The Pale: Volume One, Jacob Long [best beach reads TXT] 📗

her phone case and was desperately trying to smash the phone into oblivion with the Taser.

Joshua stomped into the room himself and took Téa roughly by the hair. She screamed as she was pulled away from her task and tried to shock him, but Joshua wasn’t caught off guard. He overpowered Téa and pressed her into her bed with his body.

Joshua growled into Téa’s ear. “Your Culkin bullshit is testing my not-patience!”

Téa struggled uselessly against his weight. Her face was red with stress. She roared. “Like I care!”

“You know I have you pinned to a bed.” Joshua hissed. “I would be really worried about just how much worse this can get if you keep running your mouth!”

“Do your worst, needle-dick!”

Joshua stood from the bed and pulled Téa with him, tossing her against the opposite wall. It jostled Téa but didn’t harm her. “Take her with us,” Joshua ordered, his breaths ragged, a vein bulging from the middle of his forehead.

A henchman took Téa in both hands and led her away.

“And gag her! I don’t want her crying to the whole neighborhood for help!” Joshua straightened his nice clothes and ran his hand through his hair. “We’ll see if her little hero comes to save her a second time.”

17

Night fell on Farol Verde with the roar of a lion as lightning split the sky. A tension followed. The air was noticeably thick, but rain had yet to fall. Just when it felt like it would be too much, sporadic sprinkles began to shade the landscape, as if teasing. It was steady like that for a time, the downpour intensifying imperceptibly slow. Before Christina Lacey realized, the rain was falling in a heavy, steady curtain outside her bedroom window. She sat cross-legged on top of the covers of her bed, reading a book. Her husband was taking a shower after returning from the gym, so she took the time to dive back into an old favorite from her younger days. The Graveyard Book, it was called. As he is known to do, the author spun her into a world where magic always seemed to be just on the other side of a thin veil, and if you believed with just a fraction of childish wonder, you could even reach out and touch it.

That’s why, when Christina first heard the unearthly, foreboding snarl, it didn’t even merit her attention. It barely competed with the din of the rain. It could have just as easily been her imagination run wild. The young protagonist in her book was at the mercy of terrible evil.

Another animalistic vocalization rent the air, louder than before. It was part hiss, part growl and disconcerting enough that Christina’s sugar brown eyes leapt from the page. It sounded like there was a monster in her world, and it was close. Slowly, Christina turned her head to the small picture window that overlooked their backyard. The white drapes were drawn shut, and with the rain pouring down just outside, she could see nothing from her perch. Lightning filled the window with light, but thankfully, there was no menacing shadow to threaten her safety.

She wondered if she was just imagining a monster, but the queer sounds had become a procession. Chuffing, snarling, even something like whimpering. Whatever creature had paused in Christina’s backyard on its way to a child’s nightmare sounded like it was in distress.

Christina marked her page and set the book aside. She stood from the bed and cautiously padded to the window in nothing but a T-shirt and panties. It crossed her mind that if Téa were there, the nerd would have to point out that this is how non-virginal twenty-somethings get killed off. The idea actually made Christina’s final steps to the window lighter, slower, and more cautious as the scene of a giant demonic hand crashing through the window played out in her brain. Christina’s hair stood on end. She did not want to be stolen out into the night.

The twenty-something reached the window without incident and warily lifted one of the drapes away to peer outside. The noise drew her attention toward the back corner of the yard, where Danny’s modular toolshed stood. It was hopelessly dark with the heavy clouds and rain, but something was definitely moving out there. Meager light from other houses glistened on the water that pummeled the shape, which shifted and shuddered. She could make out little else besides an impression because the light in the room played on the window, obscuring the scene, so Christina walked briskly to the light switch and swatted it off.

Darkness filled the room almost impenetrably. Christina moved back to the lone window, which stood out against the abyss, and peered out toward the activity by the toolshed. Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and more details became apparent. The creature was massive. Knowing how big the shed was, Christina guessed the creature to be nearly the size of a bear, but it was leaner and somehow vaguely humanoid. It stood on long angular hind legs, almost like a bug’s—crooked and wicked. It’s equally alien arms were braced against the shed as if the thing needed some support. The rest of it was obscured oddly, as if it were wearing a dead brush for camouflage. Strange protrusions interrupted its silhouette that moved with each heave of deep guttural breath. It actually reminded Christina that she should probably breathe too.

The hulking form twisted and shifted about, as if trying to hit just the right spot while stretching. Meanwhile, the protrusions that obscured its form shifted. Incredibly, the creature appeared to be physically growing, but Christina couldn’t tell if it was true or just a trick of the meager light. The creature’s groans intensified, almost roaring, or almost crying. There was a flurry of motion, and then Christina heard a bang, as if something had been struck mightily. She couldn’t see what was happening, but the creature’s volume came down from its sudden crescendo. It appeared to be calming. Christina hoped it would move on after completing whatever it had done under the cover of dark. She also wished she could actually see the thing for what it was.

