The House at the End of the Street

Chapter Fifteen: Captured

Thomas was standing about twenty feet from us with the wolf right next to him.
"Good seeing y'all again," Thomas said, sarcastically.
"Why are you here?" Jack asked.
Thomas didn't answer. He stood there, smiling like we were idiots.
"Zack? I thought Salvullaz killed you. He told me he did," Thomas said back.
"He failed," I replied.
We stood there, it was silent all around us. Then, I looked up and saw dark clouds start looming over us. The wind started to pick up and I felt a small droplet of water hit my face. Thunder pounded. All of a sudden, Salvullaz appeared from behind Thomas.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't Zack. Back from the dead, eh?" Salvullaz said, looking around the open field.
All seven of the rest of the Crimson Wolves entered from behind Salvullaz. They all had the same expression on their faces, stone cold faces with no smile in sight.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
"To clean the environment," Salvullaz replied, snapped his boney fingers and all seven(including Ethan) ran at the six of us. Thomas stayed behind with Salvullaz.
All seven of them had metal bats now, the same that Jack had. Jace was the first one to make contact with one of us. He ran right into Jhett's path and smacked him in the head with the butt of his spear, knocking Jace over. I came over and smacked Jace with my machete multiple times. He was almost certainly dead. Jacob started running towards me, but I moved around him just in time to push him over into a tree. The tree fell over onto Jacob, crushing him.
"Burn the treehouse!" Salvullaz yelled.
The seven were now all focused on burning the treehouse. They grabbed matches and started to throw them at the treehouse. One eventually caught the wood on fire and it started to burn.
"No!" Jack yelled, starting to run into the small, but growing fire.
"What are you doing!?" I yelled at him.
Jack didn't answer as he climbed up the ladder with the fire now spreading to the upstairs of the treehouse. I pushed Jacob back over and started running after him. Before I could get up there, though, Thomas grabbed my leg and pulled me down.
"Get down!" Thomas yelled.
A huge explosion erupted from the treehouse, blowing glass and objects out of the window.
"Jack!" I yelled.
I grabbed my machete and sliced Thomas in the leg, making him fall over and not able to grab me. I ran up the ladder and saw that the entire place was covered with smoke and fire was almost taking over the entire treehouse.
I looked around and saw weapons and other objects that could help up survive, but no Jack. I army-crawled through the fire and the smoke. I was trying my hardest to find Jack, but he was gone. Then, I could feel the treehouse start shaking, and then the tree it was on fell over... with me inside. The world spun and I could feel the treehouse hit the ground.

