9111 Sharp Road (8 page)

“I hate you,” I
interrupted
.
“If you hadn’t died
, we wouldn’t be here.
”

“Amanda, please,” my mom pleaded. “
Just listen
to your father. Don’t listen to anything—”

Before
she could finish, everything around me vanished
.

I
woke
in silence
. Glass lay all around me.
I didn’t know
what had happened or even where I was, but then it all came back to me
as I realized I was
lying
on my bedroom floor with the cool night air blowing in at me from a broken window.

I got up and opened the door. There w
ere
no glowing lights, nor w
as
there any indication whatsoever that the door to nowhere was anything but an aberration.

Had that all been a dream? Another vision?

I had to get out of there. I had to get Lori.
The first place I would look was
t
he well, the hole in the ground where the chiroptera lived.

I rushed through the hallway and down the stairs. As I
rushed
through the dark family room, my face smacked something hard, knocking me on my back. Blood gushed from my nose, which I was sure had to be broken.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” said a voice that sounded like my mother’s but much, much deeper.

I could taste blood rushing into my mouth and down my throat. My nose hurt so badly. I looked up and could
n’t
see anything in the dark. Then the voice spoke again, “Lori is ours.”

It sounded so much like my mom. Then I saw red eyes right abo
ve me and coming closer, right in my face. “I will eat you!” The eyes flashed and I coul
d see her entire face. It was
one of the chiroptera, but I could also se
e a hint of my mother in there.

“Mom?” At the sound of the word, the creature jumped back with a hiss as if stung or burned. “Mom, that is you, isn’t it?” Again, the same reaction. “Mom, I love you. Are you in there somewhere?” I knew she wasn’t, couldn’t be.

But somehow, the word “Mom”—or just the fact that I was calling it “Mom”—caused it pain. “Mom, I love you.” I managed to stand up, ignoring the blood gushing from nose. “Mom, I love
you.” I thought about my mother,
the mother I had known before Dad’s death, the great relationship we’d had, all those wonderful memories of the time on the boat on the lake, the time we looked a clouds together and laughed about the crazy things we saw, the day when she came
home
from the hospital
with Lori. I let that love pour through me as I projected that emotion at the creature.

Its eyes flashed unevenly
as it stumbled back over the rocking chair.

“Well, Mom, love you. I’ll be back,” I said, turned, and ran toward the front door on my way
to find
my sister.

As soon as I stepped outside, I could hear Lori screaming. It was such an awful scream. She was screaming for her life.

I ran as fast as I could
toward the sound of her screams
, which wasn’t that fast given the length of the grass
.
It felt almost like running through a corn field.

The screams
sounded like
there was
an all-out struggle. Whatever they were doing to her, wherever they were taking her, she wasn’t making it easy on them
.

“Help
!
Help me!
”
she screamed her first coherent scream.

She wasn’t far, but I couldn’t see her
, nor could I see any of the creatures that had her
. “Lori, where are you?”
I whispered. I wasn’t sure why I whispered instead of yelled. Maybe it was because I sensed that in some way she would be able to hear me no matter what.

“Over here, Amanda. Help me!”
Lori responded, surprising me.

Her voice came from my left.

“Lori!”
I whispered again.

And then I was tackled from behind. Something strong, much stronger t
han I,
grabbed my legs and wrestled me to the ground. I landed
face
first in the
grass,
smashing
my broken nose into the ground, but
I managed to
quickly
turn
over.

I couldn’t see anyone
on top of me;
no one around me.
I thought maybe I actually
tripped
and only imagined being pulled to the ground
. I discovered how wrong I was when I tried to get up
. Something
I couldn’t see
was holding me down.

Then I heard Lori’s laugh
right above me
, but it wasn’t the innocent laughter of a child. As it continued, it grew deeper and deeper until it was an inhuman screech.
I let out a scream—
the long
est, loudest scream of my life.

Chapter
9

I woke up in the field the next morning. Blood caked my face and my chest. Scratches covered my arms and hands. The sun was low
in the east. I could hear the diesel engines
of the buses marking the beginnings of the school day. There was no way I was
going.

I looked around me and saw nothing about, nothing that told me anything about what happened after I passed out. The last thing I remembered was something I couldn’t see holding me down and laughing that
horrible
laugh.

Then there was nothing. I have no idea what happened after that.
Lori, my sister…she was one of them…dead. I pulled at my hair and screamed into the sky. I
screamed
my sister’s name, but the only response I heard were the echoes of my own voice.

No one was here for me. No one to love. My life was over. What reason was there to live? I was only eleven years old and facing a more horrifying situation than anyone my age. Why me? Why Lori? Why my parents?

I remembered telling my dad that I hated him. I hated him for bringing this curse upon me and Lori. I hated him more
in
that moment
than ever before
.

“Lori!” I cried out
again
, even though most of me knew that it was pointless. “Lori!”

