Chapter 19
The living room is filled with furniture that people with money and poor taste call Scandinavian. Every single lightbulb in this place is red. Everything is cast with a sickly, bloody glow.
“Come on,” Emma says. “My car’s—”
A maroon shadow with platinum blonde hair rushes out of the kitchen. There’s a long kitchen knife in Arden’s hand and a snarl on her face. She’s panting hard. The slicked-down ponytail she had for the ritual is now a tangled mess falling in her eyes.
“Arden—”
“Shut up! You don’t get to talk. You get eaten! You’re the one it wants.”
“It’s starving,” I say. “It wants everyone.” I can feel its hunger now, even as it gorges.
“No, it’s you! It wants you! You’re the sacrifice!” Her voice is ragged with fear. “You’re the one who’s supposed to die. Not me! I’m supposed to be living my fucking truth, not trying to train some white-trash pity hire who can’t even—!”
The French doors shatter. The god rolls onto the carpet in a hail of glass and fabric and wood.
Emma and I take advantage of the distraction to run past Arden toward the kitchen. We swing around the island, hands on the counter edge for balance.
Emma goes down hard ahead of me. She hits the tile floor with an awful fleshy slap. My feet tangle in hers and down I go too. Pain so strong that it momentarily steals my breath explodes in my knee.
Jena is huddled on the floor with her back against the island. Her hands are pressed to her mouth to keep any noise from escaping. She’s what Emma tripped on.
“She’s the one!” Arden yells. “She’s the one you want!”
I get to my good knee and look over the island. The god is cast in red light and tall, so tall. Its head is tilted down so it doesn’t hit the complicated chrome light fixture hanging from the ceiling. Arden motions with the knife toward the kitchen.
“She’s over there!”
Jena yanks me down. This close, the smell of alcohol on her breath is overwhelming. It’s hard to tell if it’s the red light, or if her eyes are just that bloodshot.
Emma raises herself to her hands and knees. A red mark stands out on her temple. A blank look has overtaken her eyes.
Glass crunches under the god’s feet with each step. Arden whimpers, then begins to sob. “It’s not me, you stupid animal! I’m a good person! She’s the sacrifice!”
A cut-off cry and then the blooming, overwhelming smell of blood and viscera fills the kitchen.
I point to the doorway and mime crawling. Emma blinks slowly. Jena shakes her head, tears pouring down her cheeks. I want to snap at her to stop it; that her tears mean nothing; that Arden would have doused Jena in gasoline and lit the match herself if she thought it’d keep her warm.
There’s maybe ten feet between us and the doorway leading toward the front of the house. Emma starts the slow crawl. I bite the inside of my cheek against the pain in my knee. Even the smallest amount of pressure sets off stars behind my eyes.
Incredibly, Jena follows after us. Her face is resolute and her gaze straight ahead. Her lips quiver. No sound comes out, and though her nose is streaming snot she doesn’t sniff or try to wipe it away.
The wet sound of the god eating itches across the back of my neck. A shiver of elation runs a finger down my spine. Every pause in the sound feels like if I look over my shoulder it will be looking back at me, hungry mouth wide.
Emma makes it into the hallway first. She helps me up when I cross the threshold.
My breath catches when I try to put weight on my busted knee.
I have to lean back on the wall and grind my teeth to stop the whimper from getting out.
Jena’s mostly able to stand on her own, which is fortunate because I am no help whatsoever and Emma is listing worryingly to the side.
The living room’s minimalist style doesn’t extend to the hallway.
There’s a long table pushed against the wall and a gaudy gold umbrella stand next to it.
I take one out and use it as a cane. The muffled tap, tap, tap on the rug running down the hall makes my stomach twist with dread.
The hallway opens into a white-and-black marble foyer with stairs leading to the second level tucked against the wall to my right.
Ripley’s probably up there. In the video she was lying on a blanket, next to what looked like a footboard to a bed.
She can’t still be alive, can she? She has to be gone with how ill she looked lying on that blanket.
But what if she’s not?
What if she’s not and she knows what’s happening when the god sinks its teeth into her neck? What if the last thing she feels is fear and the last thing she sees is a room without me in it?
I’m eyeing the stairs trying to figure out if I could realistically make my way up them without Emma following me when there’s a sound at the front door. The knob rotates but doesn’t open.
“Unlock it,” Jena whispers to Emma, who’s the closest.
Emma shakes her head.
“Do it!” Jena repeats.
I turn to glare at her and tell her to shut up.
It’s not Jena that my eyes fall on. It’s the too-tall god standing behind her—its chest expanding and contracting with sharp, silent breaths.
She sees the look on my face. “Wha—?”
The god’s teeth are in her neck. Her face contorts. Blood stains the god’s face. My broken brain hisses Run! and then Emma and I are running-stumbling-crawling up the stairs and I’m trying not to sob every time I jar my knee.
Three gunshots and the sound of the door splintering. The god makes a clicking, hissing scream. It’s the sort of sound that belongs underground where the only witnesses are the earth and the rocks and ancient water.
Emma and I throw ourselves into the first room we see, then slam the door shut.
More gunshots downstairs. Never in my life has a lock felt so useless.
