✓ | 3. soldier, soldier, spy [STEVE HARRINGTON]

thirteen.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
TEENAGERS

[ PLURIBUS UNUM ]

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The creature was misshapen but huge, barely able to fit its many legs (so many that a few of them seemed pointless as they sprouted from its back and couldn't reach the ground) in the corridor. When it opened its huge mouth, Thomas and Nancy were staring down into the nothingness behind its gaping black jaws, the nothingness that awaited them; behind its teeth, saliva strung from top to bottom jaw like fleshy goop.

"NANCY!" Jonathan screamed from behind the creature.

She hadn't turned her head to see that Thomas was there, but she started to back blindly up the corridor towards him. The creature began its lurching scramble forward, supporting and dragging itself along the floor and the walls, coming toward them, coming fast.

"NO!" Thomas screamed, and with a swing upwards of his arm the creature sailed backwards, legs trailing behind it as it flew airborne. The effort of it all pained him; he had to scream from the force.

It landed with a squelch, staggered upright without hesitation.

He needed it to stay down.

Yelling with the effort, the agony, Thomas swung his hand upward, blue light exploded briefly down the corridor, and the creature smashed into the roof. When it fell again, it didn't get up, not before Thomas had staggered forward, seized Nancy's arm, and dragged her backwards.

"I got you, come on," he panted. "Let's go, Nance, come on." He had to run, now. He didn't have much left in him. He wanted -- needed -- to recharge, to rest.

Gripping her sweaty hand in his, Thomas pulled her into a run, though his footsteps tripped over each other as he stumbled between sprinting and looking behind him.

The monster was still coming toward them, ready to kill, eager for murder. It crashed through a ladder with a huge clang as it hit the floor, clambering over it with a gurgle, and then using the floor and walls to begin to speed up.

          It was fast, impossibly fast. At each corner, he could hear, over his pants, as it screeched when it slid, and had to use all of its many legs to start lurching forward again. Nancy was sobbing, and though tears were springing at the corners of his vision, he was holding back weeping by only a grim force of will – the same determination that kept him running.

        "Here!" Nancy cried out suddenly, and she yanked him to his left.

          They slid into a room, Nancy shoved him back, and she locked the door with a twist of the lock. There wasn't quite silence, but there's quiet; no footsteps, the muffled gargling roars, their panting isolated. As they backed up from the bolted door, Thomas caught her terrified eyes in his; they were blackened by smudged make-up.