I jotted up the steps, pulling my keys out of my pocket, only to find the door was ajar. I could feel the heat inside the house wafting through the small crack. I pushed the door open and went inside, dropping my pack at the door. I closed and locked the door behind me.
“Mom?” I called.
The TV was on, but there was no one in the living room. The TV was broadcasting the same kind of images I’d seen with Madame Knightly the night before. This morning it showed the image of a riot in Philadelphia. The scrawling banner underneath dictated which states, not cities, were now under martial law. Connecticut was now on the list. A moment later the TV switched from national to local news. A familiar looking TV reporter came on.
“Good morning. The situation in the country this morning is grim…”
“Mom? Larry?”
I headed down the hallway toward the back of the house. It was quiet. I couldn’t hear Larry snoring. I looked into my room. It was exactly as I’d left it the day before. The bathroom door was hanging open. I could see Mom had been there. Her dirty scrubs were lying on the floor and a can of ginger ale sat on the bathroom counter.
“Mom?” I whispered, thinking she was probably sleeping, then pushed the door to her bedroom open only to find the room was completely empty. The bed was unmade, but no one was there. Was she out looking for Larry? Had she gone out for something…for cigarettes?
I headed back to the living room.
“Residents are advised to stay inside their homes. A second concern for our area is the increasing number of people fleeing New York City to the countryside for shelter, many of whom are armed. Use extreme caution. Do not leave your homes unless you must. Call emergency hotlines only where there is extreme need. Local hospitals are flooded. The CDC has issued reports that the infected are suffering unusual side effects and can be dangerous. There have been reports of the inflicted attacking—“
I muted the TV and pulled out my cell phone. I had messages from Zoey, but I slid my finger past them and dialed Mom’s number. I was surprised when I heard her ringtone, the Harry Potter theme song, chime from the kitchen. I rose to discover her purse was slung over the corner of a kitchen chair. Her car keys were still in the candy dish turned catch-all on the table.
I thumbed through Zoey’s messages asking where I was, if I was at Witch Wood, saying that her work was cancelled because the coffee shop was closed, and finally that her little sister had gone missing. I dialed her number. After a moment, the line picked up but she didn’t say hello.
“Zoey?” I called.
No answer.
“Zo? Can you hear me?”
I pressed my ear against the phone. I could hear Zoey. She was talking. But I couldn’t hear what she was saying. “Zoey,” I yelled into the phone.
A moment later, the line went dead.
I sent her a text. Tried to call. Line was funny. I’m back in town. Mom and Larry are MIA. Where are you? WTF is going on?
I looked out across the street toward the Sommers’. No doubt Mom had gone looking for Larry.
Heading back outside, I walked toward the Sommers’ house. As I crossed the lawn, however, the large old oak shifted in the breeze, casting an avalanche of orange-colored leaves down on me. I stopped a moment and noticed the tree’s aura looked brighter, more red. It swayed in the breeze, the leaves and acorns dropping all around me. It was then, however, that I noticed that it wasn’t windy at all. All the same, the tree was moving.
I cast a glance back at the Sommers’ house, at the open door, and I squinted my eyes to really see, to see what only I could see. And I could see that the Sommers’ house was surrounded by a dark aura. Swirling red and black light whirled all around the front door.
I gasped.
The tree stilled.
I turned and headed back inside, stopping once more to set my hand on my beloved oak.
“Thank you,” I whispered then headed into the house, closing and locking the door behind me.
Chapter 8
Hands shaking, I pulled out my phone again. Nothing from Zoey.
Feeling like a snoop, I grabbed my mom’s bag and pulled out her cell phone. She had several missed calls from work. Her best friend Emma had texted twice asking if she was feeling better. Mom hadn’t answered.
Uncertain what to do next, I dialed 911. For love of the Goddess, my mother was sick, and she was missing.
