Kara sat on the edge of the bed and watched as beads of sweat glistened on her mother’s forehead. She hoped the fever had reached its peak. She leaned forward and pressed a cool cloth over her mother’s forehead. Her skin was pasty and sickly—grey, like a day—old corpse. Her lips twitched in her uneasy sleep, but she didn’t wake up. Kara watched her mother slipping away, and she feared the worst. Her eyes stung and tears rolled freely down her face.
“It’s just the flu virus,” the doctors had said, “nothing to do but rest and wait it out.”
They had pushed Kara and her mother out of the local clinic and locked the doors behind them.
That was three weeks ago, and her mother was getting worse.
It wasn’t just a normal flu virus, Kara was certain of that. Her mother hadn’t woken this morning, and it was now early in the night—it was almost as though she were in a coma. Whatever it was, she could see her mother was struggling against it. Something was definitely wrong.
A pale sliver of light poked through a gap in the curtains, and her mother’s pale face glowed white in the darkness. The small room was lit dimly by the single tiffany lamp that sat on the bedside table. Like all the rest of the furniture in the apartment, it had belonged to her grandmother. Kara took comfort from their familiarity. She reached out and clasped her mother’s hand—it was ice cold.
She wiped the tears from her face and glanced out the window.
Snow brushed gently against the glass. The heavy darkness outside sucked all the happiness out of her. The winds intensified and drummed along to her heart’s rhythm. She felt like she was having an anxiety attack. She let out a long shaky breath as she tried to calm herself. Gently, she let go of her mother’s hand.
She picked up her cell phone on the wooden bedside table.
No new calls.
The cell phone felt unnaturally heavy in her hand, like a bucket of paint. She placed it back on the small table, before it slipped from her sweaty fingers. She felt uneasy.
David was the closest thing she had to a family, beside her mother, and she needed him with her now. But where was he? It wasn’t like him not to return her calls. Had he gotten sick, too? Kara fought to control the panic that rose in her chest and wiped her clammy palms on her jeans.
But what if something else entirely had gotten to David?
Goosebumps pebbled her skin as black shapes haunted her again. Darkness had always seemed to follow her, and as time had worn on, she had begun to see more and more unexplainable things, just as her mother had done. Kara saw creatures from nightmares creep from the shadows. More than once she had the distinct impression that foul beings, not of this world, had tried to attack her on her way home from her night classes. She had never shared her fears with David; she was sure he’d think she was crazy. But she knew that whatever abnormalities her mother suffered from had been passed on to her. It was in her blood. And she wouldn’t risk losing David’s friendship by telling him she could see monsters.
Kara sighed and turned her attention back to her mother. Her face was contorted in pain, and then she started to shake. A lump formed in Kara’s throat. She had to do something. The least she could do was find something to help relieve the pain; she couldn’t just sit and watch her mother suffer. There was a twenty—four hour drugstore two blocks away.
She rose from the bed—something passed over her mother’s face like a shadow.
Bright green markings appeared along her mother’s forehead and the side of her face like glowing tattoos. They were like words, but Kara couldn’t make sense of them. What were they? She had never heard of a virus that caused markings on the skin. What was happening? She leaned closer for a better look—
Knock. Knock!
With her heart in her throat, Kara whirled around and strained to listen. The sound had come from the apartment’s front door.
David! Thank God!
Kara sprinted into the hallway and made her way to the front door.
Two police officers stood on the threshold.
The woman was a head taller than Kara. She had cold calculating eyes and the pinched expression of a schoolteacher about to scold. Her long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail behind her navy—blue cap. She clutched a stack of papers and a note pad importantly.
Her partner looked like a linebacker, ready to charge. Nearly as thick as he was tall, his muscular shoulders bulged under his navy—blue patrol uniform.
Snow melted off their black polished boots and left a watery trail down the hallway.
Kara exhaled when she realized she was still holding her breath and forced a smile. “Can I help you?”
