The sight was so horrible, Stanley couldn’t even scream. Not yet.
He didn’t start until the windshield exploded and aSHRIEKfried every synapse in Stanley’s brain and a long claw buried itself in the flesh of his arm and dragged him, wailing, into the dark.
ETHAN
They couldn’t see much from the porch. A massive black shape darted through Stanley’s headlights, followed a moment later by another slamming against the van. Then came a second blow. A third. The van’s taillights flipped from horizontal to vertical.
None of the other guests was stupid enough to think they could help Stanley. They listened as glass shattered, as a dozenSHRIEKSripped through the night.
They listened as claws dug into flesh. As bone was ripped from bone. As Stanley screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.
Stanley screamed for longer than Ethan would have thought possible. Those things in the dark—whatever they were—they weren’t just eating him. They were keeping him alive. They were letting him suffer. It was almost like they were making an example of the man.
Or toying with him.
The screams stopped, all at once, cut off by a wet, guttural gasp. A finalSHRIEKrang out, long and shrill.
Silence fell over the motel. Stillness. The awful frozen silence of the void.
And then slowly, gradually, a great low sighing sound rose from the west. Ethan turned, staring over the motel. An uncanny sensation crept over him. Had the mountain behind them grown larger since they’d checked in? Was he crazy, or had its silhouette grown to eat more of the night’s stars?
And there, past the motel, Ethan saw the strangest sight of all: a pale silver light glowing in the upstairs window of the old Victorian house that stood at the foot of the mountain.
Where had Ethan seen that light before?
“Let this be a lesson,” said Thomas.
“For anyone stupid enough to leave the ring of light,” Tabitha said.
The twins stood in the door of the office, side by side, their facesblank. They didn’t even glance at the corpse of the man named Ryan Phan—whoever the hell he’d been—sprawled on the floor behind them. Ryan’s one remaining eye lolled from its shattered socket, frozen in a permanent expression of surprise.
Ethan thought of his own brother, spread across the spare room above the shop back in Ellersby.
“You have until midnight to find who killed our cousin,” Thomas said.
“Or what happened to Stanley will happen to you,” Tabitha said.
Hunter said coolly, “What do you expect us to do? The two most obvious suspects just died.”
Fernanda said, “How do we even know you have a place of safety? That you will protect us from those things?”
“We don’t care how you do it,” Thomas said.
“We don’t care if you believe us,” Tabitha said.
“We will be safe either way.”
“You, on the other hand…” Tabitha let the sentence trail off.
Ethan was shaking, but not from the cold. He wanted to weep, to vomit, to scream the way Stanley had screamed when the man discovered monsters are real.We have some unusual wildlife in this corner of the desert.
Fool that he was, Ethan used to think he knew what fear felt like. No. This dead hand around his guts, the frozen electricity scaling his nerves—thiswas fear, true horror, raw and primal.
Something came flying out of the dark. Stanley’s head, ripped clean from the neck, struck the porch, and rolled to rest near Kyla’s feet. The slick whisper of flesh on wood sent a fresh jolt of nausea through Ethan. Blood coated the cheeks like stage paint. The mouth was still open in a scream.
