Dead End: Midnight Hollow by Penn Cassidy (free novel 24 TXT) 📗

The last thing I remembered, before the sound of shattering glass and bending metal filled my ears, was locking eyes with a pair of familiar green ones filled with so much terror, it was staggering. I heard Norman’s scream just as the darkness crashed over me…

I blinked my eyes open in what seemed like both one small second and a lifetime later, nothing but orange surrounding me. My eyes adjusted, and I saw a hazy orange fog was floating calmly above me. Beyond that, I could see stars and that massive orange blood moon hovering overhead.

My brain gave a pulse of pain as I struggled to sit up. I could immediately smell burning rubber and coppery blood in the air as the accident came barreling back into my memory all at once. A sob ripped from my throat, but ended in a sputtering cough tinged with blood as I toppled onto my hands and knees, my hands sinking into the grass as I crawled. My skin was covered in black soot, and my dress was torn to shreds.

When my ears popped, sound exploded around me suddenly. I could hear the crackling inferno of the fire blazing in the distance and a cacophony of whimpers from every direction. I was in the middle of a barren field that used to be crops, and all around me were my old classmates, scattered like leaves in the wind, nursing all sorts of horrible wounds that told me some wouldn’t be waking up again. I saw so much blood that I was ready to vomit.

My throat was so thick with smoke, I coughed and gagged as I crawled around, looking for Maddie desperately. I needed to find her. I needed to find her and the guys immediately. Then we needed to get to a phone, because I must have lost mine in the chaos. In the distance, I saw the bus, torn to shreds with tendrils of smoke leaking from it. I couldn’t say what compelled me to do it, but suddenly, I knew I had to get to the bus. The urge was overwhelming and too all-consuming.

So I crawled hard and fast, pain radiating through my body. I tried to see past the stinging in my eyes and feel past the aches in my joints or the oozing cuts littering my skin. I pulled myself closer to the crumpled pile of metal. So far, I hadn’t seen any dead bodies, but it was pretty hazy out there. I heard plenty of screaming in the air surrounding the crash. I was somewhat glad I couldn’t see completely, there had to be dead bodies scattered around the crash.

I made it to the bus and realized that it was only the back end of it. The rest was completely torn away, and I could see it a little farther down the way, lying on its side with the engine smoking. I frowned at the chaotic scene. I didn’t think we’d been going nearly fast enough for this severe of a wreck. But those bats… It was like they came out of nowhere and targeted the bus specifically.

Ripping my way into the broken cabin, I shuffled torn seats, purses, and personal items out of the way. It was like crawling my way through the apocalypse. It was dark inside, and without the light of the moon to guide me, I was running on instinct. The smell of gasoline was pungent, and something dripped from the roof. I didn’t want to think about what it could be. Frantically, I searched. I moved with tunnel vision, ignoring my own wounds to find Maddie and the guys. I wasn’t prepared in the slightest for what I found as my world tilted on its axis.

I screamed in rippling agony the moment I spotted Jason’s lifeless grey eyes staring upwards, his jaw slack and his throat hemorrhaging blood. He was half covered by a torn seat with a piece of metal stuck right through his abdomen. He was gone. There was no life left in his face. I was screaming as I fought to get to him, shoving things out of the way, repeating his name over and over again, as if he’d pop up and tell me he was okay.

I threw a sheet of what used to be the roof off to the side, but staggered back, slicing my hand on a jagged edge of metal. Norman was there, covered in blood and three feet away from Jason. His neck was bent at an odd angle, and his green eyes, that not twenty minutes ago were glaring right into mine, were lifeless.

Oh, god, oh god, what do I do?! Don’t fucking leave me!

I managed to find the strength to pull myself up and over the last few seats, and immediately gagged, spitting off to the side when I saw both Freddy and Michael lying there, only five more feet away from where Jason and Norman were. They were dead, there was no question about it. Nobody could survive wounds like that. All four of my oldest friends were gone. It was gruesome. It was wrong and unnatural, something no one should ever have to see in their whole lives. I screamed so loud, I didn’t even sound like me anymore.

This couldn’t be real. It had to be a nightmare… Maybe I fell asleep on the bus, and soon I’d wake up back in Sunset Hollow, everyone safe and unharmed.

But it was real. I could feel it in my bones, all of this was happening. My friends were dead. I was hurt, I didn’t know how badly…and Maddie. Where the fuck was Maddie?!

The world began to spin as my body locked up. Every single sound for miles dissipated in seconds. It was like time slowed, and all I could hear was the thump, thump, thump of