She hoped they couldn’t hear the disappointment in her voice.
The woman’s brown eyes sparkled, and she smiled at Kara. “My name is Officer Norman, and this is Officer Baker. Are your parents home?”
She looked over Kara’s shoulder.
Kara studied the police officers’ faces for a moment before answering. “Yes. But it’s just me and my mom.”
“Can we speak to her?” asked Officer Norman.
Kara felt tightness in her throat. “Uh...no. She’s not well, you see. She’s...she’s...sick.” Her voice cracked. She saw fear flash in officer Norman’s eyes, for just a second, long enough to see it.
“What is it that you want?”
Officer Norman scribbled something on her notepad, and then she looked up. “We’re patrolling the neighborhoods tonight. Making sure everything’s in order.”
Kara shifted her weight. She didn’t like the way they were staring at her.
“Why are you patrolling the neighborhoods? Is there something wrong?”
The two officers exchanged a look.
“What’s going on?”
Officer Baker looked familiar to Kara, but she couldn’t recall where she had seen him before. Was he a bus driver?
“We’re asking everyone to stay inside. We need to know where you are, and that you are safe, ma’am.”
Kara didn’t like the sound of this at all.
“Why do you need to know where I am? Is this a curfew...seriously? It’s the common cold! I doubt a curfew is going to solve anything. Is there something else you’re not telling me?”
From their edgy expressions, she got the unmistakable feeling that something more was going on.
“We just want to avoid more people getting sick, that’s all,” said Officer Baker.
His voice was hoarse as though he had never used it before. He measured Kara from under his cap, and she could see the tightness around his mouth. His aftershave was so strong that she thought he must have applied it to cover up some other nasty odor. She forced herself not to grimace.
“In the meantime,” he continued, “you stay home and look after your mother. They’ll find a cure and then things will get back to normal.”
A cure? What were they not telling her?
The glowing symbols on her mother’s forehead weren’t normal. Something was terribly wrong.
Kara’s fingernails dug into her palms. “My mother’s in pain, she needs medication. I just need to step out for a few minutes and go to the drugstore—”
“You’re not going anywhere tonight.” Officer Baker pointed a large finger at Kara. “You understand me, kid? Don’t think of doing anything stupid. Nobody out after seven o’clock. Those are the rules.”
Kara’s lips trembled. Nobody called her stupid— and she didn’t care for rules. As her temper rose, so did her voice. “But my mother needs help. I’m going to get her some meds—”
“No you’re not. There’s nothing you can do to help her now. You stay put, you hear me?” said Officer Baker.
Kara glowered at them. She felt her hatred rise from the top of her head like steam from a pot. “Fine. Whatever. Officers.”
Officer Norman shared a sidelong glance with her partner before turning back to Kara.
“Good, so we’re clear. We have to keep moving, we have a lot
of ground to cover tonight. Lock the door once we’re gone—”
Kara slammed the door in their faces. She didn’t need to be told twice. She wasn’t even sure that they were real police officers. She waited until she heard the sound of their heavy boots tapering away before she kicked the door with her foot. She felt nauseated, but she knew what she had to do.
Kara dashed across the hallway and made her way towards the living room’s large bay window. She peered through the plastic white horizontal blinds, her nose inches from the glass. Below, the streets were covered in blankets of white. Street lamps cast tiny yellow lights that sparkled in the snow. Headlights illuminated the street for a second, and Kara saw a black cat scurry under a parked car. Two shapes emerged from below, and she watched them make their way towards the next building to her left. She smiled when they disappeared inside.
Her mother needed meds. And no curfew was going to stop her from getting them.
“I’ll show them the meaning of stupid.”
Kara ran into her room and pulled open her closet doors. After rummaging inside, she withdrew a black winter sky jacket with a faux—fur lined hood and pulled it on. Then she grabbed her backpack and stuffed wool mitts into her pockets. She ran back to her mother’s bedroom and grabbed her cell phone. Her mother’s forehead glowed sporadically with toxic green symbols that looked almost as though they were breathing.
