I looked at it with my heavy eyes and was hit with two thoughts.
One was that I was reminded of being in Red Fox when Sarah had drugged the tea I was drinking with peyote.
The other was that I had been drugged, in general.
That’s why my parents didn’t press the pil s. They had been in the tea and I had drank al of it. They knew I’d be stubborn and protest. They tricked me. I couldn’t even trust my own parents anymore.
“You,” I started to say but my mouth flapped shut. And my eyes closed. Somewhere far away I heard my mother whisper, “Sorry.”
Another voice penetrated while the world dropped beneath me. It was Creepy Clown Lady saying, “Don’t let her trick you. She tricked me.”
~~~
I dreamed and dreamed and dreamed. I dreamed I was floating above my room, my back flat against the ceiling, watching myself sleep as long spider legs trickled out from underneath my bed. I dreamed I was in a forest again, naked and bleeding and surrounded by fireflies. I dreamed I was back on the roof and lost my footing. As I fel , several demon creatures flew out of the sky to catch me. But instead of catching me, they stung me with the hot blades on the tips of their wings, then they each took an arm and a leg and pul ed me until my body tore apart down the middle like a serrated zipper.
A faint buzzing brought me out of my disturbing slumber.
My side vibrated. I groaned and felt around beneath the covers. I was stil in the clothes I had worn earlier, my Chucks on my feet. My phone was vibrating inside my jacket pocket. I fished it out with fat, clumsy fingers and pul ed it out in front of me, raising my head a few inches to look at the screen, which made my shoulders and neck ache.
My room was dark as the moonless night outside, with the only light coming from the hal way, which spil ed under my door in a neat little line. The clock on the phone read 10:42 p.m. and I had just missed a cal from Maximus.
I closed my eyes, leaned back against the pil ow and clutched my phone on top of my chest. Maximus was probably cal ing to check up on me. It didn’t make me feel any better. With the way everyone around me was acting, I couldn’t imagine him being any different. I knew he cared about me – he did, right? – and he was no stranger to the supernatural. But…I didn’t want to trust him anymore.
Maybe that was foolish of me. Maybe the dark forces inside were making me doubt him. But I couldn’t help it. I felt powerless to move and it hurt to think. I needed help and there was no one to help me. My parents certainly couldn’t help me. They wouldn’t help me. And I couldn’t even help myself.
Or could I? Maybe there was someone who I could reach out to, someone who might understand.
I scrol ed through my phone for Rebecca’s phone number, but of course I had lost that when I destroyed my old phone. I didn’t even have her email address anymore, since I had gotten a new one. I thought it was something like BeccaWineBabe@gmail or something like that.
I brought up the internet browser and went to my email account. It took a lot of control to keep my fingers from shaking as I pressed the screen and I hit a bunch of buttons accidently. I had entered her email in the “To” bar but it was auto-corrected to Becomeawino, which I would have thought funny in a lighter time. I tried to type it out again, not real y sure what I’d even say to her in the message other than “Help I’m losing myself” but paused when my bed lurched.
It was only a little bit of movement, like a garbage truck had trundled down the street or the house settled on its haunches. But I felt it.
I lowered the phone and kept absolutely stil , waiting for another shake.
A low, menacing growl fil ed the room.
It sounded more guttural than a dog. Something deeper, raspier and slick with liquid.
It was coming from underneath my bed.
I held my breath, frozen under the sheets, and tried to figure out what to do. This wasn’t in my head. This was here. There was something in my room, underneath my bed.
This was happening.
I eyed the window, wondering if it was quicker to go out that way or through the door. The window was closer, but it was closed and I’d lose precious seconds trying to jimmy it open. The door was farther, but easier to open.
The growling continued, growing louder, punctuated by random snaps and snarls.
I didn’t want to even think of what was under there.
Three seconds, I thought to myself. I’m going in three seconds. If I don’t, I’ll be eaten alive. Three seconds.
One...
Two...
The bed suddenly shook again, nearly jolting me out of it as whatever was underneath began to emerge with a drooling roar.
Three!
I jumped out of bed and felt a swipe of pain at the back of my leg as whatever it was reached out for me but I kept going, reached the door and flung it open. I couldn’t find my breath to scream so I just ran, straight for Ada’s room.
I heard the smacking, slobbering snarls at my back as I pushed open her door and jumped into her room. I lost my footing in the dark and fel to the carpet in a heap, while Ada cried out, “What the hel ?” in her half-asleep voice. I picked myself up and quickly ran back to her door and slammed it shut behind me.
