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Chapter 6 Excerpt from Shadow People: Quickening of the Wicked
~ LOST LOVE LAID LOW ~
Featuring LILY MADDISON
Not
letting go of Seth’s hand, Lily started towards the door in the
kitchen, which opened to the staircase that led down to the basement.
She opened the door and let go of Murphy’s collar as she nudged the dog
ahead of her down the stairs.
Seth flipped on the light switch that
lit up the stairwell and the room below, and followed numbly at her
side, holding her hand. He didn’t know what to do, nothing felt right,
there was only one thing he did know for sure and that was that Klaudia
was right, he needed to protect Lily.
Lily held onto the railing
and let Seth guide her down the steps. She did not count them this time
and she did not hear Klaudia following behind. She stopped while Seth
took one more step down before he felt her resistance.
“What is it Lily?” he asked.
“Kyaudia. Where’s Kyaudia?” and then a little louder, “Come on Kyaudia,” she called in her small sweet voice.
“Lily honey, please go with your brother. Get away from here. You have to hurry now,” Klaudia replied.
“No, Kyaudia, you habe to come wiff us!” Lily, panicked now, tried to make her way back up the stairs to fetch Klaudia herself, but Seth held her firm.
“I’m going to stay and make sure you get away,” Klaudia took a step
back, “I am sorry my darling Lily, remember, I love you, I love you
both!” and she shut the door and locked it.
“No!” Lily screamed and tried even harder to get back up the stairs as huge tears ran down her little cheeks.
Seth scooped Lily up into his arms and carried her the rest of the way
downstairs while he tried to soothe her, “Lily, Lily, listen to me,
Klaudia is trying to help us. She’s buying us time. We have to do what
she says and get out of here before it’s too late. It’s what she wants
us to do. We have to do it for her.”
“Seff…” Lily wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the words.
They both jumped at the sounds of a loud thump and grunts that came
from the other side of the kitchen door at the top of the stairs. Murphy
barked wildly as he backed slowly away from the stairs. Still holding
Lily, Seth ran straight through the basement towards the storm shelter.
Lily screamed and wailed hysterically.
Once all three of them
were in the shelter, Seth set Lily down, turned on the light, and bolted
the door behind them. He picked up Lily again and stood holding her
tight to his chest. Her sobs were heartbreaking but he didn’t try to
stop her. He let her have her cry and he too cried. They cried for their
parents, for Emily, for Klaudia, and for themselves.
In Lily’s
mind, wrapped in her grief and misery there were no words, there were no
thoughts. There was something else though. It was the feeling that
something or someone was in her mind with her. It was someone that
shared in her woe and heartache. A nice lady, a good lady reached out to
Lily. A nice good lady that was grape-purpaw just like Seth,
except there was another color, maybe cherry-red, on the spot where her
face would be. Lily thought the spot might feel bumpy and lumpy like
cauliflower but softer and squishier and the nice good lady wanted to
comfort her. Then the nice good lady whooshed away and the feeling was
gone.
Klaudia had quickly turned from the door and had taken a
few steps towards the kitchen counter. Just as she slid the butcher
knife from the knife block, Troy came round the corner like a rabid
bull. He flew at her and knocked them both to the floor, both face down,
he on top of her back. The side of Klaudia’s arms slapped against the
tiles and the knife slipped from her hand, sliding six inches from her
reach.
She started to struggle and squirm in an effort to get
out from underneath him but Troy easily denied her attempts. He took
hold of the hair bun she had fixed tightly on top of her head and began
to pull. She screamed, then frantically stretched out her arm and tried
to lay hold of the knife. The more he pulled her hair the harder it
became for her to reach for the knife. She could see it through the
tears in her eyes and her heart sank with every inch he pulled her upper
body away from it.
Troy pulled harder, yanking her head back.
The skin on her face tautened and her whole head felt on fire. She felt
like the skin on her scalp was going to slip off. She knew she had to do
something fast. She did the only thing she could think of. She started
to wrench her head violently forward. The pain in her head and face
became even more severe and she could feel the skin under her bun begin
to rip. She could feel her warm, sticky blood drip down the back of her
neck but she did not stop. She had to get the knife back into her hands.
She had to try to fight him off as long as she could. She had to give
the children time to get away from him. She couldn’t bear the thought of
him getting his rotting hands on them. She was more than willing to
give up her life for that.
She yanked her head forward hard one
more time. She heard a loud ripping and popping noise. At first, she
thought she had pulled away from his grip, but then the pain assaulted
her. She felt a river of blood flow down over her neck and down the
front of her face. She strained to look through a film of crimson over
her shoulder and saw that Troy had the bun in his hands and hanging from
it were pieces of her scalp.
She screamed when she saw it. The
sight of it frightened and sickened her. She knew for sure she wasn’t
ever going to leave that house again, but she was going to do her
damnedest to make sure he didn’t either.
She flung herself flat
down onto the floor and extended her arm and hand as far as she could.
The cool wooden handle of the butcher knife felt so good, so welcomed
under her hateful touch. She tightened her grip on it, lifted her upper
body, swung the knife over her shoulder, and shoved it in all the way
down to the shaft, just below Troy’s collarbone. She pulled it out and
wanted to stab him again, repeatedly, but he didn’t give her that
chance.
