The Dead List (3 page)

“It’s nice. You look hot in it.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, bouncing into the flat wall of the pool house.

Brock came forward, the bottle of beer dangling from his fingers. “You’re so hot.”

My eyes widened as he planted his hand into the side of the house next to my head. I darted under his arm. He spun around, frowning again, in a confused way.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I’ve got to get home. Curfew and all,” I lied. It had been many moons since I worried with a curfew, but if he said hot one more time I might vomit. “But it’s been fun. Got to go. Bye!”

Brock started toward me, but his gaze darted to the right and his brows slammed down. “Hey!” he shouted. “Who in the hell let you all in here?”

I looked over, spying three skinny underclassmen that looked like they also had no idea what they were doing here. The three boys huddled together, throwing panicky looks at one another. Something about the sight of them pierced my chest, reminding me of—I shook my head, clearing my thoughts.

Brock tossed his beer bottle to the side, where it bounced off a shrub and then shattered on the walkway. “Charlie!” he yelled, grinning in a way that caused my stomach to dip. He looked like a lion about to pounce on a three-legged gazelle. “Look at what we have here.”

I had no idea where Charlie was, but I took full use of the distraction and spun around, hurrying back to the cluster of dancing bodies, dropping my almost full beer bottle in the trash. My eyes searched for Linds, but she and Mason were nowhere to be found.

Deciding it was way past the time for me to make an exit, so I didn’t end up hanging around and doing something stupid, I dipped inside and grabbed my keys from where I’d left them near an unused breadbox. I figured when I got home, I could pick up the last Black Dagger Brotherhood book that was patiently waiting for me on my pillow. I don’t know what it was about gangsta talking vampires that made me about seven different kinds of happy but it did. The only other books to do that were the ones I stole from mom when she wasn’t paying attention. The Kristen Ashley romance books.

They made me want to move to Colorado.

Linds liked to give me a hard time about having my nose stuck in the book, but sometimes I needed to get my head out of real life and reading was the best and quickest way to do it.

Back outside, I headed toward the gate leading to the front of the house. As I crossed the lawn, the sounds of the party faded into the background.

I needed to text Linds, letting her know I’d left, but my cell was in my car. Telling myself not to forget, I passed the tall hedges blocking the yard from the dark road in front of Brock’s house.

His house was the only one for at least a mile on the isolated stretch of road, but tonight, the sides of the street were packed with cars, and I had to park where it felt like a million miles away from the house.

Wrapping my arms around my waist, I picked up my pace. My sandals smacked off the cracked asphalt, echoing around me. As dark as it was, with no street lamps and only thin slivers of moonlight stretching across the road, it was an eerie, too long walk.

I kept waiting for Big Foot to barrel out from the thick stand of trees crowding the road. Or maybe the Mothman, after all, I did live in West Virginia.

A shiver coursed down my spine as I pictured a giant winged creature flying out from the trees and then cursed my imagination. Not what I needed to be thinking about when there was no one around.

When I spotted my car, a wide smile broke out across my face. Almost there. My fingers tightened on the keys as I stopped at the driver’s door, pushing my finger down on the unlock button.

My car chirped a hello.

My sandals still smacked off the asphalt.

No. Wait. Another shiver tiptoed down my spine. I wasn’t walking, so those footsteps… they weren’t mine.

Tiny hairs rose along the back of my neck as I whirled around, quickly scanning the dark road around me. Air caught in my throat as I squinted into the thick shadows between the cars.

I saw nothing.

Seconds past and I didn’t dare move or breathe too loudly. My ears strained to hear the footsteps, but there was nothing but the low hum of insects that came out at night. What if there really was a Big Foot? Or a chupacabra?

Or a giant, flesh eating stinkbug?

Now I was just being stupid.

No one was out here. It was just another case of Ella’s Overactive Imagination. Instead of planning on attending college for a law degree, I should major in creative writing. The way I could creep myself out over something so harmless, I could be the low rent version of Stephen King or something.

Laughing softly, I turned back to my car and reached for the door handle. The tips of my fingers brushed over the metal just as a rush of warm air stirred the hair next to my temple.

