by Jerry Hart
She turned to warn the others when something from above grabbed her throat—it was a hand. She tried to scream, but couldn’t. She tried to point her pistol at it, but another hand grabbed it out of hers. Alyssa tried to see who or what it was that had grabbed her, but all she could see was the top of its head.
Whatever it was, it had red shoulder-length hair and was gripping a fire-escape ladder with its feet, the better to free up its hands, which were grasping Alyssa very tightly by the throat, stifling her cry for help.
* * *
Owen and Chris studied the tracker closely now. The dot on the display screen was flashing, the distance from the dot reading five feet.
Chris put the tracker in his jacket pocket and aimed his gun. He nodded to Owen, then tipped his hand to Alyssa, not bothering to look back to see if she got the gesture to move forward. When they got to the green dumpster, they saw the lid was closed. Chris opened it quickly; he and Owen ganged up on it, pointing their weapons inside.
There was a body inside, but it wasn’t the girl Chris had talked to at the diner. It was Eric; the thing had reverted back to that form. It appeared to be dead. Its remaining eye was wide open.
Chris gave Owen a quizzical look, then glanced back at Alyssa only to find she wasn’t there. “Oh, crap!”
Owen noticed, also. The two of them started to backtrack, looking high and low. There were a few trashcans and boxes in the alley, but Alyssa was nowhere to be found.
“Oh, god,” Chris repeated over and over.
Owen turned around again, back toward the dumpster, and saw someone standing just beyond it. No, not just one person.
There were two people.
Chris turned and saw them, too. One of the figures was tall and skinny; the other had long brown hair and was being held at arm’s length by the throat.
It was Alyssa.
“Hey, guys,” said the stranger.
Chris and Owen started walking toward them.
“Who are you?” Chris asked.
“That’s not important,” said the stranger. “I’m going to keep this short. I want you”—he pointed at Owen—“to come with me now. If you don’t, I’m going to kill this chick.”
Chris shook with fear. There was no way he could go through with his stand on hostage negotiation now, not when it was Alyssa who was the hostage.
Apparently Owen agreed. He looked at Chris, gave him a nod, then said, “I can handle myself.”
* * *
Owen slung his crossbow over his shoulder, and then walked toward the stranger, hands up to show he posed no threat. As he drew closer to them, the stranger slowly let Alyssa go. She stood there for a moment, looking back and forth between him and Owen, then she started to run back to Chris. Owen gave her his crossbow. She took it without a word. That’s what he loved about her: She was brave.
“I feel like we’ve met before,” Owen said to the redhead.
“We did,” said the stranger. “I’ve been looking for you, my friend.”
“What for?”
The stranger looked confused. “You don’t remember our conversation? I asked for your help and you turned me down. You can still change your mind. I have the answers to all your questions.”
Now Owen looked confused. “What questions?”
“I can tell you where your mother is. I felt how much you wanted to know that.”
Slowly but surely, Owen started to remember a conversation about his mother. And about the orb.
Suddenly the stranger reached out and grabbed him. Owen grabbed the guy’s arm, thinking he could easily break away from his grip, but he found the stranger was surprisingly strong. All Owen could do now was punch him square in the chest, sending him flying a few feet in the air.
The stranger bounced off the wall and came running back at Owen, ramming him. Owen grabbed the redhead and spun him around while pinning his arm behind him.
“What do you want?” Owen asked, pulling the stranger’s arm farther behind him.
“I just need your help with something,” the redhead said with a laugh. “No big deal.”
“You tried to kill my friend. Don’t tell me it’s no big deal.”
Owen was angrier than he thought possible. He twisted the kid’s arm, hoping to get a grunt of pain from him. The redhead didn’t oblige. Owen couldn’t see his face, which was facing away, but he figured the boy was wearing a smug smile, which reminded Owen of his encounter with Eric. That made him even angrier, so he grabbed the back of the redhead’s shirt and threw him into the wall as hard as he could. The brick wall cracked.
