Flying (7 page)

I start chasing after him, but I am not Lyle, and a flying Dakota is a too-fast Dakota. It's pointless, totally pointless, so I stand there in the freezing cold, in the middle of my driveway, staring up at the dark sky. Pain shoots up my leg. Lyle appears next to me.

“Mana?”

I whirl to the side. “Still think I have a concussion?”

His mouth works hard at forming my name again. His broad shoulders tense up. “Mana?”

I start running back toward the house to see what's gone, what has happened inside. Why would Dakota rob my house? It makes about as much sense as him being able to fly.

Lyle yanks me back toward him.

“Mana. Was that…”

He can't say it. He can't believe it. But somehow, somehow I can.

“Yes,” I say. “That was him.”

“Dakota?”

I blow warm air into my hands and try to quiet my heartbeats. “Dakota. He must have gotten away somehow.”

Lyle staggers backwards and bangs his head on our stupid
HOME SWEET HOME
sign. “Holy crap.”

The plaque falls to the floor behind his sneakers and he jumps. I fast walk into the house and pick up one of the slashed yellow cushions from our love seat.

“We should call the police,” Lyle says.

I whirl around, clutching the pillow. “And tell them what? After I reported him assaulted and potentially kidnapped, Dakota Dunham came here, trashed my house, and then flew out the window?”

Lyle starts trying to put the love seat back on all four legs. I help him. It resembles a great, cushionless oasis in a sea of mess.

Then he says, “I think I'm in shock.”

“Yep.”

“You, too?”

“Me, too.”

“I've never been in shock. I always know what to do. I'm really just not the kind of person who goes into shock.” He sits on the love seat and reaches out his hand. I take it. I have held that hand a million times in cheering, but this time it feels different, charged, like we are trying to meld our palms together, give each other strength and take it at the same time, you know?

“It's okay,” I tell him. “Weird stuff is happening. Everyone has to be in shock sometimes. You should have seen me in the locker room.”

His hand is so much bigger than mine, but he doesn't squeeze too hard when he says, “Your mom is going to freak when she gets here.”

I nod. She is so orderly, so neat. “She loves the love seat.”

Normally Lyle would mock me for saying “loves the love,” but instead he just says, “Maybe we could sew up the cushions.”

We sit there another minute.

“I should check out the rest of the house,” I say. “And get my stuffed animal off the fan. And clean up and stuff.”

“Sure…”

We do not move.

“I'm glad she wasn't here when it happened,” I add, staring at a shattered, framed picture of me and my mom on the back of the Cross Sound Ferry, on our way to Long Island, when I was eight or so. She has her arms all wrapped around me and we are both laughing, our hair whipping each other's faces, thanks to the wind.

“Mana?”

I snap out of it. “What?”

“What if she was?”

“Was what?”

“Was here.”

As soon as he says it, Lyle jumps up and runs across the living room. He leaps over cushions and books and pictures so ridiculously fast. I follow him into the kitchen. Shattered glass crunches beneath my cheer shoes. Lyle yanks open the door to the garage.

“Crap,” he says, and turns to gape at me with terrified eyes.

I stare past him and see it: Mom's car.

 

CHAPTER 4

“Mom!” I yell for her without really thinking about it. My mom's car is here and that means … that means …

Rushing into the garage, I yank open the door of our dark blue Subaru station wagon, the perfect mom-mobile. Her purse still sits on the passenger's seat. The keys dangle from the ignition, but there is no mousy woman there, no small, smiling Mom.

Whirling around, I bash into Lyle. “She was here.”

“Mana, it's—” Lyle catches me by the shoulders, but I push him away and rush back into the kitchen. “You're jumping to conclusions. Slow down.”

I zigzag around the splattered orange juice puddle soaking into the floorboards and slam the refrigerator door shut. “She might have been here when it happened. She might still be here.”

I step on a broken teacup; its scattered blue pattern is like sea glass that has been battered by rocks and sea.

