Children of the Dark

by Jonathan Janz

  I compressed my lips. I had to help her. Had to help Mia and Juliet, who were faring little better.

  The monsters would overtake them within moments.

  Your responsibility is to your sister, a voice in my head declared.

  No, I thought, grinding my teeth. My responsibility is to do what’s right.

  My windpipe constricting, I doubled back.

  Mia was laboring to keep moving, to keep Juliet moving, but she knew the distance between them and the creatures was dwindling.

  But it was Rebecca who shouted. “Give me the knife!”

  I was nearly to them, would enter the trail they were on about twenty feet ahead of them. I had no idea what Rebecca had planned, but I felt I owed it to her to do as she asked. I lobbed the machete toward her.

  “What’s she doing, Will?” Peach asked.

  I realized Mia and Juliet had paused, Rebecca already having fallen behind them.

  “You can’t!” Mia shouted to Rebecca.

  “I can’t run anymore,” Rebecca answered. “You have to move…get the girls somewhere safe.”

  Mia shook her head. “Rebecca—”

  “Now, dammit!” Rebecca yelled. “I have to do this. It’s the only way!”

  Mia looked like she was about to argue, but it happened then. One of the creatures—the biggest one, the monster who’d killed Rebecca’s parents—sprang onto the trail between Mia and Rebecca. It ignored Mia completely, its odious figure stalking toward the injured girl.

  Mia didn’t budge. “Rebecca, we can’t just—”

  “Would you please listen?” Rebecca shouted, but her voice broke, and as she raised the machete, the other four creatures who’d been following her materialized out of the rainy forest.

  I noticed that Rebecca wasn’t looking at the creatures.

  She was looking at Peach and Juliet.

  It wasn’t your fault! I wanted to scream. Emmylou’s death wasn’t your fault. You were only in the fifth freaking grade!

  “We have to go,” Peach said into my ear.

  The creature who’d cut Rebecca off stalked closer to her. Astonishingly, Rebecca didn’t look terrified. As her eyes flitted from Peach to Juliet, her expression was almost placid.

  At peace.

  Save her! I told myself.

  “Go!” Rebecca shouted.

  The creatures closed in.

  “Now, Will,” Peach urged. “We have to go now.”

  She was right, I knew. Rebecca was well beyond the point of being saved. As horrible as that sounds, it couldn’t have been more obvious. Not only were there five creatures in her immediate vicinity, but the others who’d been pursuing me and Peach had stopped to watch the proceedings as well.

  No, I quickly corrected myself, not just watch the proceedings. They were moving forward too, the hunger clear in their pitiless green eyes.

  Mia and Juliet started toward us. I could see Juliet was tugging Mia along, but Mia seemed to have come to the same conclusion I had. That as awful as it was, Rebecca was going to die. Rebecca seemed to know it too. She was weeping, but she kept the machete raised high, determined to fight until her last breath.

  She’s buying us time, I thought, amazed.

  Peach rocked against me. “Please, Will. They’ll get us too.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Peach pushed out of my arms and seized my hand. “I’ll run for a few minutes to give you a break.”

  I nodded absently, my gaze still fixed on Rebecca and the herd of white beasts. They were taking playful swipes at her now. Rebecca glanced over at us, and for a moment, our eyes locked.

  “Keep them alive,” Rebecca said.

  Mia and Juliet pulled even with us. “Come on,” Mia said in a choked voice.

  I nodded. We all four started down the trail. We’d only gone about thirty feet when we heard it, a horrible, high-pitched yowl of pain. The beasts had gotten Rebecca.

  Tears were streaming down Mia’s face, but she and Juliet were still moving. Peach was about ten feet ahead of me, the little lunatic moving with a swiftness I could scarcely believe.

  Rebecca’s scream cut off abruptly.

  It was replaced by the horrid sounds of the creatures feeding.

  ¨

  We’d sprinted in silence for maybe three minutes when Mia asked, “Where are we going?”

  I pumped my legs faster, not wanting Peach to get too far ahead. “My house,” I called back.

