The House at the End of the Street

Chapter Fourteen: Six Weeks

The boat was stuck in the middle of Biloxi and Ocean Springs... with the monster swimming around the boat. We were silent, not making a move. It was like being in the middle of the ocean with sharks, but worse.
"What do we do?" Jack whispered.
"Nothing. We're dead," I replied.
I slowly put my hand on my machete and slowly pulled it from its sleeve. The monster stopped and sank to the bottom of the water. We stood motionless for a few seconds before we saw it surface again. It was about seventy feet from where the boat had stalled and started swimming at full speed towards the boat.
"Jump off the boat!" I said, pushing Jhett into the water.
The rest of the group jumped in too as the monster jumped out of the water and grabbed the boat in its jaws, crushing it to pieces. We had about a hundred more feet before we made it to the beach and were safe. The gator now had its attention on us.
"It's getting closer!" Jhett said.
We kept swimming until the gator jumped into the air and onto me. I ducked below the water and swam from where it had surfaced. I swam under the water until I could feel the sand. I surfaced back up to see the others right behind me.
"I... hate... water," Mae said, falling into the sand.
"I'm never doing that again," Jack said, walking to the barrier and sitting down.
I sat down in the sand and saw the gator swimming away from us.
"That's not physically possible. How'd we out-swim it?" Jhett asked.
"The water got shallow and it couldn't keep up with us," Kaycie replied.
We all started walking to the nearest house. It was an old house, maybe twenty or thirty years old. We walked up the steps going up into the house but stopped as we heard someone talking in there. It was Thomas!
"It's Thomas!" I whisper-yelled.
The others looked surprised but didn't think about it too much. We sprinted into the house and followed the voice, but stopped when we heard someone else talking to him. When we found the room that he was in we peeked in. Standing right across from Thomas was Salvullaz. We eavesdropped on their conversation.
"How could you let them die!" Salvullaz said, angrily.
"They went into the woods to look for Gracie, then one of your stupid monsters wreaked the casino we were staying in!" Thomas said back.
"No, I was keeping them alive for a reason!" Salvullaz replied.
"Maybe you should have thought of that when you put me in charge!"
"Oh, shut up! It's your fault they died! I needed them to survive long enough, but you left them! This is your fault, not mine,"
"C'mon, Salvullaz. It's not that big of a deal. We can find new kids that you can keep alive,"
"I accidentally killed one of them, and I wanted to keep the rest alive!"
"Who might that be?"
"That kid, Dade. He got on my nerves and I had to kill him,"
"That's not some reason to kill someone! It is your fault that Dade is dead,"
"Thomas, you earned that you could keep those kids alive, but you didn't. Now, you find them and if they ARE dead, I will kill you. Deal?"
"Fine. Deal," Thomas finished and started walking out of the door.
We all quickly ran out the fire escape door, but some fire alarms started going off. Thomas turned his head and started running after us.
"Go!" I said, pushing everyone out the door.
Before I could get myself out of the door, Thomas grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back inside. I kicked, but to no avail. Thomas started to the room where he was talking to Salvullaz.
"How much have you heard?" Thomas asked, calmly.
"Why are you working with Salvullaz?!" I yelled.
"I get to live as long as I want," Thomas replied.
I kept trying to get away from Thomas, but he was too strong and I couldn't get out of his clutches.
"What? Who's all in on this?" I asked.
"Everyone who is a part of the group, beside you and your friends that is," Thomas said back.
We had now entered the room where Salvullaz and Thomas had just been talking a few seconds earlier. Thomas threw me onto the ground in front of Salvullaz.
"What do you want from me?" I asked Salvullaz.
"I can't believe you survived. Thomas said that he wasn't sure if you had died or that you were still running around somewhere in Biloxi. Either way, I'm going to win," Salvullaz replied.
"Then who was there to take Gracie?" I asked.
"I have plenty of minions, some of which you might know," Salvullaz replied, snapping his boney fingers, the floorboards opening up and revealing an army of demons, all of which he said were his 'minions'.
"Who do I know, then?" I asked.
"Take a look," Salvullaz finished, opening the glass door and pushing me down into the pit.
There was a small walkway in between the rows and rows of minions with endless tunnels going through the entirety of Ocean Springs, Biloxi, and the entire Jackson County area.
"I took Philip back in December and have been working to create... this," Salvullaz said, pointing to a small button.
"The button?" I asked, sarcastically.
"No, what's behind the button," Salvullaz replied, pushing the button and about six feet of the wall opened up to reveal Philip's body with all sorts of mechanics.
"What have you created?" I asked.
"What I like to call... the death machine," Salvullaz said.
Philip's face was cold with no expression. He was stuck inside what looked like metal armor.
"What?" I asked.
"I'll explain that later. Do you want to see what happened with Dade?" Salvullaz asked.
I looked up at him and nodded my head. Salvullaz ushered me to a small doorway that led to a small flight of stairs that went down. It was a spiral downwards.
"I have kept Dade's body, he's barely alive," Salvullaz said.
"He's alive?" I asked.
"Barely," Salvullaz said back, opening another small doorway that led off to another room next to the side of the spiral stairwell.
When Salvullaz opened up that door, I saw Dade's almost lifeless body sitting upwards in a small bed. I lost my breath at the sight. It was sad, seeing someone who I'd known for years, sitting almost dead in a bed.
"Dade?" I called out.
