The House at the End of the Street

Chapter Eighteen: Mary C.

As we fell, I could feel my life freeze. I remembered Dade and how he got bullied for bringing two lunch boxes to school. One was for me, obviously. Then, reality hit me... almost literally. I slammed into the ground, but I stood up and looked around for Seth to finish him off.
"Seth... where the hell are you?" I asked, looking around.
All of a sudden, Seth jumped through a small wall of fire and onto me. I kicked him backwards and into a fire. I stood up and turned around to see Seth burning in the fire. He was dead.
"Suck on that, loser," I said, climbing a tree to find where I was.
I started up the tree and made it to the top. Smoke was the only thing I could see. Because of the smoke, I ultimately stepped on a branch and it broke underneath me, making fall to the ground and knocking me out cold.

I woke to see a bright blue sky above me with burned trees all around me. I sat up and looked around, my machete on the ground next to me. Nobody was around. I could just barely see Seth's charred, but dead, body on the ground.
"Zack!" Mae yelled from behind me.
I snapped my head around and saw all four of the others running towards me. I got up and ran up to them.
"Holy crap! You're alive?!" Jhett yelled, standing in front of me.
"How the hell are you alive!? We thought you were dead!" Kaycie said.
"I have no clue, but Seth's dead. I pushed him into a fire. That's the only good thing," I joked.
"Thomas, Madison, and Tristan got away. Thomas said that you would die in there, but I guess you beat his odds!" Mae exclaimed.
"Please tell me it hasn't been another six weeks," I laughed.
"It's only been, like, three hours so you're good," Conner joked back.
I grabbed my machete, sheathed it, and we started to leave. We left the woods and started to head back into downtown Ocean Springs, since it was probably the only safe place anywhere around. Once we made it out of the woods, downtown looked nothing like it did when Jhett first showed me the place.
The buildings looked like they were going to fall, but had little life in them so they could keep standing. We had come out of the woods right next to the Walter Anderson Museum of Art.
"Woah. Haven't been here in forever!" Mae exclaimed.
"Damn. Looks like it's about to crumble," Jhett said.
"So is there anyway that we could call out for help?" I asked Jhett.
"Right before Jack died, he said that there was a working radio in the Ocean Springs Museum, or called the Mary C.," Jhett said.
"So, all we have to do is get to the Mary C. and we'll be safe?" Kaycie asked.
"We'll see if Jack was right or not," Jhett replied.
"If we were wrong... would that mean we have no way of getting help?" Conner asked.
"Unfortunately," Jhett replied.
"We just have to hold our breath and hope for the best," I said.
"We've been walking for an hour, could we take a break?" Kaycie complained.
"Sure, let's take a break in the museum," Jhett replied.
We all looked at him like he was stupid.
"You just said that it looks like it was crumbling," Conner pointed out.
"It'll be alright if we only stay for a few minutes," Jhett said, walking into the ART Museum.
"Fine," Mae said, the rest of us walking in after him.
We walked into the building and the first thing we saw was ripped canvases, probably used to be art but water got to them first. I walked over to a painting and flipped it over. It was an alligator, once by Walter Anderson.
"Guys! Come here!" Jhett yelled.
"What?!" I yelled back, running to him.
He was standing outside(the wall had been broken off) and was pointing up to the sky. I looked to the sky and blocked the sun with my hand. What I saw was terrifying. It looked like a dinosaur, but it was twice as big.
"What the hell?" Mae said, still looking up at it.
Then, it started to nose dive right at us.
"Oh on. Get inside!" I yelled, pushing everyone inside.
The monster crashed into the ground where we were standing, but it didn't come back up. I looked around, trying to tell where under the ground it was. Then, it reemerged right in front of me, pushing me backwards into Mae. The monster landed right in front of the building and we could all see what the monster looked like.
The creature had a dragon-like body, with wings on either side of it. It had horns coming out the sides of its head like a bull. It was green, red, and purple with blood covering it. It was basically a dragon, but it looked like a Ptheradon.
"Damn it," I said.
The creature roared and tried to fit itself into the small missing section of the wall, but it was too big and started rocking the building back and forth.
"Go, go go!" I yelled.
All five of us started out the building, but a piece of the falling roof landed on Mae. I turned back, but Jhett grabbed my arm.
"You're going to kill yourself!" Jhett yelled.
"Oh well," I replied, shaking my arm from his grip.
I unsheathed my machete and struck the monster in the face. It roared at me. I kneeled down and started to try and lift the piece, but I wasn't strong enough and could lift it.
"Go, Zack. It's not worth it!" Mae said, trying to push me back.
"Hold on for a few seconds and I'll get you out," I said back, swiping at the monster.
The building started to come down on us, but I was determined to not die. I started smashing the piece of roof that was on top of Mae. Eventually, it broke apart and I lifted Mae to her feet and pushed her out the door. I turned back around and started to smack the monster in the face with my machete.
"Zack!" Mae yelled.
I backed away from the monster and some more of the roof fell. I took a running start and jumped on the roof and drove my machete into the monster's skull, killing it instantly. Unfortunately for me, the building was coming down either anyway. I pulled out my machete and started running for the door, but it was too late. The building came crashing down onto me.
"No!!" Mae yelled, trying to get to me, but the building had already fallen.

