Prey

by Stefan Petrucha

  Wicked Dead

  Prey

  By Stefan Petrucha and Thomas Pendleton

  THOMAS PENDLETON DEDICATES THIS

  BOOK TO QUENTIN SHOCK KLEIN, ONE

  OF THE NEW BLOOD.

  STEFAN PETRUCHA DEDICATES THIS

  BOOK TO MAIA, WHO KNOWS IT

  MUCH BETTER THAN HE.

  Contents

  Prologue

  This place knew fear.

  1

  Food pellets sifted lazily through Chelsea Kaüer’s hand. One or…

  2

  Derek chomped on a cheese fry, its thick end dark…

  3

  On the outside, at least, the home of Ms. Mandisa…

  4

  Heavy and sticky, the fear lingered like a wet, suffocating…

  5

  “What do you mean you can’t do your bio midterm…

  6

  Night clouds shrouded the Bilsford sky with a clay-gray color…

  7

  Things happened quickly after that.

  8

  Already pushed to its limits, Chelsea’s system overloaded. Every neuron…

  9

  When Chelsea was absolutely certain that Koko and his former…

  10

  It didn’t make any sense. With the temperature down, Koko…

  11

  Chelsea felt as if she were in the heart of…

  Epilogue

  Anne leaned back against the cold metal frame of the…

  About the Authors

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  This place knew fear.

  Over the years, thousands of children had spent time in Lockwood Orphanage. Infants and toddlers, children, and young adults lived between its walls, and fright was a familiar companion, whether it was a little boy’s terror of the bogeyman beneath his bed or an older girl’s dread of an English teacher’s lewd stares. Fear of the dark. Fear of punishment. Fear of being alone. Fear of the teachers and the staff and the strangers who came to look at them like pigs at a fair. All of these terrors, and many more, belonged to the orphans of Lockwood.

  The children were all gone now. Some were adopted. Others grew up and moved on. And still others died within the structure that had been built to protect them. The fear remained, though. It thrived in the walls and the floors like mold. It clung to the light fixtures and the doorjambs like dust. You couldn’t take a step in the decrepit old building without it getting on you, a filthy reminder of what had happened there. At one time or another, every living thing that entered this edifice felt fear.

  But it was best known to those trapped in this place.

  No. No. No, Shirley’s panicked mind screamed. Nonononono!

  Everything around her was a frantic blur. The walls flew by like a racing fog bank. Doorways appeared as nothing more than black smudges in the rushing haze. Daphne’s face rose before her—eyes wild, her mouth covered by a smoky black ribbon—only to vanish a second later. Yanked and jostled and bound tightly within the Headmistress’s vicious grip, Shirley felt certain she would lose her mind.

  Mary appeared, suspended high above the hallway by another murky tentacle, her blonde ringlets whipping crazily in the air. She sailed too high and the top of her head disappeared into the ceiling. The Headmistress sent Mary higher, making it look like her head was gone and her shoulders dragged across the chipped and stained plaster above. A chandelier passed through Mary’s chest and back like a wrecking ball.

  The Headmistress charged ahead of them all, her form misty black, like squid ink discharged in a raging tidal current.

  Shirley cried out against the band covering her mouth. It reeked of char and rot, and it scalded her lips and tongue.

  Even more dreadful than her capture was the knowledge of where she was being taken. The Red Room! That was the Headmistress’s place of punishment. Her chamber of pain. Though Shirley had spent no time within its damned walls, she’d seen what a night in the Red Room had done to the others. She’d seen the horror playing in her friends’ eyes, etched into their irises like nightmare tattoos.

  She couldn’t go there. It would kill her.

  But you’re already dead.

  Then it would be worse than death; it would be a visit to hell. And she knew the girl who’d bought her ticket.

  Why, Anne? Why? We gave you three turns. What else could we do?

  Her headlong rush down the hallway began to slow, and her panic intensified. She could already see the door to the Red Room, looming ahead as frightening as a guillotine. The smoky form of the Headmistress went rigid. Shirley felt herself flying forward as if being thrown at the wall.

