Chương 43: Chapter 40: Never Underestimate a Honda Civic’s Durability

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Atrocious doesn't even begin to describe what we found in the parking lot. We'd stumbled into a slaughterhouse. Gore and viscera caked the cars. Blood streaked in drag marks that branched off in too many different directions to count. We were too late. Car alarms and stuck horns clashed with screams for help and terrified shrieks. Two cars had been overturned, lying on their sides, wheels spinning pointlessly in the air.

Further ahead, multiple crashes had occurred in the race to escape, causing many of the vehicles to be trapped inside the fence. Glass crunched under our feet with each step. As a result of the pile-up near the exit, the Bald Lake Mother had free rein to tear through anyone who couldn't escape. Bodies, or what was left of them, were everywhere. Arms. Legs. Worse. We had to watch where we stepped as we entered the parking lot, glass crunching under our boots, blood slicking the asphalt.

An early 2000s Corolla's chipped blue paint was streaked red with blood from a girl's severed legs dangling off the hood. Nearby, a boy's head rested on the roof of a Subaru. Just his head. Everywhere I looked was death. At the center of it all, the Bald Mother pounded her fists on the hood of a black Malibu. Two terrified girls cowered in the backseat. Trapped. A guy with a wispy goatee sat behind the wheel, hands death-gripped to the steering wheel.

The Lake Mother hauled herself onto the Malibu's dented hood, the metal buckled inward like plastic. The girls in the backseat had their faces pressed against the rear window, mouths open in screams I couldn't hear over the car alarms. They were clawing at the doors, at each other, trying to get out. The locks wouldn't budge; child safety locks, maybe, or panic, making their hands useless. The driver was still in the front seat, hands in a death grip on the steering wheel.

The Mother shattered the windshield with her fists. Safety glass showered the interior in a glittering spray. The girls in back screamed louder, pressing themselves against the seats, as far from the front as they could get. One of them—blonde, maybe sixteen—had her hands over her face. The other was staring, unable to look away, eyes so wide the whites showed from here. The Mother's arms plunged through the broken windshield. Grabbed the driver. I took a step forward.

The skateboard felt pathetically light in my grip. The driver came through the window in a spray of glass and torn fabric. The girls' screams reached a pitch that cut through everything. Sounds of pure terror. Then the Mother's stomach split open. I looked away. The wet crunch came. When I looked back, the driver was gone, and the Mother was pushing herself through the shattered windshield, reaching for the girls in the back. Her health bar still read 96%.

My hands clenched the skateboard as I tried to contain the blistering fury building within. The skeletal fingers on my right hand scratched against its rough surface. The girls were going to die unless we — Liam appeared in my peripheral vision, frantically waving his hands. He was half-visible behind a beat-up white Honda Civic near the exit. Once we made eye contact, he ducked down. I could see the shuffle of several other feet move in the shadows under the car.

"Liam's got people with him," Isabel said, staring at the Civic. The car's engine was still running, faint exhaust hanging in the frigid air.

"We have to help him," Tre said.

"And those girls!" I wanted to lie down so fucking bad. It was just the Bald Mother vs Tre, Isabel, Liam, and me. We were so close. But pain blossomed all over my body; each step took effort and delivered punishment. I was drained physically and mentally.

"How?" The word came out harsher than I meant it to. But I was frustrated. I didn't have a plan. Or weapons. I had nothing left to give, and everyone was still looking to me for answers. Isabel was surveying the scene when something clicked in her expression.

"Tre, can you get the mask off her?"

"I can try," Tre said.

"If you guys keep her busy."

"We'll distract her," Isabel said, surveying the busted cars around us. She quickly moved to the front of a mangled SUV and wrenched a long, jagged strip of twisted metal free from the fractured grill.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked.

"You're bait."

"I'm what?!" She turned to me.

"Nora. We need her exposed. Head and that... stomach thing. You're really good at pissing these things off." That got a small laugh from me.

"Okay. I can do that."