He grabbed a hold of her head with both hands and
slammed it onto the hard floor, again and again. The pain in Klaudia’s
head was screaming, pounding. Her vision went black and her hearing
became distant and fuzzy. The last thing she felt was the last slam of
her own skull onto the cold floor. Backed by all his weight, he smashed
her head down and crushed it. Blood splattered all over himself and the
exotic honey-onyx stone flooring.
Not an iota of the former Troy
remained in the rancid shell that was once his fabulous physique. None
of his exceptional intelligence lingered. The shadow-zombie pulled
himself off the body that had only a brief instant ago, been the home to
the shinning spirit of the Maddison’s kind and caring housemaid. It
went to the door to the basement, unlocked, and opened it. It could
smell them. It could hear them. In a frenzy, it awkwardly descended the
stairs and lost its footing halfway down. It rolled and tumbled the rest
of the way down, cracking Troy’s arm bone in the process. It pushed
itself up to a stand at the bottom with both hands anyway, despite the
fracture.
Lily, still held high in Seth’s arms stopped crying unexpectedly and lifted her tear stained face to his, “Oh no, he got Kyaudia!” she whimpered and gripped his arms tightly.
Seth listened. He didn’t hear anything. He was about to tell her that
he didn’t think their dad killed Klaudia, that she was a strong woman,
and that he was sure she’d find a way…when they heard the storm door
handle wiggle followed by fists pounding against the door. Seth’s first
thought was that it was Klaudia, that maybe she had killed him or gotten
away from him and was trying to get in. Then he heard the bizarre
squeals and bestial yelps, smashing his hopes.
“Seff, he’s coming! He’s going to get in here. He’s going to get us!” Lily screamed.
Seth set her down, “It’s okay Lily, he won’t get us. We’ll get out of here before he gets in.”
Seth spotted something on the shelf that he knew they might need and
quickly grabbed it and threw the red urban bag over his shoulder. He
knew the bag held a few health bars, bottles of water, and a first-aid
kit. He used to think that having a storm shelter was stupid and a waste
of money. He thought it was one of those useless things his mother
thought they had to have, just in case. He was very thankful now that
they had one and she had always kept it stocked. His heart ached at the
thought of his mother.
The sky had already begun to darken
earlier, before his…before it…Seth’s thoughts recoiled. He strained to
remember what he had been thinking before. What was it? Something…I need
something…
"A flashlight!” he spoke aloud.
He started throwing things off the shelves in an effort to locate one.
“I found one,” Seth hailed. He quickly turned it on to make sure it worked and it did.
Now, he wanted a weapon. His eyes frantically scanned the room. He lit upon a small hatchet and snatched it up.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Seth whispered to Lily as the pounding on the door increased in its ferociousness.
“Seff, I need a fyash-yight too,” she told him and moved to feel around the shelves.
Seth wanted to ask her why in the world she needed one but stopped
himself. He remembered how she had known things earlier that day and he
knew there was no time to question her now. He found one on the top
shelf and after checking it, he handed it to her. She gripped it tight
with both hands.
He pried one of her hands from the light and
led her to the other door that opened to the outside and another set of
stairs that went up and out to the backyard.
They could hear their father hurling his body up against the door, shrieking.
“Hurry, Seff!” Lily cried in alarm.
Seth and Lily reached the door with Murphy in tow. Seth opened the door
but to his horror, it would only open an inch. It was locked from the
outside.
“Oh, my God!” Seth whispered to himself in disbelief.
He remembered now that his dad, when he was simply his good ole’ dad,
had installed a latch and a combination lock on the outside of the door.
“Seff, I hear da door cracking! He’s getting in! Hurry! Open da door!” Lily was crying again.
Seth took the hatchet in both his hands and began to hammer away at the
latch through the small opening. He prayed, but nothing was happening.
Panic spread through him quickly. Oh God! What am I going to do? We
can’t die like this! We can’t actually die down here like rats! God,
help me, please! Don’t let this happen. Please, don’t let us be killed
by our own…by that thing! Please, this can’t happen to Lily! His
thoughts screamed and his hands shook so much that it became hard for
him to use the hatchet. He was afraid he was going to lose his grip and
it would fly from his hands.
“Seff, he’s coming in!” Lily
had wrapped one of her arms around his leg and Murphy stood whining on
her other side, just as anxious to get out.
The hideous, decomposing creature broke through the door.
Both children screamed. Seth turned back to his own door with sheer
desperation and with terror-fueled adrenaline, struck the hatchet
feverishly against the lock.
Murphy turned around and moved from
Lily’s side, his lips curled back as he growled at the thing that was
swiftly closing in on them.
Troy punched Murphy square across
his chops and the dog flew and flipped onto its side and then jumped
back up as if he hadn’t felt a thing. As Murphy bounded at him, Troy
jumped for Lily, falling flat onto his stomach with a dull thud then
reached out and took hold of her foot.
Copyright © 2009 All Rights Reserved by Stacy Stephens and Cindy Jackson
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