That was the only warning.

Every instinct in my body flared alive, screaming out a warning, but it was too late. A hand smacked down on my mouth. Jerking back suddenly, my keys slipped from my fingers, clanging off the road.

My brain grinded to a halt, unable to process what was happening. In the next second, my feet were off the ground and space was increasing between my car and me. I was being hauled away—carried backward.

Horror seized my insides in an icy grip, snapping me out of my shock-induced immobility. Instinct roared back online. Heart pounding double fast, I struggled against the hold, throwing my weight forward and then back again, trying to dislodge the arm that felt like a steel band under my chest.

The attacker grunted, but held on. Panic rose inside me like a great wave crashing over a beach. I clawed at the hand over my mouth, but my fingernails only scratched over rough gloves. Air puffed out from my nose in short, wheezy wisps.

This isn’t happening. Oh my God, this isn’t happening.

I swung my arm back, desperately trying to make purchase, but I was hitting nothing, only air. My car was several feet away from me now, the woods close at our backs. Deep down, in a part of my brain that was still functioning beyond the terror, I knew that if he got me in the woods it would be bad—real bad on a stranger danger kind of level.

Not knowing how to fight or defend myself, the panic took full hold. Kicking out my legs, I lost my sandals, but the sudden movement caused the attacker to stumble. I threw my legs out again and his footing slipped on the embankment.

We went down in a tangle of legs and arms. I hit the ground hard, knocking the air out of my lungs. Survival had full hold on me. Ignoring the spark of pain in my ribs, I rolled onto my knees, scrambling up the small slope. My toes dug into the damp earth, kicking up grass and soil.

A scream burst out of my mouth, breaking the silence. Birds took flight, their wings beating together as the rattled the thick tree limbs above me. My feet hit the warm asphalt as another scream tore out of me.

“Help!” I shrieked into the empty road. “Someone, help—”

Weight crashed into my back, forcing me down. My knees and palms skidded across the coarse road, ripping open skin. The fiery lick of pain was overshadowed by the swelling terror.

My cry ended in a grunt as something slammed into my lower back, stunning me. Arms giving out, my cheek smashed against the pavement. Flipped roughly onto my back, I found myself staring up into a face shadowed by a dark hood. The glint of a zipper reflected briefly, but there was nothing under the hood it seemed, nothing but darkness.

I immediately flailed under his weight, buckling my hips and trying to force him off, but strong legs pressed down on either side of mine, trapping them together as hands wrapped around my throat, cutting off my scream. I’d lost my next breath before I even realized I’d taken my last.

I opened my mouth to drag in oxygen, but nothing flowed in my parted lips. Nothing. Not a wisp of anything. The pressure increased, bruising. I could feel the muscles and bones in my neck screeching in pain. My lungs cramped.

Reality washed over me like a draft of frigid winter wind. Whatever he wanted was worse than what could happen in the darkness of the woods. He was going to kill me.

Oh God. Oh God, not like this. I didn’t want to die like this, on the side of the road, for no reason whatsoever. I didn’t want to die at all.

A different kind of panic took root in me and I swung my arms, pounding them off his arms and chest, but nothing seemed to faze him. He leaned back, avoiding a direct hit to the face, but my fingers grabbed ahold of the hood. With a burst of energy, I yanked it back.

Horror took away the last little bit of oxygen my lungs had desperately tried to survive on.

What stared back at me was something out of a horror movie. The attacker’s face was covered by a clown’s mask—the hard, plastic kind. Ghostly white skin with small, red blush on the cheeks greeted my horrified stare. The eyes were wide, with three lashes painted in black. Above the holes were two half circles painted in black. The tiny, pert tip of the nose was painted red and its lips were carved into an obscenely wide smile, revealing fake buckteeth.

Full of terror, I reached for the mask, but the thing holding me down jerked out of the way. The hood slipped further down, revealing a blue frizzy, curled wig.

A cramp seized my entire body, causing me to jerk against the road. This… this was going to be the last thing I saw, I realized dumbly as I tried to smack at him again, but my arms weren’t cooperating with me. Muscles useless, they fell to my sides, lying at what felt like an unnatural angle.