"We'll go on my mark. Standby," Isabel said. She typed out a quick message on her phone, then slid it back in her pocket.

"Okay."

"What was that?" Tre asked.

"I texted Liam his part," Isabel replied.

"Let's do this." Isabel took off without another word, sprinting straight at the Bald Mother, who was leaning halfway into the car through the back seat window. The two girls were pressed against the passenger side door, inches away from the Bald Mother's grip.

"HEY! FUCKFACE," Isabel screamed as she drove the jagged metal into the back of the Bald Mother's right thigh. Black liquid sprayed everywhere as she pulled it back out. The Mother screeched and reared up, slamming her head against the Malibu's interior roof. She recoiled with frightening speed and spun to face Isabel. The girls in the back seat seized the opportunity, climbing over the passenger's seat into the front, and then out through the shattered windshield. They hit the pavement running, not looking back.

The Mother paid them no mind; her attention had narrowed to Isabel. I moved in from the side. The skateboard appeared in my hand. It ain't much, baby, but it's all I got.

"Remember me?" I yelled, trying to draw her attention away from Isabel. The Mother's head swiveled in my direction and started advancing. Tre had climbed onto the roof of the Malibu and was timing his approach, waiting for the right opening. Isabel jabbed the twisted metal into the back of the Mother's other leg, puncturing another hole just behind her knee. Blood poured down the creature's legs. Her health bar ticked down to 85%.

"Tre!" Isabel screamed as The Mother lunged at her. She ducked under the hook's swing and stabbed upward, catching the Mother's extended arm.

"Go for her mask!" I hit the Mother's back with the skateboard. She wheeled around, howling in my face, as she swung. My reflexes weren't fast enough to use the skateboard as a shield. The barbed point punched straight through my outer thigh. Tre leaped off the roof of the Malibu, latching onto the space between the Mother's shoulder blades. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. The hook dug into my thigh, caught on bone.

The Bald Mother wrenched the hook back. It ripped out of my leg along with a chunk of thigh still attached. My scream tore my throat apart. I hit the ground hard, blood already pooling beneath me. Hot. Dark. Too much of it. HEALTH: 12% [CRITICAL] STATUS: [MAJOR BLEEDING] -2% / 10 sec STATUS: [SEVERE LEG WOUND] Movement -75% I tried to push myself up, but my arms wouldn't obey. The skeletal fingers on my right hand scraped uselessly against the pavement, clicking like dice. My leg was ruined.

Blood was pumping out way too fast. The edge of my vision started to turn gray. I'm going to die. I failed them. The Bald Mother glowered at me, then straightened up, finally sensing Tre's presence on her back. She let out a shriek and spun around, ferociously trying to shake him off. Tre crawled around her neck and grabbed the mask's wire frame with both hands, trying to pull it off. The Mother was reaching for Tre when Isabel dashed in front of her.

She plunged the metal spike into the Bald Mother's chest, burying more than half of it in her sternum. The Mother jerked away, grabbed the metal piece of grill, and broke it off inside her. Isabel backpedaled, empty-handed. Almost! Tre screamed in my head. He had the umpire mask in both hands, his feet planted against her shoulders as he heaved with all his strength. It finally slipped free with a wet squelch. He was launched backward off her, careening across the asphalt before skidding beneath a rusted sedan.

The Mother's exposed head was a nightmare of bloated purple flesh and blistered skin weeping black, tar-like fluid. Her jaw dangled limply, revealing stubs of gore-stained teeth. She spun, slamming her body into the car Tre was hiding under. Isabel stepped toward the Mother, arms spread, as the Bowie knife appeared in her hand.

"Come get me!" I tried to call out a warning, but all that came out was a wet rasp. Blood was still pouring from my thigh. I'd used all my heals, and Isabel and Tre were too distracted to give me some of theirs. My health bar ticked down to 10%. The Mother lunged. Isabel stood her ground until the last possible second, then threw herself sideways. The creature ran past her target, then pivoted to face Isabel again as her torso started to open vertically.

