Rise of Midnight Read online

  “You jerk,” she giggled and threw a handful of popcorn at his face.

  Hot kernels landed in my lap. Irritated, I swiped them away. Ten minutes into the movie, I got a text from Jacoby saying he was outside. I made my way out of the theater, not bothering to let anyone know I was leaving.

  “What happened?” Jacoby asked as he rolled down the window of a truck I didn’t recognize.

  “Whose car is this?” I asked and jumped in the passenger side of the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

  “It's Frank’s,” Jacoby told me. “He picked me up, remember? He let me borrow it so I could leave the party and get you."

  “Oh. Thanks again,” I said gratefully.

  “What did Devron do?” Jacoby put the car in drive as he spoke.

  “He’s just a jerk. I don’t even want to talk about it,” I replied under my breath.

  Jacoby sighed as we drove out onto the main road. “You have any plans for the rest of the night?”

  “Sleep,” I blurted. “What about you?”

  “We’re still party hopping. I think it’s time for your first college experience. We’ve got to warm you up.”

  “I don’t know. Not tonight. I—”

  “Oh, you’re coming,” he cut me off with a smile. “I’ll drop you off at the house so you can get Jericho up. I’ll grab the other guys just down the street and come back.”

  “Okay. Thanks for making my mind up for me,” I joked when he pulled up in front of our house.

  “What would you do without me?” he asked. “I’ll pick you guys up in maybe ten minutes.”

  I giggled and got out of the truck. He waved and drove off. Really, I was too tired to go out again, but I hoped a night out with Jericho, Jacoby and his friends would help me forget about what had just happened with Devron.

  Everyone had gone to bed, so I came inside and climbed the staircase as quietly as possible, skipping over the noisy step at the very top. I slinked into Jericho’s room. Used to her door being locked, I hesitated halfway through turning the doorknob. Last month, my parents switched out her doorknob with one that didn’t have a lock on it, fed up with her locking them out.

  “Jericho,” I whispered.

  I used my phone to light my way around her room. Her bed faced the door, set against the far left wall she and I shared. Because of this, I could easily see her snoozing face.

  “Wake up!” I hissed in a whisper. “Jacoby and Frank want to take us around town.”

  “Go away. I’m trying to sleep,” she groaned.

  She rolled over and threw the covers over her head. The beige and amber blend that was her hair branched out to every corner of her pillow like a tree.

  “No, you’re coming. Get up,” I ordered with a raised voice. “How often do we get to hang out with Jacoby and his friends?”

  I picked up one of her sham pillows and threw it at her. She grumbled something as it bounced off her head. She then made a sound of disapproval after I turned on the Tiffany lamp on her nightstand. Entertained, I watched her squinting face while she tried escaping its intensity.

  “Fine. Get out so I can get ready,” she growled.

  “Awesome. I’ll be outside. Just hurry,” I urged. “They’ll be here any minute.”

  I slipped out of her room and into mine where I changed into something more comfortable—out of the thin sweater and into on a thicker turquoise one. After kicking aside my stilettos, I threw on a more tolerable pair of shoes. Outside I went without making a single noise. Settling down on the elongated porch, I gazed out at my quaint little suburban neighborhood.

  I’d lived on that corner lot all my life. And I was perfectly satisfied with that. Our neighborhood sat well away from the city’s steady flow of people and noisy traffic. At this time of night, even on a Saturday, our neighbors turned out their lights and went to bed. We never had any trouble on that street, but nothing exciting ever happened, either.

  I zoned out, staring into the distance when a subtle movement caught my eye. There it was again, this time on a roof a few houses down. I couldn’t believe it. I leaned in and squinted. I wanted to stand, but the unsettling image had me frozen. A dark form, far too large to be a cat or a raccoon, appeared. It sat eerily crouched as it had before in the notch of my neighbor’s roof. Two tiny orbs, both a deep yellow, flickered on the figure, and they moved as the being did. I had to blink twice to be sure I wasn’t seeing things, and that’s when I realized the orbs were more than just that. They were eyes, glowing eyes that pierced through the darkness.

  My entire body shook from within. I could hardly draw a breath. The shadowed thing moved closer to the roof’s edge in a disturbingly human manner. That, along with its size and proportions, told me that it was human…or something freakishly close.