The line rang, and rang, and rang, and rang. After nearly five minutes of waiting, I hung up. No answer on 911? I stared at the TV. The scenes were bloody and violent. They were airing someone’s cell phone footage. The person was running, their cell recording. A moment later, they got jumped. The TV paused on the face of the attacker. He was a male with a large gash down the side of his face. His mouth dripped with bloody saliva. When the film went live again, you could see the camera tumble from the victim’s hands then show a glimpse of the man biting into the victim’s flesh.
Grabbing the remote, I turned the volume back up. The TV broke back to the female reporter. The male reporter who was usually at her side was missing.
“Reports of these kinds of attacks, and seemingly rabid behavior, are coming in from all over the United States. The illness is putting the infected into a schizoid state wherein they…they are turning on their loved ones. They are biting, and in some reports, eating, the living, a delusional form of cannibalism.
“Stay inside your homes. Emergency services are stretched to their limits as the number of infected is growing exponentially.”
Sick to my stomach, I turned off the TV.
I headed back to my bedroom and opened up my box of shadows. Inside were my magical items. I pulled on a protective amulet I had made for myself out of shells, stones, and rowan wood. I grabbed my notebook filled with spells I had written, my crystals, and my pouch full of dried herbs. Last summer Zoey and I had gone to a Renaissance Faire where I’d purchased a small headband made of silver with the waxing and waning moon symbols thereon. I put it on.
“Great Mother, protect me. Father God, protect me,” I whispered.
A moment later, I heard a thump from the other room.
“Mom?”
There was no answer.
Moving slowly, I went back to the living room. The front door was still closed. I looked out the window. The vehicles were still in the driveway, and the Sommers’ door was still open.
I slid my magical items into my backpack and put it on.
I didn’t know how, exactly, but I knew I was in danger. I needed to get out of here. Moving quickly, I flipped over an envelope lying on the table and scrawled a note for my mom to call me at Witch Wood as soon as she got home. While I didn’t know where she was, I could feel I wasn’t safe. I had to go back to Witch Wood.
Thump. Again, the noise. It sounded like a bird had flown into the sliding glass door that led to the backyard. It happened on occasion. But it wasn’t a bird. While the window drapes had been pulled shut, I could see the silhouette of someone standing at the door outside.
Thump. The person banged against the door only to stand there thereafter, not moving, not knocking, just standing there.
I gasped and looked around, then grabbed a large knife from the knife block.
There was only one way in and out of our fenced backyard…through the glass door. I stared at the shadow, distorted by the waves in the fabric.
“Mom?” I whispered.
The person thumped against the door again. Mom kept a pack of cigarettes hidden in the tool shed. Had she gone outside to get them? But if it was her, why wasn’t she answering? Mustering up my courage, the knife poised at the ready, I reached forward with a shaking hand and snatched the curtain back.
Mom stood on the other side of the door. It was her, but she looked…wrong. Her skin was deathly pale. Her eyes had gone moon white. Her mouth hung open. She hissed and slammed against the door, smearing bloody saliva across the glass.
I stepped backward, the knife dropping from my hand.
/> “Mom?”
Out of the corner of my eye I spotted something lying in the backyard. At first it looked like a pile of laundry, but a moment later I identified the purple pansy print fabric of the dress Mrs. Sommers had been wearing the day before. Her body lay slumped in the backyard. Her dress was stained with blood.
Mom slammed against the door again. Her mouth, hands, and chest were caked in blood. She was wearing a white tank top, and her mint-colored scrub bottoms. Both were stained red. Blood and a piece of something pink and pulpy were stuck to her name necklace. The delicate gold of her name, Caroline, was stained red.
“Mom!”
She hissed and slammed at the door once more.
I focused hard, looking at the energy around her. It was completely...infected. The sticky blackness I had seen the day before snaked around her energy. The glimmering colors that always surrounded her life force had been completely replaced by it.
“Mom,” I whimpered, reaching out to touch the glass.
