"Hey, you remember what I said last year, right? We're Zombie Boy and Ghost Boy. I'm not ever gonna leave you."
"Promise?"
"One hundred percent."
***
In which Alistair fights the monster that possessed his friend alongside his friends, while trying...
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Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Siege On The Cabin
(The Bite, Pt. 2)
***
The Party didn't waste a second preparing for battle.
Nancy and Jonathan headed outside for weapons, while inside Max, Cami, Alistair, Will, Mike, Lucas and El barricaded the inside of the cabin as best as possible—mostly against the windows—with Lucas also closing the doors to any rooms the Mind Flayer could creep into.
Alistair panted as he helped push a shelf in front of a window, Hugin flapping around. Wiping the sweat off his brow, Alistair stepped away, raising his hands and mumbling, "Step back."
His friends did so, watching Alistair as cold burned in his eyes, the white returning as the temperature plummeted. Outside, the ground rumbled, and Alistair could feel the corpses rising—squirrels, possums, rats, snakes... and a coyote, a wolf and two bears. They lumbered in the woods, ready to be called upon when the Mind Flayer attacked. Alistair wiped the blood away from his nose, keeping a mental hold on his reanimated soldiers as he jumped back into helping barricade.
"Yeah. That's good like that," Mike said in regards to their barricades—just as Nancy and Jonathan came back, Nancy wielding a gun, not like Alistair expected anything else, and Jonathan holding an axe. They set their weapons down to push the couch up against the door, blocking it.
Picking up the gun again, Nancy ordered, "Hey, get away from the windows."
They obeyed, standing in a tight circle. Now waiting for the Mind Flayer to attack.
Alistair's heart was in his throat, and he could feel the dead animals under his control in the woods, waiting for the chance to attack the Mind Flayer. And if what he felt was true, if his hunch was correct...
Maybe he'd help more than he realised.
They waited, as everything seemed to go silent—the world waiting as much as they were for the monster to attack.
Until things in the cabin started rattling and lights began to flicker.
Alistair's heartbeat spiked, and he reached for Will's hand unconsciously. Will took it as he murmured, "It's close."
Alistair gulped, eyeing the walls of the cabin as now crashing noises sounded, the noises sending chills creeping down Alistair's spine as the flickering intensified and the rattling grew louder. His grip tightened on Will's as he felt his dead animals watching the shadows, waiting for his command to attack, as the living people waited in tense silence for the Mind Flayer's attack.
Except, it never came, as the crashes grew faint and distant. Almost like it... left.
