The Monster Within (6 page)

I splashed cold water on my face as everything faded from my view. I braced myself for whatever horrors Herman was about to commit. But it wasn’t his face I saw. It was an older man, probably in his seventies. He was holding his wife’s hand and smiling at the young children playing a game on the floor.

The children were adorable, but I kept my focus on the old man. Something about him was familiar. His eyes. They had a warmth to them. A warmth I knew.

“They’re not being too loud, are they, Dad?” asked a younger woman coming into view.

“No, no. Let them be. They’re children. They’re supposed to be loud. Besides, there’s no better sound than the laughter of your great-grandchildren. You’ll understand that someday.”

The woman walked over and kissed the old man’s cheek. “They adore you, Dad.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

My vision blurred and went black. I was sad to see it go. They all seemed so happy. But then I remembered I was seeing things that would never happen. Things that couldn’t happen because I’d ended the person’s life. But who was that old man? He didn’t look like the guy with the cowboy hat. They had different-colored eyes. Was I seeing my next victim? Was that possible?

Next victim? What was I thinking? I couldn’t let myself take another life. I
wouldn’t
let myself. I had to find a way to keep from dying without taking life from another living being. This had to stop.

“Samantha!” Gloria called.

My sight was slowly returning, and I could see that the door was open a crack.

“We’re backing up. Hurry it along in there!” Gloria was sweet, but from the way she’d screamed at the dishwasher when he took too long on his break, I knew she didn’t tolerate her employees wasting time.

I rushed back into the dining room. “Sorry!” I grabbed the coffee pot from Gloria’s hands and made my way from table to table.

The rest of the day was a blur. A flurry of activity. But no more visions and no loss of breath. Ethan and I stayed through dinner, too. Finally at eight, Gloria waved us out.

“That’s enough for today. I’ll see you both after school tomorrow.”

School. The next big thing I had to tackle in my new life.

“Dismissal is at two-thirty, so I’ll expect you here no later than three.”

“You got it,” Ethan said.

I waved goodbye and followed Ethan to the car. I slumped into the seat, practically melting into the leather.

“I’m beat, too,” Ethan said.

“At least I made some good money in tips.” I pulled a wad of bills from my pocket.

“Not bad.” Ethan smiled as we pulled out of the parking lot. “So, I got us all registered for school.”

“How did you do that?”

“I filled out all the paperwork online and paid a homeless couple to go to the school and pretend to be my dad and your mom. All we have to do is report to the guidance office in the morning to pick up our schedules.”

“I don’t suppose you were able to work your magic and get us into all the same classes, were you?” I leaned my head back on the seat. Even my hair was tired.

“Honestly, I have no idea what our schedules will be like. Only that the school has block scheduling, so we have four periods a day along with lunch. But we were placed in classes based on Samantha Smith’s and Ethan Jones’s records, remember?”

I turned my head just enough to look at him. “Please tell me Samantha Smith wasn’t an honors student.” I’d missed a ton of school thanks to all my cancer treatments. If I was put in honors classes, I’d fail for sure, and the school might look deeper into “my” record.

“Actually, she was a solid C student. I’m sure you’ll make it look like she had a sudden change in appreciation for a good education.”

“I don’t want any sudden changes. I have to perform to her ability, or people might get suspicious.”

“Relax.” Ethan squeezed my hand. “Everything’s going to be fine.” He let go of me, which was odd because he always held my hand when he drove. “Um, there’s one more thing. Samantha Smith was the star cross-country runner at her old school in Phoenix, so you might want to dust off your running shoes and do a few laps around the cottage this evening to warm up.”

“What?” I nearly jumped out of my seat.

Ethan burst out laughing. “I’m kidding!”

I smacked his arm. “That’s so not funny.” But I couldn’t help laughing. “Okay, tell me more about Ethan Jones from Florida. What’s he like?”

“Oh well, he’s exceptionally attractive, has a 4.0 average, and is a total chick magnet. I don’t need to change a thing.”

“No, not a thing.” My tone was full of sarcasm. Though truth be told, Ethan was all those things.

“Nah, really he’s an A/B student. No extracurricular activities, which is good since I’ll be working at the diner after school.”