* * *
Alyssa almost reached Chris, but something jumped out of the dumpster and landed right behind him. He heard it land on the ground, making a loud splash in the garbage water that soaked the alley. Alyssa came to a dead stop, which confirmed to Chris that he was in trouble.
He spun around when Alyssa screamed and saw Eric as he’d never seen him before. He was significantly taller now; his torso stretched before Chris’s eyes. Chris could see his stomach because the pink shirt now appeared too small. But that wasn’t all: Eric’s arms were longer, too. And his neck was starting to stretch.
His eyes were now a fierce yellow and his skin was starting to turn tar black. It no longer looked like Eric; it appeared to be something else entirely, something Chris had only seen once before in a horror movie.
This was its true form.
Alyssa grabbed Chris and pulled him away from the monstrosity as it swiped its arm at him. Chris felt the air swish past him as the claw just missed tearing his face off. He aimed his gun at the creature and squeezed off a shot, but he missed.
The monster grabbed the dumpster, lifted it off the ground with little effort, and then swung at Chris, knocking the gun out of his hand. The creature towered over him now, and was just about to swing the dumpster again when something shot into its right eye. It was a silver arrow. Chris spun around and saw Alyssa standing there with Owen’s crossbow in her hands.
Owen was running toward them now. “Sorry I’m late!” he yelled as he approached.
At the sound of his voice, the creature blindly tossed the dumpster in Owen’s direction. It toppled, end over end, down the alley. Owen dove out of its path as it came to rest in the middle of the alley.
“No problem,” said Chris. “Shoot another one into its heart so we can get the hell out of here.”
Owen took the crossbow from Alyssa and aimed it at the creature, but before he could shoot, something yanked Alyssa violently off the ground.
* * *
Chris was screaming now. It was a long, horrible scream. Owen stood frozen, eyes wide, as blood splashed across his face and clothes. Chris was still screaming, though he too was covered in blood.
The stranger had thrown Alyssa against a wall in one quick, effortless motion, and she lay on the ground, her eyes open and unseeing. Chris was still screaming as Owen pulled him away from the scene. They were running back to the end of the alley where they had entered.
Owen couldn’t think right now. All he wanted to do was get away from here, out of the alley. Away from the stranger. He was only faintly aware of Chris’s continued wailing.
Suddenly he was aware of something else. A loud thud sounded from behind them. Owen didn’t look back but up, where he saw the dumpster flying over their heads. It landed hard in front of them, blocking their path.
Chris finally stopped screaming and looked back to see the stranger charging them. He was going to crush them against the dumpster. Just before impact, though, Owen grabbed Chris by the collar of his hoodie, and they leaped high into the air. The stranger slammed into the dumpster, causing it to slide along the ground.
Owen and Chris were still in the air, but Owen had jumped at an angle, over and away from the dumpster. The dumpster finally came to rest right under them, and they fell into it. Owen nearly felt like giving up; Alyssa was dead, and he felt completely out of energy now. It was like he had died with her.
&nb
sp; Just then a hand grabbed his shoulder. He thought it was the stranger, and reached for the hand to push it away, but it turned out to be Chris, who had already climbed out. He was trying to pull Owen out of the dumpster as well.
Owen followed just as the stranger began running down the alley toward them. Owen and Chris tore down the alley, away from the thing that killed Alyssa. All of their courage was gone. Owen couldn’t believe he was running away, couldn’t stop his feet from moving. He just wanted to get away.
Away from the thing that killed his friend.
“Watch out!” Chris screamed.
He was looking over his shoulder. Owen looked, too, and saw the dumpster flying toward them again. Instead of saying anything, Owen stopped running, lunged into the air, grabbed the dumpster, and launched it back toward the stranger.
Owen landed on the ground just as the dumpster fell on the guy who had thrown it at them. Mesmerized for a moment about what he’d just done, Owen didn’t realize Chris was staring, wide-eyed, at him.
