Thomas Sniegoski - In the House of the Wicked

“Yeah, back in the Shadow Lands, minus the ugly house, of course.”

“Fitting,” the pale man said with finality. “This is where I became obsessed with you, and this is where it all comes to an end.”

The killer lurched forward.

Squire was looking off into a particularly deep patch of gloom, searching…searching…and felt the hair on his entire body jump to attention.

“Yeah, it pretty much ends now.”

He pulled up his shirt, revealing his bleeding wound. He placed his hand beneath the gash, wetting his fingers, and then flicking the blood into the darkness.

“Shouldn’t pick at that,” the pale man said with a hiss. “It’s gonna get infected.”

And then he lunged, knife blade ready to take another bite out of Squire…

Just as something struck from the expanse of darkness.

It was large, probably one of the bigger shadow serpents that existed in the Shadow Lands. Squire had always been lucky enough to avoid it, but he knew that it had been aware of him. They’d both gotten each other’s scent.

The goblin dove back as the serpent hit the pale man’s side, flinging him violently across the blackened landscape. He must’ve lashed out with the knife as he was struck, because the serpent had reared back, away from its prey.

Squire managed to find an outcropping of solidified darkness to hide behind and watch the horror unfold.

The pale man was hurt pretty badly, what passed as blood oozing from his side, but he didn’t seem to be concerned with protecting himself from the inevitable second strike. He seemed concerned with something else entirely.

The serpent’s strike had torn away a section of the killer’s shirt, and something had spilled from the top pocket.

Through squinted eyes, Squire watched as the killer dropped to his knees to collect what had fallen to the ground. They looked like photographs, and he crawled across the frozen darkness, desperately snatching them up and clutching them lovingly to his chest.

He had grabbed the last of the objects; his gaze had just found Squire’s when the shadow serpent struck again.

The great beast latched onto the pale man, his precious objects flying into the air as the serpent yanked him back toward the darkness of its lair.

Squire tentatively emerged from his hiding place, the curiosity of what had been so important to his attacker drawing him like a beacon. They were exactly what he thought they might be: photographs. Squire looked at each of them, frozen moments in time with no rhyme or reason, until the last image.

It was a driver’s license, and it belonged to the girl, Ashley. Squire slipped the plastic identification into a pocket, just in case, before starting to search for a passage to take him back.

Ashley ran until she couldn’t run anymore.

It looked as though she’d made it inside a company lounge of some kind, big, overstuffed couches and chairs positioned around modern-looking coffee tables covered with magazines. One entire wall was nothing but large, tinted windows looking out over the city.

She came to a stumbling stop at the windows, peering out through the smoky glass at the spectacular view below, but the view was the least of her concerns.

The short sword still in hand, she spun around to face her pursuer.

“Stay back, Teddy!” she warned, but she couldn’t see the youth.

Her eyes scanned the darkened room as she stepped away from the floor-to-ceiling glass. With Squire’s warnings to avoid puddles of darkness prevalent in her thoughts, she was careful where she stepped as she looked for the wild boy.

Heart hammering in her chest so hard that she thought it might bust a rib, she moved toward the chairs but still could find no sign of the youth that had tried to keep her as a pet. She had no idea what was wrong with the boy, only that she’d heard his father say something about magick having killed his humanity, leaving only the beast behind.

It sounded right to her.

Ashley stood in the middle of the lounge, eyes darting about, searching for any sign of movement. There still was nothing, and she began to wonder if he had fallen victim to one of those shadow pools.

The back of her leg bumped up against the edge of the glass coffee table, and she stumbled back ever so slightly, her gaze falling to the clear surface of the table, reflexively reading the titles of the magazines lying there.

It was to the left of Cooking Light that she saw the grinning face peering up at her through the glass.

Ashley let out a scream, jumping away as Teddy surged up from where he had hidden beneath the coffee table. He was growling like a mad dog as he came at her.

She tried running again, her panic making her blind, and she ran head-on into the sofa, falling up against it as Teddy pounced.

Ashley cried out as the boy landed atop her, his jagged fingernails scratching her skin as he attempted to restrain her.

“Teddy, no!” she cried out, hoping to reach what little humanity might still exist.

The wild boy tried to pin her against the couch, but she continued to thrash. She felt his groping hands on her body and felt another piece of her sanity snap off and drift away. It was then that she realized she was still holding the sword and lashed out with it, hoping to drive her attacker away.

“Stop it!” she cried out, the flat of the sword connecting with the boy and actually knocking him back to land on the coffee table, shattering the top into what appeared to be a million pieces.

Ashley didn’t waste any time, climbing over the back of the overstuffed sofa onto the other side. The sound of something thrashing among pieces of broken glass could be heard behind her, but she didn’t want to turn around.

Teddy tackled her, his limbs entwining with her legs and bringing her hard to the lounge floor.

The air punched from her lungs, Ashley lay there stunned, the boy straddling her, as she rolled onto her back. In a flash of panic, she realized that she had dropped her sword and tried to find it, but the wild child appeared to sense this and bore down on her.

Ashley was wild, fighting beneath the boy’s weight, but he kept her pinned, leering down at her, his lips pulling back to reveal sharp, yellowed teeth. Her panic set in as he leaned toward her, his mouth opening as he got closer to the soft flesh of her throat.

Close enough to bite.

I’m going to die, was the first thought that shot through her mind as she watched the animal child’s open mouth come closer. After all that she had been through, this was the way that she was going to go out.

She imagined what it would feel like when the boy bit into her flesh, the popping of her skin as the teeth broke through, the ripping sensation as he tore away the first bite.

Ashley didn’t want to feel it, but if that was the case, then she had to live.

She had to survive.

Adapt or die. She heard Mr. Harpin’s nasty old voice echo through her mind, and Ashley knew what she had to do.

Teddy’s breath was hot on her throat when she lost it, screaming like a madwoman and bucking her body so violently that she flipped the boy off her.

She knew that she couldn’t hesitate, not one little bit, or he would be back at her. Teddy was getting to his feet and coming at her just as she found her sword. Without a moment’s pause, she snatched it up from the carpeted floor and spun to face her attacker.

“Get the fuck away, or I’ll kill you!” she screamed, but it didn’t slow the boy down. He came at her full force, and there was only one thing she could do.

Ashley brought the sword down with all her might, the blade striking off the top of his shaggy head and continuing down across his shocked face.

The wild child cried out in pain and backed quickly away. His trembling, clawed hands went to his wounds and came away covered in scarlet.