Gypsy Magic - J.R. Rain Page 0,71

hardwood. His arms were shaking almost as badly as Barbra’s. “We need to go!”

He seized Marty by the hood of his coat and began dragging us in a line in the opposite direction, through the kitchen and the back door. I felt absurdly like one of the plastic monkey pieces being dragged out of the barrel.

I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder as we hit the back door. Barbra’s spine had stretched, her torso lengthening, clothing falling in tatters to the floor as fur rippled over her skin. Twin antlers thrust, like spears, from either side of her head.

Our eyes locked, hers smoldering with hate.

She opened her mouth and let out a primal scream.

Chapter Twenty-one

Marty scooped me into his arms, wisely determining that I’d only slow them down if I had to run on my own. I could barely even walk. I felt like an especially uncoordinated drunk already, between the concussion, lack of sleep, and the exhaustion after using too much of my life energy with the Fiery Command Oil.

It was all I could do not to faint dead away as Marty sprinted across the backyard, hung a sharp left, and began running around the side of the building, past the pergola, trying to reach the hearse. Henner and Bailey were right behind us.

We’d just rounded the corner when the wendigo exploded out of the back door.

My arms constricted in fright and I pulled myself as close to Marty as I could. He made a choked sound, breath heaving with exertion, and I had to make a conscious effort not to accidentally strangle him as the wendigo loosed another hair-raising shriek.

Henner reached the hearse before we did and threw open the back door. Then he all but shoved me into the back with the casket. Bailey climbed in beside me. Then Marty started rounding the hearse, clambering inside the driver’s door as fast as physics would allow. The engine rumbled to life, thankfully not sputtering or dying on us at a crucial moment.

“Go to Roy’s,” Henner shouted to Marty over the roar of the engine. Then he faced Bailey and me. “If the wendigo gets close, knock three times!”

“Knock?” I began, but Henner slammed the hearse door shut as he turned around and ran back towards the Clemmons’ house.

“Henner!” Marty yelled after him.

“Go!” Henner called back, not bothering to face us as he started for the Mazda. “I’ll be right behind you!”

Marty gunned the engine, sending us peeling down the driveway in reverse before fishtailing onto the road at top speed. I was thrown forward, half my torso splayed out on the casket’s smooth surface. Bailey reached forward and pulled me back again.

Knock three times.

Did Henner mean on the casket?

There really wasn’t anything in the back of the hearse to knock... except the casket lid. But that couldn’t be right. The coffin was empty, so what good would knocking on it do? There was no way Lorcan would actually have Marty ferrying a corpse around. Right?

On the other hand, I’d just watched a single mother of two transform into a shaggy monster from Native American myth. So maybe the corpse in a box theory wasn’t as Twilight Zone as I thought. But even if there was a corpse in the coffin, how in the hell was it going to help us?

Marty blew through two stop signs on our way back to town, yelping in fright when he spied something in the rearview mirror. When I dared to peek through the back window, my shrill scream made Marty’s yelp sound tough.

“It’s right behind us!” I yelled.

“Henner said knock three times if we need help,” Bailey started, looking at me with concern in her eyes.

“So knock three times!” I yelled back, figuring we definitely needed help.

The wendigo was only about a mile behind us, scuttling along the road like a shaggy, overgrown tarantula. As I watched, it seemed to wrap itself in shadows and when it reappeared, it was much closer, landing only a few yards away. At its current momentum, it wouldn’t take any time to catch us.

Bailey didn’t just knock. She pummeled the casket lid. And then I knocked on the hearse itself, just in case she was wrong about the casket.

The absurdity of the situation suddenly dawned on me. We were going to be killed by a rampaging wendigo, and she was knocking on someone’s casket for help. How could I have been so irresponsible with Finn’s safety? What if this thing came after him when