  I closed my eyes and shook my head in disbelief. Reopening them, I found the figure had disappeared. I could breathe again, but the image of the being with the yellow beaming eyes traipsing about on my neighbor’s roof had burned itself into my memory.

  “What the hell is wrong with me?” I whispered to myself.

  Before I could rationalize it, a pair of headlighs cut through the gloominess ahead, distracting me.

  Chapter 3

  An Unexpected Accident

  “Hey, little girl,” Jacoby twisted around in the passenger seat and greeted me with Dad’s nickname for me. “You know Frank.” He nodded to the light-haired guy in the driver’s seat.

  I‘d known Frank for years, but it’d been a few months since I last saw him. He and Jacoby had been best friends since elementary school. I always loved hanging out with him. He could make me and anyone else around burst into uncontrollable laughter with no more than just the right words and a facial expression.

  Frank’s eyes darted back at me through the rearview mirror.

  “Hey, Frank,” I said with a smile.

  “Hey, Autumn,” he replied and nodded.

  “And in the back, we've got Kevin and Marcus,” Jacoby continued and pointed over his shoulder to the two guys sitting in the overly large trunk space of the Jeep. “Guys, this is my little sister, Autumn.”

  “This one isn’t the twin, right?” one of the boys in the back asked.

  “Right, not this one,” Jacoby confirmed.

  “Hey! Jacoby, I know Marcus!” I exclaimed and turned in my seat to greet the two boys.

  “Yeah, Autumn sits with me at our lunch table,” Marcus added.

  Marcus was probably the tallest, lankiest person I’d ever met. He was in the school band, but I always teased him about joining the basketball team instead. That was strictly a joke, though. It would be like asking a giraffe to walk a tightrope. The poor guy had absolutely no sense of balance, direction or hand-eye coordination. This became apparent after only two days of sitting with him at lunch. He’d knocked over his drink twice and tripped over his own feet on the way to the table. But no matter what mishap befell him, Marcus always recovered…or in his case, caught himself on the edge of a table—or grabbed his drink before it spilled onto the floor.

  “Marcus is our little high school buddy,” the guy beside him named Kevin said with a grin.

  “Aw, little Marcus,” I teased.

  “Aw, little Autumn,” Marcus mocked me in a high pitched voice while squashing his narrow face into a puckered expression.

  I shook Kevin’s bear claw of a hand. I’d only heard of Kevin before in conversation as “the shy big guy”. A teddy bear came to mind the minute I laid eyes on him. He was a stout guy with a penguin-like stature who wore his clothes a size too small. But this was all part of Kevin’s charm or at least that’s what Jacoby always playfully said about him.

  Jericho abruptly jumped in beside me and closed the passenger door. “Hey, boys,” she sang and waved, settling in.

  “Everyone, this is my other sister, Jeri. My twin,” Jacoby explained and grinned over his shoulder at Jericho.

  Jeri was the nickname my dad had for Jericho. I caught myself smirking out of sp
ite.

  “It’s Jericho. And if any of you call me Jeri, I’ll punch you in the throat," Jericho warned under her breath. “I’m not joking, either. I hate that name.”

  The boys laughed and introduced themselves. I held back a giggle.

  “I know you hate it, Jeri,” Jacoby teased her.

  “Well, then,” she sneered back. “If we’re going by Dad’s nicknames, I’ll just call you Jackie the rest of the night.”

  “Jeri and Jackie?” Marcus laughed out loud.

  “Dude, your dad still calls you that?” Frank asked Jacoby while holding in a laugh.

  “On occasion,” Jacoby admitted and rolled his eyes as Frank sped off.

  “Seat belts!” I announced.

  Everyone but Frank heeded my warning. He never wore his seat belt.

  “Where’s Eden tonight?” Kevin asked Jacoby.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her since last week,” my brother said coolly.

  “She’s one mysterious chick, that Eden,” Frank added. “But I guess that’s why you like her so much, huh, Jacoby?”

  I watched Jacoby’s face turn pink in the rearview mirror. It made me smile. I’d never known Jacoby to blush over a girl, especially one he’d never mentioned.

  “What’s this about a girl?” Jericho peeped up.

  “Nothing,” Jacoby murmured from the front seat.

