A soft whisper drifted to me. “Help.”
My heart squeezed tight, and I took a step closer to the alley. My boots brushed up against broken glass, likely from someone who had stumbled in here after a long night drinking in the city. The darkness that cloaked the alley seemed to pulse, and I swallowed hard. This seemed like a terrible idea. No one should go into dark alleys alone...But what if one of the cast members was hurt? What if someone had gone out to have a smoke, forgot to turn on the light, and had fallen after stumbling around in thedark?
“Hello?” I asked in a soft voice. “It’s Norah. Are youokay?”
From within the depths of the alley, a hulking shadowy form rose from the ground. My heart pulsed, throbbing painfully in my chest. Eyes widening, I shook my head and stepped back. The…whatever it was, it had eyes the color of blood and teeth that were razor sharp. It looked kind of like a wolf with long mangy hair curling off its bulky frame, but it was much, much bigger than any normal wolf. It stood three times taller than me, and its muscular body was twice aswide.
It was a monster. One that had begun to let out a low rumble of a growl, a sound that made every hair on my arms stand onend.
Suddenly, the night was no longer stifling. It was no longer hot. Chills had consumed my skin, making my entire bodyshake.
“Norah, help,” a strangled voice came from somewhere near thecreature.
My heart shook in my chest, and I tore my gaze away from the wolf to stare at a small huddled shape on the ground by its massive feet. All the feeling rushed from my head as I tried to make sense of what I saw. Lars, one of the sound technicians, with his large, bellowing laugh and hipster beard, stared across the dim space. His cheeks and arms had been gouged, and blood rushed from the gaping wounds. And one of his hands wasmissing.
I couldn’t breathe, and the stars that dotted my eyes made it next to impossible to see. Wildly, I glanced around the alley, desperate to find some kind of weapon that might work against this creature. A shovel. A two-by-four. A large concrete block that I could throw in itsdirection.
But there was nothing in the alley other than a few discarded cigarette butts and some styrofoam takeaway boxes from the Chinese place around thecorner.
“Norah,” Lars said in a gasp. “What is it? What attackedme?”
The creature's glittering red eyes looked down on Lars. It pulled back its lips, showing off the sharp points of its enormous fangs. Fangs that dripped with saliva, blood, andflesh.
My stomach turned, and I pressed my hand to my mouth. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real. It was another one of my panic attacks, making me see things that weren’t really there. As much as I’d wanted to believe I was okay, I clearlywasn’t.
I was seeing things. The creature wasn’t really there, and Lars wasn’thurt.
Stumbling back, I gasped when a soft hand landed on myshoulder.
“Norah, hon, why are you out here in the alley…” Rachel trailed off, and her face went stark white. The grip on my shoulder tightened, and the skin underneath her chin began to tremble. And then she was off, rushing down the dim alley to drop by Lars’sside.
“Oh my god, Lars. What the hell happened to you?” She pressed her hand to his cheek and choked out a cry. “Norah, call the police. Call 911. Tell them we need an ambulance.” She glanced up, her eyes fierce yet full of tears. “Why are you just standing there? Do something!Now!”
Hands shaking, I nodded and pressed my cell phone to my ear. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the creature who now loomed over Andrea, his saliva only seconds away from dripping onto her head. The creature was so close. So horribly, gruesomely close. If it shifted even an inch closer, its teeth could graze her cheek. Its sharp nails could slice through herback.
“It’s not real,” I whispered under mybreath.
“No, it’s very much real.” One of the strange guys whispered in front of me and charged down the alley, a dagger flashing in his hand. Bathroom Guy grabbed my arm and pulled me back, dragging me away from the mouth of thealley.
He shifted his body in front of mine and threw out his arms, holding them on either side of me. “Stay behind me, Norah. You interrupted its feeding, and it won’t take that verywell.”
“His feeding." I blinked. “You can seeit?”
“Of course I can see it,” he said in an impatient tone of voice. “Just stay behind me. Liam, Rourke, and Finn should be able to dispatch it easily enough. As for your friend…even if he can survive the bites, the venom will be difficult tofight.”
Fear churned through my gut as I watched the three strangers charge the alley. The creature stumbled away from Lars and Andrea when it saw them approach, and it crouched with claws and fangs bared. My heart trembled at the sight, but it did nothing to slow the men down. They quickly surrounded the creature, triple blades held high in thehair.
The stranger from the club turned toward me, his eyes full of power and darkness. And then everything wentblack.
Chapter Four
Dishes clatteredaround me as silence rained down upon the dinner table. I couldn’t get the images from the theatre out of my head. Blood splattering on the oil and grime covered pavement. Those empty eyes that stared up at me, begging for my help, accusing me of being helpless to stop the creature. Or accusing me of causing the woundsmyself.
I’d always felt like there was something wrong with me, like a strange shadow of darkness lurked behind me. And now I kept seeing things no one else could. My ears were turning into horns. Maybe it was my fault in some strange way. Maybe I was causingthis.
“Adeline said you were grounded, but you got home late from your job. If you can really call that a job.” My step-dad’s deep voice cut through the kaleidoscope of gruesome memories, sending a sharp chill into my bones. So my mom had told him she’d grounded me. That probably wasn’t going to end well. Any time he thought I stepped even a toenail out of line? Well, he didn’t react very well tothat.
“The show doesn’t end until eight. Rachel needed me to stay and help close up,” I said after swallowing the lump in my throat. I hadn’t told either of them what had happened. Because I couldn’t. If I did, there was no telling how my step-dad would react. He would either try to pin the blame on me or force me to quit my job, citing safety as the reason. But the truth was, he’d take any excuse to exert more control over my life. He’d never had much respect for my job at the theatre. Probably because it paid shit wages, and he was dying for me to get out of hishair.
