Miraculous: Tales of the Unknown Read Free Page B

the lights went out.
    “Ben? Tessa? Malcolm?
Priscilla?” I called. No one answered.
    There was a flashlight
application on my phone and I tried to access it with my hands
shaking. I ended up fumbling a few times and almost dropped my
phone in the process. Then I remembered that it was dead. I headed
toward the kitchen in the dark. If there was something going on,
something strange and creepy, I wanted Ben beside me.
    “Ben?”
    I’m not going to lie. The
sane part of me knew that it was strange that he hadn’t already
come looking for me. The sane part of me began to shiver and cower
in fear of what I would find when I walked into the kitchen. The
insane part of me wanted to run into the kitchen, out the back
door, and then down the street without looking back. Maybe I had
those two parts of me confused.
    The only light spilling
into the kitchen was from the moon outside. I was so focused on not
freaking out that it took me forever to realize that the reason
there was so much moonlight was because the back door was
open.
    “Ben?” I hissed again.
Nothing.
    Then there was a bump from
upstairs. I jumped and inhaled sharply in fear. Then there was a
scream from upstairs.
    I looked at my watch, with
my phone dead and the electricity out, it was my only source of
time. From the moonlight I could just make out that it was just
past ten. I can do this. I can do this. I
can do anything for three hours. There’s nothing in the house.
Everything is fine. I can do this.
    The screaming stopped
abruptly the moment I put my foot on the first stair. The silence
that followed was broken only by the sound of my own heart beating
in my head. Thump. Thump. Thump. The door to Priscilla’s bedroom was slightly ajar
and I crept toward it.
    “Priscilla?” I whispered.
No answer.
    I opened the door further
and slipped inside the room. The blinds on her window were drawn so
there was absolutely to light filtering through. It took me a few
moments for my eyes to adjust to the dark interior. Once they did I
was able to make out shapes in the darkness. Her bed, her dresser,
the television stand; all were darker masses in the unlit
room.
    “Priscilla? Are you in
here?”
    Two beady little eyes
rushed forward to me in the dark and I fell backwards onto the bed.
The door to the room slammed shut and I had to hold back the scream
that was threatening to tear from my throat. It was then that I
felt the hand on my arm.
    “Shhh… it will hear
you.”
    Relief flooded through me.
“Tessa? Is that you?”
    “Yes,” she hissed, “Cissy
is in here too.”
    “Thank God,” I whispered.
“What about Malcolm?”
    Priscilla started
whimpering. “It got him,” Tessa said softly.
    Fear seized me and acid
began to sizzle in my stomach. “What do you mean ‘it got
him’?”
    “That thing,” Priscilla
whispered, “the monster. It ate Malcolm.”
    “It’s not a monster idiot,
it’s a troll,” Tessa informed her.
    “You aren’t making any
sense.” I climbed down off of the bed and kneeled beside the two of
them cowering in the corner. “There are no such things as trolls or
monsters.”
    “It told us that it was
going to take us away and give our parents the type of children
they really want,” Tessa said. “It said that they were going to eat
us.”
    Okay, so this was
definitely spiraling way out of control. It was time to get out of
this house so that I could call for help. “Listen, we have to get
downstairs so that we can go next door and call the police. I know
that you’re scared, but we can do this together.”
    Priscilla started crying
again, but Tessa hugged her, “it will be okay Cissy. We have to get
help for Malcolm.”
    “I want mommy and daddy,”
she cried.
    I sighed. “I know. We are
going to get your mom and dad, but we have to get out of this house
first.” I stood up and waited for them to stand with me. It was
amazing how well my eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness.
It was almost like it wasn’t dark