Chapter Nineteen
The sound, like a million nails scraping across concrete and cement, came first and from all around.
Then a hollow moaning sound of torturous agony.
My body came alive, sensing that danger was close.
Hailey was too busy assessing her drink situation to notice right away.
It wasn’t until I grabbed her wrist, not realizing my strength until she flinched, snatched her hand away, and stopped what she was doing.
Confusion wrinkled her brows as our eyes met and she opened her mouth to protest. Until she heard them too.
The blue lights from the emergency call boxes were a call for help that would not come, and from us.
The streetlights cast an eerie, yellowish glow.
A whoosh sounded above us, dimming one of the lights, as if something had swallowed its light.
Then another. I tried locating the source but was too slow to catch whatever had made that enormous shade.
Shadows swirled and reshaped themselves around us, becoming a tight net of black, closing in on us.
“What is happening?” Hailey breathed, her once-confident tone replaced by fear. She pressed her back against mine, her hand finding mine. No electricity this time. Just pure, unadulterated fear shared between us.
There was a heavy thump as whatever had been flying dropped to the ground. And then more thumps as shadows with tiny, gleaming specks dropped in ones and twos from the trees, scampered out from beneath parked cars, and emerged from the darkness between the buildings.
The shadows merged and then sheared from one another, becoming distinct shapes.
The bodies with the shining, speckly eyes stood there, facing us, surrounding us, tilting forward with their arms extending at their sides, elbows bent outward like prehistoric humans.
But these things around us weren’t human.
Their fingers spread apart, and when they began advancing, emitting moans and high-pitched wails, I could see the thick, dark curving lines running the entire length of their bodies, all the way to their faces.
Their veins showed through the color of their ashen skin—it didn’t matter if they were white or Black, or different races.
Tonight, they were one singular being, moving in sync, getting closer and closer to us, their veins and whatever was coursing through them shining like thick black permanent marker.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” Hailey repeated. I had never seen anything like this. Had never known anything like these things with their eyes that were tiny, red-rimmed pinpricks of light. Their mouths dropped open, gaping, and drooling down their chins, down to the ground.
My mind raced. What should I do? I would go down fighting.
But with what? And fighting against what?
Nothing Nana Ama had taught me prepared me for these—these creatures with their torn dirty clothes, as if they’d been rolling round in the dirt and mud.
The smell of them hit me hard. Of sickeningly sweet disease.
Of putrid flesh. Of old blood and filth.
What had happened to them? They were close enough now that I could see one was dressed in a suit.
Another was in a ripped maxi dress cinched by a Louis Vuitton belt.
They were right over us. One of them struck out, grabbing ahold of Hailey’s arm. She screamed, short and high. It was enough to give the thing pause for only a second before the creature yanked Hailey toward it. Hailey’s screams echoed in the wind.
Let her go!
I called on whatever parts of my spotty gifts that would work for me now and save us.
My strength, despite my fear, bubbled up in me, and I did a half turn.
I brought my hand down hard on the creature’s lower arm, breaking it and Hailey’s physical connection.
Hailey screamed again from the force of it, but the thing said nothing.
Its limp arm swung uselessly back and forth.
I needed space. I needed air. I needed the deafening drone of their noise to cease. I didn’t know enough, wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t in control of myself enough to fight one of these things off, let alone the horde a hair’s breadth away from us. I only had my will and my anger to drive me.
Another one of them reached its pockmarked arm out at us.
The arm was covered in bite marks and gashes.
We dropped to a crouch. Hailey shrank back, trying to get away from it, but the thing suddenly stopped, frozen.
The creatures loomed over us, a stinking humanoid tent, as if they were of one mind.
Then the one directly in front of me focused in on me, its large, onyx eyes catching me in their sight line.
It watched me with vacant eyes that were a one-way mirror where someone or something could see me, but I couldn’t see them.
I tried to get a sense of its thoughts, but its mind, an impenetrable vault, was occupied by something else.
The thing’s mouth unhinged to a length I hadn’t thought possible for a human. The jaw popped and cracked from the effort. A low hum emitted from deep within it.
