Page 45 of Hallowed Bones

“Fuck!” Ezra jerks away, raising a hand to cup his nose. Red droplets appear beneath his fingers.

“That’s what you get,” I tell him, my lips twitching with the urge to start laughing. “Maybe this time, you’ll listen when I tell you not to follow me!” I start back up the path, my footfalls faster and heavier than before.

“Haven!” Ezra’s muffled shout trails after me. “Stop! Godsdamn it, you’d better keep your ass right there or I swear I’ll fucking spank it!”

Spank me? Ha. I’d love to see him try. Then again, of the rest of the guys—Ezra does strike me as the type of man to need control. I wonder if he spanks the girls he fucks before he sends them on their way.

No. I shake my head, bringing my foot down on a wayward fallen tree branch in the center of the path with a satisfying crunch. I shouldn’t think about who he fucks or even how he fucks them. It’s none of my business, and even if it were, I don’t care.

Four weeks. One month. That’s how long I’ve lasted since the day I came to Ipswich College, and no attractive man or his friends is going to keep me from living my life here. I’m an adult. No longer under my aunt’s thumb, no longer required to attend therapy sessions that left me feeling like I was a problem, and certainly not beholden to men I don’t even know. Then again … what do I have to show for my time here but one friend, a broken phone, and four psychos that won’t leave me alone? Not much.

I wipe the skin beneath my eyes as they grow tight, prickling with a familiar burn.

“Don’t fucking cry.” The order is meant for those angry tears that have risen from the dead. “Don’t fucking do it.”

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

The crunch of leaves beneath my boots goes quiet.

Too quiet.

The wind dies mid-whisper, leaving the trees motionless—stuck in time. The chorus of crickets that had underscored the night like white noise suddenly silences, cut clean. Like something pressed Pause on the world. The back of my neck prickles.

I slow. My breath fogs in the air, the silence swallowing even that. I glance over my shoulder.

“Ezra?” My voice slices through the darkness, sharp and uncertain, but I don’t see him anymore. Unease drags a claw up my spine. “Ezra, I swear if you’re trying to scare me to prove a point, I’ll give you more than a bloody nose.”

No answer.

Just thick, syrupy black and the throb of something wrong pressing against the edges of my mind.

The shadows breathe around me, stretching like they’ve woken from a long slumber. The moon hangs above, smaller now. Farther away. Like it’s retreating—like it doesn’t want to see what’s coming. The air shifts—tainted with rot, something sour and crawling and ancient. My body reacts before my brain can process, panic crackling through my nerves like a live wire. Fear, rage, and something else.

A shape peels itself out of the dark, tall and slender.

I take a step back, hand flying up to clamp over my mouth, barely holding back the scream scrambling to claw its way free. Because even without the moon’s light … I can see it.

Fuck, I can see it.

Vomit burns the inside of my throat. Pale skin like bleached bone, glowing faintly like phosphorescent decay. No eyes. No nose. Just mouths. So many fucking mouths.

Dozens of them—grinning, sneering, wide and wet and hungry. Teeth like razors. Some broken and jagged, sharp daggers sticking out of its lipless mouths.

Click.

It steps forward.

My legs won’t move. Muscles seize. My body wants to run, but my brain is screaming freeze. Fight or flight short-circuited by sheer, primal terror.

Click.

It moves again, each step jerky, unnatural—its limbs too long, too bendable. Joints popping like cracking knuckles. Like its skeleton was designed by someone who’d never seen a human before.

It shouldn’t be real, but … the cold air on my flesh is real. The earth under my boots is real. The horror pressing down on my chest like a fist is real.

Click. Click. Click.

I finally stumble back, eyes bulging as it twitches forward, mouths gaping, grinning wider. It moves faster, coming straight for me. Not a dream. Not a hallucination. A nightmare with teeth. A reality.