The Second Sign (18 page)

She sauntered into the kitchen. The tall, lanky boy
wearing a black tee met her gaze. His eyes grew wide as the others
turned slowly to her. She savored the moment, swallowing their
fear. It was the only nourishment she needed. She tried to speak,
but only an incoherent grunt escaped her lips. Sarah stepped closer
to her.

“Heather?” she asked, her voice riddled with concern
laden with fear.

The witch brushed past her. Sarah would be last. She
raised the shotgun, aimed it at the tall, lanky boy, and pulled the
trigger. The blast echoed in the cramped kitchen. The boy slammed
against the back door in a spray of blood, tumbled forward,
smacking the counter with a loud crack before hitting the floor.
Already dead.

The second, smaller boy, charged at her just as
Heather pulled the trigger again. She missed her target. A spray of
pellets struck the door, leaving tiny indentations embedded in the
rotten wood. The boy landed one solid strike to her jaw before she
grabbed him by his collar and lifted him off his feet, sending him
crashing against the far wall. He groaned and struggled to get up
while the small girl bolted out of the kitchen.

Sarah, however, faced Heather with a weapon of her
own. A broken bottle. She charged at Heather, bottle leading,
slashing Heather in the face and cutting her to the bone. Heather
felt no pain. She raised her fist and hit Sarah in the chest hard
enough to knock the wind out of her and send her flailing into the
living room. There was nowhere Sarah could go, so Heather set her
attention on the boy, still breathing.

Slowly grasping the handle of the hatchet, she
pulled it out of her belt, a wicked smile on her face as she
plunged the blade deep into the boy’s skull. The boy convulsed
violently, until he settled, unmoving. Unable to pull the blade
free, she dragged the boy to the living room by the hatchet,
leaving a trail of blood. She decided to ditch the hatchet and
follow the girls upstairs.

There was nowhere to go. Everything was locked up
nice and tight.

Heather walked leisurely up the steps and paused at
the second landing in front of a mirror. The flesh on her left
cheek torn, revealing white bone underneath. She inched her fingers
toward the flap of skin and lifted it, trying to reattach it.
Surely
he
wouldn’t want her destroyed.

A desperate sob broke Heather from her thoughts, and
she approached the room she made available for her victims. To her
disappointment, it wasn’t Sarah.

“Please, don’t do this,” the brown-eyed girl
cried.

Heather didn’t hesitate. She couldn’t. She must
complete the mission. She entered the room and locked the door
behind her. A euphoric sense of freedom passed through her.
Liberating. She scanned the room, and her eyes settled on what she
needed—a hammer and hacksaw.

The pathetic girl backed herself into a corner and
slid along the wall until she hit the floor, drawing her knees in
front of her, and hugging them. Her brown eyes pooled with tears
that wouldn’t save her. Heather gripped the hammer in her now stiff
hands, and approached the girl. The smell of urine mixed with blood
assailed her nostrils.

“Don’t worry my pretty,” she managed to grunt. “This
is going to hurt.” And with strength she knew must come from the
gods, she struck. One. Two. Three. She lost count and stopped only
when the hammer no longer breached hard bone but instead sunk into
soft flesh. Heather wasn’t done yet. She went for the hacksaw.

By the time she finished with brown-eyed Barbie, she
heard the window she left unprotected shatter. She went out to find
bloodied handprints and splotches of blood on the sloping roof.
Sarah was on the run. Heather wanted to give chase. Sarah had been
her main target, but she found that she couldn’t move. Pain so pure
and terrifying engulfed her. Her stomach tightened, forcing her to
double over, her limbs and joints screamed in protest with every
movement she made, and her face was on fire.

Heather collapsed in a pool of her own excrement,
cursing the demon who had promised her wealth beyond all. She
shuddered violently as pain gripped her. The darkness did not come
for her to alleviate her pain. She felt the pain to her very core,
and she waited with the ticking of time for Gabby.

The Crossroads

Jake looked down at his beloved, ruined riding
boots. Gabby had definitely lost it. If he didn’t feel like holding
her all the time, he would have thrown her off the cliff himself.
She seemed to notice.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her mouth with the
back of her hand.