Things seemed to be working out. Everything except my problem. The problem I couldn’t mention to Ethan. I tried to tell myself I’d adjust to being alive again. My body would get used to it, and I wouldn’t need to steal life from others after a while. I knew I was fooling myself, but I repeated it over and over in my mind. I was so lost in my thoughts I almost didn’t hear Ethan say, “What the hell?”

The car stopped in the driveway. I looked at the cottage. It was surrounded by rocks. A circle of rocks. All strategically placed. Someone had made a big circle around our house. It was something straight out of
The Blair Witch Project
.

CHAPTER SIX

“D
ID
you do that?” I asked, knowing there was no way Ethan had anything to do with the rocks. He was as surprised as I was.

“No, and no one knows we’re here—other than the water and electric companies. I mean, my family hasn’t been here in years. None of them would think I’d come here when I left home. I’m sure it’s the last place they’d think to look.”

Ethan’s family had had sort of a falling-out about a year ago. Something about his uncle gambling away all his savings. The family had even staged an intervention, but when that didn’t work, his aunt and uncle had moved away, leaving the cottage in their son Rick’s name. The cottage had been abandoned long before all that, and since Rick didn’t like the Poconos he up and left.

“I don’t get it.” I shook my head. “Why would someone take all that time to arrange a bunch of rocks like this?”

“Maybe it’s a prank.” Ethan opened his door. “It could be some local kids messing around. This place does look eerie all by itself in the woods.”

I nodded. He was probably right. Some kids were bored and decided to scare some younger boy or girl by convincing them this was a gathering place for witches. That had to be it.

“You stay here. I’ll go inside and look around, make sure no one broke in while we were gone.”

“Okay.” I locked the car doors behind Ethan. For a moment, I thought how ironic it was that I’d be scared of some kids. I was a killer. They should’ve been afraid of me. Then again, I felt fine right now, and I touched Ethan all the time without hurting him. It was only when I felt the life draining out of me that I was a danger to other people. Not that that made it any better.

I scanned the woods. It was hard to see with the sun setting, so I couldn’t be sure if the people who did this were still lurking around, trying to scare each other. I didn’t see anyone. Not even an animal in sight. We were all alone. Secluded on our little hill.

Ethan came back out of the cottage, shrugging his shoulders. I opened my door and met him in the driveway.

“Everything looks fine.” He kissed my cheek. “See, just a prank.”

I eyed the rocks. “Real funny.”

Ethan moved one of the rocks out of the way, and we went inside. It was starting to get dark, and I was wiped from my first day as a working stiff. Pun completely intended. All I wanted was a hot shower. Of course, we didn’t have hot water. We had lukewarm water. It would have to do.

“You can shower first,” Ethan said, reading my mind. “Who knows how cold the water will be the second time around? I don’t want you turning into an icicle.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, go ahead. I’m going to play around with the TV some more. See if I can’t get us a station that works.”

I grabbed my pajamas and headed to the bathroom. I set the faucet all the way to hot, hoping for a miracle. When I stepped inside, I was shocked by the chill in the water. It reminded me of the coldness I felt before I needed to… What exactly
was
I doing? Feeding off humans? I shook away the thought as I washed off as quickly as possible. As I shut off the water and grabbed my towel, I realized I hadn’t felt that coldness of death creeping up on me since last night. Maybe I was getting better. Maybe I wouldn’t need to kill anymore. I hugged my towel to me and prayed that was true.

“Woo hoo!” Ethan yelled from the living room. “Babe, we have a channel!”

I laughed as I pulled on my pajamas—thankfully, Ethan had volunteered to take my clothes to Goodwill after I died, but instead he’d kept them for me. I stepped into the kitchen and made my way to Ethan, who wrapped me up in his arms.

I caught a glimpse of some crime show on channel two. Ethan hated those shows, but he was so happy to have anything to watch. He always could find the good in any situation. I let my towel drop to the floor and took his face in both my hands. “I love you.”

He smiled and kissed me so hard my head spun. I struggled for air, but this time, it was by choice. Ethan picked me up, wrapping my legs around him. The next thing I knew, we were in the bedroom.
Our
bedroom. My heart raced. Was this it? Was this the way it was going to happen?

