The House at the End of the Street

Chapter Twenty-Five: Death in the Air

The creature was big, probably ten or more feet taller than anyone who was here. The rat smelled like death and looked like it would kill anyone who dared to try to kill it. We all stood in a line, with Mae on my left and Jhett on my right.
"Are y'all ready?" I asked.
"Yup," Jhett replied, getting his weapon ready to kill the monster.
"Let's kill this damn rat," Kaycie said.
"Stupid rats," Jack said, his bat in his hand.
All of a sudden, thunder pounded the sky and the creature ran towards us at full speed. I ran forwards at it and thrusted my machete into its chest. The creature fell forwards onto the concrete, but got back up and started swinging at the rest of the group. Rain started falling from the sky.
"Go!" I yelled, running back towards the rat.
Conner started shooting at the rat, but missed. Gracie grabbed one of Conner's arrows that had bounced off the rat and stabbed it in its thigh. The monster screeched in pain and started failing, trying to get Gracie off its thigh.
"Keep firing!" Gracie yelled, holding on for dear life.
"Watch your head!" Jhett yelled, throwing his spear right above Gracie's head.
Gracie lost her grip and the rat threw her across the road and into a little patch of grass, hitting her head really hard. Conner froze and began to run towards Gracie, but the rat blocked the way over to her. Conner started raining arrows onto the rat and the rat finally moved.
"Gracie!" Conner yelled, dropping her bow and running over to her.
I stopped, backed up, and ran towards the rat, jumping onto its back and sinking my machete into its back. The rat started flailing around, trying to reach me and throw me off.
Jhett stabbed his spear into the rat's chest, making it fall over onto its side. The rat was still alive, but it seemed it wouldn't make any more. I pulled out my machete and stabbed it in the head, killing it.
"God, that was crazy," Mae said.
I turned my head to see Conner kneeled over Gracie's body. We ran towards Conner and Gracie and stood around Gracie. Gracie was on her side, barely holding onto life.
"Are... you alright?" Kaycie asked.
"Yeah. I'm fine," Graice said, trying to stand up, but falling back onto the ground.
"Woah! Careful," Conner said, pulling her up to a tree.
I stood there, silent.
"Will she... die?" Mae asked.
"I'm not sure," Conner replied.
"What do we need to find to help her?" Jhett asked.
"We don't have what we need. Unless we do, she's going to die," Conner reliped.
We all stood in silence, scared of what was going to happen to Gracie.
"We can still help her... right?" Jack asked.
"What did I just say?" Conner replied, annoyed.
I went back inside the house, trying to find any medicine that could be available for Gracie's head injury. There was nothing. I sat down onto the couch and looked up to the ceiling.
I closed my eyes and had a flashback to when I was five or six. My dog had just had a heart attack and my mom and I were on the way to the vet to see if they could help her, but they couldn't. My mom was sad since it was her favorite dog, but I wouldn't understand until both parents were dead.
I opened my eyes and decided to head back outside to see if Gracie was dead or not. I walked up to the group and saw that Gracie was no longer breathing. Gracie was dead.
"Damn it!" Jack yelled.
"Dude! We'll lose a lot more people and we've lost a lot more people," I told him.
"No, shut up!" Jack yelled to me.
"What? All I was saying was-" I started.
"Yeah, I know what you were saying. You don't understand when you lose someone," Jack replied.
"Yes, I do! I lost my family and Dade! I lost everyone I love and you tell me that I don't understand what it's like to lose something?!" I yelled back to Jack.
"We're living the end of the world, you're going to lose people, Jack," Conner said, trying to comfort him.
"And it's this kid's fault that it is!" Jack yelled, pointing to me.
"Even though I caused this, I didn't do it on purpose," I replied, trying to stay calm.
"You wanted a stupid lamp, and you caused this!" Jack yelled.
"Guys... this is what Salvullaz wants. He wants to get into our heads and stop us from stopping him," Mae said.
"You're right. Sorry, I must have gotten mad for all the wrong reasons," Jack said, outstretching his hand.
I did the same and we shook.
"So, where are we off to?" Conner asked.
"We still need some wood and stuff to create the fireworks to kill Salvullaz," I replied.
"We can't go to the junkyard since it's occupied by the tentacle monster," Jhett pointed out.
"The school is overtaken by rats," Jack said.
"We've taken all of the fireworks," Kaycie said.
"So, we need to search more houses... or we may not be able to find any wood," Mae replied.
"Maybe downtown has some we can use," I said, walking to the golf cart.
I jumped into the golf cart with Jack and Jhett in the back. I started it up and started driving to downtown Ocean Springs. Mae, Conner, and Kaycie got into the other golf cart and we started off.
"You think we'll find anything?" Jack asked.
"I mean, I think it would probably be better if we just launched a bunch of fireworks together, but this could work too," I replied.
"We'll find out," Jhett replied to Jack.
We stopped just outside the downtown area and I got out of the golf cart.
"Zack! Why did you get out!?" Mae yelled from the other Golf Cart.
"There's something here that's not supposed to be," I replied, my machete in hand.
"What?" Jack asked, jumping out behind me.
"Stay still... don't move," I whispered.
Something was moving beside us through the woods, but I couldn't tell what it was. I stood still as a huge dinosaur-like creature came out of the forest right next to us. It was ten or so feet tall with jaws of power.
"Holy crap," Jack said, frozen.
The creature turned its head and looked at us, sniffing us for about ten seconds before moving on. It didn't seem to notice us, but it was still pretty freaky.
"How the hell..?" Mae asked herself.
"Let's get going before we get killed," I said, jumping back into the driver's seat and driving off.

A few hours passed and we found nothing that could help us, so we headed back to the house that had the fireworks the girls collected. We parked the carts and got out. It was night so we decided to sleep and get some sleep to get rest before tomorrow.
"How will we find wood?" Mae asked, walking behind me into the house.
"If we can't find any wood or anything by this time tomorrow, we'll find something else to help us defeat Salvullaz, ok?" I replied.
"Alright," Mae replied, shaking her head.
We walked inside and walked up the stairs to the rooms. There were two bedrooms, three for each. Jack and Jhett stayed with me as Mae, Conner, and Kaycie stayed in one.
Nothing happened that night. It was a dark and quiet night of restless sleep for all of us. We hoped we wouldn't lose another person and to lose another life. Whatever we faced, we would be up to.