A noise like the earth opening up. A low rumble, like thunder just before a thunderstorm begins. There was a word wrapped in that reverberation: No.

I looked at my friends. Ridiculously, we hadn’t planned for that. We had assumed we could at least get her outside into the backyard. If we couldn’t even do that, I had no idea how we were going to do the rest.

The three of us remained frozen in place as she walked down the stairs. I felt like a deer on a country road late at night, seeing headlights but unable to move out of the way. Unable to save myself.

Jess gave a strangled cry as Liz walked into the kitchen. She looked energized. Revitalized. Her hair flowed around her shoulders, snow white and reaching almost down to her waist. She wore a white sheath that reached the ground, almost completely sheer.

Her face was pulled tight, like she’d had a 90210-worthy facelift. Her mouth was bloodred, her lips pursed together in a smirk. As she took us in, she smiled widely. Her incisors were sharper, her nails filed into points. She looked like a dark priestess. An entity ready to open up the veil in between our world and the dark supernatural, and let loose all the demonic forces.

She had been waiting for this moment to invite the legion from hell to Whispering Farms. Everything before now had been preamble, a tease.

She didn’t say anything as she stood, perfectly still, in the doorway. Waiting for us to do whatever it was that we had planned, so she could finish us off.

She had bided her time, and now the prey had come to the predator.

CHAPTER
40

The four of us seemed to be frozen in the kitchen, a horror movie on pause. No one spoke or moved, and the only sensation besides the blinding panic in my head, telling me to run, was the sweat that trickled down my back, soaking my shirt.

Jess was the one to press Play. “Look, we wore these shirts for you,” she said. She dramatically pointed to her chest, a quivering smile on her face. “We know how much you love being a Parrothead. Maybe we could all go to a concert together. Remember how you wanted us to go last summer and we said no? We really want to now. I want to hear the song—”

I quickly elbowed her, as we were not there to blabber about Jimmy Buffett. I looked at Liz. She began to hum quietly, a deep, throaty hum that sounded like disconnected stereo speakers. It circled my brain and began to lull me into a trance. I forgot what we were there for, allowed the noise to overtake me. Wherever it wanted me to go, I was ready.