Wings to the Kingdom (Eden Moore 2)

The soldier crouched down. He crooked his neck and looked intently at the army-green flashlight Benny was holding, although it was switched off. He seemed to give the object some consideration, then took one translucent hand and placed it over the unlit bulb, covering it completely. With the other hand, he indicated the Marshalls.

Two dull scrapes, one after the other, suggested the swisher was moving again—and this time, the Marshalls heard him.

“Oh, God. Who’s there?” Dana asked, and for the first time I heard a real touch of fear in her words. The undead she could handle without any trouble, but the living were another story.

Click.

“Oh, God. ” Someone else said it this time, one of the men.

Benny gasped.

I clutched his arm, and the ghost clutched at his light—covering the lens with both hands and regarding me frantically. The time for thinking was past. Someone had cocked a weapon, and all bets were off.

“Stay down!” I commanded my comrades as I leaped to my feet. I suddenly understood the dead man’s message, and whispering wasn’t going to do anyone any good anymore.

“Marshalls!” I yelled as loud as I could. “Turn your lights off! Now!”

The cocked weapon fired, as loud as any musket and a dozen times as deadly. The blast came from in front of me and to my right. A few trees away, bark splintered and cracked.

I ducked back down to the ground just as the screaming started.

One lamp went out immediately, the light blob that marked the investigators shrinking by half, but the other stayed lit, and held aloft. The carrier started to run with the lamp, and what had previously been difficult to make out became a wild shadow-puppet theater of confusion.

Another shot rang out, then two more in quick succession.

The remaining light fell to the ground and shattered, eliminating the only clear target on the field. I hoped it had only been intentionally dropped, but I feared otherwise. I wished to God the fog would clear so that we would only be fighting the night for navigation. The fog and the darkness together were impenetrable and terrifying.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. ” Benny was scrambling on the ground, trying to gain his footing.

“Quiet!” I ordered, turning around to see what was happening. A fifth shot aimed itself in our direction. Behind me I heard the ping of a ricochet and felt something savage and hot streak across my collarbone. I grasped at the line of fire just south and right of my throat, a

nd it was wet there. In contrast to the cold mist, the blood felt like lava on my shirt. I was bleeding on Dave’s camera.

Shot number six went back towards the place where the Marshalls had been sitting ducks half a minute before.

There was running, and scuffling, and frightened wheezing—and these sounds were beginning to scatter. The group was breaking up, which, though unplanned, was surely wise.

“Tripp?”

“Tripp?”

“Dana?”

“Charlie, where’s Tripp?”

Clatter, clatter, spin, plunk. Plunk. Plunk.

He was reloading. It was only a six-shooter.

“We have to move. We have to run,” I said, pushing the boys apart, accidentally shoving Jamie into a tree trunk. “Split up. Now. Meet back at Ted’s place. Whoever gets there first calls the cops. ”

I didn’t have to tell them twice, which made me think that neither of them had seen that I was bleeding. I didn’t believe for a moment that they would’ve left so easily if they’d known I was hurt.

I held still and leaned against the backside of the handiest tree, placing it between me and the shooter. The boys ran in opposite directions, crashing into every low-hanging limb, stump, rock, and root that was in their way. It’s not easy running through the woods in the dark, and it’s even tougher running through the woods, in the dark, in the fog, across uneven ground.

Harder still was running in the woods, in the dark, in the fog, across uneven ground, while wounded and holding my breath. Counting. Trying to calm myself down, even as I heard “plunk” number six and the steel wheel snapping back into place.

I closed my eyes and slid down, pressing my hands against the soaked spot on my chest. The ghost came up again and knelt beside me, looking at the injury and giving me a concerned expression that was kind, if not helpful. He stood again and parted his jacket so I could see the great red wound it concealed. I stared at the ancient injury with a special kind of horror, knowing that a gut shot would not have killed him quickly.