The Reaping

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN





Back at the house, I pulled the Camaro into the garage and managed to drag my tired feet through the door and into the kitchen where I collapsed onto one of the bar stools. I crossed my arms on the bar and laid my head down, stress taking its toll on my body, leaving me utterly exhausted.

I heard soft footsteps and I raised my head when I heard them come to a halt somewhere near the doorway that led into the living room. Leah was standing there, smiling broadly. I wondered what she was so frickin’ happy about and my lips were actually pursed to ask just that when the words died on my tongue.

Someone was standing behind Leah. And that someone was my mother.

I don’t think I could’ve been more surprised if I’d awakened locked inside an ant farm wearing a bread tutu and lettuce boots. I came slowly to my feet, my mouth working itself open and closed, open and closed, like a fish out of water.

Finally, with a tolerant, knowing smile, my mother stepped around Leah and made her way to me. She stopped a couple of feet away, giving me a much needed buffer zone.

“You’re even more beautiful than I expected. You glow…from the inside,” she said, reaching out as if to touch my hair in wonder then stopping just short and dropping her hand. “I’m sorry. I’ve just imagined this day for so long and it’s finally here. I- I- I just—” Her voice broke and I saw her chin begin to quiver.

“I have questions,” was all I could squeeze past the lump of emotion in my throat.

My mother nodded, casting her eyes down. “Of course you do. I just got caught up in the- in the—,” she stammered, her eyes finding mine again. They were awash with unshed tears.

I tried for a smile, though I imagined it looked pretty weak and wobbly. I was just so caught off guard, had so many mixed feelings about her, I didn’t really know how to respond.

“Why don’t we go sit down?” Leah was still smiling brightly, maybe a little too brightly. I wondered briefly if she was suffering because of her condition. Her newfound thirst coupled with the smell of my mother’s blood was probably playing wreaking havoc on her control.

“That sounds like a good idea,” I said, almost sighing with relief that the awkward moment was over. “I need to use the bathroom and then I’ll be right back.”

I hurried to my bedroom and shut the door behind. Not stopping there, I all but ran into the bathroom and shut that door behind me as well. I fell in front of the toilet, suddenly overcome with nausea. I had no idea what was the matter with me. It just hit me out of the blue.

I dry-heaved into the commode. Nothing but saliva came out, though. Not even any bile, but that terrible sense of sickness was still strong.

Closing the lid, I laid my cheek against the cool plastic and took deep cleansing breaths. I reasoned that maybe I was too tired or hungry or stressed. I could think of no other logical explanation.

After fifteen minutes, I pushed myself to my feet. I had to get back out there before someone came looking for me or Leah tried to eat my mom.

Splashing cold water on my face helped, but I still had a kind of green look that was uncharacteristic of my skin tone. Luckily my mother hadn’t seen me in, oh I don’t know, a lifetime so she surely wouldn’t notice.

I made my way back out to the living room and sat in the recliner, the seat that had belonged exclusively to my father in every house we’d ever lived in. Taking it didn’t feel like a betrayal or an act of disrespect; it felt comforting, like he was wrapping his arms around me. I leaned my head back against the pillowed headrest and closed my eyes, drinking in the smell of Old Spice that wafted up from the beige material.

I lifted my head and met my mother’s eyes. She was staring at me. So I stared back.

I could see some of me in her—the perfectly oval face (not too long, not too round), the pert nose and almond-shaped green eyes—but the lips were a dead ringer. It was like looking at my own mouth in the mirror, only her lips were moist and stained with a dusty rose gloss whereas mine were usually dry and cracked. I could see some of Grey, too, in the reddish highlights that sparkled in her short, blonde hair. They were only visible when the sun streaming in the window hit them a certain way, but they were definitely there. I hoped that was all she had in common with Grey.

But despite the physical similarities, she still didn’t feel like “Momma” or “Mom” or even “Mother”. She felt like Janine, a distant aunt. Or Janine, my fourth grade English teacher. It was strange, especially considering how long and how badly I’d always wanted a mother.

