Shadow Breakers by Daniel Blythe

Author:Daniel Blythe
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2012-10-18T16:00:00+00:00

THE ABBEY: FRIDAY 00:21

Ring around the rosie.

It’s a young girl’s voice — tremulous but clear. I am absolutely shaking in terror, because I know the song and I know the voice, even though I’ve never heard anything like it. The sound is old and new, young and ancient, clear and yet somehow cracked like old stone.

The most terrifying thing of all is that the voice is reaching into me. It’s singing as if it knows me. The rhyme echoes up through the Abbey, filling the space, bouncing off the walls.

I look at Josh. He has heard it, too.

But he isn’t scared. He looks totally fascinated, and he’s holding up his phone — recording it all, I guess. I’m glad he’s got the presence of mind, because I haven’t.

“Time to get out of here?” suggests Josh, looking intently at me.

The voice is distorting now, sounding squashed and metallic as if it’s been auto-tuned.

I try to move my legs, to break into a run, but for some reason my body won’t obey my brain. My feet are glued to the floor.

“Come on, come on!” Josh says.

I look at him in despair and realize he’s equally rooted to the spot.

“Block it out!” he snaps, and puts his hands over his ears.

I do the same, muffling the sounds of the singing. Finally, my right foot peels itself from the floor and I drag it along, a lead weight. It’s like one of those dreams where you’re running and can’t get away.

Concentrate.

Life comes back to my right leg, and then my left.

I glance at Josh. He nods. We grab each other’s hands and run full tilt for the oak doors.

The singing voice seems to chase after us, gathering momentum like a vast tidal wave of sound.

We skid to a halt.

The way to the door is blocked. Something has appeared.

At first it’s only half visible, half formed. A shimmering column of grayish light, flickering in the darkness, like a ghostly candle. And then, with a rush of cold air and an evil smell like rotting flesh, the shimmering blur turns into something more solid. A wizened, yellow face, twisted like bark and covered in pustules. A hunched body swathed in dark robes and long, dark hair.

The Shape. But more than that now.

The first thing I think of saying is, “Can you see it, too?”

“Oh, yes,” he says softly, almost absently. He doesn’t know how important that is to me. Someone else seeing my Shape now.

The Shape seems to hiss and wave an arm.

I jump backward, but Josh is taking shot after shot on his phone. “Any ideas?” he mutters.

And that’s when I get this stupid thought.

“Okay. Just one,” I say.

“Knock yourself out.”

I reach for the nearest pew and pull out a leather-bound Bible, embossed in gold with a cross.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” says Josh. “You’ve seen too many bad vampire films.”

“It’s not the cross,” I say. “It’s what it stands for. Belief sets up a protective barrier.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work. Do you believe in it?”

“Well, I’m kind of unresolved.

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