Rune Seeker

Jan stopped short at the sudden pinprick of cold on her arm. Was that her imagination? She ran her finger across her skin and brought it right in front of her eyes. Moisture? Could be…

She scanned the sidewalk, but, no…nothing.

Her eyes went up to the dark sky roiling above. That was definitely not her imagination.

Damnit, had they taken too long scavenging in the grocery store? She checked her watch; if anything, they were faster than expected. So, what’d happened? The clouds sprinting across the sky answered her question. A fast-moving storm, a bad one they didn’t know was coming, had snuck up on them.

“Guuuuuys,” she called slowly, her pitch rising with the length of the word, while she tightened the straps of her backpack over her shoulders. If she needed to run, she couldn’t have it bouncing around.

“What’s up, babe?” Roger asked as he left the store.

Jan didn’t turn, but pointed up with her free hand.

“Oh, shit!” Roger cursed. “Hey! Get a move on. We’re out of time. The skies are about to open up out here!” he shouted back into the store.

One by one, in quick succession, the others joined Jan and Roger until they numbered eight.

“Should we go back in, wait it out?” Rose, the youngest of the group – and wearing a jacket colored to match her name – asked nervously.

“No way, you saw that ceiling. Bet it leaks like a sieve,” Hussein, the oldest, answered back.

“We make a run for it,” slender-Mike said, pushing the glasses up his nose like he always did when he was nervous.

“Less talking, more moving,” Jan said and started down the street at a jog. The pack had to weigh a good forty pounds on her back – why’d she grab so many damned cans? – but they could make it if the skies held back just a little longer. Just a few more minutes.

A fat raindrop slapped the tip of her nose so hard she jerked back like she’d been punched.

“Babe?” Roger asked and stopped beside her.

“We’re out of time,” she said, quarter-sized splotches of wetness appearing every second or so on the street around her. “We need to find shelter. Now. Before it gets worse. Before they…”

A shimmer flashed across her line of sight, no bigger than her pinky finger, but her blood ran cold.

“They’re here,” she whispered, her eyes raking across the abandoned cars in the street, and the ruined buildings on both sides. It looked like a war had torn the city apart, and that wasn’t exactly far from the truth. If they didn’t find a place to hide from the rain…

“The entrance to the subway tunnels isn’t far,” Roger said, grabbing Jan’s arm and pulling her forward. “If we run, we can get there before it gets too heavy.”

“They’re already here,” she said weakly, but let him pull her along. Get it together, Jan!

“Just the small ones, and the rain isn’t hard enough for the big ones to come out yet. Tunnel’s just a few blocks and…” Roger said.

“…we’ll be safe there,” Jan finished for him, her voice strengthening. Roger was right, the rain was getting heavier, but they could make a few short blocks.

“What the hell is the hold up?” Hussein asked from about fifteen feet in front of them, the other five gathered around. “We don’t have time to be gabbing.”

“We need to…” slender-Mike cut off as a shimmer the size of an adult’s leg knifed through the air in front of him, the falling raindrops hitting its skin the only reason the group could see it.

Everybody froze as their eyes followed the shimmer swim through the air faster than a galloping horse, down the street, up the side of a three-story building, then over the roof and out of sight.

“How come it didn’t attack?” Mike asked, his head swiveling to the people around him who could only shrug.

How come, indeed?

“Maybe it wasn’t hungry?” Hussein asked.

What else could there to be to eat around here? There’s no reason for it to leave us alone unless…

“Look out!” Jan shouted and pointed, all she had time for, half-a-dozen shimmers racing over the top of the building and rocketing towards the larger group of people.

Slender-Mike turned, as if in slow motion, while the others dove aside.

The lead shimmer lanced straight towards him, splitting down the middle into a frenzy of writhing tentacles that wrapped around his face and upper body as it collided with enough force to lift him from his feet. He hit the ground ten feet back, muffled screams mixing with the sound of breaking bones as the shimmer’s tentacles squirmed around his shoulders and squeezed with inhuman strength.

Blood jetted into the air, painting the briefest outline of the shimmer, like some kind of otherworldly five-foot-long squid, while Mike twitched and jerked underneath. Within a heartbeat, the steadily increasing rain washed away the crimson, leaving little more than a conical outline atop Mike’s horribly broken body.

“Go, he’s gone,” Roger said, and shoved Jan towards the closest car still in one piece. The other five were already running.