I woke to the sound of people screaming. I sat up and looked around. I was on the beach with sand in my eyes. I wiped away my eyes and saw that I was right next to the seaside. Thunder echoed through the empty beach.
"Hello!?" I yelled out. There was nobody.
I stood up and looked around. My hands had huge marks on them, like something had scratched me. I looked around and saw the Biloxi bridge and it hadn't been destroyed.
"Where the hell am I?" I asked myself, still looking around.
I turned to the side and saw Philip. He was alive!
"Philip!" I yelled, trying to get into contact with him.
Philip turned around and started at me, his face stone cold without an expression. I was confused, but decided to keep walking towards him. Philip turned towards the woods and started sprinting into the forest. I ran in after him. After about twenty seconds of running, Philip disappeared into the woods.
I stopped and felt a hand on my shoulder. Salvullaz was there, and pulled me back and into a vortex. I froze in the middle of the air, but it was like an empty, pitch black room.
"Hello, Zack," Salvullaz said.
"What the hell do you want from me?" I asked.
"I feel you should see this," Salvullaz said.
At that moment, what seemed to be a video playing in front of my face. It was of the town. The sky was cloudy with almost black clouds looming over Ocean Springs and Biloxi.
The video showed Conner, Jhett, Kaycie, Mae, and I walking on the beach. Salvullaz popped up from the sand and we all got into our 'battle stances'. Mae and Kaycie started running towards him with their weapons. Mae got the first hit with her stabbing Salvullaz in the side with her arrow.
While Salvullaz was dealing with Mae, Kaycie repeatedly hit Salvullaz with the hockey stick. Salvullaz grabbed Mae and threw her into the sand.
"No!" I screamed from behind the screen.
Conner shot at Salvullaz multiple times, hitting him in the chest and face over and over, but it seemed to do nothing. Mae stood up and started to hit Salvullaz again, but Salvullaz had enough and grabbed Mae and threw her into Kaycie, throwing them onto concrete.
Jhett threw his spear at Salvullaz, hitting him in the face. It harmlessly bounced off. Salvullaz caught one of Conner's arrows in mid-air and threw it back at Conner, hitting her in the stomach.
"Conner!" I yelled.
The video showed me running over to Conner, but it was too late. She was dead. I looked up and saw that Mae and Kaycie had gotten up and started to fight Salvullaz again. Salvullaz had enough and grabbed the arrow Mae had, turned around and stabbed Kaycie right in the stomach, flinging her into the water to bleed out.
I was in pure shock. I had just witnessed two of my best friends die. Jhett was now running towards Salvullaz, but Salvullaz got the upper hand and smacked Jhett across the road, throwing him thirty feet into the woods. I stood maybe thirty feet in front of Salvullaz, motionless.
"Just give up, Zack. You've already lost," Salvullaz said, but the video faded out before I could see my fate.
I woke on the ground, the ground was cold, but the warmth of the flames kept me warm.
"Zack!" Jhett yelled.
I sat up and looked around. Thomas was standing in front of me, standing still. Thomas grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me up, taking me back to the open field. Mae, Conner, Kayice, and Jhett were standing still with one of the people holding them back from escaping.
"That was easy. I killed one of you in the process, so it'll be easier," Salvullaz said, ushering the people to start walking in the other direction.
I didn't have time to understand what was going on. It started raining and the fire that was once there was gone... and so was Jack. The rain started to pour harder on us as we walked to the same house I had gone in on Halloween. We walked through the woods until we reached the neighborhood.
There were trees sprouting up from inside the houses of the street with shattered glass from the windows everywhere on the lawns and the streets. Salvullaz stood close behind us with Thomas in front of Salvullaz. Ethan was right behind me.
"Zack.. I'm not sure if you know this, but Salvullaz is evil and I want to help y'all," Ethan whispered.
I was understandably confused, but went with what he was saying.
"On my count, we grab our weapons and attack. Ethan is on our side," I whispered to everyone.
"What?" Mae asked.
"Just go when I say, ok?" I replied back.
Everyone shook their heads in agreeance, including Ethan who would just let go of me.
"3... 2... 1... NOW!" I yelled, grabbing my machete and stabbing Thomas in the stomach.
Thomas stumbled backwards and fell. The rest of the Crimson Wolves let go of Mae, Kayice, Conner, and Jhett. We ran into the forest, disappearing into the dark, cloudy day.
"Catch them!" Salvullaz yelled.
Jarrett, Ethan, Evan, and Adam ran after us. Ethan turned around and smacked Evan in the head with his metal bat, knocking him out. We stopped and turned around and stood frozen.
"Run, guys!" Ethan yelled, trying to get the others out.
I ran up to Adam and hit him with the butt of my machete, but Adam got back up and started swinging the bat towards me, but Ethan hit Adam in the head, knocking him out too. Jarrett was the last one, but he ran off after almost getting hit.
"Where do we need to go?" Ethan asked.
"Some place other than here," I replied.
We started running through the woods and found ourselves at the high school. It was two stories high, with about fifty classrooms on each floor. Above the front door, there was a sign that said 'Ocean Springs High School'. There was a ripped american flag, still swaying on the flag pole. There was broken glass everywhere.
"There," I said, walking up to the front door.
I started to push on the door, but it didn't budge. Ethan ran in front of me and smashed the door multiple times with the bat, the door handle breaking and allowing us inside. We walked into the High school and the first thing we all noticed was that there was a stench of death.
"Damn, that smell sucks," Conner said, walking inside first after Ethan.
When we all entered the school building, we were silent. There were vines lining the walls with plants overgrown into the broken window. Glass had been flung everywhere on the floor with the floorboards creaking under our feets.
I walked into a classroom and saw the last date written onto the white board. 12/20, December 20th. There was Math on the board, so I presumed it as a math class. I walked around the room and looked for anything
"Aw, damn!" I yelled, tripping on a broken floorboard and falling down onto the ground.
I hit the ground face first. I started to sit back up, but saw something in the corner of the wall. It was fur, a long strand of it on the ground. It looked like... dog hair.
"Guys. I think we might have stumbled into a nest," I said.
"What do you mean?" Mae asked.
Before I could answer, I looked up and saw red eyes across the hall from me. There were two, then four, then eight, then sixteen different sets of red eyes in the distance.
"Guys..." Jhett said, backing up a little.
As the eyes came closer to the window's light, we could see the creature in all its glory. It was, in fact, the same wolf that Conner and I had attacked back at the houses when we were looking for Gracie.
"Ah damn it," Conner mumbled.
I stood up and backed up next to Conner and Mae. Then, seven more wolves came behind the 'Alpha' wolf that was in front. The Alpha jumped and Ethan stopped it with a blow to the face.
"Guys! Get outta here! I'll hold it off!" Ethan yelled, smacking it again.
Mae, Kaycie, Conner, Jhett and I started running in the other direction, but about a couple hundred yards, we could hear Ethan yell in pain.
"Ethan! No!" Conner yelled.
"It's too late. We need to leave. Coming in here was a mistake," I said, running out of the fire escape.
The rest of the group followed me out the door. I stood behind the door as everyone ran out and slammed the door shut when everyone was out. I stood in front of the door, falling over from exhaustion.
Jhett helped me up and we continued to walk. Then, I had an idea.
"Mae, how can we close the entrance?" I asked.
"We need to destroy anything that's around it. Maybe even use explosives. Fireworks are an easy way to do it," Mae replied.
"Didn't Dade have some fireworks before he died?" Kaycie asked.
"Yeah, I have some back at my... house..." I said, slowly.
"Then, I guess we need to get to your house, Zack," Jhett said.
I nodded in agreeance and pointed to the direction of the house.
"It's this way. It might look very different since it's been a couple of months since we've been there," I said, starting to walk the way to my house.
The rest of the group followed closely behind. We walked around the school and saw fallen trees on the ground.
"Woah. What happened here?" Jhett asked, looking around.
"Something big must have knocked them over. Something huge," Kaycie said.
Then, we started hearing large and heavy footsteps walking towards us. We looked around, but saw nothing. Conner readied her bow, Jhett grabbed his spear, Kayice and Mae both grabbed some arrows and I got my machete in an attack position.
"Watch your left," I whispered, looking around for the creature.
Then, coming out of the forest was Thomas riding on top of a huge creature. It was about fifty feet tall and had horns spiking from either side of its head.
"Oh boy," Mae said, freezing at the sight.
"Well hello again," Thomas said to us.