I opened my eyes with a murderous headache. I was under rubble and could hear everyone above me trying to get me out, but I was so weak that I could barely speak. I looked at my hand, it was beat up pretty bad and it was difficult for me to grab anything. I couldn't move from the amount of rubble on top of me.
"Guys!" I tried to say, but I couldn't.
"Zack!" Jhett yelled.
"Where are you!?" Kaycie yelled.
"Zack!" Mae yelled.
I could hardly open my eyes with the pain I was feeling. I could feel my nose bleeding, probably from the force of being thrown to the ground by tons of rubble. I was about to accept my death, but then, Jhett moved the rubble that was above me.
"He's right here!" Jhett yelled, pushing away the rocks and building material from on top of me.
"Oh thank god," Conner said, relieved.
Jhett kept moving the rubble away from me and eventually grabbed the back of my shirt to pull me up. When the sunlight hit me in the face, I closed my eyes to shield me from the brightness.
"Zack...?" Mae asked.
I sat up and could finally say something.
"What'd I miss?" I asked, being totally serious.
Mae, Jhett, Conner and Kaycie all helped me to my feet and we walked from where the building was once standing. I sat down on a bench and closed my eyes, resting from the trauma I'd just been through.
We started walking to the Mary C. when I had started feeling better.
"How do you feel?" Mae asked, still worried I had messed up my brain.
"I'm fine. Just a little beat up," I replied.
"I feel bad that you almost died to save me," Mae said, looking down at the ground.
"Now, we're both alive so that's a good sign," I reassured.
We continued to the Mary C. and hoped that Jack was right and we could get help. I was hoping that Mae would stop thinking it was her fault that I almost died.
"It'll only be about ten more minutes. I'm praying Jack was right," Jhett said, walking ahead of everyone else.
"Sounds good, Jhett," I said back.
"How long have you known Jhett?" Mae asked.
"Since 5th grade, the same time I met Dade. All three of us had Mrs. Philips for English and we changed with each other," I replied.
"Guys... we have a problem!" Jhett yelled back to us.
Mae and I ran to the front of the group to see what was going on. We saw what Jhett was talking about. There were about seven fallen buildings blocking our path to the Mary C.
"Damn it!" I yelled.
"Is there no way to get over?" Kaycie asked.
"Probably not," Conner replied.
"How do we get over?" Mae asked.
"We'll have to just hope there are no monsters in there," Jhett said, starting up the buildings.
"Why can't we just go around?" I asked.
"The wolves have taken that part of town and we can't go that way unless you want to be eaten.
We started to climb up the buildings and carefully walked over them. When we were about halfway across the fallen buildings, we could see the Mary C., but something was off. It wasn't there.
"Where's the Mary C.?" Mae asked.
"It's fallen," I replied.
The Mary C. was gone and so was our chances to get out of Ocean Springs alive. It was official... we were screwed.