The Girl With Crooked Fangs Page 6

  “Isobel?”

  He paused.

  “Okay, I'm coming in,” he continued. “You know I respect your privacy, but -”

  “Wait!” she called out, her voice sounding strained and a little breathless. “Hold on!”

  “Are you alright?” he asked.

  The only reply was a scrabbling sound that seemed to be coming from the far side of the room.

  “Isobel?”

  “Wait!” she gasped, followed by a loud thud, as if something had hit the floor.

  John put his hand on the doorknob. “Isobel, what's going on in there? Are you in pain again?”

  “No, I -”

  “I'm coming in,” he said firmly. “Make yourself decent.”

  He took a deep breath, before pushing the door open just in time to see Izzy slamming her bedroom window shut. She immediately turned to him and flashed a broad, utterly fake smile.

  “What were you doing?” he asked with a frown.

  “Nothing,” she replied, still sounding breathless as she set her camera on the desk and then slipped out of her coat. “Just taking some pictures from the window.”

  “With your coat on?”

  “I was chilly.”

  “And your shoes?”

  “I couldn't find my slippers.”

  “They look muddy.”

  “That's from earlier.”

  “Huh.” He paused. “Did you hear what I said just now, through the door?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And what do you think?”

  Now it was her turn to pause. “About what?”

  “About what I said.”

  “I think...” She took a deep breath. “I think it was good.”

  “You do?”

  She nodded. “Definitely.”

  “So you want to have the talk?”

  “What talk?”

  “The talk I was talking about.”

  She paused, suddenly seeming much more uncomfortable. “Um. No, Dad. Not right now...”

  “It's important -”

  “I'm very tired,” she continued, heading over to him and taking him by the arm, leading him back to the door, “and I honestly don't think I'd be able to concentrate. How about we have the talk tomorrow instead? Wouldn't that be better?”

  “Well, I -”

  “You want me to be able to take it all in, don't you?”

  “I guess so, but -”

  “And the truth is...” She positioned him out in the corridor and then took a step back, placing a hand on the door, ready to push it shut. “Google kinda taught me everything I need to know,” she told him. “Don't take that the wrong way or be offended, I was just being practical. There are loads of useful websites out there. You do so much for me already, and I didn't want to put you on the spot.”

  “Right,” he replied, “sure but -”

  “So can we talk about this in the morning, Dad? Please?”

  He opened his mouth to argue with her, but his momentary sense of determination had already faded. He'd tried several times to talk to Izzy about 'the thing' and he'd always backed down, and now he figured he could at least afford to wait one more day.

  “You're right,” he said with a sigh. “It's late, and you should get some sleep. I suppose we'll talk tomorrow, after you get home from school.”

  “That sounds great,” she replied, starting to push the door shut.

  “Can I see your photos?” he asked.

  “What photos?”

  “The ones you took from the window.”

  She froze, momentarily startled. “They're no good,” she told him finally. “They're all blurry. I still have some adjustments to make to the camera.”

  “Blurry, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “Sounds arty. Can I see?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “But -”

  “They really aren't finished.”

  “Oh.” He paused, sensing her intransigence. “Well, good luck.”

  “Thanks.” She paused, before offering a smile as she finally shut the door.

  “Damn it,” John muttered, turning and heading toward the stairs, although he couldn't deny a sense of relief in his chest. He knew the talk would have to come eventually, but he was glad of the chance to give Izzy at least one more normal night.

  One more night before she'd have to learn the truth, and her life would change forever.

  ***

  “Damn it,” Izzy sighed, sliding down with her back against the door until finally she was sitting on the floor. Still a little breathless after climbing up the drain-pipe to get into her room, she could feel her muscles aching like never before, but she figured that at least she'd avoided another awkward conversation with her father.

  Trying to distract herself, she slipped the photos from her pocket and took a look. After flipping through a couple that showed trees and wildlife, she found the picture she'd taken just as one of Rita's dynamite experiments had exploded. Tilting the photo, she couldn't that the mid-explosion shot had a certain charm.

  “Arty,” she muttered.

  Now she just needed to find a way to get rid of the crippling pains in her gut, which were already stirring for another bout.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Hello? Ghosts, ghoulies and monsters of the night, I summon thee! If you're down here, why not come out and say hello? I promise I won't bite!”

  Shining the flashlight straight ahead, Rita made her way along yet another dark tunnel. Since Izzy's departure a little over an hour earlier, she'd been carefully exploring, while taking care to remember which route would lead back to the surface. A photographic memory helped, as did the fact that the mine's tunnels seemed to have been arranged in a fairly logical layout that made remembering the route even easier. The metal scraps hanging from her belt provided a constant jingling sound that left her feeling a little less alone.

  Finally, stopping at the next junction, she looked left and then right along tunnels that sloped deeper down into the ground beneath the forest.

