Children of the Dark

by Jonathan Janz

  Instinctively, I followed her gaze, and though I didn’t see anything scary, I did notice the way the brush and low-hanging pine boughs were stirring.

  Something had just vacated the edge of the woods.

  Something big.

  I said, “You don’t think it was Brad and Kurt, do you?” and immediately regretted it. I was admitting how scared of them I was, how much I’d worried they’d come along and discover us here in the creek.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. It didn’t…” She trailed off, and I realized with further alarm that she was trembling wildly. I pulled her closer, but though our bodies were pressed together in the water, I’m happy to report that my only thought was of calming her down.

  Okay, most of my thoughts were on calming her down.

  “What did you see?” I asked.

  She shivered. “It was a face…I mean, it was shaped like a person’s…but it wasn’t. The eyes were as big as softballs. Only they were green. Almost like they were glowing.”

  I tried but failed to keep the dubious note from my voice. “You saw a creature with giant, glowing green eyes?”

  She looked at me desperately. “I know how dumb it sounds, but I saw it. Him. Whatever it was. He had—” She gestured toward her face. “—this terrible leer. The teeth were long. Like knives, only curved. And the skin…it was completely white. Like something that lived underground.”

  Despite my desire to appear tough, Mia’s words had an effect on me. I eyed the forest uneasily. “Maybe we should—”

  “What’s going on over there?” a voice called.

  We turned and discovered Kylie Ann striding forward through the water.

  She made a disgusted face. “You’re not, like, kissing him are you?”

  Almost, I wanted to say. If I weren’t a spineless loser.

  “Mia,” Kylie Ann said. “What about Brad?”

  For the first time Mia looked worried about something other than pale creatures leering from the forest. “I…”

  “She saw something, okay?” I said, my arms tightening around her. “Just take it easy.”

  Kylie Ann looked at me disdainfully. “Brad would totally kick your ass.”

  “Maybe you want us to break up,” Mia said.

  Whatever good spirits I had began to wither. Were Mia and Kylie Ann actually fighting over Brad Ralston? After what had happened between Mia and me?

  “I could care less about you and Brad,” Kylie Ann said, and she turned to wade back to shore. I watched after her sourly and considered correcting her grammar—it wasn’t could care less, it was couldn’t care less. It was an error that always irked me. But then Mia broke away from me and moved swiftly toward the bank.

  Glumly, I followed.

  When we rejoined the others, Mia was explaining to Rebecca and Chris what she’d seen.

  They looked perplexed, but not particularly frightened.

  It wasn’t until we were making our way back to Rebecca’s that I noticed the way Barley had paled.

  “You feel all right, man?” I asked. “You’re even whiter than usual.”

  “Uh-uh,” Barley said. He looked like he was about to refund whatever he’d eaten for dinner.

  “Was it what Mia said?” I asked. “The face in the woods?”

  “Not now,” Barley said, moving quickly ahead of me. “I don’t want to talk about that now.”

  And with a last glance behind me, I hustled after him.

  I didn’t want to be alone with whatever Mia had seen.

  ¨

  As we approached the Ralstons’ house, Rebecca fell behind a little, her brow furrowed.

  “What is it?” Chris asked. I noticed he touched her elbow as he said it. She didn’t seem to mind.

  “All the lights are on,” she said.

  I turned and realized she was right.

  Mia was watching her friend, concerned. “I thought Brad was staying at Kurt’s tonight.”

  Rebecca shook her head, began striding briskly down the road. “He was supposed to, but his truck’s in the driveway.”

  Well, hell, I thought. This isn’t going to be pretty.

  Kylie Ann’s tone was scathing. “Maybe they decided they couldn’t trust you two.”

  “Shut up,” Rebecca muttered.

  When we neared the house, she started to jog.

  “You want me to come with you?” Chris asked.

  “I think that’s a bad idea,” Mia said.

  Chris frowned at her, but then we both followed her gaze and spotted the shapes inside the kitchen window.

  One of them belonged to Kurt.

