Children of the Dark

by Jonathan Janz

  I could hardly bear the smug look on Padgett’s face.

  “Now what?” I asked. “We’re stuck out here.”

  He grunted noncommittally, began walking back the way we’d come. “Guess we’ll have to commandeer a new one.”

  Acid boiled in my throat. There were about twenty houses along the road. The chances of Padgett choosing the Wallaces’ wasn’t great. But I still felt like shrieking in terror.

  Be cool, dammit! a voice in my head commanded. He won’t know if you don’t tell him. So for the love of all that’s holy, be cool!

  Okay, I thought. Okay.

  I said, “You never told me what you wrote on the walls.”

  Padgett chuckled. “Ah, that.”

  “Well?”

  He smirked at me. “It read ‘HENRY CRIED LIKE A BABY.’”

  I could feel him eyeing me, but I refused to look up, to let him see how disturbed I was.

  He watched me. “Well, kid, aren’t you gonna ask?”

  “Ask what?” I muttered.

  “Ask what I put outside the cell?”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “His still-beating heart?”

  Padgett waited until I looked up at him. When I did, his look was cold enough to chill my marrow.

  “It had stopped beating by then,” he said.

  ¨

  There were, I saw with a quick count, four houses before the Wallaces. The Wallaces’ garage door was closed, and their house didn’t look any more inviting than the others.

  Padgett passed the first house without a look.

  “What are we doing?” I asked, doing my best to keep the tightness out of my voice.

  “You know what we’re doing,” Padgett answered.

  I halted in the road and gestured toward the first house, an older one with dark wood siding and a yard half-eaten by the forest. “You need a car, right?”

  “That’s the size of it.”

  “Then let’s check this house.”

  “Don’t like it.”

  My breathing was growing labored, and it wasn’t from the exertion of hiking down the lane. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Keep moving, kid.”

  I did as he instructed. There were still three more houses before the Wallaces, and fifteen more beyond that. The chances of Padgett—

  “What about that brick one down yonder a ways?” he asked.

  The Wallaces.

  Oh God, I thought. He knows!

  Impossible, I thought. But what other explanation could there be?

  I opened my mouth to talk him out of it, but what could I say that wouldn’t arouse suspicion? Padgett possessed a razor-sharp ability to read people, some ancient, reptilian trait that allowed him to scythe through lies, penetrate through any sort of deception. No matter what I said, he’d know I was trying to keep him away from the house. So how could I stop him?

  You can’t, the cynical voice replied. Because he knows, Will. He picked out the Wallaces’ when he was still four houses away. He knows, and he’s just wringing every last ounce of terror from you before revealing the truth.

  No! I wanted to scream.

  Padgett was only a couple homes away now. I trailed along like a mute puppy. Desperately, I studied the last couple houses before the Wallace place.

  The one next door had its garage door open! And what was more, there was a car inside.

  “Over here!” I called. “It’s a Mercedes!”

  “Nah,” he answered. “Too conspicuous.”

  I hustled up beside him. “But it’s perfect. One stall is empty, and the other one’s got a nice sports car inside. That means the owners are probably gone, and they left this one for the taking.”

  “Or it means someone’s still home and will see us entering his garage.”

  He cut across the Mercedes people’s yard and headed straight for the Wallaces’ front door.

  “Listen to me,” I said, my voice cracking. I pointed at the Wallace house. “Those people are probably home. Living out here they’ll own a gun. The moment you step through that door, they’ll blast you.”

  “Nice try, Son.”

  My legs felt leaden, but I moved with him toward the front porch. I was fairly sure he’d done all this on purpose—the odds were just too remote for such a thing to be a coincidence—but a small part of me still clung to the hope that I could put him off.

  Padgett mounted the porch, and without pause he opened the front door and walked inside. I moved through the doorway after him.

  The entryway was very dim. It was also really slick from our shoes. The door behind me hung open, but very little daylight filtered in. Directly in front of me, I could make out a stairway leading up. It had been awhile since I’d been inside the Wallaces’ house, but I was pretty sure the kitchen was to the right and the living room to my left. I went right.

