Read The Night Children for Free Online

dropped it and forced himself to stop, slamming the eight-round into the rifle and aiming it back the way they’d come as the others sprinted past. There was something there, in the snow, and he fired twice before fear drove him onward. Henry had stopped ahead, loosing cover fire from his own Garand. Donnie grabbed him by the collar, hauling him up.
    “Forget it, just go!”
    It sounded like there was a zoo behind them now, like every single animal had been woken—desperate grunts and excited shrieks and those same awful forlorn cries, so full of human grief, so much like a child, that Donnie almost stopped. Don’t, his mind ordered him, because those things, whatever they are, they are what killed Cuddy and cut off his face, they are what made stickmen out of your friends. And they’ll do the same to you if they catch you.
    He sped up, not caring that he might slip or hit a low branch in the unearthly gloom, just needing to be away from that clearing. He ran, they all ran, and the noises behind them grew quieter and more distant until they faded into the silence of the forest. He ran, wondering how he ever could have been frightened by the quiet when there were noises like those in the world. He kept running, running, running, so fast and so hard that he didn’t see the men in front of him until the butt of a rifle connected with his nose and the world exploded into a storm of black snow.