It’s just the cold, she thought, rubbing her arms with her hands, trying to warm the skin. Just the cold.
But she wasn’t sure that was true.
She had heard something out there in the darkness.
Something that sounded like a scream.
Kate climbed out of her bed, wincing at the temperature. She was still dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, but she reached for the dressing gown hanging on the back of her door regardless. As she slid her arms into the sleeves, she felt the air swirl as something moved behind her, near the open window.
She spun round.
The room was empty.
Fear rippled through her like one of the slate-gray waves that pitched her father’s boat. But she did not cry out.
Her father would be asleep by now, and if she had learned anything in her sixteen years, it was that she must not wake her father under any circumstances. This rule, this nonnegotiable law, had sunk so deeply into her that she obeyed it even now, as she stood trembling with fear in her own bedroom, no more than fifteen feet away from him.
Instead she walked toward the window.
She could smell the crisp, dry scent of a fire on the beach far below the small house she had shared with her father since her mother had died, could see a thin pillar of pale gray smoke rising above the small island, small clouds of sparks and orange embers floating lazily on the night air.
She could hear music, a classical piano piece, drifting out of the windows of her neighbors’ house. Mr. Marsden was away on business in Newcastle, and his wife was making the most of her opportunity to control the stereo. It was normally the heavy bass and driving drums of Metallica and Motorhead that echoed out of their attic sitting room, at a volume that had led to more than one complaint.
Everything seemed to be normal. But Kate could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.
A dark shape, far too large to be a bird or a bat, swooped past her bedroom window, close enough to brush the blonde hair that fell untidily across her forehead, and this time she did scream, long and loud.
Kate staggered back from the window. In the bedroom across the hall, she heard her father swear, and then the thump of his feet on the wooden floorboards. She was so relieved to hear the movement in his room that she didn’t even worry that she had woken him.
Half asleep, Pete Randall pulled a T-shirt over his head and staggered to the wooden door of his bedroom.
Damn girl, he thought. If there’s a spider in there, I’m not going to be happy.
He had no idea that his teenage daughter had just saved his life. Or that he would never get a chance to thank her.
Pete crossed the small landing, his bare feet thudding on the uneven wooden floorboards of the old house, and pushed open the door to his daughter’s room. He did not even have time to close it behind him before she flew into his arms, burying her head in his chest. She wasn’t crying, but she had her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
Christ, she’s shaking like a leaf, he thought. What’s going on in here?
“There, there,” he said softly. “You’re safe. Tell me what happened.”
Kate felt her father’s strong arms around her shoulders and immediately started to feel stupid for having woken him.
It was just a bird, she told herself. One of the big gulls. Stupid girl, scared of a bird when you live on an island. Now you’ve woken him up, and you know how hard he works, how difficult it’s been for him since-
There was a soft thump behind her, and she felt her dad’s arms tense. She twisted, looked across the room, and bit her lip, hard enough that she tasted blood in her mouth. Otherwise she would have surely screamed again.
Standing in front of her bedroom window was a middle-aged man. He was wearing a pair of tattered blue jeans, so full of holes it seemed that they were holding together through sheer force of will alone. The rest of him was naked, although very little of his skin could be seen. His emaciated body was covered in tattoos, long loops and whorls of blue-black ink that stretched up and down both of his arms, across his narrow chest and concave stomach. Words she didn’t recognize mingled with pictures of screaming faces, skeletal wings, and patterns so intricate they made her head swim. Hair hung from his head in black greasy locks that rested on his chest. His face was inhuman, with blazing red eyes that stared at her from sunken sockets.
The man opened his mouth and let out a deafening screech; Kate saw bright white fangs protruding from below his upper lip, and fear flooded into her as a series of answering screeches floated through the window on the cold evening air.
Like animals calling to each other, Pete thought. My God, what is this?
He pushed his trembling daughter behind him and faced the creature. “What do you want?” he asked, shocked at how small and weak his voice sounded. “We have no money here.”
The thing by the window twisted its head left and right, its mouth curled into a grin of pure delight, as if Pete had told the most delicious joke.
“I want you,” it answered. “I want to make you bleed.” It smiled again, then walked toward them.
“Kate, go!” shouted Pete, reaching back over his shoulder and yanking the bedroom door open, never taking his eyes off the thing that was slowly approaching, a look of terrible calm on its nightmare face.
“No, Dad,” she screamed.
“Now!” he bellowed. “Don’t argue with me!”
Kate let out a scream of pure terror and fled through the door. Pete heard her rattle down the stairs and throw open the front door.
At least she’s safe, he thought. The thing was less than a three feet away from him, its arms out before it, a look of inevitability on its face. Pete ducked under the arms, noting as he did so in the slow-motion attention to detail that comes with panic, that the fingernails on the thing’s hands were thick yellow talons. He spun around the open door and made for the landing.
One of the thin, ink-covered arms looped through the opening and slammed across his throat, pulling him back against the wood of the door, cutting off his air supply. Pete Randall dipped at the waist, then drove himself backward with all the breath he had left. The door swung in a sharp semicircle on its hinge, and he heard a satisfying crunch as the thing was driven hard into the bedroom wall. The arm around his throat came loose, and he shoved it away.
He stepped forward into the bedroom, one hand on his neck, and kicked the door closed. The thing slid down the wall, leaving a thick smear of blood behind. Pete looked down at it.
The metal doorknob had pierced the thing below its ribcage, and blood was running from the wound in dark rivers. The white fangs had been driven through the thing’s bottom lip by the impact, and crimson streamed down its chin and neck. Its eyes were closed.
Pete looked at it, breathing heavy, the pain in his throat worsening by the second. He reached for the door, ready to follow his daughter down the stairs and out of the house, when the thing laughed. It was a terrible noise, full of pain and cruelty. The red eyes opened and regarded Pete calmly.
“Stay and play,” it said, the fangs sliding out of its lip. “There’s nowhere for you to go. I’ll make it quick.” It spit a thick wad of blood onto the carpet. “Can’t say the same for the girl, mind you,” it said, then winked at Pete, who kicked the thing in the face as hard as he could. He heard its nose snap, heard it scream in pain, and then he was moving, out of the bedroom and down the stairs, through the open front door.
Kate was nowhere to be seen.
Nononononono.
Panic rose through his stomach and settled into his chest.
“Kate!” he yelled. “Where are you? Kate!”
He ran down their narrow road toward the Marsdens’ house.
She’ll have gone for a phone, he told himself. She’ll have gone to the neighbors. Please let her be at the neighbors.
He kicked open the gate and ran up the short driveway toward the house. He had reached the three wooden steps that led up to the front door when something fell to the ground in front of him with a horrible crunching thud,
