Page 120 of Death is My BFF

“Run!” she shouted at me. “Get out of here! Now!”

Panic struck me hard, and I briefly locked eyes with one of the massive creatures below us. Fire ignited within its pupils like two endless pits.

“I can hold them off with magic!” Aunt Sarah threw out her hand, and with a single foreign command, the hell hounds fell to the ground whining and writhing in obvious agony. I stared at her in shock, my chest heaving up and down.

“This is all my fault, Faith,” she said. Her color had drained to the point that she looked visibly fatigued, and I put two and two together and realized it had been from that spell. “I lied to protect you and your mother, but I’ve put you in danger. You have to run.

You have tofight him. I’ll come find you, I promise.”

“I’m not leaving you!” I cried.

“Put your name to good use tonight, kiddo.” She released me and jumped off the hayride, sprinting back down the path from where the hayride had come. The hounds broke free from whatever spell they were under and scrambled after her as she screamed,“Run!”

My brain spiraled. I tried the gate of the hayride, but it wouldn’t unlock. With my heart in my throat, I jumped off the side of the cart and winced as my ankles took the weight of my body when I hit the ground. I took off, running into the haunted corn maze brightly lit by floodlights.

The truth was I still didn’t know what kind of creature I was dealing with. Death was unpredictable and unstable, but I knew I had to keep fighting.

Moving fast around a corner, I crashed into a body.

“Faith?”

“Marcy!” I could have cried in relief and instead pulled her into a hug. Her normally sun goddess tan skin had washed away to a milky white, and every inch of her trembled so hard her teeth chattered. Had she seen one of the hell hounds? Or worse, had she seen Death?

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “What happened?”

“Nathan and I, we were hooking up,” Marcy began shakily, casting a look behind her. “We heard this rustling and growling, so started running. When I looked back, Nathan was gone. I followed the hayride path to here and when I got to the entrance of your maze, Thomas was there.” She pushed a strand of hair out of her face. “He went into the maze, so I-I followed him. He didn’t look right, Faith.

Like he was really sick, or on drugs, or . . . ”

“Or none of the above,” Thomas said.

Marcy’s eyes went wide as my heart slammed into overdrive.

Slowly, I turned. Thomas Gregory stood on the path. His skin had lost any trace of its usual tan, his cheeks slightly hallowed in, and the bones in his face too sharp, too angled. His blond curls were now jet-black, and his once vibrant blue eyes had dimmed to a bottomless ocean. I probably wouldn’t have recognized him had he not been wearing his usual black-and-silver varsity jacket.

“Thomas,” I said, prying the name from my tight throat.

He moved toward us, and I couldn’t move. There was no way we could both outrun him.

“My body accepted the demon mark,” Thomas said, as if to clear the air, “so they gave me two choices. I chose to live.” His laugh was short, sarcastic. “If you can call thisliving, I guess.”

Guilt wrenched me apart all over again. I’d failed him.

“I need you to do me a favor, Faith,” Thomas continued, prying the words out like they were painful. “I-I’ve been terrible to both of you, but you’re the only two I can rely on.”

“Can somebody tell me what the hell is going on?” Marcy asked.

“I feel like I’m missing something here.”

Thomas ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I can’t go back to my old life. I can’t ever see my family or my friends ever again. It’s not safe for me to be around anyone right now.”

“What do you mean, you can’t go back?” I could see the raw denial and confusion in Marcy’s face as she tried to comprehend the situation. “What happened? Your mother is worried sick!”

Thomas grimaced at the mention of his mother. He clutched at his head and winced. All at once, the darkness swallowed the whiteness out of Thomas’s eyes, suffocating the blue eyes of our childhood friend.

“Fuck!Stay back!” Thomas stretched out his jaw and roared gutturally, and his once charming smile held a mouthful of fangs.

Fangs that dripped a black substance that matched the endless void of his eyes.

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