I said, “That was close.”
A Chaser shot through the wall on the other side, long nails tearing a dagger slit in the tarp. A tilted face, eyeless, covered by tangles of hair. She lunged forward, grabbing Alex’s ankles. Alex screamed and hacked at the skinny arms with her hockey stick, knocking them away.
The Chaser’s waist hung up on the tarp as she tried to pull herself through. Her head twitched; raspy breaths leaked through her cracked lips. Patrick rolled over and yanked a rebar spike out of the ground, the segment of tarp flapping up. Then he rolled back and drove the stake through the Chaser’s skull. She shuddered and went limp.
The freed segment of tarp snapped in the wind, straining the other spikes. Patrick hadn’t made a noise with the shotgun, but this wasn’t much better.
We ran.
Hunched over, barreling up the length of the caterpillar tunnel. The shadows reappeared, zooming in from our left. Three, then five, then eight. On the other side, there was no moon to backlight the Hosts and give us warning, but I had to imagine they were swooping in from that direction as well.
The Hosts started diving at the tarp, trying to break through. They dented the walls, which collapsed or puffed back into place. Stooped over, we sprinted through the gauntlet, heading for the barn on the far end. It was our only hope.
Patrick shouted something, and I looked back. The tunnel had been flattened behind us, but now the rear end of the tarp caught the wind. It rose, ripping segment after segment free, the destruction catching up to us. It felt like being inside a snake that was being skinned. Spikes flew, PVC pipes sprang free, and then the walls around us lifted up and away, leaving us running between Hosts on either side, fully exposed.
The tarp floated off toward the hillside, riding the wind like a magic carpet.
Some of the Hosts had run ahead, knocking free a few of the spikes from the tunnel next to us. As they turned for us, I veered between two of them and dove for the raised lip of the neighboring tunnel. I rolled inside and came up with blood dripping from my arms and chest.
Not blood. I’d smashed through a row of tomatoes.
Alex and Patrick sailed through the gap, and then we were running again, trying not to slip on the smashed tomatoes underfoot. On the left side, shadows zoomed along parallel to us, skimming across the poly. I made out Cassius’s bounding form among them, snapping and barking.
The Hosts’ numbers grew again, and they started pelting the poly with their bodies. This tunnel was going to give way just like the first one.
I halted and started burrowing through the far side.
“What are you doing?” Alex screamed.
“I have a plan!”
I rolled free of the tunnel’s right wall and saw with relief that there were no Hosts over here. Patrick and Alex appeared through the translucent poly, yelling at me, shadows massing at their backs. “We gotta go, Chance!”
Falling to my knees, I tore up the nearest stakes. Then I scuttled along the length of the tunnel, yanking rebar stakes free as I went.
When I risked a glance up, I saw the Hosts smeared against the far wall of the tarp, all distorted faces and fingers worming through rips. We were almost out of time.
Grabbing the edge of the tarp I’d just freed, I lifted it as high as I could, feeling the wind blast across my back.
At last it caught.
The lifting wall brought me face-to-face with Alex and Patrick. They watched with stunned amazement as the tarp flopped over, the sky opening above their heads. Rebar went airborne all around me, dirt peppering my face like shrapnel. The floating tarp wrapped around the mass of Hosts, blasting them back into the corn, clearing the row.
Only Cassius, low to the ground, remained, staring at us, as befuddled as a dog can get.
The tarp lurched and bulged like a living blob.
The barn was fifty yards away.
An arm tore free of the tarp, thrust up at the moon.
Shoulder to shoulder, we sprinted for the big rolling door. My footsteps jarred the dirt, my view of the barn rocking side to side. I could hear movement behind us, getting closer. That awful quick panting at our backs.
My breath fired through my lungs. Patrick bolted out ahead, shotgun swinging at his side. He slammed into the door first, then started rolling it open. We hurtled toward him. The gap wasn’t big enough for us to fit through, but there was no time to slow. Alex bladed sideways and skimmed by. I followed her lead, the door clipping my shoulder. I spilled onto the floor, somersaulting over in time to see Patrick slide inside after us. As he put his weight to the door, the gap filled with mouths and eyeholes, countless Chasers clamoring to get in.