Freeks(49)

It had to be really strange staying alone with the ghosts of Carrie and Blossom.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had a slumber party,” I said, hopping into Blossom’s bed.

“This is the first time I’ve ever really had the room for it.” Roxie set aside her brush and crawled under the covers. Then she flicked off the light. “Night, Mara.”

I expected to lay awake for a while, since I was sleeping in a new place, and I still had so many details of my date with Gabe running through my mind. But it had been a very long day, and exhaustion set in quickly, so I was out within minutes.

I didn’t stay asleep long, though. My stomach turned sour, twisting up inside me, and I woke up feeling like I’d throw up any second. I sat up in the strange bed, trying to decide if I needed to run to the bathroom or not, and I heard something that scared me to the core.

Mahilā the tiger let out a long and pained roar.





28. assault

Roxie’s bed was on the side of the trailer that faced the tiger pen, and I jumped from my bed and leapt into hers.

“What the hell, Mara?” Roxie shouted, sitting up with a start.

“Something’s wrong with the tigers,” I told her as I pushed back her blinds.

The streetlamp was on the other side of Gideon’s trailer, which cast the tiger pen in a dark shadow, but the full moon was bright enough that I could see fairly well. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a view of the tiger pen from this angle.

Mahilā let out another sound, more of the guttural mewling she’d been doing since we got to Caudry.

“I’ve gotta go check on them,” I said, climbing off the bed.

Roxie grabbed my arm, stopping me. “Mara, no. If there’s something that’s hurting those tigers, what do you think it will do to you?”

“I can’t just let the tigers get hurt. Listen to them!”

“I know, I love the tigers too, but Zeke has a tranq gun and Gideon has a shotgun. They need to be the ones to deal with this.”

I climbed back on Roxie’s bed and pushed aside the shades. “Where the hell are they? Other people in the camp have to be hearing Mahilā too.”

Roxie crouched down beside me so she could peer over my shoulder. “I don’t know.”

The lights on Luka and Hutch’s trailer flicked on, and a few seconds later, the front door opened. Luka stepped out first, holding a devil stick, which was a large baton he used in tricks. Following a few paces behind him was Hutch, holding two other devil sticks.

“Idiots,” Roxie said under her breath. “Go back inside, go back inside.”

Instead of going inside, they decided to split up. Luka went right, going toward the tiger pen, and Hutch went left, going away from it.

“At least Hutch is smart enough not to walk toward the danger,” Roxie muttered.

As Luka walked toward the tiger pen, he had to pass the Phoenixes’ trailer. And then I saw something—that same thing I’d seen last night. A dark blur of a shadow, but this time it seemed … more real somehow. The darkness was less abstract and more of a shape—something low to the ground and very fast.

Roxie gasped. “Luka’s walking right toward it!”

I jumped off the bed and ran toward the door. Roxie cursed, and I heard her footsteps as she ran after me. As soon as we got outside, we separated, with Roxie going after Hutch, and me bolting toward Luka.

The air felt thick, like a humid blanket wrapped around me and slowing me down. Beneath my feet, the grass was slick and cool with dew, and I struggled not to slip as I rushed to Luka. Clouds were gathering overhead, and soon the light of the moon would be blocked out.

Surprised, Luka struck out at me with the devil stick, but I ducked, barely missing it. Then I grabbed Luka’s arm and started running toward his trailer.

But there it was, in front of us. It was hidden around the corner of the Phoenixes’ motorhome, as if it had been circling the trailer, but the creature cast a shadow out in front of it in the moonlight.

With nowhere else to run, I decided that we should hide. I pushed Luka to the ground and we crawled underneath the motorhome. It sat only a foot or two off the ground, and I could only hope that whatever was stalking the campsite was too big to get under the motorhome.

Lying on my belly in the dirt beside Luka, I held my breath as my heart pounded in my chest, and my stomach lurched.

Only a few feet in front of me, I could see the feet of the creature. Four huge feet with long toes, almost like fingers, and razor-sharp claws at the end.

“What the hell is that?” Luka whispered.

“Is anyone out here?” Gideon shouted. He sounded nearby, but I couldn’t see him, not from where I was hiding. “If you’re out here looking for trouble, you need to know that I have a gun.”

The feet in front of the trailer moved quickly, once again moving in a shadowy blur impossible to see clearly in the darkness of the night.

“Hello?” Gideon called again.

Then there was nothing but silence for a few moments. It was long enough for me to consider climbing out from under the trailer and letting Gideon know we were close.

“Holy shit!” Gideon yelled, and the air cracked like thunder as he fired his shotgun.





29. inhuman

The silence that followed felt more deafening than the gunshot. I didn’t dare move or breathe, and I couldn’t see anything. I felt trapped in a void, where I could only imagine all the worst things that could have happened.