  “Why there?”

  “At the very least, we can hide there.”

  Mia was quiet for a time, the only sounds our footfalls, our tortured breathing, and the diminishing patter of raindrops. I kept casting nervous looks around the forest, hoping against hope I wouldn’t catch sight of the beasts.

  Then Peach screamed.

  The monster was maybe sixty yards to our left, and nothing more than a flitting white shape. But the moment it heard Peach’s scream it veered toward us and began hurdling whatever objects lay in its path.

  “Do you have anything else?” Mia asked, her voice laced with dread. “A knife or anything?”

  I didn’t bother answering. Because from our right more beasts were approaching. I realized they’d never really lost track of us, were merely finishing off Rebecca before they returned to the hunt.

  We were moving faster now, the adrenaline sluicing through our bodies. Even Juliet was scampering along at a good clip, so that Mia and I only had to check our speed a little.

  The beast to our left was trying to cut us off.

  “Go!” I barked to my sister. I knew she was doing her best, but it just wasn’t good enough. The creature was going to hit the trail at about the same time we were.

  I accelerated, reached out, and without breaking stride, scooped my sister off the ground.

  She uttered a frightened little yelp, then she actually giggled at herself. “You scared me, Will.”

  I wanted to kiss her cheek then, but I couldn’t. Because the beast was almost even with us. I thought we were going to make it, but Mia…Juliet…

  I glanced back at them. They were too far behind. “Hurry!” I shouted.

  Mia threw me a desperate look, dragged Juliet ahead, but Juliet was flagging now, the child weeping openly. She wasn’t stupid. Just really young and really scared. She’d seen what had happened to Chris, to Rebecca.

  I turned and saw we were almost to the treehouse. Not that it would offer any kind of safety. But at least it might prolong our lives.

  If we could make it there.

  With a last burst of speed, I got Peach and me clear of the beast.

  But it bounded onto the lane behind us, cutting off Mia and Juliet.

  Juliet screamed. Mia called my name.

  I skidded on the wet trail, nearly fell, and glanced about for something with which to fend off the creature. The only thing I spotted was a slender but solid-looking branch, about three feet long. The kind you’d use for a walking stick.

  I set Peach down, brought an index finger to my lips when she started to whimper, and approached the creature, which was looming over Mia and Juliet, its shoulders rising and falling in vicious anticipation. I raised the branch like it was a Louisville Slugger.

  It whirled and snarled at me.

  Swung at me.

  Had I not dropped to the ground, I have no doubt that swipe would have ripped my face off like a Halloween mask. More likely it would have torn my head from my body, the whole thing tumbling end over end and coming to rest on its side the way severed heads did in horror movies.

  But it missed me. And I saw my chance. I brought the branch up again, and though I was on my knees this time, I still knew I could get a lot of power in my swing. These creatures had very few weaknesses, but I suspected I knew how to hurt one. As long as it was male, like this one.

  I swung the branch and connected with the beast’s genitals with such force that the branch actually snapped in half.

  The beast’s bellow resounded through the forest. I
t dropped to the earth, its gnarled hands cupped to its balls.

  Mia and Juliet scuttled by. I spun, suddenly sure that Peach had been taken while my back was turned. But she was right where I’d left her.

  We started down the trail again, the treehouse swiftly coming into view.

  I had a mind to keep going, to bust it all the way to my house. After all, it was the only way for us to survive, wasn’t it? The treehouse was as surely a death sentence as the rest of the forest was. I was about to explain this to Mia when I saw something that made my legs liquefy.

  A dozen creatures had surrounded us.

  They’d formed a wide, misshapen ring around the treehouse clearing. The closest ones were about thirty yards away, but I’d seen how fast they could move. We’d be lucky to make it halfway up the rungs before they ripped us to shreds.

  We were trapped.

  Mia pushed closer to me. “What do we do?”

  I looked at her. “Take Peach and Juliet.”

  “Take them where?”

  “Up,” I said. “Get them up to the treehouse.”

  I figured she’d argue with me. But she only asked, “You’ll be right behind us?”