Seeing my hand, my mother snapped at it, tiling her head weirdly as she looked at it and me.
My heart cracked in half and tears rolled down my cheeks. I was too late to help her. Whatever was happening to the others had happened to her too. My mom…she wasn’t right. What had she done to Mrs. Sommers? I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I pulled out the phone and dialed 911 again. Again there was no answer.
“Mom, can you hear me?”
Again, she snapped at me. I remember what the reporter had said, that the infected were dangerous. My mom…was dangerous. How could it be? Hot tears trailed down my cheeks. What could I do? What could I do to help her? I reached out and touched the glass, stroking it along her cheek.
“I love you,” I whispered, shuddering as I cried.
My mother slammed herself against the glass again, this time hitting the glass so hard I thought it might break. I gasped.
At the front of the house, I heard an engine. I looked outside to see Zoey’s old van.
I backed away from the terrible image toward the front door. Pulling it open, I rushed outside and down the steps.
“Amelia,” Zoey screamed from the open van window.
In that same moment, the oak tree shifted wildly, and I turned to see Larry crash through the fire bushes at the side of the yard. He was in the same condition as Mom, blood dripping down his shirt. That same black aura surrounded him. He rushed toward me.
“Amelia! No,” Zoey yelled then jumped out of the van.
Larry was nearly on me in a heartbeat.
“No! Get back,” I shouted, envisioning—and feeling—a bolt of white light shooting from my hands toward him.
Larry grunted and fell backward.
Gasping, I stared at him.
“What did you do?” Zoey exclaimed, looking from me to Larry who was getting up again.
“I…I’m not sure.”
“Let’s go,” Zoey said then, pulling me toward her van. We jumped in and slammed the doors shut. Larry rushed to the back of the van and grabbed the rear windshield wiper.
Zoey gunned it, and Larry fell, blood smearing the glass.
“Jesus Christ,” Zoey swore.
“Pretty sure he has nothing to do with this,” I muttered. I stared down at my hands. What had I done? What…how had I done that?
“Unless he’s, like, planning to show up later today or something. Where’s your mom?”
“Messed up. Sick. She’s in the backyard. She got sick…she…what am I supposed to do? I can’t just leave her there. I keep calling 911,” I said then pulled out my phone and dialed it again. Again, no answer. “Where’s your sister?”
Zoey shook her head. “Like Larry and Caroline. My parents hightailed it out of here last night for their hunting camp. They left without us, told me to come when she showed up. They thought she was just out running with boys all night. They were so pissed at her. She turned up this morning all messed up and then she…she had some weird convulsion and after that she wasn’t right. I…I locked her in the house and took off. I was about to go to Witch Wood when I got your text.
I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. “What do we do? They’re sick. What do we do?”
“I…I don’t know. But I saw some crazy shit driving over here. I think it’s here. It’s bad here now. We need to get somewhere safe.”
“Witch Wood. We’ll be safe out there, and I can’t leave Madame Knightly alone.”
“What about B. and B.?” Zoey asked. It was the nickname we called Brianna and Brian.
“I passed Bri on my way into town. He was headed home with groceries.”
Zoey nodded. “We’ll stop by their house.” She turned her van that direction. When we got to the intersection, an unusual sight caught both of our attention. “Do you see that?” she asked.
Down the street, I saw the grocery store was now on fire, and there was a fight taking place in the parking lot. I heard gunshots.
“Christ,” Zoey swore again, turning away from the scene and driving up a backstreet.
“Can you shoot?” Zoey asked, shoving a handgun at me.
“No,” I said, waving it away. “Where did you get that?”
“Me either. It can’t be hard, right? I loaded it, but never shot it before. My freaking dad. He left the gun with me and ran off. So much for that protective parental instinct.”
“That’s screwed up.”
“Well, they’re assholes. They only think of themselves.”
Zoey pulled the van into the driveway of Brian’s and Brianna’s small house.
