Chapter Seventeen – Molly

 

The thing howled an unearthly, ear-shattering howl as the reflected sunlight from my phone’s glass face struck it. Steam curled up around the spot, and fire seemed to lick out from its body like it was an ant, and I was a precocious little shit of a child with a magnifying glass.

I winced at the smell of burnt fur as I stepped forward, one hand holding the phone out in front of me like a cross in one of those vampire films, as the other tried to protect my ear from the splitting cry. “Go away!” I shouted, brandishing it higher, practically drawing a circle on the giant lump of shadow.

Still yowling, it thrashed under the beam of light, its shadowy black limbs flying everywhere as it tried to cringe back from me. Its giant claws tore into the porch posts and Pavestone flooring, carving huge gouges as it backed into the corner like a scared mouse.

I continued my advance, tears squeezing out from the corners of my eyes as the roar shook the windows of the house, shook the tiles of the roof, and shook the bones of my body. Digging deep into the pit of my being, I fought the urge to cringe in terror. I marched forward, instead, tears now trickling down my cheeks.

“No!” it roared, twisting and writhing away. “No!”

I kept moving. “You took Heidi!” I shouted. “Fuck you!”

“No!” it screamed again, this time loudly enough to set off car alarms next door, its arms shooting out again, snapping one of the porch’s posts like a piece of kindling meant for the fire pit. “No!”

I stepped forward, gripped the phone in both hands, and held it up in front of me as I focused the light on its four-eyed face, my throat ragged and pained. I realized, then, that it wasn’t just the monster’s voice roaring and ringing in my ears. It was mine, too.

“Go to hell!” I yelled, stepping closer. “Burn in hell!”

And, just like that, it was gone.

Poof.

Its form and shape just turned into smoke, into nothing more than an oil stain of blackness on the porch, no bigger across than a small kiddie pool.

“Huh?” I asked, my shaking arms dropping my phone to the side. I stepped closer on wobbly legs, barely noticing the pebbled aggregate burning the soles of my feet. I stepped up onto the little path, not daring to get any closer to the shadows, as I peered down at the porch floor, at the greasy slick left behind by the creature, and at the strange, metallic object in the center of it. “Is it…?”

I stepped back in surprise as the spot on the Pavestone shifted, moved. It looked like nothing more than a shadow, just a spot of darker darkness, but then it quickly began to shift.

“Holy—!”

It was suddenly gone, like an arrow let loose from a bow, moving into the shadows of the eaves of the house. Darting along like a giant cockroach, or scared rabbit, moving only through the shadows as it raced across the shaded areas behind the plants against the side of the house.

I whipped around, trying to keep track of its scurrying form as it raced from the wrecked porch, my eyes wide and staring.

It raced along the edge of the fence, down beneath the plants, till it finally made it outside the yard and ran off down into the alley behind the house.

I stood there, mouth open, chest burning, throat raw. I looked down at my phone in disbelief. Disbelief that it had worked to drive the thing off, but also disbelief that I hadn’t tried to take a picture of it. “Jesus Christ,” I said, lungs still heaving. “Jesus Christ.”

I beat it. Whatever that thing was, if it had taken Heidi, I’d beaten it.

But, even as the thought entered my head, I knew that wasn’t right. I’d only managed to drive it off for a little while. What happened when it recovered? Whatever it had been, it didn’t exactly seem like the forgiving type. If anything, it seemed like the type to hold a grudge.

I turned and stumbled onto the porch, nearly flinching as the sun left my shoulders and arms. All around me was the destruction the creature had left behind: wooden splinters, powdered flagstones, flakes of outdoor paint. And on the ground in the center of it all was the heavy-looking metallic coin I’d seen earlier.

A gold coin. Just like Luke had said the killer had left for the other girls while he was stalking them.

I ran a hand down my face as I looked around at the destruction. My God, this was all real. Somehow, some way, this wasn’t all just in my head. What else could have caused this damage to Heidi’s porch? There’s no way I could have managed that, even in some kind of crazy fugue state. So it had to be real. Didn’t it?

My eyes turned back to the coin in the middle of the porch. The coin the thing had left behind. If the destruction was real, logic followed that it was, too.

Logic? I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Who was I kidding, here? There was no fucking logic to any of this! All there was was a giant shadow dog, my missing friend, a wrecked porch, and this gold coin.

But this coin? Something in my gut told me it was the key.

Not thinking, I bent over and plucked it from the porch’s floor, stumbled into the house with it tightly gripped in my hand. I slammed the door shut behind me, threw the deadbolt, and let out a deep breath as I collapsed back against it.

Inside was silent, so silent I could almost hear the water still dripping onto my shoulders and the floor from the ends of my long mane.

An image of the claw marks back at the mansion flashed into my mind. The claws Luke had said were probably from a mountain lion. I hadn’t bought it for a second back then, but I hadn’t had an alternative at the time.

Unfortunately, now I did.

What if that thing came back? What if Heidi wasn’t enough, and it wanted me, now?

“Think, Molly,” I whispered as I looked around the house, at all the blinds and curtains covering the big picture windows adorning Heidi’s home. “Think.”

Light. It seemed made of darkness, and the sunlight reflected from my phone had hurt it, sent it running off to God only knew where. And where better to find light than right outside your front door?

Setting aside my phone and the gold coin, I turned to the covered window beside me, opened the blinds, and pulled them all the way up till the sun was shining in through them. I yanked the cord, drew them up to the top, then went around and did the same to all the other windows. Drew the curtains wide, pulled the blinds high. Every light switch I passed on my way, every lamp, every light fixture, I turned on like the sun was already setting in California, behind me.

Five minutes later, I was standing back in the kitchen, arms wrapped around me as I stared down at the golden coin I’d dropped on the counter. At its strange Latin or Greek letterings. At the face of a strange figure pressed into the front. Beside it rested my phone, my nine and my ones already typed out.

If it would have been stupid and brash to call the police before, for fear of what would happen to Heidi, it was even more stupid and brash to call the police, now, for fear of what they’d do to me. What was I going to tell them that wouldn’t end up with me in a county loony bin? Even if I told them a man did that damage to the porch, and not some shadow dog, they’d still never believe that I fought him off and drove him away.

And, if it came back, what could they do?

But what could I do? Call Luke? He didn’t want my help. He didn’t want me coming with him, or going any further with him on this. And, more importantly, he’d be the same as the cops. What could I tell him to make him believe what I’d seen?

I chewed on my lower lip, my finger twisting nervously in my hair as I stared at the golden coin.

No, he wouldn’t come if I told him about the shadow dog thing. Why would he?

But he would if I told him about the coin. And then, once he got here, I could tell him about what I’d seen.

“He’ll believe me,” I whispered as I kept my eyes on the coin, almost as if I were worried it would grow feet and wander off. “He has to.”