“Your father’s chair,” Janine said. “He always laid claim to the recliner, though I’m sure you’ve gone through several since that old green one.”

“This is the third one in five years,” I said, feeling the corners of my mouth threaten to pull up into a smile. I squelched the urge.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she admitted, smiling in nostalgia. Then her expression sobered. “I was so sorry to hear that he died. I wish—” She stopped when her voice cracked. She cleared it and continued. “I wish I could’ve seen him again. I’d thought so many times about coming to find him, but always talked myself out of it. I wasn’t sure he wanted to see me.”

“He was on his way to find you when he died,” I said flatly.

“What?” She seemed genuinely surprised. “Was he- what did he—”

“He wanted to find Grey,” I supplied, interrupting her stammer. “He was convinced he could save her.”

Janine bowed her head, I assumed in shame. I didn’t realize she was crying until I saw her shoulders shaking delicately. “I never wanted to hurt any of you. I just couldn’t bear to lose you both. You can’t imagine what that felt like. It was like being ripped apart,” she said emphatically, her voice quivering with emotion.

“Is that why you did it? To save us?”

Janine looked up at me with her puffy red eyes, a frown drawing her tawny brows together. “Of course. Why else would I give up my own life, my own soul?”

Something stirred deep in the pit of my stomach. “What do you mean?”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She sniffed twice then reached into her pocket to pull out a tissue. After she blew her nose and took a moment to collect herself, she explained.

“When Bobby brought you and your sister to shore and you were both- both-” She began to sob again, but quickly pulled herself together to continue. “Well, I just couldn’t accept it. I was devastated beyond anything I can describe. And then when he left to go get help, a man stumbled upon us. He offered to help, but I told him Bobby would be coming back with someone. He’s the one that told me about the exchange.”

“What exchange?”

“The exchange of my life for yours,” she replied.

“What did he tell you?”

“He told me that all I had to do was take you into the woods, to this clearing not far from where we wrecked, and call out what I wanted, what I was willing to do for you. And that was it,” she said with a shrug. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but I was so desperate, so crushed, I would’ve done anything, absolutely anything, to have you back again.”

And I believed her. Her eyes were glittering green pools of misery and I could practically taste how badly she wanted me to believe her.

But one thing confused me. “If you made the deal for your soul, then how are you here?”

Janine shrugged. “It was part of the deal. I wanted to be a mother to you both until you turned eighteen. He promised he wouldn’t take me until then.”

The bottom of my stomach dropped out. That was only a few short months away.

Looking down at her hands, she confessed, “I didn’t tell your father. I didn’t think he’d understand. We didn’t even speak of it. I knew he wondered how you were alive, why I was so scratched up, but he never asked. He knew when he saw Grey, though, that something was…wrong.”

“Why? What happened?” Even though Dad had told me what he’d seen, I wanted to hear it from Janine’s point of view, I needed to hear it.

“Late that night, I got up to go see you. It felt so surreal, the whole thing, that I was afraid when I woke up, you’d be gone. When I went into your bedroom, Grey was awake. I picked her up and she was burning up with fever. I cooed to her and rocked her, but she just wouldn’t sleep. She was so restless. I thought I should stick her in the tub to cool her off so I took her pajamas and her diaper off. That’s when she started shaking and choking. Or at least it sounded like she was choking.

“I thought she was having a seizure from the fever. My first thought was that she was going to die again. I closed my eyes. I kept thinking that I couldn’t lose her again. Not again. It’s when I opened my eyes that I saw what she…what she…”

“She what?” I prompted.

“What she had become. She was a different color. It was like her skin had turned black, like the fever had burned her all of a sudden. It startled me so that I dropped her. But—”

Janine’s eyes had a faraway, haunted look that chilled me to my toes. “But what?”

