Gargoyle: A Reawakening (Briarcliff Series, #2) (18 page)

Across the yard, a few
more people ran past cutting through the woods that dumped out on
the drive further up. Cups littered the ground, the grass turned
over on its side, flattened. It looked like a stampede had just
come through, which she guessed was a close enough analogy at this
point. Her stomach twisted and she wrapped her arms around her
waist, hugging herself. Normally, doing that gave her some kind of
comfort, not now though. It was like something was gnawing from the
inside of her stomach, trying to get out. She knew what it
was…
fear
.

Walking towards the stage
a lone spotlight turned over on its side, the white light making a
halo on the ground in front. A pair of graffiti converse poked out
from underneath, shaking violently. Her stomach lurched at the
sight. She struggled with her conscience, fighting the urge not to
run away, and instead made herself move forward. She knew who those
shoes belonged to…
Chance
.

FRIGHT

SATURDAY * 10:28
PM

“
Oh hell NO
!” Evie
hesitantly took a step forward. Chance’s shoes were still snapping
back and forth violently. She did not want to do this but she
forced her feet to move forward. Taking a shaky breath, she leaned
forward and tried to see underneath the stage, through the
scaffolding.

“
Shit!
SHIT!” It was too dark and she
couldn’t see a damn thing. She began to question her sanity.
“
What in the hell am I doing? I’m no
hero.
” She wanted to run away, screaming,
like the rest of the crowd, but something held her in place. She
had to help him. Horrific visions of Jaws scenes came to the
forefront of her mind. Images of the chewed remains of a body in
her hands made her stomach lurch. She took a breath and reached
down grabbing hold of his feet, squeezing her eyes shut while she
jerked back with all her might and forced her eyes
open…terrified.

“
Hey!” Chance slurred
sounding annoyed, pulling his ear buds out.

“
What the hell Chance?” She
dropped his feet. Relief flooded her body.

“
What up, Evester…you
coming to hang with me?”

“
No! I am not coming to
hang with you!” she yelled, her face turning five shades of red but
she couldn’t’ help herself. He had scared her shitless.

“
Why not?” he asked
obviously confused.

“
Good lord Chance—I thought
something had you.”

“
What are you talking
about?” Chance’s eyes widened, as he looked at the scene before
him. “Where did all the people go?”

“
Gee Chance they
ran.”

“
Huh…from what?” he asked,
running his hands over the ground, looking for his wayward
drink.

Damn, he was
slow
. “I don’t know,” Evie, answered. Not
caring to explain she doubted it would help anyway.

“
Huh. Well you gonna go
find out? I’ll come with.”

Evie shook her head. What was the point?
“Sure, that would be great.” She held out her hand to him. He
grabbed it easily and she pulled him up. He swayed on his feet. She
looked him over just to be sure he was in one piece. He looked
normal enough, burnt, but normal…at least for Chance. She was just
glad he wasn’t shark bait. Now that would have really sucked.

He fondly wrapped an arm around Evie’s
shoulders. “I’m glad you found me.”

“
Yeah, me too Chance, me
too,” she added, holding him up as he swayed into her once more.
She looked around hoping to see some sign of Adriane… her heart
heavy and hoped against hope that he was all right as
well.

***

“
Why are we running?”
Moriah panted breathlessly as Kingston jerked her forward up the
stairs. She felt like her arm was going to be dislocated at any
moment.

Kingston ignored her and merely kept
dragging her along to the side of the mansion. He pulled her
further up the stairs to the terrace and finally stopped in front
of a pair of double glass doors.

Moriah ripped her hand from his. “What the
hell Kingston?” she yelled out.

He turned towards her, making her regret
saying anything. His eyes were crazed, frightened.

His breath came out in ragged gasps. He ran
his hands over his face and bent over trying to catch his breath.
“I have no clue.”

“
Well if you don’t have a
clue, than why we running?” she asked again, worry making her voice
harsh.

“
Obviously something is
wrong. I sure as hell wasn’t going to wait around and get trampled
by all the drunks killing one another out there,” he bit back,
obviously agitated.

“
Okay, calm down babe,” she
said, trying to alleviate the worry she saw on his face. “You know
how drunks are, who knows what happened, maybe someone yelled fire
or something stupid like that.”

He shook his head back and forth chuckling
lightly. “I wish.”

“
You wish what?” she asked
worriedly.

“
Babe, I’ve got this gut
feeling that something seriously messed up is about to
happen”

“
Okay, then why aren’t we
getting out of here?”

“
Didn’t you see the crowd?
They were pouring in droves up the drive; I didn’t want us to get
trampled or worse…” he said, looking pointedly at her.

“
Kingston you are scaring
me.”

“
Come here,” he said,
reaching out to pull her into his embrace.

Moriah walked into his open arms, and
wrapped her own around his waist. She laid her cheek against his
chest, listening to his heartbeat erratically. She pulled away just
enough to look at his face…she could see he was afraid…but afraid
of what?

