Jessica peered through the metal at her pursuer, blinking to clear her vision. The panther was shaking its head in confusion, backing away to the far end of the gap, limping slightly. It held up one paw and licked it, the pink tongue snaking out between the two long teeth. Then the cold indigo eyes locked onto Jessica. The cool intelligence was still there. The cat turned and padded out of sight.
It was looking for another way around.
Whatever the fence had done to the panther, she was grateful. The beast could’ve jumped the fence, which wasn’t more than eight feet high, but the blue sparks had spooked it.
Her respite wouldn’t last long, though. She had to get moving. Jessica rolled over onto her hands and knees and started to stand.
A hissing sound came from the ground in front of her. Through the high grass she glimpsed two purple eyes flashing in the moonlight.
Her hand darted in front of her face just in time. Cold shot through her from palm to elbow, as if long, icy needles had been thrust deep into her arm. Jessica leapt to her feet and stumbled away from where the snake had been hidden.
Her eyes widened with fear as she looked down at her hand.
The snake was attached by black filaments that wrapped around her fingers and wrist, her hand grasped by a spreading cold. The filaments came from the snake’s mouth, as if its tongue had split into a hundred black threads and twisted itself tightly around her. The cold was moving slowly up her arm toward her shoulder.
Without thinking, Jessica swung the snake against the fence. The chain links lit up again, though much less explosively than when the cat had struck it. Blue fire shot toward her hand, then ran down the length of the writhing snake. The creature puffed up for a moment, its sleek black fur standing on end. The filaments unraveled, and the snake dropped lifeless to the ground.
Jessica leaned against the fence, exhausted.
The metal was warm and pulsing against her back, as if the steel had become alive. Feeling rushed back into her arm painfully, along with imaginary pins and needles, like blood returning after she’d slept on it all night long.
Jessica sagged with relief, letting the metal hold her weight for a moment.
Then, from the corner of her eye, she spotted movement. There was a narrow gap under the fence, like a dog would dig. More of the snakes were coming through.
Jessica turned and ran.
The backyard of this house was small, bounded by high fences. She might be safe from the panther within them, but in the uncut grass the snakes could hide anywhere. She climbed over the locked gate in the back, dropping to the ground in a narrow, paved alleyway.
The big cat had headed back the way Jessica had come, so she ran down the alley in the opposite direction. She wondered how she would ever get home.
“Just a dream,” Jess reminded herself. The words brought her no comfort at all. The adrenaline in her blood, the sharp pain in her fingers from climbing the chain-link fence, her heart pounding in her chest—the whole experience seemed absolutely real.
The alley led out onto a wide road. A street sign stood at the next corner, and Jess ran toward it, casting her eyes around for the panther.
“Kerr and Division,” she read. That was on the way to school. She wasn’t so far from home. “If I can just make it past the hairy snakes and the giant predator, I’ll be fine,” she mumbled. “No problem.”
The moon was fully risen now. It was moving much faster than the sun did during the day, Jessica realized. It hardly felt like half an hour since the dream had started. She saw how gigantic the moon was now. It filled so much of the sky that only a strip of horizon remained visible around it. The huge bulk hanging overhead made the world seem smaller, as if someone had put a roof on the sky.
Then Jessica saw shapes against the moon.
“Great,” she said. “Just what I need.”
They were flying creatures of some kind. They looked like bats, their wings fleshy and translucent, slowly gliding rather than flapping their wings. They were larger than bats, though, their bodies longer, as if a pack of rats had sprung wings. Several of them wheeled above her, making low chirping sounds.
Had they spotted her? Were they, like everything else in this dream, hunting Jessica Day?
Staring into the dark orb was giving Jessica a headache again, making her feel trapped under its light-sucking gaze. She turned her eyes back down to earth, watching for the panther as she jogged toward home.
The flying shapes stayed overhead, following her.
It wasn’t long before she felt the rumble of the panther’s growl again.
The black shape slid into sight in front of her a few blocks away, directly between Jessica and home. She remembered the intelligence in the panther’s eyes when they had faced each other through the fence. The cat seemed to know where she lived and how to stop her from getting there. And its little slithering friends were probably already in formation to prevent any escape.
This was hopeless.
The creature started padding toward her, not breaking into its full stride this time. It knew now how fast she could run and understood that it only had to go a little bit faster to catch her. It wouldn’t overshoot this prey again.
Jessica looked around for a place to hide, somewhere to escape to. But the houses here on the main roads were farther apart, with big wide strips of grass on every side. There were no tight spaces to crawl into, no fences to climb.
Then she spotted her salvation, one block in the opposite direction from the panther. A car.
It was sitting motionless right in the middle of the street, its lights off, but she could see that someone was inside it.
Jessica ran toward it. Maybe whoever was at the wheel could drive her to safety, or maybe the panther couldn’t get inside the car. It was the only hope she had.
She looked over her shoulder at the cat. It was running now, still not at full speed, but fast enough to close the distance with every bound. Jessica ran as fast as she could. Her bare feet ached from pounding the concrete, but she ignored the pain. She knew she could make it to the car.
She had to.
The cat’s raspy breathing and padded footfalls reached her ears, the sounds carrying like whispers through the silent blue world, closer and closer.
Jessica dashed the last few yards, reached the passenger side door, and yanked at the handle.
It was locked.
“You’ve got to help me!” she cried. “Let me in!”
Then Jessica saw the face of the driver. The woman was about her mom’s age, with blond hair and a slight frown on her face, as if she were concentrating on the road ahead. But her skin was as white as paper. Her fingers gripped the wheel motionlessly. Like Beth, she was frozen, lifeless.
“No!” Jessica shouted.
A hissing came from below. Snakes under the car.
Without thinking, Jessica leapt up onto the hood. She wound up facing the driver through the windshield, the blank eyes staring back at her like a statue’s.
“No,” Jessica sobbed, pounding the hood of the car.
She rolled over to face the panther, exhausted, defeated.
The beast was only a few strides away. It paused, growling, and the two long fangs glinted in the dark moonlight. Jessica knew that she was dead meat.
Then something happened.
A tiny flying saucer came screaming past Jessica, headed toward the panther. The object left a wake of blue sparks and electrified air. Jessica felt her hair stand on end, as if lightning had struck close by. The panther’s eyes flashed, wide and panicked, reflecting gold instead of indigo.
The projectile burst into a blue flame that wrapped itself around the giant cat. The creature spun around and leapt away, the fire clinging to its fur. It bounded farther down the street, howling a menagerie of pain—lions’ roars and stricken birds, cats being tortured. The beast passed from sight around a corner, its cries finally fading into a hideous, tormented laugh like that of a wounded hyena.