Renegades by Michaelbrent Collings Read Free Book Online

building shuddered.  Dorcas, still looking out the window at the tower, finally looked down.
    She gasped.
     

20
     
     
    Dorcas turned away from the window.  She didn’t say what she had seen.  And Ken was grateful for that.  “I’ll go first,” she said.
    “Like hell,” said a voice.  The new guy.  The gray-haired man.  He was a fairly big guy, maybe six-foot-two and stocky to boot, but he jumped quickly to the window, elbowing Dorcas out of the way.
    “Wait for me, Buck!” said the guy’s mother.
    Ken thought, Buck ?  The guy seemed more like a Sherman or a Eugene than a Buck.
    Buck grabbed his mother with one hand and a web-covered chair with his other, stepping up onto the chair and then from there to the sill.  His eyes widened.
    “What’s… what’s…,” he stammered.  He was looking down.
    Buck’s mother was more direct.  She just screamed.
    Maggie started toward the window.  Ken stopped her.  “You don’t need to see what’s there.  We just need to get going.”  He looked at Buck.  “If you’re going, go.  If not, get out of the way!”
    Buck looked over his shoulder at Ken, terror and irritation warring on his features, then he and his mother jumped out the window.  There was a thud a moment later.  Clanks.
    The building rumbled again.  This time the tremor didn’t stop.  It just kept moving through the entire building, looping rolls that made it hard to stay standing.
    “How are we going to take the kids?” whispered Maggie.
    “I’ll take the girl,” said Christopher, stepping forward.  “You’ve got the baby.”
    Maggie started to protest.  Ken cut her off with a gesture.  “He’s right.  I’ll take Derek, he takes Hope.  You take Liz.  The others are working with one good hand each, so they can’t do it.”
    “Is he…?”  Maggie’s voice drifted off.
    It didn’t matter.  Ken knew what she was trying to say.  “You can trust him with Hope,” he said.  “You can trust Christopher with her life.”  He turned to Derek and said, “Can you hold tight to me, champ?”  Derek nodded.  “Okay.  We’re gonna go climbing.  Don’t look down.”
    “I won’t.”
    The door shattered.  Snarls – multiple growls – rammed their way into the room.
    “Go!” shouted Aaron.  “Go now! ”
     

21
     
     
    Ken yanked Derek upward, and at the same instant Derek’s arms wrapped around his neck in a death grip, so tightly he would have worried about suffocation if he hadn’t already been holding his breath.
    The door fell to pieces.  Completely.  Utterly.  Only the remains of the huge conference table between the beasts and the survivors kept them alive.
    Ken propelled Maggie toward the window as Christopher picked up Hope and slung the six-year-old over his shoulder.  She started screaming, kicking.  Not understanding what was happening, still half-dazed from the effects of whatever had been done to her.
    And Ken had to ignore it.  He was only one man, there just wasn’t enough him to do more than what he was already doing.  He had to trust Christopher to save his daughter.
    He shoved his wife out the window.  Barely a moment to let her get her grip on the sill, get balanced.
    She jumped.
    She screamed in mid-air.  Not because of the jump – the crane tower was only a few short feet to the left of the window, an easy jump even with an unconscious toddler strapped to you.  He didn’t even think it was because of the heights involved.  They were on the ninth floor, easily one hundred and twenty-five feet above the ground.  More.  But that wasn’t the frightening thing.
    Not frightening at all.  Not compared to what was happening.  Not compared to the thing that had caused the building to rumble.
    Ken and Christopher went to the window next, both of them squeezing into the opening.  He glanced at the young man, once the son of Idaho’s governor, now just another person running a series of wind sprints against the Grim Reaper