Heart in my throat, nerves on fire, I turned and limped back to her.
With a flash of light, the door opened at my back.
In the il umination from the hal way I saw Ada very clearly.
She was sitting up in bed, sheets brought to her chin with shaking hands. There was a look of utter horror on her face as she saw the thing behind me, the thing that was under the bed, the thing that opened her door.
There was no time to react. No time to look.
I was grabbed by what felt like hot claws. They wrapped around my calves and pul ed me out from under me so that I fel flat on the ground, my arms extended, trying desperately to grab onto something to save me. They dragged me backward down the hal , back to my bedroom.
I could only scream.
Ada came running out after me.
The world slowed down in slow motion; Ada running down the hal , wearing only a skinny white tank top and pink short shorts. Her hair flew behind her graceful y. Her skinny bare feet hit the carpet and bounced off as she ran faster, made her strides longer. Her hands were reaching out for me. Her mouth and eyes were screaming my name.
She almost made it to me when I was engulfed into the darkness of my bedroom. The door began to shut by itself on her. And I was being dragged underneath my bed.
Dragged to hel .
I had no thoughts except for two wishes. That my death would be painless. And I wouldn’t stay in hel . I closed my eyes and wasted my last breaths on an unending cry.
But the door didn’t stay closed.
Ada had shoved her shoulder in at the last minute and she squeezed past with a shriek and flung herself on her knees, wrapping her hands around my elbows and pul ing at me, pul ing at me while something underneath pul ed back. I real y was going to be torn in two. My arms made a popping noise in their sockets and I could feel the shoes and socks on my feet disintegrating in a hot pool of liquid that frothed up my calves.
“Hang on!” she yel ed, and gave me a tug with al her might. I found strength in my legs and kicked wildly until it let go. Ada fel backward from the sudden surrender and I flew out from under the bed, landing just short of her.
“Ada!” I wailed. She went on her knees and hauled me up so I was total y out of the bed and beside her.
The light in the room came on and we turned to the door in terror. My parents were standing there in their pajamas, puzzled and frightened.
“We heard screaming, what’s going on?” my mother asked in a shril voice.
Ada and I looked back at the bed. With the light on it looked as it normal y did. There was nothing underneath it except a few dust bunnies.
But my legs. My legs were a different story. We saw them at the same time they did.
My mom screeched, “What happened to your legs!”
My Converses were gone. So were my socks. The jeans I was wearing earlier had been torn off at the knees, leaving messy, wet jagged edges of cloth. My legs were completely covered in a thin sheen of vibrant red blood.
“Oh,” my dad said in a smal , shocked voice. He made the sign of the cross across his face.
My mother swal owed hard, staring so hard at my legs that I thought she was trying to read them.
She was trying to read them.
Ada leaned over and nudged my shoulder down with her hand. I turned my body awkwardly and looked down at the back of my calves.
In dark, scabbing writing were the words “your fault”
running down the fleshiest part of my right calf.
My mom continued to stare. She didn’t come any closer.
“I’l get some bandages,” my father whispered to her. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.
I wondered why no one was comforting me?
Final y my mom said, “Perry...” but couldn’t finish it. I knew from the tone what she’d say.
I looked at Ada for help. She bailed on me during the Creepy Clown Lady sighting. I had never gotten the chance to reprimand her on that. I begged her with my eyes to tel her the truth. She dipped her chin and her eyes flew over to my mother’s.
“Mom,” she said, shaking. The fear and adrenaline were ripe in her voice. “It’s not Perry’s fault. She didn’t do that.”
“Wel , who did then?” she asked. She shook her head to herself and mouthed a few words I couldn’t hear. Who was going nuts now? My mom was talking to herself in front of us.
I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t know, anyway. I let Ada speak.
“Mom. I was asleep and Perry came running into my room. The door opened...something...”
She broke off and looked down at the carpet, eyes fixing on nothing, and took a deep breath. “Something grabbed her from behind. It grabbed her legs. And it dragged her in here. It was trying to take her under the bed.”
We both eyed our mother expectantly. Her brows were raised up on her face and seemed to be frozen in shock.
Then she smiled. It wasn’t pleasant.
“I can’t listen to this,” she said. She turned around and walked down the hal . I heard her pass my dad in the hal way and hiss to him, “Oh, Ada’s going along with it now.
It real y does run in the family.”
What runs in the family? Ghosts? Crazy? Ada and I looked at each other questioningly just as my dad came in.