Grinding Terror - A Young Adult Horror Comilation 1/3

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Grinding Terror - A Young Adult Horror Compilation

Chapter 3

Jana ran in great leaps over the hard concrete of the city square. Footsteps followed behind her: a tattoo of heavy, arrhythmic clomping. So slow, yet somehow they were still gaining on her. She leap over a pile of rubble, twisting to pass through the burnt-out hulk of a newsstand. Smoldering VHS tapes and CD-ROMs skittered under her feet as she passed. Less than a hundred feet to go.

She clutched the pack to her heaving chest. Misshapen lumps of food tins and half-rotted fruit pressed painfully into her ribcage. Her heavy burlap skirt was thick with mud, and her bonnet had been torn from her head over a mile back.

The others watched helplessly from the shelter across the square. She could see the tips of makeshift clubs and chipped axes poking above the battered wall of sheet metal and wood. Even Katya, tiny Katya, clutching a small metal wrench in her fist. The girl's face was stone, but the tip of the wrench wavered in shaking hands.

Almost there, thought Jana. Almost there. And I have apples this time, Katya. Your favorite.

The hoots and grinding noises behind her grew louder. Her shoulder blades crawled as she imaged the lifeless, glassy eyes that were surely fixed on her. She could feel their inhuman hunger.

The others she had left the shelter with were gone, torn apart by twisted claws and jagged knobs of teeth. They had been her friends, alive and breathing just minutes ago, now rendered down to bloody stumps in mere seconds buy the horrors at her heels. One by one each had stumbled, or slowed, or turned to look at the wrong moment. Each had been taken.

The door ahead of her was still shut. She could see Neko's eyes peering through the slit, wide with terror. Why hasn't he opened it yet? They must be right at my heels…he's waiting until the last minute. Or he knows it's already over and I won't make it.

So close now, less than twenty feet. Hot breath on her back, misshapen limbs reaching around from the corners of her vision. Jana threw her arms out and shouted wordlessly, leaping towards the door.