The shopping cart Brian had been pushing was lying in the yard toppled over. Canned food and bottled water was spilled across the lawn. The front door was open.
“Not good,” Zoey said, echoing my own thoughts.
We sat for a moment and thought what to do. A second later, however, we heard commotion and Brianna and Brian—Brian still wearing the gas mask—came running out of the house, their dad fast on their heels. Blood was streaked down the front of his shirt.
“Oh, my God,” Zoey said then jumped out of the van.
Hands shaking, I followed.
“Get in,” Zoey yelled to them then grabbed the shovel that was leaning against the mailbox.
Brianna tore across the yard toward us. She was still wearing her pajamas and didn’t have any shoes on. She got to the van first. “Bri, come on,” she yelled back to her brother.
Brian rushed, but his dad reached for him, grabbing him by the back of the shirt. Brian tried to pull himself loose but couldn’t get free. Zoey swept in and nailed their dad hard on the back with the shovel. He let go.
“Brian,” Brianna screamed.
I backed toward the van, sliding back into the seat, as their dad turned and lunged at Zoey.
“Dad, no,” Brian yelled.
Zoey heaved the shovel back and hit the man hard against the side of the head.
He fell.
“Get in,” I called to them.
Brian stood staring at his father who lay twitching on the ground.
“What’s happening?” Brianna cried. “What’s wrong with him? Bri, come on!”
At the sound of his sister’s voice, Brian turned and rushed to the van.
Throwing the shovel down, Zoey jumped into the van. She put the van into reverse just as Brian and Brianna’s dad began to rise slowly from the ground.
“He’s getting up,” I whispered. I looked hard and around him I saw that same black, contaminated aura.
“Zoey, go, go, go,” Brian cried.
Zoey whipped the van back and headed off.
“What the hell!” Brian said. “What the actual hell!”
“Dad was…he was eating Mom!” Brianna said with a shudder.
Brian wrapped his arm around his sister.
“It’s like it happened overnight,” Zoey said.
I shook my head. “It’s been happening. On the news….it’s been happening in other places. I don’t think anyon
e understood what was going on, not really. Mom…she said people have been really sick at the hospital. It’s been building.”
“Where’s your mom?” Brianna asked.
“In our backyard. She’s like your dad.”
Brian pulled off his gas mask. “Zoey, head over to the school.”
“What for?”
“Nate, Logan, and some others are over there. They’re in trouble.”
“And why should I care? We’re going to Witch Wood. Screw them.”
“Zoey,” Brian exclaimed.
“Nate’s a dick. I don’t care what happens to him,” she replied.
“Yeah, me either. But the people who are with him aren’t.”
Zoey sighed heavily.
“Amelia, come on,” Brian said.
Zoey looked at me with a questioning expression on her face.
“Logan,” I said. My heart hurt at the idea that he was in trouble. If I could help him, I would.
“Fine,” Zoey said tartly and turned the car in the direction of the high school.
Chapter 9
Zoey turned toward the high school. All the houses along the street were boarded up. Nothing moved. We pulled into the school parking lot. It was nearly empty. The looming building was dark. Brian was texting furiously.
“No one’s answering. They were hiding out in the nurse’s office. Katie’s sister freaking bit her. She panicked and called Jenna who called Nate. He and the others brought Katie here since there was a riot at the Medical Center in town. Dammit, they aren’t responding.”
Lifting my cell, I tried 911 again. Again, the line was busy.
“Let’s just go. Who the hell knows where they are,” Zoey said.
Brianna had been weeping softly the whole time. Her words rang through my head. Her dad had eaten her mom. Eaten. Was that what my mom had been doing to Mrs. Sommers? Eating her? I inhaled deeply and tried not to cry. No. No way. She couldn’t do something like that. She was just sick. I just needed to get back to Witch Wood and figure out a way to help her.
Witch Wood: The Harvesting Series Book 4 Page 5