Page 42

I stared at the man prone on the tile floor. It looked like my father, but . . . that was about where the similarities ended. It didn’t sound like my father, didn’t smell like him, breathe like him, stand like him, move like him—it didn’t feel like my dad.

“Wha—Who is it?” Ana asked, pulling back.

Mom was bleeding too, a large gash marring her forehead as the blood dripped into her right eye.

“I need you both to do everything I tell you,” she demanded, not answering us. “Okay?”

We nodded.

“Kitchen. Now.” Mom threw her arm around Ana’s waist, half-lifting her to the kitchen as I followed closely behind. Ana’s bloody foot stained the white square tiles, the red nail polish just a few shades lighter than the blood seeping from her skin. Mom helped her into one of the wooden dining table chairs, and turned to pull out hydrogen peroxide and tweezers out from the medicine cabinet. “Start taking out the glass,” Mom ordered as she turned back around, grabbing the landline off the charger.

Mom dialed too many numbers for it to be 911, but she quickly put the phone to her ear.

It rang. And rang. Until finally, “Hello? Father Rodrigo? It’s Rosa Serrano. It’s happening, Father—what we talked about.” She paused, for only a moment, turning to us. Tears sparkled in her brown eyes. “Yes. The kids are here. Can you come?”

I had never heard my mother sound so . . . desperate. For all the years she’d been my mother, she had been the strong one. While my dad sobbed at sad Superbowl commercials, Mom had cried maybe two times I could remember. Mom was the one who stayed up way too late to make sure all of us ate and bathed and got ready for the next day. Mom was the one who took the weight of all our pain and comforted us when we were upset or sad or angry.

She was the strength, and Dad was her support.

“Okay,” she said, running to the back door in the kitchen. “I’m unlocking the doors now. Just come in when you get here.” She paused again, then pressed the phone to her chest, her gaze flicking between us again. “You guys need to go upstairs, hide.”

Ana straightened. “But—”

“ Cono , Ana. Now .”

I ran around the table, grabbed my sister’s hand, and pulled.

“Go, go,” Mom urged.

“ Mami , what’s going—”

Mom grabbed Ana’s other hand. “Ana, mi amor , please . Take Marcelo, and hide .”

Ana clenched her jaw next to me, but squeezed my hand and limped away from the kitchen.

As soon as our backs were turned, Mom continued on the phone. “I knocked him out, but—but I know he’ll wake up soon.” We hobbled up the carpeted stairs, Ana’s single red footprint leaving a trail on the beige rug. I remember turning around, at that final moment, and my mother’s eyes were on me. I hadn’t called my parents mami and papi in years. I thought it was lame. At that moment, as her brown eyes met mine, urging me to continue, I wanted to scream out to her. I wanted to yell, “ Mami , Mami , Mami , I’m scared!”

But I didn’t. And that was the last time I saw my mother’s eyes so vivid, so . . . alive.

Ana hauled me onward, moving through the hall as we passed my room, our shared bathroom, and finally got to her room. Just as we walked through the doorway, Mom’s voice rang out from downstairs. “No! Leave my husband alone!”

Ana kept pulling me into her room, she didn’t let me stop and turn around, she didn’t let me run down to help Mom. Not as we heard another loud thud, glass shattering, or Mom’s screams.

Pausing in the center of the room, Ana looked all around. Her bed had drawers underneath, and the door opened outward so we weren’t able to hide behind. She looked down at the carpet, surely seeing the red footprints. Her gaze met mine and something behind her eyes hardened.

I was fourteen, but puberty hadn’t hit in full-stride just yet. I was still short and skinny. Ana grabbed my shoulders and shoved me back, toward her wardrobe.

“Hide in there,” she demanded, and without another word, dashed into her closet. I followed her command, opening the wardrobe and climbing into it, tucking myself behind her cardigans and jackets she kept in there. The drawers underneath me groaned at my weight, but the whole thing held sturdy as I watched Ana hide within her clothes in the closet and slide the door shut, just as I closed mine.

I sat still, barely breathing, as I listened. The house was deathly quiet, still, just as it had been right after the power went out. Whatever was happening downstairs isn’t happening anymore, and the only sound I can hear is my heart pounding in my chest, between my ears. It’s so loud, I don’t hear the footsteps up the stairs, down the hall, I don’t hear the ragged breath, the haggard walk—I don’t hear any of it until the thing wearing my father’s skin is in the doorway.

