“Jesus!” Meg shouted as another low hanging branch smacked against the windshield. Every time it happened, it seemed like the glass was going to shatter. At the speed they were going, every last bump felt like getting punched. This was not helped by the fact that they were not driving on a paved road. She looked with terror at Agent King beside her. His eyes were ultra-focused on the path in front of them. His foot had not left the accelerator since they sped away from Jackson and his goons just seconds ago, though it felt like much longer. The road was starting to get twisted and rough, and King had started to drift on the turns.

            Meg wondered if he had ever been in a car chase before. Probably. He looked like he had years of experience and he seemed to know what he was doing behind the wheel. Skill could only get them so far, though. The police vans were built for these roads, and King’s car simply wasn’t. She could practically feel it protesting. Every time she looked behind them, which was every few seconds, she could see their pursuers getting closer and closer.

            “Uh, Mr. King…” Meg said worriedly.

            “I know,” he responded. “They’re going to catch us eventually. We’re going to have to take this offroad; lose them in the trees.”

            “What? Can you really do that?”

            “Not sure. But our car is skinnier than theirs. We might be able to throw them off in the denser parts of the forest. Alright, hold on.”

            As if she wasn’t already. King swerved to the left, into the forest. The sudden change of terrain and loss of traction slowed them up a bit, but she could see the van directly behind them speed past their previous position and slam on the brakes. It brought her a small amount of pleasure to imagine Jackson pointing at them and screaming hoarsely at his men.

            King weaved through the trees like a professional. It reminded Meg of those skiers in the Olympics that slalom left and right on the slopes. Although their initial momentum was lost, she could see that the police were having a far worse time than they. Their vans were indeed fatter and so they were more limited in the paths they could take. They were quickly being left behind. Meg breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe they would be able to get away after all. King seemed to be growing more confident, picking up speed. They began to go so fast that Meg almost didn’t see the obstruction in their path.

            “Wait!” she yelled. Luckily, he noticed the same time as her and slammed on the brakes just before they were to dive headfirst into a massive swamp. The still, black water loomed ahead of them like a terrible sluggish beast, barring their way to freedom. There was no way they could risk going through it. There was no knowing how deep it was and even if they could cross, the odds of getting stuck were way too high.

            “It’s fine,” King muttered. “We’ll go around it.”

            He turned sharply and drove along the side. However, there seemed to be no end to it. Every way they looked in that direction, there was just more and more dark water, seemingly going on for miles. As they were distracted looking for an exit, a police van suddenly pulled in front of them, blocking their path again.

            “Crap,” said King, trying to back up. At that moment, though, another van blocked them from behind. More closed in around them, effectively blocking them in. From the center van, Chief Jackson stepped out, looking confidently arrogant.

            “I told you, King, all this flooding is a real pain in the ass, isn’t it?” he laughed. “I tried to warn you two, but you just wouldn’t listen to me.” He motioned to the men beside him.

            There was nowhere to go. Officers surrounded the car, guns trained on them. Rough hands grabbed Meg out of her seat and dragged her away from the car, shoving her to the ground. From the corner of her eye, she could see the same being done to King.

            “You know, you two must be a real couple of morons. I mean, if you two had just played nice, you could have both gone home safe and happy in a few days. But you,” he said, grinding King’s face into the dirt with his boot. “You just had to go around asking questions. And you,” he said, doing the same to Meg. “Talking to someone like me so disrespectfully. Just who do you think you are?

            “Oh, but I’m forgetting myself,” he continued, feigning sympathy. “I mean, it’s my duty as a police officer to make sure everyone in my town is safe. Why don’t we get you up to a hospital so they can take a look at you, like I suggested in the first place?”

            “What are you talking about, asshole?” demanded Meg.

            “Jefferson Memorial Hospital,” said Jackson, grinning evilly. “It’s a wonderful facility. A little old-fashioned maybe, but I’m great friends with the staff. I’ll make sure he takes good care of the both of you.”

***

            The sun had set. The last traces of light had disappeared from the sky. Long stretches of clouds hung overhead, obscuring the stars and making for a dark, oppressive atmosphere in the town of Ether Green. Johnny, Paul, Ash, Grandpa Tuesday. These four brave souls stood in front of Jefferson Memorial Hospital, waiting to confront whatever lay inside.

            Bill Tuesday held a sawed-off shotgun in his hands, the same one he used to fight this monster fifty years before. It hadn’t done him much good then, but he had been a younger man then, brimming with the perfect mixture of inexperience and overconfidence. He wondered if the monster even remembered his pathetic attempt at killing it. He hoped so. This time he wouldn’t give in to fear. He was stronger now. Or so he hoped.

            Johnny had a World War I era sword that he had found in his grandpa’s storeroom. It had belonged to his great-grandfather when he fought in the Great War; Johnny wondered if anyone had been killed with it, and whether they had been afraid as he was now. He had always been the black sheep of the group in a sense. He was usually the one to try to lighten the mood, which was often needed since Paul and Ash could be so intense sometimes, and Meg was a quiet and serious girl. He sometimes felt out of place since his personality was so different, and yet he knew they counted on him for that very reason. They especially counted on him now. He had to be the brave one tonight, for them.

            Paul held an aluminum baseball bat that he had taken from his garage before he left. It was a simple weapon compared to the others and he really wasn’t sure how useful it would be, but to him it felt right. Logically, it made sense that he would have the most blunt and barbaric weapon as he had the most upper body strength out of the group. He figured that anything he faced in there would either be real or not real, and if it was real, he could always hit it with a bat. It seemed simplistic and yet Paul was a simplistic person. Their group had no de facto leader; they were just friends, not a military squad. Yet, it always seemed to be him that the others looked to for advice. Perhaps it had something to do with his bluntness and honesty, a quality that tended to make other people irritated with him, but Johnny and Ash had always found endearing. Well, if he was to be a leader, he had to prove it tonight.

            Ash had a gun. It was a small pistol that held six shots. Grandpa Tuesday had given it to her because he felt that she would be the most responsible with it. She certainly didn’t feel very responsible at the moment. She felt like a mess. She couldn’t stop her own father from being kidnapped right in front of her. When she saw him being taken away, she had started running after the speeding car without even thinking. She had gotten only a few blocks when she had been nearly run over by the others who were on their way to get her. Standing here now, she began to wonder what she was really doing here. The others all had confident, determined looks on their faces, but Ash didn’t feel that way at all. They all had strengths that she had never had. Sure, she was book smart, but what good were books in a situation like this? Her instincts told her to run and hide, to leave it to people who were stronger than her, better than her. And yet, she couldn’t do that. Not just because her only family was trapped in that building, waiting to be rescued, but because for her, this was personal. Every decision in her life, every step, had been planned and decided for her. But not this. Her decision to come here was made of her own free will, and she knew she could never face the shame if she were to back down now. She looked at her friends once again. Their faces were confident, but their bodies were shaking. They were just as scared as she was. She had no right to run and allow her friends to fight for her. They would do this together, as they always had.

            The gates of the looming hospital were open, as if to welcome them. They would face their fears now and they would conquer them, or they would fail and leave a helpless town to a terrible fate.