Getting Home

Part 48

The headlights came screeching right up to them—

Sliding to a stop a few inches in front of them.

Holy shit, Sean thought. He slowly lowered his arms from over his head, the bull-bar of the car was mere inches from his nose.

Bull-bar?

Sean stood up, waving his hands in front of the headlights, hoping the black ooze couldn't drive a car—maybe Agent Johnson had found them? Didn't matter. He had to get Agent Leigh and himself out of there.

The driver's side door suddenly flung open, and Sean's jaw dropped open—

Ava got out.

Ava?

He couldn't believe what he was seeing. It couldn't be. He did a double-take—and sure enough, it was her. He recognized the bouncy and careless way she moved, having learned how to subconsciously pick her out of a crowd when he was a kid—an instinct honed over years of dealing with Ava's habit of just wandering off when they were kids.

"Sean?" she said cautiously.

"But—how—" Sean was completely at loss for words. Watching Sophia just get swept away literally seconds ago... and then Ava shows up? Everything happening was so unreal and unfathomable that it felt like his brain short-circuited—the inner voice in his head that sought logic and reason completely disappeared—

Leaving him unable to question anything even if he had wanted to.

She ran up to him and gave him a huge hug.

He tried again. "Ava, I don't—what are—"

She ignored him, anxiously bouncing in place, her face serious. "Sean, listen—we have to get to Morgantown Mall. Henry thinks—"

"Officer Mather!" Agent Leigh suddenly screamed from where she lay in front of the car.

He turned around.

Black goo was beginning to bubble out of the open manhole cover. The headlights flickered and reflected in the wet skin of the bubbling crude.

Sean reacted without thinking, bounding towards where Leigh lay on the ground. As he knelt down to pick her up, he caught a flash from his peripheral vision; a person, moving fast, but not Ava—

It was the kid.

He was still wearing the same black clothes; Sean could see the broken handcuff bracelets on his wrists. He moved faster than anyone Sean had ever seen, grabbing the manhole cover—with one hand—and swinging it down over the opening in the street like he was monster-dunking a basketball.

The heavy iron bashed flat over the hole, cracking and wedging the cover down tight into the concrete—

Sealing the black blob in the tunnels.

For now.

The kid strode quickly to where Sean knelt next to Agent Leigh, scooping her up like she weighed nothing more than a bag of dry leaves and heading to the rear of the car.

The manhole cover began to creak and bulge.

"Come on, Sean!" Ava shouted.

Sean hopped to his feet, running towards where she was getting in the driver's seat. "Move, move, move," he said urgently, slap-shooing her leg to get her to climb over to the passenger side. As he got in, he saw the kid had putting Agent Leigh in the backseat and climbing in after her.