The Dark Secret - Chapter 2

Chapter 2
Valerie left her room, forgetting the sleepwear. From the top of the staircase she had a good vantage point of the front door, and further still into the kitchen where he mother stood alert like a hunted deer, every drop of colour drained from her face. Jet was right beside her, though he looked more confused than fearful. The doorbell rang again and Valerie wondered whether anyone was going to answer it. She descended the stairs with a quick pace and arrived in the kitchen with a questioning look.
“They’ve found us,” Susan said faintly as if she didn’t believe her own words. Valerie could visualize the hamster in her mum’s head running double time on its wheel trying to process this information. Then just as quickly as her mum had spoken, panic flooded all over her face like a flashing neon sign and her body jolted into action. Susan ran the short way to the front door and locked it, then slowly backed away from it like it was a bomb about to go off. “Jet, I need you to grab the car keys and both of you run and wait in the car. If I don’t join you there after thirty seconds of waiting you need to leave without me, got it?” Susan’s tone was serious and desperate. The people at the door decided to ditch the doorbell and started bashing loudly against it. Susan flinched. What did these people want from Valerie’s mother?
Jet hesitated, and then nodded.
“Drive as far away from here as you can. You must leave Lacewood and not stop driving until you run out of fuel. And then you need to find shelter and hide. Do you understand me?”
“But what are you going to do while we’re in the car?” Valerie asked, not thinking she’d like the answer.
“Distract them,” Susan said, more to herself than to her children.
Jet grabbed the keys hanging on the hook in the hallway and he and Valerie bolted for the side door leading outside the house where the car was parked in the drive. Valerie heard her mother yelling something to the people on the front porch. Valerie looked over her shoulder just before heading outside to see the front door fly across the room and collide into the opposite wall of the house with a loud crack. Holy crap! Who the hell were these people? She heard someone in the house cry out in pain. Jet swung himself into the driver’s seat and Valerie flew in next to him. Each second they counted took a year. Time had never gone so slowly in all her life.
Twenty-eight… twenty-nine…
Still no mother.
“Where on earth is she?!” Jet said anxiously. They waited an extra five seconds but she still didn’t show.
Valerie’s foot began to tap restlessly against the car floor. It always did that when she was nervous. They waited another extra five seconds before Valerie looked at her brother.
His knuckles on his left hand were white from gripping the wheel so tightly. He stared straight ahead. With a small twist of his right wrist the keys awoke the car’s engine. “We have to go now, you heard mum,” he choked, not facing Valerie.
Valerie forced herself not to cry for the billionth time today. Not wanting to say anything in case her mouth told them both truthfully that their mum would never leave them behind if they were in her shoes, she pretended she hadn’t heard Jet.
The car started to move forwards out of the drive and too soon they were turning away from their street and their mother. Jet hadn’t glanced at Valerie once since they sat down in the car. Neither of them spoke a word. The only sound was the rumbling of the car’s engine and the movement of tyres underneath them. They followed the spine street that divided the ribs of other smaller streets. The further they drove away from the house the more the fear in Valerie’s chest took over. They ascended a small hill that gave her a view of her house for the last time. Flickers of bright red and orange caught her attention from the house’s front windows.
Fire!
Fire had consumed the kitchen and living room from downstairs. The windows all had shattered somehow. The flames stretched high like the long, thick tentacles of an angry sea monster, about to drag a ship to the bottom of the ocean. Smoke billowed around the house like a thick dark cloud poisoning the air outside.
“Jet, the house is burning!” Valerie said loudly, looking alarmed.
Jet looked towards the house and his eyes widened.
“We have to go back, mum’s in there! Jet, we have to turn the car around!” Valerie yelled at him, but he only returned to staring ahead of the road, his jaw clenched tight.
“It’s too late,” was all he said.
“No! It’s not too late. It can’t be! Jet…” Valerie didn’t finish her sentence as the tears that had been waiting patiently all day finally rained down from her sorrowful eyes. She let them fall hopelessly. She watched their house get smaller and smaller in the distance until there was only the smoke rising high up towards the heavens. They were alone she realised. It was just her and Jet now. Valerie kept crying silently the whole way out of Lacewood Valley. Her eyes were exhausted afterwards and before she knew it reality disappeared into a deep and heavy sleep.

“We are the revolution of this world,” said a low voice.
Valerie stood in a graveyard surrounded by a circle of people in dark cloaks, their faces shadowed beneath their hoods. In the sky swirled thick black storm clouds, turning the day into night. A strong wind bent the leafless trees sideways. Icy rain followed the wind’s direction. The air felt electric with power. Thunder boomed loudly around the group of people yet no one even flinched. All hoods were turned to face the person that had spoken.
“We have sacrificed the vrÄ???jitoare for our master. We are one step closer to fulfilling the Great Prophesy. Luck is with us once again my allies. The Dark Ages will be reborn!” The talking person raised both hands high above his head, palms facing upward. The others in the circle followed his action in sync. They all started to chant loudly in another language.
“Suntem Cercul lui Lucifer, protectorii secret intunecat. În venele noastre executa o mare putere a lui Satana. SÄ??? vocile noastre sÄ??? fie auzite Un oh Mare, È???i sÄ??? tot iadul dezlÄ???nÈ???uit asupra fi duÈ???manii noÈ???tri. Scopul nostru doar pentru a-È???i servi pentru eternitate.”
Crack! A lightning bolt forked down from the sky and hit the middle of the circle of people like a beacon. The force of the bold shook the ground beneath them yet no one even moved. As the smoke from the heat of the lightning cleared, something moved in the middle of the circle.
It was … It was a …
Valerie woke up with a start. She sat up in the car drenched in sweat, her breathing shallow. Her heart beat fast. She turned her head expecting to find Jet staring at her but he wasn’t there. She was alone. The last images of her dream played repeatedly in her head. The thing in the middle of the circle had stood up to its full height, rising about a foot taller than the average person. It had let out an ear deafening shriek. The hooded people in the circle had knelt before the creature in worship. The creature had then turned slowly towards Valerie’s direction, glowing red eyes staring straight at her. With a wicked smile upon its mouth it raised one long sharp claw and pointed at her, speaking only three words:
“Come, find me.”


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