“But she didn’t fall. It was like a terrible wind from…well I don’t know where it came from, but it seemed to lift her up almost. She just hovered there in the air.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ve never seen anything like it. And it’s troubled me to this day.”

I sat silent, motionless, digesting everything she’d just told me. It jibed with Dad’s account, only from another perspective. And that made all the difference in the world.

I began to think that maybe she really wasn’t the bad guy in this after all. Maybe there was a chance for us. I couldn’t deny that the prospect of having my mother in my life pleased me in several ways. It’s no fun believing that your mother’s pretty much the equivalent of hell’s mistress.

Janine laughed bitterly. “Your father was gone the next morning when I got out of the shower. He didn’t even give me a chance to explain, just took you and left.” Her eyes glazed over as she looked back through time. “It wasn’t long before I got the divorce papers from Byron. I went to him and begged him to tell me where you were. He wouldn’t of course, but I got a current mailing address from the courthouse. I drove down to see if it was the right one, and it was, so I kept track of where you moved after that.” She looked at me intensely. “I had to know that you were alright, that my baby was ok,” she declared in a voice thick with emotion. “And I always hoped…”

“But why didn’t you ever contact us? Why did you let me think you were dead?”

“I didn’t know at first. I was just trying to give your father some room. You know, some space to work things out on his own. I thought surely he would come back eventually, if nothing else to see Grey. But then, as Grey got older, I knew it wasn’t safe to bring her around you.”

I saw a chill pass through Janine and she pulled her sweater tighter around her.

“Wasn’t safe?” I shuddered. It was as if Janine had passed her chill on to me, along with an intense sense of apprehension.

I watched misery fill her eyes again. “No, it wasn’t. When your sister came back, she wasn’t the same. It started with her skin and the wind, but as she got older, I began to see something dark growing inside her, like evil was eating away at her soul,” she described, her lips curling in distaste. “She was always incredibly mature for her age, but she was also incredibly mean. I saw it with animals and other kids, sometimes even with adults. I knew I couldn’t risk your safety by bringing you two together. I had no idea how that would affect her, how she would react, what she might be capable of. So I stayed away.”

I understood what she was saying. And to a certain extent, I might even have agreed with her decision, but for some reason my heart was still holding back from her. Even though I wanted it so badly, always had, something was off and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

“So why the letter? What did it mean?”

“Ah, the letter,” she said with a sigh. “When I found out about Grey, I was afraid he’d be coming for you, too. I wanted to warn you somehow, but I wasn’t sure what your father had told you. That’s why I was so cryptic.”

“Found out what about Grey?”

“She made a deal of her own. She had gotten quite dangerous and I think that living in this world, by this world’s rules, was too restrictive for her. So she found another place and another way to satisfy her…appetites.”

“She did this on her own?”

“Yes.”

“What about my skin?”

“What about it?”

“Underneath, it’s white. Pearly white.”

Janine looked thoughtful, but troubled. “You must’ve come back different, too, brought something back from the other side.”

“That’s it? It’s just some fluke of being dead? I was never doomed, because we are twins?”

“What do you mean, Carson?” She looked genuinely puzzled.

That was answer enough.

“Did you tell Grey about the deal you made?”

“No. I was afraid—,” she began, stopping suddenly, as if catching herself. “No, I didn’t.”

“Then how did she know what to do? That it was even possible?”

“She met someone. A boy. He filled her head with all sorts of lies and deceptions, I think. It wasn’t long after that when she told me she was leaving, that she’d gotten a ‘job’ with a man named Fahl. That’s when I knew.”

She met a boy? I thought of Derek. And my blood ran cold at where my thoughts were headed.

“I just didn’t want you to make the same mistake, fall for the same lies and trickery,” she continued.

“What do you mean?”

“I wanted you to know what a disaster it is to make any kind of arrangements with someone like that. It never ends well. Ever.”

I bowed my head, knowing without a doubt that I’d been duped. And, unless I found a way out—a loophole, a way to thwart him—I’d pay for it with my life, my very soul.

