Demon Ember (Resurrection Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “It’s getting really Jurassic Park out there.”

  He turned to me, his lips parting in a silent question. I forced a smile on my face and walked out. Not everyone got me. Fine, very few people got me.

  My phone beeped, and I set the cups on the outdoor seating to check my messages.

  Tell me you’re seeing the pattern, too. #freaksbyblood

  I grinned. Ryan was one of the few who got me.

  Creepy coincidence? Anything on the news?

  Kristin pulled up. I quickly got in, ready to head back to our dorm building.

  Local no. Searching for anything new from Germany.

  Once we got back to our room, Kristin and I immediately turned on the TV. We watched the local report, waiting to see if something would come up about the earthquakes in Texas.

  Sent you a link, Ryan texted.

  “Ryan tagged me in a new video from Germany,” I said, moving to get my laptop before sitting back down next to Kristin.

  I logged in and tapped the link for the video that had been live-streamed from Germany. Kristin muted the TV and watched with me as a man’s face appeared on screen. He was breathing heavily and his eyes were wide. The image was dimly illuminated and bounced around as if the man was running. The angle of the recording changed as he lifted his phone high. I couldn’t understand what he was saying and focused on the black he was recording.

  For a moment, there was nothing but darkness and his harsh, gasping breaths. Then, I heard it. The clack and clatter of something moving in the void. Kristin and I both leaned forward. A growl started low and grew louder through the speakers.

  “Is this live?” Kristin asked softly.

  I looked at the time stamp. “No, but it was live.”

  The jerky aim of the camera caught a flash of movement in the darkness behind the running man. Suddenly, dozens of red dots flashed before the angle changed again.

  My phone chimed, but I ignored it.

  A blood-curdling scream made Kristin and me jump. We stared at the black screen and listened as the sound of growls and screaming increased. Something moved close enough to the camera light and was caught on video. It looked like a very large dog’s leg. An instant later, it moved out of frame. Teeth flashed, and the recording went black.

  Kristin and I remained silent. My sandwich felt like lead in my stomach. For a moment, I couldn’t process anything beyond the fact that I was certain we’d just watched a man die. Then I picked up my phone.

  Are you watching? Ryan had sent.

  Why would you send me that? I’m going to dream of that shit now.

  That’s just one of the reports of animal attacks from Germany since the last tremor. It’s like the wildlife freaked out and turned on us. Why aren’t we seeing any of this on the news?

  I didn’t know how to answer Ryan so I turned the volume back up on the TV instead, to try to figure out what was going on.

  “There have been reports of aftershocks in Irving, Texas. Viewers are urged to seek shelter.”

  Kristin jumped from the couch.

  “I’m going to call my parents.”

  I nodded as she walked back into our bathroom. I texted Ryan.

  Are you still feeling tremors there?

  No. But are you still watching the news?

  Yeah.

  Did you see they announced communications are down in western Germany?

  I hadn’t heard that. Earthquakes…bizarre, aggressive animal behavior. I nibbled my bottom lip. What the hell was going on over there? And why was I feeling so creeped out about the tremors we felt here? I glanced over at our bathroom door and heard Kristin speaking to her mom. At least they were still safe.

  Once Kristin finished talking, she rejoined me to watch the news. At 5 p.m., I got another text from Ryan.

  Just heard from a friend in Wichita Falls. EAS ran a broadcast in Texas to stay indoors.

  Without saying anything to Kristin, I changed the channel to see if we could get more local information.

  “Due to reports of strange animal activity, people are encouraged to avoid animals showing any unusual traits or seeming unnaturally agitated. In other news…” The news anchor went over other safety precautions for Earthquakes.

  “How’s your mom holding up?” I asked Kristin.

  “Good. They just had dinner. That last quake messed up the storage in the basement so they’re cleaning that up.”

  If her parents weren’t mentioning anything about the EAS, neither would I.

