by Jim Butcher
“Yeah,” he said, winking at me and rapping a fist cheerfully on the table. “Yeah. That’s right.”
MY DAD LEFT, and I told Mouse, “You know I have to do it like this. You can’t come all the way.”
He made a soft, distressed sound, and kissed my face with his big, sloppy tongue.
“Yick,” I said, and rubbed my face in his fur. “I love you, too, Mouse.”
He made a rumbling sound in his chest and sighed. He felt tense, his weight shifting, as though he was eager to go somewhere and do something. He wanted to help, but he couldn’t.
I got up from the table and walked out of the café and straight up to the waiting haunts. I addressed the girl directly. “Hey, you. Space Face.”
The haunts all stared at me with their empty eyes, and for a second it was like there were shadows writhing everywhere, people in pain. I ignored those images because otherwise I would have gotten really scared. Instead, I made eye contact with every haunt and then said, “You guys are the worst. Let’s get this over with.”
And I turned and started walking, Mouse at my side.
There was a confused moment of silence, and then the haunts started following me.
The Book is pretty specific about haunts. They feed on fear. That’s why they dig up all the scary things from your past. It’s like their mustard. They want you to marinate in fear, and then, when you’re soaked and dripping in it, they move in and start eating you like some kind of gross bug. All the kids these haunts had taken? The invaders would eat them up from the inside, taking bites out of their minds, keeping them focused on fear. When they ate their fill, they would start looking for someone else to move into. The kid would wake up, like from a bad dream, but the Book said that the kids the haunts had gotten wouldn’t ever be right again.
There were a dozen black-eyed kids walking along behind me. I wondered what it would be like to get chewed on by a dozen haunts at once.
Probably really scary. Like a nightmare you couldn’t wake up from.
Anyway, the Book says that there’s only one way to deal with fear, and only one way to deal with creatures who thrive on it.
You face them.
You go, alone, to the darkest and scariest place around, and you face them. It has to be alone, nothing but you and yourself facing the fear. It has to be scary, because you have to face the fear on its own ground.
Otherwise, the haunts just … follow you. Endlessly. Nibbling at you until you just collapse on the ground making bibbly noises.
Mouse walked alongside me, his head turned to face the haunts, the mane around his neck and shoulders bristling. He didn’t growl, and his body language had changed to something grim and very serious.
It’s never really hard to find a scary place; they’re everywhere—it’s just that grown-ups don’t pay much attention to them. I found one right there in the zoo, and I had to go through only two gates marked
EMPLOYEES ONLY to get there. By sheer coincidence, they’d been left unlocked.
Good boy, Mouse.
So it took me only a couple of minutes to walk down a utility staircase into the basement of the big cat exhibit, and from there to open the door to an old, old, old staircase made of stone and slick with water that went into the building’s unlit subbasement.
At the top of the stairs, I turned to Mouse and said, “Don’t be afraid. I got this.”
I was kind of lying. Maybe I didn’t have it. Maybe the Book was wrong. Maybe I’d have an attack. Maybe the haunts would just beat me up. There were enough of them.
Mouse seemed to sense my uncertainty. His expression shifted and he whirled to face the haunts following me, baring his teeth and letting out the kind of rumble you hear only from really old cars and maybe tractors.
The haunts drew up short. Their leader, the girl with the tear-streaked face, faced him and sneered.
“Guardian,” she said. “You know the Law. We are within our rights.”
Mouse growled lower and took slow steps forward, until he stood before the haunt, almost eye to eye. His fur did that thing where light comes from it, silvery blue sparkles that glitter across the very tips of the hairs.
If the haunt was impressed, it didn’t show it. “I know the Law. As should you.” It pointed a finger past him, at me. “That is my prey. Stand aside.”
I really needed Mouse not to get involved. If he did, I couldn’t break the haunt’s empty-eyed pursuit.
“It’s okay, boy,” I said. “I got this.”
Mouse looked at me, falling silent. Then he bowed his head down low to the ground for me. He prowled past the haunts—bumping a couple of them with his massive shoulders, enough to make them stagger—to the entrance we’d just come in, and settled down with an attitude of patience.
All the eyes turned toward me.
I took a deep breath and got my phone out of my pocket. I had it powered down, because I’d been hanging out with my dad, and wizards kill phones just by looking at them funny if they’ve got any electricity actually moving through them. Powered down, the phones seem to be okay. I turned it on, waited for the dumb little apple screen to go away, and then flipped on the light.
Then I walked down the stairs into the black, and the haunts came with me.
I got to a room at the bottom of the staircase. It was a big, open concrete space with a lot of dusty old machines. It smelled musty down there. It smelled awful. Shadows stretched everywhere, threatening. My light glittered off small eyes, close to the ground, outside of the actual area it lit. Rats, maybe.
The light was shaking a little. I was afraid.
That wasn’t a good sign. If I was afraid and they hadn’t even started on me, maybe I’d break. Maybe I’d just fall down and cry. Maybe they’d get me. Maybe I’d walk back up into the zoo with my eyes all black and my dad wouldn’t even be able to see it. I’d just start freaking out and everyone would just think, you know, that I had gotten worse. And they’d have to put me someplace safe.
I shivered.
Then I turned around and faced the lead haunt.
Tear Streaks stood, like, six inches behind me. As I watched, her mouth twitched into this bow of bared teeth that resembled a smile about as much as Sue the Dinosaur’s teeth at the museum. Her eyes gaped black, like a skull’s sockets.
The other haunts slowly walked around us, until they stood all around me in a circle, close enough to reach out and touch me. Their eyes got darker, got absolutely huge, and then …
And then—
—I was standing in the kitchen of a house I recognized without remembering.
