The Secret Hour (Midnighters #1)

15-year-old Jessica Day moves with her family to Bixby, Oklahoma after her mother gets a job offer at a high-tech aerospace company. Soon after the move, Jessica awakens to find time frozen, rain stopped in mid air. Although she thinks it is a dream, she is suspicious when she wakes to find her clothes wet. The next night, it happens again; leaving her room, she finds that her family is frozen, and the only other living thing is a cat, which leads her out of her house before transforming into a snake, revealing that it is really a slither and, with the help of more snakes that are also called slithers, and a darkling in the form large cat, attack her. Jessica is rescued by the "Midnighters": Dess, Rex and Melissa, who chase away the animals using thirteen letter words and steel.