Free Flying by Carrie Jones Page A

before.”
    â€œYou can just say that your mom is missing.”
    â€œYou can call,” I say, “but I’m not waiting. She could be hurt in there. She could be dying.”
    â€œBe careful…”
    I open the door and bound out of the car. Even with the adrenaline and fear, the movement makes my ankle hurt. My leg hurts, too. Blood drips through the scarf and onto my ankle sock, turning it red instead of white. Everything inside of me tenses as I stare at that thing on the driveway, waiting for the slightest twitch, any sign it is still alive.
    I lean into the car again and whisper to a pale-faced Lyle, “Promise me you’ll kill that thing if it moves. No worrying about killing one-of-a-kind species and making animal rights activists hate you or anything like that.”
    â€œI’m more worried about crazed cryptozoologists.” His eyes are big, huge, terrified.
    â€œLyle.”
    â€œMana, I promise.”
    â€œSwear.”
    â€œI swear.” Lyle flips his phone open again, punches in 9-1-1, and says, “Mana, come right back out, okay?”
    I nod.
    That will be easier said than done, if there are any more of those freak Windigo things in there. But if there are, they sure as hell better not have hurt my mom or they are going to have to deal with one angry cheerleader.

 
    CHAPTER 5
    I tiptoe-run around the Windigo thing’s lumpy form, giving myself a lot of room. I am aware that it’s not moving, but I don’t want to take any chances that it might start moving, you know? My adrenaline pumps so hard as I scoot across the grass and onto the porch that I can barely feel where it scratched my ankle, but I know the pain will be back soon.
    The front door still hangs wide open. Lyle never shut it. The window next to it is smashed and there is glass all over the porch. It doesn’t even resemble my house inside; everything is so messed up, dumped over, broken apart. But my mom … she could be in there. And if she is in there, she could be hurt. I can’t wait for the police to come. In health class we learned that in emergency medical situations, response time is critical to the potential saving of a person’s life. Yes, I think they were mostly talking about heart attacks and not monster attacks, but whatever.
    Wait. I keep forgetting.
    There could be other monsters in there.
    I listen but don’t hear anything. The lump in the driveway doesn’t move. Lyle stares at me from behind the shattered windshield of my mom’s car. I give Lyle a cocky thumbs-up sign so he won’t worry too much, and then I haul in a big breath and step into the porch light. I scan the room for evil exterminating creatures. Nothing. Then I remember to check the roof. Clear.
    I walk farther inside, scurry past the ruined love seat, and head into Mom’s bedroom. Pausing at the doorway, I survey the room again. Everything is a mess. The covers are off her bed. Her books and jewelry slop all over the floor. The closet door is flung open and all her long skirts, in all their boring neutral colors, clump in piles on the floor. A few still hang off-kilter on their hangers.
    What had it been searching for? Was it even searching at all? Maybe it just likes destroying things? But why here?
    And what exactly was it?
    I lean against the wall for a second, just a second, and try to put it all together. Dakota at the game and here, China (Sunglasses Guy), the house, the weird gray monster … I can’t. I can’t put it together. It makes no sense. The world sways a little. I stand up straight, blink hard, and continue my search. Swallowing, I try to just focus and be thorough and push all my worst fears down low into a place where they won’t bother me, telling myself good hopes, like, Everything is fine. Mom is fine. There are no more monsters .
    I search through all the rooms on the main floor and upstairs but don’t find her. That leaves nowhere