Free Untaken by J.E. Anckorn Page B

Novak. “Mrs. Novak made some sandwiches for the drive. The turkey ones you like, on marble rye. And remember about the note.”
    As if I’d forget that! The other thing about some old people with no kids? They think a fourteen-year-old has the same memory span as a baby. Still, turkey and Swiss on marble rye was a pretty sweet deal. It was kind of funny in a way, the way Mr. Novak and me never once mentioned the Space Men. I guessed maybe Mr. Novak was in shock too. If we didn’t think too hard about it, we could tell ourselves that everything was still under control.
    I wrapped a sweatshirt around my tablet to cushion it, and shoved the whole thing into my backpack, then went downstairs to the kitchen and found a pad of paper by the phone to write my note on. Just to check, I picked up the receiver, but of course, the line was dead.
    Tap, tap
.
    I spun around looking for the source of the noise. It was coming from behind me, from the window over the sink. At first I thought it was a leaky faucet, but as I moved closer I saw a flicker of movement behind the glass.
    Tap, tap
. It was like someone was knocking on the glass asking to be let in.
    I bent down and squinted through the honeysuckle vines that covered the window. A slender black shape snaked through the leaves, weaving carefully between the vines to tap the glass again. What I the hell
was
it? The thing had a long black body stretching away out of sight, and a small blunt head that skittered and prodded against the glass of the window. The sight of that black eyeless head gave me the same shivery ice-water feeling looking at the ships had. What it looked like more than anything was one of the horrible deep-water eels from Mikey’s ocean books. Something sly and mean and always hungry.
    Another black head joined the first, tapping lightly to begin with, then pressing harder until with a sudden “pop,” a crack ran across the pane.
    I yelped, and backed up quickly, only stopping when the small of my back smacked sharply into the kitchen table.
    The window shattered and shards of broken glass clattered into the sink. The pain in my back registered from very far away. My head was light, and vision was fading to a weird foggy whiteness. I lifted up a trembling hand and pinched my own cheek, hard. I couldn’t faint, not now.
    More eel things appeared at the window, nosing at the sharp edges of the broken glass, then advancing into the room to slither and probe along the kitchen counter. There were ten, then twenty, and then still more of them oiling in through the window. They snaked down to inspect the floor where I’d been standing seconds before, writhing more quickly now as though they’d scented prey.
    Me
.
    I wanted to run; or rather I wanted to somehow get away without moving at all, because if I moved, the things at the window might see me, although I couldn’t see any eyes on those freakish heads. I edged one sneaker a half step backwards, and the creatures froze all at once. They’d
heard
me. I had to run, run fast, because as soon as I moved they were going to come for me. I gulped air, but I still felt like I was suffocating. I darted round the table, and slammed right into a chair, tumbling to the ground. The eel things boiled through the window, and then—The familiar sound of a car door shutting. All at once, the black eel things withdrew and the window was empty. I scrambled on all fours toward the hall door with the idea of hiding in the closet again, but a terrible thought stopped me in my tracks. Mr. Novak. It had to be him out by his car, and he didn’t know about the eels.
    I walked back toward the window on legs that didn’t seem to want to bend properly. Mr. Novak stood beside his big blue Chrysler, loading bags into the trunk. He noticed me staring through the window with my mouth hanging open. A frown passed over his face as he saw the freshly broken glass, and his mouth was just opening to call across to me when his eyes hitched