Christina’s second wish was answered. Lightning flashed silently in the distance, briefly illuminating the scene. It revealed the creature’s true menacing form. The protrusions Christina had gotten the impression of were spines. Blade-like spines, perhaps two hand widths long extended down the length of the monster’s back like a porcupine. It was facing away from her, so she saw it all. More smaller spines also curved from the monster’s head like a crown, and on its shoulders and even somewhat down its upper arms. It was only a brief strobe of light, but Christina’s brain had formed a snapshot. The monster had struck the shed in its distress, and a pronounced crater had been reamed into it from the monster’s mighty fist.

The woman stood motionless in the dark for tense seconds. Her breath was caught in her throat, and her brain struggled to keep her heart under control. Only one coherent thought found purchase in her mind: chupacabra. It was as if her grandmother had whispered the word into her ear, just as she had when Christina was very young. It was silly, just a part of her traditional upbringing, but somehow, a part of her knew it to be true with absolute certainty. How? She wondered. How could it be there? Danny and the other guys killed those wolves, and the maulings stopped. She couldn’t believe her eyes!

A sudden prolific clap of thunder answered the lightning’s call and rattled the windows in the house. Christina flinched and yelped reflexively. Her hands quickly tried to cover her mouth as if to catch the sound, but the noise escaped, and the monster reacted. It snorted and its head snapped to look. Somehow, the terrible, impossible thing had heard her over the din of the rain. Christina knew this because two horrible eyes swung around to see her. They glowed in the dark like a cat’s, possessing an unnatural yellow hue.

As quickly as she could, Christina dropped the drape and jumped from the window, pressing her back up against the adjoining wall. Her breaths were heavy, and her brain had given up on managing the heart. It pounded away with reckless abandon, filling her legs with all the blood they needed to run like the wind. Seconds passed, and Christina tried to gain control of herself. Specifically, she wanted her lungs and her heart to be quiet. Who knows how far away the nightmare could detect fiercely pumping blood.

Christina made headway in silencing her body’s flight responses and tuned her ears to hear even the slightest noise from outside. There was no monstrous growling, snarling, chuffing, or otherwise. Besides the patter of the weakening rain, there was nothing. Christina waited, not wanting to even cause a creak in the floorboards. Nothing shared the air with the rain. No light breathing of predatory excitement. No scratching on the roof. Christina was so quiet and still that she could detect the faint, eerie ring of natural tinnitus in her ear canal and nothing else.

Finally, Christina dared to move. Her body trembled as she leaned slowly over to the window and peered out surreptitiously. She allowed her face in front of the window only enough to catch the slightest sliver of the lawn in front of the toolshed, but there was nothing. The falling rain betrayed no lumbering form in the Lacey yard. Either it was waiting very cleverly to make its move, or it had simply run away upon having been discovered. Christina prayed for the latter to be true. At any rate, she had to move. Danny was downstairs, in the shower. She had to reach him.

Chrissy strode briskly to the door and pulled it open, immediately lamenting that she had grown so familiar with the house and always left the hallway light off. It was menacingly dark beyond the portal as well as in the room in which she stood, and Christina hesitated. Her sudden paranoia was getting the better of her. She wasn’t the type to be nervous, but she’d never seen anything like what she’d seen just outside her own house. Suddenly, even the floor beneath her was uncertain.

The young woman told herself that there was no way it could be in the house. Something that big, it would have a hard time even squeezing through the doorway. That was assuming it could turn a knob, but the door was locked. It would have to come through a window, or through the wall. What if it could come through the wall?

Christina realized her legs were making autonomous strides just as she reached halfway between the master bedroom and the stairwell down to the first floor. Her body was making decisions for her. She rounded the banister at the head of the stairs and bounced quickly down the steps, but then there was a loud thud, and Christina froze. It sounded like something heavy struck the house, perhaps even on the roof.

The thing might be looking for an entrance.

Christina hurried down the last of the stairs. She could hear the shower running. Danny was just inside the bathroom.

He would protect her. He was the only one that could.

Christina had to pass perilously close to the front door upon exiting the stairwell. She slowed her progression and crept by, the soles of her feet landing gradually. Lightning struck outside again, and the thunder soon followed. It sounded like it was moving on. She hoped the creature would too. She hoped that it loved the rain and would follow it.

The frightened woman had slowed to a complete stop without realizing it. Her dread had frozen her in place, eyes wide and fixated on the front door. If the thing wanted in, the front door was the weakest point, unless the thing dared shattered glass for entry. Then again, maybe something like that wasn’t even worried about glass.

Chrissy was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t hear a door behind her open. It was farther down the hall. Light spilled from the opening, and Danny Lacey stepped from the portal in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, showcasing that he was all about pecs, traps, and biceps when he went to the gym.

Danny noticed