Chapter 29 #2
They hit Miles’s street, ignoring the stop signs and swerving around a biker taking his sweet time.
The house came into view and Miles slammed the brakes, pulling alongside the curb in a squeal of tires and the reek of burning rubber.
It jolted him against his seatbelt with a blinding flash of pain.
He fumbled to open his door and puked onto the street.
“Go!” he rasped, pushing off Gabriel’s concerned hands. Bile burned his throat and his nose. He was shaking so hard, he couldn’t get his seatbelt undone.
Gabriel jumped out but scrambled around to Miles’s side like a suicidal idiot. Ignoring his protests and puke, he undid Miles’s seatbelt, yanking him from the car.
At the end of the street, the lights vanished. Wind morphed from a low howl into a roar, brown leaves skittering down the road. Beside them, a horde of crows exploded from a tree with shrieking caws.
Taking Gabriel’s hand, Miles sprinted to the gate, flinging it open with a squeak of rusty metal, and up to the front porch. The knob refused to turn under his sweaty palm. It was locked, the keys still in the ignition of Charlee’s car.
“Open the door!” He pounded against the wood, praying someone was right there. “Hurry, open the door!”
The bulb over their heads exploded, raining glass onto them. Miles could hear an awful sound, the rasping scrape of a huge mass slithering across the pavement, heaving itself up the stairs behind them. Gabriel choked out a frightened noise.
The front door flew open, Charlee’s alarmed expression the most welcoming thing Miles had ever seen. They scurried inside, slamming the door behind them as Miles locked it with a shaking hand.
“What the hell’s going on?” Charlee demanded.
Footsteps pounded down the stairs and Miles’s parents appeared. Adam held a bat. Sarah’s purple robe was hanging half off as she stumbled across the living room towards them.
“What happened?” Her gaze darted across all three of them. “We heard screaming.”
“We were chased from the school, this big—”
The front door blew open in an explosion of wood, shards flying across the room. Several people screamed, and Miles yanked Gabriel back as all the lights were snuffed out.
Poised at the threshold was a pulsating wall of darkness, a vast, fathomless horror.
Miles’s entire body went cold, sweat freezing on his skin.
His panting breath crystalized in the air.
Shapes shifted within the darkness, impossible to make out, but he had that horrible sense once again of being watched.
“Back up!” Adam yelled from the other side of the living room.
Warm orange flared as the warding symbols carved into either side of the doorframe caught fire. They burned for a bright moment—then crumbled away to ash. Only a smudge remained.
The darkness didn’t hesitate.
Tentacles lashed through the air, coiling around Gabriel’s arms. He hit the floor, struggling as it reeled him across the wood, a powerless fish on a hook. His eyes caught Miles’s, wide and terrified.
Miles lunged, grabbing him under the armpits and digging his heels into the rug. His shoulder screamed and his right arm gave out. “Help!” he yelped, scrabbling to find purchase as they were both pulled towards the void.
He was grabbed by the coat, more hands latching on to Gabriel. They heaved, Miles’s dad hooking his leg around the office doorway, Charlee kicking at the nebulous shadows like she expected to hit something solid.
There was a bang in the other room and Miles’s mom appeared, a flashlight in hand.
Its blinding beam cut across the shape filling the doorway.
An ear-ringing screech shattered the night.
The smell of rotten garbage filled the air, the rope-like tentacles sizzling and recoiling as quickly as they’d invaded.
The monster vanished as if sucked up into a giant vacuum.
Wheezing, Miles stumbled to his feet, dragging Gabriel up with him. Everyone whirled around, looking for any sign of the thing.
“Mom?” Amy’s scared voice floated down the stairs. “What’s going on?”
“Go back to your room and close the door,” his mom commanded, scanning the porch with her flashlight held aloft like a sword. “Now!”
He could hear twin sets of footsteps scampering back down the hall, then the slam of a door.
“We shouldn’t have brought it here.” Gabriel clutched at Miles. “We need to lead it away.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Miles’s dad stated firmly. He’d lost the bat. “What is that thing?”
“I don’t know.” Miles let go of Gabriel, reaching for his mom. They needed to find more flashlights, now. “It’s tried to take Gabriel before. It feels the same as what came out of the grimoire, just… bigger.”
Charlee peered around the living room. “Whatever it is, I think it’s gone.”
“C’mon.” Adam put a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, steering him into the office as Miles moved to the kitchen. “We need to get you protected right—”
The office window exploded inward, blowing back the curtains and pelting Miles’s dad with glass. Another shadowy tentacle, a thick black spike, lanced through the jagged hole. It shot straight towards where Gabriel stood in the middle of the room.
Miles moved, already knowing he wouldn’t be fast enough, that he was too far away. It was going to take Gabriel as he watched.
Then Charlee was there in a blur of fiery red, shoving Gabriel out of the way.
The shadow punched straight through her like a spear. Charlee’s back arched, a harrowing scream ripping out of her as she was lifted into the air.
Wind whipped around the office, Charlee caught in the center of a tornado.
Books flew off shelves, bottles shattered, Gabriel’s face frozen in horror as he watched from the floor where he’d landed.
The shadows spun over her body before diving into her chest. With an explosive pop that reverberated through Miles’s skull, they were gone.
Everything went still.
Charlee hit the floor with a dull thud, limbs crooked across a mound of glass and torn paper. Overhead, the lights flickered back on, illuminating the room in a cheerful glow.
Sobbing came from behind Miles. Someone touched his shoulder, saying words that didn’t make any sense. He couldn’t feel his legs, his hands, anything in his body except for his pounding pulse.
Charlee didn’t move.