The Shuddering

the minute. It was over. They were both dead.
    “Janey, I need your help,” he told her, grabbing a couple of pool cues from their supply basket. “We’re going to go overthere.” He motioned to the thing still trying to brave the glare of the sun.
    “And do what?”
    Ryan weighed the heft of the ax in his hand. “What do you think?” he asked her. “We’re going to kill it.”
    Jane stared at Ryan with wide eyes, his image rippling through her tears. He turned away from her before she began to cry, and she followed him toward the edge of sun and shade, trembling beneath her layers of clothes. He handed her the ax when they were only a few yards from the sneering, slavering hellion, readjusted his grip on the makeshift spear in his hand, and got a running start as he bolted toward the monster.
    Jane wanted to look away, numb with panic, the wind biting at the tracks of her tears, but she knew she couldn’t. She was going to have to move soon, regardless of her fear.
    Ryan impaled the thing, and before the creature had the chance to scramble backward, he switched directions and pushed the pool cue to the side, forcing it into the sunlight. The screech was deafening as Jane lunged at it. It didn’t see her coming, too stunned by the attack, blinded by the sun. She brought the ax blade down against its back, its fetid blood splashing across her face and coat. She tried to pull the hatchet free, but the thing was flailing so frantically she let the handle go with a yelp and backed away.
    Ryan wasn’t so careful.
    He stepped up to it and jerked the pool cue out of its gut, the creature’s blood spraying out onto the road in a fan of gore. After a few seconds of thrashing, it fell to the ground, the ax still firmly embedded in its flesh. Ryan stepped around the thing so that he was standing directly over its head; he angled the cue downward.His face twisted with vengeance as he sprang up and stabbed the creature through its eye, the pool cue clacking against the asphalt, piercing the thing clean through its skull.
    Jane stared at him, speechless as Ryan pressed his boot against the monster’s head and pulled the spear free. Rolling it over with a groan, he retrieved the ax from its back and handed the bloody thing back to her. Reluctantly, she took it, blinking at her silent sibling, unsure exactly what he expected her to do with that weapon, until she looked up from the carcass between them and to the shade it had come from.
    There, on the road, were three of the thing’s brothers, their teeth clacking together, their arms gangly and thin, all of them ready for their turn at the prey.
    Ryan shot a look at his sister, wordlessly asking her if she was ready. Jane pulled in a breath and nodded. Ryan started to run again, aiming himself at the monster closest to the edge of sunlight.
    He stabbed it, swung it around, and Jane embedded the ax in its spine. But this one took a different trajectory after Ryan pulled the spear out of its gut. Rather than falling to the ground next to its dead kin, it stumbled back into the shade. Jane gasped when she realized where it was going, bolting after it with her arms outstretched. But it was too late. The creature crumpled to the ground and seized before going still, well within the boundary of shadow, the ax still in its back.
    There were seven of them now. The others had come out after Ryan had managed to take down one more of those bastards with the pool cue alone, stabbing it repeatedly after it had fallen to the ground, stabbing it so violently that the cue snapped in half, leaving Ryan weaponless. He sat with his sister in their dwindlingslice of sunlight, their weapons down to a single spear. Ryan was convinced they knew—the sun would be gone in less than an hour, leaving their prey defenseless. They were waiting. And it wouldn’t take long.
    Jane had checked out, trembling beside him as she stared at the ground. He supposed it was for the better. There was no way out of this. He only hoped that she could forgive him before it was over. He only hoped she knew that he loved her, that he had loved Sawyer, that he had wanted a chance to love Lauren, that if he had known, he would have sacrificed everything—Switzerland, his company, his life—to take back the last four days.
    With less than thirty feet of sun, Ryan exhaled a slow breath and touched his sister’s hand. He knew it was over. They had maybe an hour left, maybe less. There was no way he could fight