Page 1 of Kat Bethel

Chapter 1:

Somethingfollowedmehome.

I walked up the stone walkway under the new moon. The lights were off, not even the porch light illuminated the yard, as if the house was whispering that evil was waiting for me.

Ancient hunger radiated from inside and sent chills down my spine, stopping me in my tracks.

Wrong day. Wrong fucking house.

My truck was the only one in the driveway, and I hated the bitter tang that made it hard to swallow. Instead, I opened the door, grabbing a gun loaded with iron bullets.

On the outside, the house was pretty, perfect, and enshrouded in darkness.

That was fitting.

I ignored the mountain of newspapers resting on my doorstep as I opened the front door. Tangible proof of how long he’d been gone.

My key struggled to flip the lock, as if it had been years since the door opened, rather than a few weeks. It took a couple ofcuss words and my body weight to get the door to swing inwards. My gun was at the ready before the stench of stagnant air hit me.

A soft cackle made my hair stand on end, but I couldn’t see anything in the thick shadows swallowing my living room whole.

I risked taking a hand off the gun to flip the switch. The sound echoed before the lights hummed on lazily. That was when the truth hit me.

The darkness hadn’t been hiding my home. It had simply highlighted the emptiness.

The hunger I’d sensed from outside flared, as if it knew its next meal had come into the room, and my shadow moved as if it was being sucked into the middle of the space.

My pulse spiked as I traced the movement to one of the only things in the room.

A box carved from elderwood, resting in the middle of the floor, on a white rug that my husband hadn’t taken with him. The dark brown stain beside it was sprinkled with a shattered tea cup, where I’d spilt the remnants of the hemlock tea I’d drunk to escape the truth. My dead cell phone lay a foot away.

That was all that was left in my living room.

My involuntary vacation made me sloppy. I’d forgotten that I hadn’t finished the job before trying to take my life. The lights of the chandelier above flickered in warning.

You forgot me, I could almost hear it thinking.

Sloppy indeed.

At least this monster was already caged.

I put the gun into my waistband, bent to grab the newspapers on the ground, on the front step, and stepped deeper into my house.

He’d left our wedding pictures on the wall. No need to carry the lie of a happy marriage anymore.

Each of my footsteps inside disturbed the eerie stillness of the house.

It didn’t even feel like a home anymore. Maybe it never was.

The photo that saved my life hung on the wall, swinging slightly as if to bring attention to itself, instead of the nothingness around me.This was why you stayed.

From behind the glass, my two cousins, Esme and Willow smiled.

I took deep breaths the way my therapist taught me while I was locked up. The same kind I caught my cousin practicing all the time. I understood her better now.

My eyes went over the empty room again, and my stomach twisted until I was nauseous. How was I supposed to live here?

My heart pounded in my chest, making my breathing ragged in a way that had nothing to do with the trapped monster on the floor.