Page 6 - Chronicles of Darkness

steps toward one another, and Dawn slowly panned
the flashlight up. The pile of old clothes crammed
between the two halves of a broken couch rippled
as the light moved, settling onto a perfectly still face
under the pale yellow light.
“Dawn,” Mena whispered, “can you make it any brighter?”
“I think so.”
The flashlight clicked twice, deepening the shadows
in the still, wrinkly face. Within those depths, one eye
opened. Then the next. It lunged, clumsy and covered
in piles of fabric and clattering everywhere with
little bits of children’s jewelry. Mena screamed; Dawn
swung the flashlight wildly and heard it crack. The
light flickered and something howled.
And they ran.
AND THEN...

A figure peeled away from the shadows, close enough
for Dawn to feel its breath, cold and rotten smelling,
on her neck. From far away she had looked impossibly
old. Yesterday, half a hallway away, Mrs. Luz had been
a picture of decrepit old age, with furrows of loose
skin bunched along her face and arms, crowding her
faint features; squeezed into a baggy dress and dull
support hose. Today, and this close, the resemblance
to a person somewhat faltered. The skin seemed to
shape her face, rather than the other way around,
forming the impression of eyes and mouth out of
shadow and flesh. The hose melted into the color of
dry skin as she rippled rapidly toward them. Her hand
flowed towards Dawn like water, skin crashing onto
skin, lightly stretching to engulf her outflung arm.
Dawn screamed and desperately yanked at her arm,
now surrounded by a puddle of skin mottled and
studded with tiny blue streaks that must have looked
like capillaries at a distance.
“Mrs. Luz?” Mena tentatively called out.
Her voice sounded like bedbugs and waking up in a
cold sweat. “As good a name as any other. But you can’t
name me to get rid of me, little rat.” She slowly pulled
Dawn closer.
“This is your home too, eh? Which one of you belongs
to the man who owns my nest?” More soft waves of
skin crept down Dawn’s arm and across her chest,
and her struggling was getting fainter. “Don’t wait too
long, I might lose interest in your answer.”
Mena tried to grab Dawn’s other arm, but Mrs. Luz
wrenched her away, spinning her to the left. Dawn
whimpered, then turned her head and mouthed
something Mena couldn’t understand.
“I am! It’s me, let her go,” Mena shouted
The folds of Mrs. Luz’s face rearranged into something
that might have been meant to be a smile. “Good girl.
You will take a message from me to the man.”
Dawn was shifting, very slowly, in Mrs. Luz’s grasp.
She caught Ximena’s eyes again and stared; gesturing
slightly to the left with her eyes. Dawn was angry, not
scared, so she must need time.
Mena paused and tried to catch Mrs. Luz’s eyes.
“What man?”