  “Where to first?” Marcus asked while Jericho took her hair down from her usual bun.

  I always knew she wanted to impress someone when she did this. I rarely ever saw her with her hair down, but she didn’t wear it up because she liked it. The bun was what gave her naturally straight hair its gentle waves.

  “I don’t know. What’s next on our agenda, Jacoby?” Kevin asked loudly from the back.

  “There are a few things going on tonight. Autumn, do you have to get up early for practice in the morning?” Jacoby asked.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Jericho cut in. “No, that was this morning. We can stay out late tonight. We have to get up in the morning, but we don’t get to hang out with you very often. We’ll sacrifice the sleep.”

  I exhaled the air I’d saved to answer.

  “Okay, then,” Jacoby replied. “One of the basketball players at the university is throwing a birthday party down the street for his girlfriend. Oh, and our good friends Charlie and Ben are having some kinda party close to campus. I think you two would have more fun at that party. Those guys are nuts, but not too crazy. You’ll love them.”

  “Yeah, let’s go!” Jericho squealed.

  “Afterward, I’d say a late-night dinner is in order,” Frank spoke up. “We can go to The Red Emerald. Then, we could catch a late movie.”

  “Uh, no thanks. I was already at the theater tonight,” I admitted.

  “You mean for your date with Devron,” Jericho said his name tauntingly. “How did that go, anyway?”

  “Don’t ask,” I muttered, looking out of the window and wishing I hadn’t brought it up.

  A hushed but resounding “uh oh” filled the car.

  “That bad, huh?” Kevin asked.

  “What did he do?” Marcus dug.

  “That guy is a dumbass,” Jacoby added. “Eventually, she’s going to tell me what happened. Right, Autumn?”

  “Sure,” I said sarcastically.

  “Forget that guy,” Marcus advised.

  “Good advice,” Frank chimed in. “I hear he doesn’t have a good rep with the ladies.”

  “I know you’ve liked him for a minute, but I had a feeling he was into you for another reason. I’d steer clear of him,” Jericho added in her two cents.

  “Believe me, that won’t be a problem,” I replied through my teeth.

  “Beauty is a curse, Autumn.” Jericho again. “You’ll always attract the wrong kind of attention.”

  “Was that supposed to be a compliment?” I sneered as I cut my eyes at her.

  “To Charlie’s and Ben’s, then?” Jacoby cut in, I assumed to keep Jericho from hassling me any further.

  “Yes!” Marcus spoke up. “Let’s do it!”

  “Onward!” Frank announced.

  When we walked into the beige two-story house, it didn’t take me long to realize I didn’t know a single person there. But as if he were the host of the party, Jacoby swiftly introduced Jericho and me to everyone we bumped into.

  “I just want you two to feel comfortable,” Jacoby said to us when we stopped in the kitchen for something to drink. “Autumn, you look like a deer caught in headlights. Relax. Everyone here is cool.”

  “I’m not good in crowds,” I reminded him.

  “Well, I'm just fine,” Jericho said over me.

  Of course, she was. Jericho was the last person on Earth to be self-conscious.

  “Autumn, you’re a cheerleader. How are you not good in crowds?” she asked brazenly.

  “That’s different. I’m in a small, intimate group of people I know separated from the larger crowds at the games,” I explained matter-of-factly.

  “Whatever,” she shrugged me off. “Where’s the bathroom?” she asked Jacoby.

  “Down the hall on the left,” Jacoby directed her and pointed off. “Do you want to leave?” he asked me after Jericho wasn’t within earshot. He poured a glass of water at my request and handed it to me.

  “No, I'm fine,” I assured him. “I’m having fun. I'm just—"

  “Hell, yes! Good song! Turn it up!” someone yelled from the hallway.

  The music in the next room amplified. A few people shouted in excitement. Jacoby squinted while he studied my face.

  “Something looks sorta different about you…your eyes are—” he started to say.

  “Are you guys drinking tonight?” A tall, pretty girl walked into the kitchen and set her plastic cup on the counter next to me.

  I was thankful she’d interrupted. I didn’t want to explain my eyes to my brother.

  “Nah, not tonight. I’ve got my little sister to watch out for,” Jacoby replied without missing a beat and nudged me.

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” she said with a smirk. “Babysitting is no fun.”

