Incandescence

27: A Thing Called Fear

No one questions it. They'd be crazy to. Mason and Daniel start putting out and gathering the candles while I shake at Alice's body, trying to bring her out her trance.

            "C'mon," I plead, giving her shoulders a rough shove. "Come back, Alice. We need to leave here."

            A voice that clearly still belongs to Margaret replies, and I shake her harder, no idea how these things work, only going by gut instinct. She needs to come back eventually, doesn't she?

            Doesn't she?

            "Daniel," I cry out, panicked. "I thought you said she'd be able to decide when to push Margaret out!"

            "She can," he snaps. "She just needs to –" He stops as the blue in Alice's irises dims, returning to its normal shade. The girl gives a choking splutter before widening her eyes, falling into my arms before she can stop herself.

            "Wha . . . what happened?" she asks in a daze.

            I push her to her feet, steady her, and explain. "We need to leave. Someone's coming –"

            "Who?"

            "I don't know, okay?" I don't realise I'm yelling until the words are already out. She backs off, scurrying to help the boys. I crouch and pick up the book, opening my backpack and squeezing it in beside my flashlight and can of Mace. Someone reaches down and pulls me up before I can get it shut again, and I stumble along blindly as I yank at the zip.

            "Did you see where they were coming from?" Mason asks as we sprint back toward the fence we climbed to get in.

            "I don't see things that way. We just really need to get out, that's all I know."

            Wind howls at our backs, whooshes at our clothes. Darkness closes in from all sides. Our sneakers slap off the cement paths, every step bringing on a fresh round of raw pain. Is it so strong because we're in serious danger? Because our would-be killers are waiting at the other side of the fence to attack? No time to think – I force one foot to pound after the other. Faster. Eyes fixed on the fence ahead. Not looking back.

            Just when my lungs threaten to burst and my heart is in danger of exploding, a mass of red staining the grass, I hear it: one long, bloodcurdling, uninterrupted scream of terror. It fills my mind, so loud, so painful, and I stumble, so sure it's coming from behind us – that it's catching up.

            Cold hands – Mason's – wrap round my forearms and haul me back up. Urging me on.

            But I can't run. I can't climb. I can't move.

            I'm paralysed. The world around me blurs.

            The screaming won't stop.

            "April, hurry up!" A deep groan – more impatient than afraid. Then gravity falters and the wind picks up as though I'm flying through it, and the screaming gets louder, and I can't think, can't breathe, it's so piercing –

            A sudden pain flares across my cheek, and my eyes widen in an instant, the scene around me coming back into view like I've adjusted the focus on a microscope. We're standing at the fence. Daniel's beside me, Alice is already waiting on the other side with our bags lying at her feet, and Mason's waving with both his arms at the foot of one of the pillars, pressing us to start climbing.

            "Sorry," Daniel says, and it takes a moment to realise what the pain was: he must have slapped me. "You wouldn't snap out of it."