Defy the Dark (9 page)

“Oh, bummer,” I say, hoping I sound legitimately regretful. “Those are way higher than I thought they'd be.”

It's 10:32, and I'm suddenly annoyed. It'll take us another twenty minutes to get out of here, then who knows how long to find somewhere else to go? And Linds's house is on the other side of town, so that's ten more. . . . At this rate, Kelley and I will have time to maybe shake hands.

“Oh ye of little faith,” Kelley says, waggling his eyebrows.

By now, all I want to do is get the heck out of this spooky forest and go somewhere normal to make out. Like a parking lot or a cul-de-sac. Any place that doesn't give me a major case of the creepies. And if he thinks I'm
climbing
up giant mounds of packed clay and dirt . . .

“There's no way we can get over these things,” I tell him, hoping that whatever his plan is, he'll drop it.

Kelley grabs the gearshift, and I expect him to put it in reverse. Instead, he pulls the handle all the way down. The truck makes a grinding sound as it starts up one of the dirt hills, the cab rocking alarmingly from side to side. I grip the door handle. “What are you doing?”

“Four-wheel drive,” he tells me. “One of the few awesome things about driving this redneckmobile.”

The tires spin. For one brief, sickening moment, I feel them lose contact, and all I can see is the truck rolling down the hill, crushing me and Kelley in the wreckage. And they won't find our bodies for
forever
because no one knows where we are, and when they do find us, everyone will know that I was cheating on Justin with Kelley Hamilton, even though I haven't even
gotten
to the cheating part yet.

I look over at Kelley. He's gritting his teeth, hands tight on the steering wheel.

But then the tires touch the dirt again, and suddenly, we're cresting the top of the hill. Juddering and bouncing, the truck makes its way down the other side, and when we finally come to a rest at the bottom, Kelley kills the engine.

The lights are still on, illuminating an overgrown road that should really be called a path. It winds its way through the trees, disappearing around a bend a few yards in. I'm shaking, with both fear at nearly getting killed and the elation of
not
getting killed.

Next to me, Kelley starts to laugh, a relieved and kind of breathless sound. And then I start giggling, too. Our eyes meet, his reflecting the blue lights of the dash. He reaches out, cups my cheek in one palm, and then I'm unbuckling my seat belt and sliding across the bench seat and into his arms.

Once his lips are on mine, I'm not scared anymore. I can't feel anything but
want
and
heat
. Kissing Kelley Hamilton is better than I'd thought it would be, and trust me, I'd thought it would be pretty amazing. But my daydreams didn't capture how soft his hair is, or the low sound he makes in his throat as he holds me tighter. When we break apart for air, he presses his forehead against mine.

“I've wanted to do that for a really long time,” he breathes.

“Me too,” I confess, just as shakily.

Kelley kisses me again, softer this time, his hands cold on my lower back. He pulls away, fingers still sliding over my spine, making me shiver. “You know, we don't
have
to go down to the bridge. I feel pretty good about staying right here.”

My face is pressed against his neck, so I know he can feel me smile. “I'm actually good with that.”

I lift my head and he sinks one hand into my hair as we move toward each other. But before we kiss, Kelley freezes, his head jerking to one side as he stares out the windshield. “What was that?”

Irritated, I slide back. “Don't do that.”

His eyes flick to my face for a second before turning back to the woods. “No, I'm not being a dick. I saw something. Like, for real. Lights or something.”

Kelley turns the key, and with a click, the headlights go out, plunging us into darkness. “Just watch,” he tells me. “Over there, to the right.”

I cross my arms as I settle back into the passenger seat, squinting out into the darkness. “I don't—” I say, but then, suddenly, I
do.

They're dim, but several yards away, twin orbs of red light are glowing faintly. They're maybe the size of quarters, and as I watch, they disappear for a second, only to then reappear in exactly the same place.

“They look like—”

“Eyes,” Kelley finishes. “They look like
eyes
.”