Rose dashed into a nearby phone booth and slammed the Plexiglass door behind her. Hussein and his oldest son, Samir, ran into an enclosed bus stop, somehow still standing after everything that had happened. The other three, Yin, Erik, and Peter, raced into an old fast-food diner and dove under the long-unused tables.

Jan spared one last quick look at Mike, the other shimmers had joined the first, and the heavier rain outlined their features as they feasted.

“In, in,” Roger urged, and pushed Jan into the front seat of the car, then slammed the door behind her. The back door opened and closed in quick succession as he joined her in the vehicle, even going so far as pushing down the lock with a click.

Heavy rain pattered along the hood with a sound like tin while the wind picked up, lashing the car and gently rocking it.

“Hell of a storm,” Roger said quietly. “We shouldn’t have come. Never should’ve come.”

“We needed food,” Jan whispered back, her eyes locked on Mike’s body as the almost invisible predators devoured it. Great chunks of him just vanished, swallowed inside the monsters she couldn’t quite see.

So, they weren’t transparent. Something about their skin must’ve refracted the light around their bodies. Useful information, if she survived long enough to tell anybody.

“The others?” Roger asked.

“Okay for now. Rose is on her own, but she’s out of the rain and got the door closed. Peter made it inside, with Yin and Erik, so as long as the roof holds, and they stay quiet, they should be fine. It’s Hussein and Samir I’m worried about.”

“Where?” Roger asked, peeking through the bottom of the backseat window.

“The little bus-house, or whatever it’s called. They’re sheltered, but with the wind picking up, the rain is going to get inside.”

“They can’t stay there.”

“They can’t leave.”

“Never should’ve come out.”

“This isn’t on you, Roger,” Jan said, glancing back between the space separating the front seat and door. “You made the right call. We couldn’t wait another day; everybody was already getting antsy.”

“Tell that to Mike.”

“He knew the risks when he volunteered.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Roger snapped, then they both ducked lower in the car at the volume of his voice.

“No,” Jan said, rolling onto her back, her heart skipping a beat when she saw the sunroof. Her panicked mind took a full three seconds to realize she wasn’t getting wet as she stared up at the falling rain. “No,” she said again. “Knowing you, you’ll never feel better. You’ll beat yourself up over this for months, but it doesn’t change it was the right call at the time.”

Roger sighed then shifted in the back. “We need to get them out of there. Maybe a distraction or something so they can get to the diner?”

Jan gazed out the sunroof at the pitch-black clouds high above. When did it get so dark? Jagged lightning split the sky and briefly illuminated a shimmer as big as the car lazily weaving above the street before the darkness swallowed it whole again. Thunder like the world breaking echoed a second later, rocking the car and reverberating straight through Jan’s chest.

“It’s too late,” Jan said when she found her voice, then propped herself up to try and catch a glimpse of the large shimmer again. Thick rivulets of water ran down the windows and windshield, and she couldn’t locate it in the driving rain. The big ones had arrived, which meant they weren’t going anywhere. “The rain’s gotten too heavy. Anybody who goes out there… isn’t going to make it. We have to hope they don’t get noticed.”

“This is my fault, Jan.”

“And getting yourself killed with no guarantee of saving them won’t make it any better!” she shot right back.

“Damnit,” Roger hissed, but stayed in the car.

Jan took a deep breath to calm down, she had to keep thinking, but a small part of her couldn’t help but marvel at the power of the storm. Wind drove the rain almost sideways, lashing the car hard enough the pattering had become more like a drumming. Thick streams already formed in the road, flooding water through the long-deserted streets and overflowing out of the debris-filled sewer drains.

“Maybe it’s better we didn’t make it to the tunnels,” Jan said. “We’d be swimming all the way home.”

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“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Roger agreed. “It was sunny when we left this morning.”

“Right, you were from…where was it, Ontario or something, before all this started?”

“Yeah, came down here for a vacation. Sun and sand, you know?”

“Guess you don’t get a lot of hurricanes in Ontario then, huh?”

“This is a hurricane?”

Thick trees at the nearby intersection waved in the wind like they were freshly sprouted instead of a foot thick. Rain hit the ground so hard it exploded into mist, leaving a haze-like layer hanging over everything like a blanket.

“I don’t know,” Jan admitted. “But that’s the only thing I’ve seen like this.”

“How bad does it get?”

Jan didn’t answer immediately. “The shimmers may not be our biggest concern,” she finally admitted. “We might be able to ride it out in here, if it doesn’t get much worse. Or, we could find ourselves literally down a river.”

“The others?”

“No better. Probably worse.”

