Children of the Dark

by Jonathan Janz

  “What am I supposed to see?” he asked.

  With a sinking feeling, I realized he was far enough behind Blades that he didn’t have a good view of the boy’s eyes. Nor could he see the freakish hands now, for Blades had interlaced them in his lap. To conceal them from the deputy, I was sure.

  “Okay, I looked,” Schwarber said. “Now leave me alone.”

  Blades grinned at me.

  (I know where your mom is. Why don’t you tell me where your sister is?)

  Goosebumps misted down my arms. It wasn’t just the fact that the Eric-thing could communicate telepathically, it was the quality of its voice. Raspy and buzzing, the way I’d imagine a green bottle fly would sound if it could form human speech.

  (When I leave here, I’ll find her. I’ll eat her. Then I’ll drag your mom out of that hole and feast on her too)

  “Leave them out of this!” I shouted.

  I tried to clear my mind, but the images came, unbidden, of all the people I cared about. Peach. My mom. Chris and Barley. Mia.

  (Ahhh, your sweet Mia. She’s already there, Will. I sent her to the forest)

  “You didn’t,” I said.

  (Oh yes. I sent all four of them—Mia, Rebecca, Brad, and Kurt—to the Hollow. Just before I came to the station. I told them I knew where Kylie Ann was. Lucky the phones were still working, huh?)

  I shook my head. “But why?”

  The Eric-thing smiled.

  (Fresh meat)

  “NO!” I screamed.

  Schwarber stood up, his face hard. “What the hell’s your problem, Burgess? I know you got a screw loose, but now you’re startin’ to make me mad.”

  My fingers tightened on the bars. “Would you look at Blades, for Christ’s sakes? Please?”

  Schwarber tossed up his hands, moved toward me. “I already did that, you little shit. What do you want me to do it again…” He trailed off as he caught sight of the thing leering at him from the chair. “Holy Mother of God.”

  The Eric-thing rose. And rose. And rose.

  It was at least seven-and-a-half feet tall.

  Terry Schwarber gaped up at it.

  For the first time, I actually pitied the deputy.

  The Eric-thing’s leer spread wider, its face becoming vulpine, hideous. It strode toward the deputy, who backpedaled

  “Hey,” Schwarber murmured. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by…”

  Schwarber sank to his knees. The posture reminded me of a whipped puppy cowering in terror from its abusive owner.

  “Shoot it!” Chris shouted.

  With a start, I realized that Schwarber was indeed armed. Of course he was—he was a cop.

  “Now!” I chimed in. “Shoot it in the face!”

  Our words must’ve broken through because Schwarber did reach for his gun, but his hands trembled so wildly that he couldn’t dislodge it from his holster.

  “Please,” Barley whispered. It occurred to me Barley used the same voice when rooting for a movie character in extreme danger.

  The creature’s long-fingered hands stretched toward the deputy.

  “I…I…” Schwarber moaned, his hands still fondling the gun as though they’d never operated one before.

  The creature’s hands drifted closer. Its smile grew. I realized it was reveling in Schwarber’s terror. It loomed over the deputy, taking its time.

  “Hurry!” I shouted.

  “For God’s sake,” Chris said.

  Schwarber finally extricated his gun. He raised it toward the Eric-thing.

  But he was too late. He’d just gotten the gun trained on the Eric-thing’s face when it swatted the gun aside like an oversized gnat. The blow didn’t rip off Schwarber’s hands or anything, but it did knock him off balance. The gun went skittering across the room.

  Schwarber clambered away, moving on all fours like an overgrown toddler. He bumped into a table, knocked over a clock. He switched course and promptly headbutted the desk on which he’d just been resting his feet, this time upsetting his own coffee mug. It rolled to the edge, hung suspended for a moment, then the TED NUGENT FOR PRESIDENT mug shattered into a dozen pieces.

  The Eric-thing stalked after the deputy.

  “Get the gun!” Chris yelled. “It’s right by the door!”

  Schwarber looked stupidly up at Chris, like his words had been spoken in Portuguese.

  “The gun!” Chris growled. “The gun!”

  Schwarber followed Chris’s pointing finger to where the gun lay, then he nodded and set off after it, still on hands and knees.

