Chapter 7 #2
Haddy yanked away in a flurry of splayed arms. He scrambled backward, toward the same room he’d come from, and vanished, as if he’d never existed. Then something came forward from the shadows the boy entered.
I froze.
A creature slunk into the doorway. Taloned, reedy fingers hooked into the floorboards. Filth shuffled around its claws.
I fell back with a gasp, so quickly that my hand slipped beneath me. My teeth snapped down, sending a hot wash of metal through my mouth.
“Get away from me,” I blurted, eyes wide.
The thing crawled forward on all fours, a red, forked tongue flitting against the air. An unhinged, gaping set of fangs dripped spittle onto the wood floors. A couple teeth were missing in its lower jaw, the holes visible, as if the roots had been pulled, too.
Its head tilted. A growl rumbled from its throat.
“Get back,” I choked. Saliva fell from the corner of my mouth.
Citrine yellow eyes tracked me. It tilted its head to the other side, muscle coiling.
Its skull wasn’t sunken, but it wasn’t healthily fattened, either.
Protruding cheekbones, browbones, and a chin poked violently against its grayed, slick flesh.
Two curved horns, longer than my forearms, jutted from its head.
“You,” the creature said. Its voice gravelly, otherworldly.
I clutched every pearl of self-control to keep from bolting. Predators tracked prey like this thing was tracking me. If I ran, it would likely give chase.
As if to taunt me, the same dainty laughter from before bounced distantly in the house followed by Haddy’s soft cries. This thing—was it keeping this child here?
A snarl, like a crocodile’s growl before it hissed, rippled from its maw. “Are you deaf?” it sneered.
“N-no.”
Those slitted yellow eyes didn’t blink. It slunk forward. If upright, it might have very well resembled something human-like, but the angle it crawled—
“Why are you here,” it snapped.
“The door,” I blurted. I pointed, as if that would help me. “The door won’t open.”
Those slits flitted to the parlor behind me. Its nose wrinkled. “Liar.”
“I’m not,” I urged. I tried to scoot back, but the fabric of my shorts picked along the floor. My elbows shook as I tried to keep myself from falling flat on my back. “I had to come, I heard him crying.”
A slick, saccharine smile pulled at the creature’s lips.
“You find it alluring, to save a child?” it purred. “How did you find this place, dearest?”
I swallowed. My tongue felt fat, and so, so dry. “I-It was covered. We found it renovating and—”
It feigned a lunge at my feet. “You opened it.”
I scrambled upright—and the thing chuckled. I stepped back, chest heaving, body near a constant tremble, without letting my eyes leave the creature.
“I did,” I admitted. There was no point in lying. I couldn’t have gotten here if I hadn’t.
Blood leeched from my face as it stopped in the middle of the foyer beside the broken chandelier.
The creature’s shoulders rolled as it pushed to stand.
A waft of heat, of dried ash and earth—not quite metallic, but almost—followed, as if it had emerged from a cavern in search of sunlight after years of hiding.
“Something brought you,” the creature grunted. “Did you feel it? Hear it? Tell me, what have you seen? What did you do?”
It wasn’t the words that alarmed me, but the way its body moved. The angle of its head. Every inhale, its eyes dropped to my chest, then flickered to my feet, my hands. It was calculating my next move.
Without a second thought, I bolted through the parlor, the child forgotten.
I couldn’t believe I’d done this—I needed to leave, right now.
Fight or flight took hold of my body with the terrifying realization that a creature standing nearly seven feet tall would rip me to shreds.
What if it wanted to keep me, too, like the boy?
What if this was a mistake? What if Aunt Cadence had been right, and now I’d ruined it, and that door was covered for a reason—
My hair whipped like a snapping flag, my lungs heaved, and I slammed into the door in a flurry of limbs. Pounding, heavy, scraping feet gave chase.
Don’t leave the boy, my conscience urged. Would you have wanted to be forgotten so easily?
I needed to choose me. I needed home. Right now.
I twisted the knob and yanked. I cried out in relief when it popped open. Freedom—home—right there—a familiar hallway beckoning me forward.
I stepped over.
As soon as my foot stepped over the lip of the door, a seed of guilt made me hesitate.
What did that say about me, if I left the child here?
A clawed hand grabbed my shoulder, sliced clean through my sweatshirt. I whirled, elbow first. It didn’t knock away its grip, only pulled my shirt, and in a panic, I bared my teeth at the creature.
“Let go,” I growled, jerking back. It’s clawed hand cut farther down my sleeve and captured my wrist. I teetered—then stilled.
My lips parted. The smell of acrid burnt flesh, curdled blood, hit me next, so strong it made my eyes water. Acid rose at the back of my throat. I was going to throw up, right here, right now. The smell didn’t come from the house, but the creature’s chest.
The way the creature had angled its body before had covered the wound, but now everything was on full display.
Its sternum was cracked down the center, ribs broken and brittle over the expanse of its heart.
The organ fluttered helplessly beneath. I could have reached out and touched each ventricle, both atriums, even the cushion of its lungs.
So many delicate pieces of a body, right there in the open.
“You’re hurt.” My voice sounded strangled.
Whatever flitted across my face set the beast’s mouth into a twisted snarl. “Do not take pity on me,” it growled.
My ears made a loud pop—I couldn’t tell if the creature released me, if I tripped, or if the tug that had brought me to the door tore me back into Harthwait. One moment, the hot feel of the beast’s grip was on my arm, and then it wasn’t.
I landed on my side, in a heap on the floor. My ears roared for a split second before the rushing quieted, replaced with the familiar whisper of AC through the vents. The dainty laughter was gone, the smell of summer air and daylight and burnt flesh with it. An ache bloomed between my eyes.
I rolled over with a pained hiss, half expecting to find the creature in the doorway, watching me, but it wasn’t. I sat upright, brow furrowed.
There was no door. No hole where Sayer had fallen and broken the sheetrock with his head. I pressed my palm against the smooth finish.
It looked just as it had this morning when I’d gotten up: an unblemished stretch of wall.
The door, and the creature, were gone.