Hell Is Coming (The Watcher's Series Book 1) (6 page)

“Anyway, baby, I have to go now,” my mom said in the video and I thought.

As usual, huh?

“I’m really sorry for all this, sorry if I messed up your life. I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me one day. I…I always tried to do what was right, baby. Sometimes it just didn’t work out.” Her brown eyes went glassy again. “I love you, Leia. Look after your brother and tell him I love him. Tell your father I love him too. Goodbye.”

The screen went black as my mom switched off the camera.

Tell my father she loves him?

I shook my head, tears rolling down my face. In a sudden surge of anger I slammed my fist into the dashboard and let out a frustrated scream. If only she had known when she made that video what would happen the next day.

My mind reeled. I didn’t know what to think or how to feel. My life had been turned upside down, like I was freefalling with no way of stopping myself. What the hell was a girl to do when her dead mother drops a bombshell like that?

There was only one thing to do as far as I was concerned: get drunk. I hadn’t drunk in nearly a year because I was trying to be good, trying to be straight, to be normal. What a waste of time that had been, especially when I found out I was anything
but
normal.

I pulled out my phone and called Josh. He would be pissed that I still had the car. His phone rang but there was no answer, which meant he really was pissed. He tended to block me anytime we argued or I pissed him off. I sent him a text apologizing, telling him I would be home with the car soon, albeit an hour and a half late.

I put the laptop and journal on the passenger seat and drove home, all the while wondering how I was going to tell Josh about everything and how he would react.

Whatever happened, it looked like our lives were about to change forever.

Chapter 4

By the time I arrived back at Diane’s place, I’d called Josh three more times on his cell and every time the call went to voicemail.

What the hell, Josh? Get a grip, no need to be an asshole about things.

I parked the car and took the laptop and journal up to the house with me.

Josh and Diane were nowhere to be seen and there was an eerie silence in the house. The TV, normally blaring in the background, was switched off. I expected Josh to be standing there waiting for me when I came in, ready to chew me out for being late and messing up his plans. “Josh!” I called out. “Diane! I’m home! Hello…”

No one answered.

Frowning, I put the laptop and journal on the sofa. Then I noticed the strange smell. It was sharp and pungent and reminded me of something I had smelled once in chemistry class back in high school. It was sulfur. Why would the house smell of sulfur? “Josh, I’m home. Car’s outside.”

Still nothing.

Where the hell is everyone?

There was no one in the kitchen so I went upstairs, noticed the bathroom door was slightly open, that there were large wet footprints imprinted in the carpet that led towards Josh’s room.

Why all the water? Not like Diane to be so messy.

“Diane, you in there?” I said as I pushed the bathroom door open.

I screamed when I saw Diane in the tub. The water was red and her neck was twisted around at an impossible angle, her tongue poking out the side of her mouth like it had tried to escape. Her eyes were frozen open. I ran to the bath tub. “No, no, no…Diane…”

She was dead.

Someone had broken her neck and stabbed her in the belly.

My chest heaved as I tried to control my emotions.

This can’t be happening. Diane can’t be dead.

But she
was
dead, as dead as I’ve ever seen anybody.

Who would do this?

I turned around and there was something written on the mirror. It was scrawled in blood it looked like: JOSH WITH US NOW. YOU WILL BE SOON AS WELL.

Underneath the text there was a smiley face, also drawn in blood.

What the hell did that mean?

“Josh!”

I ran out of the bathroom and into Josh’s room. He wasn’t there, not that I expected him to be. Whoever or whatever had killed Diane had also taken Josh.

But why? Who would want to kidnap my brother and why do they want me as well?

I was shaking, breathing hard as I glanced around Josh’s room. It was a mess, like someone had trashed the place. It looked like he had put up a fight against whoever had taken him. The widescreen TV had been ripped off the wall and lay smashed on the floor. The shelves that held all his trophies that he won fighting were also broken off the wall, the trophies snapped and smashed on the floor. Even the curtains had somehow been torn from the railing and lay scrunched on the broken bed. Josh was tough, strong, he knew how to fight. Obviously he hadn’t been easy to restrain.