  The Eric-thing snagged the deputy by the waistband of his trousers. Schwarber continued to crawl, but the creature’s hold on him was implacable. Schwarber crawled doggedly on, his butt crack beginning to show as his belt strained against his body.

  The Eric-thing lifted him off the floor.

  Schwarber dangled horizontally five feet off the ground, reminding me of a plastic animal rotating on some baby’s crib mobile. For the first time I noticed how much Blades’s frame had changed, the way the vertebrae stood out beneath the tank top, how knobby the shoulders had become. It raised its free hand, the mottled talons wickedly sharp. Schwarber’s limbs swam in the air, a sight that would have struck me as hilarious were the poor bastard not about to die. The creature brought a forefinger up to Schwarber’s throat; it became clear to me what its intentions were—to puncture the deputy’s jugular and to drench its face with his blood. Schwarber writhed away from its fingernail, so it rolled him over in its arms and cradled him like an infant. Schwarber moaned. The creature opened its jaws.

  “You’re weak, Eric!” I yelled.

  The thing’s teeth paused an inch from the deputy’s throat. Schwarber’s face was a mask of surprise and desperate hope.

  The Eric-thing just looked mildly amused.

  “You get away with being a druggie because of your dad,” I raced on. I had no idea what I was saying, but if I could distract the thing, I might buy Schwarber enough time to survive this ordeal. Maybe Cavanaugh and Stuckey would return. Maybe the state police would show up. “You think Kylie Ann liked you? She was just humoring you to get you off her back.”

  The green eyes narrowed a little, the creature thinking.

  “Don’t make it mad,” Barley said.

  “I’m trying to—”

  “Barley’s right,” Chris hissed. “It’ll kill Schwarber for sure.”

  I glanced at Chris, saw his imploring look, and realized he was probably right. But what else could I do? If I just let it happen, I’d never forgive myself. No one deserved to die this way, not even a dolt like Terry Schwarber.

  Then I experienced one of the strangest feelings of my life.

  It was like rough, malicious hands were rummaging through my brain for something, sorting through the facts and discarding whatever they didn’t need. It wasn’t painful exactly, but the sensation was somehow worse than pain. It was a violation, a feeling of nakedness, of shame and embarrassment.

  I realized the Eric-thing was reading my thoughts.

  Its face changed, the eyes shooting wide.

  “She’s dead,” it croaked.

  With a thrill of dread I understood it had found what it was looking for, the gruesome discovery the state troopers and I had uncovered in the graveyard.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Kylie Ann’s dead. The Moonlight Killer got her. Padgett is here, somewhere in Shadeland. He’s the reason why you and your brother were in the forest, remember?”

  The Eric-thing was staring at me, but not really seeing me. It was looking through me, and with a sickening lurch in my gut I understood it was reconciling my words with my memories, scouring my story for lies. But this time I was telling the truth.

  “Go get him,” Chris said, picking up on my attempt to get rid of the Eric-thing. Some distant part of my brain recoiled at the possibility of the Eric-thing on the loose—especially when Peach and Mia were probably somewhere in the forest—but at least it would buy us some time.
Maybe Schwarber would release us if we managed to save his life.

  The deputy was weeping quietly, his silly mustache bobbing like an over-caffeinated caterpillar. He was still trying to escape the creature, but his attempts were feeble, half-hearted. It was as though Schwarber knew he was at the mercy of the beast, and no amount of resistance would make the slightest difference.

  “Come on, Eric,” I said. “Please put the deputy down.”

  The Eric-thing’s face spread in a leer of sinister cunning. “Your sister is out there. And her friend.”

  My throat constricted. I tried to shake my head no, to persuade the Eric-thing to put Peach out of its head, but it was nodding now, a grotesque chortle sounding from the depths of its throat.

  “Young flesh,” it rasped. “I’ll get her before Padgett does.”

  “Hey,” Schwarber said in a high, tinny voice. “You can let me go now, okay? You can just—”

  The creature buried its teeth in Schwarber’s throat.

  I looked away, but I’d already seen too much. The teeth piercing skin. The blood burbling over elongated fangs. The deputy’s arms and legs whirring in a paroxysm of agony.