The dumpster sat silently in the middle of the alley where the stranger had been standing a moment before. And then it started to move.
“Come on,” said Chris, and the two of them ran across the street to the parking lot. “My car.”
But Owen ran to Alyssa’s SUV.
“What are you doing?” Chris screamed.
Owen wasn’t paying attention. Instead, he punched out the driver’s-side window and the back window, grabbed the frames of the doors, then lifted the vehicle into the air. To him, it gave only the slightest resistance. He spun around a few times with the SUV in his hands, and then launched it toward the alley. The red-haired monster approached the opening of the alley, just about to cross the street, when the vehicle struck him and exploded. The windows of the bank and boutique blew out at once.
Car alarms went off. A few dogs started barking. And people were watching.
“Owen, we have to go,” Chris said, but Owen wasn’t paying attention. He was staring at the explosion he just caused. At the vehicle he’d just thrown across the street. He wasn’t aware until this very moment he was capable of such feats. He didn’t know what came over him. He looked to Chris, who was staring back at him, jaw dropped.
“Get in,” he whispered to Owen.
He jumped into Chris’s Camaro, and the two of them sped away from the scene.
* * *
Daniel nearly jumped out of his skin when the front door slammed open. He had fallen asleep on the couch, a screwdriver in his hand. And now he was wide awake, his face numb from liquor, and his head throbbing.
Owen and Chris ran in and slammed the door behind them. They were pale and sweaty and covered with something red. Owen ran to the nearest trashcan and threw up in it. Chris collapsed next to the couch, looking at the floor.
“What’s wrong?” Daniel asked him.
Chris didn’t answer. He didn’t even acknowledge Daniel. And then Daniel noticed Alyssa had not come in with them. He turned desperately to Owen.
“What happened? Where’s Alyssa?”
Owen turned his pale, sweaty face to Daniel and shook his head. Daniel looked back to Chris.
“No.” That was all Daniel could manage. He felt like throwing up, too. He stood up and hobbled over to Chris, picking him up off of the floor. “What happened?” he asked Chris.
“He killed her,” Chris said, his voice monotonous.
Silence unlike anything Daniel had ever experienced overcame him. It was as if he’d gone deaf. “Who?” he asked, though he could barely hear himself. “Eric?”
Chris shook his head and collapsed on the couch. “Someone else working with Eric.”
Daniel could feel tears coming but he would not let them. Holding them at bay hurt his eyes. “Who?”
“I don’t know who,” Chris whispered. “It must have been the guy the shape-shifter warned me about.”
Daniel was barely listening anymore. All he could think of was what Alyssa had kept saying, about how she felt something bad was going to happen to her.
And then it suddenly sunk in—she was gone, she was dead. He looked Owen and Chris up and down, noticing the red stuff splattered all over their faces.
“How did she die?” Daniel found himself asking.
Owen just shook his head. Chris, however, said, “This guy … threw her against a wall.”
Daniel nearly collapsed. The tears started to flow now, but he didn’t feel as if he were crying. It felt more like he’d simply sprung a leak. He didn’t really feel any emotion at that point; he was numb.
“He had red hair,” Owen suddenly said.
This jerked Daniel out of his stupor. “Red hair?”
“Yeah.”
“I saw a guy at the party with red hair.”
“I know. I saw him there, too. Do you know his name?” Owen asked.
“Michael.”
Suddenly Owen headed for the front door.
“Where are you going?” Chris yelled.
“I’m going back to make sure he’s dead.” He paused, and then added, “And to get Alyssa’s body.”
He was out the door before anyone could protest.
* * *
The shape-shifter couldn’t move. Having heard (and felt) an explosion only moments ago, it lay in the alley, too afraid to do anything. It was completely blind now, due to the arrow that had pierced its other eye.
How could things have gone so wrong? The creature, having tasted the blood of the one known as Chris, had figured he’d bring along what he called “trackers” to try and keep tabs on it, so it had allowed him the opportunity by leaving its glass of water vulnerable on the table at the diner.
