Invictus

Chapter 35: Father

The roars reverberated through my bones. I could feel them echoing inside me.

Kya threw off her blanket and let it fall to the ground, I could tell she was terrified. Trenton tossed her the puffy winter jacket she had been wearing from before.

Adam, who was shirtless even though it was freezing outside, immediately bounced out of his sleeping bag and took his place next to us in his blue jeans near the fire.

Everyone except the half-naked redhead was wearing the matching black winter jackets, gloves, and boots that Trenton had picked up at the outlet mall. Had our current situation not been so morbid I might have laughed at our little eskimo mafia.

I could see it in their eyes, they wanted blood. It was either the freaks out there or us after all. I however, only wanted one; Helena.

Twigs and fallen trees snapped as they were trampled on. The roars came louder now.

"Six heat signatures. Big, coming right for us." Adam said, two balls of swirling flames alive and wild in his hands.

"How can you tell? All I see are shadows." I said to him.

"Can't explain it Ezekiel, just can. My eyes can see all kinds of heat, including those given off by the living."

"What you mean you two can see? I can't see anything." Santiago said worriedly, his head kept darting back and forth between us and the pitch black beyond the fire.

"I don't know what they are. But I saw them in the distance a few hours back when we were playing cards." Adam yelled back to Santiago.

Trenton laid a hand on Santiago's shoulder. "Head to the battery pile. When I tell you, I want you to drain two of them into those wires I laid out earlier."

Santiago shook his head as he made for the pile of batteries a few feet away from the fire.

"Kya, a little water please." Trenton said pointing to a place beyond the fire.

Kya nodded in approval. We couldn't see what she was doing but it didn't take an idiot to figure out Trenton's plan.

Then I saw something, something the others weaker eyes weren't able to see. A sliver of moonlight cut through the canopy above casting a silver ray upon one of the creatures that was heading towards us. There were six of them. Six of the biggest bears I'd ever seen. If those things stood on their hind legs they would have towered over all of us. I didn't want to think about what it would feel like to be caught in one of their maws.

Trenton started to count down from five while Kya set out a wall of sharp icicles in the shape of a palisade before us. I knew it wouldn't hold against something that big. At best it killed them when they ran into it full speed, at worst it only made the things more angry.

"Four."

Adam tossed me a knife with a black hilt.

"Works a little better than a fist." He said with a smile. I nodded my thanks and gripped the blade hard.

"Three."

Santiago crouched low and got ready.

"Two."

The shapes of the creatures were now visible to all of us in the light of the fire. I could see blood stained across their yellowed teeth, the thundering of their footsteps undeniable now as tremors shot towards us, rattling the ground.

"One."

Blue ribbons shot down Santiago's body into his arms and through the wires. We heard a pained howl, the cry of wounded animals as the perfectly placed bear traps clamped onto the massive beasts legs. The howl was followed by an eerie buzzing and then a sick gurgling sound. Deadly amounts of high amperage electricity flowed down the metal wires and into the golden jaws of Trenton's perfectly placed traps. The damage was made worse by the water Kya had saturated the ground with.