  Barley was screaming. As far as I could tell, Chris wasn’t making any sound at all. I wished he would though. Maybe it would help drown out the smacking sounds coming from the middle of the room.

  As the Eric-thing fed on Schwarber, I moved to the back of my cell. It didn’t do any good though. The sounds remained crystal clear. I glanced askance at Barley, and though my eyes were bleary, I could see well enough how he was frozen in place, his hands gripping the bars in panic, his mouth open in that neverending shriek.

  After what seemed a lifetime, the station fell silent. I took a deep breath and turned to see what was happening.

  The Eric-thing was striding toward me.

  Oh hell, I thought.

  Its face and the front of its body were stippled with blood. Here and there scraps of the deputy’s tissue were stuck to its black tank top or oozing slowly down its blood-slicked limbs. I would have puked if I hadn’t been so terrified. It reached out, apparently meaning to rip the cell bars apart.

  It can’t do it, I thought. It can’t.

  Then, Please don’t let it find the keys!

  The Eric-thing’s eyes shot wide. My breath clotted in my throat.

  Damn it, I thought. I’d given it the idea!

  The creature chortled, turned, and began scanning the station for the keys.

  I clamped down on my thoughts, determined to not help it anymore. Could it read everyone’s thoughts, or just mine?

  The creature’s hands balled into fists. It couldn’t locate the keys.

  With a snarl, it vaulted toward my cell, its body knifing through the air with breathtaking agility. It landed with a meaty thump, its walkingstick fingers cinched over the bars, its toes actually poking through the confines of Eric’s sneakers and grasping the bars like a primate on exhibit at the zoo.

  You’re safe, I told myself. There’s no way it can—

  The bars began to bend.

  “Leave him alone!” Chris shouted.

  Yes, I urged, leave me alone. I didn’t want the Eric-thing attacking Chris or Barley, but I certainly didn’t want it attacking me either.

  The bars hadn’t bent much, but they had given enough for me to spot subtle curves in their centers. The gaps weren’t wide enough for the creature to climb through, but if it kept at it long enough…

  “I’ll kill you if you hurt him!” Chris bellowed. His hands were gripping the bars, his teeth bared in fury. “I’ll kill you, you ugly motherfucker!”

  The creature’s muscles flexed, the bars slowly bending.

  Another noise sounded beneath the groaning steel and the screaming. I turned and saw what it was.

  The outer station door.

  There were figures racing through the foyer. When they reached the double doors and pushed through, I saw who they were.

  Barley’s parents. Chris’s mom. Cavanaugh and Bill Stuckey.

  They entered the room in a tight cluster.

  And saw the mutilated remains of Terry Schwarber.

  Barley’s dad clapped a hand over his mouth. Chris’s mom reeled toward the door. Barley’s mom wore an expression of blank surprise. Cavanaugh tilted his head like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Bill Stuckey uttered a weird, keening moan.

  They looked up from the corpse and spotted the creature clinging to the outside of my cell.

  And the creature turned and saw them.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Eric-Thing and the Electrical Terror

  As much as I detested the man, I had to give Police Chief Bryce Cavanaugh credit for one thing.

  He could draw his weapon quickly.

  Too bad his aim was even poorer than his intellect.

  Cavanaugh’s first shot went wide by ten feet. I’m not sure how he could miss that badly, not at a distance of only twenty-five feet. But he did. In fact, the slug went so far wide that he almost hit Barley, who stood there, mouth agape and likely wondering how his parents had become part of this nightmare.

  Barley’s mom, God bless her, actually took a couple steps toward her son, as if she could somehow save him from the Eric-thing. As if Barley, who was relatively safe behind the framework of steel, was in more peril than she was. The creature had started toward Barley’s mom when two things happened simultaneously. One, Barley’s dad snagged the back of her shirt and hauled her into his arms. Secondly, the chief fired off his second shot, this one only marginally more accurate than the first.

  The slug shattered one of the overhead fluorescent lights.

  Everyone stared at the monster.

  Chris was the first to speak. “Get out of here, Mom!”