"NOW!" Isabel screamed.

"LIAM, NOW!" Across the parking lot, the Civic's engine cranked. Sputtered. Cranked again.

"Come ON," Isabel hissed beside me. The Mother pivoted toward the sound of the engine, torso still parted, the cavity gaping wide. Her focus locked on the Civic, as a long, black tongue slowly unfurled from the stomach-mouth, dripping viscous saliva. The engine finally caught. Liam floored it. Tires bit asphalt with a screech. The Civic shot forward, headlights cutting through the smoke, heading straight for the Mother's exposed midsection. A half-second before impact, she twisted away, shielding the gaping cavity.

The Civic hit her hip instead of the open belly-mouth he'd been aiming for. The Mother folded around the hood, and the car kept going, plowing her across the ground until the bumper jammed her against a parked SUV. Her spine snapped with a soggy crunch. But she never lost her grip on the hook. The airbags in the Civic exploded on impact. Through the window, I saw Liam's head snap forward into white nylon and then back against the headrest, hard, blood streaming from his temple and above his left eye.

The Mother was pinned in place, belly-mouth hung open, its black tongue twitching. Black goo leaked from her ears, nose, and the corners of her mouth. LAKE MOTHER'S HEALTH: 85% → 61% Steam hissed from under the crumpled hood. The Mother was pinned at the waist, her legs bent the wrong way beneath the bumpers, but her upper body was still upright. She swiveled her bloated head from side to side, her real mouth opening and closing. Not dead yet.

"Liam!" Isabel was already running to the Civic. I tried to push myself up, but my arms wouldn't take the weight. The skeletal fingers on my right hand scraped uselessly against the pavement. But my leg was the real problem. Blood pumped out way too fast. The edges of my vision had started to gray. I'm going to die. I failed them all.

"Liam! Liam, look at me." Isabel was at the driver's door, hands on the frame.

"Look at me." He turned his head and sort of looked at her, but his eyes weren't tracking together. Blood ran from his nose into his mouth and from a gash above his eye. The airbag had fucked him up.

"Stay there. Don't move!" Isabel turned, and her face went white when she saw the puddle of blood I was sitting in. She tried the driver's side door, but it was stuck closed. Tre bolted out from under the rusted sedan, careening across the parking lot. He saw the pool of blood underneath me.

"Oh fuck. NORA!" He slid to a stop on his knees, tiny hands pressing uselessly against the flood of blood escaping my thigh.

"ISABEL HELP! She's bleeding out!" I tried to speak. Couldn't get a word out. My health bar read 8%.

"Stay with me!" Tre's voice pitched up, scared.

"Hold on. Just hold on, Nora." Beyond Tre, I watched the Mother's arm swing. Slow but full of intent. The hook caught the SUV's rear quarter panel and tore a long curl of metal free. She was working to escape, literally tearing apart the car to free herself. Isabel dropped to the other side of me; the Stabilizer Wraps were already in her hand.

"Finish her," I rasped. Tre's voice cracked.

"Just hold on!"

"Hey, girlie. I gotcha," Isabel said, wrapping the first Stabilizer around my thigh. The bleeding stopped immediately. Warmth spread through my leg as the magic did its thing. The torn muscle began to knit together in uneven layers, skin sealing over the gash in slow, flesh-colored stitches. She layered a second wrap over it just to be safe. HEALTH: 8% The pain in my thigh had been volcanic, and it wasn't entirely gone, but it had retreated to somewhere I could function around it thanks to the wraps.

I started to move.

"Nora, no…" Tre tried. Ignoring him, I used my left arm to pull myself up. The right leg was barely functional, but it was still attached, and I could put weight on it. Skeletal fingers clinked against the trunk I was using to lever myself onto my feet. Behind me, metal shrieked. The Bald Mother had her hook buried in the Civic's hood now, and she was using it to pull. The barbed point dragged a long furrow through the metal as she hauled her upper body forward an inch. Then another. Working herself up the hood.

