Nightstruck - Jenna Black Page 0,49

I’d ever heard before—a snap and a crunch and the bang of tires exploding, as the pothole … Well, I don’t know any other way to describe it but that it bit down on the car that dared to try to drive over it.

The toothlike protrusions on each side of the pothole sank into the tires and then started crushing the wheels themselves. On the sidewalks, people had started to notice something was wrong—they couldn’t have missed that noise—but I didn’t think they had a clue what was actually happening. Not at first.

“Back up!” I ordered Piper breathlessly as the pothole widened to take in more of the car and then crunched closed again. The teeth had sunk in right at hubcap level, and the car lurched forward, its grille banging down on the road. The driver was screaming and fumbling with his seat belt, even as his back wheels spun and his engine revved futilely.

“Back up!” I said again, more loudly, as Piper just sat there and stared.

Pedestrians were starting to scream and panic, while behind us more cars were honking in annoyance. Piper finally broke out of her paralysis and put the car in reverse. Without bothering to look behind her, she floored it.

It was a good thing the car right behind us had stopped practically on our bumper. We didn’t have time to build up any speed before we crashed into him. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that people in the cars behind us were starting to get out, trying to get a look at what had brought traffic to such a complete halt. When they were passed by screaming pedestrians, some of those drivers caught the panic and abandoned their cars, running blindly away from an unknown danger.

We were trapped, fenced in by the cars parked on the sides of the street and the ones that had come to a stop behind us.

“Maybe if I gunned it fast enough…” Piper suggested in a shaking voice.

The pothole seemed to rise up out of the street, sinking its teeth into the fender of the car it had caught, and tearing it off. The frantic driver finally tumbled out and joined the sea of fleeing, screaming people, until it felt almost as if Piper and I were alone in the street.

I didn’t know how much mobility that pothole had, but I very much wanted to get out of there while it was still chewing up that other car. Piper sat frozen and staring in the driver’s seat. I unhooked my seat belt, then reached over and put the car in Park, pulling Piper’s keys from the ignition. Her hands were glued to the steering wheel, the knuckles stark white.

“Piper,” I said in as calm a voice as I could muster, “we have to get out of the car.”

She shook her head frantically, gripping the steering wheel even tighter. I wanted to open my own door and start running, but it was obvious that Piper was too panicked to function. I couldn’t just leave her.

“It’s not safe in here,” I said. “Let’s get out of the road.” The pothole didn’t seem to have any interest in the cars parked along the curb on both sides, nor did it show any signs of wanting to pursue the fleeing pedestrians—assuming it was capable of moving from its current spot. I figured that meant getting out of the car and running away was a damn good plan.

I opened my door, hoping the movement would inspire Piper to do the same, but she was still frozen. I closed my door and ran around to the driver’s side, keeping a careful eye on the pothole while I did. It still seemed to be happily munching its kill, biting off hunks of metal from the car’s exterior and then sinking its teeth into the engine. I opened Piper’s door, grabbed her arm, and bodily yanked her out of the car. She fell to the asphalt with a little cry of distress, but at least that seemed to break her out of her paralysis. When I tugged her toward the sidewalk, she lurched to her feet and followed.

Feeling eerily removed from the situation, I dug out my phone and snapped a quick picture as the pothole reared up and snapped the car’s front axle in two. Then Piper and I turned and ran.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

No other impossible creatures attacked us on the way to my house, though there was a marked increase in the number of