Chapter 10 - Finding a Bastion

  I raced down the tracks, quickly catching up with my charges. I wasn’t even tired, another sign that the Stamina boost from those stones was really working. Manuel was way out ahead of the pack, too. At a guess, that was his Agility at work. I needed to get myself some of those…!

  A quick peek over my shoulder told me that the goblins were still in hot pursuit. They hooted and howled as they ran down the road alongside the tracks. The road kept going all the way across the bridge, so they weren’t going to leave us alone unless I made them.

  “Kids, keep going! I’ll catch up in a minute!” I shouted.

  “What are you doing?” Troy asked, slowing beside me. “Don’t leave us!”

  “I’m not leaving. I’m dealing with our goblin problem,” I told him. “Run on, Troy. I’ll be back in a flash.”

  He looked dubious but kept moving, so I figured I’d take it. I stopped on the tracks. The goblins were still a few meters back. I grabbed the edge of the fence and pulled as hard as I could, using it to vault myself over the thing.

  It worked better than I’d expected! I sailed way past where I expected to land and tumbled to the pavement, landing hard on my tailbone. Wincing, I stood back up and readied my spear.

  My heartbeat sped right the hell up as the adrenaline kicked into high gear. Squashing a bunch of big bugs was weird, but it wasn’t that strange. Fighting the rat creatures had been the most terrifying experience of my life, though, and this felt like more of the same—except now there were twelve goblins bearing down on me, instead of three rat monsters.

  The three that first noticed us were the first to arrive. The two with clubs came in first, the spear-wielder not far behind. I jabbed out toward one of the goblins with clubs, but my heart wasn’t in it.

  I realized why right away. These weren’t mindless insects; they were clearly intelligent creatures. They chattered to each other in a language I didn’t understand, used tools, and were building a home for themselves down by the river’s edge. It was a lot more like fighting a person than I was comfortable with.

  “Hey! Back up. I don’t want to fight you, but I will if you make me,” I shouted.

  The goblins looked at each other, chattered some more, then started giggling to one another. They turned back toward me and advanced again, weapons held high.

  So much for diplomacy! If the only choice they were giving me was ‘them or me,’ I knew how I wanted this to end. I stepped forward, spear taking the nearest goblin in the chest as he swung his club toward me. He dropped the weapon, mouth opening wide as the tip of my metal bar went into his chest. My weapon wasn’t much of a spear, but with the tier three Strength behind it, I could punch through a lot.

  I yanked the spear out and used it to block a club strike. Spear Goblin picked that moment to take a jab at me. The blow struck just under my ribs on the left side and hurt like heck. I reached down reflexively, half-expecting to feel blood pouring down my side, but…nothing?

  As even the ache faded quickly, I figured it was my Natural Armor at work. The blow hadn’t been too hard, so my Armor held out okay. That didn’t mean I was invulnerable to attacks. They could still hit me harder and maybe bust through my protection. But even being resistant to their blows was enough to give me a massive boost in confidence. I stepped in and whipped the butt end of my spear around, smacking Spear Goblin in the head. He went down like a pile of bricks.

  Club Goblin didn’t like that and swung for the fences, trying to take me down with a blow to the knee. I jumped to dodge the blow, my feet reaching the height where my head usually was! I staggered a bit on my landing. I hadn’t expected to jump so high!

  Tier three Strength was going to take a lot of getting used to, clearly. But it was working to my advantage here. The goblin had swung with all its strength and lost its balance when I just wasn’t there anymore. Then it stared at me, mouth wide open, so I just punched it in the face. It dropped to the ground.

  The other goblins were about to catch up with me, and these ones were dead or stunned. I tapped the Spear Goblin, getting a clear crystal for my troubles, and decided it was time to get the heck out of there before they surrounded me and took me down with sheer numbers.

  I turned and started running toward the far side of the bridge. As I ran, I thought about that jump I’d made. The kids were already a good distance ahead, and I wanted to catch up. Could I make big jumps to boost my speed?

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  It was worth a try. I made a small leap, first, clearing ten feet with a single bound. The jump after that, I managed more like fifteen. I repeated that jump and realized I’d just shot past the kids. Holy crap, was I able to move now or what? This was incredible!

  I made another jump, this one back over the fence and onto the tracks. I didn’t even need to touch the fence for support or leverage—just a standing jump easily cleared it.

  The kids caught up to me and started jumping and cheering.

  “You were amazing!” Manuel said.

  “Epic!” Troy added.

  “Told you I’d be right back,” I said, giving him a smile.

  The rest of the goblins had stopped where their fallen lay. Whether they were helping their wounded or just decided we weren’t worth the trouble, I didn’t know and didn’t much care. They’d broken off the pursuit, which was more than enough for me.

