14

A WEEK LATER

“ I t’s behind us,” Koen whispered in the darkness. The only light between us reflected off his hunting knife as we huddled back to back in the cellar.

“No,” Clay argued, “above us.”

I turned my head upward, chin to the ceiling, and listened. An eerie hush fell over the three of us, only the sound of our shallow breaths echoing off the walls of the decrepit house we found ourselves trapped beneath like prey for the taking.

I swallowed tightly, rolling my thumb over the barrel of my pistol, and sunk my large frame closer to the floor. We had been hunting a ghoul. Or actually, what seemed like a pack of them, leading to a house in rural Ireland that stood crooked in the soil. I wasn’t even sure how the old thing was still standing, and I hated that we had gotten ourselves cornered in the cellar.

“There’s more than one,” I finally said, and both men huffed in annoyance.

Ghouls are known for feasting on the flesh of dead bodies, but these ghouls apparently had a taste for something fresher, and started to steal the children from town. Ghouls were predominantly large, lanky, ugly creatures with milky gray skin and claws that mimicked those of bird talons. They were solitary monsters, keeping to themselves and moving through the darker areas in life. But they were known for their ability to shift into something more human, passable to the average eye and not quite so horrifying in the daylight.

If I had known following this lead meant we’d be cornered in the cellar of a condemned house, I would have never let any of us step foot in this shithole. Now we were in this mess because I had insisted we look into the disappearances—and it pissed me off that we were in this situation and I had no one else to blame but myself.

Turning to Koen, I handed him the machete I rolled in my left hand. “Don’t swing that unless you have to.”

The moonlight glimmered, trapped in the deep moss green of Koen’s frustrated glance as he flipped the handle over in his hand. “I’ve used a machete before, asshole.”

“Not in this tight of a space.” I took two steps left and my boot found the shelf’s base, “Clay, keep your head on a swivel.”

“For the machete?” Koen jokingly huffed.

“For the ghouls.” The sound of Clay slapping him on the back of the head rang out and I almost laughed through the blanket of stress that smothered me… I hated being trapped.

“Cut it out,” I warned as another shuffle of footsteps echoed from above.

The ghouls descended quickly down the stairs without worrying about the ambush they ran headfirst into. Four sets of feet. Four sets of claws.

I tapped the metal shelf with my knife four times and felt the space on my right become vacant as Clay moved to the opposite side of the basement, setting us up in a triangular formation. Koen shifted to my left, creating a dead space between us that the monster moved through not seconds later.

A reflection of light flickered off the machete, and the ghoul whipped its ugly head toward Koen, but Clay was faster on the draw. Two shots rang out through the air and echoed against the basement walls.

“That was too close!” Koen panted out in disbelief.

“It was perfectly timed,” Clay’s posh, husky, Chelsea accent whispered. “Not a scratch on you.”

The second ghoul gave us no time to recover, it moved quickly. Its feet shuffled faster than I could calculate and it was on top of me in seconds. Teeth snapped mere inches from my face as I fought to angle the blade I carried into the monster’s abdomen. A set of heavy claws sliced through the concrete beside my head, nicking my cheek and drawing a trickle of blood in a thin line through my skin. I grunted in struggle, feeling the blade sinking into the ghoul’s stomach but it wasn’t enough.

Fuck .

Blood sprayed across my face, coating my mouth and eyes in warm liquid as the ghoul went limp. I shoved the dead body from me and pushed to my feet behind Koen, who whipped the machete around in his hand and scanned the room.

“I could have done without the shower Ko,” I quipped while trying to clear my eyes of the ichor.

“You’re welcome,” Koen responded sarcastically .

Clay was breathing heavily to my right but it was almost impossible to see precisely where he was in the darkness.

Watching its friends meet their end, the next ghoul’s movements were more intelligent and calculated. I knelt in the pool of blood beside me and used the flash on my phone to examine the body.