At least he was still alive.

Or at least I hoped he was.

Taking out my phone, I rang Josh’s number again, thinking that maybe whoever had taken him would answer and tell me what they wanted, tell me what I had to do to get my brother back.

The phone dropped from my ear when I heard Josh’s ringtone coming from close by. I looked around for a second and saw his phone lying on the floor. “Fuck!” I screamed.

What was I supposed to do now?

Think, Leia, think. Call the cops.

I dialed 911 and an operator answered, but just as they did I hung up the phone. Something told me the cops wouldn’t be able to help me. It was Diane’s neck that made me hang up, the impossible angle her head was twisted. I didn’t think an ordinary person could do such a thing. Whatever was going on, it had something to do with the whole business of Josh and me being “Watcher’s” as my mom had called us, even though Josh didn’t know anything about that stuff yet. This was demons or some other monster.

What if they’re still here in the house?

It was an ice cold thought that nearly made my heart jump out of my chest. I still hadn’t checked my room or Diane’s. Someone or something could be in there, waiting for me.

Oh fuck
.
Surely they would have grabbed me by now if they were still there?

I was starting to wish I had a weapon on me, maybe one of those swords from my mom’s lockup. Now I knew why she needed all that stuff.

I might as well have been naked, so vulnerable did I feel, but somewhere deep inside of me something stirred. At first I thought it was just a side effect of the fear and panic until it started to spread throughout my whole body;  a warm feeling that brought with it a strange sense of calm. I was still  terrified, defenseless and alone, but physically it was like I didn’t give a shit, like I was ready for anything.

Was this the angel part of me coming to the forefront to protect me?

Right then I hoped so as I walked out of Josh’s room and across the hall where against my better judgment I pulled down the handle on my bedroom door and let it swing open, readying myself in case there was anyone or anything in there. I stood on edge in the doorway as I got flashbacks of the night the demon took my mom and killed my dad; me as a seven-year-old kid pushing open the door to my parent’s bedroom…

The room was empty. No one was there.

I relaxed slightly and allowed myself to take a breath before crossing the hall to Diane’s room. The door was half open. Same as before, I pushed the door all the way open, my heart beating loudly in my chest, and waited for something to reveal itself but there was nothing.

I dropped my shoulders and allowed myself to relax, but not much. It seemed the house was empty. I hunkered down, my back against the landing wall as I tried to think. Josh was gone. Diane was dead. What was I supposed to do now? Then I remembered the writing on the bathroom mirror.
You will be soon
. In other words, I was next. Whoever had taken Josh would be coming for me as well.

“I have to get out of here,” I said to myself as I stood up. Diane’s body was still in the bath tub. I didn’t feel right about just leaving her there like that so I called the cops and told them I wanted to report a murder, giving the address and hanging up before they could ask my name.

I cried as I went downstairs on the verge of a nervous breakdown. How could so much happen in one day? I was shattered, the person I once was blown to pieces by the force of events.

I have to keep it together. I have to get Josh back.

That was the only thing on my mind, finding out who took Josh and getting him back. They didn’t kill him, whoever “they” were—I didn’t think so anyway, which meant they wanted something. Kidnappers always wanted something. I just had to find out what.

I left Diane’s house before the cops arrived. I didn’t even think to take clothes or anything else from my room; I just grabbed the laptop and my mom’s journal from the living room. Before walking out the door, I looked back through blurry eyes. My life had been going so well. I had been happy for the first time ever, contented. All that had been wiped out in a single day.

I was still crying as I left the house and got into my brother’s Mustang. There was only one person who could help me now.

Uncle Frank.

