by Josh Allen
Janet didn’t say anything.
Malia pointed at the stain. “This thing is ours, Janet,” she said. “We can’t have it removed or wiped out. We have to take care of it.”
“But we don’t know anything about it,” Janet whispered. “We don’t know what it is. We don’t know where it came from. We don’t even know if it’s safe. If that thing really is a mouth, then where is the rest of it, Malia? Where?”
That was a good point. Where was the rest of the stain? The rest of its body? And where had the dimes and stick of gum gone? A hint of worry, like a slow-rising moon, crept up in Malia’s chest.
But she swallowed it down.
“That doesn’t matter,” Malia said. “It’s safe. I can prove it.”
Malia reached into her lunch bag and pulled out her turkey sandwich. She knelt, holding her sandwich out. After a second, she let go. The sandwich hit the stain with a hiss. Then it tumbled down, down, down.
Malia waited, but nothing happened.
“See,” she said. “No problem.”
Without answering and without even picking up her dropped milk, Janet walked away. Malia grabbed the milk and followed, barely noticing when Janet bumped into Reggie Perkins on her way to the lunch table.
* * *
Whoa, Malia thought when she saw the stain the next day. That thing must have loved my turkey sandwich.
Because it was no longer the size of Malia’s head.
It had grown to the size of a small table, filling the cafeteria corner. Its spikes had become jagged and sharp.
Twenty feet from the stain, Malia put a hand on Janet’s shoulder. Other kids had begun to notice the spot, too.
“What’s that?” Malia heard Reggie Perkins say.
“Totally weird,” said Marissa Clyde.
“I’m not going anywhere near that thing,” said Adrian Wingham, and the other kids in the gathering crowd must have agreed because they were standing far back.
Malia pushed past them and walked closer.
“I’m getting a teacher,” Janet said. Before Malia could answer, Janet turned and ran, her feet making hard slaps on the tile floor.
“Janet, no,” Malia called. But it was no use. Janet was off, bumping into kids like a pinball in a chute, her clumsy arms flailing.
Malia moved closer to the stain. It wasn’t, she realized, a stain anymore. Now it was more of a…Thing. A giant, spiky Thing.
“Gross,” said Mikayla Wood back with the gawking kids.
Malia hunched down. She could feel the other kids watching her, wondering.
Sure, this Thing—whatever it was—looked strange. But what had it done wrong? Eaten a few dimes, a stick of gum, and a turkey sandwich? Should they really punish it for that? Get rid of it?
Still, Malia knew that since other kids had now discovered it, there was nothing she could do. Soon Janet would return with Principal Khan or Janitor Jake or somebody, and that would be that. They’d call important people, men in black suits and women in pencil skirts, probably, and they’d close the school and find some way to kill it.
Yes, Malia realized. That was what they would do to the Thing.
They’d kill it.
“I’m sorry,” Malia said to it. It was the first time she’d spoken to the Thing. “I think something bad is about to happen.” The kids behind her fell quiet.
She scooted closer to the Thing, right to its edge, and she leaned forward. She peered deep into it, wondering whether the sandwich, the stick of gum, and the dimes were still in there somewhere, falling down, down, down.
“It’s over here,” Janet cried behind her. “It’s been growing, and it’s got teeth, and Malia’s been feeding it. It’s getting bigger every day.”
“Slow down,” someone called, and Malia thought she recognized the voice of Mr. Perez, the Biology teacher.
Then she felt something familiar—a hard bump, a crash against her back—her eternally klutzy best friend banging into her like she had a million times that year. Hunching over the spiky mouth, Malia started to tip forward. She reached back for help. But next to her, Janet stumbled and wobbled at the Thing’s edge. Both girls waved their arms in tiny circles. Malia tried to right herself, to get her balance. But it was no use.
She fell.
Next to her, so did Janet.
And they went down, down, down.
DAUNTE Coleman saw the devil on his walk to school one October morning.
