grip.
“Fuck this.” Sarah shoved the knife back in her pocket and pulled out one of the emergency flares instead. Moving quickly, she unscrewed the cap and struck the tip of the flare against it. The flare sputtered to life, emitting a red flame. Sparks burned the tiny hairs on her arm, but she ignored them. She thrust the flare forward, and the worm reared back.
“Come on,” she said, stepping in front of Kevin. “Go around the other side of the sinkhole.”
The two smaller worms slithered back and forth, hesitant to come near the sputtering flame. The larger creature thrust itself forward, lurking on the edge of the sinkhole. Gritting her teeth, Sarah took a step backward. The monster’s segmented body tensed, and she knew it was preparing to charge. Before it could, however, the sodden ground collapsed beneath the creature’s weight. The worm tumbled into the sinkhole. Water splashed up over the sides of the crater.
Cheering, Sarah swept the flare back and forth in a wide arc, keeping the remaining two worms at bay. She slowly retreated, glancing over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t too close to the edge of the crevice. The worms followed, but slowly.
They’re communal, she thought. We suspected it before, but seeing them close up like this… How are they communicating with each other?
When she reached the road, Kevin was waiting for her.
“Got another flare?” he asked.
She nodded, not taking her eyes off their pursuers. “We’ve got two more. But we need to make them last. No telling how many of these things we’ll run into between here and the ranger tower.”
“We’re still planning to make for that, then?”
“We can’t make it back to Teddy’s. Not without the truck. The fire tower is closer. It’s either that, or stay out here in the open.”
“No thanks,” Kevin said. “Let’s go.”
They rounded the other side of the sinkhole. The road stretched ahead of them again, heading into the forest. The downpour prevented them from seeing very far, but it didn’t look like there were any more washouts. They’d make better progress on the road than they would in the fields and meadows. Both were muddy, and it would be like running through cement.
Sarah paused, watching the worms. They hovered at the edge of the road, still cautious of the sputtering flame. Sarah reached into her jacket and pulled out another flare. Then she handed it to Kevin.
He frowned. “I thought you said—”
“I’m going to try something different. Just stick that under your jacket. Keep it dry. Don’t light it unless I tell you.”
She tossed the flare towards the worms. It landed in the middle of the road. Sarah held her breath, wondering if it would go out, but the flame continued to burn brightly. The worms paused, caught between the flare and the hole.
“That gives us a head start.” She grabbed Kevin’s arm. “Come on!”
They ran down the road, heading towards the forest. Sarah risked a glance behind them, and was relieved to see that the worms were still trying to negotiate their way around the flare. Then the mist closed in their wake, and the creatures disappeared from sight.
They kept running for another five minutes, until they reached the cover of the trees. Once they were inside the forest, they paused, panting for breath. Sarah noticed that Kevin was wheezing.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. My chest still hurts. Just need to rest up.”
“We can’t stay here long. We need to keep moving.”
“I know. Just give me a minute to catch my breath.”
Sarah studied their surroundings. The rain drummed against the leafy canopy overhead. The sound was surprisingly loud. Many of the trees were leaning to one side, their roots struggling to keep a purchase in the over- saturated ground. Others had collapsed, leaving behind huge holes in the earth that were now filled with water. She spotted white fuzz growing on several tree trunks, concealing the bark. The mold also covered a slab of granite jutting up from the forest floor.
Behind her, Kevin shrieked. Sarah spun around, to see him wiping the back of his hand on his coat. He seemed embarrassed.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. I brushed up against a branch. It tickled my hand and I though it was… you know, one of them. Scared me.”
“Well, you scared me, too. Jesus, Kevin…”
“Sorry.” He smiled. “You still love me?”
Grinning, Sarah shook her head. “I’d love you a lot more if you hadn’t lost our bat.”
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“How?”
“When we get to the tower, you can have first pick of whatever we find.”
“Deal.”
They continued on their way. The mist grew thick between the trees, and the road sloped steadily upward. Neither of them spoke. Sarah stretched her neck and shoulder muscles, trying to work out the kinks.
Kevin scratched the back of his hand, which had begun to itch.
Neither one of them noticed the fungus growing on the branch he’d touched.
CHAPTER 4
Henry Garrett knew that he was dreaming.
Lucid dreaming, people called it. He’d seen them talk about it on television, back when the televisions still worked.
The last time he’d had this dream, Henry had floated deep beneath the mountains—not through a subterranean network of tunnels and caves, but through the very ground itself. Ethereal, he’d slipped through rocks and roots and soil. Henry didn’t know how far he’d descended. There was no way to tell for sure in a dream. He reckoned it was a long distance. Eventually, he stopped. And there, far below the earth, he’d seen a door open up. As he watched, a worm the size of a school bus had crawled out of it and immediately started to give birth. Slime dripped from its body and coalesced into smaller worms. As Henry gaped, the creatures began to burrow upward, chewing through the planet’s core like Japanese beetles through an apple tree. They left slime in their wake.
Henry had screamed himself awake.
This time, the dream was different. Oh, there were some similarities, but the location wasn’t the same. He wasn’t floating down through the ground. Instead, he was sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The other big difference in this dream was that when he saw a similar door opening on the ocean floor, it wasn’t a big old worm that came crawling out, but a host of different creatures.
First, dozens of tentacles thrust through the doorway, grasping and wriggling in the current. The tendrils varied in size, but all of them were covered with rows of suckers, and each sucker had a puckered, greedy mouth lined with needle-like teeth.
Schools of silver fish darted through the doorway, swimming around the flailing tentacles. They were about eight inches in length, and reminded Henry of a cross between piranhas and flying fish. Their broad pectoral fins were curved like wings. As he watched, they devoured every living thing in their path. The water turned red.
Next came a group of creatures that looked like a mix of human beings and great white sharks. They had the legs, arms, and partial torso of a person, but the tail, head, dorsal fin and upper body of a shark. Their mouths were the creatures’ most striking feature—rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth. Over ten-feet in length, they swam by using both their powerful tails and their lithe legs—propelling themselves through the water with great speed.
There were quivering jellyfish that shot black, corrosive acid through the water. Spiny starfish that glared at him malevolently with human eyes. Blind, aquatic worms that burrowed into whatever they could find and began