“It’s too late,” I whispered.

Janine scooted to the edge of her seat. “Carson, what have you done?”

Doubts assailed me and the room dipped and swayed under my feet. Had I really seen my father and Derek trapped in the Darkness or was it some kind of trick? Had Derek been planted in my life rather than just sent to find me? Was it all just lies? Had I agreed to the ultimate demise of my soul for nothing?

I doubled over in my chair, a terrible pain seizing my stomach, my guts. I squeezed my eyes shut, unwilling to consider the possibility that I’d given it all away for …nothing. “No, no, no, no, no,” I chanted, rocking back and forth.

I felt a hand on my back and opened my eyes to two loafer-shod feet on the floor in front of me.

“Carson, tell me what happened,” Janine whispered urgently, rubbing soothing circles on my back.

“Oh my God, what have I done?”

I sat back suddenly and for a moment, I thought I saw Leah smiling where she sat in an armchair to my right, but an instant later, her expression was carefully blank. Then my mother was blocking my vision as she squatted in front of me and took my face in her hands.

When I saw her expression, I recognized it immediately. I’d seen it a thousand times with Dad. It shone from her face like the light of a million bulbs and it warmed me just the same. It was love. So when she drew me into her arms, I went willingly. And then I crumbled.

Weeping bitterly, I let her soothe me, just like a mother should, just like I’d imagined it all my life. And it felt wonderful. Bittersweet, but wonderful. She whispered quiet, calming things into my ear. I didn’t pay attention to the words, just the tone. It was like a salve to a raw wound.

She held me like that for quite a while before she leaned back and looked into my face.

“Tell me what happened. From the beginning. We’ll figure something out,” she said with a smile. It was intended to be a confident smile, I’m sure, but it was more worried than I think she realized.

So I told her everything, everything from my skin changing all the way to Nathan’s new condition. I omitted nothing—not my feelings for Derek or what had happened with Leah, though when I got to that part, my mother looked back at Leah with a hint of concern on her pretty face. She said nothing, though, just returned her attention to me.

“Well, that gives us a lot to think about,” she said, rising to a standing position. She reached down and took my hands, pulling me to my feet. “Why don’t you go get some sleep? You’re bound to be exhausted,” she surmised, tucking my hair behind my left ear in a distinctly motherly gesture. “We might have a long night and you’ll need your rest. We’ll start in the woods, alright?”

What her look and her tone implied was that she would take care of everything and, though I didn’t see how, it was enough to appease me for the moment. I was tired of being an adult; I wanted to be a carefree kid again, letting my parents take care of everything. And right now, all I wanted was my bed.

********

A nagging feeling of dread and urgency woke me. I’d been dreaming of my mother. She was walking through a midnight forest, the tiny sliver of moon that hung low in the sky barely enough to light her way. I’d glimpsed a symbol on the inside of her right wrist as she pushed a branch back and held it for Leah, who trailed behind her.

I sat up and looked around. My room was dark, as was the night outside my window. I’d fallen into a deep, numb sleep and awakened to a quite house. I listened for sounds of movement or voices, but there were none. That couldn’t be right. Where was everybody?

Pushing the comforter off my legs, I rushed out of the bedroom to the living room. It was empty, as was the kitchen. Where would Leah and my mother have gone? At night? Without me?

The first answer that came to mind was disturbing enough. The second was downright terrifying. I’d left Leah alone with my mother.

I ran to the kitchen door and pushed my feet into my tennis shoes. I grabbed the car keys from the hook mounted to the wall and reached for my coat, only it wasn’t there. I looked to the coat that hung next to it. It was a yellow parka. I figured it was my mother’s. The cold chill of destiny washed over me as I grabbed the coat and ran out the door.

My heart and my mind raced all the way to the forks, where I pulled off the road and parked on the shoulder. I leapt out and headed for the woods.

As I quickly picked my way across the uneven terrain, I went back over my dream, trying to remember as much detail as possible, hoping it was just a dream and nothing more. Something in my gut, however, told me that it was much, much more than that.

