Slip (The Slip Trilogy Book 1) (37 page)

Chapter Three

S
hrieks and screams tear me from an already forgotten dream. They’re not human, the howls. Well, maybe some are, but certainly not all—not the ones closest.

As I sit up sharply, heart leaping forward to sprinting speed, another ear-rending

screeeeeeech!

shatters the night. Metallic. That’s the only way to describe the sound. Like we’re in Oz and the tin man is being ripped in half by impossibly strong hands, reduced to shredded hunks of scrap metal.

Screeeeeeech!

I flinch away from the window, as if it might burst inwards, but no…whatever’s tearing through the metal is outside. At least for now.

Voices from the other room, muffled at first and then raised, shout, “Jasmine! Stay in your room!”

“What’s happening?” my sister cries through her door.

“Just stay inside!” Dad’s voice thunders through wood and plasterboard. “Rhett! You, too! My gun, Trudy!”

“Take it,” my mother says. There’s a double click—
chook-chook!
—and my father’s heavy footsteps pound past my room and rumble down the staircase.

Kicking my legs over the side of the bed, I almost trip on the sheets, which are tangled around my ankles like vines. I high step and manage to slip free. Two long strides and I’m at the window, peering into the unlit yard, searching for the source of the ruckus.

Under the glow of the half-moon, the wrought-iron fence around our front yard is shining, mangled, and ripped in several places. The white, wooden gate at the end of the brick path is missing…no, there it is! Two jagged halves lie on opposite sides of the yard, splinters scattered like straw. Whatever did that is strong beyond imagination…

There are shadows on the lawn.

The dark echo of the big rosebush, tenderly cared for by my father; a wheel barrow, still half full of mulch, casts a black spot amongst the lush, green grass; the shadows are moving. Not the roses or the barrow, but others, darker and lurking, creeping toward the front door.

There’s a bright flash of light and the rosebush bursts into flame, its thorny stems painted with chaotic red and orange strokes. Glowing orbs appear in the midst of one of the moving shadows and they’re—they’re—

—staring at me.

Unnaturally large eyes in the dark. The shadow raises a finger, points at me through the glass…

The wheelbarrow rockets through the air, spinning and sending clumps of brown mulch flying in all directions, heading right toward me…

I dive and duck just as the window explodes inwards, glass shrapnel raining all around, tinkling like crystal wind chimes. There’s a
whoosh!
and a
whoomp!
and a heavy crash as the barrow bashes into my door.

A scream. Jasmine.

A shout. My father.

A gunshot. Then another.

Covered in shimmering glass shards, I push to my feet, ignoring the spots of blood welling up from my skin and the pinpricks of pain. The wheelbarrow is on its side in the hall, having destroyed my bedroom door. I barely spot my sister’s bare foot as she climbs past and toward the staircase.

“Jasmine, no!” my mother shouts, clambering over the barrow after her. “Rhett, stay here,” she says through a mop of unkempt blond hair.

My entire family is running toward the danger and I’m frozen, glued to the floor, unable to speak, unable to act.

There’s a roar of agony from somewhere downstairs, another gunshot, and then my sister’s scream, a wail of fear and terror. Something snaps inside me and I can move again, charging through the opening, leaping over the barrow, rebounding off the wall, half-stumbling down the hall. I take a sharp left and bound down the steps two at a time.

A cool breeze hits me in the face, unimpeded by the front door, which is wide open and hanging awkwardly by a single hinge. To my left the couch is overturned, splinters of ceramic from a broken vase littering the wooden floorboards around it.

Where’s my family?

I glance into the yard, where the rosebush is nothing more than a glowing pile of ash. The moving, bright-eyed shadows are gone. Are they inside?

“Mom?” I say, surprised when my voice comes out more than a whisper. “Dad? Jaz?”

No answer. Silence. Silence. And then…

A scream. Not inside—but somewhere else, down the street perhaps. Another house. Can’t worry about that now. Have to find my family.

I tiptoe into the living room, stubbing my bare toe on something hard. My father’s gun skitters away, clattering across the wood as more screams fill the night. Screams of terror and pain. Neighbors, friends…what’s happening?

