Page 16 of Hunted By Fae

“What, the people from the dance?” I scoff and fiddle with the dial again. “They got the fuck out of here.”

“Sorry, am I hearing that right?” Ramona points her finger at the radio, like it’s an accusation. “No one else is wondering what that means—a dark cloud is moving out to sea?What?”

My fingers still on the radio. “It’s the same as what I heard earlier. Only…”

“Only what?” prompts Louise.

“The broadcast was saying… It was saying that a darkness—like a cloud of black—was pouring of Scotland and Ireland… maybe other places, I don’t know. It was hard to hear over all the noise. But… it said it was pollution, and it was spreading through the sky, and blocking signals.”

“Signals?”

“Like satellite signals,” I say with a shrug. “And Wi-Fi, cell towers… Like, all the places under the pollution cloud went silent—and we can’t contact them there. But…”

Ramona’s voice trembles, “But what?”

“I mean, before the stampede, the radio was just talking about Scotland and Ireland. Now it’s Britain, and it’s out to sea?” My mouth turns down at the corners, and I stare at the radio hard, as though that’ll split it open and spill all the answers over the hood. “I guess it’s on the move.”

I can hear the thick, wet swallow from Ruby behind me. “On the move… or spreading?”

Bee’s whisper chills my spine, “Expanding.”

My gaze snaps to her, to the distance in her grey eyes, flecked with sparkles of green, normally vibrant and full of joy—but right now, they are stones popped into her head, slated with a distance.

Her mind is travelling great distances. Her thoughts are unspooling.

It tugs my brow together—and I almost forget that the others are here, until Ramona takes another step closer, and brings with her a stronger stench of shit.

Ramona asks, “What do we do?”

My mouth tightens.

Bee’s stone eyes have switched to me. The sun beats down on her tanned complexion, lightening strands of the mousy shade of her straggled hair, far too wild around her round face.

She is a mirror. Not of looks. But of that same doubt, fear, grimness that reflects back at me in her steady, silent gaze.

If that radio transmission is accurate, if what the presenter is saying is true…

Bee shudders with an exhale, one singed with the burn of nausea.

Turning her cheek to me, her hand finds her chest, flattens, and she is still for a moment.

My brow knits together.

And I watch as her gaze drops to the radio, hanging onto the murmur of the transmission, more about darkness, a cloud, lost communications, pollution.

The same broadcasts over and over, just articulated differently depending on the station. The content is all the same.

We could stand here and listen to them all for hours and learn nothing more than what we know now.

Louise has her strong arms folded over her chest, her sweaty, shit-smeared brow creased as she scans the area. “I think we should get out of here.”

“Why?” Ruby’s small voice comes from somewhere behind, farther back than the body of that guy—what the fuck is his name?—so I guess she’s put some distance between herself and the radio.

“Yeah, why?” Ramona presses. “Isn’t it better to stay here? Help is coming—isn’t it?”

Ruby asks, a mouse, “Did anyone call for help?”

“We could.” Louise shrugs. “And be out here in the open when that crazy ass shit happens again.”