Divine_Scream Read Free

Understood? So let’s beat cheeks here.” She tugged at him again. “We can play catch-up once I transport us to the beach.”
    “Beach?”
    “You’ll see. That’s your only chance to be spared.”
    It all sounded so frank coming from her. Disturbingly frank. Jared felt the world unraveling around him. This had to be mental failure. There was no way. “No no no. Can’t be a part of this lunacy.” He stopped walking and waved his hands in a that’s enough gesture. “You’re very pretty, but either you or I have to be crazy. Or both maybe.”
    The banshee snatched his right hand and shook her head. Her gaze traveled from his palm back up to his eyes. “Nice work. You opened your fist. The scout has smelled you now, dummy.”
    “I don’t—”
    With incredible strength, she locked her hand around Jared’s. “I’m going to need to do the scream here and hope for the best. Don’t let go of me . Whatever you do. Understand?”
    He nodded and she turned her head in sideways appraisal. “You sure? Because so far you suck at following directions.”
    “I understa—”
    She broke into a sprint, nearly pulling Jared’s arm out of joint.
    Sniffing sounds followed them. Jared turned back and watched in horror as the scout loped toward them, its legs rising and falling rapidly like a deer’s. Rich, corded black veins pulsed all through the brain-head. The scout waved its crossbow. It had been too far to see before, but as the creature closed in on them, Jared got a much better view. A long net wiggled from the end of the bolt.
    “Remember,” said the banshee through deep breaths. “Don’t. Let. Go.”
    Her blue eyes had become so real, so intense and commanding, Jared almost didn’t believe this was a psychotic dream anymore. He gripped her hand tighter. A thin vibration hummed in the air, indistinguishable at first, and then it thickened with other layers of the same sound, a series of universe-moving machines revived from eons of silence. A pulse went through the banshee and through Jared’s hand to shock his elbow. The source of the strange sound came from an angelic braid ofsilver and gold that lighted under the skin of the banshee’s neck—it looked like a peculiar musical instrument, a sophisticated, harp-shaped set of vocal cords. Her mouth parted and miniature sunbursts and eclipses spread through the air on every note.
    The scout let out a growl of frustration and shot its net gun. Jared followed the tangle of black webbing as it sailed overhead… and then… the air pulled back, away, the net hewed into minute, dim fragments. Everything surrounding Jared and the woman suddenly did the same. Buildings stretched out on strings of pebbles that raced into the sky, where they threaded in an immense tapestry of grays, greens, and browns. Lacing. Bending. Joining. And slowly, that tapestry pulled down east and west of them in long luxurious trails that could have been earthen taffy. Dark steam lifted from the sidewalks and streets and buildings alike. Plumes roiled around Jared and the banshee before little stars blinked in the space around them. It was as though he and the banshee had become galactic giants thrashing their way through space; they were juggernauts that moved around a micro-sized universe that had been shrunken exclusively for them. Comets the size of houseflies zipped past, asteroid fields scattered like suspended pools of pebbles and dust, and planets slipped around their bodies, frozen eggs moving briefly before returning to orbital position.
    Jared looked over his shoulder. The scout struggled out in the darkness. It clawed and shifted violently but could not gain control. Its nostrils collapsed and the exposed brain hemorrhaged in torrents. After one more flail of its body, the scout drifted away, useless and frozen in the nothingness.
    Jared’s ears buzzed as the banshee’s bizarre scream ended. The tunnel of open space that forged through the city buckled and shook, almost