The Boy with Words for Skin

Chapter 28: First Things First

If the monster had never bothered anyone until it was hungry, it seemed obvious that we needed to get it some food. Best case scenario, it'd pig out and fall asleep. Then we could unlock the door, sneak inside, and kill it before it even realized we were coming.

Of course, this plan depended on a lot of things. We needed enough food to give it. We also needed to convince Keys to go into the basement with us. Even if he did go down there, there was no guarantee any of his keys would even work on that specific door. And then there was the question of how we would actually kill the monster.

I got up from the table and walked over to Face and Tang. "Do you guys have any traps set?" I asked.

"Yeah," Face said.

"How many?"

"Seven."

"How long will it take for you to check them all?" I said.

"Thirty minutes at the most."

"Okay. Go. Bring back whatever you can get."

Face nodded. "We just need to get our coats and some bags and our flashlights from the basement."

"Flashlights?" I said. I remembered the pins of light on Halloween. How could I have almost forgotten about that? "Do those work in the basement?"

Face grunted. "No. Don't be stupid. We don't have time for this."

"But there was light down there. On Halloween. I saw it through the bag you had over my head."

Some of the others let out surprised noises. No one had suspected that there was light in the basement. No one had wanted to go down there to find out.

He hesitated. "One room has a lightbulb. It's where we stay."

"And you can turn it on and off. I remember."

He didn't respond.

"When everything's over," I said. "You're going to give me a full tour of the basement."

I saw my face engulfed in flames in Face's glass oval. My mouth hung open and my tongue was on fire. My eyelids burned away and my eyeballs charred to black. I refused to let him win. I didn't look away.

After a second, he turned. "Come on, Tang. Let's get going."

The two brothers disappeared into the basement.

I turned to face the others. No one had moved from their seats. "Z. D-Rip. Were you guys able to find any weapons?"

Kit jumped to her feet. "Weapons!"

"A few," Z said.

"Go get them," I said.

The twins got up and ran out of the kitchen. Kit was in my face not a second later.

"What do you mean weapons?" she asked, her teeth gritted, voice low.

"I mean weapons."

"You did that behind my back?"

"Would you have let us get them in front of your back?" I asked.

She glared, but I kept her eye contact. I felt hot all of a sudden.

"I thought they'd come in handy. Looks like I was right."

"You should've told me."

Face and Tang came back up into the kitchen. They each had on a winter coat and carried a flashlight and cloth bag. Neither of them even acknowledged us. They just ran through the kitchen, down the front hall, and slammed the front door behind them.