Prologue:

Two steps out of the ice cream shop, Jada realized she should’ve listened to her mother and worn pants instead of her favorite jean skirt. It was late fall, but she’d been upset about being dragged to another one of her brother’s baseball games, so her mother had let her wear what she wanted.

Her mother placed a hand on Jada’s back and guided her across the street, away from the row of buildings that were too similar for Jada’s liking. Her brother and father were a few steps behind.

A drop of vanilla ice cream ran down her hand, so Jada lifted the cone to her mouth and licked the rim. She was about to take a large bite when Thomas came up behind her and jumped on her back.

“Thomas,” Jada shouted as he ruffled her hair.

Their mother pushed him away. “Just because you’re excited about your home run doesn’t mean you can torment your sister,” she said, waving a finger in his face.

They’d just reached the sidewalk when a gust of wind almost knocked the children to the ground. Jada stumbled back into her father’s legs, and he grabbed her shoulders.

“Are you all right, Jada?” he asked, ignoring the ice cream covering his pants.

Jada nodded, running her hands up and down her thin arms.

“Here.” He took off his jacket and threw it over her shoulders.

“Thanks, Dad.” His work coat was long enough to cover her ankles.

They kept walking down the sidewalk. Just as Jada could see their car’s license plate, they were hit with another gust of wind. Jada braced herself, but her shoe caught the end of her father’s coat and she fell, landing hard on her hands and knees.

“Daddy!” she cried as blood seeped from her palm.

Her father ran over, but before he could help her up, Jada’s mother let out a blood-curdling scream. “Leah,” he shouted.

Jada turned to her brother and father, who were both looking down a dark alley. Her mother was nowhere in sight.

“Mommy?” Jada asked the empty street. “Daddy, where did Mommy go?”

Her father helped her up, then squeezed hers and Thomas’s hands as they walked down the sidewalk.

“Leah?” their father shouted. He repeated the call until they reached another wide, dimly lit alley. It was the same as the other ones they’d passed, smelling of urine and gasoline, but there was one significant difference.

An oddly shaped lump lay in the street.  

“Leah?” their dad asked again, his voice shaking as much as his hands.

Jada trailed her father’s hesitant steps toward the lump. She prayed it was some oversized doll someone had thrown out their window. When they got within a few feet of it, she knew her prayers had not been answered. She saw an arm, then a leg, and finally a head of hair, too life-like to be a doll. But just because there was a body lying on the ground, didn’t mean it was her mother’s.

Their dad released their hands and crouched next to the corpse. His lip quivered as he gently tapped the chin. The head flopped toward them and looked Jada right in the eyes.

Jada screamed and squeezed her eyes shut.

Her father yanked her and Thomas into his arms and turned to run. Jada didn’t open her eyes, not even when her father suddenly stopped. “Daddy?”

“Everything is all right, baby girl,” he said. “Just keep your eyes closed.”

“Aww,” she heard a man say. “Isn’t that sweet. Dear old daddy trying to make sure his daughter doesn’t become more traumatized after seeing the body of her mother.”

Jada didn’t know who the man was, but something about his voice made her head heavy and her heart pound against her rib cage.

“It reminds me of the time my mother was killed right in front of me.”

“Yeah, but you’re the one who killed her,” a new voice said, from deep in the alleyway.

The first man laughed. “I guess it wasn’t that rough. Not nearly as bad as watching your entire family die right before you get your own throat ripped out.”

There was a sudden splashing sound, like a speed boat cutting through calm waters. Jada’s skirt went from dry to wet.

Her father slowly backed up. “You’re not going to touch either of them.”

A gust of wind blew past them, like the ones they’d experienced earlier.

“We’d love to see you try to stop us,” the second man said, sounding much closer than before.

Jada felt a puff of warm air hit her neck. She couldn’t take the fear any longer.

She opened her eyes, but what she saw was no man. Sure, he resembled a man, but no more than a Pitbull resembled a Labradoodle. Even kneeling, the man towered over her, his shoulders wide as she was tall. He had a crooked smile, but his teeth were as sharp as the great whites she’d seen during shark week. His forehead was wrinkled, but not in the way her grandmother’s was. Instead of the lines going across horizontally, they came down from his hairline and stopped midway, making the pieces of skin between stick out comically.

