“Shhhh. Listen, I have an idea. If you do not turn any pages, we will never get to the end of this book. And that is good, because there is a monster at the end of this book.
So please do not turn the page.” –Jon Stone, There’s A Monster at the End of this Book
*
00:42:00 There’s a moment. A split second when you know the terrible thing is going to happen. You don’t always know what it is, but you know it’s coming. The sickening, roiling fear building in your chest; stale air suffocating your lungs and fogging your brain; your entire body prepared to flee but your mind unwillingly frozen, frozen in abject horror. Until you’re not. There’s a split second of inaction. A skipped heartbeat of terror. And then you have to survive. * Katrina Vasquez woke up thinking it. Something terrible is going to happen. She woke up knowing it was true because of the sick dread pooling in her belly like lead, weighing her down on her bed, spreading insidiously through her veins until it latched onto her limbs and her lungs could barely drag in a breath. Something terrible is going to happen something terrible is going to happen something terrible is going to happen She got out of bed despite the monumental effort it took, despite everything in her that violently rejected the idea. Her jaw ached from the strain of damming her screams behind her teeth, but she dressed anyway, put on clothes that felt stiff and wrong on her skin. Pulled her wheat-colored hair back into a ponytail even though she felt over-exposed that way. Her shoes, double-knotted, were shoes she knew she could run in. Before she left her room, braved the rest of the house, she pulled the hunting knife she kept in the drawer of her nightstand out, fingering the edge of the blade with shaking fingers. She clipped the sheath it came with to her belt loop and tucked the knife safely into it, covering it with her shirt. A scream still lodged itself in her throat. 00:36:16 Don’t open the door. No one lurked outside that she could see. The shadows cast by the trees across the street revealed no sinister creature, the bushes under the kitchen window remained still and quiet, the neighbors went about their lives unsuspecting. No matter how many times she checked, no monsters appeared. Still. One more time. Palms pressed flat against the door. Ragged breathing. Cold sweat dripping down the hot nape of her neck. Trembling heartbeat. Tentatively, she leaned in as close as she could to the door, gazing out the peephole in terror. But there was still no one there. And she had to warn the others they were going to die. She had to tell them something horrible was going to happen. Her breath dragged slowly past her lips when she finally opened the door. The moment her ratty tennis-shoe-clad feet crossed the threshold of her safe home, she knew she couldn’t turn back. She owed it to her neighbors and friends. To Mrs. Kushner next door, who planted roses and let the neighborhood kids pick them for their mothers with a smile and a wave. To Mr. Taylor, the elderly man at the end of the cul-de-sac who owned the local market two blocks away, and donated his surplus to schools and homeless shelters. And to all her other neighbors, even the normal ones who just worked ordinary nine-to-five jobs and fought with their spouses sometimes and mowed their lawns too early in the morning on Saturdays. None of them deserved to die. The hole in the toe of her right shoe didn’t matter when she sprinted through a puddle caused by Lynn Tribec’s sprinkler, trying in vain to save her dry grass. It didn’t matter as she pelted past the familiar picket fence of Joe and Eleanor’s home, sun stained and radiating with the heat of the summer day. And it didn’t matter when she kicked Thomas Baker’s dog. Katrina had no problem with dogs, least of all the playful Husky the seven-year-old walked so frequently, proud of his status as owner. But at the moment when she kicked him, his lips were curled back over his teeth in a snarl, maw dripping with saliva while a growl emanated from deep within his chest. They’d gotten to the dog. The beast was no longer a friendly pet, and it was in her way. Bloody spittle flew from his lips when she kicked him, and his yelp brought young Tommy hurtling around the corner of his house from the backyard, just in time to watch the vicious second kick Katrina Vasquez directed at his sweet dog’s ribs. “Mommy!” he cried, hurtling between the woman and his dog. But the dog snapped its jaw again, and this time his teeth sank into Tommy’s backside as he tried to wrench him from Katrina’s reaching arms. “No!” she yelled. Not the boy! The knife at her waist was in her hand so quickly, so suddenly, that she barely knew what she was doing. Tommy’s screams deafened her to the rest of the world; the husky tugged him further from her, so she let him go, and the hand that held her knife moved fast as a cobra. Sank into the neck of the husky. Warmth spilled over her hand-- hot, sticky blood staining her skin. Tommy’s