The clown mask grew closer as it leaned in, stopping a mere inch or so from my face. The pounding in my chest slowed as it tilted its head to the side, watching me from somewhere in the dark holes.

My lips worked around a word that couldn’t be uttered.
Please
. I repeated it over and over, mindlessly.
Please
.

A soft tsking sound radiated from behind the mask, and it shook its head side to side slowly. Tears welled up, spilling down my cheeks and the image of the
thing
blurred as darkness crept across my vision.

Then its hands were gone and my lungs expanded frantically, dragging in greedy gulps of air. I didn’t understand, but I could breathe! It lifted me by gripping my shoulders, raising me up like dead weight and—

Bright lights flooded the road and the
thing
above me froze. It stilled for a second and then it slammed me down. The back of my head cracked off the road, blinding me as darkness exploded all around.

Arms were around me again. There were voices—voices I recognized and should’ve meant safety of some sort. Someone was yelling. Feet pounded in every direction. I couldn’t lift my head, but I could see again and all I could see were the stars.

As they blurred, they still looked like tiny tiki torches. The embrace tightened, lifting me up toward them as a voice rasped in my ear, “I got you.”

Attempted murder brought in all the cops from the land I liked to call
everywhere
.

I tried to sit up in the hospital bed, ignoring the tender pull against my ribs and the dull ache in the back of my head. Mom was right by my side, gently coaxing me to lay back. Her normally coifed blonde hair was a mess of waves reaching her shoulders and her hazel eyes, more green than brown, were full of concern.

“Baby, just lay back and relax,” she said, smoothing the thin blue blanket over my hips. “Don’t move around too much.”

“Listen to your mother,” a voice traveled from the edge of the bed.

My gaze darted over to where my father sat. The fact that the two of them were in the same room together, let alone within touching distance of each other, signified how big of a deal this was. Obviously, almost being strangled to death was a big deal to most people and would generally bring divorced parents into the same room again.

My brain hurt.

“Mom,” I sighed, glancing at where the two troopers from the state police stood behind her. More waited in the hallway—city, county and state. From the moment I’d woken up in the ambulance, police and people asked questions at a rapid clip. “I’m okay. Really, I am.”

Mom shook her head as she sat beside my hip. “You were almost…” She drew in a shuddering breath. “You could’ve been…”

My stomach knotted painfully. Even though she couldn’t finish the sentence, I knew what she meant. Dad reached over, placing his hand where my foot poked up from under the blanket.

I could’ve died, but he had stopped—he’d been lifting me up—as if he planned on taking me away from the road and wanted me to be out of it, but not dead.

And that was scarier than anything else.

Bile rose up my sore throat and I did lean back against the flat pillows stacked behind my head. A shudder worked its way through my body as I slowly let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

Trooper Ritter shifted his weight behind Mom. “I’m sorry to keep asking questions when I know you’re exhausted…”

“It’s okay.” I lifted my hands and started to smooth them down my face, but stopped. The skin was scratched and raw from where the pavement had torn them open. I lowered them to my sides. “This is important. I know.”

“You kept referring to the attacker as a he, but how can you be sure it was a male?” he asked, holding his hat under his arm. “You said the attacker was a wearing a mask and a wig.”

“A clown mask?” Dad muttered, rubbing a hand through his neatly cut brown hair. “What is this town turning into?”

Town? What was the world coming to? I swallowed hard, wincing against the pull. Clowns had never scared me before, but now I’d never be able to look at one the same again. “I was lifted up like I weighed nothing and I sure as hell weigh a good—”

“Honey,” Dad said softly, eyeing me. “I think he gets the point.”

The Trooper nodded. “But there are a lot of strong women out there, Ella. I’m only pointing that out because we want to be sure we have everything to find this person.”

My gaze shifted to my torn hands. In a flash, I saw them reaching for the handle. I had been so close to getting into my car—to safety. The memory of being jerked back and picked up was too fresh. I sucked in an unsteady breath.