  “Let’s keep going, guys. I want to get you home,” I said.

  Everyone seemed okay with that idea, so we pressed on. Thankfully, while the bridge had a lot of stalled cars scattered about, there didn’t seem to be anyone there besides us, not people or monsters. I’d take it. A little luck in our favor was very welcome.

  Once we reached the far side of the bridge, we pressed on into the Charles/MGH station. It was all glass, so we could easily see everything inside the station even from the tracks outside. Which was why I had everyone halt again before going in.

  “What now? I want to go home!” Maria said.

  “Shhhh,” I replied, holding a finger to my lips. “Got a bad feeling about this.”

  I crept closer to the doors into the station, and that’s when I realized part of what was giving me bad vibes. There were no bodies out on the platform where people would wait for the next train—but there were red streaks marring the concrete, like bloody bodies had been dragged away. All of those streaks led through the glass doors into the interior.

  Still moving as quietly as possible, I crept up to the edge of the doors. There was no movement inside. Nothing stirred at all. But I knew something was wrong. I could feel it in my gut.

  I kept waiting, scanning the space within, looking for a single shred of movement, anything that could clue me in to why I was so spooked.

  The space within was huge. It was two levels, with a vaulted ceiling that spanned both. Those red streaks continued right up to one of the walls, and then…tracked up the wall?

  My eyes followed the red smears up, and up, and finally…saw it.

  There was a massive web spanning the entire ceiling of the upper level. Scattered around the web were half a dozen human-sized cocoons. That gave me a very good idea what to look for, so it only took me another minute to spot her—a spider the size of a minivan, curled up in one shadowy corner of the ceiling.

  I backed away. I might have a stack of magic crystals working for me, but I wanted nothing to do with that monster. It looked huge and deadly.

  “New plan. We’re going to go down to the street another way,” I told the kids.

  We had to backtrack a bit to the spot where the roads alongside the track diverged, back near where the bridge ended. I helped the kids climb over the fence, one at a time, then vaulted it myself the same way I had last time. My landing was better, too. I felt like I was starting to get the hang of this.

  With the roads full of dead cars, we were able to use the off-ramp from the bridge to get down to ground level. I gave the station a wide berth as I led the kids toward Mass General Hospital. Goblin bodies were scattered on the street and sidewalk in front of the hospital. A good sign, that. It was the first evidence I’d seen that other people were fighting back against this weird invasion, and I welcomed it.

  Movement from the hospital doors caught my eye while we huddled near a dead UPS truck on the road. I froze, holding up a hand to still the kids, but we were in a bad position. I’d been working so hard to avoid the notice of that huge spider that I hadn’t done enough to shield us from other views.

  The interior of the hospital lobby was shrouded in shadows, so I couldn’t see who or what was moving in there. Then the glass doors opened, and a man in a security guard’s uniform peeked out.

  “Come on! Get in here, quick!” he hissed.

  I didn’t need to be told twice! I turned to the kids. “Let’s go! There’s more people in there.”

  We raced across the street, feet pounding the pavement. None of us were aiming for subtlety anymore. It was time to move fast, and the kids held up as well as any group of grownups I could have imagined. They got across the road and sidewalk, one after another funneling through the open doorway into the space beyond.

  I went through last. I’d been pulling up the rear to make sure I got all the kids inside safely. The last thing I wanted to do was risk losing any of them now that we were at the home stretch.

  “Thanks, man,” I told the guard as I stepped inside.

  “No problem, kid,” he replied. He looked to be about sixty, was a little overweight but not in a way that seemed out of shape, and his eyes had a sharpness about them that told me he’d already seen some ‘action’ in this mess we were facing together. He eyed my rebar spear and the blood staining the tip. “Run into trouble?”

  “Lots of it,” I replied. “Are the kids safe here? I need to get them home, but even a short rest first would be welcome.”

  “For now, yeah,” he replied. “I’m Gary Stefano. Glad you guys made it in. We’ve been holding the MGH buildings, so far. So yeah, you’re safe for now, at least. Come on, let’s get some water into these kids, and you can tell me what you’ve seen.”

  What I’d seen? I guess it was fair to exchange information, but I was hoping he’d be able to fill in a lot more of the details than I had handy. “Be glad to. But we were in the dark for most of the past hour. Literally and figuratively.”

  “No worries. Follow me in, and we’ll get you set up,” Gary replied.

  He led us through the inner doors, past a set of barricades designed to keep people—or monsters, I supposed—out. Those were manned by four men and two women, all armed with makeshift hand weapons and stressed facial expressions.

  They might be holding this place for now, but could they maintain it?

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  I've already begun work on book two of the series today, and Castle's story will continue into at least a trilogy. Maybe more; we'll have to see!