ACADEMY FOR THE DAMNED

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

"Stand firm!" cried Juliette. "Don't panic. All of you, visualise a wall around us. Now! See it!"

Despite the terror in the hearts of teenagers they did what Juliette said. Days of relentless training had given their nerves a certain steel. Their psychic talents also had been honed and strengthened. The yellow maggot like creatures hauled their bodies up nearer to the teenagers, and then their monster heads struck against an invisible wall of psychic force.

Juliette held an expression of grim determination while Dee actually smiled. Dillon felt his muscles tense and momentarily, through a paralysing fear, he was pinned to the spot and unable to move. He snapped out of it and looked up. He saw things moving out of the blood red sky towards them.

"We're being attacked from above!" shrieked Weiss.

As they got close Dillon saw it was the conical slug like creatures they had battled the previous time they came to this benighted place, monsters Juliette had called the Yith. A stench of putrefaction wafted down, announcing their approach. Their red bases shrunk and expanded as they rushed through the air and their tops were ringed by wriggling tentacles.

The screams and cries of the teenagers rose in volume. Juliette looked up but it was Dee who made the next command.

"Dome! Think of an all encircling dome! Concentrate! See it in your minds."

It had its effect. Descending, the monsters collided with a barrier of force and bounced away. More came falling from the sky and crashed into the force barrier to roll off or to stop dead, or be repelled back into the sky.

"They're drawn to our psychic power," said Juliette.

"Fantastic!" screamed Weiss. "Now what're we going to do, stay here in a prison of our own making?"

"No," said Juliette. "We're leaving."

"How?" cried another teen.

"Listen to me," said Juliette. "Do as I say!"

"We're going to die!" cried Weiss. "Millions and millions of miles from our home."

Dillon got in his face. "We're going to live! We're going to leave here. Now shut up or I'll kill you myself."

"And I'll help," said Ike.

They could hear the creatures slamming against the wall of force on all sides. They could hear the calls of the creatures, howls and hisses and grunts. The teen's psychic abilities had been enhanced and sharpened and they all had a sense of what Juliette wanted next.

"I can see the opening," said Emily. "I know where it is."

"We move down the hill," said Juliette. "Towards the opening. Follow Emily."

The party of teenagers advanced down the hill with Emily giving directions. The maggot like creatures got pushed aside. There were more screams. The ground erupted around them and the maggot creatures pushed up inside the dome of psychic force. One reared up and whipped its snake like body against a teenage boy and its jaws closed about his side. He shrieked with pain and collapsed to the ground, his side haemorrhaging blood. There were three of the maggots inside the dome with their accompanying stench and high pitched ululations.

Another of the monsters in a lightning strike bit a girl's leg and she fell with her leg a bloody stump. The teenagers were screaming and crying and the outer psychic wall started to buckle. Emily had out her crucifix and grabbed Dillon's wrist and fire erupted from the crucifix and engulfed one of the maggots, crisping it to a black smoking stump in an instant. She turned the crucifix on another and burned it. The thing's dying scream seemed human, and it even seemed to speak a word the was almost human.