9111 Sharp Road (10 page)

“No, dear. These people are here to do you harm.
To do the entire world harm.
”

“They just saved my life! Let go of me!”

I started struggling hard, pushing, hitting, and clawing, but I couldn’t get away. Gramma was too big and held me with
her
large, beefy arms.

Soon, Joey, Audrey, and Mr. Hatch were helping me break loose from her grip.
“You can’t go in there!
Don’t open it! Don’t let them out!
” Gr
amma cried over and over again.

Freed, I ran upstairs
to
ward
my bedroom to get a change of clothes, but as soon as I got to the top of the stairs, I saw my sister. She looked just like she
had
the day we moved here. Perfectly human and very pretty. “Lori?” I must have been mistaken about her death, her transformation to one of those creatures. She was here. She was human.
Wishful thinking at its worst as it turned out.
I forgot for the moment that Mom was still able to make herself look perfectly human.

I scooped her up in a big hug, kissing her like I had never kissed her before. I missed her so much.

She didn’t say anything. Maybe I was just holding her too tightly, kissing her too much. But then I realized the cheeks I was kissing were hairy and leathery, not at all the che
eks of a six-year-old girl.

“Oh no,” I said barely above a whisper. I stepped back. She was most definitely a chiroptera, and she looked angry, ready to eat my face off.

I continued backing away, forgetting I was right at the top of the stairs. One step, two steps back. On the third step, my f
oot
connected with nothing but air.
I fell backwards, coming to rest at the bottom
of the stairs
, my right arm twist
ing
beneath me. There was no way it wasn’t broken.

“Help,” I manage
d
a weakened plea, but no one seemed to be around. I could hear Lori approaching as she walked down the steps, coming to finish the job. “Someone please help.”

I tried moving my legs and managed to get up on my knees, and then onto my feet. Cradling my broken arm,
I ran as fast as I could toward the front door, but Mr. Hatch stood in my way, blocking the exit.
Joey and Audrey were standing to the left, just outside the k
itchen, each holding one of G
ramma’s arms.
“We need to leave now!” I said, crying. “A chiroptera is coming after me. She’s gonna get
us all
!”
I glanced at my gramma. She looked like she wanted to come after me, to tear me limb from limb. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before, but she had to be one of them. One of those creatures.

Instead of moving, Mr. Hatch
just
stood there and laugh
ed
. As he laughed, his voice changed into something inhuman. His laugh became a screech, and his pale skin turned brown and leathery as he transformed before my eyes into a chiroptera.

I turned to the left, toward the kitchen, and then immediately made another left to put the dining room table between me and what used to be Mr. Hatch. I pushed the table toward him with my good arm. It didn’t move very far, but it was distraction enough to allow me an extra second to run past both him and Lori and into the family room
and toward the stairs
.

“Amanda, get back here!” G
ramma screamed from behind me. “Do not go up there!
Do not let them out!
” I didn’
t turn around, but I knew that G
ramma had to have shed her human façade, just as Lori and Mr. Hatch had done.

I wish, in those seconds, I could have turned around, that I could have seen what was going on behind me, but I was focused on a single goal: getting up the stairs and escaping this place. The only place there was left to go, the only place that was safe was through that door to nowhere into that ghost realm.

I heard my Gramma scream. “No! No! No! Don’t go up there!
Don’t let them out!
”

I ignored her and everything else, even the pain in my arm as I ran full-speed up the stairs.
When I got to the top,
I turned and ran past the banister, down the hall,
and toward the door. I
t looked just like another door.

I reached out with my left hand, grabbed the knob, and turned. The door opened freely to darkness. Not the blue swirl of wispy gas and blue light as
it had in my vision
.

Instead, the deep blackness from inside the doorway reached out and devoured everything around me.

Epilogue

I wish I would have turned around and saw that Gramma was just as human as I was, that she was as much a victim as I was, that the chiroptera wanted me to open that door and unle
ash
the darkness. That it had been their plan all along.

Maybe I wouldn’t have realized it at the time, but I have figured it out since because I have had a lot of time to think about it
in this dark and desolate world
.
My father wanted
me
to stay as far away from th
at
door
,
even if it meant my death in an abandoned well,
so I wouldn’t
obey the cries of “let us out” that came, as I later learned, from entities collectively known as “the Darkness,” which also included the chiroptera.
The house, it would seem, was the
thing that
locked them away and
kept them from taking over the entire world.

I have had a lot of time to think. I have also had a lot of time to observe. Because I unleashed the demons—there were 9,111 of them, at least at the start—they managed to escape this little world of Orchard Hills that the house had created. The chiroptera, it would seem, were the manifestations of these dark creatures, and everyone, absolutely everyone
living here
was one of them, except for Gramma and I. And she knew it, but I ignored her. She tried to
warn me, but I didn’t listen
.

About the Author

Eric R. Johnston is the author of
An Inner Darkness, A Light in the Dark, Harvester: Ascension,
Orchard Hills:
9111 Sharp Road
, and the soon to be released
Children of Time
.

He lives in Imlay City, Michigan with his
fiancé
, daughter, and two step-daughters.

Check out
www.ericjohnstonauthor.blogspot.com
and at
www.facebook.com/ericjohnstonauthor
for updates on future installments of
Orchard Hills.