Page 4 of Eat My Moon Dust
I jolted up in bed and inhaled a gasp, the chilly air prickling my forearms, and jumped out of bed in my long candy cane t-shirt and socks, running to the window. Cheek smashed against the frosty panes, I searched through the fog of my breath for any sign of someone outside.
“Please… help me,” the voice called again. My eyes darted to and fro, brow creased with confusion. That didn’t sound like it was outside…
“Oh my god,” I hitched, stumbling back. It sounded like it was frominsidethe bakery, just down the double flight of stairs.
Please don’t let it be Sam.
I slid across the wood floor and ripped my door open. Sam’s and mine shared a kitchen, having once been a single apartment. I banged on his door, just in case the voice downstairs wasn’t him.
“Someone’s hurt!” I yelled breathlessly, then swung around the corner and flew downstairs, my heart racing. “Hello?! Sam!”
The stairwell spilled out into an alcove hidden by a curtain in the kitchen. I pushed it aside and grabbed Sam’s mop propped up in the corner, as I called out again, checking the floors for a fallen shadow. I jogged out into the front, the corner bakery’s tall windows filled with reflections of my display cases and upturned chairs against the silent torrent of snowflakes outside.
My grip loosened with relief. None of the windows were broken. The door was still locked. I did a walkthrough to be sure, but there was no one in the bakery, hurt or otherwise.
A pair of feet fumbled down the stairs behind me. “Tinsley!” Sam growled, out of breath. He burst from the kitchen in a long-sleeve shirt and pajama pants, wide-eyed, with a rolling pin held above his head.
I set his mop on the floor handle first and leaned my weight against it with a sheepish grimace. “Sorry, Sam. I thought I heard someone call for help. You okay?” A flicker of worry passed through my mind. Maybe he’d been having nightmares.
He nodded, pushing his hair out of his face. “You sure you heard someone?”
My brow creased, sweeping the street. I’d fogged up my window pretty bad trying to look out from my bedroom, and now all the reflections in the windows still made it hard to know for sure…
“I’ll just check outside real quick.”
I propped the mop against a table and hopped to stretch over the counter for the keys beneath the register. Before Sam could tell me no, I slipped my socks into the familiar cushion of my boots and pushed the door open against a snowbank.
The bakery’s brass bell tinkled as I forced the door open, a cold breeze instantly chapping my cheeks and nose. I looked down the road in one direction, then the other, hugging myself against the chill.
“Help!”
I jumped, whipping my attention towards the corner of the shop.
“Sam, Ididhear something! Hurry, get your boots and call the police!”
“Tins–wait!”
He padded across the floor, but I didn’t wait for him, leaving the bakery entrance propped open against the snow as I ran around the corner. I hadn’t tied my boots, so they flopped about, filling with white, glittery powder as I trudged through the high embankments along the road.
“Hello!” I called again, cupping my mouth.
“Help!” the man called again, closer this time, muffled by the silence of snowfall.
“I’m here!” I yelled. Had he been hit by a plow? Was he a homeless man buried beneath an embankment? I felt a rush of danger, a sense of urgency, and climbed on top of a wrought-iron bench, looking for any sign of movement. “Where are you?!”
“Tinsley, no!”
I turned around to look at Sam with confusion and met a monster instead. Big, black eyes stared at me from a flat, pale blue face, a wavey crest sprouting from its head like a ginkgo leaf. Its vertical nostrils flared wide, and it craned its neck sideways, revealing… tattoos? It was wearing clothing too. My eyes jumped to its face.
It moved its mouth then, that same voice projecting from its throat. “Help!” it said, only it looked like a bad dub on a foreign film, not matching the movement of its mouth, the flat teeth, the wide slash of lips. I shuffled backwards on the bench in terror, a tear freezing in the corner of my eye. Distantly, I heard Sam roar, his reflection running towards us in the windows of the bakery. I smiled at his reflection, heartbroken.
How many black clouds would I leave behind?
The monster lunged forward.
I shrieked, slipped on the icy bench, and the back of my head hit something solid with a resounding crack.
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