  I had no idea where Padgett had gone.

  My skin was cold all over, my clothes plastered to my body. It didn’t help that the house was deathly silent. My sneakers squelched on the hardwood floors, and with every step I took I felt I was disturbing some sacred ceremony. Halfway to the kitchen, I froze, realizing my mistake. If Peach and Juliet were here, they wouldn’t be in the kitchen or the living room. I’d have heard them by now. If the pair of them weren’t watching a show, they were squealing and laughing so boisterously that it made your ears bleed.

  I glanced back at the stairway. Would they be up there, in Juliet’s room?

  Either there or the basement.

  I made for the upstairs.

  I took the steps two at a time, but I still tried to be as quiet as I could. Padgett was lurking somewhere, and maybe if I was fast enough, I could get Peach and Juliet out of the house before he grabbed us. That would still leave Mrs. Wallace vulnerable and maybe her husband too, but though it sounds horrible, I didn’t care as much about them as I did the girls.

  Especially Peach.

  Please let her be in Juliet’s room, I thought.

  I padded down the hallway, noticing as I did there were no wet footprints. So Padgett hadn’t come this way. Not yet.

  I lunged through Juliet’s door and was greeted with a dark room. Everything in here was pink and green and stuffed animals.

  But no kids.

  “Peach?” I whispered. “Juliet? You two in here?”

  I eyed the closet, the pooled darkness under the bed. It was possible they were hiding from me, but I doubted it.

  Time’s wasting! a voice in my head screamed. They’re down in the basement, and Padgett might have found them already!

  I dashed down the hall and clambered down the stairs, trying but failing to conceal the sounds of my footfalls. I felt clumsy, stupid. One step behind Carl Padgett. Or several.

  The thought arose in my mind: Kill him.

  The idea filled me with dread, but there was logic in it. I didn’t give myself time to think, but instead made straight for the kitchen. I caught sight of the knife rack next to Mrs. Wallace’s stainless steel stove. I crossed to the rack, selected the biggest knife, a wicked-looking thing with a long, wide surface, and an extremely sharp blade.

  Get him before he gets you.

  I made for the basement doorway and remembered to check for wet footprints. There were none that I could see. So if Peach was down there, Padgett hadn’t gotten to her yet.

  I rushed down the steps, listening for the sounds of the girls playing, for the music from one of their shows. My Little Pony or something with Barbie and a fleet of mermaids. But the basement was as silent as the rest of the house.

  As silent as a graveyard.

  Don’t even think that, I told myself. Just make sure they’re not down here. Then…then…

  Then what?

  I bounced on my heels, the terror swarming over me like an army of voracious red ants.

  Think for a minute, Will. Just think.

  I stood there, doing my best to make my mind function despite my galloping terror.

  Why, t
he voice asked, would Padgett enter the house without knocking?

  Because he knew the door was unlocked.

  Okay. So he’s been here already.

  My whole body clenched. No!

  Yes, and you know it. He’s been here already, so he went inside. And he didn’t bother watching you while he did it. He left you standing on the front lawn. Why?

  I have no idea!

  Yes you do, Will. Why would a serial killer allow the only person who can get him captured to roam free?

  Because it’s a game to him?

  Yes, but there’s something more. Something you’re forgetting.

  I ground my jaws, agonized by the incompleteness of my thoughts.

  Think, Will! If he’s been here before, he not only knew the door would be open, he knew where everyone in the house would be.

  No, I thought. No no no no no—

  Yes. And he knows you won’t leave here without Peach.

  I thrashed my head wildly, as if to escape the voice.

  But he knows where Peach is.

  I remembered my mom’s words then:

  Will, there’s something you need to know about Peach.

  “No,” I whimpered.

  If she was dead, my life would be over.

  Then save her!

  Yes, I thought, my head clearing. I would do everything I could, including killing Padgett.

  I looked around the silent basement. There was no one down here. I turned and charged up the basement stairs, my panic pursuing me, unshakeable as a shadow. If Peach was still here, there was only one part of the house in which she could be. I reached the main floor, turned, and made for the rooms I hadn’t checked.