Goose bumps prickle my arms. “Shut up,” I tell him, but I'm still staring out in the darkness. God, he's right, they do look like eyes. They vanish again for a second, but just like before, they come back almost immediately.

“See?” Kelley points at the lights. “They're blinking. What the hell has eyes like
that
?”

There are all kinds of creatures in these woods. Possums, raccoons . . . my mom even thought she saw a mountain lion out here when she was a teenager. So my brain races, trying to match those glowing circles to one of those animals. But none of them seem to fit. These eyes are too big to belong to a possum or a raccoon; they're too
red
.

Still, I tell Kelley, “Probably just a trick of the light.”

I wait for him to let it go and to pull me back to him. Instead, he leans over the steering wheel, peering out. “But seriously, Sam, what is that thing? I mean, what has
eyes
like that?”

The mood is now sufficiently broken, and I can't keep the poutiness out of my voice as I say, “Who cares? Let's just get out of here. I promised Linds I'd be back by eleven thirty.”

This time, there's no mistaking the annoyance on Kelley's face. “Sam—” he starts, but before he can say anything else, this . . .
sound
fills the air. Part howl, part shriek, it's like nothing I've ever heard before. Now the goose bumps aren't just on my arms, they're everywhere. The howl fades away, dissolving into a kind of chittering. I push the
LOCK
button on my door even though it's already locked.

It's just an animal. Some weird kind of animal that makes a weird, awful sound. My mind balks at calling it anything else. Still, I fasten my seat belt and tell Kelley, “I want to go.
Now
.”

But instead of starting the engine, Kelley grabs the door handle.

I grab
him
. “What are you doing?”

Still watching the darkness, he shakes off my grip. “I just want to get a closer look.”

All I can do is stare at him. “What?”

“Whatever it is, it's weird, okay? So I want to see it.”

“You know what else is weird?” I say, already reaching down for my phone. “Getting your face eaten off by some
chupacabra
in the woods. Woods we are
not even supposed to be in
. Now let's just forget it and
go.
”

My fingers close around my phone. If he won't take me out of here, I'll call someone. Linds. Heck, even my parents. Getting in trouble with them seems way less scary than getting mauled by a monster.

Kelley laughs. “A
chupacabra
?”

“You know, those monsters people see in Mexico, Texas, places like that,” I say, suddenly self-conscious. “They kill goats and cows.”

“Well, since we're not in Mexico or Texas, and neither of us is livestock, I think we'll be okay,” he says, opening his door. “Give me two minutes, okay? I just wanna check it out.”

He's out of the truck, closing the door with a quiet
thunk
before I can even reply. I don't know if it's fear or anger making me shake, but I suspect it's a decent mix of both.

Kelley walks in front of the truck. He moves slowly, his hands held out slightly in front of him. For a second, I think about leaning over and hitting the horn. It would serve the dual purpose of scaring the crap out of Kelley and running that thing off. And it would probably piss Kelley off, ensuring that our first kiss was also our last. But do I really care anymore?

Justin's face pops into my mind. He never would have taken me out here. And if he had, he would have taken me home when I said I wanted to leave. Guilt floods me, washing away all the anger and a fair amount of the fear. I read his text again. He misses me. Sweet Justin misses me while I'm out here fooling around with Kelley Hamilton, who may be hot, and may not be a junkie or a psychopath, but
is
something of a jackass.

I hit
REPLY
, and a message flashes on the screen:
BATTERY POWER TOO LOW FOR RADIO RANGE.
What?

But there, in the top left-hand corner, my battery bar has one little sliver of red. It's almost the same color as the thing's eyes. Which reminds me that I've been so busy futzing with my phone and being self-loathing that I haven't been watching Kelley.

Heart pounding, I look up, and the sound that comes out of my mouth is half groan, half whimper.

Kelley isn't there.

“No, no, no, no,” I mutter, the sound of my own voice too loud, too harsh in the quiet truck. Leaning forward, I squint out at the trees, trying to spot Kelley's white T-shirt. But there's nothing. Just trees, trees, and more trees. I don't even see the red glow anymore.