  Then she came to a jerking stop. Disoriented, she stumbled back and threw her hands out to keep from falling. Her back touched the door of the Red Room and she yelped in horror.

  She stood between Daphne and Mary. They too were trying to stabilize themselves. Mary teetered to the side and dropped to a knee. Daphne bent at the waist, gripping her knees tightly, her hair falling forward like a valance to cover her face. Before them stood the Headmistress, no longer a dark cloud, but in her human form. She patted the bun of hair on her head and then punched her fists onto the curves of her hips. She lifted her chin, revealing the tight white collar of her blouse and the narrow neck it strangled.

  “Deceitful brats,” she hissed. “Do you really think you can just leave this place?”

  “We weren’t trying to leave,” Daphne said quickly.

  “That’s right,” Shirley blurted out. “Anne’s just angry with us because…”

  “Shirley,” Mary warned, “you’re excited. Maybe you shouldn’t talk just now.”

  Oh no, Shirley thought. Mary was right. She’d almost spilled her guts about the bones. She clamped her teeth on her thumbnail and gnawed through a thick edge. With her other hand she twirled a lock of hair, screwing it tightly around her finger until it felt like it might tear from her scalp. She needed to stay quiet. Daphne would get them out of this, or Mary. They were smart. They knew how to talk when things got bad.

  She ripped away the bit of thumbnail. A sharp pain flared along her hand and then vanished. She looked at the wounded digit. The nail had already grown back. She put it in her mouth and started chewing all over again.

  “Anne is upset with us,” Daphne continued. “I don’t know what she told you, but we know we can’t leave. There’s nothing beyond these walls for us.”

  The Headmistress’s eyes burned as she looked at each girl in turn. Her arms—bent and planted on her hips—were so tense they trembled.

  “We’ve all tried to experience the world beyond the threshold,” Mary said. “Not one of us has found anything but murk and fury and raging wind. It is a maelstrom. A symphony of damage, playing without intermission or end.”

  “Such pretty words,” the Headmistress spat. “Always so poetic, dear Mary. Do you find comfort in such immature blathering? Do the romantic phrases bring you peace?”

  “They’re all I have,” Mary whispered cautiously, unsure how her response would be greeted. “Like the convict and his canary.”

  “Feh.” The Headmistress lifted her chin a notch higher. “You’ve disobeyed me…again! The lot of you. Your black-haired friend tells me this has been going on for quite some time. Your plotting and deceiving, mocking all that I’ve tried to maintain.”

  “It’s not true,” Daphne said.

  “It’s not!” Shirley added, another wedge of fingernail flying from her lips. “It’s not. Please. You have to believe us. It’s Anne. She just…”

  “Enough,” the Headmistress shouted. “That’s quite enough.” She lowered her voice to a rumbling growl. “Your lies are like needles in my ears.”


  Behind her, Shirley felt the door to the Red Room shake. Her heart trembled with it, beating a rapid rhythm behind her ribs. Her thoughts collided and tangled. This can’t be happening. It can’t. No. No. No. Please, no.

  “Some children only understand punishment,” said the Headmistress.

  The door to the Red Room flew open. Shirley felt it tear away from her, heard it slam against the wall.

  Her fragile thoughts shattered. Desperate to be away from this horrible woman and her frightening retribution, she cried out, and broke to the right. She’d run and run. She’d hide with the rats in the kitchen or the basement. She’d never speak another word so the Headmistress would never find her.

  Before she made it four steps, a bony arm wrapped around her chest. Fingers dug into her armpit. Shirley’s feet left the ground as the Headmistress lifted her and pulled her close. She screamed and kicked, but the grip was too strong.

  “Again, you disobey me,” the Headmistress said. “Let’s see how long your defiance lasts in here.” She tossed Shirley over the threshold into the Red Room.

  A moment later Daphne was beside her, and then Mary, both thrown like dolls into the room.