  I’d just entered the family room when I saw it.

  And vomited.

  I staggered over to the couch, leaned on it for support. My mind refused to function, refused to process what I was seeing.

  But I knew I had to.

  My whole body weak with dread, I examined the remains.

  Mr. and Mrs. Wallace had been home when Padgett had come earlier. I didn’t know exactly how it had all transpired, but the aftermath was plain enough.

  Juliet’s parents had been hacked to pieces.

  Body parts were strewn everywhere. On the floor. On tables and chairs. On the end of the couch on which I was leaning sat Mr. Wallace’s severed head. His eyes were open in a permanent look of surprise.

  I scoured the room for signs of Juliet. Or…or…

  I couldn’t even think the name. If something had happened to my sister, I didn’t want to live. Or I only wanted to live long enough to kill Carl Padgett.

  The wood floor was greasy with blood, the formerly white rug gone dark. I made out scraps of clothes, clumps of skin and hair. Even a woman’s shoe that still contained a foot.

  But none of it looked like a child’s.

  “You’ll get used to it,” a voice said.

  I jumped and discovered Padgett watching me from the far side of the room. He must have been there all along, but I’d been too horrified to notice.

  “You can’t escape who you are,” he said. His tone was bereft of emotion, as dead as the Wallaces were.

  “Where is she?” I asked in a choked voice.

  “Don’t you mean ‘they’?” he answered. “Or don’t you care about the other girl?”

  I felt white-hot flames licking my neck. I welcomed the anger. Anything was better than the horror consuming me.

  I turned to face him, my shoulders heaving with rage. “You’ll burn in hell.”

  His eyes flicked down, and I saw with surprise that I still held the big cleaver.

  He nodded, licked his lips. “Why don’t you try it, kid? Or are you too much of a mama’s boy?”

  I darted at him. As distraught as I was, I remembered my mistake earlier, my failed attempt to punch him in my basement. I’d come in too high, and he’d easily dodged me. I needed to be sure this time.

  I swung the cleaver at his side. Surprise registered on his face for a split second, but just before the cleaver embedded in his ribs, he hopped backward. He avoided the worst of the blow, but the blade still slashed a line through his chest.

  “I knew you were my boy!” he crowed.

  I’m not your boy, you son of a bitch!” I snarled. Planting my feet, I raised the cleaver again.

  His fist shot out, cracked me in the mouth.

  My head snapped back, my feet slipping in the Wallaces’ blood. I went down, and before I could recover, he gripped my wrist, slammed it on the floor two, three, four times, until I relinquished the cleaver. Then he reared back and punched me in the mouth. Pain bloomed in my mouth. The world went a dismal brownish gray.

  Padgett shook me, slapped my face to bring me back to full consciousness.

  “Look at me, boy.”

  “Where’s…” I tried to say, but my voice came out a raspy whisper. “Where’s Peach?”

  “Hidden,” Padgett said. He gripped my cheeks, swiveled my head up to face him.

  I stared into his dark brown eyes and saw nothing but madness there, noxious eddies swirling in stygian depths.

  “Where is she?” I croaked.

  “In a worse place than your mama,” he said. “If you cooperate, you’ll see your sister soon enough. If you don’t, I’ll eat her heart for supper.”

  The last thing I saw before losing consciousness was the message Padgett had scrawled on the Wallaces’ eastern living room wall: THE WALLACE FAMILY TOMB.

  Chapter Eleven

  Padgett’s Past and a New Nightmare

  I woke up in the Wallaces’ black Toyota Highlander.

  Of course I didn’t know that right away. At first all I could tell was that I was in some sort of moving vehicle, and that my throat hurt so badly it felt like someone was frying it with a blowtorch.

  We moved toward town, the rain ebbing a little, but the clouds behind us blacker and more ominous-looking than ever. Padgett glanced at me, said, “Sleeping Beauty’s awake.”

  “Go to hell,” I muttered.

