SOMETHING ROAMS THE NIGHT...

TWENTY SIX

Haley...

You can't escape us now...

Your parents, your brother...

They shall all die...

I couldn't move, and couldn't speak. It was as if my lips were glued shut. 

Haley...we are so glad you chose to stay...

Now you can join the rest of the Kanes...

You can die with them...

The reaper crawled on all fours across the floor, licking its dark lips with its long tongue. 

Because you humans took our home...

You all shall pay...

It hissed violently at me as it said every sentence, its glowing eyes staring right into my soul. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn't. 

Why couldn't I move? Why couldn't I do anything? Why couldn't I just fight it off?

Haley...

We are coming for you...

We are coming...

"Hale, wake up! Haley!"

"Huh?" I muttered groggily. I opened my eyes, and a very concerned-looking Ezra peered down at me. 

"You were screaming like crazy," he said, watching me as I sat up. "Are you okay?"

"Just a bad dream," I could still hear the reaper's words in my mind. "What are you doing here, Ezra?"

"I stayed behind," he sat beside me on the bed. "Your aunt kindly offered me the couch to sleep on."

"You dreamt about the reapers, didn't you?" he asked before I could speak. "You were never fine since that incident, Haley. You can't do this to yourself."

"Do what?" 

"You can't act like it's all okay," he said. "You can't act like it's all alright when it isn't. Haley, please, I don't want to see you hurting like this. It hurts me too."

"Ezra-" I was too dazed to argue. 

"Don't stay," he said sadly. "Go with your family, where you will be safe. They're leaving in two days, and you're going with them. It's for your own good. I care for you, Hale, that's all."

"If I leave...you have to come with. If not, I'm just going to stay," I said after a long moment.

"I can't. Truth is..." he paused, taking in a sharp breath. "My family left town to look for help. My dad...he has a friend, a scientist, who's working on something to kill the entire mass of reapers."

"They were looking for a solution, which might or might not work. Something terrible might happen, and I don't want you to have anything to do with it."

"How about the rest of the townspeople?" I was already too tired to protest.

"In two days, you and your family wouldn't be the only ones leaving town," he replied. "Everyone will be leaving."

"Wait, what?" I didn't understand a thing. "What the hell are you telling me, Ezra?"

"This," he had a glum expression on his face as he pulled out his phone. "This happened."

He pointed at the image on the screen. It was blurry, but it was enough for me to interpret what I was looking at.

Bile rose up my throat. I shut my eyes, trying to shake the image out of my head, but I could still see it. 

The dead body of a man sprawled in the middle of the road, one arm missing, throat torn apart. And beside the body was a reaper, standing on its scrawny hind legs, as if dominating the town.

"No," I gasped.  "It can't be."

It wasn't the fact that another murder had occurred.

It was the fact that a reaper was wandering out in the open.

In broad daylight.