Trevor answered for their hosts, 'Take a look around, Rev. This place doesn’t belong to our friend here. I think she stole it.'
Nina spoke as they came to the lower level where a large open archway offered a glow of sunlight from outside. 'More like, well, borrowed it.'
'And now whoever you borrowed it from is coming to get it back, right?'
'Something like that,' she admitted as the exit neared.
'Team One, this is Perimeter, the line has been breached at-oh SHIT! RUN! R-'
No further transmissions came from the radio.
Nina and her group of escorts and escorted took the advice of the last transmission: they bolted out into the cold afternoon and joined a mob of running people, some having come from inside the complex, others obviously the troops from outside.
Trevor stumbled as his surroundings came in to focus. They were in the woods but not the same woods. The trees here were of a similar hardwood variety, but scorched white and warped into horrid shapes. This was a forest after a fire or some terrible tree disease.
Reverend Johnny mumbled, 'Tears of Jesus, what has happened?'
'Save the questions!' Nina hollered as the two men fell behind. 'Your answers are ahead but you won’t live to see them if you don’t run!'
Two technicians scrambled around the slower-moving Trevor and Johnny, dropping papers from the bundles of notes and books they struggled to carry. Trevor wondered if those notes and books contained the instructions to operate the building Nina had 'borrowed'.
Despite the fleeing crowd to either side, Trevor heard something. Or did he feel it? Either way, he glanced over to Johnny and saw him staring back with the same question in his eyes.
What was that?
A low, droning hum growing louder…approaching from behind.
Thousands of sunbeams sliced through the canopy of twisted, lifeless branches casting sharp lines of bright and dark. Yet the sun could not chase away a feeling of emptiness, like death. Trevor felt a cold that came from more than the temperature.
The hum grew into a buzz, growing louder; closing on the mob running like forest animals from a spreading fire.
'Run!' Nina shouted and her blond ponytails waved behind her like miniature wings.
Trevor hastened his pace as best he could, jumping over fallen limbs and crashing through piles of dead brush but the physical obstacles were not nearly as overwhelming as the mental ones. From the sorry sight of the decayed forest to the buzzing danger pursuing from behind to this Nina Forest doppelganger and her band of strangely-clothed mercenaries, it felt as if he entered some warped wonderland.
A soldier with a badly injured leg ran-hopped at a sprint-forward. Every bound he made elicited a cry of pain yet he did not slow. Something-terror-compelled him to flight despite blood loss that would certainly kill him soon enough.
A woman in a white lab coat stumbled and fell. Another technician literally stepped on her back as he continued on without a thought for his comrade, ignoring her cries before he tripped over a tree root and landed face-first in a pile of dried leaves.
Trevor did not stop to help either of them. He followed Nina and the rest of the fleeing pack pushing through sharp barren branches.
'I will pour out my terrible fury on this place. Its people, animals, trees, and crops will be consumed by the unquenchable fire of my anger…'
Johnny slowed as he spoke. Trevor turned and saw why; his friend dared a glimpse behind.
The humming noise bounced off the dead trees and filled the air like a demonic shriek.
Trevor followed Reverend Johnny's eyes to the forest behind them, behind another wave of running people, back into the sea of sunbeams slicing down from above.
Like lights in a dark hall switching off, those sunbeams flickered and disappeared one after another as the blackness came. Literally a flood of dark. A thick cloud oozing through the woods like a wall of black water running down a river bed.
A hand grasped his shoulder and spun him around. Nina screamed, 'Haul your ass!'
Johnny mumbled, 'Surely an agent of the serpent himself…'
Trevor did not allow the sight to clutter his already chaotic mind any further. Instead, he grabbed on to fear and let it guide him, shouting to his friend, 'Let’s move, Rev. Let’s MOVE!'
Although his legs trembled, Trevor found more speed than he had ever known, easily keeping pace with Nina.
The ground shook. The hum seemed more a scream and it seeped into his mind; invaded.
Trevor…Johnny…the others…they stampeded, pushing through the horrid forest, flattening the withered foliage and weaving through the corpse-like hardwoods.
Screams from behind; those not fast enough.
Trevor dared a look over his shoulder after he jumped a fallen tree. The wave of black gained; fifty yards back and billowing forth.
They splashed across a stream, climbed a short ridge of red rock, then the forest of twisted, sick trees gave way to a large clearing. Four machines parked there. Trevor immediately saw them as air craft but he could not identify the type. They stood slightly larger than a Blackhawk chopper with a large rotor affixed to a raised rear quarters that gave the impression of the ship sticking its ass in the air. The main body sported two short wings with jet-like engines underneath and a large cockpit at the bow dominated by a huge, multi-paneled windshield.
Judging by their boxy design he guessed them to be cargo carriers or troop transports.
'This way! C’mon!' Nina urged as she ran toward one of the craft.
Rear ramps stood open on each of the ships.
Forest called to Jolene as they raced across the clearing, 'Take Two. I’ll get these guys out on Three!'
Jolene directed herself and a group of running people toward one of the craft. Trevor and Johnny followed Nina inside another.
They boarded directly into a tube-like cargo area with rows of seats along the outer walls under small glass portals. Two flight chairs waited in the big nose cone, Nina headed for one.
A soldier shut the rear ramp immediately after Johnny and Trevor entered, closing it in the face of several technicians and forcing them to scamper for another means of escape.
As the ramp sealed, Trevor glimpsed the deluge of darkness flood into the clearing. Several people disappeared into its midst. He thought he saw-he could not be sure-those people turn ghastly white and then melt as the black cloud enveloped them.
'Everyone, take your seats!'
He did exactly as told. He did it and prayed she could launch the vehicle fast enough.
'Firing booster rockets!'
Following Nina’s announcement, a jolt pinned the passengers in their seats and a loud rush filled the cabin. The ship thrust skyward like a rocket ship destined for orbit. Trevor felt his belly sink.
'Hold on…almost clear…'
Upwards momentum slowed, the rush of the rockets dissipated. The ship held still and silent in the sky for a moment; the world seemed to stop.
Then Trevor felt his belly move to his throat as the powerless ride plummeted back toward Earth, gripped again by gravity.
'Booster rockets,' he mumbled to Johnny who sat across from him with his eyes closed mumbling prayers so he probably did not hear. 'For a quick take off in emergencies.'
He heard Nina grumble, 'Come on, damn it. Come ON!' She struggled with controls.
A click. A whir. Then a rumble that sounded to his ear like the blades of a helicopter. In this case, the big rotor above his ride. The metal floor vibrated and he felt their descent slow as the spinning blade overhead caught and stabilized flight.
'Sweeeet, yeah!' Nina cheered from the cockpit.
Trevor looked out the portal near his seat. He saw another of the helicopter-like things shoot into the air then
