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Deep RED. Paul Kane
Читать онлайн.Название Deep RED
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781788580144
Автор произведения Paul Kane
Жанр Ужасы и Мистика
Издательство Ingram
Running, back to the motel room. Not away from the chaos this time but towards it, back to try and save the one man she’d loved more than anything in this world. Tom. Hunter. The man she’d just spent the most magical night of her life with except he was—
Back at the cabin, where her Gramma had met her end. Blood everywhere; red everywhere. He’d bought her the time to escape, to flee. Used that axe of his to distract the creature who’d been pretending to be her kin. Sacrificed himself so that she could get away, only the thing had chased her anyway once it was done with him. Chased her through the woods, through the generations, until it found her again. Until she’d come back full circle to the cabin, the flat, the motel room. So long ago, and yet no time at all. Different lives, different times.
It was almost time ...
All so confusing, so confused. A jumble in her mind. The only thing she was certain of was that she had to run, to get away before—
No, wait, she’d won! She’d defeated the creature ... hadn’t she? That’s what she thought. Yes, she’d defeated him—taken the monster on and beaten the thing. Only for the whole world to go to Hell after that, their progeny taking over.
She hadn’t stopped anything, hadn’t really won at all. The only good thing to come out of all this was—
Run! Run Little Red, as fast as you can!
And she was, again, through the green with something chasing her. How could it be chasing her when it was dead? When she’d killed it?
Already dead, just too stubborn to admit it. Too afraid.
Should she risk a glance, just a peek? She shook her head, she didn’t want to see because then she’d know for sure. Then she’d have to admit it to herself. That she was losing control, losing her grip. Losing her ... mind? It was a wonder that hadn’t gone a long time ago. Sometimes, moving from place to place—running again—she had to wonder whether she’d already gone stark, staring mad. Wonder whether this wasn’t all some dream, some nightmare she was unable to wake up from. On the run from the authorities, from people she owed money to, from ... everyone.
Running, always running. Perhaps that was it, she’d been doing that for so long she didn’t know how to stop.
You have to make sure, she said to herself. Take a look and make sure there’s nothing behind you, nothing following. Make sure you’re safe.
So she did. She turned, then let out a breath this time—not because she was exhausted, but through sheer relief. There was nothing out in the darkness, in that dark green through the branches. Nothing following, nothing hunting her.
Then she saw it: Red.
A red spot, a crimson circle. Only small, but it was there. A single red ... No, not single. There were two of them now, quite close together. A pair of eyes; glowing red eyes. She almost screamed. It was still behind her, was still following after all these years. Wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be possible! She’d—
Two more of them appeared, not far away from the first set. As if they’d only just sensed her, only just spotted that she was ahead of them. Moments later another pair of eyes opened, then another, and another.
She wanted to scream now, long and loud. Wanted to scream at them to stay away, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t find her voice. Ten, twenty, thirty ... she was losing count now. So many eyes out there in the woods, just staring at her. There were more eyes than trees now, surely? Just watching her intently, waiting for ... for what? For her to make some kind of move; to even twitch. And then they’d be on her.
They’d strike.
Was she going to give them that satisfaction? Let them just have her? Shouldn’t have stopped running, should just have kept going. But it wasn’t too late, was it? She could turn and start again, try and escape. And that’s just what she did, whirling around as fast as she could, facing front again ...
Except the eyes were there as well. Ahead of her as well as behind. The future and the past. There was no escaping them, there never had been. That had been the real dream, thinking she ever could.
Quickly she looked left and right. Of course they were there as well, the red orbs securitising her, boring into her.
She had seconds, if that. Had to think of a way out of this. Not just stand there trying to cry out, letting them devour her. Like the last time. Like one of their kind had, although that bastard had regretted it in the end. Okay, let them come—she’d fight them. As weak as she was, she’d—
That was when they struck. All of them, all at once. Descending on her, tearing into her with claws and teeth. Ripping her limb from limb, the pain incredible.
She screamed then. The longest and loudest scream she’d ever managed in her life.
Screamed until ...
... suddenly she opened her own eyes, right here, in the real world. If you could call it that. Screaming at the faces that surrounded her, that always did, day after day after day.
Faces that, more often that not, also had glowing eyes. Glowing eyes that were a deep shade of red.
He was surrounded, those red eyes out there in the darkness.
Not just him, but the others who had managed to escape as well. Trooper Andrew ‘Angel’ Southland (named by his mother, who always called him her little Angel) looked about him at what actually remained of those survivors. He could count them on the fingers of two hands ... barely. All that was left of an outpost which had boasted more than fifty people, most of them fighters like himself; thank Christ there hadn’t been any children at that station! Nobody had been expecting the sneak attack, there had been no warning—their lookouts killed before anything could be done to raise an alarm.
They’d come through the back way, through an underground system they shouldn’t even know about. Clawing left and right, biting and ripping apart anyone who stood in their way until the walls were painted with blood. Forcing the humans there to the surface, into the twilight, where more of their kind were waiting. Angel had been proud of the way his men had fought, in those close quarters beneath the ground, then on the surface; facing an overwhelming number of mutts.
A massacre, that’s what this was. An attempt—a successful one—to totally obliterate 5C. To wipe it off the face of the Earth. He and those who’d crawled away from there, others giving them covering fire—sacrificing themselves so that they could escape—had run. Though he wasn’t leader material or anything, Angel had taken charge of the rag-tag team that was in total disarray; no sergeants, captains or majors left to dish out orders. And they’d tried to get away, only to be chased down the war-torn streets. Their enemy had finally cornered them near a park, where there was really only one place to attempt a last stand: a burnt-out bus. With a nearby bit of metal, Angel had levered open the emergency door at the back (if ever anything counted as an emergency, it was this) and ushered the others inside, waving his arm furiously until there was only him left. Then he’d joined them as they’d taken up positions at the windows—or what had once been windows at any rate. Relieved of their glass, they at least made decent gun placements.
It was from one of those that Angel now witnessed the approach of the dogs. He rushed to the other side of the bus, saw they were there too. A quick glance through the back and front ‘windows’ also confirmed that they were circling the old vehicle. There was no way out, he and the survivors were surrounded—just like in those old westerns he used to watch with his brother. An older brother who’d been killed in one of the first waves of attacks when those freaks rose up. The passing thought made him mad, chased away the fear mom-entarily.
“Pick your targets,” he called to the other troopers in the bus, knowing they only had a limited amount of ammo left.