scared cries morphed into a different kind of fear, and the dog’s growling and snarling subsided to a gurgling whimper, and finally silence. “MOMMY!” Now Tommy’s mother heard, and she was yelling as she leapt down the steps of her porch, sprinting toward her child. Katrina was staring at the blood gushing from the wound in the dog’s neck, even as the dog went limp and the pulsing faded to a slow leak. The dog was dead. The boy was safe. “What did you do?” she screamed. “What did you do to my son? Tommy! Are you okay? What happened? Get away from him!” Katrina retreated from Tommy, sobbing on the sidewalk. His mom turned him away from the body of his dog, inspected his bottom, and then her eyes were flashing up at Katrina. “I’m calling the cops.” Alarm bells exploded in Katrina’s mind. “No! Don’t call the police!” “You stabbed my son’s dog!” “He was going to hurt him!” “Rufus never hurt a fly, and he would never bite Tommy or hurt anyone unprovoked! You did something to him!” Katrina looked around desperately, searching the trees and the seemingly empty houses. “It wasn’t me,” she said. “They corrupted your dog. He was going to hurt you.” “What are you talking about?” Seeing that she was getting nowhere trying to speak with her, to convince her of the danger, Katrina switched tactics. “I need your car. Give me your keys.” “Are you crazy? You’re not taking my car! I am calling the police!” Katrina sprang forward, fist flying out and hitting Tommy’s mom in the nose. Tommy’s wailing increased in volume, but Katrina ignored him, patting down his mom’s groaning body for her car keys. Miraculously, they were in her front right pocket, and Katrina fished them out easily despite the weak protests and feeble attempts to fend her off made by Tommy’s mom. Katrina just hit her again and she fell back, moaning. “Tommy… call 9-1-1…” Katrina lifted her eyes to Tommy. His eyes were huge and his cries vanished in a vacuum of terror. “Don’t,” she said, voice low, soft, and deadly, and Tommy stood there wordlessly. 00:30:17 She didn’t need the car. Not really. But it was faster than running, and she drove so quickly no one could stop to gawk at her blood-stained purple sweatshirt, or her white-knuckled death grip on the hunting knife she still hadn’t found the courage to let go of. It also got her away from the sirens screeching closer faster than her feet could. We’re running out of time. Everything in her screamed this warning, over and over. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon, and she had to warn the others. She had to get them to evacuate the neighborhood. Most of them would be at Mr. Taylor’s market. There was a special event sale going on for one of the scout clubs. The entire neighborhood had agreed to pitch in to help out. Katrina had to get there. 00:27:56 She barely had the car in park before she leapt from it, hitting the ground at a dead run. She streaked past the young kids gathered out front in their uniforms, shocked expressions on their face when they saw the wild woman running toward them. When she was inside, she immediately beelined for the service desk, lunged across it and tore the PA system from the desk in front of a young woman she didn’t recognize. Katrina must have frightened her, because she threw her hands in the air and said, “We don’t keep money over here!” with tears immediately springing to her eyes. Katrina ignored her and pressed the button that would blare her words to the entire store. “This is an emergency! There’s a fire in the back, you have to leave now. I repeat, this is an emergency, please exit the building!” She waited, staring with bated breath at the woman in front of her, who didn’t move from her chair. Katrina noticed vaguely the name-tag on her grey uniform that read “Beckie” and the way sweat plastered stray blonde hairs to her forehead, and her blue eyes flickered nervously from Katrina to the store behind her, where Katrina could hear the confused, uneasy murmurs of the customers and volunteers, uncertain. The button collapsed beneath her finger again. “Leave!” “Katrina! What are you doing?” She turned at the sound of her name, saw Mr. Taylor staring at her with his mouth agape. “Katrina—what happened? Is that your blood?” “Something horrible is going to happen,” she tried to say, but her voice cracked and Mr. Taylor’s eyes crinkled in concern. “What do you mean, Katrina? What’s going to happen?” “I don’t know,” she sobbed. He took a hesitant step closer, his trepidation visible in his aging face. His almond eyes trained themselves on her face, slipping only once to note the knife. “Let me get you some help, Katrina. I can help you.” They’re coming. She heard the sirens, wrenched herself back to stability. She brandished the knife in front of her and Mr. Taylor stopped. “Beckie,” she said, voice strangely flat and hollow. “Get a lighter out. Give it to me.” “Wh—wh—what--?” “A lighter, Beckie. It starts fires. Often used to light cigarettes. You’re familiar with them, yes? They come