Page 71

Monsters everywhere, Marcella croons, and I spin. But of course, I’m alone, a phantom cool breath skating along the nape of my neck.

Breathing hard, I push through the door.

Dining room, dark and unoccupied. My heels scudding over dense carpet, I move through, ducking beneath the windows. There’s a green light on in the next room—not the library, though. The library, crowded with books and shadows and ghosts, is to my right. This is a different space, one I didn’t get the chance to see last time. The light around the doorjamb is almost neon-bright, perhaps one of those uranium glass fixtures? It spills chartreuse along the baseboard opposite.

A twinkling laugh, then a shaky one. Marcella … and Dr. Sims? Together? Alone, in there? Something falls over with a jagged crash. The sound of exploding glass, a sharper laugh. Inaudible, muffled words. A stymied shout.

I move toward the sound but stagger to a stop: a breathy gasp, the sound of slick flesh over flesh. My stomach roils at the idea of them fucking in the next room.

Oh my god. This of all things cannot be happening. I can’t be walking into this right now. Forget it, forget all of this. I’m going to call an Uber and—

A door slams somewhere in the house above us and the squelching sound stops. I freeze, too, though my heart beats so hard I can see it moving beneath the fabric of my dress. Footsteps, now, from above.

Shit.

I race toward the green light in the next room. Fine, I’ll break this up so Marcella doesn’t get caught. But that’s it. No more helping her out, or talking to her, or even looking at her ever again. And to think I was starting to feel something for her? Ugh. My cheeks burn as I walk through the door, eyes closed.

My voice hoarse, I whisper, “Marcella. We have to go—”

She doesn’t answer, only makes a soft grunt.

I open one eye to a squint. I’m in some kind of liquor room, the walls mirrored, glass shelves lined with bottles of booze. There’s a broad mirrored bar on one side, and I can just make out a man’s shoe. Gathering my anger, eyes burning with tears I refuse to acknowledge, I stomp over.

But when I turn the corner—it—it’s not what I imagined.

On the floor, Marcella is curved over—something? She must be in front of some light, because she’s held in dark silhouette, bright green hugging her frame.

I ease my other eye open.

Dr. Sims’s head is tilted back at an oblique angle, his lips moving and stained—deep red?

“H-help. M-me—” he rasps.

Blood-flecked spittle flies from his lips as something crunches in his throat. He burbles thickly, his left eye beginning to blacken and bulge, protruding from his socket as—as something wriggles behind it. Something moves, oh god, something is working its way out. The jelly shudders and bursts, a barbed, slick black tentacle breaking through its ruined surface.

Dr. Sims gives a short, cut-off huff, juddering and shaking for a nauseating few seconds, and then his body sags. The black worm muscles back inside again, his head moving side to side with its motion.

My eyes drop to Marcella, bile squirming up my throat and burning the back of my tongue. Her mouth is clamped onto the pale flesh of Dr. Sims’s neck, a bristle of needlelike teeth affixed to his skin. Around her bite, blisters of near-black blood spill, adding to the slurry. It spills over the shattered wreck of her fox mask, painting it a lurid, arterial crimson.

“M-Marcella?” I stammer, my voice reduced to breath and tremor. “What—what are you doing?”

“Who’s there?” a deep voice calls nearby. “Is anyone here?”

All I can hear is my breathing, the scream between my ears that I’m desperate to keep caged behind my teeth, even if they shatter with the effort.

Marcella’s bright eyes flick to mine, take in my mask, her pupils widening with recognition. Slowly, slowly, she lowers Dr. Sims’s broken body to the ground. Her teeth, so sharp and coated with gore and impossibly long, pull back into her gums. When she releases him with an audible suck, the barbed black tentacle worms out of Dr. Sims’s head, slithering between her jaws.

It’s not a fucking tentacle, though, is it? It’s her tongue.

I stifle a screech with my hand, my eyes leaking tears.

Monsters are everywhere, Marcella’s voice croons in my ear.

“What are you doing here?” she scream-shouts.

“Hello?” The sound of heavy footsteps.

I’m rooted to the spot. I can’t move.