Chapter 11

6 Hours 30 Minutes until Dawn

Shannon was exhausted by the time she made it to the pickup truck that she and Tom had raided a lifetime ago. So much had happened since then, she felt ready to go over on the spot. She knew as soon as she saw the truck that Kyle had been telling the truth. Jana had clearly come along after they'd gassed Steve.

His body was gone, but claw marks littered the area around the open door and blood painted the trucks maroon body a deep scarlet. Bite marks could also be seen on the base of the seat, with chunks of leather missing where she'd bitten them off trying to drag the man's massive body out of the truck. Whether he was alive at that time, Shannon would never know, but no one could lose that amount of blood and live. She knew that once a pool of blood reaches a certain size, there's no going back. Accounting for the blood on the ground, on the body of the truck along with the seats, and the fact that half the windscreen was slicked red as well, the odds of Steve surviving were looking grim.

Shannon shook her focus away from that. She and Tom might have caused that, but it didn't make them responsible, did it? They weren't to have known that Jana would come back and they weren't to have known that doing what they did would cause a death. Right now, she only had one objective: grab as many bait canisters as possible along with anything else that might be useful and get back to Maddy's house to get set up. They had one shot to make this work and potentially save Stoneybridge. She loved Maddy and everyone else to pieces, but right now they were just too dangerous to be left running around. Cursing herself for the way she was about to trap some of her closest friends, she grabbed every single box of gas grenades that would fit in Maddy's school bag. They weren't very big and each box held about ten. That was six boxes overall. That would be more than enough to put the wolves to sleep and also keep them covered so that if they were still trying to cover the hole they could just knock them out again. She hated herself for thinking like that, but it was either that or they might as well lie down and let themselves be killed. Tom was right, no sixteen year-old deserved these kinds of decisions. In fact, no one did. Age aside, no human being deserved to have to safeguard others against the threat of death.

Meanwhile, Tom had just finished up on the Moors. The carrier bag he'd brought was full to the brim with thistles that he'd dug up. All he had to do was wait until the wolves were asleep, then go in there and cram the root section of one in each of their mouths. That wouldn't be too hard provided one of them didn't manage to snap their jaws shut in his sleep and bite his hand off. Knowing his luck, that's exactly what would happen. Just then, a howl pierced the quiet night.

'Okay, it's now definitely time to go.' Tom thought to himself. He quickly fired off a text to Shannon telling her that he was heading back to Maddy's house and to call if there was any trouble.

Once Tom made it back, he found the one thing he never expected to see. One of the wolves glared up at him from in the den, its red eyes seeming to burn into his skull.

At that moment, Shannon arrived and startled him.

"Shan, will you please not do that tonight?" Tom begged as he tried to stave off a heart attack.

"Sorry about that." Shannon grinned in a way that suggested she was anything but.

"We've got a problem." Tom pointed into the den. Shannon looked through the open coal hatch and her grin only got wider.

"I don't see how that's a problem." Shannon shrugged. "If that's one of the Smiths, we can use them to help bait the others into the den."

"Shan, what if that's Rhydian?" Tom explained. "They'll tear him apart before we get chance to pull the pin on them."

"I didn't think about that." Shannon swore under her breath. "Okay, our only option is to gas it and drag it outside the den then use the three hours that it's asleep for to trap the rest of them. We'll tie their legs together and then cram a thistle root in their mouths. That should keep them all down until dawn."

"Why are you saying 'it'? That's one of our friends, Shan!" Tom defended.

"Tom, I can't even tell what gender that wolf is in this light and from this distance." Shannon replied patiently. "It's like I said: I'm a nerd, not a miracle worker. I don't want to shine my torch down there and risk agitating it. Let's gas it first and work out who it is later." Shannon reached into her bag and pulled out one of the many gas grenades she'd grabbed from Kyle's truck.

"There are so many jokes I want to make right now about kids using grenades." Tom rolled his eyes and took another one from the bag.

