Skidmark’s heartbeat rose as she examined the rushing waters. There were a couple dozen survivors, but none had any ideas, or ability, to cross the hazard. Anton sent his eyes dancing across the surface and examining the cracks in the rocks of the cavern looking for any clues.

One survivor came forward, an old man who might have been important at some point but now looked like a tortoise who misplaced his shell. Damn, she was in a bad mood.

Skidmark scowled at him.

“What do you want?”

He ignored her tone.

“How will we cross the river?” he said. “We aren’t as strong as you.”

“No kidding,” she said with a sigh and a glance at Anton. “What do you think?” she asked.

“We could carry them.”

She shook her head.

“Too slow, and this river is getting deeper and wider as we speak. We should toss them.”

“Hmmm, good idea.”

“Alright!” Skidmark clapped her hands together as she faced the survivors. “Everyone line up. We’re going to toss you over the river one by one. Faster you do this the faster we reach the ship and the faster we get off this deathtrap island!”

Skidmark expected more resistance, but the survivors shuffled into place. They formed a line that stretched down the tunnel., standing awkwardly on the cracked and uneven ground of the cave floor. Some holes seemed to extend forever. Anton’s eyes bobbed over them to ensure none of them had to stand in the darkness.

“That’s better,” she said. “So, Anton,” she said with a lascivious wink. “You want to pitch or receive?”

He frowned at her.

“I never know whether to read into what you say.”

“That’s because you’re a dork.”

Better a dork than a terrified punk.

She frowned as the thought slipped through her brain. Yes, frown and sneer, because, without your spite, there’s no place for you. Distract them with your act so they don’t see the desperate little girl inside you. Wouldn’t it be better to walk down into the waters until they rise over your head?

“I don’t feel so good,” Skidmark said. “I feel…”

“Damnit!” Anton said, and he lashed out at her.

Her eyes widened. Of course, he was sick of her. Trying to kill her because of all those jokes. She should give up and save him the effort.

Faster than she could react — not that she wanted to — he slapped her shoulder, grabbed something, and ripped it away.

A gigantic bug wriggled in his hand. No, not a bug. It was a withered head with long thin hair and a mess of fingers squirming at the base of the neck. Sunken eyes glinted as they met hers.

“So sad… So much sad… Give up, yes? Give up the sweetness?”

Anton crushed it into a pulp that disintegrated into smoke before it touched the ground.

“I thought we were done with those things,” he said,

“What are they?”

“They’re crawling out of the ground!”

Skidmark looked about. More of the head bugs were crawling out of the ground. Their heads squished and deformed like monstrous octopuses as they emerged from holes that should have been too small. They climbed up the legs of the survivors. Bile rose in the back of her throat as they climbed up to their shoulders and necks and started whispering into their ears.

“They’re on you!” she screamed. “What are you doing?”

Why would anyone pay attention to you?

She glanced down. Three of the bugs latched around her waist. They paused in their climb, smiles wide with yellowed teeth — a child’s eagerness painted on faces like rotten apples. With a scream, she sent a course of lightning down through her body. The head bugs popped like cheap balloons. Skidmark pointed out at the crowd and her lightning chained through the creatures.

Her attack struck several survivors, and they went rigid as her Skein zapped them, but all the bugs exploded and left smoking goop spattered about.

“Careful,” Anton said as he flicked a bug from his boot and into the water. “These are low-level enemies. They play mind games, but require little Skein to defeat. Everyone! Watch your neighbors and make sure the bugs don’t catch a hold of them. You don’t want to see what happens if they —”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

A woman shrieked. She pointed at her husband as a shadowy cocoon spread around his body.

“I just looked away for a second —” she broke down into a scream as her husband collapsed into a dozen of the head bugs.

The bugs swarmed the surrounding survivors who all started screaming. Skidmark’s eyes bulged. That had been a human, and now they were… the heads stared at her and peeled back their wrinkled lips with laughter as their fingers tapped along the ground faster than an expert piano player.

“I’d hoped never to see that again,” Anton sighed.

His eyes darted out amongst the bugs and struck. Each silver globe struck a bug and shivered as it plunged inside the withered meat of the heads. After a moment, the head bugs screeched as their eyes glowed like silver in the sun before their brains burst out of their skulls in a gruesome flower of gore.

He replenished his eyes, sending them out to combat the swarming bugs as he leaped over the river. Silver eyes flowed from him like chrome teardrops.

“Hurry!” he called to Skidmark. “Start tossing.”

Skidmark wanted to make a joke, but her chest felt too tight for words. Screams filled her ears. It was Hell again. The leering demons lurked in her vision. This cave was a tunnel and at the end stood a woman with a pale face like a corpse in the moonlight. Bile sizzled across her tongue like the waters eroding the rocks of the riverbank.

They would all melt they would all…

Silver light burned in her eyes. A head bug exploded from her shoulders. Her head cleared like she’d risen in a plane. The smell of burning vomit filled the air.