I’d seen enough movies—movies my real father had shown us—to know what was happening, no matter how crazy it sounded. My mom and I had a pact. While Ana didn’t believe in ghosts and Dad was a full on skeptic, my mother and I were diehard believers. We made a deal, if either one of us ever saw a demon or ghost, we would believe each other, no questions asked, no “well, let’s see.”

And after hearing my mom on the phone with our priest, Father Rodrigo, and after she said “that isn’t your father,” I knew what my mom was saying. Ghost, demon, Hell, werewolf—whatever this thing was, it meant I had to believe her. It meant she wasn’t lying.

It meant this wasn’t my dad.

I stayed absolutely still, not even breathing, as I watched the shape scan the room. I prayed Ana did the same, prayed the thing would turn around and walk away, prayed my real dad would take the pistol he kept in his nightstand and come and shoot the fucker to oblivion. But once again, time seemed to slow. Dad didn’t appear out of the shadows, and the thing wearing his face continued to survey the room. Its eyes were a sickly, vibrant yellow. Like the Emperor in Return of the Jedi . Its skin was pale and clammy, sweat making his short brown hair stick to his forehead and the neckline of his shirt soaked through.

A low, breathy snicker came from its lips as its eyes caught on something in the dead center of the room. Through the small crack between the doors, I tracked his line of sight and—

And my stomach dropped.

She knew. Ana knew , and I felt like such an idiot, such a horrible brother—Ana knew her footprints would lead the shape right to her, her footprint bright crimson against the light beige carpet in the center of the room.

“Come out, come out, Little Ana,” the shape said, and if I still had any reservations about this being my dad, which I hadn’t, they would’ve all disappeared. The voice that came out of the shape was so unlike my dad, it felt like my brain couldn’t keep up with the words as he said them. It was just too . . . wrong. It broke the code my brain had been hardwired with for so long. I knew Dad’s voice came out of Dad. Not . . . whatever this was.

The shape hobbled into the room, up to the footprint. Slowly, it crouched down, pressing its face into the stain. I heard a long and deep inhale and had to bite my lips as it slowly licked the print. The shape crawled forward, following the path of the prints till it stopped just before the sliding doors.

I didn’t think, didn’t even process that my body was moving—it just reacted, moved into motion at its own will. I leaped out of the wardrobe, stumbling to my feet.

“H—Hey!” I said.

The shape slowly turned around, a wide, unnatural smile already spread across my dad’s face. My dad never smiled like that. Not even in his happiest moments, not even his widest grins. My dad was an eye smiler—and this smile didn’t meet his eyes.

“Well if it isn’t Little Serrano, how I’ve heard so much about you. Your papi thinks you’re a pussy, you know. He’s scared you take after him too much.” The shape snickered again, but before it could react, Ana jumped out of the closet and onto its back.

“Stay the fuck away from him!” she yelled, punching and kicking as her arms tightened around the shape’s throat. But it only kept cackling before it flung itself back, hard.

Ana smashed into the wooden doors behind her, and as her hold loosened, the shape simply stepped away from her. Ana slumped to the ground but tried to push herself up, screaming, “Marcelo, run!”

The shape’s cackle grew louder, louder, deafening. And suddenly—Ana was floating. Her limbs were stretched as far as they would go, her long dark hair coalescing around her as though she were underwater. She hovered there, in the middle of her room, her eyes locked on mine, wide and frozen.

And as quickly as she’d been lifted into the air, her head started turning.

And turning.

And turning.

“Ana!” I screamed, but just after I did, I heard the loud CRACK!

Yet, her head kept turning.

The shape was doubled over now, laughing hysterically as Ana’s head twisted fully around, her neck bunching up as it continued to turn, making another rotation.

My heart broke, and I couldn’t process what I was looking at.

Dead , my mind told me. She’s dead .

And you will be too.

I ran. I heard the thud of Ana’s body hit the carpet, but I didn’t turn around. I followed her bloody footsteps back down the stairs. I needed my mom.