  She waited, listening for a moment, and slowly she became aware of the same scratching sound from earlier. The more time she spent in the tunnels, the more certain she felt that there really was something or someone else down there, something that seemed to follow her while maintaining a discrete distance. She knew she was being a little reckless, and that she might easily stumble upon some kind of crazed, ax-wielding maniac, but at the same time she'd been in tough situations before and she figured she could handle herself. If the worst came to the worst, she had a couple of knives hooked to her belt along with a can of mace spray, and she had no concerns about standing her ground. Nothing in the mine system could be as bad as the drunk assholes she'd encounter during her forays into late-night, downtown Sobolton.

  “Hello?” she shouted again. “Seriously, if there's someone down here, what's the big deal? I swear I'm not a cop!” She smiled. “I'm so far from being a cop,” she added under her breath, “you wouldn't believe it. Although I have been inside a few police stations.”

  Hearing no reply, she took the left turning and made her way toward the next junction, which turned out to be a rickety wooden platform overlooking a large chamber. She shone the flashlight around, marveling at the huge wooden beams that supported the ceiling, and after a moment she spotted some pick-axes and coil ropes hanging from the wall down below, having seemingly been left behind by the long-gone miners.

  “Cool,” she muttered, shining the flashlight a little further along the wall.

  A few seconds later, she spotted what appeared to be a boarded-up door, with wooden planks nailed haphazardly in place and yet another McGurdy Prospecting Company sign warning trespassers to keep out.

  “Double cool,” she said with a smile, making her way along the platform until she reached a set of steps leading down to the chamber.

  As soon as she put her foot on the top step, however, she felt it shift under her weight, accompanied by an ominous creaking,
grinding sound.

  “Not so cool,” she sighed, testing the step again and finding that the entire flight swayed slightly. After giving it a few more shoves, she realized there was no way she could trust the construction to hold while she went down, so she figured she'd have to come back some other time with a few ropes. As if to prove her point, a screw from the railing slipped loose and dropped down next to her foot.

  Reaching down, she picked up the screw and examined it for a moment. The main section was bent, but she still slipped it into the small cloth bag that hung from her belt.

  “Might be useful one day,” she muttered. “You never know.”

  Taking a step back, she swung the flashlight around and looked toward the far side of the chamber, and she immediately grinned as she spotted several large metal containers, which she figured had been used long ago by miners searching for gold. Heading along the platform, she was already thinking about all the things she could do with those containers when she finally got her hands on them, although it wouldn't be easy to get them up. She was determined, though, and her mind was already racing with possibilities, including -

  Suddenly she stopped as her flashlight picked out a face at the far end of the chamber.

  “What the -”

  The face immediately ducked out of sight, but its pale, dark-eyed features remained imprinted very much on Rita's mind. She continued to train the flashlight on the spot where, just a moment ago, there had definitely been a figure. Turning the beam a little, she saw the shadows shift slightly, and then after a moment she spotted the figure again, almost obscured behind a set of rocks in the far corner. As the flashlight's beam caught the figure's face, Rita was able to make out a pair of dark, sunken eyes that stared back at her impassively.

  “What the...”

  Suddenly hearing a scraping sound much closer, she let out a gasp as she tilted the flashlight down toward the boards beneath her feet. The scraping continued for a few seconds before stopping, and after a moment Rita realized that there was another figure directly below the platform. The beam of light caught a pair of eyes staring up at her through a crack in the boards, although the figure seemed to recoil from the brightness.

  Hearing a faint bumping sound coming from the darkness beyond the platform's edge, she swung the flashlight back toward the first figure and saw that it had moved a little closer, although it once again ducked out of sight as soon as the light hit its face.

  “Are you guys okay down here?” she asked cautiously.

  A moment later, she heard a creaking sound nearby. Turning, she shone the flashlight toward the top of the steps and saw that they were swaying slightly, as if something or someone had bumped against them from below.

  “I'm gonna be going now,” she said cautiously, taking a step back. “I'm really sorry I interrupted whatever you were doing, but please, just resume your normal activities.”

  With that, she turned and hurried back to the tunnel, desperately hoping she could remember the way back to the surface. Behind her, the steps were still creaking, as if something was climbing up.

  ***

  A few minutes later, as Rita hurried away from the tunnel entrance, a dark figure watched from the shadows.

  Chapter Fourteen

  War. A battlefield. Vast fires burning in the distance, rising up against a blood-red sky, while dead bodies lay smudged and smeared against the rocky ground below. And still the cries and screams continued, as more and more figures charged through the smoke.

  Izzy ducked down just as an explosion rocked the side of the mountain. The ground rumbled beneath her, and she heard falling rocks tumbling down into the gorge just a few hundred meters away. More screams rang out over the sound of metal on metal, and the sky seemed to be roaring, almost screaming, as if it was begging the two armies to stop fighting.

  Or urging them onward.

