A Toiling Darkness by Jaliza Burwell Read Free Book Online Page B

here? I doubt you were
planning to spend time in the park.”
    He smiled a little. “No, I definitely
wasn’t. I was walking by when I felt something and...I don’t
know...my body just brought me here on instinct. It seems to do
that a lot lately.” He glanced around, watching all the kids run
about in fits of giggles and playful screams. “This place is
nice.”
    I went to say something, but a loud
childlike shrill interrupted our conversation and brought silence
to the entire park.

Chapter 4:
    The sound was filled with a wordless agony
that brought every human in the area to a complete stop, including
all the kids. A being with heightened senses would be able to hear
every human’s heart in the park as it pounded painfully against
their chests while their body went into a hair-raising, spine
shivering shock. It was that kind of scream.
    I simply looked in the direction it came
from but couldn’t quite pin it down. I scanned the area. We were in
an open field that eventually blended into a border of trees a few
yards deep. The trees wrapped themselves around the park, cocooning
all the children to one area. About half a football field separated
us from where the scream originated from, on the far end of the
park.
    A long moment of complete silence fell on
everyone in the park. Even the sounds of honking horns, sirens, and
moving cars didn’t reach the small area to all the occupants who
were rooted to their positions. A hum of energy broke that silence
as parents began searching desperately for their children and
others tried to find the source of that horror-filled shrill.
    Kalen was up on his feet and halfway across
the field before I made it to my own. He ran towards the line of
trees, his figure a blur. He knew exactly where that scream came
from.
    As I strolled in the same direction, a
commotion broke out as a mother cried out, searching for her little
girls. The others around her looked at her with pity and relief as
they located their own children. The words were unsaid but it was
clear in their expressions: Better her than me.
    One look at the mother and I knew who her
kids were. She looked just like them.
    Well this sucks.
    When some of the parents were reassured that
their children were safe, they decided to organize a little search
party to try and find the two missing girls. They had to at least
pretend they were concerned when all they wanted to do was take
their children home and gossip about what happened at the park. To
talk about how this little safe haven was now tainted with death. I
could feel it in the air. Whichever girl shrieked like that was now
dead, leaving behind waves of death energy.
    I reached the tree line and spotted Kalen’s
tall figure only a couple of feet away. He was looking down, his
face blank. His body was still, filled with tension as he examined
whatever was on the ground. I approached carefully, not wanting to
cause him to erupt with the anger he was trying so hard to hold
back.
    My eyes traveled down to the ground, finding
what had Kalen so stiff and clarifying who I thought made that
noise. At his feet was the little girl with brown pigtails—the one
who was running away from the other girl who wanted to tickle her.
One of the pigtails was still tied up but the other had been pulled
out. Her arm was bent at a bad angle, suggesting it was broken, and
her mouth was slack. Her eyes were wide with terror, still
registering the pain caused by whoever took her life away. Red
angry lines dotted her neck and along her cheek. Whoever did this
made her suffer first. The child was strangled to death, probably
smacked around a little first.
    She wasn’t going to screech in laughter any
more as she ran away from someone trying to tickle her. She wasn’t
going to ever laugh again.
    “I should have sensed this.” Kalen’s voice
was gruff with his grief. “I know when those things attack
humans.”
    “Well those things you speak about didn’t do
this,” I said. I didn’t like