  I nodded. “I don’t want to die either.”

  She had a hand on each of the girls’ backs when I said, “Hey, Mia.”

  She glanced at me over her shoulder.

  I swallowed. “You remember when I dropped my chemistry set?”

  She stared hard at me, but I couldn’t tell whether she remembered or not. After all, it had happened back in the second grade.

  “I wanted to thank you,” I said. “I forgot to say it when we were younger.”

  She might have smiled a little, but it was getting dark. With a last glance at me, Mia hurried the girls over to the ladder and began the job of helping them up the rungs. It was a long climb, especially for such little girls, but their terror was lending them speed.

  I performed a slow revolution, my gaze taking in all twelve of the beasts. So far they’d opted to withhold their assault. Maybe they wanted some sport out of it. Maybe slaughtering us here on the ground was simply too easy for them.

  Regardless, it wasn’t until Peach and Juliet were most of the way up the ladder that the first creature began to stride toward us. It came slowly, leisurely, like it knew we had nowhere to go.

  The others began to follow.

  I glanced up, saw that Peach was almost there. The trapdoor was shut, but that often happened when there was a wind, and today the wind was blowing hard enough to airlift a cow.

  “It’s stuck,” she called.

  “Push it,” Mia said.

  “I am,” Peach answered.

  The creatures were approaching, their green eyes reveling in the impending kill.

  “Push it harder,” I growled.

  “I can’t,” Peach said. “Help me!”

  Annoyed, I turned and looked up at her, and I realized it was as she said. She was shoving up on the wooden door as hard as she could, and it did seem like there was something encumbering it. In fact, I had a sudden, acute worry that she’d struggle too hard against the door and lose her tenuous footing on the wet rung she was standing on. I was about to tell her to let me do it when her efforts jolted the trapdoor just enough to afford a glimpse of what was holding it down. I couldn’t be positive about what I’d seen when the door had swung up, but I was pretty sure I knew where Kurt Fisher had gone.

  He was keeping us down here with the monsters.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Endgame

  “Will, it won’t open!” Peach called.

  I dashed toward the oak tree. “Climb down a few rungs!” I called. The creatures were approaching, but they didn’t seem to be accelerating. Not yet at least.

  The rungs, thank God, were long enough that I could climb up beside Mia without her having to climb down. A good thing too, as Mia was already about twenty-five feet off the ground. For the first time since we’d constructed the thing, I questioned the logic of building the treehouse so damned high. Yeah, it might seem cool to sit so far above the forest floor, but now, with two little girls and Mia in a life-threatening situation, I was afraid one of them would go plummeting downward toward a broken neck.

  I couldn’t lose another person I cared about.

  I made it to where Juliet was clinging to the side of the tree like a petrified squirrel. I said, “You okay?”

  She didn’t answer. Or move, for that matter.

  But her hold on the rungs seemed strong enough to last a couple more minutes.

  I climbed higher until I passed Peach.

  I pounded on the trapdoor. “Kurt? You up there?”

  No answer.

  I got a good hold on the rung, lowered my head, and rammed the trapdoor with my shoulder. It jounced, but it didn’t open.

  It wasn’t locked, but there was definitely someone holding it down.

  “Kurt,” I said. “Unless you want to be responsible for the deaths of four people, you better get the hell off the door right now!”

  I heard a faint scraping sound, tested the door with my free hand. But it still held fast.

  “Dammit,” I muttered.

  “Will?” Mia said, her voice tight with fear.

  I glanced down and saw what she was looking at. The creatures had halved the distance to the oak tree.

  They were coming.

  I punched the wood above me. “Kurt, you stupid, selfish prick, open the door!”

  Nothing.

  Peach’s voice was strained. “Will, I can’t hold on much longer.”