“Ahhh-bennn-niiiiiii.” The word came out in a low, wet whisper from deep within the thing, from the other side of that one-way mirror. Its lips did not move.
I froze.
Abeni. My mother’s name.
There was no way this woman-thing could have known who my mother was. Only people of the Golden Isle knew her name. Only Nana Ama. Only me.
I didn’t answer.
The creature spoke again. “Who … are … you?” The words came out garbled, gravelly, like it was trying to talk through a mouthful of sharp stones.
Like it was trying the words out for size.
Its eyes, bright like fireflies, were rimmed in red.
The deep grooves of poisoned veins carved in its face were too close, way too close.
“Who … are … you?”
Only this time it wasn’t just this creature talking to me.
All of the creatures’ mouths had disengaged, with thick ropes of saliva dripping down, nearly touching me.
I looked at each of them. All of their eyes were fixed on me.
All of them mirrors. I was in a house of mirrors and couldn’t find my way out.
All of the things spoke in unison. Speaking to … me.
Again, they asked, “Who are you?” Intoning the question over and over until whatever held them in its thrall began to consume me too.
They were drawing me in and I couldn’t think of anything else. I had to push through, fight back, protect myself, protect Hailey.
The woman-thing stirred. Her arm extended toward me, fingers curled, clawlike, reaching for my face, closer and closer still. She meant to touch me.
My mind thundered. Stay back!
My body finally cooperated, and a swell of burning energy I could only guess to be from the Light unfurled within me and burst out, propelling the thing backward and into the rest of them.
Just beyond them, back toward the streetlamp, stood a tall figure.
She looked impossibly tall, and I realized it was because her feet were not on the ground but hovering above it.
She was wrapped from head to toe in a dark cloak fastened at the neckline.
Through the slivered opening at the nape of her neck, an object gleamed against her chest, illuminating her face in an eerie glow.
For just a flash, I caught sight of her.
My mind must have been playing tricks because she looked no older than me.
But before I could get a better look, she turned her head away, hiding herself and the object back in shadows.
The ethereal being canted her head slightly as she studied me intently, her telepathic fingers probing my mind for information about who I was, how she could control me, and how I was able to break the connection to these monsters.
I was trying to figure that one out myself.
Beside her, a smallish man, whose feet were firmly on the ground, turned the adoring gaze with which he looked at her to me. I sensed nothing but rage and resentment emanating from him. He was different from her, from the others, but also unlike me or Hailey.
The break, the discombobulation of the monsters, was enough to jump-start action. I flipped around on my hands and knees, scuttling past Hailey, who was staring at them, as petrified as the fossils her family dug up. I got to my feet, reaching down.
“Now. Now. NOW!” I yelled. We had to move while they were confused. While the floating lady was contemplating, or whatever. “Let’s go. Now!”
I grabbed the top of Hailey’s shirt, bunching it in my hand, and yanked her to her feet like she weighed nothing.
She stammered, “That’s not how … Wait. Luke—”
There was no time for waiting.
“Now!”
Hailey got her life together, stumbling along, trying to match my speed. Together we pushed through the remains of the horde, expecting them to follow and attack again. This time I wouldn’t be able to fend them off. Whatever element of surprise I delivered earlier had evaporated.
But there weren’t dozens of feet pounding behind us. There weren’t disjointed limbs reaching to grab us. The horde groaning and snapping their teeth didn’t close in. The floating woman wasn’t suddenly hovering above. I did the one thing I knew you should never do. I chanced a look behind me.
The man at the woman’s side remained there. Hailey and I fought our way out. The gangly things tumbled into each other as they, as one, fell back and let us through.
We ran to Hailey’s car saying nothing, our breaths coming out ragged, our fear driving us forward.
She unlocked her car as we approached it and we jumped in, locking it as soon as the doors slammed shut.
As she gunned the engine and careened out of the student parking lot, I dared to look back.
The spot where at least twenty of those things had attacked us was now empty. It was as if nothing had happened.
But my racing heart and shaking hands told a different story. Something was coming for us, and it wouldn’t stop until it’d ripped us apart.