Read Song of Teeth 1: The First Voice for Free Online

moment was real. Validation, I suppose." Her shoulders were visibly shaking. "Now I'm so close, and I feel I might lose it all again."
     
    For a stunned moment, Mark scanned his words for something that might sound comforting, but nothing felt right. Ever so gingerly, he reached up and touched her cheekbone, lightly as a whisper. He could feel the warm tears that the shadows hid. Brushing them off, he traced his hand along the side of her face, his pulse nearly bursting through his fingertips.
     
    "We'll find it again, whatever that creature was. And even if we can't prove it to anyone else, at least you'll always know for sure that it was real."
     
    With her eyes closed, Tatiana laid her hand against his and pressed it tighter against her face. She guided his palm to her mouth and kissed it again and again. His skin became wild under the quivering of her breaths; he had to focus on gulping lungfuls of air to calm the trembling of his entire body.
     
    At that very moment, they heard it. A hissing whisper that meandered like mist around the walls.
     
    Both their eyes flew open, and they turned to the spring.
     

Ten
     
    THE CROCODILE CREATURE had pulled its entire head above the edge of the well, its arms gripping the stone with webbed, long-fingered hands that were a cross between crocodile and human hands. Like a cat at night, its eyes mirrored the light with a blazing sheen. Though its great, toothy jaws were not moving, it was making a series of hissing, whistling sounds; as he watched more closely, Mark saw its nostrils fluttering around each airy syllable.
     
    Almost forgetting to breathe himself, Mark finally pulled his senses together enough to whisper, "Is it talking?" As he heard his own sounds blend with the creature's, he realized what little difference lay between their speech.
     
    "I-I think so," Tatiana whispered back, obviously noticing the same thing. "Should we, um, what should we do?"
     
    Before he could respond, a subtle but distinct snap came from the camera as Tatiana overcame her own shock enough to remember the remote in her hand. Instantly, the creature went silent, its albino eyes glinting huge. Every muscle freezing at once, Mark wondered why it had not occurred to him earlier that, speaking or not, this was still a creature with a fang-filled deathtrap that could crush his torso in one bite. How far away would they need to be to outrun it?
     
    As soon as the question entered his mind, the creature lunged entirely out of the water with a thrash of its giant tail. Mark and Tatiana scrambled their feet under them, slipping on the worn cobblestones. Flinging himself backwards, Mark stumbled and slammed his elbow on a rock; an electric jolt of numbness temporarily paralyzed his arm. The creature's force was so great it nearly flew towards them, and Mark knew they could never possibly outrun this thing, even if they had been much farther back. Instinctively, he threw his uninjured arm over his head and waited for the inevitable snapping of his bones. He heard Tatiana shout his name, but his body was too panicked to move.
     
    Instead, he heard a metallic crash and plastic splintering nearby, and looked up to see the camera smash on the ground. The creature stopped, cracked open its jaws, and unleashed a shrill, gurgling screech that drained the blood from Mark's head. Then, with a grace that seemed preposterous for such a large body, it swung around and ran towards the far edge of the courtyard, all four legs swiveling swiftly underneath it like a dog or a cat. Except, instead of moving its pairs of front and back legs together, it moved its side legs together, so that it was both galloping and slithering in a hypnotic S-curve. In the space of a thought, it was beyond the reach of the lights.
     
    "Hurry!" Tatiana ran up to Mark and pulled him to his feet. Grabbing her backpack and throwing it around her shoulders as she went, she ran after the creature, calling back to Mark, "We've gotta catch