  As the name suggested, the cracked walls of the Red Room were crimson, and so were the floor and ceiling. The surfaces oozed and pulsed as if they formed the chamber of a cold, sick heart. Except for the girls, it was empty. Wholly empty. No furniture occupied the floor and no paintings adorned the walls. But this emptiness was temporary. Fiendish things lived here, hid in the pulsing walls.

  Shirley was frantic. She tore at her hair. She stomped in tight circles, sobbing, performing an anxious dance. Hands fell on her shoulders and she screamed, shaking them away, fearing they were the first terrors offered up by the Red Room.

  “Have a splendid evening,” the Headmistress called.

  The door of the room slammed shut.

  “Settle down, kid,” Daphne said, trying to console Shirley. “You aren’t doing yourself or us any good.”

  Shirley couldn’t calm down, though. Her stomach was aching with worry and her thoughts, miserable images of what might emerge from this place, came too fast.

  “We have to keep our heads,” Daphne continued. “Maybe together it won’t be so bad.”

  “B-but what if it is?” Shirley cried.

  “We’ll hold hands,” Mary suggested. “We’ll grasp one another tightly and face the coming dread. Through unity, each of us will have the strength of three.”

  “Great idea,” Daphne said. She wiped her hands on the thighs of her striped pajamas and threw her arms out, offering her palms to the other girls. “We’ve always been alone before. Now we have each other. I’ll bet we knock this thing down a peg or two tonight.”

  “What’s going to happen?” Shirley whined, reaching out to take Daphne’s hand, then Mary’s.

  “I don’t remember,” Daphne told her. “Once you leave this place the specifics go away. You just remember how it felt.”

  “How does it feel?” Shirley asked.

  “Let’s play a game,” Mary chirped, obviously trying to change the subject. “Like when we were little girls. Something fun and whimsical.”

  “I don’t remember any games,” Shirley said. “Only the bone game, and we can’t play that…because of Anne.”

  “We’ll deal with her when we get out of here,” Daphne said. Her face tightened with anger.

  A noise, like the snapping of a twig, cracked at the back of the room. Shirley yelped. She turned her head toward the sound, but only saw the pulsing red walls.

  “All of her talk of rats and living like animals.” Mary shook her head. “She’s a beast. Who knows what she’s doing this very minute?”

  “She’s playing the game,” Daphne said, clearly unhappy about it. “She’s doing to us what we did to her.”

  “But we didn’t tell on her,” Shirley wept. “We didn’t trick her. It’s not like we meant for the Headmistress to take her.”

  “I’m not saying it’s the same thing,” Daphne replied. “Anne just thinks it is. She’s so afraid and angry, she can’t see we’re on the same side.”

  “I, for one, am not on her side. After this night, I intend to have nothing more to do with her. I would hope you two feel the same….”

  A second cracking interrupted Mary. This time it was louder, closer.

  “It’s beginning,” Daphne said. Her usually strong voice sounded small and weak.

  Shirley shuddered all over. She gripped the other girls’ hands as tightly as she could, throwing glances over her shoulders to see what the Red Room produced. She knew that if she’d eaten she would throw up all over the floor. But she hadn’t eaten in decades, so she was spared this humiliation. The urge to chew her nails was almost impossibly strong, but she refused to let go of the supportive hands. Shirley looked over her shoulder to the back of the room, thinking she would go completely mad if it weren’t for the presence of her friends.

  She turned back to the girls and screamed.

  Daphne and Mary were gone. In their place stood two monstrous corpses. The one on the left, where Daphne had been standing, had dead, white eyes. Its mouth twisted open in a silent scream. Spit foamed at the corners and dripped down its chin. Its body was bent and damaged, with deep cuts on the neck and arms. Next to this horrible visage stood the second corpse. Skin slid down its cheeks, revealing bright red meat beneath. Its jaw was unhinged and a fat purple tongue lolled like that of a panting dog.

