Suzie came over after school, but apparently, I was comatose.
Nothing, not even water, could wake me, they said. Instead of waiting so that they could include me, Suzie and my mother planned the party on their own. Every detail was worked out as I slept, and when I woke up on Friday morning, all I had left to do was shop for new clothes. At least I could count on my mother's hesitancy to allow me to do anything but breathe to keep Suzie's extravagance in check. But what made them think they could railroad a party I had been reluctant to throw? Who did that?
I couldn't believe I'd slept all day and night, but I woke feeling refreshed. I was in such a good mood as I dressed after my morning shower that even the thought of seeing Gabe at school, of having him seek me out, didn't bother me. Much. But I couldn't expect it to be perfect. Tolerable wasn't happiness, but neither was it unbearable.
The possibility became a non-issue when my mother suggested we skip class and spend the day before my birthday together. Tomorrow, I would become an adult. In a week, a high school graduate. Finally, something happened to work in my favour, and even though she wasn't my first choice of companion while shopping, I wasn't about to turn the opportunity down. Maybe, by forcing her to see I could leave the house without being harmed, my mother would stop hovering.
We left the house late, nearly noon, and went to the mall. It wasn't much, but a second floor had just been opened, and at least fifteen new stores were set up for business. We went to each and every one, even a maternity store that, as my mother argued, had a cute window display. When I said I wanted to go home, she said we'd go for supper. When I said I wanted to hang out with Suzie as I texted her during supper, my mother talked me into going to an old movie at the theatre.
That's how we wound up in a dark parking lot with arms full of bags and lost, not even sure we were in the right area.
"Use your keychain to unlock it, Mom, and we'll hear it beep." I shivered as the cool night blew through my lightweight jacket. My arms were too loaded with bags to hug myself for warmth, so I promised my body that if I could endure the chill just a little longer, I would take a long hot soak in the tub as soon as we got back home. "Follow the beep."
"I did!"
"You don't just point it. Press the button." I stopped bouncing on the balls of my feet and held out my hand, our bags swinging in the air and rustling as they rubbed against one another. "Gimme it."
"Well, well. You are such a little hero, aren't you?"
I looked around us. Nothing. We were the only ones here. My mother placed her ring of keys in my hand. Didn't she hear it? It was deep, dark, and threatening. A voice I knew and feared.
"Aly?"
My mom was watching me. I nodded and pinched my lips into a forced smile and raised the keys to press the button to unlock the doors. There were no beeps or flashing headlights. I pivoted and faced the opposite direction to try again. No luck. Were we out of range?
Laughter rumbled in the wind. "Little girl, little girl. Don't play with mommy's toys."
"Maybe we're in the wrong lot," I said, and swallowed, trying to remain calm.
My mother seemed ignorant to the sound. Maybe if I'd said something before, my crazy level wouldn't have leapt from thinking I heard what people thought to hearing voices that couldn't exist. As soon as the party was over, I would tell my parents everything, and let them choose whether to have me committed.
"Open your eyes, little girl."
I gulped and tried to blink it away. Ridiculous, I knew, since I couldn't see it. But I couldn't answer with my mother here. Not when she didn't know what I was talking to, because I was pretty sure it wasn't a who.
The voice began to hum a song, like something you'd hear in a horror movie, where the viewer knows the actor is missing something that's right there. But, of course, they don't figure it out until it's too late.
I refused to play the part.
"I bet you thought Lover Boy killed me, hmm? You're wrroongg. I'mm stttilll heerrree!" The voice burst into wet, chortling laughter, and it wouldn't surprise me to suddenly be sprayed with the mucus from within its lungs like a smoker coughing after a nap.
"C-come on, Mom." I grabbed her arm and tugged, looking over my shoulder as I tried to pull her away. She wasn't a part of this. "Let's look on the other side."
"No!" the voice shouted. "You can't leave me."
"Aly, we parked here," she insisted, digging in her heels. "Let's just go a bit further. Maybe we don't see it because of the fog, or maybe the battery on that thing is dead."
"No, Mom. It isn't." I was sure her keychain worked fine after being the idiot sent to get a replacement because she'd 'accidentally' left her purse on the hood of the car. When my dad pulled away from the curb, of course it toppled over and crunched the contents beneath the weight of rolling tires.
I raised my eyes above me and couldn't contain my gasp as a shadow as thick as a F5 tornado swirled above, closing in, threatening. Surprise, terror, and the desire to flee overwhelmed me. I couldn't leave my mother, but she wouldn't go until we found the car. The sinister shadow, like the voice, was meant only for me.
"Leeaavee hher."
I shook my head behind my mother's back, looking up with narrowed eyes, and whispered, "Never."
She turned to me, her brows furrowing. "What?"
The voice laughed, and I clenched my teeth, balling my fists at my side. Glancing behind me and then back, I lowered my voice and concentrated on my mother's face so that I wouldn't look at the shadow. "We'll never find it, Mom. It's too dark." I took a step back and smiled, nodding. "Let's just go and call Dad to pick us up, okay?"
"I have no form. Leave her or I will take yours!"