Dade looked up and smiled at me.
"What? Never seen a ghost before?" Dade asked.
I was frozen and couldn't move. I felt like a force was taking over my body so I couldn't move.
"Have fun... burning in hell," Salvullaz said, slamming the door.
I turned around and started banging on the door. I was no longer being frozen by the strange force that was controlling me.
"Salvullaz, what are you doing!?" I yelled.
I turned back around and saw Dade, now standing beside his bed, and walking towards me. His face was lifeless and pale.
"Hey, Zack. How would death sound?" Dade said.
I grabbed my machete from my sheath and sliced at Dade, slicing him in the face. Dade backed off a bit, his face now bleeding, but it healed itself back.
"Salvullaz!" I screamed.
Salvullaz swung open the door and pulled me out.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" I yelled at him, Salvullaz silent.
Salvullaz started waking me up the stairs and out back into the open area with the minions.
"What was the point of this?" I asked, but Salvullaz didn't reply.
Salvullaz snapped his fingers and I woke up in a grassy area with trees in all directions. I sat up and looked around. There was no sign of Ocean Springs or Salvullaz.
"Hello?!" I yelled, trying to see if anyone would answer.
Nobody did. Then, a howl came from my left side. I turned my head and stood, facing the way the howl came from, and pulled my machete out of its sheath. I was silent, watching the forest next to me.
"Duck!" Someone yelled.
I fell to the ground and Jhett jumped over me with his weapon. At that moment, a huge wolf(Probably the one from earlier) jumped out of the forest. As it was in the air, Jhett threw his weapon at the wolf, piercing the wolf's shoulder. The wolf ran off, a quick battle.
"Whew. Thanks," I said.
"Zack? Is that you?" Jhett asked.
"Yes...?" I replied.
"Dude! You've been missing for six weeks!" Jhett exclaimed.
I was confused, not able to understand how I was missing for six weeks. It had only felt like a few minutes.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Thomas grabbed you before you could get out of the house. six weeks passed without a sign of you! Then, you're here! I was looking for supplies to reinforce the fort," Jhett replied.
"Wait... fort?" I asked.
Jhett smiled and started running back into the forest. I followed him for about five minutes before we made it back into downtown Ocean Springs.
"Here's downtown. It has gone through a lot," Jhett said, now walking down a path.
There were vines at every corner of each building. Broken glass, random doors in the streets, trees growing out of control, animals taking over buildings, and no people in sight. Trees had been growing through buildings, protruding through the ceilings and the parts of the building that had been broken off were now thrown everywhere.I looked like a nature preserve over an abandoned city.
"Woah," I said under my breath.
We kept walking until we hit the library, literally. I ran into the side of the library. I could tell that nature had taken over. We walked inside and the immediate smell of death hit me in the face like a train.
"Dang, dude! You got zombies in this place?" I asked, holding my nose.
"Salvullaz took this place over. He is responsible for Ocean Springs becoming a wasteland," Jhett said, opening another door that led to the basement.
We walked down into the basement and saw... nothing. There was nobody there. Jhett ushered me to another doorway that led to a small cavern under the library. Jhett grabbed a torch and led the way. The sound of water rushing past under our feet was an amazing sound, like a small river.
"Keep going straight. It's a long walk, but it's safer than being out in the open," Jhett said, still keeping a steady pace.
"True," I replied.
We kept walking for a few minutes until we reached a dead end. Jhett pushed in a rock and a small hatch opened up, showing another small hatch. It had a wheel on the front for unlocking the hatch. Jhett climbed up some rusty ladders and started to open up the hatch. The hatch opened up with a huge creek and sunlight poured into the dark cavern.
"How long did it take you to build this?" I asked.
"Two weeks. We all worked together," Jhett replied.
Jhett continued to climb the ladder and out into the open area. I followed soon behind. As soon as the light hit my face, I saw more woods.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"Just keep following me," Jhett replied.
I jumped out of the hole and continued to follow Jhett to the fort. We walked for another two minutes before we reached an open plain and saw the fort for the first time.
It was like a treehouse, but 10 times better. There was a wooden ladder placed up against a tree and up that ladder was a treehouse.
"Holy crap," I said, looking around the treehouse.
"I found something y'all might want to see!" Jhett yelled.
Conner, Jack, Kaycie, and Mae all came running to the front of the fort. Jack now had a metal bat, Kaycie had a hockey stick, Mae had a couple of arrows, and Conner still had her bow.
"Zack? Is... that you?" Conner asked, still as a rock.
"How... are you... alive?" Jack asked.
"I beat Salvullaz's ass. Well, not really," I joked.
Conner, Jack, Mae, and Kaycie all ran up to me, giving me a big hug along with Jhett. We all heard a deep howl and broke the hug and all readied our weapons.
"It's back," Conner said.
"What's it?" I asked.
"The wolf we beat up six weeks ago. It's been stalking us," Conner whispered back.
We all stood side by side next to each other with our weapons ready to fight. We were all silent. Heavy footsteps echoed throughout the forest, but as the footsteps got closer, we could see the silhouette of a person walking next to a silhouette of a wolf.
"Well, well, well. Turns out, you can be pretty stupid," A voice said. It was Matt.
"What do you want from us?" I asked.
Matt didn't respond, but we saw who the silhouette was. It was Thomas with the wolf.
"Hola. How ya doing?" Thomas asked.