I rounded a tree and nearly tripped over my own feet when I saw my mother pinned up against a tree just ahead of me. My heart stopped for an instant before restarting at a breakneck pace. I haven’t had her long enough. I haven’t had enough time! I thought frantically. And then Leah tore into her throat.

I raced forward, ready to tear my friend limb from limb, but I ran right through them. They evaporated like mist. It was only a vision. I turned back and the image solidified again, but it was like I’d hit the rewind button.

My mother was saying something, shaking her head and taking slow, careful steps backward, until she ran into a tree. At first, I couldn’t see who she was talking to. Then Leah entered the picture. Only she didn’t look entirely like Leah.

Framed by her trademark springy, dark curls, Leah’s face was a mottled gray color. Her eyes were wide and feral. They looked like burnt, obsidian holes in her head with a smoky ring of soot around each one. Her lips were curled back viciously, baring dozens of sharp, elongated teeth that chattered in anticipation. Thin black veins crept out from around her mouth, across her cheeks and down her chin, like inky spider web.

She tilted her head to one side, as if she were trying to understand what my mother was saying. And then, in a movement so fast I couldn’t track it with my eyes, she was pinning my mother to the tree. This time, I could see the filmy presence of Grey by her side. She stood to Leah’s left, her head bent toward Leah’s ear. I could see her mouth moving as if she were speaking and then, like she’d said something to enrage Leah, Leah bent her head and tore violently into my mother’s throat.

I had to look away. Even though it wasn’t real (hopefully it hadn’t even happened yet), I couldn’t bear to watch Leah feed from her.

Then the sound of voices—raised voices—reached my ears. I turned back toward the clearing and took off at a dead run. When I came upon them, they were in the woods right at the edge of the clearing. Leah was shouting, though I couldn’t make out the words, and my mother’s soothing voice was all but drowned out by it. She was backing up and I could see the tree that she would eventually be pinned to.

Pushing my legs as fast as they would go, I bent at the waist and aimed my shoulder right for Leah’s middle. When I hit her, I heard the air whoosh out as it was forced from her lungs in a grunt.

Once Leah was on the ground, I turned back toward my mother. I grabbed her hand and pulled her into the clearing. I was going to take her to the one place I knew Leah couldn’t follow us.

“Close your eyes,” I commanded. Without question, she did as I asked. Satisfied, I grabbed her hand, pulling her arm in tight under mine, closed my eyes and pictured the black house, hoping my concentration would hold long enough to get us there before Leah reached us.

When I started to get that dizzy feeling again, I opened my eyes. We were in the charred yard of the black house, the one place I didn’t think I’d ever be pleased to see. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that we’d escaped Leah.

When I turned to face her, I saw movement behind her. My heart lurched as I saw the dead, clumsily making their way across the crispy lawn toward us. And they looked ravenous.

Regrettably, I hadn’t had time to think my plan all the way through. I didn’t know how to get us back.

There was nothing I could do about that now, though, so I scanned our surroundings, looking for a place to take my mother—a safe place. But there was nothing around for miles it seemed, nothing but the house, the field and the dense forest on every side.

“Come on,” I said, pulling her along behind me. We ran toward the black house. I had no idea what I thought we might do once we got there, but it appeared to be the only viable option for shelter and safety.

It wasn’t that far, which was good, but that also meant that it didn’t give me much time to think before the dead reached us.

We climbed the steps and stopped on the stoop. I looked down at the doorknob, knowing what was coming if I touched it. But what choice did I have?

Gritting my teeth, I curled my fingers around the silver knob. And, as I expected, the pain arrived almost instantaneously. Gasping, I bit my lip to keep from crying out and, just like before, I was temporarily immobilized by agony.

Focusing on my fingers, I waited for the worst of it to pass so I could grip and twist the doorknob and get my mother to safety.

And then I heard her scream.

