~Rain~

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

‘Get Miles out of there, now!’ Alice instructed, trying to pull the crumpled back door open with her book arm, wincing in pain.

Tyron didn’t have to be asked twice. A third groan erupted from the car, and the children waited a fraction of a second, hesitating.

Then, ‘Go, go, go!’ screamed Alice, wrenching the twisted metal away from the boy and hauling Miles up until he was draped over the step.

Gripping his ankles firmly, Tyron yanked the boy down onto the tarmac, and watched the blood drain away in the stream of water running down the street.

Seconds later, the boy was sitting up on his elbows, coughing and groaning in pain.

‘Get up, Miles. We need to go!’ Tyron instructed, wincing as he watched the pain grown in the boys eyes.

‘I don’t think…’ Miles began, but Alice cut him off.

‘Seriously, get up. You’re not dead,’ she said with a smile, offering her hand to the boy.

He took it, begrudgingly smiling at the comment, which had become something of a joke between them. They were not dead, not yet.

‘You okay?’ Tyron asked with a sigh of relief; there was nothing too wrong with Miles.

‘Nothing broken.’

‘Right, we need to leave here, right now.’

‘Why?’

‘Remember any giant green aliens in your recent past?’

Groggily, Miles shook his head, as though trying to clear water from his ears, ‘Yes- I think I passed out, though.’

Nodding, Alice pointed toward the town, which was empty despite the darkness. No telltale flames flickered around the doorways of shops, no houses smoked. Everything seemed fine.

‘Can we make it to the town?’ Tyron asked, wondering who he should be more worried about – Miles, who had a bruise the size of an egg growing on his forehead, or Alice, who’s arm was mangled horribly.

Finally deciding that they were both faring pretty well, considering their ordeal, Tyron wiped the rain from his face and shook his head, ansering his own question.

‘Wait a second,’ Alice said, frowning into the rain.

Lightning flashed across the sky, lighting up the word as if the sun had come out for a fraction of a second.

‘What?’

‘It was you moaning, right?’ she asked Miles, looking puzzled.

‘It hurt, okay!’ Miles replied, defensively.

‘I know, I know. It’s just that…if it was you making that noise…then what’s that sound now?’ her stormy blue eyes filled with fear as they each paused and listened.

Sure enough, what sounded like an almighty roll of thunder was lingering in the air, getting louder and louder as though it were coming closer and closer. Something monstrous, impossible.

A sound even the Neila were surely incapable of making.

‘I don’t know,’ Tyron said slowly, turning around to face the direction it was coming from.

The three children stood for a second, watching the rain fall and the darkness elapse. Not a bird flew overhead, and there was no rustling of animals around them. Just silence. Them and the growl, growing closer by the second.