Kara bent over and kissed her mother’s cheek. “I love you mom. I’m going to the drugstore. I’ll be back soon. I’m going to make you better again, I promise.”
Her mother didn’t show any signs that she had understood, and Kara’s eyes burned as she ran to the kitchen.
She grabbed the flashlight from the cabinet above the fridge and then dashed towards the apartment’s front door. She pulled open the door and locked it behind her with a click.
Her backpack bounced against her back as she rushed down the hall, and she jumped down the stairs two at a time. The lobby was a blur of beige and brown. Once she had emerged through the glass doors, Kara was glad of the cool December air that soothed her hot face.
She caught her breath. The wind swirled around her as she stood facing the darkness. Thick snowflakes fell from the black sky like leaves from a tree. She looked over to her left. The police officers were still inside the apartment building. Snow lifted off the ground and twisted around in white whirlwinds. It was unusually quiet for a Friday night—nobody was on the streets.
The decrepit street lamps gave off just enough light for Kara to recognize the snow—covered sidewalks. The local drugstore was just two blocks away.
She would run it.
As she ran, her breath escaped her lips in rolling coils of white mist. She hurried up the quiet street, but her tread crunched against the packed snow and echoed around her too loudly.
She heard muffled voices in the darkness and threw herself down behind a parked car. Her knees stung with pain as she grazed them against the sharp edge of its rusty bumper.
Two more police officers emerged around the street corner. They walked towards her. She cursed softly and crawled around to the other side of the car. Kneeling, she watched their boots make their way past her hiding place and then disappear down the next block. She stood up slowly. Both her knees throbbed in pain. She pressed her fingers against them, her jeans were torn, and she could feel wetness on her fingertips.
Too late to go back home for some Band—Aids—besides; it was only a little scrape. Kara made her way around the car and back onto the sidewalk.
Something moved in the corner of her eye.
Kara froze. She peered into darkness that stared back at her. Was the night playing with her mind? Had she imaged a tall shape gliding across the street up ahead?
She turned to see a green mist pour into the street toward her like a great wave. It flowed above the snow, moving fast, against the wind. What is that? Kara shook her head and ran into the dark snowy wind. The drugstore was just ahead. The police would never see her in this blizzard.
SMACK!
Kara stumbled backwards and nearly fell. She steadied herself, blinked through her snow—caked lashes and looked up. She had crashed into someone. At first she panicked thinking it was a police officer, but she quickly recovered when she saw the girl’s face.
“Sabrina?” said Kara. The young girl from first floor in her building was shivering.
“Oh my god, where’s your coat? Why are you out here in the cold in a t—shirt? You’ll catch your death out here.”
Snow clung to Sabrina’s hair like thick icicles. Melted snowflakes dripped from her nose. She trembled uncontrollably. Her pale skin shone in the moonlight.
“There’s some kind of curfew, you know. You’d better get inside before the police catch you.” Kara leaned closer for a better look at her neighbor.
“Sabrina? Are you all right? You’re shaking like a leaf.”
Sabrina lifted her head, and Kara’s blood froze. Green symbols flashed across her face—the same as her mother’s. Her face was hollow and sunken like she hadn’t eaten in a month. Her sad empty eyes stared as if she had lost something close to her. She reminded Kara of the living dead in the zombie—movie she had watched with David.
Sabrina’s lips moved aimlessly as she brushed past Kara and walked off into the darkness.
“Sabrina!”
The girl disappeared. Kara knew she could do nothing to help her.
Straining through the blizzard, Kara scanned the street up ahead. There was nothing there, but she couldn’t shake the strange feeling that she was being watched.
And then she saw it.
On the other side of the street, something massive and slippery glided towards her. For a moment a street lamp illuminated the raw blood—red flesh of its twisted body. It looked like a cross between a skinned gorilla and a giant beetle, with glassy red eyes and a gaping maw.
