Page 35 of The Shade of Things
9
The entranceto Route 666 was located inside an underground tunnel for a still-active train line outside Vancouver. We went from walking single file, holding on to each other’s shoulders in the near dark, to stepping through to the hidden space: a small wooden platform bathed in bright sunlight. There was a foot-high drop to the rail line, which stretched out endlessly in either direction.
“Doesn’t look like much.” Emmett broke free of the cloaking I’d laid over the three of us and peered over the edge of the platform, poking his cane into the gravel around the train line.
I hauled him away from the edge. No point taunting the Morph before we had to, not that any monsters were visible. Maybe there was just one and it was busy elsewhere? I sighed. A woman could dream.
Emmett pointed the cane at a distant shimmery black speck. “What’s that?”
The rail hummed, glowing, and the speck resolved into an egg-shaped obsidian pod without wheels, yet it made the classic chuga chuga sound.
A whistle screeched through the silence and smoke belched from this odd train. It got close enough so I could make out glowing crimson markings like barbed wire wrapped around the pod.
Even though the pod was still in the distance, the track glowed so brightly that the air above it rippled, and I had to squint to protect my eyes from the heat and the gravel flying through the air.
A hand with the same coloring and markings as the pod wormed its way out of the ground. There wasn’t any arm, just a disembodied hand about the size of André the Giant’s, with bony fingers, swollen knuckles, and ragged nails.
I jumped back, visions of Thing from the Addams Family dancing in my head. Correction, Thing was a lovely, cleanly severed hand. This was Thing’s horror movie cousin, ending in a sawed off, stumpy mass of scars.
“Fuuuuck.” Emmett’s eyes widened, and brandishing his cane, he clutched his garbage bag to his chest. He was going to put someone’s eye out with that dragon head.
Willing the pod to speed up didn’t make it so. It seemed as frustratingly far off as ever.
I searched for the way back out but there was no exit. We’d have to fight it out.
A second hand shot up, raining gravel onto the ground. It landed like a jumping spider next to its twin, and all ten fingers drummed against the edge of the platform.
Shadows swirled up my body, manifesting into my scythe. Great. Whatever this was had a demonic origin.
Eli and I crammed more tightly together under the invisibility mesh, standing next to Emmett.
Come on, you stupid pod.I touched Sadie’s earring that I wore for luck.
Eli placed his hand on the gun in his holster.
The pod had about hundred feet to the platform, but it wasn’t slowing down.
The hands clattered closer in an upbeat skipping motion, and with my heart knocking against my ribs, I white-knuckled my weapon, waiting for the perfect moment to reveal myself and take the Morph out.
Next to me, Eli unholstered his firearm, silently sliding it free.
Breathe, Miriam. It can’t penetrate my magic and see us.
How was there still a good fifty feet until the pod reached us? Was it moving in some demonic molasses-slow time?
A dry finger scraped across the skin between my jeans and hiking boot.
Yelping, I lost control of the cloaking, which fell apart, and jumped sideways. All of us were now visible but if we spread out, it would be harder for the Morph to grab the whole team.
If it had only two hands, that was. I readjusted my grip, really wishing I could unthink the possibility of more hands buried in the gravel, waiting to spring free.
The right hand skittered forward, and Eli shot the boards in front of it, right as I slammed my scythe into the wood.
Both hands retreated to the edge of the platform, but I sensed it waiting.
I wiped my sweaty hands off on my jeans, keeping my weapon manifested.
Another twenty feet to the pod’s arrival. The wind picked up, whipping my hair into my face. Whirlwinds of dirt and gravel made it even harder to see, the platform rattling with the force of the pod’s approach.