  The station we were watching cut over to a program in progress. I tried a few other channels, but they similarly were no longer reporting on Europe or the tremors.

  Kristin went to her desk and worked on her paper.

  What’s happening in Germany? Local cable sucks, I sent Ryan.

  Reports of lost communication spreading. Friends no longer able to get messages to friends. Saw a message translated from someone in France reporting dog attacks in their neighborhood. Keep you posted.

  I settled in to watch a movie. The room was getting warmer, as was usual in the evenings. Kristin opened the window a crack without me asking, and I kicked off my pants and got comfortable with a blanket.

  It was around nine when Kristin climbed into her bunk, and I turned off the volume. It didn’t do much good. Laughing and loud music faintly reached us. Somewhere nearby, someone was having a good time, and I heard Kristin move restlessly in her bed.

  Near eleven, the music finally quieted. Kristin sighed, and I turned off the TV and climbed into my bunk. Someone called a goodbye in the hallway, and I closed my eyes.

  All was quiet in our room when an eerie howl sounded from outside. Fear formed a cold ball in my stomach as I glanced over at Kristin, who stared at our partially open window.

  The howl came again, sounding closer.

  I grabbed my phone and scrambled down from the bunk to get to the window. Outside, the campus lights illuminated the view of the grounds, street, and distant parking lot.

  Someone walked into view from the base of our building. He looked back toward the entrance and yelled goodnight just before another howl rent the air. The guy stopped and looked toward the south. Whatever he saw had him turning quickly.

  “Get back inside,” he shouted as he ran toward the building.

  Behind him, in the distance, several shapes were moving fast. Dogs. Really, really big ones. Their thin, black bodies flew through the shadows, their eyes reflected red in the darkness.

  “What the fuck is that?” Kristin asked.

  The dogs were gaining on the guy fast. One sprang forward and knocked him to the ground. It closed its maw around the man’s calf and shook its head viciously. I dialed 911 and lifted the phone to my ear. I listened to an all-circuits-are-busy message as the guy outside screamed and thrashed. Beside me, Kristin began to sob. More dogs converged on the man.

  Three

  I started to shake and ended the call to try again. Screams echoed from outside and inside the building. Kristin and I weren’t the only ones awake and seeing the attack.

  Another guy ran from our building, yelling and waving his hands. The dogs stopped their violent assault, lifting their heads as one. In that moment, I saw they weren’t really dogs. They had no ears that I could see, and their eyes glowed red. It wasn’t a reflection but an actual glow.

  “Get out of there. He’s not moving,” someone yelled from below.

  Whoever said that was right. The man on the ground was a bloody mess. I couldn’t be sure, but one of his legs looked broken or chewed off.

  Behind the dogs, a car beeped and the lights flashed as someone tried using their key fob as a distraction. The dogs didn’t even flinch. They remained focused on the new guy who had stopped waving his arms and was slowly backing away. He disappeared from our line of sight and the dogs howled, leaping forward.

  The screaming started up again. Beneath those sounds, there was yelling. There were too many voices at once, but it sounded like there were people
at the entrance, trying to hold the door closed.

  Kristin turned from the window and opened our room door. She listened in the hall while I kept trying 911 and stared at the fallen man. What the fuck was going on? My mind played that panicked question on repeat until my fifth redial. That’s when I saw I had a message.

  It was from Ryan from about forty minutes earlier, thirty minutes before the music had turned off.

  It’s the dogs. Stay inside. Stay safe. Stay away from the infected.

  I stared at the words, struggling to think and breathe. The dogs. Did that mean Mom, Dad, and Ryan had seen the same thing Kristin and I had just seen?

  Are you safe? Did they come by you? I tried to send back. But the message kept failing. I tried to call and received the same “circuits are busy” message. I turned on the TV, and every damn channel had the damn EAS bars with a message warning everyone to stay indoors to avoid infection.

  “Infection from what?” I said.