The Father of All Evil was standing there, half a block up the road, red-skinned and surprisingly thin. He was leaning against the street sign at the corner of Gilbert Drive and Chestnut Way, just hanging out, holding his flame-tipped pitchfork.
No way, Daunte thought, a thrill rising in his chest. The actual devil.
Daunte had seen a lot of movies about the devil. His favorite was Send It to the Underworld, but he also liked The Devil and Marty McDuffin and If Heaven Can’t Have You.
But this was something else. The devil in flesh and blood.
Awesome, Daunte thought.
He smoothed his black T-shirt. He took a few steps closer. Ollie Finker and Jess Whitcomb, the kids he sat with at lunch, were going to freak when they heard. What if Daunte could talk to the actual devil? Could chat for just a few minutes with the Great and Terrible Beast himself? That’d drive Ollie and Jess nuts. He could almost see the looks on their faces when he told them about how he’d asked the devil if Hell really smelled like rotten eggs and how many people exactly were burning in it right then. Simply thinking about it made Daunte’s heart beat a little harder.
But up ahead, something about the living, breathing devil wasn’t quite right.
At the street sign, the devil cocked his horned head and sighed heavily. He scuffled his forked hooves lazily at the sidewalk, pushing around fallen October leaves. He dangled his pitchfork loosely in one hand.
Daunte walked closer, and the devil picked at his fingernails. Only they weren’t fingernails, Daunte realized. They were more like claws…or talons.
I’m gonna do it, Daunte told himself. I’m gonna march right up to the devil and have a chat.
He took a few hurried steps. Other kids, he knew, would have acted differently if they’d seen the devil. They would have lost it. Or run away. Or cried. But Daunte wasn’t other kids, he told himself. He was Daunte Coleman. He’d known all the words to the heavy metal song “Dark Eyes of the Devil” since he was nine.
And now the King of Flames himself stood before him bathed in foggy morning light. Daunte picked up his pace.
Still, despite all the movies Daunte had seen and all the screaming music he’d listened to, something about the real devil—his sighing, his leaning, his hoof shuffling—seemed…out of place. Wrong, even. Sure, the devil had massive coiling horns and a flaming pitchfork and leathery red skin, just like Daunte had hoped. But instead of looking menacing or horrific or more ominous than death itself, the devil looked, well, tired. And a bit distracted.
And…bored.
Yes, Daunte realized. The devil looked very, very bored.
Up ahead, the devil shifted his weight from one hoof to the other, and Daunte slapped his combat boots hard on the sidewalk as he walked, hoping to get the devil’s attention.
The Demon of the Bottomless Pit didn’t even look up. He just stayed there, dangling his pitchfork loosely at his side and lazily picking his claws…though they might have been pincers…or hooks.
As he walked closer, Daunte cleared his throat, deep and rough.
Nothing happened.
It was like Daunte didn’t even exist, like Satan didn’t care at all about the lone sixth grader swaggering up to him.
Daunte’s cheeks grew hot. After all the pitchfork drawings he’d made in his notebook margins, he thought he deserved at least a little respect from the Commander of All Beasts.
But the devil must have disagreed because he was still just scuffing his hooves on the sidewalk, pushing fallen leaves this way and that.
Daunte threw back his shoulders. He counted the sidewalk lines between him and the Creature of the Deep—six, five, four.
When he was two sidewalk squares away, he spoke.
“Good morning, Mr. Lucifer, sir,” he said. Daunte had never called anyone sir before. But the devil, he figured, would like it.
The devil didn’t answer. He twirled his pitchfork slowly and chewed lightly on his…whatever those things were on the ends of his hands.
“Good morning, Mr. Lucifer, sir,” Daunte tried again, louder.
Finally the devil shifted. His eyes shone black, with no whites in them, and they glistened like wet tar. Daunte couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like the devil kind of rolled them.
“Whatever, kid,” the devil said.
Daunte flexed his shoulders beneath his black T-shirt.
