Will threw himself onto the backseat as the driver gunned the Prowler down the road. Will looked back and saw the burning creatures flail off the edge of the cliff, pinwheeling fiery spirals falling away into a void.
The car roared through the open gate at the base of the road and reached the flats in moments. Will crouched down as they weaved through sharp turns at what seemed like impossible speeds. With the driver hunched over the wheel, in the light of passing streetlamps, Will noticed a large round patch on the back of the man’s leather jacket. Inside it were three images and words he couldn’t make out.
Then, in a strip of darkness, the Prowler skidded to a stop.
“Out,” said the driver.
Will leaped out of the car and backed away. The driver remained in shadow, motionless, staring at him from behind black aviator shades. The man’s taut presence and unsettling stillness held a promise of violence.
“What were those things?” asked Will.
“You don’t want to know,” the driver said.
“But—”
“Stow it. You may think you’re dux, mate, but unless you want to kark it early days, next time don’t be such a nong.”
Will couldn’t place the driver’s accent, which was harsh as a blade. “I’m sorry,” Will said. “I have no idea what you just said.”
The driver leaned forward into the light and lowered his shades. He had fierce black brows above a raptor’s piercing eyes. And scars. Lots of scars.
He held up his right index finger. “That’s one,” said the man. Then he stomped on the gas. The Prowler sped off around a corner, the sound of its engine fading quickly into the night.
Will looked around. He was standing fifty feet from the back door of his house. Music drifted through an open window, a woman’s voice backed by a big band with old-fashioned orchestration:
“If you go out in the woods tonight
You’re in for a big surprise …
If you go out in the woods tonight
You’d better go in disguise …”
OceanofPDF.com
DAD’S HOME
Will peered around the side of his house: The black cars were gone.
He hurried to the back door and entered silently. Someone was in their kitchen. He caught a whiff of his mom’s perfume and cookies baking. Will edged down the hallway and peeked into the kitchen.
“Belinda” was pacing back and forth, holding a cell phone to her ear. As he watched, she raised a hand to the back of her neck and flinched, as if in pain.
Then she spoke into the phone in a monotone voice he hardly recognized: “He’s not back … I don’t know where he went … yes, I’ll let you know if he …”
Will backed away down the hall. He landed on a creaky floorboard, then bumped into the wall trying to avoid it.
“Will-bear?” she called. “Is that you? Are you home?”
Damn.
“Hi,” he said, reopening the back door as if he’d just come inside.
“Come in the kitchen! I made cookies!”
“One sec. I’ve got mud on my shoes.” He wanted to run again, but Dad would be home soon. But he couldn’t face her yet, either, and with that loopy song blaring away, he couldn’t think straight. Will closed the door loudly and followed the music to the living room.
The antique turntable sat next to Dad’s precious vinyl collection: LPs and stacks of old 45s, still in their paper sleeves. The soundtrack of his parents’ lives. Will knew this music better than his own generation’s.
OceanofPDF.com
#78: THERE’S A REASON THE CLASSICS ARE CLASSICS: THEY’RE
CLASSIC
.
“At six o’clock their mommies and daddies
Will take them home to bed
Because they’re tired little teddy bears—”
Will jerked the needle off the record. A scratch popped in the speakers. “Belinda” came in behind him.
“You always loved that song,” she said.
“I haven’t heard it for a hundred years,” he said. “It’s kind of creepy.”
“You played it all the time when you were little—”
“I’m not really in the mood right now.”
“But you loved it—”
“Yes, I did,” said Will. “And when I played it over and over again, it used to drive you crazy.”
Her smile never wavered. She didn’t even blink. She held out a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. “Oatmeal raisin,” she said.
Will stared at the milk. Were his eyes playing tricks on him, or did it have a faint greenish glow?
She kept the plate in front of him. He finally took the milk and a cookie, hoping she wouldn’t wait for him to eat it. “Where’d you go?” she asked.
“For a run.”
“It looks like you fell. Did you hurt yourself?”
“I’m fine.”
“Come help with dinner.”
He followed her to the kitchen, trying not to limp. He broke off half the cookie, dumped it into the umbrella stand in the hall with half the milk, then pretended to chew as he walked in after her. She stood over the stove tending pots, one of them pouring steam into the air. Dr. Robbins’s packet sat on the table where he’d left it, next to his laptop.
“How’s the cookie?” she asked.
He held up the remaining half. “Good.”
“Did you look through all the stuff from the school?”
She’d emptied the packet onto the table: the electronic brochure, a small pamphlet about the school’s history, and a stack of official forms and paperwork.
“Most of it,” said Will.
“So what do you think?”
His iPhone dinged. He fumbled it from his pocket and switched it on. An unfamiliar app popped up on his greeting screen: a feathered quill pen poised over an old-fashioned parchment. The title below read UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR.
Where did this come from?
“Seems pretty interesting,” he said.
“I have to say, I’m having trouble with the boarding school thing. It’s halfway across the country. When would we ever see you? Know what I mean, jelly bean?”
She stepped past him and reached to an upper shelf for the pasta. Her hair parted for a moment, and Will caught a glimpse of a gnarled knob of flesh on the side of her neck, just behind her left ear. A more vivid pink than her skin tone, it looked like recent scar tissue, or an inflamed insect bite. And it was twitching.
What the hell?
As she turned back, Will looked away, trying to mask his fright. He gathered up the laptop and the contents of the packet from the table.
“I have time for a quick shower?”
“Twelve minutes,” she said, looking at her wristwatch.
With the same hand, she poured the whole box of spaghetti into the pot of boiling water. Then shoved the tops into the water with a spoon.
Mom always breaks the spaghetti in half before she drops it in the water.
“I’ll be quick.”
Will walked out of the room and up the stairs, fighting the urge to break out of the house at a dead sprint.
OceanofPDF.com
#5: TRUST NO ONE.
He tossed the cookie out the back window and closed his door quietly. It had no lock, so he tilted his desk chair and wedged the top rail under the knob. He started his phone’s stopwatch app and set it on the bed. Eleven minutes.
He stepped to the bathroom and turned on the shower so she’d hear water in the pipes. He peeled off his shirt and sweatpants and checked the road rash on his hip. It was red and raw but he’d had worse. He cleaned it with a washcloth, then splashed on hydrogen peroxide. The scratch on his back looked nasty and inflamed. He poured peroxide on it, then gripped the sink and grimaced through the burn. Moving back to the bedroom, he glanced out one of the windows at the street in front. Empty.