“Look at that,” I say to poor Lyle, who is still open-mouthed, standing right where I pushed him. I have never pushed anyone before in my life. “Look! This whole place is a mess. And Dakota flew. Did you see him fly? You saw that, right? Still think I'm hallucinating from my concussed brain?”

“Okay. Hold on. Let's be rational.” He puts his hands out in front of him like a politician. Lyle is not a politician, and I know he's only acting this way to try to calm me down. It has the opposite effect.

I point at Lyle's face. “I will kill him for doing this to our house. I do not even care about his acid-tongue issue.”

For a second there is silence. Then a wind picks up outside. Lyle hauls in a breath so deep that his whole body moves with it, and then he says, “You're … you're kind of angry.”

“Lyle.” I stop ranting and really stare at him. He is trying so hard to be his composed, normal self. His hands are still up in the air, waiting for me to take them. I do. I force my voice to be calmer, more steady, and ask, “Where is my mother?”

One of his shoulders moves up just a tiny bit. He tightens his hold on my hands, his face concerned. He gropes for an answer and offers, “Maybe she's at a neighbor's?”

“If she was at a neighbor's, she would have contacted me. This is the woman who expects updates hourly if I'm not at home or at a game or at school.” I let go of him and yell for her again.
“Mom!”

Nothing answers. Nothing except the thuds of Lyle's feet following me into the kitchen and … another noise?

I motion for him to be still. His foot squishes into a pile of super-spicy hummus. He stops.

“Do you hear that?” I whisper.

He doesn't answer, just moves in front of me. His voice is a quiet command. “Stay back.”

Right.

I step beside him.

“You never listen,” he mutters. “If we were in
World of Warcraft,
you would be in the prison at Render's Valley for insubordination.”

He glares at me in a way that I would normally classify as geek cute, but that's not why my stomach crashes into itself and the hairs on my arms stand up. It's the noise, a heavy banging from my mom's bedroom … a banging that is coming closer. Terror shuts my throat. Lyle's muscles tense.

“What is it?” I whisper as I stare across the living room at my mom's bedroom door. Nothing. But whenever we watch scary movies, Lyle always shouts at the actors to look up, so I do. Something moves on the ceiling, creeping out of Mom's bedroom and into view. I yank his shirt. “Lyle … Lyle … Look up.”

His voice is like a machine—a dead, robot machine. “See it.”

“What is it?”

He doesn't answer for a second, a big, horrible second, and then he whispers, “Unearthly? Maybe undead? Maybe cyborg? Um…”

This thing … I can't look away. It's like a man, but not a man. It's gaunt, almost emaciated. The skin is pulled tight over bone and muscle. It's the color of death, ashy gray, and it smells like death, too, like decay and garbage and dead mice in the basement, like mold on books.

“Holy crap. It's got webs for feet,” Lyle whispers.

I nod in the tiniest way I can, but it's not the feet I'm worried about. It's the mouth, which is open and full of razor teeth, scissor sharp and wild. It's the mouth that terrifies my heart into trying to beat its frantic way out of my chest. And its eyes … its eyes are black, all black, and they stare at us.

“Exterminate,” it says.

Crap.

“That's a
Doctor Who
line,” Lyle says, looking at me all excited for some reason.

“God, Lyle.”

“It is. It's from
Doctor Who
. Only it's the Daleks who say—”

“Lyle!”

The thing does not care about never-ending British television series. It leaps toward us, makes it halfway into the living room with one bound. Muscles move over bone. Web feet connect with hard wood. It leaps again, right at us.

I dive for a butcher knife on the floor while Lyle flies sideways into the kitchen counter, awkward, not sure where to go, and slipping on orange juice. The creature lands three feet in front of us, on all fours. Claws on its hands carve grooves into the wooden floor. I swear it smiles.

“Run!” Lyle yells and scrambles. He rips a silverware drawer out of the counter. Forks and spoons clank onto the floor. He whales it in front of him, holding it like a shield, just as the thing's claws rips four long gashes down its length. Lyle throws the drawer at the beast, clobbering it in the head.

The thing pushes it off, pretty much casually. Great.

