Infested (Fear) - Softcover

Colón, Angel Luis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1665928425 ISBN 13: 9781665928427

Verlag: MTV Books, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

“A thrilling, I-can’t-stop-reading page-turner. If Infested doesn’t make your skin crawl, check your pulse.” —Paul Tremblay, bestselling author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts

There’s something in the dark…watching…waiting…in this pulse-pounding young adult horror novel set in a luxury condo building haunted by a ghost with a power unlike you’ve ever seen.

Manny Rivera has just moved from Texas to the Bronx in New York. The summer before senior year should be all about hanging with his friends and making some spending money, but instead, Manny is forced to do menial tasks in his new home, a luxury condo his stepdad is managing.

Thankfully, he meets Sasha, a girl his age. Sure, she’s protesting the building, but she still turns out to be really cool. And he strikes up an unlikely friendship with Mr. Mueller, the building’s exterminator. Maybe life in the Bronx won’t be so bad.

Then the nightmares begin. And Manny swears there are cockroaches crawling everywhere…even under his skin. When building contractors start to go missing, Manny and Sasha come to the terrifying realization that Mr. Mueller is not who he says he is. Or rather, he is, but he died decades ago in a fire exactly where Manny’s new building is located. A fire that Mueller set.

Now, in a race against time, Manny must rescue his family from a deranged ghost determined to set the Bronx ablaze once again.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Angel Luis Colón is the Derringer Award– and Anthony Award–nominated author of Hell Chose Me, the Blacky Jaguar series of novellas, No Happy Endings, and the short story collection Meat City on Fire and Other Assorted Debacles. His work has also appeared in multiple web and print publications including Thuglit, Literary Orphans, and Great Jones Street. Infested is his debut young adult novel. For more information, visit him at AngelLuisColon.com.

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Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1
I CAN’T REMEMBER A TIME I hated my mother and my stepfather more than the summer before my senior year.

And it wasn’t that normal kind of Oh man, these people don’t understand me bad Disney movie kind of throwback hate. This was mortal-enemy-level hate. It was deep and pitch-black and enough to make me nearly consider getting into death metal.

While I knew I’d change my mind as the emotions scarred over, the laundry list of offenses was too much to bear.

It wasn’t enough that she took my car. Not enough that I couldn’t see my friends over the summer either—I mean, I didn’t have a lot of friends, but still. No, my mother had to choose my very last summer before senior year—the most important year of high school—to hoist an enormous piece of life-shattering news over my head; six little words annihilating all hopes of a decent summer.

“We are moving to the Bronx.”

She said it as if she were telling me about what she had for lunch. Like it wasn’t a big deal at all, just another enormous change less than eight months after the 7 lb. 4 oz. change that was sleeping in her bassinet next to me showed up. At least I was initially excited about the baby. Did I realize what else came with said baby? No. But at least before she was born, I had the gift of blissful ignorance. This was a straight baseball bat to the face.

And it wasn’t like we hadn’t moved before. We moved all the time. My stepfather Al’s job demanded we did. Since I was ten, we’d moved seven times, and I’d gone to seven different private schools. This, though? The Bronx? Before, we’d only ever moved within San Antonio. And we’d been in our current apartment for eighteen months, and I’d convinced myself that things were finally stable. I’d even made a friend in Clarissa—the only other Puerto Rican in my class. It wasn’t like anybody really cared that we were Puerto Rican. I mean, most of the time they didn’t think we were since we looked white, but it felt nice to know there was at least one other “secret” Puerto Rican like me in class.

But yet another move, and this one across the country?

“Well?” she asked with exasperated motherly expectation. From the look in her eye, that stare filled with embers, each waiting to burst to life, there was only one right answer.

Problem was, I didn’t have it for her. I mean, how was I supposed to react? Moving from San Antonio to the Bronx? It was like she wanted my life to be in constant chaos. I only had one year left in high school, and then I’d be out of her hair. A perfect time to go anywhere in the world she wanted with a fresh baby and one less mouth to feed. I mean, come on. The Bronx? Seriously? It felt like she and my stepfather got high and brainstormed ways to make me miserable. I imagined them taking a big old toke and laughing like kindergartners every time they imagined something else to throw my way.

We are moving to the Bronx.

The “we” in that equation did not include me. Before Al, I was totally a part of that “we,” but as soon as he entered our lives, everything changed. I got demoted. Al and Mom made me feel like I was lucky to be taken care of, and Al, especially, expected me to be grateful I was allowed to stay in the house. Couldn’t they have asked me if I wanted to move? Fine, they had an adult conversation, great, but couldn’t they come to me after and let me be a part of the life-changing decision? Couldn’t they show me the slightest bit of respect?

My mother used to be my best friend. That changed as soon as she fulfilled her crusade to find me a father—which I never asked for. Then she gave me a sibling, which was something else I never asked for, but I was happier to take the sister than keep the stepfather. Baby Grace was the only reason I liked living with Mom and Al. She was cute, and it felt nice to take care of her.

Mom, though—she changed. It didn’t feel like she was quite ready to raise a kid from the start all over again. She pretended she was, sure, but she’d had my grandparents to help raise me. I missed them then. They wouldn’t have let her mess with my life this way. They wouldn’t have let her take me from home right before my last year of high school to chase whatever new moneymaking scheme my stepfather had lined up, one that was going to blow up in his face because they always blew up in his face. If they were around, I’d have had a place to stay. Wouldn’t have mattered if Al, Mom, and Gracie moved to the other side of the world.

“I’m not moving there.” I said it with a little bit of a laugh and half a smile, so that I could fall back on it being a joke if she decided to whup my ass. But there was also enough attitude for her to know I was, in fact, serious. It was a delicate equation, and one I thought I’d perfected over the years, if I said so myself. “I can stay with Clarissa, or I can go with David and Belen.”

“Ay, Clarissa is barely a friend.” My mother arched an eyebrow. “And the Acostas? When was the last time we even spoke to them?”

“They’re my godparents.”

“They were your father’s friends, not mine. And they’re nowhere near your school.”

I grunted. “Whatever. I’ll get my car fixed. It doesn’t make sense to leave here so close to graduation.”

My mother stared at me blankly. “Your car?” And then she smirked. I wished she hadn’t smirked. I wished she did anything—anything—to stop me from hating her. But it felt like she was determined, somehow, to keep pushing me further away. “Y quien te hizo a pensar that was going to happen?”

“It’s my car. I pay the insurance on it, and I keep up the repairs.”

Mom pointed at me. “And you are the jodón who crashed it driving around your drunk friends. Or did you forget that?” She sneered. “And you realize that insurance premium is going to go up, don’t you? Can you pay for that?”

“I didn’t forget anything,” I said. “I’ve been applying for jobs so I can handle the extra cost of the car, by the way.” I hated talking about the damn accident. Nobody was hurt. Only damage was a dinged-up passenger-side door. Scratched, mostly. Bumper was a wash. Not that any of that mattered; all my mom cared about was that I screwed up. It was a new needle for her to drive into me every time she wanted to dominate the conversation.

“Ay, anyway, on top of all that”—she steamrolled ahead, not deigning to stop and acknowledge what I’d said—“estabas borracho también. Driving under the influence like one of your moron friends.”

“I have told you this a hundred times. I wasn’t drunk,” I said. “I didn’t even drink a whole beer. The cops even said I didn’t register on the stupid Breathalyzer.”

“Oh, I see. So, you’re just a careless driver, then? You don’t take it seriously enough when you’re driving other young people around to not nearly kill yourself and everyone in the car?” Mom was instigating, the way she...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: MTV Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1665928425
• ISBN 13: 9781665928427
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande