“S-s-scor—”
What he was saying, I had not the slightest clue, but when I spun around and saw what crept out from behind the generator, I knew what it was.
Scorpion.
I held no previous fears of the animals before I saw that one. This fear solely belonged to Lee. It had come from the dark recesses of his mind. Later, he would tell me and the others how, when he was a boy in Texas, a scorpion had woke him up by crawling up his neck. It didn’t sting him, somehow, but the resulting nightmares from the experience haunted him for a long time after. And I got a front-row view to this nightmare right then.
This thing, though, was more monster than scorpion. It was bigger than Chewy, closer to the size of a German shepherd. Its tail stretched nearly as high as I stood, curling toward its head. At the end of it hung a limp stinger easily as long as my middle finger, dripping with a putrid-smelling black poison. The lantern’s light glowed off its chitinous armor, which was a mixture of death colors: pale-gray, pus-yellow, blood-red.
It clicked its claws together.
Frozen, I stared into its lifeless black eyes as its mouth opened, revealing a set of fangs as long as human fingers and as sharp as icicles.
I thrust the lantern forward, a mere dozen feet from it, and the monster began burning as it advanced…only instead of stopping or retreating, it sped up.
It actually sped up.
I wasn’t expecting this. I was expecting it to screech and turn into a puff of black smoke, or, at the very least, for it to run away.
Lee let out a weak scream. I panicked and slammed the lantern across the scorpion’s head. The glass shattered, and darkness instantly swallowed the corridor. In hindsight, this wasn’t the smartest move, but like I said, I had panicked.
It was in the darkness that these creatures thrived, and as soon as I lost sight, all hope was lost.
We were defeated. The dark was their home, and now they had the advantage.
This is what was going through my head when a sudden fire erupted across the scorpion’s body. It stood on its back legs and screeched. The flame rippled, and each part it passed over began turning to dust. Before I realized it, I was on my ass, sliding backwards, and my flesh was dampening with sweat from the new heat. The heat felt nice, which was a strong contradiction to the fear twisting my insides.
Twenty excruciatingly long seconds later, the monster was nothing more than ember-specked ash, and the dark took hold of the corridor once again. I scrambled to my feet.
It’s true that relief flooded me in that moment, but I couldn’t help thinking about how brazen the wraith had been, how the light no longer scared it.
“You okay?” I asked Lee, out of breath.
He was babbling, saying words I couldn’t understand, but that was an answer enough. He wasn’t okay. I didn’t blame him; I wasn’t either.
I offered him a hand. Once standing, he wobbled like he was plastered-drunk.
“It’s gone, man. It’s okay,” I said.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple like a blade beneath his pallid flesh. “B-but how many more are inside?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? I shook my head. “Let’s just fix this damn thing.”
Lee closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He nodded after a few moments, then walked on eggshells toward the generator, giving the monster’s remains a wide berth. It took him a few more moments to completely calm down, but once he did, we got to work and got it running again.
There was no telling how many wraiths had gotten in without the surveillance systems online or anyone actively looking for them, which wasn’t something anyone wanted to do willingly. Our best bet was to get the lights back on. Stay vigilant and get the City in order again. After we told Nick of our experience in the north section, he ordered those without injuries back into the hub until it was sorted.
A team of reluctant volunteers searched every dark nook and cranny and no other wraiths were found. The lights were back on and running, but with the new fuel shortage, we didn’t know for how much longer.
Sometime in the early morning of the next day, Ell came and roused me from a semi-doze. She saw the hopeful look on my face and did what I hoped she’d do: cut right to the chase.
“He’s okay, Grady. The bullet went through. All we have to worry about now is an infection, but the medicine should prevent that.”
She grabbed my hands and pulled me into a hug. I was on the brink of tears—sadness, relief, fear, you name it—but my chest felt a little lighter.
“Can I go see him?”
Ell nodded. “Yeah, but none of those bro shoulder punches, please. Doc Hart’ll be real mad if he busts open his stitches.”
Stone was sitting up in bed. His left arm was in a sling, and his upper chest/shoulder was wrapped in gauze. Blood had already seeped through. He paid it no mind, and when I pointed it out, he raised his eyebrows and said, “Well, shit. Will ya look at that.”
“I see the pain meds have already kicked in.”
“What pain meds? Man, you’re crazy, Grady. I ain’t high on anything but life!” He broke out into a fit of giggles. I couldn’t help myself either, and I laughed with him. For a long time, I thought I had lost my best friend. I didn’t, though, and that’s all that mattered.
We talked it up for a bit until Stone’s eyelids started getting heavy. I started to tell him to get some rest, but he was snoring before I finished the sentence.
The woman who’d ran through the snow to our front gates while I was on watch had a name. It was Credence. I learned this three days after the attack. She had passed her tests and