Everything was wrong. Totally wrong. Daunte’d expected the devil to chant a curse in an ancient language like Latin or Sanskrit. Or to at least let loose an earthquake-inducing roar.
Where, Daunte wondered, was the Satanic Rage? The Terror of Ultimate Evil? The awesomeness? Even the devil’s voice, which Daunte had thought would be full of raspy, deep growls that echoed with the Doom of Eternities, seemed wrong. He’d thought the devil’s voice would shake the ground and set car alarms blaring. But his voice was soft and high-pitched—not rough and demonic—and it was subtly accented, like the devil was from Vermont or Massachusetts or somewhere in New England.
The Ruler of All Demons shooed Daunte along with his pitchfork and sneered. It was a sneer that said, Run along, kid. You’re bothering me.
But running along was the last thing on Daunte’s mind.
This was his chance—his one chance—to meet the devil. Besides, he’d seen something in the devil’s sneer that finally made sense—something that made goose bumps rise on his arms.
The devil’s teeth. They were made of fire.
Each tooth was a tiny pointed flame, about the size of a candle flame, and in all the movies Daunte had ever watched, he’d never seen anything like those teeth.
Flaming teeth, Daunte thought. Now that’s what I’m talking about. The hair on his neck prickled.
“I have questions for you, O Speaker of Darkness, sir,” Daunte said.
The devil closed his eyes and breathed out a long, hissing sigh. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said. He let his dangling pitchfork swing loosely in his hand. Its flaming tips scraped the sidewalk and made dark scorch marks on the concrete that hissed and smoked.
Daunte leaned in as the scorch marks sizzled and died.
“That’s more like it,” he said quietly. Above him, the devil shook his head, and one of his coiled horns clinked against the street sign’s metal pole. Daunte pointed at the sidewalk. “I behold your awesomeness, sir.”
“Oh, stop it,” the devil said. “Stop it with all the ‘awesome’ and ‘sir’ stuff, kid.”
“But—” Daunte said, and he didn’t know how to continue. This wasn’t going the way he’d hoped.
“Look, kid,” the devil said without looking at Daunte directly. “Believe it or not, I haven’t made the trip all the way from Hell today just to visit some pesky kid. I’m a pretty busy guy with an important job, okay? Can you understand that?” His voice rose, and his flaming teeth seemed to grow and stretch higher. He waggled his pitchfork in front of Daunte’s face. “I’ve got a big day ahead, and all I want out of the next five minutes is a bit of a break, all right? So it’s time for you to head to school and leave me in peace.”
With that, the devil stomped one hoof, and the school bell in the distance rang. Daunte was sure there were at least ten minutes left before school started, but there the bell was, ringing out over houses and trees.
“You made the school bell ring!” Daunte exclaimed, realizing he’d witnessed a moment of the devil’s power. “That was—” He was going to say awesome, but he stopped himself.
“It means you’re late,” the devil said, “so…” The devil pointed his pitchfork at the brown school building down the street.
But Daunte wasn’t ready to leave. Not yet. Not until more things started going like they were supposed to—like the flaming teeth and the early ringing bell. So Daunte folded his arms and planted his feet.
“Oh, come on,” the devil said, and his teeth flared. “Kid, what’s it going to take? How do I get rid of you?”
Daunte thought. There had to be something he could do to get the devil to act more…well…devilish.
“Three questions,” Daunte said. “Answer three of my questions, and I’ll leave.” Daunte wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask the devil, exactly, but with three questions he was sure he could pry out a few awesomely dark details.
The devil’s thin, pointed tail swished from side to side. He sighed. He twirled his pitchfork slowly, almost hypnotically. Daunte followed the flaming tips round and round.
“Fine,” the devil said. “Three questions. Then you beat it.”
Daunte couldn’t believe it. He’d been granted three questions—three questions to ask the Great Destroyer (who admittedly wasn’t exactly what Daunte’d expected, but still). Daunte pressed his lips together and rubbed his hands. He wanted to get his questions just right. He wanted them to reveal dark secrets.
“Question number one,” Daunte said.