  It took three tries to turn off the TV because my hands shook so badly. When it was off, I still heard the distant screaming and yelling.

  “What’s going on?” Kristin didn’t have any better of an idea than I did, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

  She turned from the door, her face white. Shock. I’d seen it before when Ryan broke his arm. I walked over to her and tugged her back into our room before I closed and locked the door.

  “You need to sit down.” She vacantly stared straight ahead as I led her to the couch.

  “Kristin, you’re in shock. We both are. But we need to get past it.” Sitting beside her, I took one of her hands in mine and rubbed it aggressively. Doing something helped quell enough of the panic that I could think beyond “what the hell is going on?”

  Those things outside were what we’d seen in the video. What was happening here had happened in Germany. Germany had lost communications, too. Why? What were those creatures?

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said. “Ryan said the dogs are infected. The TV is saying to stay away from them.”

  She exhaled shakily and new tears trailed down her cheeks. I’d take crying over numb silence any day.

  I stood up and went to the window to check on the man. I watched in horror as he struggled to pull himself in the direction of the building. Part of his leg dragged behind him, leaving a bloody trail. Chunks were missing from his side. My already racing heart kicked up a notch. He couldn’t be alive. Not in that condition.

  “Mya,” Kristin sobbed. I didn’t realize I was making noises until she spoke. I swallowed hard and turned away from the window.

  “J-just freaking out. Did you hear what I said about the dogs?”

  “Yeah. Infected. Stay away from ‘em.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to calm the shaking. We couldn’t both lose it.

  “Right.” I sat beside Kristin for a moment and rubbed her hand again. “If the dogs are infected and they bite people, then the people they bite might be infected, too. We should stay away from everyone. Stay in our room.”

  She nodded, and I picked up my phone.

  “Just stay here,” I said to her before getting up and going back to the window. With my back to her, I slid the window open and got ready to take a picture of the man. He paused in his struggles and looked up, as if searching out the noises coming from our building. There were many. A lot of shouts and crying.

  I snapped the picture and then zoomed in on the image to see his face. It was the same creepy, cloudy-eyed look as the man from the German video.

  “Are they still out there?” Kristin asked. “The dogs?”

  “Not that I can see. But there’s a lot of yelling still.”

  There was a scuff of movement behind me, and I turned in time to see Kristin walk into our shared bathroom. She knocked on the adjoining door.

  “Amy? Dawn? Can you guys open up?”

  I hurried toward Kristin. “I don’t think that’s a good idea…”

  The door swung open to reveal a very pale Dawn.

  “Where’s Amy?” Kristin said, looking into their room.

  “Nate’s dorm,” Dawn answered. “I thought I was alone. Did you see outside? Why is he moving?”

  “Who’s moving?” Kristin asked.

  “Never mind. Did you lock your door?” I asked Dawn.

  “I don’t know. I closed it when I heard the yelling.”

  I moved into Dawn’s room to make sure her door was locked. Once I verified it was, I used the peephole to look out into the hallway. Someone ran past. A door slammed shut further down the hall. The screaming and shouting was getting closer.

  “Let’s go to our room,” I said.

  Kristin nodded and led Dawn through the bathroom. I took a moment to push a desk in front of Dawn’s door then retreated back the way I’d come. In the bathroom, I locked the door from the inside.

  When I joined Kristin and Dawn, Kristin was looking out the window.

  “Will you help me move a desk?” I asked her.

  She didn’t say anything about the man still dragging himself across the parking lot as we moved the desk. In the hallway, the noises grew quiet. I caught Kristin’s glance at the peephole.

  “Don’t look,” I said quietly as we eased the desk into place.

  She nodded and moved to sit next to Dawn. I stayed near the door, staring at it. None of this seemed real.

  A sound at the door made me jump. I held my breath, listening. The sound came again. A rasp of something against the other side of the panel. Swallowing and struggling to breathe quietly, I leaned forward to check the peephole.