  Still not knowing quite where she was or how she'd ended up there, Izzy peered around the side of a rock and looked across the battlefield. Her terrified eyes quickly spotted a dead body nearby, its chest having been torn apart, its legs crushed and smeared against the pale ground. Blood and entrails lay in the dust, and the figure's dead eyes were bulging slightly from their sockets, as if they'd been partially forced out by the pressure that had smashed the chest area. The more she looked at the corpse, however, the more Izzy realized it looked barely human; instead, there were distinct, bony ridges running down either side of its dead face, and rows of razor-sharp teeth visible where part of its jaw had been torn open.

  “Oh God,” she stammered, horrified by the image but unable to look away. “What the -”

  Before she could finish, she heard footsteps nearby. Turning, she saw a figure approaching with a bloodied sword raised. Its features were obscured by heavy, bulky armor, but as the figure got closer it held the sword up higher and then brought it swinging down, missing Izzy by inches as she ducked out of the way. The cracked and dented blade sparked against the rock, and the figure quickly turned to strike her again.

  “He's coming!” he screamed.

  “Who's coming?” she asked.

  “He's coming!” he yelled again. “He's been seen! He's close, he's coming!”

  “Who? What are -”

  She ducked out of the way as the figure swung at her again.

  Again, sparks flashes through the air as metal hit rock.

  “He's coming!” he shouted. “He'll destroy us all! The slaughter at Gothos was only the beginning! He means to kill his own!”

  Scrambling over the rocks, Izzy managed to move fast enough, scurrying away from the armor-laden figure. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he was lumbering after her, but his armor clearly weighed him down and she was able to slip around another set of rocks before clambering up a slope. She still had no idea how she'd ended up in such a horrific place, but she told herself it was a nightmare.

  It had to be a nightmare.

  One moment she'd been in her room at home, dozing on her bed and getting ready to sleep, and then the next she'd found herself far away under a darkening red sky, surrounded by the screams of a battle.

  “Wake up,” she whispered, pinching her hand as she took cover in the shadow of a large boulder. “For God's sake, Izzy, you have to -”

  Suddenly she saw a patch of darkness moving on the ground ahead. She stared as the shadow of the boulder began to grow a series of long, twitching appendages, curling into view with thick, bristly spikes. At the same time she heard a moist clicking sound above her head, and finally she looked up and saw the underside of what appeared to be a huge spider, its body the size of a bus. She watched in horror as a set of large fangs twitched and quivered, dripping thick, translucent saliva down onto the rocks.

  Horrified, Izzy saw her own face reflected in the spider's eight black eyes.

  “Definitely a nightmare,” she stammered, scrambling to one side, only for the spider to change course and start following. “I'm asleep. I'm in bed. There's no reason to be -”

  Before she could say another word, she felt a sharp pain in her left ankle. Crying out, she looked back and saw that the spider had used one of its legs to pin her down and was now holding her in place as it approached. Blocking out the blood-red sky above, the spider loomed over her, dripping its saliva onto her chest until she felt a burning sensation fizzling through her clothes. As the spider's fangs opened wider, she saw a second row of teeth deeper inside its mouth, and a stench of sulfurous heat filled the air.

  “Wake up!” she screamed, covering her face with her hands. “Wake up right now!”

  She screamed as the spider's saliva burned through more of her shirt and reached her flesh, but this time she managed to pull her leg free and turn. Trying to crawl away from the spider, she managed to reach a set of rocks, at which point she looked down at the battlefield. As a patch of smoke cleared, she spotted a huge, old house – more like a mansion – in the distance, its windows reflecting the fires that burned all around. And some
how, from deep in the back of her mind, a single word came crashing into her mind.

  Gothos.

  “Huh?” she whispered, unable to stop looking at the house, and feeling as if somehow she'd seen it before. Its name was Gothos, she knew that much, but how did she know? “What the actual -”

  Before she could finish, she heard a roaring sound over her shoulder, and she turned just in time to see the spider lunging at her with its fangs just inches from her face. A fraction of a second later, the warrior rushed at the spider, raising its sword high only for the spider to bite down hard on his chest, crushing him and then tossing his corpse aside. With blood dripping from its fangs, the spider turned and rushed toward Izzy.

  Naturally, she screamed again. But as she sat up, she suddenly realized that everything around her had changed, and she was back in her dark bedroom, sweating and short of breath. So it had been a nightmare, after all. There was no other possible explanation.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Hey bozo, what's up?”

  Feeling something bumping her shoulder, Izzy turned just in time to find that Rita had appeared as if from nowhere to interrupt her walk to school.

  “Um, nothing...” Izzy muttered, trying to hide her irritation. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and forced a smile, trying to seem normal. “Why would anything be up?”

  “I was calling you from a mile back,” Rita told her. “I was yammering your name like a goddamn idiot. Were you ignoring me, or were you just in a world of your own?”

  “World of my own,” Izzy replied. “Something like that. Sorry. I just had a weird nightmare last night, that's all.”

  That was an understatement. She'd woken up trembling and drenched in sweat, and even now – several hours later – she couldn't help replaying the nightmare over and over in her mind. She kept reminding herself that a nightmare couldn't hurt her, but the whole experience had felt so vivid and real, she couldn't get it out of her head.