Free A Latent Dark by Martin Kee Page A

but now in long red pajamas, the apron look refined by comparison. He seemed oblivious to this as he went around the house to extinguish every lantern and check every lock. He then crawled into his bed and mumbled something that could have been “goodnight.”
    Skyla lay on the couch watching the fire die a slow death until the coals glowed and coughed sparks into the air. The rain stopped and now the loudest sound in the room was James’s snoring, rhythmic and comforting. She thought of Orrin and tried to imagine him in a safe warm place.
    She dreamt of the raven, flying over a moving landscape where herds of luminescent antelope grazed and sparred. As she flew with him over the world she saw a tree in the distance, larger than any mountain, its branches holding up the sky. A castle came into view—no, not a castle. It was a huge building, though. He flew in through a window, spiraling down, and down through an immense hall. At the very bottom was a girl, not much older than herself, with dark hair and a swirling black gown. She held out an arm as Orrin came to rest on it.
    The girl opened her mouth to speak—
    *
    Skyla caught her breath, scanning the darkened room, no longer lit by the cast-iron stove. It was hard at first to put her finger on what was wrong. Then she realized James was no longer snoring. The only sound in the room was the distant and occasional drip of the pheasant, still shedding the last of its blood.
    James was still, his eyes open. Something shimmered in the corner of the room, behind the stove, and Skyla thought at first that Orrin had picked the lock and gotten in. She hoped he would come sleep by her side—
    What she saw move in the corner was not Orrin, though it was small and black as a tarred stone.
    Oh no , she thought. It’s happening again. It’s coming for me this time .
    It was smaller than the one that had been in her house. It uncurled from the corner, a giant black millipede, reflecting dim light in a way that almost made it look concave, inverted and difficult to focus on. Its many legs and arms unfolded at different lengths as it skittered across the room with alarming speed. Chicka-chicka-chicka went those jointed legs.
    It stretched from the wall, but never detached from it. A black sinewy umbilical connected it to the darkest corner of the room. A hermit crab, pulled from its shell. The creature moved with surprising grace and fluidity, dashing between their beds. Its many limbs felt the objects around it as it maneuvered deftly across the floor, hugging the shadows. Chicka-chicka-chicka …
    Skyla swallowed a scream as it crept with sickening grace up the leg of James’s bed, the blankets indenting slightly as the delicate chitin tendrils scrambled up and over his thigh. It rose in the air, unfolding more limbs from inside its flat body until it was a huge black umbrella made of spider legs.
    It hovered just above the sleeping figure, dwarfing him. Tiny tentacles emerged from the front where a mouth should be, delicate and lacelike. They filtered down through the air until they rested like feathers on his cheek. James twitched wildly, eyes open, his mouth set in a gaping silent scream, his body convulsing. As it hovered over the sleeping man, it flexed and shrank like a drifting jellyfish. Grotesque legs pinned the shaking man to the bed as his eyes, bulging wide with terror, stared at nothing, rapt in seizure.
    Skyla screamed.
    The effect was immediate. The tendrils withdrew as if shocked, the creature retreating into the corner, folding into itself like an impossible origami sculpture. In seconds, it was gone as if it had never existed.
    James remained still, his eyes open, unfocused and catatonic. Skyla considered finding a mirror and holding it beneath his nose.
    Then he snored, making Skyla nearly scream a second time. It was a gut-wrenching, roof-shaking snore that she could feel in her chest. It was followed by a second. 
    And then a third.
    It became softer and more