not me, and somehow
it causes my strength to return. I'm able to breathe. Without the soldier knowing it, it has made me stronger. Now it's my turn to smile at its own futility.
"Is this all you've got?" I yell.
Its face turns into rage. It defiantly reaches one hand over its shoulder and returns with a cannonlike gun that begins conforming to its body, the gun
wrapping around its forearm. Its arm and the gun becoming one and the same. I pull the knife from my back pocket, the knife that I grabbed from home
before returning to school. Small, ineffectual, but better than nothing. I open the blade and charge. The ball of fire charges with me. The soldier squares its
body and brings down its sword with force. I deflect it with the pocketknife but the weight of the sword snaps the blade in two. I drop the remaining pieces
and swing as hard as I can. My fist slams into the soldier's gut. It doubles over but comes right back up and swings the sword again. I duck beneath the
blade at the last second. It singes the hair on top of my head. Right behind the sword comes the cannon. No time to react. It hits me in my shoulder and I
grunt and fall backwards. The soldier regroups and points the cannon in the air. I'm confounded at first. The gray from the trees is being pulled away and
sucked into the gun. Then I understand. The gun. It needs to be charged before it can be fired, needs to steal Earth's essence in order to be used. The
gray in the trees isn't shadows; the gray is the life of the trees at its most elemental level. And now those lives are being stolen, consumed by the
Mogadorians. A race of aliens that depleted their planet's resources in the quest for advancement, now doing the same thing here. That is the reason they
attacked Lorien. The same reason they will attack Earth. One by one the trees fall and crumble into heaps of ash. The gun glows brighter and brighter, so
bright that it hurts the eyes to look at. No time to spare.
I charge. It keeps the gun pointed at the sky and swings the sword. I duck and plow straight into it. Its body tenses and it writhes in agony. The fire
surrounding me burns it where it stands. But I've left myself open. It swings the blade feebly, not enough to cut me, but there is nothing I can do to prevent
its fall. It hits me and my body is hurled backwards fifty feet as though I've been struck by a bolt of lightning. I lie there, my body shaking with
postelectrocution tremors. I lift my head. Thirty piles of ash from the fallen trees surround us. How many times will that allow him to fire? A slight wind kicks
up and the ash begins filtering across the empty space between us. The moon returns. This world to which it has brought me is beginning to fail. It knows
it. The gun is ready. I wrestle myself up from the ground. Sitting a couple feet away, still glowing, is one of the daggers it fired at me. I pick it up.
It lowers the cannon and aims. The white surrounding us is beginning to dim, color returning. And then the cannon fires, a bright flash of light
containing the ghoulish forms of everyone I have ever known--Henri, Sam, Bernie Kosar, Sarah--all of them dead in this alternate realm and the light so
bright that they are all I can see, trying to take me with them, raging forward in a ball of energy growing as it nears. I try to deflect the blast but it's too
strong. The white makes it as far as the fiery enclosure, and when the two touch an explosion erupts and the power sends me backwards. I land with a
thud. I take inventory. I am unharmed. The ball of fire has extinguished. Somehow it has absorbed the blast, has saved me from what I am certain would
have been death. Surely that is how the cannon works, the death of one thing for the death of another. The power of mind control, manipulation that plays
on fear, possible through the destruction of the elements of the world. The scouts have learned to do this weakly with their minds. The soldiers rely on
weapons that produce a much greater effect.
I stand, the glowing knife still in my hand. The soldier pulls some sort of lever on the side of the cannon as though to reload it. I sprint towards it.
When I'm close enough, I aim for its heart and hurl the knife as hard as I can. It fires a second shot. A torpedo of orange raging its way, the certainty of a
white death coming mine. They cross in midair without touching. Just when I expect that second shot to hit, to bring upon that death, something else
happens instead.
My knife strikes first.
The world vanishes. The shadows fade and the cold and the dark return as though they had never left. A vertiginous transition. I take a step
backwards and fall. My eyes adjust to the dearth of light. I fix them on the dark figure of the soldier hovering over me. The cannon blast didn't travel with us.