I grapple for Lyle's hand and yank him. We run into the garage, slipping on hummus and orange juice and the remains of a jar of pickles. Lyle slams the door closed, but we can't lock it from this side.

Lyle clenches the doorknob and pulls, trying to hold it shut with his weight. With a high kick, I smash my foot into the garage door opener. The door starts to rumble up.

“I can't keep it shut.” Lyle's face twists with effort.

The little blue door to the house vibrates. Four giant slash marks go through two inches of metal. Lyle gulps.

“Get in the car,” I order him. I hold my knife out, but I'm thinking it's not going to be too effective against this web-footed, claw-handed thing.

“Mana…” Lyle's big hands flail out against the door.

“Do it!” I yell, ripping the fire extinguisher off the wall. I pull the pin out of it and point it at Lyle's back, which is still stupidly in front of the door.

“Mana…”

“Do it now, Lyle. Get in the car and start it, now. Fast. You're the fast one.”

“Okay, I'll count to three.”

The door rattles and almost gives.

“Count to two!”

“One … two…” he yells, and dives out of the way, flipping over the car hood and launching himself inside via the open window, in the way only a really good athlete can.

The moment Lyle's body weight leaves its place against the door to the house, there is nothing stopping the creature. The door crashes open. The thing definitely smiles at me, showing off its teeth.

“Exterminate,” it croaks, reaching forward. Its muscles tense. It readies itself to jump.

I squeeze the lever on the fire extinguisher. White foam rockets out as the creature leaps toward me, hurtling itself into my space. It smashes into me. My lungs lose air. I can't breathe with the weight of it against my chest. My ribs feel like they're being crushed, and the teeth … so many … dozens of teeth, covered in fire extinguisher spray but still ready to chomp or rip or tear. Its breath smells like mildewed books and blood, all mixed together.

“Get off me!” I gag.

“Exterminate.”

“Shut up!”

With my free arm, I smash the fire extinguisher into the side of its head. It does not seem to care. Letting go of the extinguisher, I take the knife and jab it up and in. It hits part of the thing's body. Bone? Its weight shifts and I am free. I roll away, scrambling across the cement floor for the car and Lyle.

It seizes my ankle. Claws slice open my skin. My knife dangles out of its chest.

“Lyle!”

I'm not sure if I'm yelling because I want help or because I just want him to save himself, get out of here, get away.

“Come on!” He revs the engine. Elevator music blares out of the car. My mom has the worst taste in music.

The thing hauls me back toward it. I slide along the floor like a sack of nothing, not even potatoes. My fingers search for something to hold on to. There is nothing, just cement floor. I bend double, twisting until I can reach around, yank my knife back out of its flesh, and then slice it across the thing's wrist. It lets go of my foot, howling. I somersault backwards into the car, diving into the backseat as Lyle reverses out of the garage. Instead of buckling up like a good girl, I clench the headrest.

“Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap,” Lyle mutters. We're almost all the way out to the road when the thing stands up again and leaps—once, twice, three times—and lands on the hood. Its spindly arm smashes through the windshield. The glass spiderwebs out from the point of impact.

We scream.

Lyle slams the car into gear. The creature falls off. Seconds later, the car thuds over it. There's a sick lurch as the tire drives on top of it, and the sound of bones crunching, which is sort of beautiful when the bones belong to a hideous thing that thinks
exterminate
is the SAT practice word of the day.

“Crap. Crap. Crap,” Lyle chants.

I slip myself into the front seat. Lyle reverses and we thud over it again. The last thing I ate, a chocolate-covered pretzel, returns to my mouth. This time, Lyle reverses all the way out to the road and stops the car.

“Is it dead?” I whisper, trying to see around the cracks in the front window to the body in the middle of my driveway.

“Maybe? I hit it.” Lyle's still clutching the steering wheel.

“I know you
hit
it. But did you
kill
it? Like, kill it dead?”

He bites the corner of his lip. “I'm not sure. In movies, these things never die.”

“These things?”

“These undead alien monster from hell things.”

“Lyle!”

“What?”

“You are supposed to be the expert.
You
.”