Feral (The Irisbourn Chronicles Book 1) by Victoria Thorne Page A

Cecelia.   But he didn’t pick
up. I frowned and threw my phone onto my bed stand.   It was unlike him not to answer a call.
    I knew that I would never be able
to fall asleep when I was upset, so I took some ZzzQuil before turning off all
my lights and tunneling under my sheets to create a warm, safe little nest for
myself.
    Minutes melted into one another,
and I still didn't feel the slightest bit drowsy.
    Although I was buried under a
mountain of down comforters, my body suddenly grew cold and tense.   Maybe that meant that the ZzzQuil was
working.   I pulled the blankets tighter
around my body and tried to lull myself to sleep with the abrupt drop in
temperature.
    The temperature fell even further,
and my arms and legs shivered uncontrollably, as if physically trying to shake
off the numb, icy sensation.
    Something was wrong.
    Panic fluttered in my chest, and I
took deep breaths, hoping that perhaps the feeling was one of those
unexplainable, fleeting experiences that occasionally accompanied
nightfall.   All I could do was wait for
it to pass.
    A light tapping emanated from
somewhere within my room.   My heartbeat
picked up, and I began to quake no longer from the cold, but in terror.   The tapping slowly became scratching, growing
louder and louder until I could distinguish the distinctive sound of
fingernails dragging along the walls.   I
shut my eyes and tried to block out the noise.   My body was frozen with fear.   I
didn't know what was happening.
    Individual nails scored the ceiling,
the floor, the doors menacingly, mercilessly.   I desperately wanted it to stop, but I didn't have the strength to
emerge from my shelter of blankets to confront the tormenting external
nightmare.
    Then, in one moment, the night
became silent.   Only I and darkness
remained.
    The cold sensation
disappeared.   I could move again.   I breathed a sigh of relief.
    What had happened?
    Somehow I managed to summon enough
courage to close my eyes and elevate my head into the cool, unprotected
airspace above my bed.   I took a deep,
calming breath and opened my eyes.
    At the foot of my bed hovered a
grisly skeleton of a face with sickly translucent skin.   Its eyes were dark, bottomless sockets and
its mouth had been fixed into a silent scream.   For the rest of my existence, the horror of that face would be
permanently seared into my memory.   I
could remember feeling my heart stop, not just in terror of the creature in
front of me, but in terror of the unknown.   Because I could not comprehend what I was looking at, and I could not
predict its intentions.
    Before I could react, its body
tensed and rolled in uneven, unnatural movements as if to spring.
    I didn’t even get the chance to
scream.

 
    ***
    I must have lost consciousness,
because the next thing I could remember was waking up in my bed the next
morning, disoriented and quivering.   When
I could finally bring myself to remember the horrors of the previous night, I
screamed shamelessly like a madwoman.   Hell, I probably had gone mad.   In
that case I was entitled to my hysteria.
    Heather sprinted into my room
first, and, upon seeing my expression, the color drained from her face.
    “What’s wrong?!” she demanded as
she ran to my side.
    "I don't know," I
whispered.   "I saw someone -- no
something -- in my room last night.   I
don't know, I don't know."   I
started to cry.   I rarely cried about
anything other than my parents.   What was
happening to me?
    "What did you see,
Amber?" Matt pleaded, trying to judge the severity of the situation.   I must not have noticed him come in.
    "I don't know, I don't
know."   I repeated the same words
over and over again brokenly. I looked my brother in the eyes.   "I think there might be something in the
house."
    “What, like a person?” Heather
questioned.
    “I don’t know.   It was so dark…”   I put my head into my hands.
    Without another word, Matt charged
out of the room, and when he came back he