Crazy Dangerous
Crazy Dangerous
Also by Andrew Klavan
The Homelanders Series
The Last Thing I Remember
The Long Way Home
The Truth of the Matter
The Final Hour
Crazy Dangerous
Andrew Klavan
© 2012 by Andrew Klavan
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Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klavan, Andrew.
Crazy dangerous / Andrew Klavan.
p. cm.
Summary: Sam Hopkins fights back when he sees bullies harrassing Jennifer, an eccentric schoolmate who, he learns, is having terrifying hallucinations about demons, death, and destruction which may just come true unless Sam can stop them.
ISBN 978-1-59554-793-4 (hardback)
[1. Conduct of life—Fiction. 2. Schizophrenia—Fiction. 3. Mental illness—Fiction. 4. Prophecies—Fiction. 5. Bullies—Fiction.] I. Klavan, Andrew. II. Title.
PZ7.K67823Cr 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2012001221
Printed in the United States of America
12 13 14 15 16 17 QG 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is for Ellen Treacy.
Contents
Part Two: The Thing in the Coffin
Part Three: The Castle of the Demon King
You see that dead guy by the side of the road? Yeah, the one lying in a pool of his own blood with his face all messed up and his clothes all torn and dirty. That’s me. Sam Hopkins. And okay, I’m not really dead, or at least not completely. I’ve just been beaten up. A lot. Badly. Which I guess is a little bit better than dead . . . although when I think about how I’m going to have to explain this to my parents—frankly, dead doesn’t seem like such a bad alternative.
Anyway, you’re probably wondering how I got myself into a situation like this. You probably want to hear about Jennifer and the demons and how I played chicken with a freight train and—oh yeah—the weird murder and how I found out about it—you’re definitely going to want to hear all about that.
But first, I have to tell you about the stupidest thing I ever did . . .
WHISPERS CAME AT HER OUT OF THE DARK.
Death
.
We are death
.
We are angels of death
.
We will destroy them
.
We will destroy them all
.
The whispers came from every corner. They crawled up the sides of her bed, skittered over her blankets, over her skin. Like cockroaches. First one, then another, then a swarm of them, covering her.
We are angels of evil
.
Angels of death
.
We will teach them to be afraid
.
Jennifer gasped and sat up quickly, staring into the shadows, searching the shadows of her room, her lifelong room, her girl-room, suddenly strange to her now in the dark. So many eyes staring back at her. Stuffed animals—friends all her childhood long—her teddy bear, her crocodile, her baby giraffe. Glass eyes, black glass eyes, staring back. The posters on the wall: her favorite singer, her favorite band. Paper eyes, flat eyes, staring. Her calendar. Disney princesses. Their bright smiles suddenly different, suddenly knowing and mocking and wicked. Eyes staring at her from the shadows.
And the whispers everywhere:
We are angels of evil, angels of death
.
We pledge in blood to kill them all
.
Who was it? Who was there? Her heart beat hard as she scanned the room, searching. No one. Just her computer, the dull screen, watching her out of the shadows. Her stereo. Stary-oh! Scary-oh! Circular speakers like eyes, staring.
Jennifer grabbed her pillow, held it in her arms for comfort, held it in front of her as if it could protect her.
But the whispers kept coming. They skittered up the wall. Roaches swarming darkly up the wall and over the ceiling where they could drop down on top of her and scramble over her skin, get tangled and crawly in her long brown hair.
They will see our power
.
They will be afraid
.
Afraid of us
.
Because we are angels of death
.
Terrified, Jennifer slid quickly off the bed and stood in her pajamas, still clutching her pillow in front of her. Her breath trembled out of her as she turned and searched the shadows. Teddy bear, princesses, scary-stary-oh all watching her.
Yet no one was there. Everything was motionless, still.
We pledge in blood to destroy them .
. .
She dropped the pillow. Clapped her hands over her ears. Stop! Stop!
She wanted to cry out. Should she? Should she call for her mother? She so, so wanted to. She could feel the cry wanting to explode inside her. But she didn’t. She knew what would happen if she did. If she cried out, her mom would come. Tired. Frowning and narrow-eyed. Needing her sleep so she could go to work in the morning. She would come in and turn on the light . . .
And there would be nothing. Nothing but the stuffed animals and the princesses and the scary-oh, no longer staring, pretending not to stare.
“There’s nothing,” Mom would say, impatient, annoyed. “It was just a nightmare. Go back to sleep. For heaven’s sake, you’re sixteen years old!”