Read Shock (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 2) for Free Online

falling, landing in a heap.
    Now there other noises. Noises that made something in Daley Williams scream until his head hurt. And then he could smell them, and the creature that had been Daley Williams was up on its feet, charging forward, roaring.
     
    *
     
    Just a kid , John thought as he scrambled clear of the ladder and swept up one of the knives from the kitchen counter, burying it in the charging thing’s forehead. That was somebody’s fucking kid.
    S creaming above, getting closer. Fucking Ash had killed them all.
    Screaming behind now: Jeff, finally giving up on the struggle to keep his mind intact. Ash was still on the ladder, looking up, all blood drained from his face, John peered down at him, mouth open, and no idea what words were going to fall out.
    And then it hit him.
    The well .
    Suddenly, the thing that had seemed off about this place was glaringly obvious: Victor had built it to defend against humans. Against intelligent beings with the desire and the patience to get in. He had to know that sooner or later such an attack would succeed, no matter how many traps he placed in the forest above.
    He had a nother way out.
    The human brain can simultaneously c arry out millions of calculations. At that precise moment in time John’s brain only needed to process one. There were three men in the bunker. There was no way three men were going to get out. But two might stand a chance, if something bought them a little time. Or some body .
    His body was already performing the manoeuvre before his mind gave it the green light: feet moving by muscle memory, the sole of his right firmly planted, the sole of his left snapping through Jeff’s knee, sending the Captain crashing to the ground.
    “Go!” John screamed at Ash, “Down!”
    For a beat Ash stared at him, dumbstruck.
    Jeff’s screams of pain filled the tiny space.
    “GO!”
    Ash’s face disappeared down to the level below.
    John ignored the ladder, dropping down to the next floor, trusting his knees to take the impact, taking off again before his joints could even send a word of complaint to his mind; sprinting across to the next hole before Ash could get to it, leaping down again.
    Above him, John heard Jeff’s scream of pain and fury become something altogether more unsettling, something twisted, almost inhuman in its unbridled terror.
    The well was covered by a large wooden slab. John grasped it and heaved ; every muscle in his body working in perfect, panicked harmony, sending the thing crashing to the floor with a solid thud.
    And there it was, salvation dropping down into the earth. A ladder, dropping some twenty feet to an opening in the wall of the shaft. A passage. The way out. John felt giddy with relief. He leapt onto the ladder and slid, feeling the thing tremble as Ash’s weight hit it above him.
    And then he was off the cold metal and in the dark passage, as blind as the poor bastards now filling the bunker above them, but still moving forward.
    Behind him, John heard the familiar metallic snick , and suddenly the soft light emanating from Ash’s lighter pushed back the blackness. The lighter had not been the reason John had picked Ash, of course, but it proved a handy bonus.
    The two men stopped for a moment, listenin g. Nothing had entered the well shaft behind them. If they remained silent, there was every chance the creatures would stumble around up there forever without ever discovering their escape route.
    John examined his new surroundings: a narrow passage cut into the rock. The first few feet were clearly manmade, smooth and straight. Beyond that, the dim light revealed a more natural-looking path, a narrow space between sharp, jagged walls.
    John motioned to Ash to pass him the lighter, put a finger to his lips, an d waved at the pilot to follow.
    They moved slowly, for what felt like an eternity, until at l ast John realised he could feel a cool breeze on his sweat-drenched face. Moments later, he heard the rumbling roar of the