"Anything else?"

"They said they were proud of me, sir." The absurdity of that lie almost made me burst into hysterical laughter. Instead, they'd informed me the blood sample I'd submitted for testing as part of the standard procedure for joining the football team had returned very surprising results. They mistook my supernatural abilities for a miracle steroid which had transformed my previous loser self into an all-star athlete. To them, I'd looked like a cash cow worth millions and they planned to milk my blood of the imaginary steroid. Then Brad showed up and killed them all.

The officer scrawled my lies on his pad, stopped, and tapped the pen against his chin. "Where outside were you, exactly?"

"On the side of the school, kind of near the cafeteria."

"Did anything else happen?"

"No. I left them right after they told me about the scouts and headed back for class. Well, first I had to go to the bathroom because I was kind of nervous about the scouts thing and it upset my stomach something awful. Whew, let me tell you it took a few minutes to squeeze those demons out."

He cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow.

I wondered if I might have over-embellished the details. "Uh, yeah, let me think. Oh, and then I headed to class but the bell rang and I found out we were evacuating."

"Did you hear anything on your way back to class?"

I shook my head. "No. Just the bells."

He narrowed his eyes and stared at me for several seconds. "Are you sure that's what happened?"

"That's exactly what happened." It took everything I had to look him in the eye and keep a straight face. For all I knew everything in my posture and voice was screaming, "Liar!" I swallowed and asked, "What's wrong? Why did we have to leave the school?"

"I'd like you to have a seat in this car until I say you can go." He opened the rear door of the patrol car and motioned me in.

"Am I under arrest for something?" My heart was trying to burst out of my ribcage at this point, and it was all I could do not to run away at top speed.

"No, but I need to confirm your statement before I let you go back to your friends, okay?"

I nodded and got into the car. He shut it and walked across the barricaded road. Underborn met him halfway and drew him aside. My nerves splintered even further. No telling what the slimy, backstabbing assassin was saying.

I slumped in the seat and buried my face in my hands. I could kick the door off the hinges. Run away and never look back. My normal life was all but over anyway. With the sheriff and his co-conspirators dead, my friends Ash and Nyte would probably be safe from retaliation. But another part of me recoiled in horror at the thought of giving up on a life that, up until a month or so ago, had been painfully boring and normal. I'd been an overweight dyed-in-the-wool nerd with a hopeless crush on Katie Johnson, who I'd mistakenly believed to be the one. My life had revolved around live-action role-playing by way of Kings and Castles.

I shuddered at the memories, but still kind of missed being normal.

Cries and shouts of alarm reached my ears and tore me from my thoughts. I peered through the windshield of the patrol car but saw only the other car blocking off the high school entrance. I looked through the driver's window and noticed students scrambling deeper into the church parking lot in a panicked, screaming throng. One of the cops standing in the middle of the road pulled his sidearm and aimed at something behind me.

I heard the roar of a diesel engine growing closer. I twisted in my seat. The officer fired. Bullets pinged off the grill of a huge truck. It was yards away and charging straight for me.

Chapter 2

I screamed like a little girl at the same time I tried to twist and kick open the car door, but it was too late. With a crunch, the truck smashed into the side of the car. My head whipped back and slammed into the window. I flew across the back seat and, for a stunned moment, couldn't think straight. I flopped like a rubber chicken to the floorboard.

As my wits returned, I noticed a flat metal blade like the kind I'd seen on forklifts had punctured the door to my left. I glanced through the center grille separating the back seat from the front and saw another flat blade protruding through the front driver door. It had driven itself through the seats. The computer console in the center sparked and died.

The truck was a garbage hauler with a massive lift on the front for picking up industrial dumpsters and turning them upside-down over the enclosed truck bed. And this truck was roaring full speed onto the school grounds. The tires on the patrol car squealed and smoked as the truck plowed forward, pushing the car sideways. The high-pitched thrum of a hydraulic motor kicked in and the police car lifted off the ground, giving the tires some respite just before another chain-link fence loomed ahead.

I ducked against the door as metal fence poles clanged and screeched against the side of the car. The forklift continued lifting and the car tilted, throwing me against the door closest to the truck. When I peeled my face off the armrest and looked out the window, I came face-to-face with the truck driver—a gray man. He wore a gray business suit and wore his silvery hair slicked back. His gray eyes bore no emotion. He might be having the time of his life, smashing a patrol car with a person inside, but his face didn't have so much as a smile on it.

The lack of emotions wasn't surprising, considering he, she, or it, was a golem—a life-sized animated Ken doll sent by the mysterious Mr. Gray.

"Let me out of here you oversized blowup doll!" I shouted.