He shrugged. “That’s okay. I think we should go back
and clean up, yeah?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. He went back
to the library and entered the restroom. He really needed time to
clear his head without Gabby thinking him nuts.

First, the room incident with the tattoo. He did see
the ink moving under her flesh, he was sure of it. Just now when
she rammed into him, he saw...
no
. He shook his head, turned
on the water, and splashed his face. It wasn’t possible. He was
going nuts, seeing things. The trauma of seeing that girl jump had
set his mind on edge. If he was indeed sane, then Gabby wasn’t
human. For a brief moment he saw her face covered in runes, and her
thick, black hair fell in waves around her face and shoulders with
a thick, violet stripe coursing from her scalp the length on the
left. And she had been glowing like when he first saw her out in
the veranda. He thought it a trick of the light, but no light in
the library could brighten her flesh that way. And her violet eyes
were dilated with a black core. He shook his head, unable to will
the image out of his mind.

She waited for him near the bike. Normal. No white
skin, no black eyes, or purple hair.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice small.

He took her hand and squeezed. “I found something.”
He withdrew the folded paper out of his pocket. She stopped him
from unfolding it.

“Wait.”

He looked up at her.

“We have to go see about a friend first.” Her hand
trembled and she folded them in front of her.

He shot an eyebrow up. “I thought you don’t have any
friends.”

“Just a handful. And I don’t want to lose them.”

The way she said it, Jake knew she meant more than
losing their friendship. “Shit.” He put the paper back in his
pocket and got on the bike. “Where to?”

They arrived ten minutes later at the empty
fairgrounds. The rain had become a torrent, keeping most sane folks
inside. Jake had to be careful not to lose grip on the pavement
with the bike. He’d wanted to turn it in for the truck, but Gabby
couldn’t wait. She needed to find Sarah. He set the bike near a
trailer, and watched Gabby run and bang on the door. No one
answered. Gabby decided to use her larceny skills and break in.

Jake couldn’t help but to smirk at her when she
turned to him and waved him in. “Nice. A record is what I need to
start my college life,” he muttered to her.

“Join the club. I already got one.” Her smile forced
a smile on his own lips.

She turned on the lights to an unexpected sight that
sent icy chills down his back. Covered on every inch of space were
the written words...
she is the Second Sign
in blood red
letters. The smell that assaulted him forced him to cover his nose
and mouth to keep from puking.

“No. No. This is not good,” Gabby muttered, her wide
eyes looking at every inch of space. She curled her hands into
fists and hid them under her armpit as if she didn’t want to risk
touching anything.

“Let’s get out of here before I puke on
your
shoes.” He whipped around and found the rain much more pleasant.
Gabby stood back for a few seconds before bolting out the door, her
hair plastered to her head, and her clothes drenched.

“What’s going on?” He took her by the shoulders,
forcing her to look at him. Fear rippled through her body, seeping
into him by mere distance.

“The Crossroads. We gotta get to the Crossroads. She
mentioned she might go there with someone.” Gabby ran to the bike
and Jake followed.

They made it to a narrow, dirt road leading deeper
into the woods. Jake hesitated, deciding the slippery road too
dangerous. “We gotta go in by foot. I’m not chancing a spill.” He
had to yell over the drumming thunder that rolled overhead.

Gabby nodded. Taking her hand, they ran into the
narrow, dirt road that was now a mudfest. About a few yards from
the main road stood a dilapidated frame two-story house, long
abandoned by the looks of it. Jake stopped and Gabby slipped from
his grasp, running inside the house. He looked up into the
windowpane on the second floor. Between wooden planks that covered
the window, a woman stared back at him, a broad smile on her
bloodied face revealed jagged rows of teeth.

Gabby’s scream snapped him back to reality, and he
ran toward the house, bounding up the porch steps and rammed into
the front door hard, just as it slammed shut, forcing him to fall
back down on his butt. Pain zipped up his spine. Gritting his
teeth, he bolted up again and tried the knob. Locked. He pounded on
the door. “Gabby! Open the door!”

