The Mayfair Moon Read Free Page A

said Alex. “You believe me, don’t you?”
    “Yeah, I believe you,” I said, “but you have to admit, it was a little weird.”
    “You don’t believe me!”
    I laughed. “No, really I do. It’s hilarious though.”
    “What’s so funny about it?”
    “That he likes you .”
    Alex shook her head. “I never saw that coming.” She almost tripped over a branch lying across the darkly obscured path. “Well, I’m definitely not into him.”
    My mouth fell open and I stopped abruptly. “Then what makes you think I’d be? Seriously!”
    She shrugged. “I dunno,” she said, “he’s a jock, but not like Jasen Mills and his group of jock dickheads. Brent keeps to himself.”
    “So why would that make me like him exactly?”
    “Ummm, because that’s how you are?” she said, as if I should already know the answer to my own question.
    Alex did have a point; I wasn’t one for hanging out with hugely noticeable crowds. But that still wasn’t a basis for trying to hook me up.
    The truth was that none of this mattered anyway. I was annoyed by her trying to hook me up at all.
    “I won’t do it anymore,” she said, as though reading my mind. “I promise.”
    I frogged her as hard as I could on the arm.
    “Crap, Dria! That hurt!”
    “Paybacks.” I grinned.
    For a moment, when Alex didn’t smile back at me I thought she was mad.
    “What was that?” she said. “Did you hear that?” She stood there gripping her arm, but it was obvious something else was on her mind other than the inevitable bruise. She stared through the trees behind me.
    So much for letting down my guard with company. The hair stood up on the back of my neck.
    “No, I didn’t hear—”
    Then suddenly I did hear something. It sounded like growling...sort of. I couldn’t tell. But what scared me was the strangeness of it, the foreign degree of danger in the ripple it left in the air. When you hear a dog growling you usually know right away that it’s a dog.
    “Sounded like a bear,” I said.
    We began walking faster. I could see one lone streetlight glowing far off in the distance.
    Alex stopped and grabbed my arm, smiling. “This reminds me of the time we saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre over at Liz’s; remember?”
    I guess her sudden relaxed attitude helped calm my nerves because I wasn’t as edgy anymore. “Yeah, I remember.”
    “Like freaked out little girls,” Alex added.
    We cupped our hands over our mouths to muffle the laughter, but then the wild flapping of wings sucked the calm right out of us again. Birds, hundreds of them it seemed like, burst out of the trees.
    “Alex,” I whispered harshly, “let’s go.” I took her by the arm.
    As we hurried down the path, squirrels bounced from tree to tree, all moving in the same direction. There were so many of them I couldn’t help but notice.
    “What’s going on?” Alex said.
    The growl now sounded more like a roar. It filled the space all around us, making me doubt which way if any, that we could run away from it. Whatever it was. Instinctively, Alex and I stood back to back, moving distractedly in a circle to keep each other safe.
    A figure crashed through the bushes then.
    My lungs hardened like cement as a naked man stumbled out and fell onto the path ahead. Alex shrieked and gripped my forearm so tight that it hurt. I was too...everything, to scream. I think I forgot how.
    The man reached out a hand toward us. I could hear the disturbing sound of his flesh scraping against the asphalt as he dragged his body forward with his arms. Alex and I started backing away, both of us trying to gauge the situation before making any stupid sudden movements. We should have just run for it.
    “Omigod,” Alex gasped. “Omigod!”
    “Please...” the man said in a raspy, growling voice, “...run away from here! Go! Now !”
    I had to shake my thoughts sensible, literally. The sound of his voice held an echoing, demonic undertone and it stunned me. Alex grabbed my arm tighter and