"Okay, so if we throw these to each end of the room it'll have nowhere to go." Shannon whispered to him. "I'll try and aim as close to the hole in the wall as possible. That way it can't escape through it." Tom nodded, pulling the pin on his canister and throwing it through the coal hatch. He aimed right while Shannon threw left. The gas instantly started escaping and it wasn't long before they heard a thud as a dead weight hit the floor.

"Come on, let's get down there." Tom got up and went to close the hatch.

"No, leave it open." Shannon instructed, stopping him. "That way, the anaesthetic will have dissipated by the time we get down there."

"That's too many nerd words." Tom threw the door he was holding back where it had been to let the gas escape. They let themselves in through the front door and went down into the den. They dragged the wolf outside while Shannon shone her torch over it to have a look.

"It's a male. I think it might be Rhydian." Tom let out a frustrated sigh. "God forbid anything should ever go smoothly."

"Tom, this is good." Shannon reminded him. "We have one of them now and if all goes well then we're about to get three more. Let's tie him up and cram a thistle in his mouth then get on with the rest of the plan."

Tom worked on tying up Rhydian while Shannon grabbed a ball of wool from Emma's craft basket upstairs. Once Tom had finished, he cut the root section off a thistle with the penknife in Shannon's bag and jammed pieces of it under Rhydian's tongue and in his cheeks, making sure that he would be able to swallow them when he came to. He looked up as he heard Shannon making her way back downstairs.

"You can't imagine how rank his dog breath is!" Tom pulled a face as he wiped his hands on the front of his shirt.

"Well, you can wash the stink off at sunrise." Shannon shrugged as she made her way to the opening in the wall. "Okay, I need you to hold the wool and let it unravel with me as I move. I'll find the way the Smiths got out and plant a gas canister there. Then I'll plant more as I go and let them off so I can get out of there before I get put to sleep."

"You'd better come out of there alive." Tom fixed her with a stare that brooked no argument.

"I plan to." Shannon nodded. She grabbed the end of the wool and started walking into the darkness, with Tom letting the ball in his hands unravel as she went. It was only then that a thought occurred to Tom. Dan had put a metal cover over the den. He remembered seeing it when they went in after finding out the Smiths weren't there. He looked over to see it in a twisted heap on the floor. He knew Dan was skilled with woodwork not metalwork, so if Rhydian had fallen on it and his weight had torn it down, he could believe that. But how had the hatch been opened? They hadn't opened it. Rhydian couldn't have done it without human fingers. Only one person he knew of would be insane enough to open that hatch on a night like this in the first place. But if he were around, he would have attacked by now. Unless... Frantically, Tom grabbed his phone and called Shannon, praying that she was close enough to still get a signal.

"What is it, Tom?" Shannon's voice blared from his phone.

"You need to run!" Tom said desperately. "It's Kyle!"

"What about Kyle?"

"He's in the tunnel! He's in there with you!" Suddenly, Tom heard a male voice down the phone as the person leapt from the shadows with a scream of fury. That was then followed by a scream of pain as Shannon pulled her torch from her belt and blasted him in the eyes with the strobe function. Tom then heard her grab something out of his hand and start cracking him across the head with it as hard as she could.

"Kyle's out of action." Shannon said breathlessly. "Should I use a gas canister?"

"I would try and find the escape route and then lure the Smiths down here first." Tom suggested. "If they pick him off on the way, so be it."

"That's dark, Tom. Shannon snapped. "I was thinking why not tie him up, gag him with a thistle root and then take him to the police in the morning and tell them he tried to kill us?"

"I suppose either is good." Tom shrugged reluctantly. "I guess it would be cool to see him having a meltdown in court because he didn't get his own way."

"I was thinking the same thing." Shannon muttered. "Come and help me drag him outside the den and we'll put him next to Rhydian."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Tom didn't know he liked that prospect.

"We'll tie him up, Tom. He'll be going nowhere."