  “Kill it!” I yelled to Cavanaugh.

  Cavanaugh’s expression hardened a little as he took aim. The creature took a couple long strides at him, which should have increased his chances of nailing it, but again he missed, this shot passing very close to the creature, which would have been a good thing had I not been in a direct line behind it. The slug ricocheted off the cinderblock behind me and sent up a cloud of dust and concrete shrapnel that bit the back of my neck.

  The sounds of the shots were explosive, but I could still hear the Eric-thing growling beneath the ringing in my ears.

  “Mom!” Chris yelled. “Mom, get out of—” Chris turned and glanced at someone. “Hey, you’ve got a gun too! Use the damned thing!”

  I followed Chris’s gaze and realized he’d been addressing Bill Stuckey, who despite his mountainous girth and his bluster, had evidently lost the ability to move. Stuckey stood there like the world’s ugliest wax figure as the Eric-thing approached.

  Cavanaugh fired again.

  Again.

  And missed both times.

  The creature was nearly upon the group.

  Chris’s mom slapped Bill Stuckey on the shoulder hard enough to make him flinch. Stuckey gave her a pathetic, wounded look.

  “Use your gun,” she urged and nodded toward the creature. “Shoot it!”

  Cavanaugh fired again. This time his aim was true. Or truer.

  The slug caught the Eric-thing in the side. It froze, squalling, its long fingers clutching its wound, and though nothing should have surprised me at that point, the sight of the black liquid sluicing over its fingers made me gasp in shock.

  “Shoot it again!” Barley’s mom demanded.

  Cavanaugh did. His aim from fifteen feet was apparently much better than his aim from twenty-five. He shot the creature in the belly this time. The creature bellowed in pain.

  Cavanaugh shot it again, the slug slamming the Eric-thing in the chest.

  I was sure it would go down then, that this danger, at least, would be past us. But it glanced down at its bleeding body for a long moment, as if to confirm it had been shot. Then it bent toward Cavanaugh and roared.

  The sound set my teeth chattering. Cavanaugh’s face tw
isted in fear. Evidently out of ammunition, the police chief reared back and hurled the gun at the Eric-thing.

  Unsurprisingly, he missed.

  The creature leapt forward, swung, and Cavanaugh went flying backward through the double doors.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Chris’s mom muttered. She grabbed for Bill Stuckey’s gun.

  For the first time, Stuckey showed signs of consciousness. “Hey!” he protested, pushing away Mrs. Watkins’s hands. “What are you—”

  While they tussled for the gun, the creature turned its attention to them.

  “Mom!” Chris yelled.

  But he was too late. The thing groped for Stuckey with one hand and Mrs. Watkins with the other. I was sure then that Stuckey would finally live up to his tough guy image, but rather than drawing his gun and shooting the creature, he uttered a shrill yelp and bolted for the far corner of the station. The creature lifted Chris’s mom into the air.

  Outside, thunder rumbled hard enough to shake our cell bars.

  Mrs. Watkins was windmilling her arms as if the sheer force of air resistance would propel her away from the Eric-thing’s leering maw.

  But it did no good. The creature lifted her nearer its jaws.

  Chris screamed at it to Let her go, let her go. I stood there in a gray fog of horror. I have no idea what Barley was doing. Maybe he’d fainted dead away.

  But Chris’s mom was about to be eaten just like Schwarber had been.

  Then the beast threw back its head and howled.

  The sound was earsplitting and utterly alien. But the pain on its contorted features was unmistakable. I’d been so fixated on the Eric-thing and Chris’s mom that I hadn’t noticed Mr. Marley sneaking up on it, hadn’t noticed the Swiss army knife in Mr. Marley’s hand. So when he sank it into the creature’s back all the way to the hilt, everyone in the room was stunned. Judging from the look on his face, no one was as surprised as Mr. Marley.

  The creature dropped Mrs. Watkins and turned its blood-slicked face toward Barley’s dad. Mr. Marley’s face went slack with dismay. The creature stepped toward him, its look plainly advertising that Mr. Marley would pay for stabbing it.

  A blur of motion from my right, and then Mrs. Marley was smashing the creature in the face with a wooden chair.