  A cloudy, once-blue eye stared back at me. I jerked backwards and covered my mouth. I would not scream. I would not panic. I would not die.

  Our doorknob moved slightly. Not a turn. More of a jostle. None of us made a sound.

  I waited, holding still and keeping quiet. Screams erupted nearby. The noise outside our door stopped.

  I let out a shuttering breath that threatened to turn into hysteric sobs. No. They’d hear. I took a steadying breath and then another, working to control the hysteria. When I turned, Kristin and Dawn were staring at me with wide eyes. Their pale faces were a reflection of how I felt.

  Outside, a smattering of distant pops broke out. Lifting a finger to my lips, I let them know to remain quiet and moved back toward the window. I couldn’t see anything beyond the street lights. The roads were empty of traffic.

  “I think we’re on our own,” I said softly.

  I tried to move past the panic fogging my mind. What should we do? Should we stay and wait for help? It was smart. It was what people did when lost. Stay in one spot.

  “We can stay here. We have water,” I whispered, mostly to myself, “but only enough snack food for a day or two.” It could work. Yet, I couldn’t get the parallels between what had happened in Germany and here out of my mind. The video of the man being bitten then getting up. Seeing the man outside torn up and then dragging himself toward the building. And the cloudy eye in our peephole. The EAS used the term infection. Infections spread. Did staying in one spot make sense?

  “Leaving means…” I turned to look at the door. The person who had been staring back at me wasn’t healthy anymore. If we left our room, we would likely end up the same way.

  I glanced at Kristin and Dawn and saw the same hopeless defeat in their eyes.

  More pops sounded from outside, pulling my attention back to the window. Nothing moved but the guy in front of the building. Even the screams inside had died down. I hoped it was because people were in their rooms hiding, not dead.

  In the silence, I could hear the distant whine of several engines.

  “Get dressed,” I said. I pulled on my pants and yanked the sheets from our beds.

  “What are you doing?” Dawn asked quietly, following me.

  “There are people out there with guns and vehicles. We have two options. Through the door or the window. There’s no way I’m going in that hallway.”
/>
  Before we finished tying the sheets, Dawn pushed out the screen and waved her arms.

  “I see them,” she said.

  We joined her at the window and exhaled in relief at the sight of several military vehicles followed by a line of cars and trucks.

  “If you’re not infected, come to your windows,” a man yelled from below. His gaze swept up the building and over to the other wings.

  He spoke softly to several uniformed men who broke off and moved around the building, out of sight.

  “Stay in your rooms. We’ll knock when it’s clear.”

  On the far side of the vehicles, people emerged from the shadows, running in an awkward jerking way toward the sound of his voice. Before they got too close, the uniformed men standing in the backs of trucks, shot at them. The runners dropped with a shot to the head.

  “It’s real, isn’t it?” Dawn said. “Zombies. Hellhounds. I’m not going to wake up, am I?”

  I didn’t say a thing. What could I say?

  Instead, I stepped away from the window and helped Kristin move the desk from the door. I watched the halls through our peephole. Gunshots echoed from inside the building.

  Several minutes later, a shot rang out on our floor. It wasn’t long before a uniformed man knocked on our door.

  “It’s clear. You have ten seconds to open the door before—”

  I opened the door not waiting to hear the rest.

  “Stay close and stay behind me,” he said.

  We joined seven other girls. Behind us, two more military men guarded the hallway from where they’d come. An unmoving body lay on the floor. The hysteria I’d shoved down threatened to bubble back up. I turned away from the sight and followed the lead man.

  We made slow progress through the rest of the wing, clearing other healthy people from their rooms, before we reached the stairwell. Our footsteps echoed as we ran down four flights to the ground floor.

  Outside, another uniformed man waved us toward the vehicles where other students were hurrying to get into the back of the trucks. Through the chaos of evacuation, more infected ran from the dark. Shots didn’t stop ringing. Dawn and Kristin pressed close to me as we waited for our turn.