The Angel of Elydria (The Dawn Mirror Chronicles Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

Styrofoam shriek, metal grinding against itself―and yet none of those things. It was alive―but no human could have produced that cry. The small hairs on Penny’s arms prickled as she strained to listen for something more. Another realization swept over her.
    I fell asleep as I was reading. I left the lights on ― I know I did.
    Nauseating horror enveloped her. Reeling, she jumped out of bed and threw herself against her bedroom door that stood ajar. The bang of the door snapping shut echoed throughout the house and she fumbled to lock it with trembling hands. She backed away, half expecting something to begin pounding on it from the other side.
    What should I do, what should I do? Penny thought in a panic, standing in the center of the room and hugging herself. Should I wait to see if it happens again? What if it does? What if it doesn’t? What was it?!
    “I’ve been having weird dreams lately. It was just a dream…just a dream…” her voice sounded meager in the overbearing darkness, like a tiny boat lost at sea. “The power’s out because of the rain. There’s nothing wrong…I’m okay.” She took a deep, shuddering breath and began to recover.
    The scream tore through the night again, this time a guttural bellow that oozed with agony and rage. It was so loud it seemed to resonate within her chest, and Penny cringed downward with a frantic yelp. It had come from right outside the house.
    Whimpering as her body rocked with tremors, Penny crawled over to the window. She crouched just below it, dominated by fear for several long, uneventful moments until her curiosity beseeched her to look outside. With the utmost caution she lifted her eyes above the ledge of her windowsill and peeked out through the gap in her curtains.
    Through the thick sheets of rain and sloshing murkiness of the woods beyond the glass, Penny scanned the scene for anything out of the ordinary. Dreading the worst, she was surprised to find that there was nothing but the pines thrashing in the wind.
    Am I seriously going crazy here?
    Penny gripped her hair, wondering where she had left her cell phone. Calling for help was starting to seem like a better idea by the second. Before Penny could move to find it, out of the trees lurched an abomination so hideous it convinced her that her blood could freeze. The arms were disproportionately long and pale as an exhumed corpse. Ugly splotches of grayish-pink mottled the waxy flesh. With a speed Penny did not anticipate from something that looked so decayed, it burst into the street with a gut-wrenching leap.
    Penny felt her consciousness slipping when she saw its face and grasped the wall for support. It looked as though it had once been human, but the eyes were huge and filmy white, and the lower jaw had been reduced to a few splinters of twisted bone. A serpentine, venom-black tongue lolled and surged from its throat. From its elbows, spine, and rib-cage sprouted thorny bones that pierced through the skin and shredded the remnants of something that might’ve once been clothing. Its mangled face contorted in unfocused wrath. With a sharp glance upward, as if it had spotted her peering at it from the window, it lunged forward, crawling on its belly with a swiftness that made Penny’s stomach pinch.
    Penny whimpered, unhinged by terror, and skittered across the floor in frantic desperation, knocking over the stack of books beside her bed. Between great, gasping breaths, Penny tried to focus, her eyes scanning the dark shapes of her room for a weapon of some sort and finding nothing. A deafening crash downstairs elicited from her a scream and a peal of dread. Penny almost wept from the fresh wave of despair that smothered her. Oh God. Now it knows where I am.
    Unable to think, Penny backed against the wall as blood-curdling howls roared downstairs. Things once treasured could be heard shattering to bits on the ground.
    I can’t believe this…I’m going to die here. Ripped to pieces. This is