“So, you’re saying we’re screwed? Because of my choice to come out?”

“Enough with that, okay? It’s not going to help us. If the weather doesn’t get any crazier, we can make it.”

“I don’t like relying on ‘if’,” Roger said quietly.

“Neither do I…” Jan admitted.

“… Szzhhhtt… Jan… Jan I’m scared… szzhhhtt…” static and Rose’s voice hissed from Jan’s backpack, and Jan nearly jumped out of her skin at the volume of it.

“Turn that down!” Roger said, simultaneously trying to look out all the windows at the same time.

The walkies! Jan shifted, struggling to get the backpack off without rocking the car – why’d she tighten it so damn much? –and then dug the walkie out of the front pocket.

“… Szhhhtt… Jan, what should I do, Jan… szhhhtt…” Rose’s voiced echoed out of the walkie-talkie as Jan lowered the volume.

“It’s okay, Rose. Everything is going to be okay,” Jan said softly into her walkie and looked out the car window towards the phone booth. Rose huddled down in one corner, barely more than a red outline through the rain.

“Could you two possibly keep it down?” Hussein’s voice scolded over the walkie.

“Turn your volume down then, she’s scared,” Jan snapped.

“She isn’t the only one, but she’s going to bring those things down on all of us,” Hussein shot right back.

“Jan, do you have a plan?” Yin’s voice joined the conversation.

“Yin! Are you guys okay in there?” Jan asked.

“That’s it, I’m turning this off,” Hussein said.

“Yeah, you do that you old…” Jan said without pressing the button.

“Be nice, Jan,” Roger warned gently.

“Whatever, he’s always…”

“We’re okay… for now…” Yin said quietly, interrupting the conversation.

“For now?” Jan asked.

“The whole back of the building is missing. Water’s pouring over like a waterfall, and there’s a dozen leaks. I’m stuck under a table, but I can hear drops hitting it every second or so. Erik and Peter are under the counter, I think, but I can’t see them. I don’t know…”

“Peter here,” a new voice joined the conversation. “Erik hurt his ankle pretty badly getting in here. Dunno if it’s broken or just sprained, but he doesn’t think he can walk. What’s the plan, Jan?”

“Why are they asking me?” Jan asked Roger without pressing the button on the side of the walkie. “You’re the one leading…”

“Because you’ve always been the best in emergencies. You keep your head on straight while the rest of us… don’t…” Roger said.

“Jan… Jan… can I come to you?” Rose asked, her voice shaking, or maybe it was just the rain interfering with the connection.

“No, Rose, no. You’ve got to stay there,” Jan said quickly, looking towards the phone booth to make sure the girl hadn’t done something stupid. “You’re safe in there. Just stay put. Okay, Rose?”

“… okay…” Rose said.

“Mike? Is he with you Jan?” Yin asked.

“… he… isn’t…” Jan said vaguely.

“Damnit,” Yin said quietly. “Back to Peter’s question. What’s the plan?”

“The weather’s bad,” Jan said, shaking her head at the ferocity of the storm. “We’ve got to wait it out.”

“Wait?” Rose’s shrill voice practically shrieked. “I can’t… I can’t do that Jan. I’m coming to you.”

“Rose, Rose, don’t do that,” Jan said strictly as the girl’s red outline stood inside the phone booth. Stupid girl! Stay there. “You’ve got to stay in where it’s…” Jan’s voice cut off as movement caught her eye. Her head slowly tilted back, then back some more as she looked up. Mouth suddenly dry, her jaw worked, but no sounds came out.

“Where I’m what, Jan?” Rose’s panicked voice crackled over the walkie. “Stay where I’m what?”

“Babe? Babe, what is it?” Roger asked from the back seat.

“A… above… the bus… shelter…” Jan said, forcing her mouth to spit out the words her brain was struggling with.

“Jan, what do you… oh… fuck me!” Roger said as his eyes must have found it too.

A shimmer, at least thirty-feet long and ten-feet wide, hovered lazily above the bus shelter. The heavy rain, torrential and constant, outlined the sinuous, barbed tentacles as they split and spread, gently reaching down to probe the top of the glass building.

“Rose… stay inside. You can’t, CAN’T, go out right now. You hear me? You have to stay inside,” Jan said as firmly as she could.

“Hussein and Samir? Can you warn them?” Roger asked.

“He said he was turning off his walkie,” Jan replied.

“Try anyway!” Roger snapped.