Toward the windshield. Toward Liam. Inside the Civic, Liam stirred. His head came up off the headrest, and he blinked blood from his eyes a few times. He squinted at the deflated airbag in his lap, then at the spider-webbed windshield in front of him. Then he saw what was on the other side of it.

"Oh fuck." Quiet at first. Almost polite.

"Oh FUCK!" His hand fumbled at the door handle. Pulled. Nothing. He shoved his shoulder against it—still nothing. The frame was bent from the impact, and the metal warped where the Civic had folded around the Mother.

"H…help…" His voice came out wet.

"The door…" He threw his body against it. Once. Twice. The Mother dragged herself another inch up the hood.

"We gotta help Liam," Isabel said, looking at the Civic.

"Go," I wheezed, barely standing upright. Isabel hesitated, oscillating between me, the Civic, and the Lake Mother." Go!" She ran toward Liam. Tre glanced up at me.

"What're you doing, Nora?"

"I'm gonna kill this bitch." My skateboard snapped into existence in my good hand, feeling like a lead weight. The skeletal fingers on my right hand scraped on the grit of its tape, tapping against it with every frantic adjustment. I limped toward the bald bitch, renewed agony with each step, closing the gap between us. The half-dead monster tracked my approach, even as she inched herself closer to the windshield. Innards spilled from the ragged bottom of her torso.

"Why won't you fucking DIE?!" I swung the skateboard. She raised an arm to shield herself. The board knocked it aside. I raised the board over my head and brought it down on her skull. THWACK. The first blow cleft the bloated flesh of her forehead. The sound of damp bones splintering was unmistakable. Black fluid erupted across my face. I raised the skateboard. Is this what you want? THWACK. Is this what it fucking takes? THWACK. The skateboard snapped in half across her face, wood shearing through her soggy skin.

Part of the board fell away, but I kept a grip on the remaining half. The end was a spiky mess of wood splinters. I drove the broken end into her open mouth. Each impact drove the wood deeper, pulverizing bone and tissue. The skateboard dug into my palms. My hands were covered in the Mother's black blood. I didn't stop. I couldn't. Everything that had been eating me alive all night exploded at once: Austin. Hardin and Rowe. The girl who was bisected on the dock. The football players shredded into raw meat.

The stoner kids. My mangled hand. My ruined leg. The way the game kept taking and taking and taking and… THWACK. THWACK. THWACK. The head gave under the blows, collapsing, turning to ruin beneath the board. A wet spray dotted my face and jacket. Only then did I drop the broken skateboard and collapse, shaking. A hand touched my shoulder.

"Nora." Another shake, firmer.

"Nora, she's dead. She's dead. Stop." Isabel's voice came from behind me.

"She's dead." The Lake Mother's head was nothing but a pulverized slurry of paste and fragments splattered across the car hood. What was left of the face was a cratered mess. I was shaking so hard my teeth rattled. I fell on my ass. Hard. But I barely felt a thing. I just stared at what I'd done, at what I could do. Isabel crouched down in front of me, looking at my face the same way she had in science class earlier that day.

"Hey." Her voice had lost all its edge.

"Where did you just go?" I opened my mouth, then closed it. I didn't have an answer. Liam was out of the Civic, face bruised and bleeding from the crash. The sycophantic bully was gone, replaced by a kid realizing his world was a lie.

"Is she dead dead?" Isabel gave a slow, heavy nod. The weight of every person we'd lost was in it. I collapsed on the ground, my body screaming. HOSTILE NEUTRALIZED: LAKE MOTHER (2/2) LAKE MOTHERS DEFEATED! 5 hours 37 minutes remaining until dawn. ZONE ONE COMPLETE! More confetti followed the notification, this time with music.

A ridiculous upbeat, horn-heavy tune, the kind of aggressively cheerful ska instrumental from some cartoon I can't remember the name of, but whose theme song had apparently been living rent-free in my brain since the 90s.

"God, I fucking hate this place," I whined.