She gasped with effort and managed to raise her head.
The garage door was open all the way.
Outside, night was falling fast. George was on her right and Ricky was to her left. Blood was leaking from Ricky’s temple and had run down his face.
“Ricky?” she whispered. “Can you hear me?”
At the sound of her voice, his eyes seemed to come into focus and he blinked and nodded.
Amber turned back towards George.
“George, are you…”
“Quiet,” he whispered again.
Amber pulled at the strap on her wrist. Now that her head wasn’t pinned down, she was able to lean to the side and push her right hand towards the place where the strap was attached to the table. The extra slack allowed her to get a little distance between the strap and her wrist.
“Get your head free,” she whispered to George. “If you can…”
“Shhhhh!”
Amber wanted to scream at him. Why did it matter how much noise they made if they were tied up? Instead she took a deep breath and held it, trying to hear what he heard. The hollow knocking almost sounded like a woodpecker, thumping at a terribly slow, deliberate speed.
She knew precisely what was making the sound.
“It won’t help,” she whispered. “Staying quiet isn’t going to save you. Try to get your head loose.”
“I’ve tried.”
“Turn your head towards me and try harder.”
Stretching her shoulder to the limits, she was able to nearly get the strap pinned between her wrist and the table. She was trying to turn the nylon loop so that it was perpendicular to her arm.
George let out a strained cry and then a breathy grunt.
“I can’t.”
“Get your jaw loose first. Pull your chin back.”
While she listened to him struggle, Amber inched her hand back towards her body. Twisting one way and then the other, she thought she might be able to pull through. She lifted herself up onto her elbow and cursed under her breath when she couldn’t wriggle her arm any farther.
“I think…” George started to say.
Amber looked at him. His ear was folded over by the strap and in the low light she saw blood beginning to leak down the side of his neck from the tearing skin. With a cry, he jerked his head back and his head popped free.
George lifted up enough to turn towards her and their eyes met.
“Good,” she whispered. “Now that you’re head’s not pinned, see if you can slide to the side and get your hand free.”
Her voice was strained as she applied more and more pressure to her wrist. It felt like the strap was cutting right through her skin.
George wasn’t moving.
His eyes were wide and his mouth was hanging open.
“George!” she whispered.
Ricky moaned, “No!”
Amber twisted to try to see what George was focused on. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the glowing, swirling hint of light hanging over Ricky and Amber froze. She didn’t let her eyes land on the thing—she knew that would mean death.
Thirty-One: Ricky
Ricky woke up while he was being dragged. The hands gripping his ankles were strong. He tried to thrash and kick, but he had no strength in his legs. After being shocked, he remembered the arm that closed around his neck and the world floating away. First his back and then his head thumped down three stairs to a hard floor. Bright flashes of light exploded in his vision and left him with a pink glow.
There was something familiar about the glow.
The hands dropped his ankles. A moment later he was being lifted by his arms and rolled forward onto a soft table. Ricky could barely see through blurry eyes. His body was flipped and then bound. The table was rolled.
Every time he tried to open his eyes, the lights above drove spikes of pain into his head.
He moaned.
Over the sound of his pounding heartbeat, he heard something breathing. Ricky listened. With a mechanical click, the hurtful lights above went out and he opened his mouth to call for help. All that came out was another moan.
He heard a voice say, “Quiet!”
Ricky couldn’t tell if he had imagined the whisper or not. He wanted to believe it was true because it had sounded like George. Blinking until his eyes came into focus, he saw Amber on a table next to him. She was strapped down as well, but she could at least turn her head.
Ricky tried to hear what they were saying to each other, but everything was jumbled by the foggy sounds of his own blood rushing through his veins.
His gaze turned upwards. It hurt to move his eyes that far, but he endured the pain because there was something moving above him and he needed to know what it was. When he saw the tiny flicker of faint light up there, he knew for sure—it was one of them. One of the creatures was up there, moving through the unfinished rafters. Ricky realized that they were in the garage.
The monster began to lower itself down, like a spider dangling from a web. He struggled, but his arms and legs were pinned. He couldn’t even turn his head to get a good look at the thing as it descended. It dropped silently from its perch and he barely felt it as it landed on top of him.
Ricky froze.
Amber was whispering something.
Even without looking at the monster, he could feel the pull of the glowing eyes. They were like a deep well and he was standing at the edge with his toes over the depths. The idea entered his head that everything would make sense to him if he