I begged my mother to leave with my eyes. Brenan's voice, as deep and powerful as it had been when he attacked, hadn't lost its malice—or greed. I had no clue if he could follow through with his threats, but I wasn't stupid enough to want to find out. How was he here? Mike had obliterated him to ash.
If he could take our form, what would happen to our souls?
Ignoring me, my mother turned and stepped away, too fast for my belated reach to grasp. "Aly, this is silly," she said, looking back over her shoulder as she raised her hands to pull fly-away hair the wind gusted from her mouth. She pivoted forward, pointing through the fog. "Let's just—oh!"
Her bags fell to the ground and she lost her balance. Dropping the shopping bags from my hands and wrist, a cloud of dust rose from the ground as I sprang forward, ready to defend. But nothing was there. "Mom!"
How do I fight against air?
"Honey?" She was being pulled backwards by her jacket, right above her shoulder blades, and she reached out for me, her feet dragging paths in the loose gravel. Her face was filled with disbelief and terror, her mouth hanging in an O.
She screamed, and the sound tore a part of me away. Dread filled me, pushing everything else I needed to survive away.
"Mom!" Running to keep up, I took her hands and tried to pull her back. I dug my heels into the ground, hoping for a ledge-like stall tactic, and felt my stomach drop. All I did was nothing. My grasp just brought me along for the ride, not even slowing the shadow down. I looked above her at the laughing darkness, no longer caring how crazy I might sound. "Let her go!" Coughing as dust coated my throat, I took another breath, and choked, "You don't want her!"
"What—?" She screamed again. The skin on the nape of her neck was turning red and then blistering where the tendrils of shadows mixed with the white fog, becoming grey like smoke, and kissed her flesh to sizzle in the air.
"Is that an offer?"
"I—What? An offer for what?"
My hands were slipping, both of our palms slick with sweat. I couldn't let go—I wouldn't—if it meant losing her. But we both had to fight, because if it came down to the choice that I suspected the shadow was asking me to make, I would gladly go in my mother's place. Could she endure that? What mother wants to outlive her child? She couldn't, not if I sacrificed my life for hers.
But I couldn't let her be taken and leave me behind.
The shadow, unwilling to wait or provide me the time to think, magnified its pull, and I nearly lost my grip on my mother's hands before sliding with her once more.
Wisps of the shadow's outer smoke, black but edged with gray, slithered across my mother's face. She closed her eyes and sealed her mouth, but that wasn't enough to keep it from flowing up, into her nose. She coughed, choking, and more of the shadow tried to enter.
"Do you want to take her place?" The pull slackened as though providing me a chance to answer. The shadow around her face hesitated but didn't pull back, throbbing big and small as though standing in place, gasping with anticipation it couldn't control.
"I-I don't know what... that means!" I yelled, biting my lip. I grunted, dug my feet in, and pulled back, concentrating all my strength on getting my mother back to my side.
At first, I was met with resistance. The shadow's strength was too great to match. But I kept pulling, fluctuating the force. Pull, stop, pull.
"No!" The shadow screeched like a tortured parrot as its hold snapped.
I fell to my backside with my mother landing on top of me, both of us drained by the effort.
The shadow slithered towards us through the air, hovering low, a predator coming in for its kill. It swooped down, just above our heads, and my mother's eyes widened. She looked up, and then back to me, and I knew she had finally seen it. We held each other's gaze as though in a silent farewell, her nose and chin red, but not yet blistered, like a sunburn that was working its way beneath her flesh. We both knew we weren't strong enough, and when the shadow that was Brenan attacked again, we wouldn't survive.
Darkness rose up, swooped down, and filled the air with laughter. The smell of decay filled our senses, making me clap my hand over my mouth and gag. My mother grabbed my other hand and scooted so that she could shield me, and I could see the blisters on her neck, some as large as a nickel. It was as though she was telling me to let her go first. Let her go while I ran away. To stay safe.
She grit her teeth and held back her scream as the shadow slicked forward with its never-ending taunts, only this time it reached out, stretching to contort into wisps, past the protection of her shoes to the unhindered skin at her ankle, just between her sock and the hem of her pants. The white soles of her tennis shoes began to melt and still, the shadow didn't linger. It hummed its haunting melody and travelled up, up, up her leg to reach her hips.
"Ahh!"
I held my breath when the shadow screamed.
It recoiled like a yo-yo brought back to its controller and backed into the darkness from which it came. It blended in as it waited, watching for the headlights that had rounded the theatre to fade.
Instead, they came closer, circling us with protection.
The car pulled to a stop and kept its light on us as a spotlight. Grabbing hold of my mother's hand, I pulled her with me as I crawled across the pebbles, ignoring the biting sting as the sharp edges bit into my skin. It was nothing compared to what my mother had suffered, all because of me. The shadow had come for me and fed on her, and there was no telling what the taint of its touch would do. But before I could worry about that, we had to get away, go somewhere without darkness and tend to whatever wounds she'd survived to bear.
"Aly?"
The air in my lungs rushed out between my teeth, and I looked up to see Suzie with Deryk at her side. Glancing back towards the shadow, my body slumped, the tension that froze my muscles draining out my limbs until they were jelly.