  Son of a bitch, I thought. It would be nice, I reflected, to go twenty-four hours without engaging in some sort of conflict with Kurt or Brad.

  But if Kurt discovered us out here, I knew I wouldn’t get my wish.

  You think that’s bad? the sarcastic voice in my head spoke up. What happens when Kylie Ann tells Brad about your embrace with Mia?

  I was comforting her! I protested.

  Not at first, the voice persisted. At first you were putting her hand on your hip and gazing deeply into each other’s eyes.

  I sighed, wishing I could relive that moment. What a coward. How could I have missed my chance to kiss her?

  As we waited for Rebecca to return, Barley sidled up next to Kylie Ann. “Are you a gamer? Like first-person shooters or open world games?”

  She looked at him like he’d vomited on her bare feet.

  “I ask that,” Barley said, his voice unsteady, “because you’ve got the hands for it.”

  She made a face. “You’re telling me I have…gaming hands?”

  Barley cleared his throat, gestured weakly. “Well, yeah. I mean…your fingers are long and spidery and—”

  Kylie Ann grimaced. “Eww. Spidery?”

  “Not furry or anything, not like a tarantula. More like a daddy long legs. Long and slender and sort of…”

  Barley trailed off, looking like he was about to asphyxiate.

  He was saved by the opening of the back door. Rebecca emerged, and before the door could wheeze shut, three more figures followed.

  One was a nasty surprise: Eric Blades. The only facts I knew of him were these: He was going to be a senior. His dad was the superintendent of our school system. And he was rumored to be the biggest druggie in Shadeland High.

  The other two were Brad Ralston and Kurt Fisher. Of course.

  Eric Blades grinned his cocky grin. “Hey, Kylie Ann. I missed you, girl.”

  It was like Kylie Ann had transformed into a different person. She looked up at Eric Blades shyly, clasped her hands before her. “Hey, Eric.”

  “I thought we told you to stay away from our girlfriends,” Brad said, his biceps popping. “I guess you guys don’t value your health very much.”

  “You touch them,” Rebecca said, “and I’ll tell mom why the liquor cabinet keeps running low.”

  Brad glowered at his kid sister. “How about you shut the fuck up? You’re already in enough trouble.”

  And looking at Brad and Rebecca standing there together, glaring at each other with palpable loathing, I recalled what had happened three years earlier, something so awful I guess I’d blocked it out.

  The Ralstons were a lot like Chris’s parents. Affluent. Superior. More into their country club friends than their kids. Which meant that Brad and Rebecca had often been charged with taking care of Emmylou, their young sister. Rebecca’s dad was evidently a big country music fan, and the story went that since Rebecca’s mom had gotten her way in naming Brad and Rebecca, Rebecca’s dad got to choose their last child’s name. To no one’s surprise he’d named her after a country singer, someone named Emmylou Harris. I’d never heard of her before. Then again, I bet her songs weren’t auto tuned, which had to count for something.

  The Ralstons often made Brad and Rebecca babysit Emmylou back when Brad was in junior high and Rebecca still in grade school. Emmylou was three-years-old when it happened, but
looking back, it’s sort of amazing that it didn’t happen earlier.

  Because Brad was never into watching his baby sister.

  He’d tell his folks he watched her, but that was because he wanted the babysitting money. Part of me wants to hate Brad for this, but to be fair to him, he was only thirteen when this happened. He was sort of a bully before the incident with the play set, but afterward he became a terror.

  And Rebecca…her I blame even less. She was a fifth-grader at the time, just eleven. And she was the one who put the most effort into minding Emmylou, though she was a pretty uninterested sitter as well. She was more concerned with Skyping her friends and playing games on the computer than she was in making sure Emmylou wasn’t in danger.

  But of course Emmylou was. No one is sure how long Emmylou had been outside by herself that frigid March afternoon, her parents having gone to Indianapolis for a fancy dinner, Brad and Rebecca left as usual to babysit. But whatever the case, the last anyone saw her alive, she was messing around with a rope in the upper section of their play set. The game had something to do with hoisting a small tin bucket of sand from her sandbox to the second story of the play set and then watching the sand pour through the play set boards.