“Skidmark,” Anton said, almost annoyingly calm. “Throw them now.”

His voice cut through her fog better than any slap. She stared at the smoking giblets around her feet. Where did her thoughts end and the intrusive ones begin?

Well, no time to think about that, certainly no time like the present. A grin bubbled up from somewhere and she seized it like an old friend.

“Alright, you bastards hurry up for the Skidmark Express!”

The old man who had come up before looked at her with confusion, but Skidmark grabbed his arm and hefted him above her head.

“All aboard!” she shouted as she launched him across the river like a sack of potatoes.

The man yelped as he flew above the water, but Anton caught him carefully. Skidmark grabbed the woman crying about her husband, twirled, and threw her. Her arm skipped in the black water and she landed in Anton’s arms with a tearfully bewildered face.

“My husband,” she moaned.

“We’ll get you a new one!” Skidmark shouted. “Come on, everyone my arms will get tired at some point and then we’re leaving you behind!”

“We’re not leaving anyone,” Anton said as he sent a new volley of silver eyes toward the emerging bugs.

Skidmark stuck out her tongue.

“They don’t know that, do they?”

She grabbed another person and threw them, and again, and again. If only she could have moshed with this kind of strength! The widening river forced her back into the narrow alley. She stomped on bugs with heels of lightning, but her aim grew haphazard. Still, Anton caught them all. It was honestly annoyingly hot how Anton continued to send his eyes dancing amongst the never-ending bugs while catching the survivors.

The damned nerd could do anything except pick up a hint, not that she was hinting…

She caught herself blushing and snapped herself out of it with a zap to the brain. Her emotions and thoughts were scattered, but she could keep moving forward. If Zoe was holding herself together, then Skidmark could as well.

There was one survivor left, the fire child. The little toddler had his hand in one of the bug holes. Plasmas poured down the vent. Screams and foul smoke gushed out as the toddler laughed. Fire covered his pudgy body. Skidmark glanced at him and then at her hands.

“Anton? How do I pick him up?”

“Don’t.”

“Right,” she said as she crouched down. “Come on little buddy, ah, what is everyone calling you, Chucky?”

“Charlie,” said Anton.

“Come on, Charlie? Come on!”

The toddler looked up at her with eyes that burned like the sun. It extracted a fist from the ground and crawled toward her. As it came closer, the heat grew, and the ground glowed beneath its hands and knees. Skidmark felt the heat upon her face fiercer than any Scottish summer day. Bugs raced away from the flames that licked his skin.

Skidmark backed away, cooing and luring until her heels touched the water.

“Ok, little Charlie, do you want to maybe turn off your flames so I can carry you?”

The toddler’s eyes widened and he screamed. Flame belched out of his mouth and poured across the ground. Skidmark leaped backward as the fire scorched the ground where she just stood. She landed on the other side of the river, wobbling, about to fall, but Anton gripped the back of her jumpsuit and pulled her to safety.

Charlie remained on the other side, sitting, and crying. Ruby tears slid down his cheeks and splashed upon the rock like molten glass.

Skidmark turned on the survivors.

“How the hell did you get him to build you those tunnels?” she asked.

None of the survivors answered for a moment before Fleshripper stepped forward.

“We were patient,” he said. “We had candy, and we spoke kindly.”

“Well, you want to try some of that now? Otherwise, we’re leaving Charlie behind.”

She felt bad even as the words left her mouth.

“Skidmark,” Anton said warningly.

Damn, he had a stick up his ass about following orders. What was his deal anyway? He and Zoe seemed about as romantically involved as a rock and pancake. She sighed.

“We’re out of candy,” Fleshripper said.

“Useless.”

“Skidmark.”

“Fine, what do you suggest then?” she asked Fleshripper with her sweetest possible tone as she ignored Anton’s floating glare.

“Hmm,” Fleshripper turned toward some of the other survivors. “What do you think?”

They started discussing as the bugs on the other side of the river were crawling inquisitively toward the crying child. They waved their fingers and whispered too low for her to hear. The flames kept them away, but she hoped the child didn’t listen to their words. It would be pretty terrible for those intrusive thoughts to enter the mind of someone so young.

“Come on, Charlie,” called Fleshripper. “Come on, little buddy.”

The other survivors joined in, calling and making cute sounds.

“You expect him to crawl through the water?” Skidmark said.

“Either the water will douse his flames or he’ll evaporate the water. There’s no wrong answer.”

Unless he’s swept away, Skidmark thought. I don’t want a drowned baby on my conscience. She quickly checked she didn’t have one of the head bugs on her body. Nope, those thoughts were her own. She needed to carry the child. Too bad Zoe wasn’t here with her Mirrored Skin. That armor would probably let her carry the flaming child without harm, or her conjured chains might achieve the effect. Skidmark only had lightning, but that wasn’t quite the same, unless…