Authors: Michelle Pickett
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Fairy Tales & Folklore, #General, #Love & Romance, #Paranormal
Milayna
THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
NO part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Milayna
Copyright ©2014 Michelle K. Pickett
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63422-039-2
Cover Design by: Marya Heiman
Typography by: Courtney Nuckels
Editing by: Cynthia Shepp
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This book is dedicated to the everyday angels we find in life.
Magnolia, Texas, EMTs, thank you for the care you gave my dad.
You are one of my family’s angels.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
~St. Paul
That night, I dreamt of demons.
They chased me. No matter how fast or where I ran, they chased me.
Brown, curling horns protruded from their heads. They looked like wood with the bark whittled away. Some demons had two horns—one next to each pointed ear—and some had just one in the center of their forehead. Their gray skin was covered with a layer of dark ash that curled behind them as they ran, bringing with it the smell of sulfur and rotting flesh. Their eyes were black orbs. They were dull, dead eyes.
I screamed for my parents.
“Don’t fight it, Milayna. This is your destiny,” my dad told me.
I ran to Muriel’s house. My best friend—surely, she’d help. She waited for me at her door.
“Help me,” I screamed and reached for her.
She smiled, and horror filled me. Her jaw protruded and her mouth filled with long, yellow teeth, which were pointed like daggers. She grabbed my arms and held me for the demons.
“Muriel, help me,” I gasped, trying to pull free.
“I am helping you. You’ll see. You’ll be so much happier with us,” she hissed through her fangs.
I struggled against the demons. Their black nails bit into my arms, drawing blood. They pulled me to their leader, who stood silently watching, adjusting the sleeves of his black robe as if he were bored.
He looked like the devil. His skin was ruddy, and his eyes glowed amber. Jet-black hair, slicked back on his head, hung to his shoulders. But the demons didn’t call him Devil, Satan, or even Lucifer. They called him—
Azazel.
***
The sun beat down on my back. It felt good after swimming in the pool’s cool water. I looked at the trees surrounding the park while I squeezed water from my hair. The leaves looked like someone had dripped orange and yellow paint on them. I loved autumn in Michigan, but it meant the end of swimming outdoors, which I preferred to the tiled, sterile pool at school.
The water sparkled a silvery blue. I watched the children play, splashing and giggling as their mothers sat poolside, no doubt gossiping about the latest scandal in the neighborhood.
A young girl, maybe six or seven years old, caught my eye. I watched her strawberry-blonde curls float around her in the water. She was cute, at least as far as kids go. They just weren’t my thing. A whiny younger brother was all I needed. I didn’t even babysit, except when my mother needed help. But my gaze was drawn to the girl.
What is it about her? I can’t stop looking at her.
I felt like I had a knot in the pit of my stomach. It grew like a growth, moving into my throat. It was hard to pull in a breath. The strange feeling wasn’t directed toward the girl, although she was part of it. It was more a feeling that something wasn’t right. I could feel the cold fingers of evil slide up my spine.
I sucked in a breath, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I dropped my towel and focused on the girl.
She climbed out of the pool. Her mother was still deep in conversation with another woman. The redheaded girl yelled to her mom, but she waved her off, never looking away from the woman talking animatedly beside her.
It must be juicy gossip.
Happy, the young girl—why was I fixated on her?—scampered off to the playground next to the pool. She plopped down on a swing and pumped her legs back and forth until she swung high. Leaning back, she stretched her legs out, her chubby face to the sky, and smiled.
And then I saw him.
He stood just inside the trees at the edge of the playground. Watching. Waiting.
I don’t think he cared which kid it was. She just happened to be there. Either way, his stance changed. His face became animated. An ugly grin slid across his mouth as he waited next to a towering pine tree. He knew his chance was coming soon, and his gaze followed the girl. His prey had just entered his line of sight.
The knot lodged in my stomach twisted, as if someone were tying my insides together like they would their shoelaces. I sucked in a breath through my teeth and tensed against the pain.
Without thought, seemingly without my conscious control, I rose from my seat and circled the pool. I continued into the parking lot, where the sharp, small stones embedded themselves in the bottom of my feet, but I hardly noticed. I was on a mission. Why, or what I was going to do, I wasn’t sure.
It’s her mother’s responsibility to watch over her. Well, that’s not exactly true. We should—no, we’re required to watch over each other. At least, that’s what Mom and Dad pound into my brain every chance they get, usually right before they ask me to babysit Ben.
I continued through the gravel parking lot to the hill on the edge of the tree line. Glad to feel the cool grass under my burning feet, I picked up speed. He wasn’t hard to spot when I entered the trees. The sorry son-of-a-bitch stood watching her with his hand down his pants.
Eww and ick.
He was so engrossed that he didn’t hear me behind him. I picked up a fallen tree branch about the size of a baseball bat. It felt heavy in my hands, and the bark scraped against my fingers. With visions of his hands on the little girl running through my mind, I swung the limb as hard as I could. It cracked against the back of the man’s balding head.
I had no emotion as I watched him crumple to the ground. I stood over him, images of him with the girl mingled with images of him with other children. As I watched his blood trickle through the grass, I realized what I’d done. My hands started to tremble, and the branch slipped from my fingers and landed on top of him. My heartbeat was frenzied in my chest, and I turned and ran from his scrawny body.
Thoughts scrolled through my mind at triple speed. What caused the unstoppable desire to save the kid? I would’ve never let him touch her. But normally, I’d tell her mother that she’d wandered too far or call the police and alert them to the possibility of a child predator roaming the park. I never would have stepped in myself, but I wasn’t able to stop. Drawn to the girl, to her safety, I couldn’t walk away.
I went back to gather my things at the edge of the pool, looking over my shoulder to check on the girl. Her red curls bounced as she swung in the sunlight. Her mother was still unaware of where she was or how close she’d come to losing her childhood innocence.
Before climbing into my beat-up Chevy, I stopped at a pay phone near the restrooms, shaking my head with a smile.
I can’t believe I found one. Everyone uses cell phones. I thought these things were only in museums. It’s gotta be older than me.
Using my wet towel, I picked up the receiver, dialed 911, and reported the man—and I used the term
man
very, very loosely.
“You’ll find a man unconscious just inside the trees. Hurry before he hurts another child.”
“What’s your name?” the nasally dispatcher asked.
I dropped the receiver, letting the cord hang limp, and walked away.
Let them trace the call. There’s nothing pointing to me. I don’t want anyone finding out I was here. What do I say? I had a funny feeling and… what? I had a vision of him doing stuff with kids so I bashed his head in? Yeah, right. No, they just need a valid trace so they can get here and catch the pervert before he wakes up.
As I drove away, I was struck by two things. First, what drew me to the girl? My eyes weren’t drawn to any other. In fact, I couldn’t remember the face of any other kid at the pool. My eyes wanted only her… searched her out. I knew I needed to watch her, knew that something was wrong.
And second, how did I know?