The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney (10 best books of all time TXT) 📗

solid stretches across the doors like rope.

I jerk back, nearly taking myself and Cassie to the floor. Something slithers along the walls, laced into brambles across the door.

From the front of the theater, by the darkened screen, there’s the sound of something slithering. And it whispers, low.

“Talk.”

Fifteen THE FEATURE PRESENTATION

“COME ON. COME on.” Felix thrusts his phone above his head, waving it. But there’s as little signal here as there was on the desert road, and Felix realizes that quickly. “Help!” he bellows. “Someone help!”

“What’s happening?” I turn to Cassie.

“I don’t know,” Cassie says. Her eyes are wide, darting. It’s deeply unnerving, seeing her thrown off. “I didn’t see this.”

“I’m trying the other door,” Felix says over his shoulder, already halfway across the theater.

“Felix,” Alex says, “get away from there.”

“And do what?” Felix reaches out, rattles the doorknob. “I’m not just going to stand here while we—”

But then Felix stumbles back, one hand fully recoiled, the other gripping his wrist. When he speaks again, it’s quieter, higher. “Guys,” he says, “something bit me.”

Through the dark, I can barely make out the web barring our way: solid, dark strokes branching into thinner spindles. They look almost like tree branches. But they’re vibrating just slightly. Pulsing with potential energy.

“Is that you?” I say slowly.

And the web, piece by piece, shivers like the limbs of the spider Dan killed in the bathroom a couple of weeks ago. I’m starting to wish he were here.

“Talk,” it whispers.

This isn’t the Flood. For the first time, the thought doesn’t come as a relief.

Felix grips Alex’s arm. “Say something,” he whispers.

Alex twitches, startled back into the moment, and clears his throat. “Ex-excuse me,” he manages. “We’re . . . sorry to bother you. But if I could ask you a few questions—”

“What are you doing?” Felix hisses. “Convince them to let us out!”

“Not yet,” Alex says softly.

“What do you mean, not yet?” Felix says.

“What if they know something about the Flood?” Alex says.

There’s a low-level buzz now, rattling the seats around us, rising steadily in pitch. “Talk,” they say. “Talk, talk, TALK!”

“We’d like to,” Alex says, his patience just barely steadying his voice. “But if we could just ask a few questions—”

“NO!” The buzz turns high and crackling, a shriek of a roar. “YOU! TALK!”

It takes a few seconds for the room to still. My fingers, curling around the back of a chair, feel just as unsteady.

“Alex,” I say, never looking away from the door. “Was that what the list was for? Were you going to interview the neighbors, too?”

He whips around, stricken. “I didn’t know about this place,” he says. “If I had, I never would have brought you h—”

“Hang on,” Felix interrupts. “You were going to do what?”

Alex stands a little straighter. But even in the dark, I see his face flush. “They live here, too,” he says. “They know more about the Flood than we do. I was just going to ask around a little. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere dangerous.”

“But you were going to go alone,” Felix says.

“I never said—” Alex starts.

“You don’t have to!” Felix throws his hands in the air. “If you wanted us along, you wouldn’t have hidden it from us!”

Alex takes an audible deep breath. “They’re more likely to talk to me,” he says, “if I’m by myself.”

“Right,” Felix says, “because they’re buttering you up before they eat you.”

“Guys, stop,” Cassie says.

“You know what, no,” Felix says. “I’m not going to let this—”

“Look at them,” Cassie says, a little more emphatically. “They’re listening.”

I glance back at her, and then at the thing blocking our path. They look less solid at the edges now, like their grip on the door has loosened somewhat. Not enough that we could force our way through, maybe. But I think she’s right. They’re listening.

“We should figure out what they want,” Alex says.

“They told us what they want,” Cassie says. “Right?”

A low, shivery hum fills the room. Like approval.

“Okay, so, talk,” Felix says. “Talk about what?”

Cassie blinks. “I didn’t say I knew that.”

We stand there, glancing from each other to the walls. Felix slumps against a chair, all the fight gone out of him for the time being, and Alex’s gaze drops to the ground. I wonder, at first, if our captors will get impatient with us. But they seem perfectly content to wait us out.

“Rose . . .” When I look to Felix, he’s chewing on his lip. “You said, ‘Is that you?’ Who were you talking to?”

“Oh.” I said that, didn’t I? “I’m . . .”

“You spoke to them,” Cassie says. I glance over my shoulder. There’s something—hungry about the way she’s looking at me. “The Flood.”

“I—” There’s no reason to deny it now. She already knows. “I did. Last night. But it was more of a—I mean—I didn’t really learn anything. We just—talked. Or I tried, anyway.”

“You could’ve told us,” Felix says. Before Alex gets the chance to glare at him, he quickly adds, “Sorry. I just mean, we want to help, y’know? But if you don’t say anything—”

“I know,” I say. My chest is burning, like I’m embarrassed. But I don’t think that’s it. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. Or that I don’t want to say anything. It’s more like I can’t?”

I pause, ready to let that be explanation enough. But the more I say, the more the web of shadows blocking our way seem to—calm down. They look almost smaller now. Like a puffed-up cat slowly realizing that you aren’t here for a fight.

“My dad died when I was pretty young?” I say. I don’t know why I make it a question. “So it was . . . difficult, for my mom. She hid it well, and she did a great job for me, but I always had this sense like I didn’t want to be another problem. And even when things got better, and when she met my stepfather, I guess it was a habit by then. The only one I really talked to was . . .”

They’re still watching, still listening—my new friends and