Chapter 12
The dim light of my dropped phone illuminated the opening of the tunnel behind me. I could see its face. The creature had squeezed its head and shoulders into the narrow tunnel. Its black eyes were locked onto mine, a grotesque, victorious smile spreading across its rotting lips.
“I found you,” it whispered.
It opened its jaw, revealing a dark, endless void. It was preparing to consume my soul, just as it had done to the others.
I was completely trapped. My strength was failing.
But then, a memory flashed in my mind.
Whenever she got her hands on anything good to eat, she’d hide it away in the back of the cupboard, saving every last morsel for the two of us.
Grandma had loved us. She had protected us from the cruelty of our parents and our relatives. She wouldn’t let this thing use her face to kill us.
The five grains are sacred things of heaven and earth, a natural barrier that purifies and wards off evil.
Before we had fled the kitchen, when Uncle Garrett threw us to the ground, my hand had landed in a small pile of spilled raw rice near the bin. Without thinking, I had shoved a handful of the hard grains into my coat pocket in my panic.
I reached into my pocket, my fingers closing around the cold, hard grains of raw rice.
“You’re not my Grandma!” I screamed, twisting my body around.
With all my remaining strength, I threw the handful of raw rice directly into the creature’s unhinged jaw and pitch-black eyes.
The reaction was instantaneous and explosive.
The moment the sacred grains made contact with the evil spirit, they sparked like tiny firecrackers. The creature let out a scream so deafening, so high-pitched, it felt like my eardrums were going to burst.
Thick black smoke began to pour from its eyes and mouth where the rice had struck it. The flesh on its face began to bubble and melt, revealing a dark, shadowy void beneath.
Its grip on my ankle released as it wildly thrashed backward, frantically trying to claw the burning rice out of its eyes.
I didn’t waste a second.
I scrambled forward, crawling through the mud and slime with frantic, desperate speed.
“River, go!” I yelled, seeing the moonlight shining brightly at the end of the tunnel.
I crawled until the tunnel widened, the damp earth giving way to dry, rocky soil. I burst out of the drainage pipe, tumbling down a small, grassy embankment and landing hard in the dry riverbed behind the house.
River was already there, panting heavily, tears streaking his muddy face.
I scrambled to my feet, grabbing his hand.
“Run.”
We ran.
We didn’t look back at the old dark house sitting silently under the moonlight. We ran through the dry riverbed, through the dense cornfields, toward the faint lights of the neighboring village in the distance.
We didn’t stop until our lungs burned and our legs gave out, collapsing near the edge of the village road just as the first light of dawn began to break over the horizon.