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The kitchen's cold. It shouldn't be — the sun's been shining all day and it's a nice warm night — but it's like standing in a refrigerator aisle in a supermarket.
I creep to the hall door and stop, again listening for sounds. None.
Leaving the kitchen, I check the TV room, Mom's fancily decorated living room — off-limits to Gret and me except on special occasions — and Dad's study. Empty. All as cold as the kitchen.
Coming out of the study, I notice something strange and do a double-take. There's a chess board in one corner. Dad's prize chess set. The pieces are based on characters from the King Arthur legends. Hand-carved by some famous craftsman in the nineteenth century. Cost a fortune. Dad never told Mom the exact price — never dared.
I walk to the board. Carved out of marble, four inches thick. I played a game with Dad on its smooth surface just a few weeks ago. Now it's scarred by deep, ugly gouges. Almost like fingernail scratches — except no human could drag their nails through solid marble. And all the carefully crafted pieces are missing. The board's bare.
Up the stairs. Sweating nervously. Fingers clenched tight. My breath comes out as mist before my eyes. Part of me wants to turn tail and run. I shouldn't be here. I don't need to be here. Nobody would know if I backed up and …
I flash back to Gret's face after the rat guts prank. Her tears. Her pain. Her smile when she gave me the Brazil jersey. We fight all the time, but I love her deep down. And not that deep either.
I'm not going to leave her alone with Mom and Dad to face whatever trouble they're in. Like I told myself earlier — we're a family. Dad's always said families should pull together and fight as a team. I want to be part of this — even though I don't know what “this” is, even though Mom and Dad did all they could to keep me out of “this,” even though “this” terrifies me senseless.
The landing. Not as cold as downstairs. I try my bedroom, then Gret's. Empty. Very warm. The chess pieces on Gret's board are also missing. Mine haven't been taken, but they lie scattered on the floor and my board has been smashed to splinters.
I edge closer to Mom and Dad's room. I've known all along that this is where they must be. Delaying the moment of truth. Gret likes to call me a coward when she wants to hurt me. Big as I am, I've always gone out of my way to avoid fights. I used to think (fear) she might be right. Each step I take towards my parents' bedroom proves to my surprise that she was wrong.
The door feels red hot, as though a fire is burning behind it. I press an ear to the wood — if I hear the crackle of flames, I'll race straight to the phone and dial the emergency number. But there's no crackle. No smoke. Just deep, heavy breathing … and a curious dripping sound.
My hand's on the doorknob. My fingers won't move. I keep my ear pressed to the wood, waiting … praying. A tear trickles from my left eye. It dries on my cheek from the heat.
Inside the room, somebody giggles — low, throaty, sadistic. Not Mom, Dad, or Gret. There's a ripping sound, followed by snaps and crunches.
My hand turns.
The door opens.
Hell is revealed.
DEMONS
BLOOD everywhere. Nightmarish splashes and gory pools. Wild streaks across the floor and walls.
Except the walls aren't walls. I'm surrounded on all four sides by webs. Millions of strands, thicker than my arm, some connecting in orderly designs, others running chaotically apart. Many of the strands are stained with blood. Behind the layer of webs, more layers — banks of them stretching back as far as I can see. Infinite.
My eyes snap from the walls. I make quick, mental thumbnails of other details. Numb. Functioning like a machine.
The dripping sound — a body hanging upside down from the webby ceiling in the center of the room. No head. Blood drops to the floor from the gaping red O of the neck. Even without the head, I recognize him.
“DAD!” I scream, and the cry almost rips my vocal chords apart.
To my left, an obscene creature spins round and snarls. It has the body of a very large dog, the head of a crocodile. Beneath it, motionless — Mom. Or what's left of her.
A dreadful howl to my right. Gret! Sitting on the floor, staring at me, weaving sideways, her face white, except where it's smeared with blood. I start to call to her. She half-turns, and I realize that she's been split in two. Something's behind her, in the cavity at the back, moving her like a hand puppet.
The “something” pushes Gret away. It's a child, but no child of this world. It has the body of a three-year-old, with a head much larger than any normal person's. Pale green skin. No eyes — a small ball of fire flickers in each of its empty sockets. No hair — yet its head is alive with movement. As the hell-child advances, I see that the objects on its head are cockroaches. Living. Feeding on its rotten flesh.
The crocodile-dog moves away from Mom and also closes in on me, exchanging glances with the monstrous child, who's narrowing the gap.
I can't move. Fear has seized me completely. I look from Mom to Dad to Gret. All red. All dead.
Impossible! This isn't happening! A bad dream — it must be!
But eve
n in my very worst nightmare, I never imagined anything like this. I know that it's real, simply because it's too awful not to be.
