Chapter Fourteen
Astrid
It had been almost two weeks since I'd last seen Quint and truth be told, I missed him. It was silly given the fact that we'd only gone out on one date – two, if you counted that first night at the restaurant – but I missed him. For reasons I didn't understand and couldn't explain, I was drawn to him. Really, really drawn to him. And not just because he was a gorgeous man – which he was. It went deeper than that.
I'd picked up the phone, intending to call him a thousand times over the last couple of weeks. But I'd put it back down without dialing, every single time. There was still so much that didn't make sense about our last meeting. So much I didn't understand.
And I still couldn't get over the fact that I'd seen him kill.
After that night and everything he'd told me, I'd done a ton of research on the Shongtal. Of course, there was nothing in scholarly literature about it. As far as academics knew, they didn't exist. Nonetheless I'd done some deeper digging, had read blogs and articles by cryptozoologists and other conspiracy theory nuts. That had been like striking a gold mine.
There was an endless amount of information about the Shongtal – though nothing conclusive or definitive. It was all speculation, rumor, and personal testimonials. But the common threads were enough. They sort of tied everything Quint had told me all together.
I didn't say that I necessarily believed in this creature – but I was open minded enough to not shut the door on the possibility. After all, I still had no explanation for the red light shooting out of their eyes I'd seen just before they died. I knew that wasn't a human thing. But my logical mind told me that I was simply seeing things that weren't there. That the situation was so traumatic and stressful that I'd hallucinated. The more I tried to convince myself of that though, the more I ended up not believing it.
Still what I'd seen – or thought I'd seen –wasn't enough for me to go on. I needed more proof. Moreover, I had no idea how to go about getting more because I didn't know how to make heads or tails of any of this.
I wanted to talk to Piper about it. Get a little perspective and some cold, hard logic. But I'd quickly rejected the idea simply because I didn't want her to think I'd gone nuts. I had nobody I could talk to about any of this. Except for Quint – and I wasn't going to do that.
The phone to the shop rang and I snatched it up, thankful to have a distraction, something to get my mind off of Quint, red-eyed demons, and everything else. I cleared my throat and put the phone to my ear.
“Thanks for calling The Attic, how can I help you?”
I was greeted by nothing more than silence on the other end of the line.
“Hello?”
I thought I heard something through that silence. It sounded like – breathing. Not the heavy breather type of prank call, just the sound of somebody sitting there with their own phone pressed to their ear, breathing normally into the receiver. I didn't know why, but that seemed a little more unnerving.
“Last chance,” I said.
Nothing but more of the breathing.
“No? Okay, take care.”
I hung up the phone quickly and felt the ominous finger of dread sliding its way up my spine. I had no reason to feel nervous about a simple prank call. After all, it was probably just some dumb kid dialing random numbers, trying to get a rise out of whoever answered.
I looked out the front windows, watching as the daylight was beginning to bleed out of the sky. The blanket of darkness was being pulled over the world as night started to replace day. I checked my watch and saw that it was four thirty.
“Close enough,” I said, deciding to knock off half an hour early.
I hustled around the shop, cleaning up and putting things away. I just felt the need to get out of there and get home before full dark fell. Although nothing had happened since that one night with Quint, I still wasn't keen on taking chances. Especially, when I didn't have a large man armed with silver daggers to keep an eye on me.
Finished with my end of day chores, I hustled out of the shop and locked up tight. I turned and walked quickly down the street. I wasn't going to stop anywhere – I'd order in tonight if nothing else. All I knew was that I needed to be home. Indoors. Away from everybody.
It was irrational and illogical, but that didn't make the fear that was coursing through me any less real.
Dusk was painting over the brightness of the afternoon, heralding the coming of the night. I cut through the park – the same park we'd been attacked in – and hurried down the path. Looking around, I saw that there was nobody else out there but me. Ordinarily, that didn't bother me. My shortcut home wasn't a high traffic area. But for whatever reason, I felt different about it. The lack of people, combined with the gloom of the early evening combined to feel sinister. Ominous.
All I knew was that I didn't want to be there anymore.
I re-settled my backpack onto my shoulders and had just picked up my pace just as I heard a high pitched keening noise coming from the foliage that lined the path on either side of me. My blood ran cold and a feeling like an electric jolt shot up my spine as half a dozen people stepped onto the path before me. I saw – or at least thought I saw – a flash of red in their eyes as they looked at me.
A woman stepped forward, a predatory grin on her face. “Hello, Astrid,” she said. “We've been waiting for you.”