I ran so fast down the stairs, I tripped halfway, my foot totally missing a step, and tumbled the rest of the way down, landing on the hard tiles on the first floor.

“ Mami !” I called to the empty room and pushed myself up to go to the kitchen.

“Marcelo!” My mother’s voice rang through the living room, emerging from her bedroom. I stepped to follow when I heard a second voice—no. The same voice, but coming from somewhere else.

“No! Marcelo, don’t go to my room. It’s not me, it’s the demon.” It was coming from the kitchen.

“I’m not the demon, she is!”

“ Puta mierda ,” my mom cursed. My mother never cursed. Unless it was really worth it.

And this was definitely a time it was worth it.

I dashed to the kitchen, hearing heavy foot falls bound toward me at an alarming rate. It was like the sound of my heart beat, only I felt it getting closer and closer and closer.

Just as I turned around the dividing wall and threw myself into the kitchen, a taloned hand grabbed my arm, nails immediately piercing skin, the force so strong it felt like breaking bones.

“No!” my mother yelled on the floor in front of me. I heard her before I saw her, but when my eyes landed on her, I wanted nothing more than to reverse time. She was pinned to the kitchen floor, literally. The shape cackled in my ear, its fingers tightening on my arm as it made me watch my mother in a mock of the crucifixion. Her palms were nailed down, another nail thrust into her feet, her body was bloody with lashes I couldn’t begin to explain, and upon her head sat a crown of thorns. Yet, still, she fought as she saw me in the demon’s clutches. She tried to push herself up, drenching the kitchen in her own blood. “Let him go! Take me!”

It all happened so fast, the moment the words were out her mouth, the backdoor flew open.

“Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict.” Father Rodrigo burst through the door, Bible open and crucifix gripped firmly in his hand. “Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may God restrain him, we humbly pray): and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host.” The shape let me go, and I scurried to my mother’s side. “By the power of God thrust Satan down to Hell and with him those other wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.”

The shape hissed and bucked, but then continued to cackle at Father Rodrigo, even as its skin sizzled. The priest had been about my dad’s age, and though I attended church weekly, I didn’t really know him. Not well. I went to Mass, but that didn’t mean I paid attention or cared. But right now, Father Rodrigo was my Goddamn hero.

He frowned at the demon, as if it were nothing more than a cockroach too stubborn to die. But all it needed was one more good whack with the chancleta . “Amen!” he shouted, pushing the cross into the demon’s face. And then he repeated the prayer again, pushing the demon farther back, and again, the demon became less and less.

“God, help me!” It yelled, but this time—it sounded like Dad. “ Ayudame !”

“Fight it, Javier, fight it!” Father Rodrigo yelled.

And Dad did. Second by second, I could see the shape shifting, weakening, becoming more and more of my dad—his stance, his breathing. Everything that had been other before was now back to normal.

Rodrigo was still praying when my Dad’s warm brown eyes found mine. When the taloned hand that still wasn’t totally his reached up, resting at his throat. When he said, “Marcelo, I promise—it wasn’t me.”

And then the hand tore through my father’s neck, one more cackle breaking from lips that were no longer his, before his body slumped down, blood pooling all around him.

I held my mom’s hand, frozen. First Ana, now Dad. The demon got both of them.

Rodrigo stopped praying. The power in the house flickers back to life slowly, the George Lopez ending credits playing quietly from the TV.

“I—Is it over?”

Rodrigo nodded. “It—” he stopped as he turned to look at me. His eyes widened, and only then did I realize they were on my mother, not me. As I turn to follow his gaze, I hear police sirens begin to blare down the street. Red and blue lights shining through the windows. As they got closer, they shimmered in my mother’s unblinking eyes, as her gaze stared past me, into nothing.

“Marcelo,” Father Rodrigo said softly.

But I couldn’t look away. Looking away meant this was real. Looking away meant it’d be the last time I’d see my mother, the last time I’d hold her hand.

“Marcelo, please.” His hand was on my shoulder, his voice soft and gentle, though choked up.

My mom’s gorgeous curly hair lay in a pool around her, and she looked so serene despite the gashes marring her skin, despite the blood she lay in. I remember the hot liquid touching my bare toes, and with it came the haunting realization that the demon had taken her too.