“Hussein. Hussein, can you hear me?” Jan asked and waved in Hussein’s direction. Was he even looking her way? The rain made everything little more than a silhouette. “Hussein, if you can hear me, say something.”

“What’s wrong?” Peter asked. “Something going on?”

“Hussein!” Jan said, squeezing the walkie as hard as she could like that would make Hussein hear her. “There’s a shimmer right above you. A huge one! You’ve got to… got to…”

What could he do? If he left the bus shelter, he’d be exposed to the rain, and it wouldn’t just be the huge shimmer he’d need to worry about. But, if he stayed inside and that thing found him…

“Peter! Peter!” Yin’s urgent voice interrupted Jan’s thoughts. “In the back. Do you see it?”

“See what?” Peter asked nervously.

“There’s a tentacle coming through the waterfall… it’s huge!” Yin answered.

“What?! Where? Holy shit!” Peter said. “Erik, get over here man! Yin, does it know where we are?”

“I don’t think so,” Yin said. “I can’t see it other than where it’s coming through… oh… wait, I think it’s gone. Must’ve been too dry in here.”

“Thank goodness. Not really anywhere for me and Erik to go. Don’t look at me like that, man, you’re the one who tripped,” Peter said, relief in his voice.

Jan turned her attention back to Hussein, the massive shimmer floating down and resting on the top of the bus shelter. Tentacles as thick as trees snaked over the edges and around the glass hut. Hussein has to see those…

“Jan!” Hussein’s voice crackled over the radio. “We’ve got a problem in here Jan. Can… can you see it? How big is it?”

“It’s big, Hussein, bigger than I’ve ever seen,” Jan answered. “Are you guys okay?”

“No, Jan, we are NOT OKAY!” Hussein shouted into the walkie, obviously not caring about being found any more. “The glass is starting to crack under the pressure and… shit… it’s coming in. Samir, get in the back, behind me. Don’t argue boy, now!

“Jan, Jan, you need to make a distraction or something. Get this thing away from us so we can make a run for it.”

“I’ll do it,” Roger said from the back seat.

“No! It’s suicide,” Jan said. “I’ll think of something.”

“Jan! We need it now. At least get Samir out of here. You owe me this, Jan!” Hussein shouted into the walkie.

“Oh shit! It’s back,” Yin’s voice broke into the conversation. “Two… no… three tentacles. Peter. Peter, man, they’re heading right for you. You’ve gotta get out of there.”

“Damnit, the one by the diner is just as big as the monster going after Hussein,” Roger said. “Since when did they get this huge? What can we do, Jan? What did you think of?” he asked.

“Yin, where are they, Yin? I can’t see them,” Peter asked. “No Erik, stay there.”

“Jan, I’m scared, Jan,” Rose’s voice pleaded.

“I need a distraction in here NOW Jan! The glass is spiderwebbing,” Hussein roared.

“Peter, it’s right above you! Get out of there,” Yin commanded.

“Jan, what do we do?” Roger asked. “Fuck it, I’m going!”

“No, Roger…” Jan started, but a banging on the window behind her cut her off. She spun, a blurry outline of red visible through the rivers of rain running down the window. The palm of a young hand slapped against the glass, and then Rose’s face pressed right up against it, eyes wide and soaked hair plastered to her cheeks.

“Stupid girl,” Jan hissed and grabbed the steering wheel to pull herself up.

“Rose?” Roger asked.

Jan didn’t answer, instead unlocking the door and throwing it open.

“Jan…” Rose cried while Jan made room and waved the girl in. At least she’d made it.

Rose ducked and started to climb into the car, but tripped and fell flat on the seat, her legs still outside in the driving rain.

“What are you doing?” Jan hissed. “Come on,” she said and grabbed the girl’s hand to pull her in.

Rose must’ve found her feet, because she got up to her elbows, but then she kept rising, and her panicked eyes met Jan’s.

“Jan, Jan, something’s got my leg. Jan, help me!” Rose pleaded. One of her hands grabbed the stick-shift, while her other held onto Jan’s for dear life.

“I’ve got you,” Jan said. “I won’t let go.”

A sharp jerk pulled Rose’s wet hand out of Jan’s with impossible strength, and Jan couldn’t do anything but watch as Rose was catapulted up and over, then hurled thirty feet to smack into the side of a concrete building two floors up.

Rose fell limply to the ground and didn’t move.

“No, Rose!” Jan screamed and scrambled past the steering wheel and out the door. Something strong grabbed her by the arm, but she ignored it, her eyes on Rose’s still form. This can’t be happening. And suddenly she was back in the car, Roger’s top half between the two front seats as he held her down. His mouth moved, but Jan couldn’t make out what he was saying.