Daunte stopped. He had a thought.
Could he trust the devil to answer his questions honestly? After all, he was dealing with the Father of Lies and Deception.
I’ll just have to hope, he told himself. He went on.
“What’s Hell like?” Daunte said, settling on his first question.
Daunte imagined Hell sometimes. He even tried to draw pictures of it occasionally, with boiling pools of oil everywhere and sizzling walkways.
“Hell is…” the devil said, and Daunte leaned close for the answer. He smelled a hint of burning hair coming off the devil. “…unpleasant.”
The devil stopped.
“What else?” Daunte said.
The devil shook his head. “That was my answer. Next question.”
“No way,” Daunte said. “You’ve got to tell me more than that. Is the real Hell like the Hell in Netherworld Lost, with lots of chains and steam? Or is it more like the Hell in Swelling Inferno, different for each person?”
“Are those your second and third questions?” the devil said.
“No!” Daunte blurted. “Don’t answer those.”
The devil gave a fiery smile. He was not making this easy.
For a few seconds, Daunte said nothing. He hooked his thumbs through his backpack straps and shifted it, feeling the weight of his stuff inside—the Algebra book he hadn’t opened in weeks, the Geography binder he also hadn’t touched in quite a while, and, in the bottom of his backpack, a pile of wrappers from candy bars he’d stolen from a group of fifth graders.
The flaming points of the devil’s pitchfork seemed to rise, and the devil spun the pitchfork a few times, casually.
“Let’s go,” the devil said. “I haven’t got all day.”
Daunte blinked hard and focused on the leathery skin of the devil’s hairless chest and how it seemed to glow even in the quiet morning light, and on the curve of the razored horns on top of the devil’s head, and also on the flaming teeth—especially the flaming teeth. Sure, the devil wasn’t everything Daunte had hoped for, but still, the flaming teeth were something.
As if he’d read Daunte’s mind, the devil opened his mouth wider and his teeth flamed higher. The tiny fires stretched, and a wave of heat washed over Daunte.
Did the flaming teeth burn the devil’s mouth, Daunte wondered. Did they cause him eternal agony? Now that would be truly awesome—et
ernal burning you could never escape. Awesome.
The devil flared his teeth once more, then snapped his mouth shut. “Is that what you wanted to see, kid?” the devil said. “Are you satisfied now? Will you move along?”
He brought his pitchfork down. He swung it like the pendulum of a clock and gestured with it at the school in the distance.
“You owe me two more questions,” Daunte said, not giving up. “So here’s question number two.” He wanted to see the devil’s teeth again, wanted to watch them flare and wave. “Your teeth…do they…”
But Daunte didn’t know how to finish.
“Do they burn?” the devil said, leaning down slightly. “Do they hurt?”
Daunte nodded.
“Nah,” the devil said. “They don’t hurt, kid.”
Daunte was slightly disappointed.
The devil scuffed the sidewalk with one hoof. “They used to,” he said, “but they don’t anymore. Once, they blistered my tongue and boiled my spit. But you get used to things, Daunte. Even in Hell. Next question.”
Daunte touched his own mouth and imagined a fire inside. And that’s when he realized something. The devil had called him by his name—not kid, but Daunte. The devil started picking his talons again.
“You know my name?” Daunte said.
The devil looked directly at him. For the first time, he looked Daunte in the eyes. It sent a chill down his neck.
“Of course I know your name,” the devil said slowly. “I know everything about you, Daunte Frederick Coleman. Everything.”
The devil swung his pitchfork back and forth like a hypnotist’s watch.
The Firstborn of Sin said my name, Daunte thought, and for a second this made him proud. His heart pounded. Ollie and Jess would never believe it. Never.
But then something changed. Daunte felt an uneasy itching swell up in his throat. This new feeling scratched and burned, just a little, and it seemed to come from Daunte’s stomach.
The feeling had something to do with the devil saying his name—his full name—out loud.
The devil smiled, baring his flaming teeth.