Chapter 5

I don’t think I stopped crying until I got outside  city limits. I almost pulled up at the building where Kasey lived so I could ask her to come along with me for moral support;  I needed to tell someone who cared about what was going on. I actually slowed outside the building, but I shook my head and sped off. I couldn’t drag Kasey into all that. Diane had been murdered. Josh had been kidnapped. I couldn’t risk the life of the only other person in the world I cared about. I had never felt so alone in my life as when I drove away from Kasey’s place, towards the home of a man I had never even met. Uncle or not, he was still a stranger and I didn’t like the fact that I was being forced to put my trust in someone I didn’t know. I learned a long time ago that  trusting  strangers was dangerous, and it was going against my every instinct seeking that man out.

Following the directions my mom had written on the back of the photograph, I eventually came upon a turn-off in the main road that took me up a steep mountainside and through a thick forest where my uncle apparently lived. My lips pressed tightly together and my stomach roiling, I drove up the narrow dirt road. There was a sour taste in my mouth as I wondered what I was going to find at the end of that road.

What if this guy is a total psycho? He hunts monsters for a living, he’s hardly going to be warm and caring.

The night seemed to become darker the further up the mountain I drove. I could make out next to nothing of my surroundings and I kept wondering why someone would choose to live all the way up there, miles from nowhere, isolated and alone. My dread soon gave way to full-blown anguish after the dirt road finally ended and I came upon a cabin built on a flat clearing surrounded by trees.

This was it. Uncle Frank’s place.

A man I had never met, who had never even checked in on me or Josh the whole time we were growing up, the whole time we were in the foster system, despite the fact that he obviously knew we had no one.

What kind of uncle does that?

As I slowed the car outside the cabin, I had visions of this Frank character telling me to turn around and drive back the way I came, to leave him alone and not  bother him ever again. Then I’d be truly alone, with no one to help me. Not a good prospect to be thinking off, so I forced it out of my mind and pulled myself into the present.

I climbed out of the car, taking the laptop and journal with me. Unlike in the city, night was really night up the mountain. The only light came from the moon high above in the star speckled black sky. The blanket of silence that surrounded the place I found disconcerting to say the least. My stomach fluttered and my heart beat irregularly as I stood by the car and looked over at the wood cabin. It was quite small but looked foreboding in the darkness. It had windows on either side with a front door in the middle. No lights were on, even though there was a car parked out front. I hoped I hadn’t come all this way only to find no one home.

Then I heard a deep growling noise. I looked to the left and saw a big black dog edging its way towards me, baring  its teeth. It was a Labrador, a breed of dog that I always considered cute and friendly. Not this one it seemed. I jumped when it barked at me. “Good dog,” I said in a shaky voice, readying myself to jump back in the car if it got any closer.

As I stood half frozen trying not to make too much eye contact with the snarling dog, I heard a clicking sound right behind me and then a man’s voice. “Nice car you have there.”

I slowly turned around to find a gun pointed at me. The barrel looked huge in front of my face. “Frank?” I asked, raising my arms slightly.

“Who wants to know?”

“My name’s Leia Swanson. My mother said you’re my Uncle. I need your help.”

The gun was lowered after a moment and I relaxed, though not much. The man who I assumed was Frank took a step forward, his dark eyes checking me out. He certainly looked like the man in the picture, though obviously older and more worn down. Something about him also put me on edge and it wasn’t just the fact that he held a gun. I got the impression he was dangerous enough even without a weapon. “You look like her alright. What are you doing here?” His voice was gravelly. I thought I could smell whiskey on his breath. Was the relatively fresh-faced young man from the photo now a bitter drunk? I hoped not. The scar on one side of his face didn’t help put me at ease either. I expected him to have aged, and he had. His hair was grayer; he had more lines in his face. It wasn’t just the aging that made him seem different to the man in the picture though. The younger Frank in the photo had a light in his eyes, like he still had much to live for. The man in front of me had no such light in his dark bloodshot eyes. The man in front of me gave off the impression that he was thoroughly tired of life at this point.