Fighting against the pain, I was able to turn my head just enough to see what she’d screamed about. It was the dead. They were all around us, many even up on the steps. They were grabbing and snapping at my mother. She had flattened herself against the door as much as possible, but they were quickly closing in on us.

I called my reluctant muscles into action, using every ounce of strength I could summon. I tightened my grip on the doorknob and twisted. Inch by excruciating inch, it turned and, as it released, I all but fell through the door. Just like last time.

Landing on my back knocked the breath out of me, but other than that, I was feeling much better. The pain was subsiding much more quickly than it had the previous time. Gingerly, I turned my head and looked around. My mother was neither to my left or my right.

I pushed myself into a sitting position and, through the invisible barrier that covered the doorway, I saw my mother’s back pressed up against it. She was trapped outside.

“No!” I screamed, finding my feet and launching myself toward the door. I grabbed my mother by the shoulders and tried to pull her through into the house, but I couldn’t so I walked back through the doorway and tried to push her inside. That didn’t work either; it was like trying to stuff a doll through the cracks in a brick wall.

I turned my back to her, pressing my body against hers, effectively shielding her from all the hungry mouths and greedy hands that were reaching for us. I kicked at them, forgetting that it was useless, like raising my leg into thin air.

My mother squealed at my back, jerking her leg away from something. I looked down and saw that several staggering dead had found their way around to the sides of the steps where they could just reach our feet with their greedy fingers.

Time was running out. I had to act quickly.

My father’s words, you’re truly a light in the darkness, mingled with something Derek had said about my skin and melted into understanding.

Looking down at my arm, I pushed my sleeve up and dug my fingernails into the tender flesh of my wrist, exposing the pearly white layer beneath. Immediately, I could feel something crackle in the air around me, a power I’d not felt before.

Just then, a woman I’d seen previously, the nearly-beheaded one, lunged at me, bearing her blunt teeth as if she intended to take a bite. I raised my bent arm and slammed my elbow into her face, knocking her backward into the throng. I wondered briefly if I’d detached her head, but when she stood back up, it was still in place atop her shoulders.

Blood was in the water, though (or, in this case, in the air). My actions seemed to enrage and innervate the dead. They became frantic and desperate, more so than usual. I kicked and punched, clearing out a spot from which to defend us.

When I looked out at the sea of bodies in front of me, it seemed to be ever-growing, like they were multiplying right before my eyes, sprouting from the ground or crawling out of the trees. Seeing them begin to close in on us again so quickly, I realized that I couldn’t fight them all. We wouldn’t stand a chance. I needed something…bigger.

I was afraid to close my eyes, but I knew that if my plan was to be successful, I needed to focus. I scanned the mangled faces on the steps then quickly closed my eyes. I brought the faces to mind, one by one, and then pictured them all on fire.

The screams were muffled at first. Then they became loud wails of agony. I opened my eyes and watched as the torn and broken bodies of the dead stumbled down the steps and into the yard, flailing blindly, their voices crying out from among the flames.

Satisfied, I pictured the crowd to the left of us next, the ones on the ground that were reaching for our feet. In seconds, they were on fire as well. I repeated the process with another section of the group, then another. It seemed I’d dispatched hundreds of the dead, but each time I looked out there was more rather than less.

Trying to get ahead of the endless ocean of snapping teeth, I shook the earth and opened up a huge crack that swallowed dozens and dozens of the unsuspecting dead, catching them unawares.

That worked so well, I was deciding where else I could put such a crevasse when it began to sprinkle. Faster and faster, fat drops flew past my face, rising from the ground in a torrential rain that quickly extinguished the writhing, burning bodies scattered about the yard. I watched, mouth agape, as many began to make their way to their feet.

Looking wildly around for the location of my next chasm, I stopped when I saw bodies floating to the surface in the one I’d just created. The upside down rain was flooding the gorge, pushing the dead up and spitting them out onto the wet ground, where they quickly found their legs and started toward us once more. My confidence faltered, quickly succumbing to the panic that was blossoming in my gut.