  Padgett angled the Highlander onto the grassy shoulder. The banging of raindrops on metal was deafening. My head felt like it was being vised apart from within.

  Padgett studied me from the driver’s seat. He seemed even larger now, even more unbeatable. I felt like I was Peach’s size, not someone nearly old enough to drive.

  “Will, I know you’re curious about your daddy—”

  “You’re not my dad.”

  “—but you’re too prideful to ask me about my past.”

  “I don’t care about that,” I said, perilously close to tears. I couldn’t rid my mind of the Wallaces’ mutilated bodies. Through gritted teeth, I said, “I don’t care about you.”

  “I understand, Son. I’ve been out of your life a long time.”

  “You were never in my life.”

  “Son, long as you draw breath, I’m a part of you, whether you admit it or not.”

  I clenched my jaw, my vision blurring. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been too angry to speak, but that’s exactly what I was now.

  “You just simmer down,” he said, his tone easy. “Let Daddy tell you a story.”

  “I hate you,” I said. I looked out the passenger’s side window so he wouldn’t see my face. I wanted to make a break for it, but we were in the middle of nowhere. If I ran now, I couldn’t get help soon enough. Padgett would have all the time he needed to motor back to town, to kill my sister and Juliet. To make sure my mom never made it out of that cistern.

  No, I had to let him get whatever it was off his chest so we could get back to Shadeland as rapidly as possible. Then, if the opportunity arose, I’d get away from him and get help.

  “It wasn’t too far away from here we were renovating an old farmhouse,” Padgett said, looking around. All I could see were amorphous blurs and a hell of a lot of rain. “Me and my guys, we mostly did commercial work—you know, businesses, churches, an occasional bridge repair. But between big jo
bs we’d take on smaller ones. Residential stuff. The farmhouse I’m talking about, they wanted everything updated—the farmer who’d owned it had died, and his daughter and her husband wanted it to look and feel like a new place rather than the one she grew up in.”

  I let him ramble, every muscle in my body tensed. Just get to the end, I urged. Just finish so we can get back to Shadeland.

  “Well,” Padgett said, “me and two of my guys—Greene and Kitchell—we kept having issues with the basement. The foundation down there was cracked, and water kept getting in, which proved a major pain in the ass. We couldn’t run the ductwork the way we wanted to because we were always ankle deep in rainwater. Situation like that, you don’t dare attempt anything electrical. Not unless you want to barbecue yourself on a bare wire.

  “So the owner, she told us to do whatever it took to shore up the foundation and eliminate the flooding. She’d gotten a small fortune from her daddy the farmer, so budget was no concern. I had no problem taking her money, so me and my guys, we ripped out a whole section of that concrete floor. We figured we’d install some tiling, make the drainage a whole lot more efficient.”

  I drummed my fingers on my knees, willing him to bring the story to a close. It was positively spitting rain now. Was my mom gasping for breath and spluttering even as Padgett spoke? I imagined her standing on tiptoes, and I had to suppress an urge to scream.

  “Why don’t you tell me the rest of this on the way to town?” I suggested.

  Padgett reached down, produced his gun, and placed it on the dashboard in front of him, the muzzle staring me right in the eyes. “Why don’t you show your father some respect?”

  I felt my bowels do a slow somersault.

  “So as I was saying,” Padgett went on, “we removed that section of basement floor expecting to find crumbling clay pipes. What we found instead was a tunnel.”

  I looked at him. He could tell he’d gotten me, and though I longed to lunge for the gun and remove that smug expression from his face with a well-placed bullet, I remained quiet, wondering where his tale would go.

  He resumed. “Being young and excitable, we went inside right away. The owners weren’t there, so we had nothing to stop us from exploring all we wanted. It was muddy in the tunnel, but the passage was wide enough and tall enough we didn’t worry about a cave-in. My buddy Kitchell—we called him Kitch for short—he was damn near six-foot-eight, but he only had to hunch over a little.” Padgett shook his head, a wistful expression on his face. “You shoulda seen us, Will. We were like little kids again, explorin’ a brand-new place. I’m sure you can relate.”