PROLOGUE
It’s eleven o’clock when a young girl of twelve awakens out of a deep sleep. She hears voices from people outside.
They are loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. Rubbing the drowsiness from her eyes, she stumbles languidly out of her nice warm bed. The little girl tiptoes to the window to see what the bustle is all about.
Gazing through her window, she makes out the silhouettes of three people standing. They are arguing on the front steps of her home. They are her father, her older sister, and her boyfriend. Her father appears very irate, screaming at the young man while pointing his finger in his face. The young man does and says nothing. He stands there with a sarcastic grin upon his face. Her sister, also unsettled, grabs her father by the right shoulder, beg- ging him to stop. Yet, the rage in him is too great.
“I want you to go back in the house! We will discuss this when I finish out here!” the father yells.
He turns back to the young man, who still has the same arro- gant smile on his face. “As for you! Her father hollers. “I told you not to come around here anymore if you knew what was good for you!”
The young man tilts his head to the side and ogles back up at the angry man before him. “Really? And I bet you know what is good for me. Don’t you?” He steps closer to her father spitting out the words, “Old man.”
The remark sends her father over the edge as he backhands the young man knocking him off the treads to the pavement. The older girl runs back out of the house, calling his name.
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“Jase! Oh! my God, Dad! What did you do?!”
The father gestures to her and tells her once more to go into the house. Reluctantly she does as told but stands just inside the front door. She shifts back towards her father and raises her right hand to her mouth. Shock and fear have formed in her eyes as she gazes past her father to where her boyfriend lay. Her father, not realizing what she is looking at, turns back to the young man. He intends to order him one last time to never come back. Once turned, he understands what his daughter has seen. What stands before him brings terror to his eyes.
Through the windowpane upstairs, the adolescent girl con- tinues to watch. She sees a creature ascend from the ground where the young man once stood. Its teeth, snarling as it stands on two feet, standing inches from her father. Its eyes a golden hue in color like that of a flame. Her sister screams from the doorway entrance as the beast attacks her father. With one swing of its clawed hands, it severs her father’s throat. He collapses to the ground, his inanimate eyes staring up at the sec- ond-story window. There his youngest daughter stands watch- ing in terror.
The beast moves deliberately towards the front door, where
the older girl stands. Teeth showing, saliva dripping to the pave- ment. The terrified girl panics and slams the door screaming for her mother. She tries to hold it shut while she attempts to lock it. The creature slams itself against the door, trying to gain entry. The mother, concerned, comes out from the kitchen to see what the commotion is all about. She sees the beast’s hand explode through the heavy wooden door. Its clawed hand grasps her daughter by her lower jaw. It pulls her head back as she screams in terror and pain. The mother drops a bowl she was carrying and screams as she watches her oldest daughter slaughtered in front of her eyes. Moments later, the creature burst through and gains entry to the home. The only sounds now are the pitiful cries of the soon-to-be dead.
Upstairs the youngest realizes the beast must know she is
there. She needs to escape, and now before it comes for her.
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The frightened girl has not much time as she locks her bedroom door and hurries back to the window. She discreetly opens it and steps out onto the small balcony trying to be as silent as pos- sible. She turns back as she hears the monster at her bedroom door. Quickly she climbs down a rose trellis that leans against the side of the veranda. Thorns prick and cut her feet as she des- cends. Still, she says nothing as she reaches the ground and runs down the long driveway to the dimly lit street. As she makes her escape, she never turns back. The howls of the creature echo through the night sky as she runs, tears streaming down her cheeks.
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