New Novel
Chapter 9: Mayham

Chapter 9: Mayham

Mara’s shoe made a wet peeling sound as she tried to wrench it free.

Rook saw the slime beneath her foot.

His expression changed from irritation to immediate alarm.

He seized her ankle.

Mara nearly cried out as he yanked her leg upward, but her shoe remained trapped against the ground. Her bare foot tore free of it instead.

Rook snatched the abandoned shoe from the slime.

The creature’s heads began to open their mouths.

He threw the shoe as hard as he could.

It sailed over the grass, struck the earth several dozen yards away and bounced once before disappearing.

The slime creature’s entire body twisted toward it.

Then every head inside the mass wailed.

The sound tore across the field.

It was not one voice. Hundreds screamed from within the slime, each at a different pitch. Some sounded furious, others terrified, and several laughed between broken shrieks as the creature surged toward Mara’s discarded shoe.

Rook stared after it.

Mara looked at him.

What happened next made hell feel like a cozy home.

The nearest Abominations answered the scream.

One roar became ten. Ten became hundreds.

The field erupted around them.

Creatures that had wandered without purpose suddenly charged toward the wailing mass. Grass flattened beneath thousands of limbs. Massive bodies collided with smaller ones and trampled them into the earth. Long shapes leapt above the field while crawling things tore through it from below.

The reaction travelled outward in a widening circle.

Every Abomination that heard the wail began moving toward it.

Toward the shoe.

Toward the scent of one of the newly dead.

Rook seized Mara around the waist and ran.

Her feet left the ground for the first several steps. Then he dropped her beside him without slowing, and the chain snapped taut between their wrists as she struggled to match his pace.

Mara did not scream.

She wanted to.

The field had become a stampede of teeth, claws and distorted flesh. Abominations thundered past them from every direction, all answering the same summons. Some came so close that their limbs brushed the grass beside her. One leapt directly over their heads, its belly covered in mouths that snapped at empty air.

Still, she did not scream.

The creatures were focused on the wail. Any sound from her would redirect them immediately. One frightened cry would tell the entire field that there was another piece of prey moving among them.

Mara held back her tears and ran.

Her remaining shoe struck the earth unevenly while her bare foot landed on stones, grass and patches of cold mud. Pain shot through her sole whenever something sharp cut into it, but the injury meant nothing compared to what chased the scent behind them.

She finally understood how deep in shit they were.

This was not a dangerous journey.

This was madness.

Rook had told her. The guards had warned him. Even the shopkeeper had looked at her with pity, and she had mistaken all of it for cowardice or an attempt to frighten her into surrendering.

Now thousands of Abominations were tearing through one another over her shoe.

Rook glanced over his shoulder and changed direction.

Mara followed without question.

Two immense creatures charged across their path. One resembled a malformed bull with human torsos growing from its back. The other was a sphere of exposed muscle rolling forward on a ring of arms.

Neither saw the other until they collided.

The impact shook the ground.

Both creatures bounced away from each other, crushing a dozen smaller Abominations between them and opening a narrow gap through the stampede.

Rook sprinted through it.

Mara ran behind him, ducking beneath a flailing limb and nearly losing her second shoe when something grasped at the grass beside her ankle. She tore free and continued, refusing to look back.

The wailing slime creature had reached the thrown shoe.

It folded over it like a wave.

The rest of the field descended upon the creature.

Abominations piled atop one another, biting, clawing and crushing anything between them and the scent. The slime spread beneath the mass, shrieking through every head trapped inside its body while more creatures continued arriving.

Rook and Mara fled the growing pile.

For several seconds, it seemed as though they might escape without being noticed.

Then something small came racing toward them.

It stood no taller than Mara’s waist, though its thin legs moved with horrifying speed. Its body resembled that of a starved child stripped of skin, but both arms ended in long mantis-like blades. A narrow skull jerked from side to side above its shoulders, and a tiny circular mouth opened at the center of its face.

It charged toward the noise behind them without looking ahead.

Rook turned at the same moment the creature reached him.

They collided.

The smaller Abomination bounced off his chest, but one of its bladed arms caught between the chains securing the coffin. It swung upward, tiny mouth widening as it found itself face-to-face with him.

Rook’s eyes widened.

He did not hesitate.

The crooked sickle drove upward beneath the creature’s chin.

Its blade curved through the skull and burst from one of its eyes.

The Abomination convulsed.

Rook yanked the sickle downward, dragging the creature with it. Its bladed arms scraped against his coat as he forced it face-first into the earth.

Before it could wail, he planted his boot between its shoulders and stomped.

The small skull sank into the soft ground.

Dirt filled its mouth. The sickle pinned its jaw closed from beneath, reducing its scream to a muffled groan that barely carried beyond the surrounding stampede.

He didn’t even collect his weapon, as it was locking the creature’s mouth from calling for help or calling more abominations, he simply turned looked at Mara with a serious expression and ran.

Mara followed.

They sprinted faster now, abandoning all attempt at stealth. There was no longer any silence left to preserve within the chaos. Abominations continued surging toward the distant pile, colliding around them and tearing through the grass in frenzied waves.

A many-legged beast crossed behind Mara closely enough for one hooked foot to catch the back of her coat. The fabric tore, spinning her sideways.

Rook caught her arm.

He dragged her forward before she could fall, and they continued running without exchanging a word.

The field seemed endless.

Mara could no longer see the cliff behind them or the city’s distant glow. There was only black grass, blue lantern light and the nightmare stampeding through the darkness.

Her legs did not tire as a living woman’s would have, but fear made every movement clumsy. She stumbled whenever her bare foot struck uneven ground. Her fingers shook. Tears blurred her sight, though she refused to let them become sobs.

Rook kept ahead of her, opening a path with the coffin and a falchion he pulled out a second ago. He shouldered past smaller creatures, pulled her around larger ones and changed direction whenever the movement of the grass warned him that something was approaching.

Gradually, the noise weakened behind them.

The screams became distant.

The tremors beneath Mara’s feet faded until only the occasional impact reached them through the earth. Fewer shapes crossed their path. The grass rose around them once again, closing over the trail they left behind.

Rook continued running.

Mara did not ask him to stop.

Not until the stampede became a low roar somewhere in the distance did she begin to believe they had crossed a meaningful portion of the field. Her torn clothes clung to her body. One foot remained bare and covered in dark mud. She could still hear the slime creature screaming far behind them, though the sound was gradually being buried beneath everything fighting over it.

Rook slowed at last.

He raised one hand, signaling for her to remain quiet.

Mara bent forward and pressed her palms against her knees out of habit. She did not need to catch her breath, yet her mind remembered what exhaustion should feel like and forced her body through the motions anyway.

They had escaped.

Or at least they had escaped the worst of it.

Then another sound drifted through the grass ahead.

Soft.

Fragile.

Mara slowly straightened.

It was crying.

A young child was weeping somewhere in the darkness ahead.

"Mom..." the voice sobbed. "Where are you...?"