Crossfire - Book 1 - S.H.

Chapter 6: The monster

"Nancy!" Jonathan called out again, he and Shelley looking around themselves as they tried to find any clue as to where Nancy Wheeler could possibly be. "Nancy!"

"Johnny, look!" Shelley tugged at her brother's arm, pointing at a tree nearby and showing Jonathan what she found - Nancy's flashlight and their dad's revolver that she probably left behind. "Nancy?"

"Nancy!" Jonathan echoed his sister's words picking up Nancy's stuff as he cocked the revolver, just in case. "Nancy! Where are you?"

And then it happened. A voice - her voice - echoing in the distance, almost as if she was screaming from underwater. But still, it was there. And she was calling for them.

"Jonathan!" She yelled, her voice shaky and clearly scared, sounding from everywhere and nowhere at all all at once. "Jonathan! Shelley! Jonathan, I'm right here!"

"Nancy!" Jonathan called back, looking around himself to try and, at least catch a glimpse of the girl, but coming up empty. "Do you see her?"

"No." Shelley shook her head, holding out her flashlight as she tried to find Nancy anywhere. "I don't see her."

"Nancy! Come on!" Jonathan called out. "Nancy!"

"Jonathan, where are you?" They could hear her yelling, but still, they couldn't figure out from where. "Jonathan, I'm right... I'm right here!"

"Nancy!" Jonathan called out again, the desperation growing inside of him the longer they stayed without a clue on Nancy's whereabouts. "Just follow my voice! Follow my voice, Nancy, I'm right here! Nancy!"

"Jonathan!"

And this time, when Nancy called out her brother's name, Shelley saw it. A hole in the tree next to where they had found Nancy's things. It wasn't empty, though, and it definitely didn't look like the insides of a tree. Instead, from the hole came a faint redish light, covered in some type of stringy, slimy substance and breathing, somehow. Shelley frowned as she looked at it, pointing her flashlight at the hole and gasping once she noticed the trunk of the tree closing in over it.

"Nancy?" She called, her voice gentle and a bit unsure as she stared at the hole. "Jonathan! Come over here!"

Jonathan wasted no time then, running over to where his sister was frowning once he saw her kneeling by a tree. As soon as he pointed his flashlight in her direction, however, he saw it, the same scary hole Shelley had just taken notice of.

"What the hell is that?" Jonathan asked, kneeling down beside Shelley and placing Nancy's stuff down on the ground beside him.

"I don't know." Shelley admitted.

"Do you think...?"

Jonathan didn't need to finish his sentence. In response, Shelley just shrugged, extending a hand out toward the hole with the full intention of touching it, but, before she could, another hand came out of it, so suddenly it made Shelley scream as she pulled her hand back.

"Nancy!" Jonathan was quick to recover from his own scare as he gripped the hand reaching out to him and pulled, planting both of his feet against the trunk of the tree as he did so. "Nancy!"

Jonathan was panting with the strain and Shelley watched as, more and more, Nancy Wheeler revealed herself out of the hole, covered in slime and scared out of her mind. As soon as she was out, Jonathan fell on his back with Nancy laying on top of him and breathing heavily as she sobbed.

"I got you." Jonathan tried to reassure the girl in his arms as Shelley allowed her eyes to leave the two younger kids to fall on tree in front of them instead as she frowned as soon as she noticed the hole through which Nancy just passed, now closed, looking exactly like a normal tree, as if nothing had happened at all. "It's okay, Nance... I've got you."