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“Eric, I don’t think she’s doing well. She’s back there trying to have a baby and I don’t think she’s ready. From what she told me, she’s not due for another couple of months.”

Before Eric could answer, one of the werewolves came through the door from the back room, carrying Allison. Eric knew her, of course, had known her since high school for Christ’s sake and seeing her held in the arms of a monster was enough to jolt him.

“What the hell?” He started moving forward and two of the men in the room shook their heads at him. Another two stopped and did their non-verbal communication thing with the beast carrying Allison and then almost immediately began changing.

Sarah turned without a word and distracted both of the boys, hugging them and talking to them as she maneuvered them away from being able to see what was occurring.

The two that had spoken with their leader walked toward the front door and began changing as they moved. By the time they were out the door and moving into the storm they’d left piles of dead skin and clothing in their wakes.

Scott came out of the back of the house, his face tense with worry, ready to storm after them if he had to.

It was Eric who intercepted him and pulled him to the side. He asked what was up and Scott explained.

“Look, there’s nothing you can do right now, Scott. If they wanted to hurt her they would have by now.” He kept his voice as calm and level as he could, and low enough that the boys wouldn’t hear what he was saying.

“I know that,” Scott hissed. “But I mean it, Eric. If they let her die or our baby die, I’ll come back for them.”

Eric said nothing. He was already trying to figure out how they were going to really get out of all of this alive.

He wanted to believe the monsters around them would keep their word about setting them free, but he had his doubts. He hadn’t seen Mark’s kids or the woman George was now living with. That left him worried. Very worried.

He looked to Sarah and his sons and tried to remain calm. There was nothing he could do about their current situation except be grateful that his family was alive and unharmed.

His number-one priority was making sure they stayed that way.

* * *

What had started as freezing rain and moved into snow had now become a blizzard. The thick layer of white that dropped from the sky blanketed damned near everything.

George woke up in the middle of the woods, sheltered by the remains of what looked like a church. He hadn’t really thought he’d wake up at all, so it was a night for surprises.

The cold sucked at his vitality, leeched away his will to do anything but sit and shiver. Outside of his shelter he heard the wind screaming through the trees. Not far away in the darkness of the abandoned building, he could hear someone moaning.

That was what got him to move. He recognized the sound of Cullie’s voice.

He tried to stand and heard himself moan at the pain it caused. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t feel like it had been beaten hard and kicked a few times for extra measure. Still, he had to see what was going on with Cullie.

He moved toward the dark lump on the ground a few feet away and tried to see clearly in the darkness brought on by the storm. The thing sounded like Cullie, made noises that should have come from his friend, but it wasn’t Cullie. It couldn’t be. Cullie had skin.

His hands and feet still wore flesh, as did his face. The rest of his body had been stripped raw, and even in the darkness he could see things that simply were not meant to be seen.

“Oh fuck, what did they do to you?” He blinked back the tears that wanted to fall, refusing to shed a tear for his old friend. He knew what had happened. He knew why it had happened.

Cullie looked at him with wild eyes, but he didn’t think the man was really seeing him anymore. Despite the bitter chill in the air, the skinned man in front of him gave off heat. He was feverish.

He let out a small yelp of surprise when he heard Mark’s voice. “I don’t think he can talk. He’s too far gone with whatever else they did to him.”

George turned around and looked for Mark. It took him a moment to spot his friend. Mark was alive, his wrists and ankles bound in what was left of his own bootlaces. His face had been sliced into fifths, and the red wounds that separated the portions were starting to scab over.

“What the hell happened?”

“The big one, their leader, beat me in a fight. He could have killed me, but he didn’t. I don’t know why.” Mark coughed. “Maybe he wants us to freeze to death so it looks like an accident.”

“If anyone ever finds us out here, I don’t think they’ll make that mistake.”

Cullie moaned again and fell into a coughing fit. George looked his way and then started untying Mark. There was no way in hell he could offer comfort to a man whose entire body was basically one raw nerve ending. He imagined that any place he touched would just add to his already considerable pain.

Mark waited patiently while he finished untying him and then started rubbing his wrists, trying to get blood back into hands that looked almost blue even in the darkness.

While Mark worked on untying his ankles, George dug into his waterproof coat and prayed that the zipper had kept his meager supplies dry. He found the map and, yes, his lighter.

The lighter worked just fine and even the meager light it offered was enough to let him see that something was written on the map. Mark watched him while he read the message. “’Justice is served. You are free to go.’”

“Free to go my ass! There’s nowhere to go!” Mark was pissed off. George was still unsettlingly happy to be alive.

“We’ve got the map. We can find our way back.” He was trying to be reasonable. It wasn’t working as well as he would have liked.

“What about Cullie? What about Ellen and Lou? Hell, what about your fucking girlfriend, George?”

He clenched his jaw. “Her name is Cheryl. When we get out of here we’ll figure it all out.”

Mark was shaking with cold, his clothes half frozen to his body and his feet stripped of everything but a ratty looking pair of socks.

“I don’t have the answers, Mark. I’m still trying to figure all of this out!” George felt his temper rising and decided not to stop it. He’d had all he could take of Mark and Cullie browbeating him. Jesus! He’d been in a fight with werewolves earlier in the night and now he just wanted to celebrate being alive for five minutes without Mark riding his ass.

He looked at his watch and was shocked to see it was only a little after eleven PM.

“Okay, if we’re going to live through this shit, we need a fire.”

Mark looked his way and then gestured. “There’s a dozen broken pews around here. Let’s gather some up.” He limped toward them and George saw the ugly wounds on his leg.

George killed the flame from the lighter and started gathering wood; mostly small pieces at first, kindling for the larger boards.

Ten minutes later they had a fire and light and warmth enough to give him a hope of not freezing to death. He also had a dead lighter. The Bic wasn’t meant to last forever and it gave up the ghost by the time they’d managed to get the blaze going.

“We’ll wait out the storm. When it’s all over with, we’ll try to find our way to somewhere. I saw a road earlier.” He shut his mouth, remembering the cops and the lady he’d seen on that road and how his actions had lead to them being slaughtered. He sighed and told Mark what he could remember. “Maybe there will still be cars there. Maybe we’ll get lucky and have a chance to get out of this.”

“What about Cullie?” Mark looked over at their friend, who was still shivering violently, his face turned away from the heat.

“What about him?”