Crossfades Read Online Free PDF Page B

clenched tightly shut, squeezing out even more tears, and her back and shoulders hitched with sobs.
    “Control, we have a problem here.” Chuck’s voice cracked with panic and he leapt to his feet as the ground rumbled with subterranean forces. “We have a
major
fucking problem!”
    In this distance, something erupted from the earth in a cloud of dust and debris, setting off a chain reaction that rapidly spread across the once fertile field.
    “Control, do you copy, damn it?”
    Chuck gagged on the smell of burning flesh, the stink so thick that he could taste it, greasy and sickeningly sweet, like a maggot-riddle steak that had been charred on a grill.
    At that moment, a scream filled his head, the coarse voice straining with agony so forcefully that it felt like a sudden burst of pressure exploding within his skull. The scream quivered his eardrums and drove him to his knees, his head splitting with its intensity as he pressed his hands against his temples, crying, yelling, wordlessly begging for release.
    The entire world disappeared into darkness, everything flashing out of existence in a single instant.
    The tree that had turned into a hand: gone.
    The field: gone.
    Abigail: gone.
    There was only the darkness and the never-ending scream that had become his world. And Chuck knew with every fiber of his being that within seconds he, too, would share the little girl’s fate.
    He wouldn’t follow his silver cord back to his physical body.
    There would be no returning home.
    No office or apartment.
    There would be nothing.
    Chuck Grainger.
    Gone.

Chapter 3
The Room at the End of the Hall
    The creature was close. Lydia could hear its breath, the same thing wheeze that had initially alerted her to its presence. Only so much louder this time. Each intake sounded as though the air was drawn through an incredibly tight passageway, as if its trachea was so constricted that the simple act of respiration became a battle to be fought and won; exhalations gurgled through what she imagined to be thick, sticky liquid with only the repeated sniffs being clear and concise.
    With proximity also came the beast’s smell. It was a sour stench containing hints of decay, pungent and pervasive. The stink forced itself into the woman’s sinuses, and her mouth flooded with saliva as she coughed and gagged. Infused with the fetid odor, her mouth increased its flow of saliva as if to wash itself clean. Instead, the water absorbed the stench as it trickled down her throat and the tainted liquid triggered spasms in her stomach, forcing Lydia to retch. Bile shot into her throat, the bitter acid stinging the soft lining, and one hand clamped over her mouth, instinctively ensuring that none spewed from her lips.
    When she’d first fallen to the floor, the woman had squeezed her eyes shut. Even though she couldn’t actually see anything with them open, it had somehow seemed more appropriate to await death with her lids lowered. As if it wouldn’t be painful. As if it would be no more than slipping into a sleep from which she’d never awaken. Now, however, doubt gnawed at her resolve. The sounds and smells assured her that it would not be over quickly. Something so repulsive would surely take its time, rending flesh from bone with psychotic exactitude as her screams fed its appetite for anguish.
    As if confirming her suspicions, new sounds emerged. Hidden among the flat smack of footfalls and the alternating wheeze and gurgle: a metallic clink followed by a rasp, like two honed blades scraped across each other. Receding in the distance, sounding faint and hollow, was the giggle of the madman who’d referred to the creature as his pet.
    Was it really better to go out this way? Didn’t she owe it to herself to fight until the last drop of blood drained from her veins?
    Opening her eyes, Lydia wiped the tears with the back of her hand and stood. Her knee throbbed from where it had banged off the floor and her chest felt as though she’d been