Page 102 of Marked By Shadows

If I followed the road out from the beach would it lead to a main road? Somewhere I could flag down help?

MaryAnn came after me, no longer as quiet as she’d been the first time. I’d obviously done some damage. The sound of her barreling through the trees let me know that she was moving slower and breathing hard. I actually curved around the edge of trees, racing for the beach as though it were humanity. Running on sand is not as glamorous as they make it look in movies. It was awkward, a stumbling gait as the sand gave beneath my feet. I had almost made it to the parking lot when something dark appeared, looming before me.

I slid to a stop, almost landing on my knees as my balance vanished. My gut felt like it had taken a sucker punch, and I gasped for air.

Death. It writhed before me. The same broken/mixed face monster I’d met on the road that day. Huge. Like it was more than three meters tall and two wide, the darkness of stitched together faces whipped around it like tentacles covered in screaming mouths. I fell backward, too close to really move around it and hearing MaryAnn still coming. I glanced back to see her only four or five meters away. Too close. Did she see it? She didn’t stop.

She came at me with the knife again, face contorted in rage. I scrambled around, crab walking backward, away from the darkness, but not fast enough to really get away from her. She hit the black mass full force, smashing into it, and for a moment I thought it would actually slow her down. Instead it seemed to burst apart like smoke, covering her in darkness for a few seconds before she leapt free of it, flying at me with the knife.

“Freeze!” Someone shouted. Lights suddenly blazed, and I couldn’t see anything. Not the darkness or MaryAnn.

MaryAnn screamed in rage. I blinked away tears at the brightness, barely able to see her standing illuminated with her back to the lake, the dark monster Alex thought was Death, dancing behind her like some mythical Cthulhu of nightmares.

The next few seconds transpired so fast it all happened in the time it took me to suck in a breath. She raised the knife to lunge at me, but someone smashed into her from the left, at the same time I heard the movement of cloth and click of weapons.

Alex was suddenly there, wrestling the knife out of her hand kicking it away. I worried for a moment about the police, as it had been their light that brightened the beach to near daytime levels. Would they shoot him? Except Manning was there, rolling MaryAnn over and handcuffing her. Reading her her rights. Another officer picked up the knife with gloved hands and put it in a bag.

I reached for Alex, wondered for a few seconds if he was a figment of my imagination. Maybe I had died. Fuck.

He rolled over, keeping his distance from the Death thing, which still stood there, and came to me. His hands were all over me. “Are you okay? Fuck. I thought we were going to be too late. Did she hurt you?”

That last bit of ice on my heart shattered and I grabbed him hard, wrapping my arms around him, like somehow I could meld with him and keep him there forever. “Where the fuck were you?” I demanded.

“Long story,” Alex grumbled. “I’ll explain in a bit.” He eyed the Death thing warily. “Once we’re off this beach.”

MaryAnn fought the police, using her weight to try to throw them off balance, while they treated her with kid gloves. She got away for a second, and my breath caught, fearing she’d come at me even though she was unarmed, but she ran toward the water instead. She had reached the water and was wading in before the police dragged her back.

Alex wrapped his arms around me and breathed for a minute while they dragged her toward the distant parking lot full of cars. One of the cops appeared near us and held out a phone. My phone.

“Thank you!” I told him, reaching for it. “I dropped it.”

“We were tracking you,” Alex said. “For once my brother’s paranoia pays off.” He helped me to my feet and guided me slowly away from the beach. The Death thing still waited there, though it was fading. And it was odd how the police who moved around seemed to naturally avoid it like they could see it, but I was pretty sure none of them could.

“You’re freezing,” Alex said, rubbing my arms.

“I’ll have one of my guys give you both a ride back to your car,” Manning said. “And if you’re willing, Mr. Richards. I’d like a statement from you.”

“Okay,” I said. “As long as Alex can stay with me.” I gripped Alex’s shirt. He didn’t look hurt at all. “I’m not letting you out of my sight again.”

“Same,” Alex said, putting a possessive arm around my waist. He looked at Manning. “A ride to the car would be great.”

Chapter 30

Ihad to drive us to the police station because we were being followed by cops and Alex didn’t have a license. The adrenaline began to fade as soon as I got in the rental car. We sat with silence between us for a while, radio on low, playing whatever Top 40 station had been programmed in. Alex kept a hand on my thigh while I gripped the steering wheel with both hands, a billion things in my head.

“I saw it,” I said after we got on the highway, cops in front and behind us now. I knew MaryAnn was in one of those, but didn’t care which as long as we were back among civilization. “The black-eyed child. The thing that took you.”

Alex put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“They’ve marked us,” I confessed. “The child said I was marked by something else, so it couldn’t take me. I felt the mark. Remembered some things.”

“Yeah?”

“Not like where I went or anything. Just feeling the mark.” I blew out a long breath. “Not something either of us can see without some sort of help.” Sometimes when I moved a certain way, I could still feel the lines, though looking at my body several times, pushing up sleeves or even my shirt, I saw nothing. It almost felt as though it had marked my soul rather than my body. Which of course led to a big internal debate about the existential presence of souls. “It’s a way for them to find us, and use us again.”

“We suspected that already,” Alex said.

“It’s been two years,” I trailed off… since it had taken me. Why wait so long? Just to let me live and fuel itself off my negative emotions? “I need to learn to not focus on the negative. I think that gives it strength.”