Colton ran as fast as his feet would carry
him. He had picked up speed, flying past Barnaby, leaving him in
his dust. Colton was always good at track and field, and that
combined with fear made him more fleet of foot than normal. Fear
had a way of doing that. His dad had given him a card once for his
birthday. It had a picture of a bear chasing a guy on the front. It
was a funny card. It said you don’t have to outrun the bear, only
your friends. He was doing that now. His dad would be proud. A sob
tore from his throat. He didn’t want Barnaby to be bear bait. He
slowed his pace when he hit the side of the mansion, and quickly
ducked behind a bush, hiding. He peered out, his breath coming in
shortened, ragged gasps. He spotted a tree with low hanging
branches and debated whether he should try to climb up it or
not.

Once Barnaby saw Colton bolt past him, he
picked up his pace. He be damned if he was the one to become
hell-dog food. He had watched one too many horror flicks, the slow
ones always got it first. At least there were a good number of
drunken bodies behind him, too messed up to move fast enough to get
away.

It was pitch black on this
side of the mansion. He slowed his pace as he got to the side and
jumped behind a bush. Something grabbed at him.
“
Ahhhhhhhhh
…”
Barnaby screamed out, batting whatever it was with the palms of his
hands.

“
Man, it’s me,” Colton
whispered loudly, knocking Barnaby’s hands away.

“
Oh shit!” Barnaby huffed.
“Sorry man. What the hell was that?”

“
Dude, I have no idea. But
I’ll tell you this, whatever it was looked worse than CUJO,” Colton
said.

“
You got that right,”
Barnaby agreed looking around, not feeling safe at all. “Dude, I
don’t think we should stay here.”

“
I know, but where should
we go? I was thinking about climbing that tree over
there.”

Barnaby looked over at the low hanging
limbs. “No way,” he said, quickly discarding the idea.

“
Well do you have a better
idea?” Colton complained.

“
We should get inside the
mansion and lock ourselves in one of the big ass rooms.”

“
Right…that totally makes
sense. Good thinking man,” Colton said.

Barnaby shook his head up and down in
agreement. “Is there a window we can crawl in?”

“
Yup, I saw one down there.
Follow me,” Colton said, pushing past Barnaby, sliding down behind
the row of bushes. The bushes pulled and scraped at his bare arms.
He didn’t care. He only wanted to get inside the
mansion.

Barnaby followed behind him, grabbing onto
his shirt as Colton led the way.

Colton stopped in front of one of the tall
windows. The bottom reached the top of his head. “Dude, this is
high. How are we gonna get inside?”

Barnaby pushed in front of him. “I’ll tell
you how…you’re going to lift me up so I can get inside.”

“
What? No way! Why can’t
you hold me up?”

“
Because your ass is too
heavy…”

Colton looked at his body compared to
Barnaby’s; suddenly wishing he didn’t work out so much. “Okay fine.
Let’s get to this.” He reached out and bent forward to scoop
Barnaby up in his arms.

Barnaby smacked his hands away. “Not like
that. I’m not a girl man. Put your hands together and give me a
foot up.”

“
Oh right, that makes
sense.” Colton hooked his hands together as Barnaby put his foot
in. He hoisted him upward. “Dude you better not fart.”

“
Yeah, right, if I was
gonna do that I would have already let one go when that big ass
beast came out of the woods.”

“
The way that thing smelled
I thought you did.”

Barnaby laughed suddenly, he couldn’t help
it. “I thought you did.”

“
I thought I did too.”
Colton laughed with him. “You know, we should totally look for some
weapons.”

Barnaby pushed against the glass trying to
lift the window. After a few tries it moved upward.

“
Hey, I wonder if there’s
some armor in there. If there is we should put it on, like
knights,” Colton said.

Barnaby shook his head. “Dude I am not into
playing dress up with you.”

“
Screw you Barnaby. I was
just saying—in case…you know, that nasty Mo-foe tried to bite our
asses we would be covered.”

“
And stuck—that shit is
heavy,” Barnaby explained.

“
I don’t care what you do,
I am getting some armor. You do what you want.”

Barnaby was going to argue, but thought
better of it. “Yeah man, totally put some armor on.”

“
Right, I will,” Colton
muttered into his backside.

“
Good, you do that,”
Barnaby called over his shoulder, once he got the window open.
Something grabbed hold of him and yanked him inside.

Barnaby screamed.

“
Dude you okay?” Colton
called worriedly. “Man I’m not kidding.” He rubbed his hands over
his face freaking out. Something had gotten Barnaby. He was a good
friend too, he mused, imagining a million horrible scenarios
befalling his friend.

TWISTED

SATURDAY * 10:30
PM

The beast lunged forward.

Adriane willed his body to alter. It rippled
and shuddered but he couldn’t make the transition.

“
Damn!”
The beast flew past, the
massive jaw snapping as it went by. He ducked just in time. It
sprang back up, snarling, lunging at him fully. This time he
blocked it with his body, absorbing the impact and slammed it to
the ground.