The Effacing (Book 1.5): Valley's End by T. Anwar Clark Read Free Book Online Page B

Maria, in shock, angered. “No! What are you—” She jerked back, looked down the street. A dense smoke traveled in her direction. She stared back into the darkness. “Huurry!” she screamed.
       A howl came from somewhere inside the building… and another.
       The dark grey smog from inside the building thickened just before Maria and Baker acquired the first glimpse of their companions. Ann was first, Jim and Rebekah only a few paces behind, holding up Girder in between them. Maria and Baker backed away just as they made it out of the building, and they all sped from the dying neighborhood, dust and debris of the disassembling structures pulling up on their hind parts faster than a chronic ejaculator to a three dollar whore.  
       With ray being aided by two people, there was no time for the Six to make it back to the rest of their group before the cloud caught up. After crossing the street from the apartments, in between Piper and Alder Street, Baker had led the way to the porch of a boarded up duplex on the left side of Piper. The downstairs windows, boarded from the outside, and oddly, upstairs, the boards were inside. He leaped at the hardwood door, a thudding kick toward the lock, but was rejected completely without creating even the slightest dent. That was odd. The thug that power kicked the exact same door on the other dupe a couple blocks over made it look easy.
       The smoke was only ten seconds behind.
       Between the rain, the rumbling and other unusual hullabaloos, Baker, the closest one to the door, made out tugging noises and lowered his head to the door crack, focused.
       “Move out the way!” Jim instructed, letting go of Girder, charging for the door with the intentions of knocking it off the hinges.
       The door miraculously opened.
       “Quickly!” said a man’s voice from inside.
       Lightening blew up in rapid flicks.
       Jim, surprised, froze for a moment in mid-sprint, stunned someone was there. Without a thought, Baker rushed inside. Ann and Maria G6’d in behind him. Rebekah and Girder moved up the stairs, Jim turned to assist. Once they were inside, the entry shut, and the harsh force of the wreckage-filled dust cloud pounded on the door behind them.
       The duplex, darkened but warm, the sounds of heavy wood, maybe a China cabinet, screeched on the hard tiles behind the Six and came to a rest at the door. The thunder rumbled once more. Fragile objects in the house rattled off the shelves, crashed to the kitchen tiles. Behind the Six, glass trembled. The rumbling continued, and increased in strength. The next sound, a million solid fist pounds by the Jolly Green giant on steroids, cut with LSD, hallucinating a Gofer the Groundhog Experience, using his jolly green fist as the monumental sledgehammer of virtue to The End . And The End had become just that.
       A few scattered notes throughout the house began to awe in the darkness, both male and female, children’s distorted cries from above, and then, the final smack of Valley’s End. Everything she threw at them, against the dupe. And the commotion outside gradually weakened, replaced with the exhausted huffs of six incredibly blessed parties.
       A lighter flickered nearby, and a candle lit, trailed by another, and another. The house began to slowly present itself in its totality, cluttered with tough citizens, displaced survivors. Up the stairs and across the squeaky clean balcony, and most likely in the rooms – the children were missing – the people stood in a welcoming, but most disturbing silence. There were men and women, young and older, the ones that most stuck out were those who held the candles. However, their eyes told their story. They’d lost everything. Not just their belongings, the entire neighborhood, obliterated. They had prepared themselves for that day, knowing that after four days of the buildings undergoing heavy fire, without any order, it was bound to happen. The worst of the