The signal carried out across the parking lot and reverberated among the emptied cars, shaking the glass of the visitor center. The sound was quickly followed by even more men, dozens of them, climbing over the broken rocks and running between the cars.

  Ethan was frozen in place at the sight. Men, large and powerful, wearing little more than loincloths made of dirty leather, wielding curved and wicked weapons of metal and bone, charged out of the pit and right towards the panicked people who discovered a new horror to flee.

  Ethan’s paralysis broke when he saw one of the men from the pit drawing closer. The man wore a black leather mask, which only left his mouth and jaw exposed.

  He grabbed a fleeing woman and ran her through the back, the tip of his sharpened spike emerging from her chest and creating a scarlet tent in her blouse.

  Ethan turned and darted under a car, his thin frame barely fitting in the space between the undercarriage and the rough asphalt. His fear overcame the sharp pain of broken glass cutting through his jeans and into his knees.

  He laid there for a moment, watching feet race around his hiding spot. The tennis-shoed feet of a man ran by only to be caught by the leather sandaled feet of a raider from the pit.

  Lifted up and then thrown down, the body of the man fell next to the car, and Ethan could see that his throat had been slashed open, and his eyes wide in blank terror. The vehicle rocked above him as another raider slammed the head of a child against the front bumper, blood forming a puddle under the car.

  Ethan looked away and saw another woman hiding under an SUV, but she was too exposed, and one of the raiders found her. Ethan closed his eyes so he didn’t see what happened to her after she was pulled screaming out from under her hiding spot.

  Once he opened his eyes again, she was gone, only a yellow high heel remained to mark her existence. He moved only enough to make sure that his hands and feet well-hidden so he could avoid a similar fate.

  He didn’t know how long he laid there. The feet running by continued for a while, and the sounds of screams became fewer and more distant, indicating the massacre was moving farther away from the visitor center. His heart pounded in his chest. Ethan held his breath and watched in the direction of the pit, wondering what else might emerge.

  Instead, he saw something that should have been a welcome sight. His sister, Emily, emerged from the entrance of the visitor center. At first, Ethan was relieved that his sister survived the riot and the brutality of the raiders. He wondered if she hid as well and was now looking for him.

  Her blonde hair hung loosely around her face. Her shirt had been ripped off, and she only wore a black sports bra, revealing her athletic shoulders and arms. Her black yoga pants clung tightly to her long, muscular legs. Blood smeared her face and splattered across her chest. It covered her hands from fingertips to elbows as if she had been dipping her hands into it.

  She stood just outside the entrance and scanned the parking lot like a warlord surveying the aftermath of a bloody battle. When she looked towards the direction the men of the pit had run, Ethan could see her face. It was then he knew he couldn’t go to his sister for safety.

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  Rather than a panicked or dazed look of the survivor of some horror, she had a satisfied smile. She brought both of her hands up to her face and closed her eyes as she smeared the blood over her cheeks and jaw, down to her throat. Then she strode towards the receding sounds of chaos with disturbing confidence.

  Ethan dared to move, but just to where he could see out from under the car. He watched his sister walk towards the raiders, racing after fleeing victims. She walked with a purpose Ethan did not understand, but it frightened him.

  He glanced around and saw that none of the raiders remained. He didn’t even see any of the people who had become violent in the visitor center.

  Maybe they were killed, too. Maybe they ran away. Maybe they joined the raiders. Ethan didn’t like any of the answers or what they implied.

  But seeing a chance to get away, he quietly inched from under the car and knelt between them. He peeked over the hood and saw cars parked in the road, which led out of the park.

  Opened doors and smashed windows told him those cars weren’t going to be moving again soon. It didn’t matter. He still hadn’t started driver’s ed, something his sister teased him about whenever their mother had to drive him to school.

  His mother!

  He realized she was at home alone. She needed to know what happened. She needed to know that he was alright. If she heard about this on the news and couldn’t get a hold of him, then she would worry herself to death.

  A low rumble from the pit reminded him that he was not entirely out of danger. He ducked down again and crawled between the cars to the edge of the parking lot. Ethan kept his eyes down onto the asphalt in front him to avoid seeing the bodies or putting his hands in blood. He was successful much of the time.

  When he reached the edge of the parking lot, he was next to a small hill. The only cover he would have to hide his escape were patches of tall grass and juniper bushes. He looked behind him and saw the parking lot was still empty save for abandoned cars and the corpses of the people who belonged to them.

  He turned back and ran to the first bush that looked big enough to hide behind. He paused again to see if anyone noticed him. Still nothing. So, he started off again, up the hill and behind another bush.

  Stopping to search back again and finding no one, Ethan boldly ran up the hill past the next bush and towards the one after. This time, when he stopped to look back, he was high enough that he could see more of the carnage below him.

  Panting, he saw dozens of bodies littering the parking lot. They laid in the cars, on the hoods, and the ground next to them. Bloody smears stained everything.

  Among all the ruin, though, he didn’t see a single raider body. He looked in the direction the raiders chased after the survivors. They were far enough away that he could only see small figures moving and was unable to tell raider from survivor.

  Another rumble from the pit told him he wasn’t far enough away yet. He turned back up the hill and ran towards the next bush and then the next. At this point, the junipers were much larger, and their needles more densely packed, finally giving Ethan some real cover.

  He knelt behind a bush and took out his cell phone. Perhaps he could call someone for help or at least let his mother know he was alright. But it was dead. No charge. This didn’t make sense as his phone had at least half a battery life when they got to the park.

  His attempt to restart his phone was interrupted by the strangest sound he had heard that day: singing. He looked up and discovered what the rumblings from the pit meant. He saw a line of raiders coming out of the massive hole and filing down the road in the direction the others had gone. But rather than running as they had before, they were walking.

  The singing, a loud baritone glossolalia, came from a raider, a bare-chested, pot-bellied man wearing black leather pants and a horned helmet. He sat high in the saddle of a massive woolly rhinoceros. His singing rocked back and forth with the rhythms of the prehistoric beast he rode.