Page 105 of Goldilocks

“Come out,” Sam whispered.

Eric’s face was pale, and blood soaked his ginger curls on one side of his head to a deep crimson. One pupil was blown wide, the other a pinprick. “Sam?” Eric murmured. “I feel sick.”

“Come on,” Sam urged.

Eric blinked. “That’s…the window?” His voice was dazed. Lethargic.

Sam pushed the window open as far as it could go and reached in, taking Eric by the wrist and pulling. “Comeon.”

As Sam leaned in for him, he pushed the window further open. The metal squeaked.

A shriek tore through the air, piercing through Sam’s ears and into his head like a physical attack. In the middle of the high-pitched shriek, a loud thump sounded on the other side of the door. Sam released Eric to cover his ears, and Eric mirrored him. As soon as Eric let go of the desk, he stumbled and fell to the ground.

The entire door jumped, the heavy dresser hopping, its legs sliding across the ground. The feet scraped the dark wooden floor pale and then caught on the groove of a plank and went no further. The door bounced again, quaking as if something heavy and powerful was throwing itself against it.

Sam released his ears and grabbed the window frame, hauling himself up and tumbling over the desk and onto the ground. There was a gap in the shriek, and Sam thought he heard a muffled cry through the door, but he couldn’t distinguish it. His ears were ringing. Sam shoved the dresser forward again, leveraging his body weight against the blasted thing to get it to move, and then he jumped over Eric and shoved the desk over, so the next time the dresser got shoved, it would jam against the desk, which was braced against the wall. In the time it took to do that, Eric had rolled onto his side.

Sam grabbed his brother under his arms and hauled him to his feet.

The door jumped. It jumped again. Within the shrieking, he heard splintering wood. Eric swayed lethargically and Sam cursed. “I’m sorry. But we need to go.” He manoeuvred Eric so that his top half was leaning out the window, and then he shoved. Sam was no stranger to physical labour, and though Eric was bigger than him, the strength to lift him came. Eric pitched out, head over heels, and Sam clutched his calves to cushion the brutality of the descent.

Eric fell onto the weeds with a groan that was immediately swallowed up by screeching and banging.

Wood groaned and cracked, and Sam jumped onto the windowsill. He was perched there, halfway in, halfway out, when the racket abruptly stopped. The shriek ended. The bangs ceased. Sam hesitated. Chanced a look over his shoulder to the door.

Through the splintered door, something loomed. Too tall. Too still.

Then it moved.

Fast.

Sam leapt out. Grabbed Eric below the arms and got him vertical again. His sweating hands slipped their grip, and he had to re-adjust, plunging his arms beneath Eric’s pits so the hook of his elbow found ample leverage.

“Eric,” Sam cried. “Get up!”

But Eric couldn’t. He fell against Sam when he managed to get him vertical, mumbling something incoherent. Desperate, Sam dragged him around the corner to the back of the house before he dropped him, despairing.

Where was Jasper?

Where was Ivan?

Sam pulled his golden knife free from the chain around his neck, and he clutched it in his right hand. He pressed against the corner, Eric behind him. The sun beat down on Sam, leaving him squinting, with sweat dripped into his eyes, which he roughly wiped away.

He would surprise it. It would run around the corner, and Sam would stab it. And once he’d stabbed it, he’d grab Eric and get to the car and then grab Jasper and Ivan, who he was sure were both perfectlyfine,and they would all drive away all well and good and—

Eric groaned.

Sam roughly kicked his side with the back of his heel. “Quiet,” he hissed.

Eric grabbed his ankle so tightly his tendons and bones cried out. Sam stifled his cry of pain and twisted, keeping the knife in his right hand and at the corner where he needed it. Eric lay collapsed against the side of the building, exactly as Sam had dumped him. And crouched over Eric was a thing.

Round eyes, the exact same shade of green as Sam’s own, peered up at him, only these eyes lacked lids, and humanity. Its mouth had no lips, only sharp teeth. Leathery-grey skin pulled so tightly over bone that Sam could clearly see the outline of its skull.

They stared at each other.

That’s my hoodie, Sam thought. A navy top that he’d lost years ago. And then realised his ankle was in its hand, over-long fingers wrapped tight like a shackle.

Chapter Thirty-Eight