  Cries of terror peeled from Shirley’s throat. She yanked and struggled, freeing her hands from the rotting dead. Stumbling back, she pivoted on her foot and fled to the back of the room. Suddenly, a red fog, like misty arterial spray, fell over her in a hot shower.

  “Help!” she screamed, pawing her way through the scarlet haze. “Please help me.”

  A moment later the fog cleared, but what it revealed was far worse. Shirley stood in the center of a thousand reanimated corpses. They writhed under her feet and pressed in at her from all sides. Their gory hands reached for her, touching her hair and her neck, scratching her face with ragged yellowing nails. She pushed against them, trying to free herself. Seeing a small opening between two of the dead, she wedged her shoulder into the gap and pushed through. She tried to run but the crush of bodies was too great. She stumbled and nearly fell into the back of a girl wearing a pink flannel nightgown. The girl faced the other direction. What remained of her hair was tangled in the fingers of a tall, skeletal man.

  The girl turned, and her image froze Shirley inside and out.

  Shirley was looking at herself.

  Her face was puffy and purple around the eyes. Her mouth drooped at the edges as if she’d died frowning. The dead girl lifted her hand to her mouth and slid her thumb between her teeth as if preparing to gnaw at the fingernail. Without blinking she chomped down, taking half of the digit off. She spat the meat out onto the backs of the squirming dead.

  “Help me,” Shirley’s corpse whispered, lifting her hand toward her ghostly self.

  Nothing could have been more awful. Shirley screamed and screamed until the wall of bodies closed in front of her, and she was again embraced on all sides by death.

  Across the room Daphne and Mary endured their own private terrors. Mary crouched on the floor, sobbing. Daphne stood in the corner, absolutely rigid, but shaking all over.

  And outside the room, past the Headmistress who guarded the door, along the hall and two floors below, Anne sat cross-legged on the floor of the infirmary. Next to her a great hole in the floor gaped. It opened to the basement below. Ragged boards formed a rough circle only inches from where Anne sat between two of the dusty cots with their fraying sheets. She cursed and gathered up the bones again.

  35, she thought. She’d rolled the bones thirty-five times, and nothing. She shook the bones in a cupped hand and rolled them again.

  36.

  Damn it, Anne thought. The other girls probably put some kind of curse on the bones so that Anne
couldn’t use them. That would be exactly like those bitches. She hoped the Red Room was particularly nasty tonight. Maybe one of them—hopefully, all of them—would never come out. They deserved to suffer for the way they’d treated her.

  “Come on,” she told the bones.

  She rolled again. 37.

  Just like heaven.

  Numbers began to crowd into her head. Anne tried to shake them away as she looked at the bones. Only one number concerned her. She needed three of the symbols. 3.

  And there they were.

  1

  Food pellets sifted lazily through Chelsea Kaüer’s hand. One or two at a time, the rough green-brown nuggets tumbled across her fingers, down into the bowl. As they hit the plastic, she counted them in her head: 38, 39, 40, 41.

  She was being watched. She knew it. Four sets of hungry pink eyes followed her every move. Furry noses pressed against the tank’s glass. White whiskers swished across the smooth transparent surface. She pretended not to notice.

  63, 64, 65, 66.

  Like the pellets in her hand, the pet store rabbits jostled each other, trying to push their way through the glass to reach the food that slowly filled the bowl.

  72, 73, 74, 75.

  A young voice intruded.

  “Excuse me.” It was said as if one word: skewsmee.

  Already uncomfortable in her blue-and-red, one-size-too-small Rhett’s Pets vest, Chelsea almost lost count.

  Just a customer, she told herself, but still she closed her eyes a second and repeated, 75. 75. 75.

  Or else the food would turn to poison.

  Pivoting on her knees toward the source of the voice, she found herself at eye level with a mop of brown curls and pink buttons in the shape of flowers down the center of an adorable purple dress. Toddler cuteness had yet to fade from the small intruder’s face, so maybe she was four? Chelsea counted the years—1, 2, 3, 4—to keep the little girl from bursting into flames.