But what else can you do? What else can you do besides throw the lock that has no chance of keeping you safe, but might give you just one more second of life?
You shove the dresser and shitty Ikea bookcase up against the door. That’s what.
We’ve ended up in an impersonal guest room. Even the lightbulbs in here are red too.
There, lying on the floor, is Ripley.
What comes out of my mouth is supposed to be her name, but really, it’s just a sob. I hobble over and use the bed’s footboard to get on the ground with her. She’s barely warm when I lay a hand on her ribs. And then she breathes. It’s weak, but it’s there.
I wish it wasn’t.
I wish she’d slipped into death between one sleeping breath and another. I can’t lift her, Emma can’t lift her, and a ravenous god is going to tear through the door and eat all of us. I can’t save her just like I couldn’t save my mom. Just like I can’t save myself.
I flinch when Emma puts her hand on my shoulder.
“Is she alive?”
I nod. Emma brushes her knuckles over Ripley’s cheek, makes a quiet sound, then goes to look out the farthest window. A red glow takes up the bottom half of the window. The black of the night fills the rest. Smoke itches my nose and makes my eyes water.
“Can you see anything?”
Shadows cast sharp lines across Emma’s profile. A bump is starting to form on her temple. She’s shaking. “I don’t know. There’s too much smoke. There’s a roof under the window, but it’s still so high up.”
“You have to jump.” The moment I say it, I know it’s true. “Do you have your keys?”
“What? No. I mean, the spare is in the hide-a-key, but I’m not gonna leave you. What’s wrong with you?”
“Don’t think we have time to go through that list.” I try to smile. It doesn’t work. She’s mad. Furious. And then it drains away. She sits next to me. Her arm presses against mine.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have called you. Fuck. I’m sorry.”
“I want to say it’s not your fault, but it is. This would not have happened if your workplace was unionized.”
That does make me laugh. Her breath gusts against my ear.
“I’ve put you through a lot over the last few months. I think I may have been insane? Or, like, maybe not insane, but not really interacting with reality either. Not an excuse but, ya know, there it is. Sorry.”
“I appreciate that. It’s not every day your best friend’s mom dies, and then they literally never acknowledge it—not even at the funeral.”
My stomach twists. I try to think of something to say.
I can’t. It’s all so big and ugly. Instead, I let myself sit in this moment.
I let myself feel the warm throb of the cut on the back of my head; the give of Emma’s biceps pressing against mine; Ripley’s soft fur and the curve of her ribs under my fingers.
I can’t save my dog, I couldn’t save my mom, but maybe I can still save Emma. I have to at least try.
“We have to go,” I say. “We can jump.”
I use the umbrella to limp behind Emma to the window.
It comes open easily. Smoke billows in to grease my cheeks and throat.
The roof below is barely visible through the mixture of smoke and night.
I don’t know how many feet it is from here to there, but I do know Emma can make it.
She was a skater kid up until junior year of high school.
She knows how to fall. She knows how to get hurt and still be able to stand.
I bash the screen with the umbrella until it pops out to clatter on the shingles below.
“You first.” She looks at me incredulously. “You have two working knees. Gonna need you to help me down.”
Her face pinches, but she relents. Emma hoists a leg through the window. I keep my arm around her waist to steady her as she contorts herself to get her head and shoulders to the other side.
“Here. Hold on to this.”
The umbrella is the ginormous golf kind that’s longer than the window is wide. I brace it against the frame and hold it steady as she gets a firm grip.
The floor outside the room creaks. We both startle when something strikes the door.
Emma gets her leg over the frame and starts lowering herself.
My hands hurt from how hard I’m holding the umbrella.
What if it breaks and she falls hard enough to be paralyzed but not hard enough to die and she’s conscious when the god eats her?
What a terrible thought. What a horrible, terrible thought.
The god strikes the door again. The bookcase topples over.
“You have to jump,” I say, my voice tight. “Like right now. You just have to do it. Right now!”
She inhales, then lets go. She hits the roof and rolls sideways, her body curved and handcuffed arms slapping the shingles. I knew she knew how to fall. I knew she could do it.
She smiles bright and surprised it worked, then immediately starts coughing. The smoke is so thick it looks like she’s standing in brown fog.
“You next.”
There are no words, so I don’t say anything.
I couldn’t jump even if I wanted to. There’s no way I could make it with my knee and the head wound and everything else.
Even if I did I can’t support myself, so Emma would do it like she’s been doing for months.
I know what it’s like to feel so responsible for another person that you willingly and gladly carry their burdens on your back.
Emma’s face crumples. “Don’t.”
I shake my head. I hope it translates: I’m sorry, so fucking sorry you came here to help me and now I’m refusing to let you because you need to live and if I don’t do this, you won’t.
Before I can shut the window, she yells, “Lou!” and smacks the side of the house. I lock the window—not that it’ll do anything to stop a god but fuck I might as well—then pull the blinds down too just for good measure. I hope she shuts the fuck up and runs and runs and runs until she’s safe.
I stand between the door and Ripley with my hand on the umbrella for balance. The door splinters and breaks until it’s nothing more than a gaping hole. The god moves on the other side.
Time to die, the goblin says.
Time to die, I say back.