THEM

Chapter 9

I didn't get much sleep that night.

My nightmares were plagued with the faces of my mother and sister...or at least their faces after they had changed. While I hadn't actually seen Ava change, that didn't stop my mind from conjuring up a picture of what she probably looked like.

I woke up sweaty, breathing heavy, and completely disoriented. Given that we were in a basement it was hard to tell exactly how late or early it was without any windows.

"Bad dream?"

The sudden sound of Cory's voice pierced the otherwise silent space and I jumped before quickly turning my head in the direction his voice had come from.

Illuminated by the pale light of one of the electric lanterns, I found him sitting up on top of his sleeping bag, both arms resting on his knees as he stared at me.

I swallowed once, before nodding my head slowly.

"Who was it?" He didn't have to elaborate for me to know exactly what he was asking.

Who were my nightmares about.

I could've lied. It would've been easy to spout something, anything, but the actual truth about what I knew was going to haunt my dreams every night from here on out, but I found the truth spilling from my lips instead.

"My mom and little sister." My voice came out barely above a whisper.

Despite the sleeping bag it suddenly felt twenty degrees colder down here. I wrapped my arms around my knees and pulled them to my chest as I stared down at the lantern.

"It's my parents for me."

My eyes lifted from the lantern to Cory's face. He was still looking at me.

"Was it..." I trailed off, not exactly knowing how to ask him how they had died but he seemed to understand anyway.

He nodded once. "We were having dinner out on the deck in my parent's backyard." He gave a small laugh. "My mom insisted on us meeting to have dinner as a family every chance she got. With me already out of the house and Arden getting ready to head off to college she thought she'd see us less and less."

He shook his head. "I didn't really want to be there. Shifts at the hospital kept me up more than they let me sleep and on my one day off that week that's really all I wanted to do. I basically told her as much, but hey," he gave a little shrug. "What was I going to do? Tell my mom no?"

I found myself smiling softly along with him. I could relate to that. My mom wasn't someone you told no either.

The small smile that was gracing his lips slowly disappeared as he continued. "I had just finished my food and was ready to get back to my apartment so I could  finally crash. I was literally two steps from the back door when they came out of no where." He finally broke eye contact to look down and stare blankly at the lamp like I had been earlier. "It was only two of them but it might as well have been a hundred. I couldn't do anything for them. Couldn't stop it. I was just barely able to get Arden out."

He let out a shuddering breath before finally looking up to meet my eyes again.

"We got in my car and went to the police, but there wasn't anything they could really do. They thought I was on drugs and almost locked me up when I told them two giant wolves with rotting flesh had just killed our parents." He gave a humorless laugh. "By the time we realized that it wasn't just a freak sighting, that those things were popping up everywhere, I took Arden and we hid here in our parents store and we've been here ever since."