But his eyes were the scariest part. Her mother always said eyes were a way to see into the soul, but his weren’t brown like hers. They weren’t blue like her mother’s best friend, either.

They were red. The color of fresh blood.

“Well,” he said with an evil smirk. “Hello there.”

The other man bent down. His eyes were the same color and his wrinkles went the same way, but he was smaller, at least a foot shorter than the first man. He touched one of Jada’s curls and brought it down in front of her eye, then let it go. It bounced back to its original place, and the man did the same.

“Please,” Jada’s father said. “Let my children go and I’ll give you anything you want.”

The men turned to each other and laughed.

“Oh, but it’s your children we want. And you, of course,” the small one said.

“Yes, there’s nothing tastier than the blood of fearful children.”

Jada’s heart went from racing to non-existent. The air around her went stale and her father’s hand grew limp. Jada took the opportunity to pull out of his grasp. She had planned to run, but when the men bared their pointed teeth at her, she froze.

The shorter one made an O with his mouth. “Are you trying to escape? That’s so cute. Isn’t it, Harry?”

Harry patted Jada’s head. “The cutest.” He leaned down, his hands on his shins as he said, “I can’t promise we’re not going to kill you, but I can make it super quick. Your daddy, on the other hand…”

Jada bit the inside of her mouth. Her frozen tear ducts released a single tear.

Harry stuck out his bottom lip. “Is that a little tear I see?”

Jada brushed the tear away and spat on Harry’s face.

“What the hell?” Harry stumbled backward and wiped his cheek. “The little bitch spat at me.”

Jada darted out of the alleyway.

“She’s running,” Harry sang.

Jada knew she wouldn’t be able to outrun the monsters, so she side-stepped behind a green garbage container. There was only enough room for a child as small as Jada to fit. She stood with her back against the wall, hoping they hadn’t seen her hide. Her brother was still in her father’s arms, his face drowned with tears and eyes still closed. She couldn’t see the men, so she hoped they’d gotten bored and left.

Harry’s head popped around the corner of the metal bin. “This is a good hiding spot. You must be kick-ass at hide and go seek.”

“Yeah,” the other man said from the other side of the bin. “Almost didn’t see you slide back here.”

“All right, how about this. You come out now, and we won’t kill your family,” Harry said. He retracted his fangs and his eyes changed from red to a brown like hers.

“You promise?” Jada asked.

“We promise.” Harry stretched his arm out to her.

Jada considered it. Her mother always told her not to follow strangers, but her mother was dead, so maybe she wasn't one to give advice. Jada reached out her arm.

Just as her fingertips grazed Harry's, her father shouted, “No!”

Jada yanked her arm back and wrapped it around her chest.

“Ugh,” one of the monsters said. “Can we stop with the games and get on with the—” he slid his finger against his throat— “already?”

Harry made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Fine.”

The monsters disappeared from Jada's sight. She stayed with her back against the wall, her head whipping left, right, then up to the sky, waiting for them to return. She turned to her father, who was frozen staring away from Jada. Why wasn’t he running?

A blur streaked past him and he fell to the ground, blood spraying from a cut on his neck.

Thomas fell beside him, then crab-walked away from the blur who Jada could now see was Harry. Thomas opened his mouth and screamed.

Harry chuckled and ran to Thomas, but much faster than Jada had ever seen someone run. Before Jada could comprehend what happened, he had Thomas in his arms.

Thomas flailed his limbs, screaming, “Hel-,” but halfway through Harry cupped his hand over the boy’s mouth.

“Don't worry, you'll be with your parents soon and your sister's not far behind.” Harry opened his mouth, his sharp teeth shining in the reflection of the moonlight, and sank his teeth into Thomas’s neck.

Thomas attempted to let out a last scream, but it was cut short by his head falling limply against his chest.

Jada wished she'd listened to her father and never opened her eyes. She squeezed them shut and placed her hands over her ears, waiting for it to be over. She might be young, but she knew what had happened. Her mother had explained death to her. How sometimes people killed other people and nobody knew why. Her mother and father had always promised she'd be safe, and that they’d protect her, but they were gone.

There was no one to protect her now.