Then it lay in the dumpster, waiting for the monster hunters to discover it, giving Michael the chance to catch them off-guard. It all seemed to work out just fine. Its decision to transform into someone other than Stephanie had been necessary—now that she was in the hospital, it was too risky, much like with Eric, to walk around in her image.
Luckily there had been a few passed-out partygoers left at David’s party, one of them an attractive girl. For some reason, Michael had ordered the shape-shifter not to drain the poor girl completely, so the creature had only gotten enough of her DNA to transform temporarily. After it had worn off, the monster had decided to turn back into Eric since that was the form it was so accustomed to. Plus, it seemed like a dramatically appropriate form to take when it killed Owen.
Then it waited.
And now it heard footsteps approaching. It started to shake. The shape-shifter had never before felt fear, but this had to be what it was overcoming its senses.
“It’s all right,” said a familiar voice. “It’s just me.”
It was Michael. Now the shape-shifter could feel a hand pressed against its shoulder. It was comforting.
“They got away,” Michael continued, “but it wasn’t your fault. I want to thank you.”
“What am I?” the shape-shifter heard itself ask.
There was silence for a moment, and then Michael exhaled. “You’re not from this world. You were being used for something, you and the others.”
“For what?”
“Your venom, my friend. To power my orb.”
Before it could ask “What orb?” it felt Michael’s hand leave its shoulder. Suddenly the shape-shifter felt a sharp pain in its chest just over its heart, as if an arrow was stabbing it.
And then it felt nothing at all.
* * *
Owen stood on the roof of a building near the alley where Alyssa had lost her life. There were a few cops crowding around her SUV, talking among themselves and keeping pedestrians away.
He jumped to the next roof, closer to the scene. As far as he could see, there were no bodies recovered from the alley. None whatsoever.
Seeing the charred SUV made Owen’s heart race. He had done that. He still didn’t understand how he managed to throw the vehicle. He only remembered being so enraged by what the stranger had done to Alys
sa. The rage had caused him to grab the first thing he saw, no matter what it was, and hurl it toward the alley.
Owen hadn’t even realized how impossible his actions had been until after the explosion. The look on Chris’s face had scared him into realizing what he had done wasn’t normal.
Where did that power come from?
Who was Michael? Had they spoken before? Did that monster really know where Owen’s mother was?
There were too many questions he wanted answered.
CHAPTER 16
Chris drove down some highway Owen didn’t recognize; the buildings slowly disappeared, making way into dark country. Owen just looked out the window, taking in the sights—or lack thereof. He’d grown up in the country, so he should’ve been used to the lonely quietness of it, but he’d spent the last two years in the city, so this all felt alien to him now.
He could just barely make out the trees against the moonlit sky. It was an eerie and lonely sight. He quickly wiped away a tear from his eye and hoped Chris hadn’t noticed.
Owen’s thoughts dwelled on Alyssa. She would never see these trees, or the moon, or animals, or anything ever again. He still couldn’t believe what had happened to her. He didn’t want to believe. No one deserved to die like that.
Of course, it was hard to think of Alyssa and not also think of Michael. Owen wasn’t sure what he would do when he got his hands on him again. He didn’t care how strong and inhuman Michael was; Owen knew he was stronger than most people and if there was anyone who could stand up to Michael, it was him.
“Are you hot?” Chris asked him, but he couldn’t muster enough energy to answer.
He grew gradually colder and assumed Chris had turned on the air conditioner. After a few minutes, Owen could see his breath fogging the window on which he rested his head. The images outside of the window were getting harder to see now; it gave the woods an even dreamier appearance. He wished all of this were a dream. That way, his dad would still be here with him, Alyssa would still be alive, and there would be no Michael. He had told Chris and Daniel no bodies had been recovered from the alley. That had to mean Michael was still alive and had taken Alyssa’s body with him.