Turning back to my phone, I speed-dial Linds, but that stupid low battery message comes back again. I toss the phone to the floorboard.

I could go out there, but the thought of doing that makes me shudder. At least in the truck, I have doors that lock. Speaking of . . .

I lean over to the driver's seat. Distracted, I realize Kelley left the keys in the ignition, but how the hell am I supposed to get back over those hills? I remember the strain on his face as we climbed. Hadn't his left hand been doing something? Was there a button to press? How did four-wheel drive even
work
, and damn it, why had I never
learned
?

I am nearly sobbing with frustration when there's a thump under the truck. A small, stifled scream bursts from my throat, and I freeze.

The thump comes again, harder this time. The sound of my own blood rushing in my ears is almost painful. It's like every piece of me, every last molecule, is straining to hear. Another thump. And then another.

The truck shimmies, and there's a scrabbling that sounds like it's right in front of me. The cab shakes again and I lower my face to the leather, trembling. I lie there for what feels like years as the truck rocks, and the harsh sound of something scraping against the plastic bed (claws, claws, oh, God, its
claws
) fills the air. But I can see my phone—my stupid, useless phone—from where I'm lying, and I know that only three minutes go by before the sounds and the rocking stop.

Three more minutes go by before I find the courage to lift my head. I make myself look out the windshield first. Still no sign of Kelley, no sign of anything. And then I turn to the back.

It's dark. No red orbs. Holding so still that my muscles shiver and ache, I keep watching. I know this moment. This is the part in scary movies where the girl relaxes, only to have the creature or killer or alien fling itself out of the darkness. I brace myself, thinking that if it does happen, my mind will shatter into a thousand tiny shards. Because really, once a monster has jumped out of the woods at you, how can you ever go back to being okay?

But that doesn't happen. I stay still and watch and breathe, but nothing jumps at me. Nothing growls. And the silence goes on just long enough to make me think that I imagined it. Somehow, that's worse.

I'm still staring into the bed of the truck when the driver's side door flies open.

I do scream then, but it doesn't sound anything like those girls in movies. It sounds high and breathless and crazy, and I can't seem to stop it, even when Kelley slides into the seat.

“Sam,” he says once the door is slammed behind him. He grabs my shoulders. “Sam. SAM. It's okay—it's just me.”

He's breathing like he just ran a marathon, and even though his face is sickly pale, his eyes are bright.

“You said two minutes!” is all I can think to yell once I can finally form words again. “You said two minutes, and my phone doesn't work, and there were things in the back, and—”

“Shh, shh,” Kelley murmurs, but he's already letting go of me and starting the truck. The relief I feel is so intense, I sag against the seat, running trembling hands over my face. I don't even care where Kelley was, or why he was running, or why two minutes turned into an eternity.

I want to go home. I want to see Linds. I want to text Justin and tell him that sure, he might be a little boring, but at least he's never gotten me nearly killed.

I never want to see Kelley Hamilton again, no matter how good his hair is.

The truck lurches forward, and I wait for it to turn around, to make the climb back up the hill. Did I really think that was terrifying just a few minutes ago? Did it take less than half an hour to radically alter my definition of “scary”?

There is a crunch as we run over what sounds like a bunch of sticks, and the truck picks up speed.

It does
not
turn around.

I open my eyes and watch trees race past. We're not heading back. We're going deeper into the woods.

“What are you doing?” I shriek.

Kelley swerves around a pile of sticks and pine straw, speeding down the road. “I saw it, Sam,” he says. “I saw it, and it was
not
a possum with mange, or a bobcat, or a mutated raccoon, or anything.” His words come tumbling out in a rush, and I realize with dawning horror that he's
smiling.

“We are talking some kind of brand-new species, Sam. I mean, the kind of crap that makes people famous. We'll probably get our own show on the Discovery Channel.”