“Their bidding?” Jamal said.
“Yeah, they’re probably after that necklace,” Riley said. “We have to get to my grandmother’s hut. She can protect us…or at least…I hope so.”
Branches smacked his cheeks as they sprinted through the thick trees, but this time Jamal didn’t care. The dolls chased them, cutting through the underbrush. He could hear the rustling and splashing of their tiny feet. Shadows also reached out as if to snare them in their sharp claws.
Jamal waved the skull necklace around, the reddish light warding off the shadow monsters and protecting them as they fled through the marsh.
Suddenly, he felt something snare his ankle.
He glanced down. It was the one of the dolls.
It had its fingers latched around his leg. Its face, stitched from crude fabric, stared up at him. The button eyes looked empty. It stopped his blood cold.
“Get off me!” Jamal kicked hard, but the doll held on.
Then another doll leapt out of the cypress trees, landing on his shoulders. It scrambled for his neck, reaching toward the skull necklace.
The necklace flared brighter in response.
But the doll wasn’t affected by the light like the shadow monsters. The thing snagged the necklace and pulled it, strangling Jamal with the chain. More dolls leapt at him, latching on to his legs, his arms, his torso, his neck. They kept jumping out of the trees at him.
“No, help me—” he yelled.
Smack!
Suddenly, a branch whacked the first doll on his neck, sending it flying.
“Didn’t you hear him?” Riley snarled. “He said…get off!”
She clutched the branch like a baseball bat, knocking the dolls off him. Then she grabbed his hand, and again they set off, running through the bayou. But the dolls chased them. Their tiny feet rustled the underbrush all around them. The dolls were almost impossibly fast.
“Hurry, this way,” Riley called out, pulling Jamal deeper into the swamp. They splashed forward and waded up to their waists in the standing water.
Jamal glanced around for his brother. “Malik, where are you?”
There was no answer. Fear rushed through him like ice water.
Riley glanced back at him. The reddish light from the skull necklace washed over her face. Terror lit up her eyes. “Listen, we have to swim,” she hissed. “It’s the only way to lose them.”
Jamal plunged deeper into the water and swam after her, trying not to think about the poisonous snakes and other creatures lurking all around them. The skull necklace lit their way.
“Watch out, Little J!” Malik rasped behind Jamal.
Suddenly, two red eyes, glowing like embers, lit up in the black water.
Then another set of red eyes.
And another.
“Uh…w-what’re those?” Jamal stammered, pointing to them.
Then he saw their jaws crack open in the water. They were filled with rows of sharp teeth. They gnashed and snapped at the air hungrily.
“Oh, no…gators!” Riley yelped.
“But why’re their eyes glowing?” Jamal asked.
“They must be bewitched…by the shadow man’s friends on the other side….” Riley coughed, sputtering on water. “That tree…over there…we have to get to it!”