Read Online Feral by Brian Knight - Free Book Online Page B

  I’m coming!”
    â€œBack off,” Charles yelled, but Gordon ignored him.   He pounded, twisted at the knob, shouted her name over and over again.
    Charles drew back and slapped him, a sound like a firecracker, and Gordon hit the ground.
    â€œStay out of my way!” he shouted, and rammed the door again.
    Gordon watched from the ground, embarrassed, afraid, and swallowed by a whirlwind of emotions.
    Charles hit the door a third time, heard the wood crack, but it still held.
    There was another scream, not Charity, not Shannon or her brother.   It was like nothing they had ever heard, inhuman, full of pain and rage.   It was a sound that promised death.
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    C harity watched him raise the scissors, the same ones he had used to kill her mother and Shannon’s family, and finally found the strength to scream.   The scissors stopped above Shannon’s head, and he turned toward her.
    â€œI’ll deal with you soon, my sweet thing.   Teach you not to run away from daddy.”
    â€œYou’re not my daddy,” she said, and pointed the flashlight looped to her wrist at him.   She pushed the button and a small bright light burned through him like acid.   His form parted around the beam, smoldering at the edges.
    He screamed, a sound that hurt her all the way to her bones, but even the sudden head sickness and vertigo that threatened to steal the strength from her could not squelch the sense of satisfaction it brought.
    She had hurt him.   She had hurt him bad.
    Concentrating, she raised the beam and shone it in his face.
    His scream faded as his face melted away.   He dropped the bloody scissors and clawed at his melting face.
    Shannon’s paralysis broke.   She aimed carefully, and fired.   The slug passed through the intruder’s body like smoke.
    â€œGet the light!” Charity shouted.
    Ducking past the flailing headless body, Shannon did.   With a fiery, sizzling flash, the Bogey Man was gone.
    Charity leapt off the bed and ran to Shannon, nearly knocking her over in a fierce embrace.   “You came for me,” Charity sobbed.   “You said you would protect me and you did.” She was crying full force now, her sobs shaking her frail body against Shannon’s.
    Without realizing it, Shannon started crying too.   “You saved me first, Charity.   Thank you.”
    They both heard the crack of wood as someone outside rammed the front door.   “It’s him again,” she said with dread certainty.
    â€œI don’t know who it is,” Shannon said.   “Get your shoes on, quick.   We have to get out of here.”
    With one last look back at her brother, his drained white face preserved in a permanent gape of shock, she ran through the hallway and to the kitchen.   She remembered putting Jared’s car keys on the table.   As she passed through the living room someone hit the door from outside.   The wood splintered and bulged in.   The man outside hit it again, and the split lengthened.
    She found the keys and met Charity back in the hallway.   The girl waited, the large bloody scissors hanging from her hand, blades closed, like a small sword in front of her chest.   The flashlight hung from the loop around her wrist.
    â€œThis way,” Shannon said, and led her through the laundry room at the end of the hallway, through the back door, out into the darkness.
    From outside they heard the front door give with a loud crack and heard someone enter the living room.   They ran around the back of the house to the driveway.   Jared’s Chevelle waited.
    â€œGet in,” she said opening the driver’s door and pushing Charity through.   Charity scooted to the passenger seat and Shannon jumped in, laying Jared’s gun on the seat between them.
    â€œStop!”   Two men were in the back yard now, and closing the short distance fast.
    Shannon fired up the