Chapter 7
The baby had stopped crying.
The toddler, who had been screaming at the top of his lungs since they walked into the diner, was completely, totally silent.
In a room filled with gunshots, shattering glass, and a brutal fistfight, a suddenly quiet baby was the most terrifying sound in the world.
“Hey!” I yelled out before I could stop myself.
My voice cracked, barely audible over the roaring wind coming through the broken window.
Terry grabbed my ankle, digging his nails into my skin.
“Don’t!” Terry hissed, his eyes wide with madness. “Stay down! They’ll kill us!”
I kicked his hand away.
I couldn’t just lie there. That baby was in that booth, right next to whatever the hell was happening to his mother’s arms.
Another strobe of muzzle flash lit up the room.
I saw the General on his back, struggling to hold off the man in the trench coat, who had a knee pressed squarely into the old soldier’s chest.
The General’s gun had been knocked away. It was sliding across the wet floor, coming to a stop just a few feet from where I was hiding.
“Civilian!” the General bellowed, his voice straining under the crushing weight.
He had seen me moving.
“The back door! Get her out the back door! Now!”
The trench coat man immediately snapped his head toward the counter, his dead eyes locking onto my position in the darkness.
“Stay out of this, local,” the man warned, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “Or I will burn this entire town to the ground just to find you.”
I froze, caught between the sheer terror of the threat and the desperate plea of the old soldier.
The blue light in the back booth flared aggressively, completely blinding.
The mother let out another agonizing scream, but this time, it was abruptly cut short.
She collapsed over the table, gasping for air, her glowing arms hanging limply toward the floor.
“Now, damn it!” the General roared, bucking his hips and throwing a brutal right hook into the trench coat man’s jaw.
The hit connected with a sickening crunch.
The man stumbled back, giving me exactly one second to make a choice.
I didn’t think. I just moved.
I scrambled out from behind the counter, staying low, crawling on my hands and knees over the broken glass and spilled coffee.
The shards cut into my palms, but the adrenaline pumping through my veins masked the pain completely.
I slithered like a snake down the narrow aisle, keeping below the tops of the booths.
The mechanical humming was so loud now I couldn’t hear my own panicked breathing.
When I finally reached the back corner booth, the heat radiating from the mother was astonishing.
It felt like kneeling next to an open oven.
“Hey,” I whispered, reaching out a trembling hand. “Hey, look at me. We have to go.”
She didn’t respond.
Her head was resting on the cheap formica table, her eyes rolled back into her head.
Her thin gray hoodie was pushed up, and I got a terrifyingly close look at the tattoos.
The black ink wasn’t just glowing. It was moving.
The jagged, grid-like lines were slowly shifting beneath her pale skin, rearranging themselves like a digital puzzle trying to solve itself.
It was deeply, fundamentally unnatural.
But worse than the glowing ink was the baby.
The toddler was still strapped to her chest in the carrier, but he wasn’t looking at me.
He was staring dead ahead at the blank wall, his tiny face completely devoid of any emotion.
His eyes were wide open, and reflecting in his pupils was that same, sickly blue light.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, feeling bile rise in my throat.
“Come on,” I pleaded, grabbing the mother by the shoulders. “You have to wake up! I can’t carry both of you!”
I shook her hard.
She gasped loudly, her eyes snapping back into focus.
She looked at me, completely disoriented, sweat pouring down her flushed face.
“Where…” she stammered.
“The back door,” I said, pointing toward the heavy metal door marked ‘EXIT’ just ten feet away, past the restrooms.
“The General said to get you out.”
The mention of the General seemed to snap her back to reality.
She looked over her shoulder, toward the front of the diner where the two men were still locked in a brutal, desperate struggle in the shadows.
“He’s going to die for me,” she whispered, a fresh wave of tears spilling down her cheeks.
“He’s going to die for me just like the rest of them did.”
“Not if we leave!” I yelled, pulling on her good arm. “Get up!”
She stumbled out of the booth, her legs shaking so badly she almost collapsed onto the wet linoleum.
I wrapped my arm around her waist, supporting most of her weight, and we started moving toward the heavy metal exit door.