Ethan gently placed me on the bed and stepped back for a second, studying my face to judge my reaction to the change of location. My mind was a flurry of thoughts, but the one at the forefront was that Ethan was too far away. I reached for him, and he joined me on the bed.

“Are you—?”

“Don’t ask me.” I returned my lips to his.

He pulled away. “But I want to make sure—”

I smothered his mouth again. I didn’t want to ruin the moment with the “Are you sure you want to do this?” talk. I was sure. For the first time since I’d come back, I felt like myself again. I wasn’t letting this feeling go.

Ethan’s kisses got softer, and I knew it was his way of giving me a chance to change my mind. That wasn’t going to happen. I pulled him closer, noticing he smelled faintly of sweat and brown gravy. A customer had spilled his gravy all over the booth, and Ethan had had to mop it up. I didn’t think I’d made a face or anything, but Ethan leaned back and sniffed his shirt.

“Wow, I need a shower. Maybe we should…” He was afraid to suggest we stop or even wait, so he was leaving the decision up to me.

“You know what? It’s not late. Go shower. I’ll be here when you’re finished.”

He kissed me one more time. “Five minutes tops.” I’d never seen him run so fast.

I laughed to myself as I lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. I thought I’d be more nervous, but this didn’t seem so nerve-wracking after all the other stuff that had happened to me. I was happy, and Ethan was perfect. Still, the air in the bedroom felt heavy. I got up and opened the window to let some fresh air in. The windows had locks on them, so they only opened about five inches, but that was plenty. There was a slight breeze, and I bent down, sticking my nose in the opening and breathing in the night air.

I closed my eyes and smiled. Tonight was going to be amazing. Unforgettable. A whiff of smoke made me open my eyes. Smelling smoke in the middle of the woods was never a good thing. Someone stepped in front of the window, and I jumped back. A yelp escaped my lips, and I stumbled into the bed. A guy was standing outside the window, looking into my bedroom.

“Ethan!”

“Wait,” the guy said. “Don’t scream.”

Don’t scream? Yeah, right. “Ethan!” I yelled even louder.

“Let me in,” the guy said. “I need to talk to you.”

I knew he couldn’t get in through the locked window, and I couldn’t remember if we’d bolted the front door, so I ran from the bedroom.

“No!” he called after me.

Ethan met me in the living room, soaking wet with shampoo still in his hair.

“There was someone outside our bedroom window!” I pointed toward the bedroom as if Ethan didn’t know where it was. I was freaked.

Ethan clutched his towel to his hips and ran to the bedroom. “They’re gone.” He came back out a second later with a pair of jeans and a T-shirt on. “I’m going to check outside. Lock the door behind me.”

I barely processed the words. I was having trouble figuring out why anyone would be spying on us. Why anyone would even come to an abandoned cottage at night. It made me wonder about the wooden box with the strange things inside. Maybe this place hadn’t been totally abandoned after all. Maybe someone had been using it. For what, I didn’t know.

Ethan grabbed my arms, holding me by my elbows. “Sam, are you listening to me? I want you to stay here.” He put his cell phone in my hand. “Call 911 if anything goes wrong.”

If anything went wrong? Like that guy hurting Ethan? “Don’t go out there.” I gripped his arms. “You don’t have to. We can call the police. Tell them about coming home to find the rocks and then the guy peeking in our window. Let them handle it.”

“Calling the police has to be a last resort. My parents probably have my picture posted everywhere by now, trying to find me, and that includes in the police database. I doubt anyone here would recognize me, but I’m not taking that chance unless I absolutely have to.”

He was right. I couldn’t put him in that situation. He’d run away for me. He’d done all this for me. I had to let him handle the peeping Tom his way. I nodded.

“Lock the door behind me.” He grabbed a flashlight and a hammer and went outside. I closed the door, but before I could reach for the lock, Ethan’s cell phone buzzed in my hand. The display showed his mom’s number. She must have been worried sick. My illness had hit her hard. She knew her son would be devastated when I died, but I was sure she didn’t think he’d run away. I hated that my being alive was causing her pain.

I let the call go to voicemail, and when it beeped with a new message, I played it. It wasn’t the only message. There were fourteen according to the mechanical voice. I couldn’t listen to them all, but I played the most recent one.