  “It doesn’t bother me,” Jacoby said.

  She walked past him, brushing against his shoulder and swaying her hips for him to see as she left the room. I wished I could have told her he wasn’t even looking when she walked away.

  “C’mon, let’s go hang out,” Jacoby suggested.

  “Okay, I’ll be ready for some food soon,” I hinted.

  “Same here,” Jericho piped up as she returned.

  In the living room, the lights were dimmed as the music blared, the bass line practically shaking the walls. There, we met back up with Frank, Kevin, Marcus and a handful of others. I watched amused as they goofed around and tested out ridiculous dance moves on the living room floor until someone wanted to try something else. At first, I laughed at Ben’s idea of streaking and wondered who would be the few brave souls to volunteer.

  “Well, that’s a bright idea,” Jericho scoffed.

  “Come on! We need a drop-off car, a pickup car and two more runners!” Ben, the real host of the party, announced.

  “Where are you guys going to do this?” Jacoby asked cautiously.

  “In the neighborhood down the street. My biology teacher lives over there. Come on! Who’s with me?” Ben urged.

  “I’ll be the pickup car,” Frank volunteered. “I’ve got the most room, but I’m going to run. Someone else can drive.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “We want to follow and watch!” someone hollered.

  “Okay. Sonya? You’re the drop-off car. Cool?” Ben asked and smiled brightly at the little brunette beside him who rolled her big chocolate-colored eyes.

  “Fine. As long as we do this fast. I don’t want to end up on the ten o’clock news,” the girl named Sonya moaned.

  “Perfect! Kevin, you man the pickup car,” Ben took charge with excitement in his voice as his
plan began falling into place. “Charlie, you coming?” he shouted toward the staircase.

  “No, man. I’m good,” a deep voice called back from upstairs.

  “Fine. Jacoby? Marcus? Will you gentleman be joining us this evening?” Ben unexpectedly slipped into a rather convincing British accent.

  “Sure,” they both replied.

  My jaw dropped.

  “Autumn? You in?” Ben asked, looking to me.

  “For real, Ben?” Jacoby asked.

  “Come on,” Ben pressed. “We need one more, and besides, we need a girl in the group. It’ll be epic!”

  “No, thanks. I’m good,” I passed and raised a hand.

  “What? Come on! I’ll pay you. Seriously,” Ben pushed.

  “Ben, knock it off,” Jacoby cut in.

  “Will you do it if we let you wear whatever covers your lady parts?” Ben asked me.

  Jacoby huffed at his question.

  “Come on! It’s fifty bucks,” Ben urged.

  “That’s not enough,” I protested, half-joking.

  “I’m sorry,” Ben apologized. “You’re right. I’ll double it. Come on, just run with us. You won’t even have to bare it all.”

  “That’s still not enough, but whatever. I’ll do it,” I agreed.

  Jacoby stared after me in shock.

  “Jacoby, it’s fine. It’ll be fun,” I reassured him. “But if we get caught, I’ll kill you,” I added to Ben.

  “We’ve got a team!” Ben announced. “Everyone who’s coming, get in a car and follow us!”

  “Wait, who’s going to hold everyone’s clothes in the pickup car?” Jericho asked everyone.

  “You are!” Ben yelped. “Thanks for volunteering!”

  “This is so dumb,” Jericho murmured and mirrored Sonya’s earlier reaction to all of this.

  “Feel free to change your mind at any time,” Jacoby said to me as we went with Ben out of the front door.

  So, there we were—Jacoby, Marcus, Ben, Frank and me awkwardly covered in blankets and towels crammed in the back seats of Sonya’s SUV. I sat in my underwear while holding a towel around me. After a short ten minute drive, Sonya pulled over in a neighborhood I didn’t recognize.

  “Okay, ladies and gentlemen,” she said in a monotone voice and twisted around in her seat, sounding like she’d been talked into doing this once or twice before. “All you have to do is run this street to the end. Kevin and Jericho will be on the other end to pick you up in Frank’s Jeep. Run as fast as you can because I’m driving off the second I let you go. I don’t want to be around when you guys get caught.” Her phone rang. “Yeah?” she answered it. “Yep. We’re here. Okay. Alright. Go! Go! Go!” She shooed us out of the car like we were a pack of pesky cats.