Then I saw Grey.

She came strolling out of the woods, as carefree as if it were a sunny afternoon in the country. She stopped at the edge of the horde and smiled.

“Not so easy when you have a capable opponent, huh, Sis?”

A wind arose so quickly, so strongly, it almost knocked me off the porch. I was nearly horizontal as I held on to the door frame. My mother seemed unaffected by it. It was as if I alone was in a wind tunnel.

I turned my face away from the wind and tucked it into my arm. I opened my eyes just a crack and saw my mother. A frown came over her face then a look of surprise as she fanned her hand in front of her face. As I watched, her eyes grew round and her mouth opened up as if she was taking a deep breath. Only she didn’t. Her chest didn’t rise at all. She started shaking her head and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, they were watering and her face was turning red. Engorged in her strain, the veins in her neck and forehead stood out as she began to claw desperately at her throat. Her mouth opened and closed several times like she was trying to speak or breathe, but nothing was happening. That’s when I realized she was suffocating.

I looked back at Grey, her focus concentrated on our mother. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t even glance my way, her empty gaze never wavering from Mom. “Showing Mommy Dearest how it feels to live inside a vacuum,” she sneered, then dropped her voice to a loud whisper and cupped one hand around her mouth like she was telling me a secret. “Here’s a hint: there’s no air in a vacuum.”

In the blink of an eye, the wind died completely and I came crashing down on the hard stoop, face down. I scrambled to my feet and rushed to Mom’s side. Her eyes were bulging and tears streamed down her bluish red face. Her tongue was protruding grotesquely as she tried to take in a gulp of air, but found none.

“Stop it! Stop it!” I shouted over my shoulder to Grey. Her bark of laughter drifted to my ears followed by a mocking, “Stop it, stop it.”

As I watched my mother suffocating and could hear the dead scrambling toward us once more, panic rose inside me and a thousand things drifted through my mind in an instant.

I thought of the years with my mother I had missed out on. I thought of the past months I’d spent nearly hating her. I thought of what she’d done to save me and my sister and how much she’d suffered because of that choice.

I thought of my father. How he’d taken care of me all my life, of how he’d shown me the meaning of commitment and sacrifice. I thought of how he’d taught me to survive and not to be a quitter. In the end, he’d traded himself for me, too.

Then I thought of Derek. A mixture of complex emotions flooded my heart and mind. I didn’t know how much of our relationship, if any, had been real, though I desperately wanted to believe that it was. It felt real to me, still did, and maybe right now that was enough.

I knew that I’d never see any of them again. If I killed Grey to save my mother, I’d be condemning Dad and Derek to eternity in the Darkness. Yet, I couldn’t stand idly by and watch my mother die right before my eyes. The only choice I had was to try and make another deal.

I called out to Fahl. I knew he would be nearby, watching.

“I’ll give you my life for hers. No one has to take it. You’ll have us both, me and Grey. She won’t have to kill me and I won’t have to kill her,” I shouted, my voice ringing out in the night above the moans and grumbles of the dead.

Like it was coming from miles away, I heard my mother scream, a shrill and panicky, “No!”

And then I heard a familiar deep voice, a voice that I literally felt from head to toe like the brush of velvet against my skin.

“Carson, don’t!”

I turned and saw Derek emerge from the woods to my right. I could tell he was trying to run to me, but it looked like he was moving through tar. With each step he struggled all the more to put one foot in front of the other.

Then Fahl appeared, looking just as he had that first night. His black hair danced around his head weightlessly in the light breeze and his black suit was as ill-fitting as ever. He looked like death. And rightly so. He’d come for me.

“A new deal means the other is broken,” he advised pleasantly, as if we were discussing the NASDAQ over coffee.

“I know, but Dad and Derek still go free, and my mother, too.”

“And you’ll reap for me in exchange?”

“Whatever you want, just let them go.”

