The Twisted Future (Teen Superheroes Book 4) by Darrell Pitt Page A

still and silent. There could be dozens—or hundreds—of these things in the fog. Maybe it was best to avoid them completely. The creature slithered close to them.
    Only a few more feet , Brodie thought. It’ll be past us and everything will be fine.
    Which would have been the case, but Chad chose that moment to fire his weapon into the ground.
     

Chapter Twenty
     
    Chad let out a cry. ‘I didn’t mean to do that!’ he cried. ‘It went off—’
    The creature roared, whirling about in the mist, its single good eye narrowing on them. The creature’s tail whipped about like a lasso and flew towards Sharla. Brodie leapt forward, shoving the girl to the ground as the tail slammed into the wall, sending bricks and mortar flying.
    Chad ducked and fired the gun again, this time aiming for the creature’s body. He hit it, but bullet simply bounced off.
    Sharla rolled and fired at the creature’s eye, but missed and now the monster started towards them like a tank. 
    Brodie climbed to her feet, ran at the creature and jumped, her entire body weight hitting the center of the creature’s eye. It screeched in pain, making a sound like torn metal as its tail whipped around catching her in the center of her back. She went flying.
    ‘Run!’ Sharla screamed.
    Brodie was dazed, couldn’t tell up from down. Then she felt Sharla grab her arm and drag her along the ground. Chad grabbed her other arm. They stumbled up the street, the monster screeching behind. They ran two more blocks, the pain in her back slowly subsiding.
    It sounded like the monster was still following. They turned a corner—and Brodie’s mouth fell open in amazement.
    ‘How the hell —’ she started.
    ‘Keep moving!’ Sharla commanded.
    Somehow, at some time in the past, an ocean liner had ended up in the middle of the street. Brodie could not guess at how it happened. It appeared the ship had been picked up and dropped from a height. It had toppled over, reducing the buildings on one side to rubble.
    They were at the bow . Sharla led them up a pile of rubble to a lower deck. Brodie could still hear the creature in pursuit, but it was far behind. It gave a final plaintive roar as Sharla dragged open a rusty door, pushed them inside and slammed it shut.
    Sharla pulled out a flashlight, barely penetrating the murky gloom. She turned it on Chad. ‘You idiot!’ she hissed. ‘Why did you fire the gun?’
    ‘I’m sorry.’ He looked genuinely apologetic. ‘I fired it by accident.’
    ‘Guns don’t go off by themselves!’
    ‘This one did!’
    Sharla looked like she wanted to punch him in the face.
    Brodie stepped between them. ‘What’s done is done,’ she said. ‘Now we need to keep moving.’
    The other girl shot a final angry glance at Chad. ‘One more mistake like that and you can both go it alone,’ she said. ‘You understand?’
    Chad nodded. Sharla shone the flashlight down the tilted corridor. ‘We’ll go this way. It looks like it’ll take us most of the way down the ship.’
    They followed her. The ship appeared to have been in good condition when it was deposited here.
    ‘How did this ship end up here?’ Chad asked. 
    ‘How does anything happen?’ Sharla responded. ‘James Price.’
    ‘But why—’
    ‘Who knows why that lunatic does anything? The sooner you kill him, the better.’ She regarded them shrewdly. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any spare room in that time machine. Is there?’
    ‘You’re looking for a ride?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘I’m not sure taking you to the past would be such a good idea.’
    ‘Why not?’
    Chad thought. ‘I’m no expert on this—’
    ‘Obviously.’
    ‘—but there’s this whole thing about contaminating the time line.’
    ‘Sounds like fun.’
    ‘It’s probably not. Suppose we took you to our time and something happened that stopped you from being born.’ He paused. ‘What would happen? Would you just disappear? Or would you continue to exist? But how could you because you