The wind carried a putrid smell, like a mixture of vomit and decaying flesh. The snow around the creature melted away from its heat. It suddenly moved towards her. She dared not breathe.
With a giant leap, the creature came at her, thrashing massive clawed hands.
Kara tripped and fell hard on the ground. She pulled off her mitts and rummaged through her backpack, madly searching for her flashlight. She clasped it in her hand and brandished it like a weapon. As strange as it was, she found courage somehow, courage enough to go down fighting this thing.
Its razor sharp claws scraped the ground as it charged. The ground vibrated, and Kara fought the urge to vomit as the putrid garbage truck smell of the creature filled the air. She looked into its red glowing eyes as it lunged.
Kara impulsively flicked the switch and pointed the light straight at the creature.
She heard a scream but couldn’t tell if it was her own or the creature’s.
The creature fell back shrieking horribly, and her legs exploded in burning pain, as though a bucket of acid was eating away at her flesh. She dragged herself a few feet away from the thrashing creature. She blinked away the tears from her eyes and looked upon the thing that attacked her.
Steam rolled off the creature’s front and back. Its rotten flesh slid off its body in clumps, and the smell of burnt flesh made her lungs burn and her eyes water. A large open wound in the shape of a lightning bolt zigzagged across the creature’s chest, exposing the red rotten flesh beneath. Even in the darkness she could make out black liquid oozing out of the large gash.
She watched the creature howl in pain as its body sizzled and popped, thrashing around on the ground over and over. The flashlight. Somehow, the light had burned the creature.
Her legs felt warm—horrified, she realized she was sitting in a puddle of her own blood. The creature had struck an artery on her leg. She was bleeding out. If she didn’t get to a hospital soon, she would die...
She dragged in a single breath, then another. She choked on the smell of burning flesh. She could barely see through the layer of snow tha
t stuck over her eyes. Then a low growl came from behind.
Kara turned the flashlight in the direction of the noise. Too late.
She soared through the air and smacked into a parked car with a sickening crack. The flashlight flew out of her hands, hit the car and landed in pieces on the ground. The light flickered for a moment and then went out.
She lay crumbled on the ground, broken. She couldn’t move. She looked into the red maddened eyes that glared down at her. She thought of her mother. The beast wailed in fury. It was going to tear her apart. It raised its giant clawed arm for the kill...
A glowing red sphere flew across the night sky and hit the creature. The sphere exploded on impact like a firebomb. Instantly, the creature’s body was engulfed in red light. Its ear splitting wails filled the night sky and then the red light went out and the creature vanished.
“Kara!”
A young man kneeled down beside her. His bright blue eyes glistened with concern. She had a strange feeling she’d seen his handsome face before. But it didn’t matter. It was too late. She knew she was dying. She thought of her mother, waiting alone in her room. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks. Kara didn’t care if she lived or died—she only wanted the pain to end.
Let it end...
“I’m so sorry, Kara, this wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to feel any pain. This is all my fault!”
As she felt her life slipping away, she looked at him more carefully. His skin glowed as though a halo surrounded him. His blond hair illuminated his head like a golden crown. Who was this stranger?
“You’ll be all right soon,” continued the stranger. “The guardian angel legion needs you. This is only a changeover...this isn’t the end.”
Kara struggled to keep her eyes open. She was hallucinating about legions of angels—a sure sign that the end was near. She felt so cold.
The stranger took her hand, and she felt a little warmth from his. She tried to speak, to ask him who he was, but her lips were like cement blocks.
“Man, you’ve always been a freaking demon magnet, you know. They’re always looking for your soul,” she heard the stranger say. “I’ll never let them take you. You’re safe with me now. I’ve got you.”
As she succumbed to the darkness, her last thought was that this guy was definitely just as crazy as her mother.
And then she didn’t remember anything else.
Chapter 2
A new threat
Marked, Soul Guardians Book 1 Page 110