in little packages. Open one and give it to me.” “Do not open the package, Beckie,” Mr. Taylor said calmly. “The police are almost here. Everything will be fine.” “No, it won’t,” Katrina hissed. “You don’t understand! You have to leave!” “Katrina—” She whirled on Beckie, still petrified in her seat, and thrust the knife out lightning fast. Beckie’s scream overshadowed Mr. Taylor’s horrified shout, and her hands rose automatically to try and staunch the flow of blood streaming from the side of her neck. Katrina held the blade there, pressing ever so slightly harder. “Give me a lighter, or next time I’m cutting all the way through,” she said. Beckie whimpered, reached for a package of plastic lighters, and Mr. Taylor babbled into his cell phone. “--psychotic break!” “Not one of those, Beckie, one of those windproof ones. Give me a good one.” She did. And Mr. Taylor didn’t try to stop Katrina when she left. 00:23:19 Tommy’s mom was a prepared woman. A canister full of gas was waiting patiently in the trunk for Katrina to find it. The dry summer waited, too. Brittle grass and dry trees waved cheerfully in the light breeze, as if saying goodbye. 00:15:11 The building went up in flames so easily. Katrina wasn’t precisely a practiced arsonist. Today was not planned. All she knew was she had to give her friends a reason to run. They had to get away from the danger. And the gasoline mingling with the dry summer heat made it all too easy. By the time the police arrived, Mr. Taylor and the others were fleeing the building, screaming, coughing, stumbling away from the fire as quickly as they could. Beckie clutched at her neck with one hand and clung with the other to the hand of a little boy with tears streaking down his cherub cheeks. The scouts that had been posted out front frantically tried to remember any and all first aid they’d learned, and fire containment, but they didn’t stand a chance against Katrina’s reckless handiwork. The cops still found her, though, masking herself among the throngs of people streaming from the market. “Katrina Vasquez,” one of them shouted the moment he spotted her. “Don’t move! You’re under arrest for—” Don’t let them take you. Katrina didn’t give him time to finish the sentence. He was only two feet away. Everyone around was surprised she was still there, but they were all civilians. The other cops had fanned out, were preoccupied with aiding the innocent bystanders. She had plenty of time. She rushed him, knife out. Avoiding the plated vest that covered his chest altogether, she sank the blade into his neck, like he was a husky trying to bite a little boy. He was dead almost instantly. Taking his gun was too easy. She fired it into the air, scattering the people around her. Their screams echoed in her ears, but they all ran--finally ran--in a stampede, trying to escape the unseen danger. She ran with them. So did the flames. 00:06:54 The others didn’t make it as far as she did. She tried to urge some of them to keep running, but the shied away from her crazed language and blood-stained hands, eyes reeling in terror of her. They never made it out of the neighborhood. But she refused to be taken. She would not endure the terrible thing she knew was coming. She kept running until she was up the hill beyond the cul-de-sac. Hungry flames followed on her heels, happily devouring all the dry grass and trees it’s reaching tendrils touched. And the houses. 00:00:55 Alone at the top of the hill, she watched the chaos unfold below her. She hadn’t managed to save anyone, and now it was almost too late. The running firemen, policemen, and paramedics—all ants from up here—were going to die alongside her friends. None of them were going to survive. I’m so sorry. I tried. 00:00:10 Ten seconds is an interminably long time. A lifetime in a few heartbeats. Ten seconds is long enough to change the course of an entire life. 00:00:09 Please, god, no. 00:00:08 This can’t happen. 00:00:07 Stop. 00:00:06 Please, stop. 00:00:05 Oh, god. 00:00:04 No. 00:00:03 “No.” 00:00:02 “No!” 00:00:01 “NO!” 00:00:00 The world around her held its breath. The trees didn’t dare move in the wind; the wind itself barely tickled the leaves. Below her, tragedy continued to unfold. Screams floated up to her, distant, from very far away, and sirens wailed quietly. In her mind she could see Tommy huddled next to his mother, blood staining his blue shirt and her face and chest. The remnants of Mr. Taylor’s market, ashes floating on soft breezes. All her neighbors, staring in abject horror as their entire worlds burned to the ground and blood pooled in their streets. A boy without a dog. A family without a home. A family without a livelihood. A man without a heartbeat. All because of her. And still nothing around her moved. Katrina waited. Nothing happened. “No,” she whispered. “No, they were coming.” Something terrible was going to happen. Something terrible did happen. Slowly, Katrina’s eyes moved to the gun in her hand. Slowly, she lifted it to her temple.