The Four

PROLOGUE

WILL

It was dark when they came. I was watching TV with my family. I knew there was something wrong. My mum was tense and my dad wouldn't move from the window where he was peeking through the curtains into the night.

All of a sudden he jumped back, jerking the curtains shut. My mother just looked at him, and he nodded.

She turned pale. She told me to go down to the cellar and hide, and not to come out until she came and got me.

I stayed, demanding answers. What was happening? Why did I have to hide? Who was coming?

Someone-someTHING was coming. It pounded on the front door, the sound echoing through the house.

Still I stayed. Even when my mum started crying, I stayed.

It was breaking the door now. The hinges groaned, and my mum begged me to leave.

Hearing the pure terror in her voice, I finally grabbed the keys to the cellar and unlocked it.

But the door was stiff, so it took me a moment to prise it open.

That moment changed my life.

I can't be sure exactly what I saw, but I know they were terrifying.

Their faces were vaguely human looking, but the similarities ended there. Their eyes were black pits carved into their papery white skin. Their mouths were contorted into a sneer, showing the razor sharp teeth behind their thin lips, and their noses were nothing but slits in their skin. Their bodies were thin, almost twig like, and at the ends of their long, slim fingers were wickedly sharp talons.

I ran.

In my hiding place between two old crates I held my breath. I didn't want those creatures to find me.

Feet pounded on the creaking ceiling above me, and I was about to let out my breath when everything went silent.

There were no sounds coming from upstairs anymore.

My parents had managed to fight off the creatures!

At least that's what I told myself, but there was a voice in the back of my mind telling me that everything might not be that easy.

Maybe - no. I didn't want to think about the maybe.

I was considering going upstairs to check, when I heard a footstep on the stairs.

I stayed still.

I could hear my heart beating in my chest, and I sincerely hoped that the creatures didn't have super-hearing. But why was I worrying about them? The creatures were all dead. The footsteps would be my mum coming to fetch me, and we would all live happily ever after.

Of course, I was wrong.

As the footsteps grew closer fear tightened in my chest.

My shaking hand reached for the planks of wood Dad had used to rebuild my tree house last summer. We kept the spare ones in the cellar in case we ever needed any.

Turns out, I did need them.

As the footsteps came closer I could see the feet making them.

My heart sank.

The feet were papery and white, and there were long claws on the end of the toes.

They did not belong to my mother.

I grabbed the plank, suddenly filled with anger at the creatures who had broken in and torn my home apart.

Rising from my hiding place I raised the plank above my head and brought it down.

The creature span around just in time to see the wooden plank collide with its skull.

Its head crumpled inwards, and it collapsed to the ground.

I breathed fast, the creatures hollow eyes glaring at me, terrifying even in death.

Gripping the plank with both hands I slowly climbed the stairs.

Once I had made sure all the creatures were gone I knelt by the bodies of my Mum and Dad and cried.