  When Rebecca went to check on Emmylou, she found her baby sister dangling from the upper section of the play set, the girl having lost her balance and gotten tangled up in the rope. The rope had strangled her. Emmylou was unresponsive when the paramedics arrived.

  I couldn’t begin to imagine how horrible Rebecca felt then, and I could tell it still haunted her. Where before she was nice enough but mostly a typical kid, after the accident she’d become excessively kind to everyone, especially young children. Many afternoons found her at Purple Turtle, the local daycare center, playing with the kids and sometimes reading them stories. Rebecca never played any sports because she claimed they would interfere with her Purple Turtle time.

  And I don’t think it was simply an attempt to atone for her mistake, though there was certainly some of that in Rebecca’s volunteering. No, I think it was the fragility of life that compelled Rebecca to volunteer, to get the little ones to understand that it wasn’t worth it to take chances.

  As you might expect, Rebecca also doted on Peach. And since so few people cherished my little sister the way I thought she deserved, I welcomed Rebecca’s doting.

  Brad, however…Brad’s reaction to his baby sister’s death had been decidedly unhealthy. Where before Brad was just sort of mean, he became incorrigible after Emmylou’s death. Rather than simply threatening to hit other kids, he began to make good on his threats. On some level I knew that his bullying could be traced to the pain he felt over the accident, and when I remembered this, I actually felt sorry for him. It was on his shoulders that most of the blame was placed—by his mother, by his peers, maybe even by himself—and that sort of thing would be emotionally shattering for anyone. But it was almost like, in hurting others, Brad was lashing out at himself for ignoring Emmylou. Of course, I’m no psychiatrist, so I might be totally off base. But there’s no denying that Brad became a different person after his baby sister died, and the person he became was a major downgrade from the mildly irritating kid he had been.

  Then again, when Brad acted the way he was acting tonight, it was a lot harder to feel sorry for him.

  I realized that Rebecca was close to tears.

  Mia moved up next to her. “Becca? What’s wrong?”

  She wiped her eyes. “We better get inside.”

  Eric Blades stepped up between Brad and Kurt and grinned at us. “And you three pussies better get home.”

  Barley said, “I’m surprised you didn’t offer to sell us drugs.”

  Eric’s grin vanished. “What’s your name?”

  I admired the way Barley held his ground. “Dale Marley,” he said, standing up a little straighter.

  Blades stepped closer. I was surprised by how tall he was, about the same height as Brad. Blades’s arms were bigger than I remembered too.

  “You know who I am?” Blades asked Barley.

  “I know you were gonna get sent to juvenile prison until your dad made a few phone calls.”

  Blades’s dark eyes widened. “Who told you that?”

  Barley hesitated. “My dad.”

  Kurt moved up beside Blades. “They own the gas station up on Washington Street. You know, the one nobody ever goes to?”

  I winced. Though I hated to admit it, Kurt was right. People rarely did visit The Hilltop, the Marleys’ store. I bought slushies from there sometimes just because I hated the thought of Barley’s dad sitting on his stool all day in an empty store.

  I said to Kurt, “Not everybody’s dad can defend child molesters and rapists.”

  Everyone froze. What I’d said was true enough—Kurt Fisher’s father, Kurt Senior—was a well-known defense attorney who’d made a name for himself defending clients of dubious morality. And getting them acquitted, no matter how guilty they were.

  But to actually say that, to spit the ugly truth right into Kurt’s smarmy face…I felt like I’d slathered myself in honey and run screaming into a bee farm.

  “You’re such a dick,” Kylie Ann said to me.

  Kurt’s teeth shone in a feral grin. “It’s okay, Kylie Ann. I like it when a pussy like Burgess tries to act tough.”

  “Actually,” Kylie Ann said, “it’s not okay.” She turned to Mia and Rebecca. “Why don’t you tell your boyfriends about what happened in the creek?”

  Brad and Kurt looked at Mia and Rebecca. Then the boys looked at us. Blades was stepping toward Barley, who wore a look of abject terror. I couldn’t blame him. Within moments all three of us were going to be reduced to a puddle of meaty pulp.

