Read Online Fear of God (Trials of Strength Book 1) by Jr Matthew Bell - Free Book Online

Got it?’
    I nodded
numbly, he was right, but letting go of the hope that things could
return to normal, that those people, no, monsters , could be as they were was
impossible. None of the past few days, the ones I’d been awake for,
made any sense. Reality had its downsides but, the things that had
happened couldn’t fit. Yet they did.
    ‘ I’ll come
with you too,’ Anna chimed as she appeared at my side. ‘I still
don’t trust you, and I want to see what you get up to when you’re
not here.’
    Chris eyed her carefully,
his body tensed, and he said, ‘You won’t let this go will
you?’
    ‘ No,’ she
replied, unfazed.
    I hated the rivalry and
suspicion. Chris had condemned secrets, but was reluctant to share
his own. Paul and Terry wanted someone to blame, someone to hurt,
no matter who or even if they deserved it. I had to stay calm. I
stood in a nest of snakes, any sudden movements and I was toast.
The rest of the group didn’t even look aware the majority of the
time, and even if they were, their suddenly passive natures could
swing either way.
    They would help me, or
kill me.
    Thinking like that hurt
my brain, we had enough problems. But fear was powerful, give their
rage a focus and they would tear both stranger and friend
apart.
    Were we any different
from the monsters above?
     
    *
     
    Around an hour later we
were ready. Each of us had a black backpack Chris had picked up the
last time he was out, and we stopped at the rough hole in the wall
as he turned to face us. He looked at me first, hesitantly, gauging
my reaction as he brought out a gun. I couldn’t explain it, but the
black object sucked what dim light there was from the world and
instilled panic under my skin. I could feel the air becoming harder
to breathe, and faces flashed through my mind, Hannah and
Amelia.
    No one said anything. I
wanted to scream, burst into tears and run, but part of me wanted
to prove myself, to ward off their suspicions. Luckily, Anna took
the gun from him, making no mention of the silence.
    ‘ Thanks,’ she
said.
    ‘ I wasn’t
giving it to you,’ he shot at her.
    ‘ You really
have a problem with girls and guns?’ she teased.
    ‘ No,’ Chris
laughed. ‘I just have a problem with you having gun. I don’t want to
be accidentally shot.’
    ‘ Well then,
don’t give me a reason to accidentally shoot you,’ she
said.
    It passed between them
like a joke would friends. But I could tell the subtle threats in
both their voices. We left the room and everyone behind, and Chris
made his way through a different set of tunnels, practically
identical to the first. We were silent, the air and dimness pressed
in on me, and my chest started to itch.
    It was a short journey
compared to our earlier venture, Chris stopped under another ladder
and offered Anna the chance to go first, but neither of them
budged. Against the feeling building in my stomach, I grabbed the
ladder and made my ascent. I pushed the cover from its place and
climbed onto Main Street.
    I gasped. I’d noticed the
chaos when I’d stumbled through the empty streets, back when
everything had just started, but the destruction I saw was
terrifying. Cars lay on their sides, dented and broken, like dozens
of accidents had happened at once. I remembered that before going
underground, the cars weren’t like this, and I wondered who was
responsible; the monsters that used to own them or the people
responsible for said monsters’ creation. Glass lay strewn
everywhere, and blood coated the ground like a second
skin.
    The sky finally fitted
the season as grey clouds blanketed it and a cold wind blew. I
thought of how lucky the tunnels were, with pipes that gave enough
heat to keep the place from turning into an ice box, when Anna and
Chris came through the hole. Chris pointed at some shops and
mouthed that we should stay together.
    ‘ Leave it,’ he
whispered to Anna, as she went about closing the hole in the
ground. ‘If we need a hasty retreat, we don’t