The sound of shattering glass cut through the roar of the storm, and Jan stopped fighting, her head turning mechanically towards the noise.

Fifteen feet away, the bus shelter finally collapsed under the strength of the huge shimmer, Hussein and Samir standing back to back inside. They held their hands out, as if to ward back the massive tentacles, but what good would it do?

Hussein’s eyes met Jan’s, blame somehow crystal clear through the rain.

Then his body was compressed into Samir’s with such force the two of them appeared to be a single person before Jan could turn away.

Roger pulled her all the way back into the car and closed the door.

“Erik, don’t let go!” Peter’s voice crackled out of the walkie on the floor. “Jan? Answer me… are you still there? It’s got Erik!”

“Aaaaargh, it hurts!” Erik’s distant voice came out of the radio.

“Yin! Yin, you’ve got to help us,” Peter said, gasping.

“I… I’m… I’m sorry, I can’t…” Yin practically whispered.

“Yin you chicken-shit! Help us. Erik, don’t let go! I’ve got you,” Peter shouted, then cut out.

“I’m so sorry,” Yin cried into the walkie, Erik’s pained screams echoing in the background.

“Yin! If you don’t get your ass out here and help me…” Peter’s distant voice shouted, barely audible through the walkie. “No! Erik!”

“It… took Erik,” Yin said flatly. “Jan, I’m sorry. I just… couldn’t…”

“Couldn’t what?” Peter’s voice roared.

“Peter… don’t Peter… please! Jan… Jan and Roger can hear everything!” Yin pleaded.

“Like I care, we’re all dead anyway,” Peter said, followed by a series of thumps and the sound of the walkie dragging along the floor.

“…Peter…” Yin coughed, a lisp to his voice, but a sharp crack stopped him from saying anything else.

“This is your fault,” Peter shouted, followed by another thump. “You damn coward.” Another thump. Yin’s pained cough.

“Pe’er. Pu’ease,” Yin begged.

A wet thwack, like a baseball bat hitting a melon.

“That’s… for… Erik…” Peter said between panting breaths. “Never should’ve brought you wiiiiiiiiii…” Peter’s voice trailed away from the walkie in an instant, then silence.

Jan shook in Roger’s arms. From the cold? The shock of it all?

“They’re all gone,” Jan croaked, her voice barely a hoarse whisper.

“I know,” Roger said quietly. “Nothing you… we… could’ve done.”

“They were all looking to me to get us out of this,” Jan said, tears mixing with the rainwater on her face. “I said I’d think of something…”

“And I got us into this in the first place,” Roger said. “We can blame ourselves when we get back.”

“Are we going to get back?” Jan asked, doubt worming its way into her heart.

“Of course we are. Those things seem to be leaving the car alone. Like you said, we just need to stay quiet and wait out the storm.”

Something jarred the car, slamming it to the side and throwing Jan and Roger apart. Up was down, left was right, as the vehicle rolled, and Jan bounced around like a pinball. When the rollercoaster ride finally stopped, both Jan and Roger sprawled out on the ceiling, the car upside down.

Blood ran down Roger’s forehead, eyes closed, and he didn’t move.

“Roger?” Jan asked quietly, blinking to dispel the stars dancing across her vision. Red ran into her left eye, and she quickly wiped it away. “Roger? Can you hear me?”

She shifted to push herself up, but froze when her hand splashed.

The windows on one side of the car had completely shattered, and water ran in and pooled an inch deep. But the rain…the rain had stopped. Was it over?

Jan stared out the window, it was barely believable, but the street was calm. No more pitter-patter of rain on the car or the street around her. Even faster than it’d come, the storm was gone.

If that was the case though, why did her gut clench like she’d just been punched by a pro-boxer? What was she missing?

A car down the street slid sideways, hinting at the answer to her question. Something pushed it aside, crushing it against a nearby building, and then another car, this one closer to Jan, was shoved aside.

What the hell? One of the bigger shimmers? But there isn’t any rain…

More and more cars were pushed around while Jan watched, like a child sweeping toy cars apart.

With that thought, Jan blinked and refocused, and it became suddenly, terrifyingly clear. A single tentacle, as wide as the four-lane street, coming straight for her.

The rain hadn’t stopped. No, there was just something unimaginably large shielding the car, and the whole city block, from the storm. Something directly above her.

“I don’t think staying quiet is going to help us…” Jan whispered.

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