The glowing knife did, the blade sunk deeply into its heart, the handle pulsating orange beneath the moonlight overhead. The soldier staggers, and then
the knife is sucked in deeper and disappears. It grunts. Spurts of black blood pump from the open wound. Its eyes go blank, then roll back into its head. It
falls to the ground, lies motionless, and then explodes into a cloud of ash that covers my shoes. A soldier. I've killed my first. May it not be the last.
Something about being in the alternate realm has weakened me. I place my hand on a nearby tree to steady myself and catch my breath, only the
tree is no longer there. I look around. All the trees surrounding us have collapsed into heaps of ash just as they did in the other realm, just as the
Mogadorians do when they die.
I hear the roar of the beast and I look up to see how much of the school is left standing. But instead of the school there is something else, fifteen
feet away, standing tall with a sword in one hand and a similar-looking cannon in the other. The cannon is aimed right at my heart, a cannon that has
already been charged, glowing with power. Another soldier. I don't think I have the strength to fight this one as I did the last.
There is nothing I can throw, and the gap between us is too great to charge before it fires. And then its arm twitches and the sound of a gunshot
rings through the air. My body instinctively jerks, expecting the cannon to rip me in half. But I am fine, unharmed. I look up confused, and there, in the
soldier's forehead, is a hole the size of a quarter spurting its hideous blood. Then it drops and disintegrates.
"That's for my dad," I hear behind me. I turn. Sam, holding a silver pistol in his right hand. I smile at him. He lowers the gun. "They passed right
through the center of town," he says. "I knew it was them as soon as I saw the trailer."
I try to catch my breath, staring in awe at Sam's figure. Just moments before, in the first soldier's blast, he was a decaying corpse sprung from hell
to take me away. And now he just saved me.
"You okay?" he asks.
I nod. "Where did you just come from?"
"I followed them in my dad's truck after they passed my house. I pulled in fifteen minutes ago and got swarmed by the ones that were already here.
So I left and parked in a field a mile away and walked through the woods."
The second set of lights we had seen from the window of the school came from Sam's truck. I open my mouth to respond but a clap of thunder
shakes the sky. Another storm begins to brew, and relief courses through me that Six is still alive. A bolt of lightning cuts the sky and clouds begin rushing
in from all directions, being pulled together into one giant mass. An even greater darkness falls, followed by a rain so heavy that I have to squint to see
Sam five feet away from me. The school is blotted out. But then a great bolt of lightning strikes and everything brightens for a split second, and I see that
the beast has been hit. An agonizing roar follows.
"I have to get to the school!" I yell. "Mark and Sarah are somewhere inside."
"If you're going, then I'm going," he yells back over the rumble of the storm.
We take no more than five steps before the wind comes howling, pushing us back, torrential rain stinging our faces. We're soaked, shivering and
cold. But if I'm shivering then I know I'm alive. Sam drops to a knee, then lies on his stomach to keep from being blown backwards. I do the same. Through
squinted eyes I look into the clouds--heavy, dark, ominous--swirling in small concentric circles and, in the center, the center I'm trying mightily to reach, a
face begins to form.
It's an old, weathered face, bearded, tranquil looking as though it sleeps. A face that looks older than Earth itself. The clouds begin to lower, slowly
nearing the surface and consuming everything, everything darkening, a dark so deep and impenetrable that it's hard to imagine that somewhere,
anywhere, a sun still exists. Another roar, a roar of anger and doom. I try to stand but am quickly knocked back down, the wind too great. The face. It's
coming alive. An awakening. The eyes opening, the face upturned into a grimace. Is this Six's creation? The face becomes the look of rage itself, a look
of revenge. Coming down fast. Everything seems to hang in the balance. And then the mouth opens, hungry, its lips curling to show teeth and its eyes
squinted in what can only be described as pure malice. A complete and utter wrath.