  Rebecca clenched her fists, half-screamed, “Will you just stop it? For once?”

  Everyone paused.

  “Rebecca?” Chris said. “What’s going on?”

  Brad blurted out, “She’s freaked out because Carl Padgett escaped.”

  I’m afraid my mouth fell open.

  Eric Blades waggled his eyebrows in a way that struck me as wildly inappropriate, given the situation. “The Moonlight Killer is gonna strike again.”

  “Jesus,” Chris muttered.

  “That’s why my parents are so mad at me,” Rebecca explained. She shook her head, sniffling. “They said we put ourselves in danger by sneaking out. They’ve been so paranoid ever since…”

  Mercifully, she didn’t finish. We all knew why the Ralstons were so paranoid. Who wouldn’t be after losing a child?

  Barley stepped forward. “He’s not coming here though, is he? Padgett’s not coming to Shadeland?”

  “Could be,” Blades said, his voice dark with ghoulish glee. “They said he was heading south.”

  “I gotta go,” I said, already moving toward my bike.

  Kurt called after me, “Don’t worry, Burgess. Your mom’s too stoned to make much of a victim. There wouldn’t be enough sport in it for Padgett.”

  Loud guffaws followed this, both Blades and Brad Ralston chortling as though my mom’s addiction to prescription drugs was the funniest thing in the world. I heard Mia snapping at them to stop laughing, but her defense of me barely registered.

  Because Peach might have heard the news. She would be terrified.

  Or worse.

  No, I told myself. Don’t even think that. There’s no way Padgett would randomly choose your house. There’s no way something that awful could happen.

  Yet I found myself pounding toward my bike. Brad, Kurt, and Eric taunted me, but I hardly heard them. The only thing I could hear was Peach begging me to stay with her, the way she always did when I tried to leave the house.

  It was Peach’s voice that trailed after me as I pedaled down the dark road toward home.

  Chapter Four

  Mom’s Wrath and the Wendigo

  Peach was indeed awake when I burst through the front door, and she had indeed been crying. She practically threw herself into my a
rms, and though this would have ordinarily made me feel either flattered or annoyed—Peach could be awfully clingy sometimes—in this circumstance I experienced nothing but guilt. Painful, deep, soul-scratching guilt.

  She was whimpering something about me being in trouble.

  Despite myself, I smiled a little at the notion of my little sister punishing me. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll serve you breakfast in bed for a week.”

  She pulled away and craned her head up at me. A yellowish string of snot drooped from her nose to the front of my shirt.

  “Not me, silly,” she said. “Trouble with Mom.”

  I frowned, snatched some tissues from the box, wiped off my shirt and then Peach’s face. “What’s wrong with Mom?” I asked. In my frantic rush to get back to the house, I’d forgotten all about my mother.

  “She’s really mad at you for sneaking out,” Peach explained. “She’s been on the phone the whole time.”

  I know I should have felt more guilt about this, but the only emotions Peach’s words enkindled in me were anger and resentment. Who the hell was my mom to be furious with me over not being here? I was the one who’d put Peach to bed. I was the one who’d made sure she brushed her teeth and had her pajamas on right side out and had a glass of water on her bedside table so she wouldn’t wake up and lie there thirsty in the middle of the night.

  So I had snuck out once without telling anybody about it. So what? It was just bad luck that my duplicity happened to coincide with a serial killer’s escape.

  At thought of Carl Padgett, my mind returned to Peach. How much did she know? Surely my mom wouldn’t have been dumb enough to tell her about that.

  I had to tread carefully.

  Walking her over to the couch and sitting beside her, I said, “What woke you up?”

  She stared at me, eyes wide with the kind of solemn terror only a six-year-old can muster. “Mom was watching the news. I heard her scream.”

  Ordinarily, I would’ve taken this as an exaggeration, but the fact was, my mom was a habitual over-reactor. I could easily imagine her freaking out when she saw the news report about Padgett.

  “What did you do then?” I asked Peach.