“Shit.” I swallowed tightly and ripped the badge from the jacket.

“What?” Koen asked quietly, a new sense of urgency in his voice.

“They’re cops ,” I slapped the shiny, blood-covered law enforcement badge into his hand.

“Fuck,” Koen swore.

The worst case scenario had quickly become a reality. The ghouls had blended into society to make it easier to eat. Most chose something less obvious: morticians or lab assistants. These ones were gluttons and law enforcement.

The last ghoul laughed into the shadows. “You’re deadmen.”

“We’ve heard that before,” I groaned and used the hem of my shirt to clean the blood that dried across my face, hissing quietly as the fabric of my shirt tugged at the cut on my cheek.

“We weren’t bugging anything. We were just surviving.” It hissed from the right of us. It was circling.

Koen moved his body, machete first, and watched. He turned to me, lowering his voice. “Do you see the fourth bastard?”

I shook my head in response, holding up my hand to Clay with four fingers. In the darkness I watched his head bob as he shifted back into the shadows below one of the dirty cellar windows.

“Killing children isn’t really a fair fight,” Koen said indignantly, unable to hide his outrage as he became a distraction. He had always been good at getting the monsters to monologue, it usually kept their attention long enough for Clay and I to ambush them.

“Food is food. They fought back all the same.” The ghoul laughed. “Until we broke their bones and scooped them clean.”

“That was unnecessarily detailed,” Koen made a loud gagging sound to pull the ghoul closer as his hand shot out to alert Clay of movement to our left. The fourth ghoul circled, surveying from a distance.

I shifted down behind my brother, trying to create space as the ghoul circled the shelf between it and us. I held up my hand to Koen, who contemplated following but stopped when he saw my stern look of authority.

“Stupid,” he clicked under his breath at me but backed against the wall, his weapon still at the ready.

With all my strength, I pushed up and shoved my body against the rickety shelf and sent it toppling to the ground. The glass jars that lined the shelves smashed to the ground, and the ghoul took off to the left.

“They’re going for the stairs!” Koen yelled, pushing off his feet.

He was the fastest of the three of us, and I’d never admit it to him out loud, but some days, I was thankful for how quickly he caught on and caught up.

Clay hollered out as one ghoul collided with him and the other bounded up the stairs and out of sight. Fuck. There was no time to pick which ghoul to deal with. The impact of Clay’s body slamming into the wall sounded painful and they tumbled to the ground. The ghoul was fighting for dominance. A guttural cry left its throat, ringing out into the darkness before a shot rang out .

The ghoul stumbled off Clay into the streak of moonlight from the window, giving Koen the upper hand. The machete sliced through the flesh and spinal cord with ease, separating the ghoul’s body from his head.

“It’s almost like I know how to use a machete,” Koen quipped through the gag that bubbled from him. He recovered well, kicking the head away from him the second it hit the ground. “ Weird .” He rolled his eyes at me and turned to Clay. “Shit,” he stopped fooling around and slid to his knees next to him on the ground.

“Surface wound,” Clay grunted through tight lips.

I squatted next to them, flipping the flashlight out of my jeans pocket to shine it on him. His stormy blue eyes squinted and blinked a few times as they adjusted to the light, and then he turned his head to look at the gash that severed the skin on his bicep.

“Shit, that hurts,” he hissed and gripped his arm, blood seeping through his pale fingers.

“You need stitches,” I started, but blue and red lights flickered from outside. “But not here,” I ordered both of them. We were no good to anyone locked in jail. “One of those bastards got away, we aren’t safe here.”

“The call came in an hour ago.” We startled at the voice that pushed through the radiostatic that came from inside the ghoul’s jacket beside Clay’s foot. “Three male suspects.”

“We need to go.” Koen slotted his six-foot frame beneath Clay’s good arm and hauled him to his feet.

I found the cellar door on the South wall, away from the main stairs where the fourth ghoul had escaped, and pushed it open quickly and quietly.

