Chapter Eight: The Static Core
328 Words
Leo dropped to his knees beside the fire barrel, his hand darting out to snatch his phone off the flat stone.
Ice shot through his veins. The screen was lit up, but it wasn't showing his home screen. Instead, the display was completely covered in shifting, scrolling lines of binary code and strange geometric symbols that pulsed in time with the green flames.
A synthetic voice—smooth, robotic, and identical to the one he had heard on the shortwave radio back home—seemed to emanate directly from the phone's internal speaker, even though the volume was turned down.
"Node breach localized. The mimicry network is expanding."
"What?" Leo whispered, staring at the screen in disbelief.
Before he could pull his hand away, the phone screen flashed blindingly bright white. A sharp, high-pitched electrical hum filled the air, so loud it made his ears ring.
Across the creek bed, the figures who had chased the false noise suddenly stopped. They spun around, their blank, shifting faces turning back toward the fire barrel as if pulled by an invisible magnetic tether.
They realized they had been tricked.
With a chorus of sharp, piercing screeches that sounded like tearing metal, the entire pack turned and charged directly back toward Leo.
"Move, move, move!" Leo yelled to himself, scrambling backward onto his feet.
He jammed the phone into his hoodie pocket just as the first shape-shifter lunged into the clearing, its arms stretching out like rubber bands to block his escape path.
Leo ducked low, sliding across the gravel and narrowly avoiding a pair of pale, clawed hands that snatched the air right where his head had been a second before.
He scrambled up the rocky slope of the ravine, digging his fingers into the damp earth and pulling himself over the edge just as a wave of cold, heavy bodies slammed into the rocks below him.
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