I bend down and reach for the gun, my brown skin appearing even darker in the shadows…

“Death finds you,” a voice says from behind.

My heart skips a beat as I whirl around, instinctively taking a step away toward the tipped-over couch. Fluorescent bulbs stare back at me, too bright to gaze at directly. I shield my eyes with a hand, trying to discern who or what is connected to the blinding light. “Where’s my family?” I say. A black cloak, thin at the top and flared out toward the bottom, sits below the eyes.

“You won’t need them anymore,” the eyes say.

I reverse another step, feeling the gun clatter against my heel.

I crouch down, watched by the animal eyes the entire time. Blindly grab for the gun. It’s warm and soft. For a moment, I risk tearing my gaze from the black-cloaked menace standing before me.

I’m holding a small, dark-skinned hand.

Screaming, I drop it and fall to the side, my breath coming in ragged heaves, my heart in my throat, my brain finally catching up to my senses.

“No,” I breathe. And again: “No.”

Jasmine watches me with wide, white unseeing eyes. Her neck is wet and glistening with spilled life.

Tears blooming like dewdrops, I wail at the presence, at my sister’s body, at the empty room, my cries joining the screams and shouts that seem to be everywhere now, a cacophony of despair. “What have you done?” I cry. I’m dreaming—oh please let this be a nightmare. Pinch myself. And again, harder. A groan gurgles from the back of my throat, a cry of rage and hurt.

I jump to my feet and charge the shadow, forgetting my father’s gun because I don’t need it, don’t need anything but my own two fists and unbridled anger.

I blink and it’s gone.

Ohcrapohcrap.

“You can’t fight me,” the voice says, behind me again.

I whirl around to face it, my heart stuttering in my chest, my every instinct urging me to get the hell out of the house. The shadow is hovering over my sister’s dead body.

It’s a woman’s voice. I only now realize it. What
is
she?

“Get away from her,” I growl through my teeth.

A laugh. How could she be laughing when Jasmine is broken beneath her? Who is this psychopath? “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Your family”—she points at the couch and it flips over as if it weighs no more than a feather, revealing the still bodies of my parents—“is waiting for you in hell.”

They’re not moving, not breathing: dead like Jasmine. Just like before. Not again.

I clamp my eyes shut as a flash of pain sears through my skull.

When I open my eyes, they’re still there. My newest family, the first one I’ve felt comfortable with in a long time—since after I lost my first foster family—gone to a place I can’t follow. The glowing eyes are still there, too, still staring. I run at the she-demon, and this time she doesn’t vanish, and I hit her so hard, like I’m hitting the tackling machines at football practice, but it’s like crashing headfirst into a stone wall. Her icy hands clamp around my throat and she picks me up like I’m not big for my age and over six feet and a hundred and ninety pounds. Like I’m the size of one of the dolls Jasmine will never play with again.

“Guess we’re doing this the hard way,” she says, and I can see her teeth, straight and white and in perfect little rows above and below her lips, not rotted and sharpened into fangs like I expected. She squeezes my throat and I can’t breathe and I’m surprised when I realize:

I don’t care.

Breathing doesn’t matter. The sharp rap of the heartbeat in my chest doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now that they’re gone.

And then something hits me, and at first I think it’s the demon, but we’re both flying backwards, and her grip loosens and she releases my neck. I crack the back of my head against the fireplace before slumping to the floor, my skull aching, acutely aware of the writhing presence beside me. A flash of metal cuts through the darkness and she disappears, like before.

Three dark-skinned faces appear, each identical and framed by well-trimmed gray hair and webs of wrinkles. I shake my head and the three faces become one.

“Mr. Jackson?” I say, glancing at the long sword my neighbor’s carrying in his left hand. Hastily, he shoves it into a loop on his belt.

“She’s gone, son,” he says, bending over and picking up my body as easily as the demon did, surprisingly strong.

“So are they,” I say through the tears and the wave of dizziness that assaults me, and he nods with sad eyes.

“Salem’s Revenge has begun a day early,” he says gruffly, just before my vision fades and I lose consciousness.

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