24
I darted forward and yanked the scrab by the arm, slashing my blade across its neck. It made a horrible choked noise and toppled to the ground.
Edan looked from me to the scrab. He was still on the ground, gasping for breath.
“Holy hell, Clara. Thank you.”
I nodded, switching my machete to my left hand as I offered him my other one. He got to his feet, wincing as he peered down at his leg. A bloody claw stuck out from his pants.
“Ew, is that lodged in your skin?” I asked.
“It sure is.” He grimaced as he limped forward. Something behind me made his eyes widen. He stopped.
I quickly turned. Scrabs. Dozens of them in the field behind the house. They were climbing out of several holes in the ground, one after the other. Several were on their feet, faces pointed in the direction we’d come from. Distantly, I heard someone call my name. Tires screeched. It sounded like more than one car. Someone stopped to help, maybe.
Edan grabbed my arm. He was pressed against the wall, and I did the same.
“What do we do?” I breathed. I looked down at the claw protruding from his skin. I wasn’t sure how fast he could run with that in his leg.
It didn’t matter, anyway. We couldn’t outrun dozens of scrabs, even at full strength.
“Did they see us?” Edan whispered.
I leaned forward a tiny bit and dared a glance at the scrabs. A few took off in the direction of the yell we’d just heard. At least fifty remained.
“I don’t think so.” I leaned back against the wall, my eyes darting around the room.
“Hide?” Edan guessed.
I nodded. “Until they leave.” With any luck, everyone else in the SUV was still alive and would come with reinforcements. I reached for my pocket.
“Shit.”
“What?” Edan asked.
“I left my phone in the car. Do you have yours?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t have cell service. I just use it with Wi-Fi.” He looked at the broken chair in the corner. “I get the feeling they don’t have Wi-Fi here.”
“Can’t you call nine-one-one even without service?” I asked.
His face lit up, then fell. “I don’t know what the French equivalent of nine-one-one is. They really should have covered that in one of our sessions.”
I heard a rumbling noise suddenly, different than the one I was used to. This was more like a stampede. Edan went pale.
On the other side of the house, a group of at least fifty more scrabs were coming over the hill. They ran aboveground on all fours.
I searched desperately for a hiding spot.
There was a door open a few feet to my left, and I edged closer to it and turned the doorknob. I braced myself as it opened, waiting for a creak or for a mouse to scurry out, but it was quiet. It was a small closet, empty except for a few hangers dangling from the rack. I jerked my head at it. Edan nodded.
The scrabs were getting closer.
I darted inside the closet as quietly as I could and sank to the ground. Edan stepped in after me, pulling the door shut very slowly so that it didn’t make a sound. He squeezed down next to me.
It was pitch-black in the closet, and there was barely enough room for us to sit side by side. Our shoulders were pressed together, and I could feel his body moving up and down with his breath. I could smell his shampoo when he turned his head. I could also smell scrab guts. Their blood was splashed across my pants.
The rumbling grew closer. We were both so still that I felt dizzy in the darkness.
Then, I heard it. Click click click. Claws on the wooden floor. The sound was everywhere. The entire house was full of scrabs.
The dizziness grew more intense, and I realized suddenly that I might be about to die. The fear had been there, in the back of my mind, every time I fought a scrab, but the threat felt incredibly real at the moment.
I reached out, finding Edan’s wrist first, and then his hand. He was not the person I would have liked to be holding hands with in my last moment, but I had to make do with what I had. He gripped my hand tightly.
One of the scrabs snorted. They were so close I could hear them breathing. I held my own breath. My heart pounded so loudly in my ears I felt sick.
I heard more clicking noises, and then a sound like someone was eating. Like flesh tearing. Then, more.
My stomach turned. Were they eating that dead scrab? I had no idea that they ate their dead. I pressed my free hand to my mouth.
This was not how I wanted to die. I didn’t want this to be the last thing I heard. I squeezed Edan’s hand so hard I could feel his bones grinding together.
The scrabs finished in a matter of minutes, and their claws clicked against the wood again and then disappeared. Silence descended on the closet.
Neither Edan nor I moved for at least twenty minutes. I dropped his hand as my heart rate began to slow and let myself relax against the wall. Our breathing evened out, his shoulder still and warm against mine.
“Should I look?” he finally said, his voice barely audible.
I nodded, and then realized he couldn’t see me. “Yes,” I whispered.
The door opened a crack, dim light flooding the closet. The sun had almost completely set.
Edan leaned forward a little, and then quickly back.
“They’re still in that field,” he whispered. I caught him wincing as he slowly shut the door. “And they’re not all asleep yet. It looks like some of them went underground, but there are a bunch up there still. I think we should wait a couple more hours.”
Darkness closed in on us again as the door