With a smile that would’ve given the devil pause, Fahl whispered, “Done.”

As soon as the word left his thin lips, I heard my mother gasp, drawing in a huge breath. I turned toward her as she sputtered and coughed. I held out my hand to touch her, to make sure she was alright, but my fingers met with nothingness. She fell through the doorway, into the house and disappeared.

I stepped forward to follow, but the threshold sealed after she passed through, the barrier once more firmly in place. I leaned my head against the invisible wall and breathed a sigh of relief. Even though I wasn’t sure where she’d gone, I was comforted by the fact that she was no longer in any immediate danger of being suffocated or eaten.

Tears burned my eyes when I felt the air thicken at my back, my tormentors closing in around me once more. I turned, back pressed to the barrier this time, to face the gruesome dead head on. My fate was sealed and I was trapped, by my own design, forever. But it was my decision and I was going to go on my own terms. Fahl wasn’t going to get everything, tied up nice with a bow.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. As I exhaled, all my turbulent emotions drained out of me. There was no fear or heartache or regret or sense of loss, just acceptance, the sense that I’d done what needed to be done, that I’d made the necessary sacrifices to ensure the safety and wellbeing of my loved ones. Most of them anyway. Leah was a whole other matter. She’d already made her choice. She’d sealed her own fate.

I looked toward Derek. He was still trying to get to me, but the look on his face assured me that he knew there was nothing he could do. He looked crushed. He’d given up so much for me and now he was going to watch me die.

I smiled, hoping he would take comfort in my resolution, in my calm. “I think I’ll be brave for you,” I whispered and stepped forward to meet the fate I’d made for myself.

All at once, hands were all over me. They grabbed and pulled, their filthy nails tearing away at my flesh. And then, gasping in pain, I felt teeth at my wrist, sinking into the tender flesh there, already bleeding from my self-inflicted wound. I knew that I could fight back—I had the power—but I also knew that it was futile. I had to die in order to save the others. And I was going to go willingly, my way.

I gave myself up to the excruciating biting and tearing, ripping and gnawing of the group. Blood was pouring down my arms and dripping from my fingertips before I fell to my knees, my legs suddenly lacking the strength to support me.

Above their hungry groaning and vicious squabbling, I could hear the coarse crackle of my clothes ripping as they struggled to get through my jeans and sweater to the skin beneath. I could only imagine what they’d already done to my arms and chest.

I stayed upright as long as I could, but within minutes, the force of bodies pushing and hands pulling was too much for me to bear. When they maneuvered me to the ground, I knew I didn’t have much time left.

At that point I must’ve blacked out because I awakened some time later to the sensation that my insides were being torn from my body. Even if I had maintained the energy to raise my head and look down, I wouldn’t have. That was exactly what was happening, I was certain of it. I knew I was dying, but there was one last thing that I wanted to do.

Pushing past the pain that wracked every single nerve and fiber of my body, I cleared my throat. There was something I wanted say, out loud, and I wanted Fahl to hear it.

“God, I know you are up there and I just want you to thank you for sparing them. I wish I had believed in you sooner,” I said. Then, closing my eyes, I finished. “But I believe in you now.”

Suddenly, a blinding light penetrated my closed lids. I felt the warmth of it on my face, the brightness of it chasing away the pain and the worry and that haunting feeling that I was doomed. I felt my lips pull up into a peaceful smile. I knew right then that I’d made the right choices, done the right things…in the end.

Then, as if he was far away, I heard Fahl’s voice rise to a shrill pitch as he shouted, “You knew this would happen, didn’t you? You knew! She’s supposed to reap for me, for me!”

I turned my head toward his voice and cracked my lids the tiniest bit. Fahl stood in the midst of the dead, looking heavenward, shaking his fist angrily at the sky. And then it was as if I was drifting away from him, rising up into the brightness. I closed my eyes, content to float, and I heard, way off in the distance, Fahl scream, “Nooooooo!” And then there was nothing.