  I ground my teeth, agonizing. I didn’t need to look down to know the creatures were closing in on us. I remembered the way one of them had shimmied up the arm of the bucket lift. Compared to that, this tree would be a cinch. We were dead unless we got through the trapdoor. But there had to be another way…

  I shot a glance at the bottom of the treehouse. Some of the branches were bowed, which left room for handholds. I could climb out to the edge of the structure, find gripping places on the boughs that cradled the floorboards, then climb into the treehouse through the window. Accomplishing this would require me to dangle over a freefall of maybe forty feet, and there was no guarantee I’d be able to scale the outside of the treehouse. But Kurt had the trapdoor pinned, and if I kept trying to dislodge him, the beasts would have us in no time.

  I started to climb an outcropping branch.

  “What are you doing?”

  It was Mia’s voice, but I didn’t bother answering her. I knew if I stopped to contemplate it, I’d lose my nerve. I climbed farther, farther, nearly to the edge of the treehouse.

  My left hand slipped.

  For an endless, ghastly moment, I was swinging out over dead space. The creatures weren’t below me yet, but they soon would be. If I fell, I might die right away, but if I didn’t, the beasts would feast on me the way they had Larry the Utility Worker. The only thing left would be a cruddy pair of sneakers and a few bones.

  Groaning, I got hold of the branch again.

  Near the edge of the treehouse, I discovered a good-sized bough that protruded out about eight feet. Carefully, I climbed onto the bough, rocked, and looped my legs over the big branch. I’m afraid I must’ve jerked on the tree a little too violently, because footsteps sounded within the treehouse. As I climbed onto the bough and leaned on the plywood façade, Kurt’s wide-eyed face appeared in the window opening. He was grasping something.

  He’d found our hatchet.

  I hesitated, knowing the creatures had to be right below the treehouse now. Mia and the girls were down there, exposed. Once the beasts started climbing, it would be over for them. Over for all of us.

  Then I heard a creaking sound and a muted thump. His expression bemused, Kurt turned away from me.

  I realized what had happened. When Peach had heard the footsteps above her, she’d known there was nothing holding the trapdoor closed. She’d climbed inside.

  And was now ins
ide the treehouse with Kurt and the hatchet.

  With a cry of rage I vaulted toward the window.

  The blade came whooshing down at me the moment my fingers clamped onto the open window frame. I jerked my face aside, the hatchet missing me entirely, the bottom of the blade bouncing harmlessly off my shoulder rather than sinking into my flesh. I hauled myself toward the aperture, my feet scrabbling on the wet plywood façade.

  Kurt grinned, cocked the hatchet back. In that moment I knew I was dead. If I didn’t defend myself, the hatchet would split my skull. But if I did try to fend off the blow, there was no way I’d be able to maintain my perilous hold on the slippery window frame.

  Kurt swung the hatchet, but his fingers lost hold of the blade halfway to my face. The hatchet clattered against the inside of the treehouse. Kurt threw back his head and howled in agony. Utterly confused but knowing it was my only opportunity to climb inside, I thrust myself through the opening and tumbled onto the floor. I glanced to the left and saw Kurt grasping the back of his leg.

  Peach had stabbed him with a pencil. Not only that, she had buried the damned thing at least two inches deep. Kurt was bellowing in pain and scooting around the treehouse like a dog with his butt on fire.

  I waited for him, leaned back, and unloaded on him with my fiercest roundhouse right fist. His head snapped back, his feet flying out from under him. The back of his head cracked against the unforgiving floor, and he lay without moving.

  Man, it felt good.

  But my elation only lasted for a moment.

  Because that’s when Mia started screaming.

  ¨

  I scrambled over to the trapdoor, saw Juliet still wrapped against the side of the tree like cellophane, but now she was shrieking, her voice loud and indescribably shrill, and as I leaned out a little I realized why.

  One of the creatures had latched onto Mia’s ankle.

  Mia was about ten feet below me, Juliet right above her. I had to climb over Juliet to get to Mia, and I had no idea how to do that without knocking all three of us off the tree and into the mass of waiting beasts.

  And they were waiting for us now. I could see that despite the darkening evening. Their iridescent eyes were upturned, their grim stares advertising plainly that the moment Mia or anyone else fell, they’d whir into action and rend their prey to shreds.