“Come on.” I ushered them up the stairs. Clay left a trail of blood as it seeped from the twisted cut on his arm and,although he was moving decently, he would leave a scent.

“Wes–” He swallowed tightly as I closed the doors behind us.

“Leave it. You’re not gonna be winning any battles with that arm as it is...” I didn’t like leaving loose ends any more than Clay did, but I did not like the look of how quickly his sleeve was turning red. “It’ll likely lay low and lick its wounds. The chances of it being able to gather up any others to cause real problems is low.”

But not zero . I could hear the words from one look at Clay, but we didn’t have the time to deal with it. “Move your ass before you get us caught, then.” I shooed him.

Koen grunted under Clay’s weight, who eclipsed him in size by nearly four inches. Clayton was Koen’s opposite, with dark wavy hair that I wanted to take scissors to, and stormy blue eyes, so cloudy they were practically gray, framed by a pair of dark-coloured glasses. His looks contrasted Koen’s short, shaggy, dirty blonde hair and curious, moss-green eyes. While shorter, Koen was sturdy and fast because of his size. Clay, born with his nose in a book, was a little less graceful in the art of fighting but he managed.

“I keep telling you to carry a smaller knife,” Koen scolded. We broke the tree line and stumbled toward the old white Bronco left on the side of the motorway, tucked into the trees and out of sight.

“Be quiet.” I turned as they opened the passenger door to the Bronco. I listened for a long moment, only satisfied when I couldn’t hear the sound of following footsteps or a police radio on our tails. “In, now.” I hurried them.

We were on the road as soon as Koen closed his door.

“We need to find somewhere to rest. I need to stitch him up.” Green eyes found mine in the rearview mirror, illuminated by the dim light of the moon. I could hear the sound of ripping fabric as Koen fashioned a makeshift tourniquet and tied it tightly at the top of Clay's arm. “I’m not asking, Wes. I’m demanding .”

Clay groaned. His lanky body didn’t fit in the Bronco well in the first place, but he was fighting to find a comfortable position as Koen was practically on top of him trying to staunch the blood that seeped from the open wound.

“Fine,” I snapped. “But only because I’ll never get that blood out of the leather.”

“Oh, boo hoo,” Clay coughed with a lopsided smile on his slim face. “Not the leather!”

“This is a classic.” I rolled my eyes and pushed the truck further down the motorway.

“It belongs in a rubbish heap,” Clay joined in weakly, his head leaning heavily against the back of the passenger seat.

“You’re both one more comment away from living in a ditch, permanently.”

“Does that mean we both get to slag off the Bronco once more each or do we share the one between the two of us?” Koen joked. The distant sound of sirens flooded the night air, and all three of us went silent. Ten or so minutes pass with our ears strained for any signs of being pursued.

“There.” Koen pointed to a service road hidden between tangled trees and brush.

“Orchid Lane,” Clay huffed as the headlights illuminated the rusty road sign. “Did you know that one orchid plant can survive nearly a hundred years?” He spewed the fact through a clenched jaw.

“Be quiet before you bleed to death,” I groaned and continued driving until a Manor came into view. “Somewhere to rest,” I clipped at Koen who merely grumbled something from the backseat.

It grew more prominent as we drove down the unmanaged road. I stopped at the gothic iron gate that was covered in masses of tangled vines. I stopped the Bronco and hopped out of the driver's seat, quickly using my knife to hack at the dead growth that kept the gate woven closed. Once it was clear enough to push open, I jumped back in and we passed through the gate and up the driveway. More vines tangled across the dark gray bricks and covered the Manor in lush green, matching the trees and bushes surrounding the building. Dark arched windows stared down on the three of us, and it was clear that no one had lived here for a very long time as the chill settled over the truck like a blanket.

I looked back at Koen, meeting his gaze. His eyes had grown wide. “Great, another haunted house.”