Chapter 54: LEVEL 2 HIGH EATER: THE DIGGER.
Hours passed. The two boys finally slept. The night stayed quiet, just Savier’s gross little chuckles fading as sleep smothered him, and the wind scraping across the beams overhead.
Dancer stayed perched on the far beam, perfectly still except for the way her nose twitched now and then, tasting the scents riding the wet wind. Her clawed foot tapped once, twice — then froze.
Something moved below.
At first it was just a smear of black shifting between junk heaps and twisted bus frames. But Dancer’s head snapped toward it, eyes narrowing, pupils thinning to sharp slits. A low rumble built in her chest, a voiceless growl vibrating through her bones.
And she waited, predator still, as the shadow below kept crawling closer.
Johnquis’s eyes snapped open. The hairs on his neck stood up, he felt it too, whatever Dancer had caught. He lifted Savier’s heavy arm off his chest and sat up. Savier barely grunted, rolling over with a dumb, blissful grin plastered to his face.
Johnquis followed Dancer’s stare. The world below seemed empty but then he saw it. Hunched back, scuttling sideways like a crab that forgot how legs work. Its shoulders jerked with every motion, scraping clawed hands through mounds of torn luggage and rusted vending carts.
"Shit..."
Johnquis spat a quiet curse. He flicked a glance at Dancer, who had already dropped from her beam, landing in a low crouch on a concrete ledge. Her heel-blade hissed out of her feet with that wet metal click, glinting in the half-moon glow.
Savier, meanwhile, snored like a hog drunk on blood packs, oblivious to everything.
Johnquis crept closer to the exposed ledge, bracing a hand on the cracked rebar. He squinted at the thing below — the Eater, if you could call it that, looked more like a man digging through trash. Its back was hunched wrong, arms too long, fingers raking through the heaps like it was searching for treasure.