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.The tall creatures wailed.The slug things suddenly bristled, tensing as if muscles went hard, gearing up.The screaming creatures forced Ben into a frenzy.Whatever lethargy had been upon him, now he reacted, tearing at the things on his skin.They pulled away, leaving gaping bloody wounds like a leech might leave behind.He shuddered, shouted over all the screaming voices that filled the cavern."No way back here.You know that, right?"Luke didn't.Hadn't thought it.Had meant to come back for all the others.But the tunnel, the passage that had led him.Did it exist without the creatures? He had been led.Impossible to know for sure what would happen once they were back outside.And here was Jesse, who hadn't left.He'd been taken.Jesse, with marks on his chest, his arms, his throat, and a fresh wound healing on his jaw.He was angry at himself because he hadn't looked harder or searched longer.There's no way you could have known this."Open the cages," he yelled at Ben, hoping his friend could make it that far.One of the hounds lunged at him, and Luke met it midway, hands out to block the snarling jaw, one on the upper muzzle, the other on the lower jaw.He pulled.Whatever sprayed out of the hound, it wasn't blood.The stench in the room increased horribly."It's fear," Luke blurted out."It's just fear.That's the only way so many could be controlled by only three of those things."Jesse hit him full out, dropping Luke down onto the marble hard cavern floor.The breath whooshed out of him.A hound's jaws barely cleared where Luke's throat had been."Great theory.Cocked up, though." Jesse scrabbled off him, grabbed Luke by the hand.Ben was ahead of them, pushing through a mass of slugs, pulling them off, hurling them into the path of the dogs.The hounds whined, confused, snapping at the things and darting away.Ben didn't wait.Throwing them off him, moving away from Jesse and Luke.Rivulets of blood rolled off him.Luke followed, Jesse behind him and the things, hissing, clicking, their robes blowing around them, came after the men, talons tearing.Something caught Luke across the back of the neck, gouging out flesh.He shouted, turned, hands up.Jesse was there first, sending blows against the creature.Ben didn't run.He walked quickly, out of the cavern, into the corridors, choosing the first corridor, Luke taking the next of the radiating spoke of cages that angled off the cavern, and Jesse taking the one off of his.The shouting increased to frenzy level.The controls to the cages lined the walls.Luke smashed a fist down on the first lever.Nothing happened.How strong were those creatures? He two-handed the grip until it gave, and suddenly, the halls were full of men running, though finally, running didn't matter.They had the superior numbers.The hounds charged, more of them streaming from the corridor, the ones Luke hadn't wrenched apart with his bare hands.He felt the breath of a creature close on him and turned to face it.He was wrong.It was Jesse behind him, his face caught in an instant of surprise as the creature behind him stabbed one thick.black talon into Jesse's side.Jesse shifted sideways away from the red robed creature.Its fanged mouth turned upward in delight, talon dripping Jesse's blood.The move yanked Jesse free of the impaling black nail.His muscles all tightened, his lean frame going hard and ready.Luke saw Jesse's own rage fill him in the instant before he reached the red robed ghoul.The thing slashed at Jesse, catching the front of one shoulder before Jesse grabbed both wrists, yanking the ghoul's arms apart, his foot coming up almost daintily, almost seeming to float before it connected with a resounding crack.The red robed creature's head snapped back.Blood flew from the fanged mouth.One of the things was coming toward him, slashing indiscriminately now, talons raking through the crowd of men.The creatures coming toward them wore a rainbow of robes.So there were more than three of the beings.It made sense.There'd been a lot of grubs.Maybe some grew up to be monsters.He threw himself into the beings, followed a wave of men and fists and makeshift weapons, mainly rocks and rolled metal bars from the cages wrenched free.He heard another dog scream, briefly, and stop with a snap.He laughed.The slug things squished underfoot, and he stomped in a riot of destruction, making his way toward the creatures in blue and purple that had led him here.His hands connected on blue robe at the same time Ben's did.The creature writhed, blind eyes for the first time seemingly unable to see.When he touched it, the thing sent visions.Jesse sobbing.Ben driven to his knees in despair.Men bloodied, torn to scraps.The hounds, inside out, slick with ichor, bodies rippling as they fed on the fallen.Mostly, he saw the men led here, saw the horror, the despair, men screaming as their loved ones were lost again, forever this time, screaming in agony and fear.The creatures grew.The slugs fed and matured.The pain cycle continued.Luke shouted and almost let the creature go.Anger, fear, revulsion.Jesse.Beside him."Control your fear.Control your anger.Use it." He met Luke's eyes as if, in the reeling mass of bodies and deaths, they had time.Luke found the strength.He marshaled the rage, pulled everything and everyone and every slight and every hurt and every church girl his mother offered up and every hesitation Lisa didn't breathe aloud and blasted all of it outward.At the creature.Into the creature.Watched the skin stretch waxy and obscene, too tight and shiny.Jesse grabbed it from the other side, shouting words at it Luke couldn't hear over the sea of noise.The thing blew apart.They ran before the sallow flesh stopped raining down.Luke took Jesse's hand, glorying in the feeling of Jesse again.Not enough.He'd settled for too long.Settled for what he thought he could get by with."I want to marry you," he shouted.Jesse grinned, wicked
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