Chapter Thirty-Two
The city wasn’t just a city. Though the course went right through the tall skyscrapers and smaller buildings, there were no people here. No one was watching. There were no stands. But the city itself looked as if it had a bomb dropped on it at one point, or it was just crumbling from being left empty. The buildings were crumbling, decaying. In some parts of the streets they passed, it was as if nature was reclaiming most of it. Foreign symbols decorated fading signs and doorways. What used to be neon lights sat vacant and dark. As she stared at one, it flickered and died again. Danica downshifted with unease despite the goblins and necromancers in front of them still fighting. Every so often, one of them would remember they trailed behind and would throw something at them.
“The track illusions are replicas of certain places in the world. The swamp was probably from Louisiana.”
“And what is this modelled after?” Danica asked, staring at the road before her. A green glow began to spread from the necromancer car in front of them and Arden tensed. The goblins, seeing the glow, gunned their car and tried to get away but either they drove a slower vehicle—it was a large pickup truck so that wasn’t unlikely—or they just didn’t try too hard, because the necromancers easily matched their speed.
“Chernobyl,” Phi answered. Neither vampire had put their harnesses back on, both leaning to look out tightly shut windows.
Something about knowing they were driving through a city abandoned because of radiation made Danica’s stomach drop. “Do I need to worry about radiation?” she asked, her eyes trained on the road in front of her and the expanding glow of the necromancer car.
“As long as the windows remain up, you’ll be safe,” Arden answered, quickly checking to make sure they were up completely. “The car is equipped with protection, but if the windows are down, you’ll be at risk.” He met her eyes. “This isn’t a place to get stranded.”
“Understood.” Her eyes followed the glow ahead of them. “And what about that?”
Arden frowned. “That is something to worry about. They’re about to use their powers.”
As if on cue, creatures began swarming from the alleyways around them. Though they all seemed to focus on the goblins, a few ran beside their car like undead escorts. Danica’s eyes widened, her heart skipping a beat.
“That’s a fucking zombie deer,” she breathed. It was keeping up with their speed despite them doing well over eighty miles per hour. Any faster than that, and Danica was unsure of the stability of the road. She suspected that was the point.
“Not quite.” Phi leaned forward and stared at the creatures. “They’ve been shaped by the radiation, too.”
Phi was right. It wasn’t just a deer, wasn’t just a zombie. Though it was decaying in places, showing ribs and shriveled organs, though the face and body shape was very much deer-like, that was where the similarities ended. The horns were massive, larger than anything Danica had ever seen on a deer. Meat hung from the horns where it had been in the process of decaying, but amongst the strips grew moss and some sort of sharp looking flower. Sharp teeth poked around the deer’s lips and when it opened its mouth in a howl no deer should be able to make, the jaw opened a little too wide. With red eyes bleeding and hooves as sharp as claws, the creature was more terrifying than anything else Danica had ever seen before, and it wasn’t alone. More deer ran around them before more creatures joined in, a wolf far too big, some sort of opossum looking thing, a bear that was missing so many chunks, it should have been impossible to move, let alone move at the speed they all were. Each and every creature was touched with the green glow from the necromancer car.
Danica’s breath stuttered shakily from her chest. “Why aren’t they attacking?”
Arden leaned forward and pointed to the goblin car, where the creatures were very much attacking. Danica watched as glass shattered and one of the deer creatures dragged a screaming goblin from inside. “They’re focused on the goblins. We need to get out of here before their focus turns on us.”
Phi grabbed his tablet and jerked it from the mount, leaning forward to see out of the windshield. “There are traps coming up—”
“No, we need to disappear,” Arden argued. “If we remain here, we’re going to be next on the menu.”
Phi zoomed in quickly and searched.
“Phi?” Danica watched the goblin car begin to lose control. “We’re running out of time.”
“Patience is a virtue,” he grunted.
“Maybe in the Bible it is! Phi, the goblins are out.” Danica watched as the deer running beside her glanced over and met her gaze. There was no emotion there, like it was a puppet and nothing more, but when it opened its mouth, Danica panicked. “Phi!”
“Turn right now!”
Danica did as he said without hesitation, turning into the creatures and grimacing.
“They’re already dead,” Arden consoled her as they thumped over top of the car and left behind streaks of gore. “They don’t feel pain.”
They slipped through an alley way, the walls closing closer and closer, but Danica’s eyes widened at the brick wall that came into appearance before them just as the trumpet sounded for the lost goblin team.
“Phi, that’s a wall!”