And then the face touches down and a sonic blast shakes the ground, an explosion reaching out over the school, everything illuminated in red,
orange, and yellow. I'm thrust backwards. Trees break in half. The ground rumbles. I land with a thud, branches and mud falling atop me. My ears ring as
they've never rung before. A boom so loud that it must have been heard fifty miles away. And then the rain stops, and everything falls silent.
I lie in the mud, listening to the beat of my heart. The clouds clear away, revealing a hanging moon. Not a single gust of wind. I look around but
don't see Sam. I yell for him but get no response. I yearn to hear something, anything, another roar, Henri's shotgun, but there is nothing.
I pull myself up off the forest floor, wipe away the mud and the twigs as best as I can. I exit the woods for the second time. The stars have
reappeared, a million of them twinkling high in the night sky. Is it over? Have we won? Or is it just a lull in the action? The school, I think. I have to get to the
school. I take one step forward, and that's when I hear it.
Another roar, coming from within the woods behind me.
Sound returns. Three successive gunshots ring through the night, echoing so that I have no idea from which direction they have come. I hope with
everything inside of me that they are from Henri's shotgun, that he is still alive, still fighting.
The ground begins to shake. The beast is on the run, coming for me, no mistaking it now, trees broken and uprooted behind me. They don't seem
to slow it down at all. Is this one even bigger than the other? I don't care to find out. I take off running for the school, but then realize that's the absolute
worst place I can go. Sarah and Mark are still there, still hiding. Or at least I hope they are.
Everything returns to the way it was before the storm, the shadows following, looming. Scouts. Soldiers. I veer to the right and sprint along the treelined
path that leads to the football field, the beast hot on my trail. Can I really expect to outrun it? If I can make it to the woods beyond the field, maybe I
can. I know those woods, the woods that lead to our house. Within them I'll have the home-field advantage. I look around and see the figures of the
Mogadorians in the schoolyard. There are too many of them. We're greatly outnumbered. Did we ever really believe we could win?
A dagger flies by me, a flash of red missing my face by mere inches. It sticks into the trunk of a tree beside me and the tree ignites in flame.
Another roar. The beast is keeping pace. Which of us has the greater endurance? I enter the stadium, sprint straight across the fifty-yard line and pass
through the visiting team's side. Another knife whizzes by, a blue one this time. The woods are near, and when I finally sprint into them a smile forms on my
face. I've led it away from the others. If everyone else is safe then I've done my job. Just when a sense of triumph blooms within me, the third dagger
strikes.
I cry out, fall face-first into the mud. I can feel the dagger between my shoulder blades. A pain so sharp that it paralyzes me. I try to reach to pull it
free but it is up too high. It feels as though it's moving, digging itself deeper, the pain spreading as if I've been poisoned. On my stomach, in agony. I can't
pull it free with telekinesis, my powers somehow failing me. I begin dragging myself forward. One of the soldiers--or maybe it's a scout; I can't tell which--
places a foot on my back, reaches down, and pulls the knife free. I grunt. The knife is gone but the pain stays. It takes its foot off of me but I can still feel its
presence, and I wrestle myself onto my back to face it.
Another soldier, standing tall and smiling with hatred. The same look as the one before, the same type of sword. The dagger that was in my back
twists in its grip. That is what I felt, the blade turning while imbedded in my flesh. I lift a hand towards the soldier to move it but I know it's in vain. I can't
focus, everything blurry. The soldier raises its sword in the air. The blade tastes death, starts glowing in the night sky behind it. I'm gone, I think. Nothing I
can do. I look into its eyes. Ten years on the run and this is how easily it ends, how quietly. But behind it lurks something else. Something far more
menacing than a million soldiers with a million swords. Teeth every bit as long as the soldier is tall, teeth glowing white in a mouth too small to hold them.
The beast with its evil eyes hovering over us.
A sharp intake of breath catches in my throat, and my eyes open wide in terror. It'll take us both out, I think. The soldier is oblivious. It tenses and
grimaces at me and starts to bring the sword down to split me in two. But it is too slow and the beast strikes first, its jaws clamping down like a bear trap.