I threw myself on the ground
, crying, tearing at the grass, and then pounding my fists into the dirt, calling out Lori’s name the whole time.

After several minutes—
or maybe
after
a
s long as half an hour—
I calmed down enough to think.
I couldn’t go back to the house, could I? Not with what used to be my mom in there.

And then something else occurred to me. Gramma. What about her? She had always been strange, but was she one of
them?
Or was she
crazy
because she was afraid of them?

I needed to know.
In that moment, I decided to go to the house and meet with Gramma.

But
first, I was going to clean up.

I was deep in thought as I walked toward the house. What had D
ad said about it? This house was the center of all the trapped souls in O
rchard Hills, of which there were
9,111. If I wasn’t so filthy, and if there wasn’t some hope that my gramma could help, I would have just left Orchard Hills behind and found myself a good orphanage to stay at.

After nearly ten minutes of walking through the long grass, I was finally back to the house.
I
walked through the living room to G
ramma’s bedroom. My mom, or the thing that used to be my mom, was nowhere in sight, which was a good thing. Perhaps it left to join the rest of the chiroptera. I could feel the tears
threatening to come, but I managed to swallow them back.

I knocked lightly on her door. There was no answer, but I could hear a faint voice on the other side. Someone was speaking, but I couldn’t make out what was being said. I knocked again. This time, the voices stopped, indicating whoever was in there heard the knock.

Then the door opened.

Gramma was wearing pink and green floral footie
pajamas
, and she was alone. “Gramma, who are you talking to?” That was not the most urgent question on my mind, but for some reason it was the first I asked. She stepped out of her room and quickly shut the door.

“No one.”

“Don’t lie to me. I know all about what’s going on around here. Are you one of them?”

She looked very nervous, like she was hiding something.

“I know about the chiroptera, the trapped souls…and I know my dad died trying to kill them.”

Her nervousness grew in intensity as I spoke. I could see in her eyes that she knew what I was talking about
,
and it scared her. She was terrified, absolutely, utterly terrified.

“Amanda—”

“I also know why mom and my sister are dead.”

There was a harsh intake of breath. She nearly collapsed to the floor, but I grabbed her and held her. “No…they got her too?”

“Yes, they did. Why did we come here, Gramma? Why did Mom bring us here?”

I was angry. How dare she get sad about Lori’s death when it was the fact that we lived with her that caused it. If it were up to me, we never would have come here, and we would have avoided this whole situation.

“
You don’t know as much as you think you do
,” Gramma said. “I thought I could keep you safe.”

“Evidently, you were wrong,” I said and walked her to the rocking chair and sat her down.

Gramma looked into my eyes and held my hands in hers. “Amanda, I have been trapped here for so long. I can’t even remember the last time I was able to enjoy life.”

“What do you mean you’re trapped here? You aren’t like all those ghosts are you?
The ones asking to be let out?
”

“No, don’t let them out.”

“Dad comes to me in visions…
and he told me they are trapped. And Mom said so too.”
I could feel the tears coming so hard, they almost exploded
from
my face. Gramma reached out to hug me.
Her warm embrace soothed a little, but it also brought out the tears full force.

“It’s okay, dear.”

“No, it isn’t,” I sobbed. “It isn’t at all. Lori is one of them. So is Mom. Mom and Dad and Lori, too, are now trapped here…their souls or whatever are trapped in this house.”

“That isn’t quite right, Amanda…it’s a little more complicated than that.”

“What difference does it make!”

“It makes all the difference
.
Amanda, Orchard Hills is…I don’t know how to explain it.
The only
thing I can really say for sure is
y
ou can never leave.
You can never go back
to your old life. It doesn’t exist for you anymore.”

I always knew Gramma was crazy, but I had no idea she was this bad, or so was my first thought, my first reaction. I know differently now.

Chapter 10

We sat in silence for several minutes before Gramma suggested I get my stuff ready because she was taking me to school. I don’t know what came over me, why I was willing to go to school. Maybe it was the stress, maybe I just wanted to get out of the house, maybe a lot of things. Either way, it was the start of a strange day, most of which I spent in a better mood than I ever imagined I could be in.

I ran up to my room
.
Ignoring the broken glass strewn about my bed,
I grabbed some clean clothes
.
I then
took a quick shower,
brushed my teeth, and did my hair.

The second day of school
started out normally enough
, considering
. Mrs. Knopf
was nice and offered nothing in the way of making me feel uncomfortable
.
My classmates were great too
.

But what struck me more than anything was just how
normal
things were in this place. The day before had been a little rough, but until my vision and the events that followed it, the
day had been like a normal
school day
.
This day, the strangest thing was that
everyone seemed to be aware of Lori’s death. I g
ot condolence after condolence
with no explanation as to who spread the news. I mean, with the exception of my gramma
and the ghosts of my parents
, I was the only one who knew anything about it.