The truck rocked as it hit a concrete curb, tossing me around like a rag doll. The lift moved the car upward, perpendicular to the huge vehicle until I could see the rusted top of the cab through the window. I braced myself to kick out the left door, which, due to the angle of the tilted patrol car, I now stood on. Another jolt plunged my leg through the window.

The window seemed to be bullet resistant so it didn't shatter. Instead, my leg punched a jagged hole through it, tearing at my pants and ripping my skin. I gripped the back seat and pulled myself up. The ragged corners of the window further shredded the side of my name-brand jeans, probably making them more fashionable in the process. I kicked the door. But it was impaled on the fork lift and wouldn't budge. The lift rotated the patrol car until it was upside down and shuddered to a halt. I tumbled across the headliner. Through the side window, I saw four black leather shoes slam atop the cab as two more gray-suited golems joined in the fun. In unison, they kicked the car. Metal screeched against metal as the vehicle slid off the forklift and tumbled into the back of the garbage truck.

I yelped as the roof clanged against the truck bed, jarring every bone in my body. The roof of the patrol car crunched but held thanks to the stiff roll cage. The door nearest me pressed against the slick metal inside of the truck bed so I crawled across. Braced my back. Kicked the door. It shot off its hinges and gonged against the metal enclosure.

I crawled out. The gray men jumped atop the undercarriage of the patrol car. The truck, still roaring ahead, slammed against a large bump, flinging us into the air. I took advantage of my airtime and gripped the top lip of the truck bed, some ten or more feet above the bottom, and pulled myself up. Hands like iron clamped my leg. Yanked me down. I kept my hold on the lip. Another tug yanked my arms straight. Pain flared in my joints at the intense pressure. I kicked the gray man holding my ankle. The bottom of my shoe stomped his face. He didn't make a noise. I kicked him again and again. It didn't matter to him. He just kept pulling my leg.

"Let. Me. Go!" I shouted with each kick.

His partner joined him, gripping my free leg and tugging. My arms screamed in agony as my shoulder joints popped. My sweaty fingers lost their grip. I flew backward, crashing into the golems. Pine branches shrieked against the sides and top of the truck as we entered the wooded area behind the school. The rugged terrain rocked the stiff shocks mercilessly, tossing the two golems and me around like circus freaks at a yacht club. The patrol car skidded sideways on its roof, trapping one of the gray men in the corner while pinning my arms, legs, and chest against the cold metal of the sidewall. I gasped as it crushed the air from my lungs. Even worse, I had no leverage to push it off.

Golem two climbed back to its feet. Leapt atop the overturned car. Gripped my head. I braced as it twisted my head side-to-side, like it was trying to snap my neck. Somehow, I resisted, keeping my head straight. It increased the pressure. My neck muscles burned from the effort. I clenched my teeth so tight I thought they might crack.

It reared back a fist and punched me. My head gonged against the truck bed. Stars exploded. The golem gripped my chin and the back of my head and jerked. Just then, the truck lurched. Wood cracked. Pine needles and cones showered the truck bed. The car slid away, freeing me. Golem two lost his footing and slipped, twisting my head as he tumbled away. A bone cracked loudly in my neck. I screamed.

Pins and needles pricked my skin as blood circulation reached the places pinched off by the car. I wiggled my fingers. Looked left and right. Somehow, I was still alive. I felt my neck, expecting it to be dislocated horribly. Instead, it seemed to be intact.

"You jackass!" I leapt for the golem. Slammed into it. It clanged off the metal wall and landed face down. I jumped, knees first, onto its back. Gripped its hair and beat the head to a pulp against the floor until a shiny knob of metallic skull showed through the freakishly realistic fake flesh. I stood. Backed away from the disgusting mess. The first golem—who I'd forgotten—wrapped its arms around mine and lifted me off the floor.

Pulpy-faced McPulperson staggered to its feet like a broken doll and came for me. A blood-chilling howl sounded. Something clanged into the side of the truck, ringing it like a massive bell. The metal frame groaned. Leaned to the side. Toppled over and slid along the ground. The two golems and I ricocheted around the metal cage. My face connected with the lights on the police car. Everything spun. Blurred. Suddenly, I was free of the truck, sailing through the open air.

A tree caught me, its trunk slamming like a sledgehammer into my ribs. I heard a cracking noise and felt knives of bone pierce my vitals. I rolled on the needle-strewn forest floor in a blinding haze of pain, no breath left in my lungs for even a scream. Leaves crunched around me. I took a shuddering breath and looked up. McPulperson and his BFF dragged themselves from the truck where it lay on its side at the end of a long furrow of freshly ground earth and leaves. The passenger-side door of the truck screeched and flew twenty feet into the air, making a whistling noise as it flipped end-over-end before embedding itself into the ground twenty feet away. The driver pulled himself from the cab.