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We emerged from the garden, immediately going left. Sticking together, we moved down the street, everyone on high alert. There were too many damned crevices between the buildings. Every time we approached one, I half-expected someone to jump out at us.
“The truck’s getting closer,” Gracelyn quietly pointed out, “and what sounds like a motorcycle.”
She was right, but where would they come from? Spotting the partial intersection a few feet ahead, I answered my own question.
“Goddammit!” Leonard suddenly yelled.
I twisted around, eyes instantly falling on the clown girl. How had she gotten behind us? Leonard urged Abby and Margo to move faster while she maintained a slow, lazy gait, her pickax hitched over her shoulder, balloons still in hand.
Much like a serial killer.
The screeching of tires had me facing frontward again, pulse jumping as a blacked-out box-styled truck came barreling through the intersection.
A matching motorcycle was seconds behind it, creating its own path as the truck did a sharp U-turn, nearly taking out one of the cars parked by a meter.
“This shit can’t be for real,” Ciaran monotoned.
“Do you need the same speech I gave the girls?” Kyrous asked.
Window facing our direction, the truck’s continuous melody filled the air.
Four people stared out at us, all donning dark hoodies, their faces obscured entirely. Each wore a different mask. Two were LED, pure black with blue and orange X’s marking where the eyes and mouths were.
Another was completely blank. The one that stood out from the rest was half white, the other half blacker than midnight, including the eyes. A distorted cross was painted dead in its center.
Whoever was driving couldn’t be seen. The truck’s windows were too dark. And the person on the bike had on a helmet that concealed their head entirely, a yellow smiley face painted over the tempered visor.
“Holy shit,” Mel breathed.
Grace grabbed our hands and squeezed, as if to say, “It’s going to be okay.”
She’d done the same when I saw the person in the window. I’d believed her then. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
“There’s more,” Charon stated, gesturing to either side of the street.
On the left, another figure stepped from a crevice, a spiked bat grasped within their gloved hands. To the right came another, this one holding an automatic bow-gun.
My palms began to sweat, my mouth drying out. Not from fear—this was something else entirely, something I didn’t want to usurp.
Behind us, clown girl began to drag the pickax along the cement, the sound akin to nails on a chalkboard.
“What do we do?” Abby cried, her voice shrill and high.
“We run,” Ciaran replied flippantly, “before they surround us.”
“Run where?”
“Away from them.”
He glanced at his friends, and then as if they’d agreed silently, they all took off.
“Great.”
“Go,” Mel implored, shoving me and Gracelyn forward.
It was like they were waiting on us to do just that. The person with the bow lifted it up and powered away, nearly taking out the side of Maverick’s face, just barely missing. He whooped out a taunt when the arrow smashed into a storefront instead, shattering the glass.
Once we bypassed them and the person with the bat, I veered towards the sidewalk to get around the truck. Our shoes slammed against the concrete, breaths coming fast and quick. The truck had yet to move. The masked figures remained where they were, watching us like we were rats in a maze.
“Look out!” Ciaran’s warning carried to the rest of us.
“For what?” Margo coughed, keeping up surprisingly well.
We ran by the truck and got our answer.
An engine revved—the motorcycle leapt forward, the driver holding some type of wound-up chain in one of his fists.
Abby screamed at the sight of him and drew back, bolting from one side of the sidewalk to the other with Leonard hot on her heels. He ignored them and got right behind the rest of our small group, easily and rapidly gaining on us.
My heart slammed against my ribcage, desperately close to smashing clean through.
Ciaran abruptly turned back, weaving around his friends to get to me.
“What are you doing?” I gasped.
“Making sure you stay alive,” he retorted, latching onto my arm.
I didn’t have a choice but to run faster. He would’ve dragged my ass otherwise. I made sure Gracelyn and Mel stayed close. I could hear the motorbike bearing down on us, the loud purr assaulting my ear drums.
“No!” Margo’s abrupt screech nearly caused me to trip over my own two feet. Susan’s followed, full of terror and pain. The motorcycle zipped by us, and I caught a glimpse of her being dragged behind it. The chain that had been around the biker’s fist now had one end wrapping her throat like a lasso.
“Wait,” I huffed, trying to slow down. Ciaran simply tightened his grip, forcing me to keep going.
The motorcycle veered to the right, going back into the street. It did a U-turn in the middle of the road before coming to a sudden stop. Susan’s body was flung across the tarmac like a ragdoll. Bloodied with noticeable patches of skin torn off, she tried to get up, yowling in pain.
