Free Timeless (The Cartographer Book 3) by Craig Gaydas Page B

gripped tightly in his hand. His eyes bulged from their neck sockets and they stared at us wildly. His mewling became louder while fidgeting with the object in his hand.
    Jori shouted “ GET DOWN! ” and tackled Kedge and Vigil to the ground. Yori grabbed me by the collar and shoved me violently to the ground like a rag doll. Before I had the opportunity to ask what was going on, there was an explosion. Gore and body parts rained on us. I gagged when I saw an eyeball roll past.
    Jori was up in an instant, pistol in hand. I scrambled to my feet in time to see a group of at least twenty people emerge from the shadows of the woods. They were of various sizes and shapes, but all were extremely disfigured. Some had two heads. Others were legless, walking on hands attached to extremely long arms. Unlike their recently deceased companion, they all had faces. Some of them were located on their head, others had them on their chest. One of them was missing a head but had a face on a large bulge protruding from his back, like some macabre version of Quasimodo. No matter the physical location of their face, they all had the same expression of hate. They clutched primitive weapons ranging from spears to hammers which seemed to be manufactured from carved wood and scavenged metal. One hammer had a bent steering wheel for a head.
    “Well now,” Kedge muttered as he backed away from the edge of the road, “this is quite the predicament.”
    Without hesitation, Yori slashed the first of The Forsaken across the stomach, unleashing his guts all over the road. A surprised O spread across the poor unfortunate creatures face (one of the few who had its face in the normal location) before falling to the ground in the pool of its own gore. This action caused the others to pause only slightly before they uttered a collective scream of rage.
    “Well that can't be good,” Kedge whispered.
    “Were you always the master of the obvious or did you come to learn it over time?” I retorted.
    Instead of answering, he lifted his rifle and shot an approaching Forsaken. The one who had no legs charged me. His muscled arms pumped furiously as he closed the distance between us. I shot him in the chest and the momentum sent him flying backwards where he came to rest alongside the road. I noticed more of The Forsaken pour out from the woods. There had to be at least forty of them now. I looked at Jori's desperate expression and knew we were in trouble.
    “GO BACK!” he shouted.
    We nearly bowled each other down on our way back to the bus. After scrambling up the stairs and slamming the door, Jori jumped behind the wheel and started the bus. Before he could go, The Forsaken surrounded the vehicle and started to pound on the windows and doors. They rocked it so violently I was sure it would tip over at any moment.
    One of the windows shattered and broken glass showered Mazu. “Do something !” he cried frantically.
    Yori fixed him with an icy stare. “Why don't you pray to your god, Brasus? Perhaps he will get up off his golden toilet and actually do something!”
    Despite being distracted, firing out the broken window, Kedge brayed laughter. “I think I like this guy,” he said before shooting a Forsaken climbing through the window.
    Due to the violent rocking, Jori couldn't get the bus into drive and chose instead to attend to the door, which was nearly torn off the hinges. Bloated fingers pulled on the door like a group of sausage links trying to sneak their way in. Jori kicked at them awkwardly, but they continued their furious clawing.
    Another window shattered and Vigil ran to it. He flipped a tiny switch on his bracelet and tendrils of light extended about two feet from each end, giving the bracelet a crossbow-like appearance. The falcon head embossed on the top sprang to life and its mouth opened, revealing a white globe of light inside. He pointed his hand toward the window and before I could ask what he was doing, a bright bolt of white light