Free The Creepers (Book 2): From the Past by Norman Dixon Page B

blemishes of progress from her face,
using the Creepers as her brush and time as her ink.
     
    Howard walked towards that massive
crater now. He could see his father’s tomb clearly, which would have been
impossible years before. There were only a handful of large buildings left and
most of them were rusted, wind torn skeletons. Crumbling concrete fell from the
slightest touch, echoing around them.
     
    “You get used to it after a time.”
Howard kept his tone even, but his mind plotted.
     
    Jennifer flinched at each crunch of
rock, each strained metal groan. She was jittery, unsure. As she should be ,
Howard thought.
     
    “What’s happening?”
     
    “Movements beneath the earth at our
feet, shifting plates, the execution of time. Things collapse, are reborn.
Cycles, always in cycles. Just as we were born after, as he was born before,”
Howard said, pointing at the now gray-skinned man. He could read the infection
on the man’s face. “Your friend might not be around long enough to tell you
what you want to know.”
     
    “What do you know?”
     
    “As the son of a doctor, I know a lot. I
know that right now his blood is in the process of becoming toxic to his
system. I know that he doesn’t have long to live, and we don’t have the
supplies necessary to save him. I know that once he dies—” Howard spun and
pointed at the man— “he will turn, and at that point he’ll be a liability.
Unless, of course, we ensure that doesn’t happen.”
     
    “Get moving,” she said, pointing ahead
with her weapon.
     
    “Suit yourself.” Howard shuffled
forward, exaggerating his way around a small fissure in the ground. The rusted
hull of a gutted bus poked out like a dead hand rising from the grave. Eerie
scraping and screeching rose from below.
     
    Jennifer flinched again.
     
    “It’s the rats. Don’t worry. They
usually wait until nightfall to come up. Nothing a bullet or two can’t handle,
if you see them before they see you.” He watched the confidence drain from her.
She was so out of her element. Exposed.
     
    “Up ahead, we need to be careful. You
might want to put both rifles on your back.”
     
    “Right.”
     
    “Suit yourself.” Howard led them around
the corner.
     
    What looked to be another dilapidated
city street opened onto a huge black pit that stretched for miles. Suddenly the
groan of the buildings was replaced by a rush of water, ebbing and flowing,
crashing against things unseen below. The jagged tip of what was once a shining
example of man’s ability pierced through the darkness and into the sky. Massive
birds perched upon it in the sun. The wind swept past them, salty, inviting.
     
    “Madre.” The man coughed.
     
    “Nature always claims her prize.”
     
    It was beautiful, it was tragic, and it
was dangerous. Howard rarely ventured to this side because of the delicate
nature of the earth. It could give way at any second. One wrong step could set
off a chain reaction. He started around the left side, staying inches from the
lip. “We have to—” He leaped into the darkness. The sound of crashing waves
swallowed his fake scream.
     
    He timed the fall just right, his feet
catching on the exposed façade of a crumbled building. He swung down into a
pitch black window, landing on the wall, and he allowed himself one look back.
The bright sky seemed so far away from down here, but he was only thirty feet
from the lip. The darkness was beyond deep. Even coming down here to scare his
father as a boy, with the aid of powered lights, it was as if the world had
been erased. Solid ground and then an endless, light-swallowing darkness. A
timeless tomb. All through the crooked hallways, the skeletons of Los Angeles
found their final resting place. He could even sense some Creepers, but they
were better left to their fates. He pushed them out of his mind.
     
    With the roar of the ocean at his back,
he traced his famous route through the new underground and came up a block
behind