Lockjaw by Matteo L. Cerilli

Author:Matteo L. Cerilli [Cerilli, Matteo L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tundra
Published: 2024-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

BRIDLINGTON

Marcela and Beetle could talk all they wanted about Paz, but it was far too late.

A month after Chuck’s death, which could have changed the town and didn’t, nightfall fell flat and cold over sleepy Bridlington, and over three bikes bumping off the bridge and into the forest. Paz pumped the front brake, fishtailed with precision to point a hard left, and went tearing down toward the gorge. Sammy stood on the pegs behind her, with her hands gripping Paz’s shoulders. If Emily Novak had seen that, she’d have had words, but none of them cared. Ben and Ellie zipped along behind, Ben tonguing experimentally at the newly empty spaces in his still raw gums. It wasn’t going to matter much longer. They were going to be heroes.

They were going to the mill, to get into the monster’s domain the only way they were sure to, and they would kill it, for Chuck and for themselves. Paz had given Marcela one more chance to make it right, told her this was monster night and she could still at least pretend she liked her sister. But in the end, Marcela would rather hang out with Caaaay-lebbb than fight the monster his father ignored. It was no secret Caleb picked on Paz and her friends whenever he got the chance, let Emily get away with her name-calling, and never backed them up to his dad. If Marcela knew, and didn’t help, did that make her just as bad?

Paz knew Emily Novak and Caleb Reilly, and even Brady Novak and Reece Kalchik, and every person who blamed her for their problems deserved more than detention or their parents telling them to stop being rude. She wasn’t sure where that left everyone else. Would that all be solved when they killed the monster? Would that make her important enough to be listened to when she rolled out her list of people who had wronged her? Did taking out the crumbling teeth cure the infected jaw?

A thing that couldn’t feed would starve, Paz knew. But because she knew no way of stopping monstrous people from being monstrous, she’d just have to prove them wrong.

They hit the bottom of the hiking trail. Ellie and Ben threw their bikes into the undergrowth, crushing the slushy cup that tumbled from Ellie’s cupholder. Paz propped her bike against the fence. Sammy had already gone kicking around in the bushes to find the weapons they had been preparing: sticks sharpened with a knife Ellie stole from the kitchen, and which Ben was caught returning very dull. He’d tripped into the counter just after that, lost his front teeth, and was scheduled to see the dentist tomorrow after the hunt was done. He pushed the foliage aside to find an old BB gun he’d taken from the farm shed earlier, and Sammy’s Nerf gun.

Paz slung her sharpened stick through one belt loop, Ben put the sling of the BB gun over his shoulder, Ellie took the Nerf gun, and Sammy grabbed the other stick.

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