Eldritch

Chapter 15

Seated in a booth in the diner, all the others face Daniel in shock. 'It's coming for all of us?' Martin asks, an ice pack pressed to his swollen eye.

Daniel nods grimly. 'Yeah, guys, and I'm sorry.'

Just then, a huge crowd of students enter the diner, each filing in to all the available booths. Daniel lowers his voice and gestures for them all to lean closer. 'Guys, I think we should go somewhere more private to talk about this.'

Sophie nods in agreement. 'Where will we go? We can't go to any of our houses, our parents could overhear something.'

Lisa flings her schoolbag behind her shoulder. 'We can go to my house. My mom's probably passed out in a ditch somewhere. Either that, or she won't be able to get up from the sofa, she'll be in that much of a state. We can work it out in my bedroom.'

Sean nods. 'Let's go figure it out.'

----

Sean bites on his thumbnail. 'Do you think Ella's still alive? Or that she's--'

Daniel gives his friend's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, though he's far from certain. 'Unless we know otherwise, we're going to assume that she's alive, okay?'

Sean nods, but is still overwhelmed by a sense of uncertainty.

'So,' Lisa says, taking the lead. 'This thing is going to come for us. Kooky A said we need to stick together so it can't tear us apart as easily, so we're going to have to seriously watch each other's backs.'

She grabs a piece of paper from her copy and holds a pencil in her hand. Lisa closes her eyes and hovers the pencil over the sheet.

'What are you doing?' Daniel asks.

'Shhhhhh,' she whispers, her eyes still closed tightly. The others watch on as she begins to etch a series of lines and shadings on to the page. She opens her eyes for a moment, joins a few lines together and continues to sketch around the page. After about two minutes of drawing, she lifts the page and tosses to the centre of the circle. 'So, this is definitely the creature we all saw in our dream?'

Sophie gapes at the accuracy of the drawing. It looks just like the creature they saw. The Gamemaster. Its claws and bloody fangs. Its twisted and contorted back. Everything looks just like the thing she saw. She nods.

'That's it,' Daniel says. 'That's exactly what it looked like.'

'Okay, we just need to figure out what it is,' she states. 'So, we know what we're dealing with.'

Sophie leans closer to the drawing and peers at it. 'It looks like a bald werewolf crossed with some kind of reptile.'

'It does,' Martin agrees.

'So, how do you kill it?' Lisa asks.

Daniel shakes his head. 'I don't know, but we can't kill it,' he says. Lisa looks at him incredulously. 'At least, not yet. We need to get Ella and Charlene back first.'

'Daniel, how do we know that they're even alive?'

Everyone in the room falls silent at her question and she's quick to fill it. 'Guys, I'm just trying to be realistic here.'

Sean bows his head. 'Dude, she's right,' he murmurs. 'We don't know that they are alive and--'

Daniel holds his hand up. 'And we also don't know that they're dead. And unless we learn otherwise, we're not giving up on them, got it?'

He turns to Sean. 'Sean, I'm not giving up on Ella or Charlene, so neither are you. Martin, Sophie, do you want to save your cousin or not?'

Martin nods fervently. Sophie battles an outburst of tears, swallows, and nods. 'Yeah,' she gulps. 'Yeah, I do, but how are--'