Moontide
Read Along Chapter 20
The Keys
The apparition at the back of the shed held Cindy’s stare. She pulled against Ronan’s grasp moving towards it—towards Kay. Another person, a man, stood close behind her friend swathed in shadow. Cindy tried to get a better look at him, but his face was lost in the dark. Kay reached for her with one hand and Cindy broke away from Ronan’s hold.
“No cara! It’s not what you think,” he said, but his voice was distant. She felt through the blurry screen that separated her from Kay, finally she made contact. Her fingers pressed against Kay’s ice cold hand, instantly chilling her to her marrow. A movement from the back caught her eye as the man’s form melted away, turning into a tarry blackness that writhed like serpents. Cindy screamed at the sight, but even more so from the crushing grip that encased her hand and yanked her through the mist.
Instantly, freezing wetness struck her skin like shards of glass. She thought all the bones in her hand would break when she tried to pull away. At her resistance, Kay whipped around. Her hair flew around her in a chaotic halo. Cindy screamed again as her friend’s face split down the middle—one side remained a perfect depiction of the girl she’d grown up with while the other became that of a monster!
Skin stretched tight over one half of Kay’s skull, pitch black and shiny from wetness with bits of gray bone showing through in patches. One black-red eye glinted through the oozy half visage, flickering as the creature snarled. Instead of a sound though, what came forth were a thousand tiny winged insects. They flew straight for Cindy, set to envelop her in the cloud of their collective mass.
Rearing back, she tried to shield her face. The ice cold grip of the demon holding her did not relent. She started to slip into the black tar.
“Heeelp!”
No sooner had the word left her lips than she felt hands on her shoulders pulling her back, out of the wet, dark nightmare.
Ronan! Thank God!
A surge hit her as she felt his strength fill both their bodies. She knew that their short lapse in contact had cost him, but she didn’t have any time to dwell on that thought as the slippery wall that now held her entire arm began to undulate. She shook as the feeling of movement all around her took on the shape of hundreds of individual bodies slithering over her skin. The wall had manifested into a river of snakes writhing around her arm, moving toward her face.
“Aaagh!” She shrieked.
Just as the reptiles began to fall at her feet and slither up her legs, Ronan gave one mighty heave, pulling her free of the serpents. He yanked her past the mist then they both fell to the floor of the shed. The walls rattled as wind came at them from all directions. They turned to look back at the horror show they had just escaped. A sound like a siren in a vacuum came from the two-faced demoness then the whole scene, snakes and all, burst into fragments. It spun violently as everything was sucked back into the tiny seashell on the floor.
Cindy clung to Ronan, breathing in terrified pants.
“What… the hell… was that?”
Ronan breathed hard from exertion too, but his hold on her remained solid.
“A demon’s trick, cara. The shells were enchanted. Your touch must have unlocked a curse that opened a gate to the underworld.”
He stopped speaking and looked down into her frightened eyes. She knew they were starting to glaze over with hysteria again. She couldn’t help it. Before she could slip into a state of shock, he grasped her shoulders and gave her a shake to bring her back.
“We have to leave this place, quickly, cara.”
She nodded as he pulled her to her feet. The storm outside had picked up strength and as if on cue, a gust of sea laden wind pushed through the door.
They ran in the rain back toward where the city shuttles were, but when Cindy spied a taxi she tugged Ronan into it instead. She reached across him to pull the car door shut against another angry blast of rain and wind.
“I don’t want to wait for the shuttle.” She said, sliding across the seat. When he wouldn’t let go of her hand, she gave him a pointed look.
“I need to put on the seatbelt!” She yelled, unreasonable and cracking under the strain of what had just happened. The cabbie flicked a glance at her in the rearview mirror and she knew she looked like a lunatic.
“Safety first, you know?” She hissed out at Ronan through the chattering of her teeth.
He released her hand so that she could buckle. She felt his eyes on her and looked up to meet them. He’d lost all color again. Out of instinct, she reached and placed a hand on his shoulder. He brightened visibly.
“What the hell is going on here?”
The cabbie looked at her again.
“You,” she yelled at him, “just drive and keep your eyes on the road!” She shook her finger at the poor guy in the mirror, then had the presence of mind to feel bad when he jumped. She was losing it…already lost it. So long sanity! Could anyone blame her?
“Cara, calm yourself,” Ronan said under his breath.
She snarled at him—a real snarl with gnashing teeth and everything—then gritted out, “I don’t want to be calm. I’m freaked out of my mind right now and I’d really like to punch someone in the face.
Her voice rose at the end, she may have even spit a little. But she went on in a tenor usually relegated to the sinisterly deranged.
“More than that, I want to know what just happened to me back there and why you keep fading or melting or whatever the hell it is you’re doing every time I let go of you. I want to know why, ever since you jumped me in that garden this morning, my day has steadily been going down the shitter!”
He blinked at her language then set his jaw.
“I can’t explain it either,” he said under his breath, mindful of the cabbie, “not all of it anyway.”
He shook his head in a genuine state of confusion.
Cindy pulled her hand back. She waited. All the color instantaneously drained out of him as he coiled in on himself in pain. She touched him again and he was, once more, restored. She tested the phenomena twice more before Ronan grabbed her hand in a vice grip.
“Stop that!” he ordered through clenched teeth.
“What the fuck is happening?” She shook, on the verge of hysteria. “Why do you keep doing that?” She covered her face with her free hand. “Holy crap!”
“I’m not sure what’s happening, cara, but I don’t want to discuss it here, inside this… moving contraption,” he eyeballed the mirror then lowered his voice, “and mind your tongue woman. You sound like a wharf doxie.”
“Moving contraption? Hello! This is a car, you know, a taxi cab, and did you just call me a hooker?”
He slanted a reproving look her way, but she ignored him.
“Who are you? I want some answers right now!”
Ronan looked out his window as the sights sped past him then he leaned forward and spoke to the poor confused driver
“Please stop this carriage, we wish to get out,” he said.
Cindy threw up her hands and rolled her eyes at his insane verbiage. And he wanted to talk about her language?
The driver pulled the car to the side of the road right then, obviously not wanting to set either one of them off. Once it stopped, Ronan practically dragged her out of it. She managed to jerk back around to pay the fare but the vehicle sped off with tires squealing. The momentum slammed the door shut.
She stood there with her hand in her purse, at a loss, until Ronan pulled on her arm. He led her out into the gloom of the storm once more. Actually, things seemed to be dying down a bit weather wise though it remained wet and gray. They headed towards the sea, not stopping until their feet hit the beach.
*She’s starting to figure things out… ;) What would you think in Cindy’s situation?
