Free Salem's Revenge Complete Boxed Set by David Estes

already inside?
    “Not again,” I say, wrenching my arm away from Mr. Jackson’s grip, ignoring the sharp pain as his nails drag across my skin. To my surprise, he doesn’t try to stop me as I push through the door and onto the landing. Frantically, I climb higher and higher on the fire escape, to the top of the building, pulling myself onto the roof.
    Breathing heavily, I look across to the top of the other building, which is a few feet lower than the one I’m standing on. Maybe ten feet away, a really long jump, impossible without the height difference and the adrenaline coursing through my veins.
    Catch the pass; dive if you have to.
    I back up sixty feet, to the other side of the roof. Imagine I’m on the football field, facing off against a really quick defender, one that might actually be able to match my speed. The center snaps the football and the quarterback drops back, but I don’t see any of that because I’m already gone, bursting toward the end zone on a basic deep route. The defender is already behind me, the ball already in the air, but the quarterback puts too much arm into the pass. I’ll have to dive. Three steps from the edge, two.
    One.
    I leap, planting my foot as close to the edge as I dare, spring-boarding forward, wind-milling my arms. Doing everything in my power to catch that ball.
    The other roof comes up fast and hard and I only remember to somersault at the last second, as Mr. Jackson has taught me. My shoulder smashes off the concrete and tosses me into a chaotic roll that sends shivers of pain through me.
    But I’ve made it.
    The pain is nothing because those witches are already inside.
    I push to my feet and find the door to the inside, taking the steps three at a time to the fourth floor. Hear noises. Screams. Shouts. Wails. Am I too late?
    Without thinking, I burst into the apartment and into Hell. The woman is lying on the floor, moaning, scratching at her skin like she’s covered with flesh-eating bugs. Except nothing is there but her fingers, drawing thin lines of blood down her torn cheeks. The boy is laying on the floor next to her, unconscious, a knife in his stomach, a circle of blood widening through his t-shirt.
    Three shrouded witches stand solemnly in a semi-circle, muttering incantations past barely moving lips. Their eyes are closed.
    “No!” I scream, charging at them, extracting my sword from my belt as I run. I’ll kill them all. It’s what they deserve.
    The tarantulas appear from out of nowhere, dropping from the ceiling in droves. Hundreds of them, as big as my hands, with hairy legs and big, round, black eyes. I hate spiders. My worst nightmare.
    I slash one, then another, then a third, their thick bodies exploding with green liquid, splattering my skin and burning like acid. One lands on my shoulder and I try to squash it with the hilt of my sword but it crawls to my belly in an instant. Frantically, I slash at it with my sword, slicing it in half and opening up a deep gash in my skin. Blood pours out.
    The woman screams and runs past me, her fingernails still cutting into her flesh.
    CRASH! Shards of glass tinkle to the floor and into the alley as she throws herself through the window and into open space, her scream lessening in volume and then cutting off completely as her body surely breaks on the hard ground.
    And still the spiders fall from the sky. I slash and slash but they keep coming. I feel the warmth of my spilled blood but they keep coming. The shadows of the witches hang over me but the arachnids keep coming.
    I’m dead. But then they disappear, every single spider, and the shadows scream and fall.
    Behind where the witches were just standing, Mr. Jackson stands, his sword crimson.
    “Hallucinators,” he says grimly. “None of it was real.”
    I carry the boy all the way back to our house, but he dies a few hours later, his wound likely inflicted by his own hallucinating mother.

Chapter Ten
     
    T raining is different today; very