The bite doesn't stop until the beast's teeth come together, the soldier's body cut cleanly in half just below the hips, leaving nothing behind but two stumps
still standing. The beast chews twice and swallows. The soldier's legs fall hollowly to the ground, one dropping to the right, the other to the left, and quickly
disintegrate.
It takes every ounce of strength I have to reach out and grab the dagger that has fallen at my feet. I tuck it into the waistband of my jeans, and begin
crawling away. I feel the beast hovering over me, feel its breath upon the nape of my neck. The smell of death and rotting meat. I enter a small clearing. I
expect the beast's wrath to fall any second, expect its teeth and claws to rip me to shreds. I pull myself forward until I can go no more, my back against an
oak tree. The beast stands in the very center of the clearing, thirty feet away from me. I look at it fully for the first time. A looming figure, hazy in the dark and
the cold of the night. Taller and bigger than the beast at the school, forty feet, standing upright on two hind legs. Thick, gray skin stretched tightly over slabs
of bulging muscle. No neck, its head sloped so that its lower jaw protrudes farther out than its upper. A set of fangs points towards the sky, another set
points to the ground, dripping blood and drool. Long, thick arms hang a foot or two above the ground even while the beast stands straight, giving it the
appearance of slightly leaning forward. Yellow eyes. Round disks at the sides of its head that pulsate with the beating of its heart, the only sign that it has
any sort of heart at all.
It leans forward and brings its left hand to the ground. A hand, complete with stubby short fingers with claws like a raptor, claws meant to rip apart
anything they touch. It sniffs at me, and roars. An ear-splitting roar that would have pushed me backwards if I weren't already against a tree. Its mouth
opens, showing what must be fifty other teeth, each one every bit as sharp as the next. Its free hand thrusts away from its side and splits in half every tree
that it strikes, ten, fifteen of them.
No more running. No more fighting. Blood from the knife wound runs down my back; my hands and legs are both shaking. The dagger is still
tucked into the waistband of my jeans, but what's the point in grabbing it? What faith is there in a four-inch blade against a forty-foot beast? It would be the
equivalent of a splinter. It'll only make it angrier. My only hope is to bleed to death before I am killed and eaten.
I close my eyes and accept death. My lights are off. I don't want to see what is about to happen. I hear movement behind me. I open my eyes. One
of the Mogadorians must be moving in for a closer look, I think at first, but I know immediately that I am wrong. There is something familiar about the loping
gait, something I recognize in the sound of his breathing. And then he enters the clearing.
Bernie Kosar.
I smile, but the smile quickly fades. If I am doomed, there is no point in him dying too. No, Bernie Kosar. You can't be here. You need to leave
and you need to run like the wind, get as far away as you can. Pretend you've just finished our early-morning jog to school and that it's time to return
home.
He looks at me as he walks up. I am here, he seems to say. I am here and I will stand with you.
"No," I say aloud.
He stops long enough to give my hand a reassuring lick. He looks up at me with his big, brown eyes. Get away, John, I hear in my mind. Crawl if
you have to crawl, but get away now. The blood loss has made me delusional. Bernie seems to be communicating with me. Is Bernie Kosar even here, or
am I imagining that as well?
He stands in front of me as though in protection. He begins to growl, low at first, but it grows to a growl every bit as ferocious as the beast's own
roar. The beast fixates on Bernie Kosar. A staredown. Bernie Kosar's hair is raised down the center of his back, his tan ears pinned to his head. His
loyalty, his bravery very nearly make me weep. He's a hundred times smaller than the beast yet he stands tall, vowing to fight. One quick strike from the
beast and all is done.
I reach my hand out to Bernie Kosar. I wish I could stand and grab him and get away. His growls are so fierce that his whole body shakes, tremors
coursing through him.
And then something begins to happen.
Bernie Kosar begins to grow.
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