Another echo of a scream bounced back and fear
melded inside him as he jumped down the steps and went around the
back. He rammed the door with his good shoulder and it exploded
open, sending wood and splinters inside with him. He lost his
footing and tumbled over something on the floor. He reached out his
hand toward the countertop in an effort to catch his balance, but
came across a thick slippery substance and went sprawling to the
hard floor.

A scream wedged in his throat as he skittered on the
slippery floor, lifting himself up on his palms and knees, getting
up to a horror movie. He’d fallen over a body of a boy. The slick
substance on the counter and floor was blood and he reeked with it.
It clung to his hands, his clothes, and his boots. Red. Blood. He
wiped his hands on his wet jeans, feeling as if millions of tiny
ants were crawling under his flesh. He shuddered, his eyes fixed to
the splatter of flesh on the floor, the lifeless body that once was
a boy. Terror filled him and he bit down hard to avoid letting out
a scream. He needed to find Gabby and get out. He tore his eyes
away from the dead kid and burst into the living room.

A second corpse lay in a pool of blood, his head
split in two. Bone, hair, and brain exposed. Jake felt sick. The
front door lay wide open. The door had been locked. He was sure of
it. The floorboards above him creaked and he bounded up the stairs.
His heart almost burst out of his throat at his reflection in the
hallway mirror.

“Calm the fuck down,” he whispered. Being scared
shitless of his reflection meant he was losing his nerve. And he
couldn’t go there. Couldn’t leave Gabby.
Focus.
He breathed
in shallow drafts. Thunder forced the foundation to shudder under
him.

The thick air in the second landing made him break
out in chills. He wanted to call Gabby’s name, but found he had no
voice. The door of the first room on his left stood open and
spilled a sliver of light into the hallway. He slowly stepped
toward it, cursing every noise the floorboards made under him. He
might as well run, at least
he
would be the one surprising
whoever waited for him instead of the other way around.

He pushed the door.

A gray light filtered into the room between the
planks that boarded up the window. Long shadows retreated from him
as he entered, his footfalls loud in his ears. He rounded the bed
toward a corner where someone lay. His heart slamming in his chest,
the burning in his back returned as he took in the body lying in a
pool of blood. His stomach dropped. It was a girl, her brown eyes
open, glazed, staring up at the ceiling for a heaven that would
never come. Her head had been beaten to a pulp, and her body had
been chopped in half. Jake gagged, cupping his mouth with his
hands.

“Fuck this,” Jake whispered and ran. “Gabby! Where
are you!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, running into every
room looking for her.

Why did she go in without him? Why did she leave him
out alone? Didn’t she realize the danger? Fear laced through him.
He reached the last room and looked out the shattered window,
leading toward the thicket of the forest. He caught a glimpse of
dark hair running into the forest. Without a thought he bounded
down the stairs and ran after her.

Boots were definitely not made for running,
especially in the mud clad, rain-soaked ground. He slipped twice.
And Gabby ran faster than him. Shadows loomed under the canopy of
trees. Lightening gave them substance, and there was a lot of
lightening. “Gabby!” he called.

He wiped the rain out of his eyes and saw her, just
beyond a rim of trees out in a small, circular clearing. She stood
still as stone, her eyes wide, her chest rising and falling with
every inhalation of breath. Relief spread through him, just before
a shadow leapt at him. He felt his head split in two, forcing his
mind to reel back to the kid with the hatchet stuck in his skull,
and then the lights went out.

The Second Sign

Gabby turned just in time to see Jake. Relief spread
through her. He was alive. Before she could warn him, Heather shot
out of the shadows and hit him with a plank on the head. He went
down hard. Gabby’s heart plummeted, and she charged Heather who was
just a blur of wild hair and rotted clothes. Gabby slammed into
her, knocking the wind out of her and lifting her up off the ground
for a brief moment before falling on her. They rolled twice before
coming to a stop. Heather leapt off Gabby as if burned by her very
touch.

“Why?” Gabby roared, wiping her hair from her eyes
and standing up, balanced, ready to dive if need be.