TV was on. It was Sesame Street, but the language was Spanish, which I’d been brought up speaking. I still spoke it, though it took me time to make my brain understand it, like shifting gears on a bicycle. Elmo was talking about letters.
I looked up and saw a very kind lady with dark hair whose name I couldn’t remember. I’d been very little when I had lived with her. She was humming to herself and making cookies or something, and she paused to smile at me and tell me that I was a good girl.
Her husband came in, speaking in a tense voice. She dropped her spoon and then hurriedly set her mixing bowl aside and picked me up.
That was when the vampires came in. Shapes, not quite human, in black cloaks and coats and wrappings. They let out inhuman shrieks, bounding through the air, and I heard a gun go off just before the kind lady’s husband screamed, and the air went all thick with the smell of metal, and the kind lady screamed and pressed me against her.
“I know,” I said out loud in a firm voice. “The Red Court came for me. They killed the foster family who was taking care of me. It was awful.”
The kitchen vanished abruptly, and I was standing, half-bent over with my hands on my knees, breathing hard. The light from my phone showed me a lot of patent leather shoes.
I looked up, angry, and said, “I didn’t get hurt that day. Other people did. You’ll have to do better than that.”
Tear Streaks st
ared at me for a long moment and then said, “You’re going to lose this family, too. You always lose them.”
I started breathing harder. All my thoughts started going so fast that I couldn’t steer them.
Oh no.
Oh no, no. I was having an attack.
Tear Streaks stepped closer to me, something eager in the way her body curled toward me a little. “Your father means well. But he’s going to die. You’ve seen his scars. One day, he’ll get unlucky or he’ll be wrong, and he’ll die. You’ll be alone.”
My chest was clenching up. I couldn’t breathe. I heard myself making those stupid little-kid noises, and my eyes blurred over with tears. My heart felt like someone was hitting it with a hammer, wham, wham, wham.
“The Carpenters could die just like your first family. Horribly. Screaming. Because of you.”
“Stop,” I tried to say. I just heard sounds like, “Guk, guk, guk.”
The haunt leaned closer. I felt other kids putting their hands on my shoulders, fingers rigid and just wrong.
“Your mother died because of you,” the haunt said in that same tone. “Your father is going to die because of you.”
I had fallen to my knees. Tear Streaks came with me.
“You selfish little monster,” she said. “All those good people, dead because of you. You should just throw yourself into a hole. It would be better for them.”
In the dark and cold, when you’re tired and scared and can’t talk or breathe, with creeps all around you, words like that sound true. And if that was true, then there was no reason not to agree with them. There was no reason not to just lie down and let the monsters have me. For a second, I wanted it. I wanted to just lie down and stop. The words seemed right.
They really did. They sounded true. They felt true.
But feeling true isn’t the same as being true.
In fact, feelings don’t have very much to do with the truth at all.
Monsters had killed my foster family. That was true.
My mother died on the mission to save me. That was true.
But all those people were dead because monsters had come and killed them. And that was the only reason.
Monsters a lot worse than the ones who now surrounded me. Grown-up monsters. Monsters I had survived.
I made myself breathe as the others started to talk. They all said horrible things to me.
And then it hit me: The Book was right.
A dozen of these creatures, and they had dared to select the smallest kid with the scariest things in her past that they could find. They hadn’t tried to jump my dad or even a vanilla grown-up. They hadn’t tried to eat Mouse. They’d come after the littlest, most vulnerable person around.
Because they were afraid.
And if they were afraid, then maybe that meant they couldn’t be the scary ones.
“You know what I think?” I said suddenly and in a very clear voice.
The haunts fell into a shocked silence as I looked up at Tear Streaks. Her black eyes stared at mine, her mouth open, frozen in the middle of a sentence.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “I think maybe right now, I’m the scary one.”
And then I turned off my phone so we were all in perfect darkness—and I threw back my head and laughed at them.
I haven’t ever felt a laugh like that. It wasn’t exactly a bubbly laugh, but there was a ferocious, lionlike, sunlit joy beneath it. It wasn’t an angry sound, but it told them that I wasn’t impressed with their black eyes and their bad dreams. I didn’t try to be very loud, but the sound of it rang from the black stone walls, as true and clear as a bell.
And the haunts screamed.
Their screams didn’t sound like pain exactly. They were each on one note, an absolutely pure tone that didn’t waver around. None of them were notes that went with the others—it was just this horrible mash of sound, like a steam whistle on the cartoons, but without any of the happy, harmonious overtones a steam whistle carried. It sounded like when Molly or Harry walked into the room while the TV was on—sort of a shrieking, monotonous feedback.
And then, all at once, they went silent—and the only sound left was me giggling.
“Heh, heh, heh,” I heard myself say. “Ahhhhh. Stupid creeps.”
I turned my light back on. The kids were all lying on the floor, dazed. They were my age, more or less, and they started to sit up one at a time. Their eyes weren’t black anymore. They were just eyes.
The haunts were gone.
It was just us kids.
“What happened?” asked a boy.
“Ow,” Tear Streaks said, and started sniffling. “My eyes.”
“Um,” I said. I kept shining my light in everyone’s eyes so that they wouldn’t get a very good look at my face, and decided that it was probably simpler to go with the kid-safe version of events. “Gas leak. Come on. We should get out of here. It’s very dangerous to stay.”
It took a little cajoling, but I got everyone back out of the building and into the daylight. They all seemed very confused. Mouse was waiting right where I’d left him, and he walked very carefully next to me, each movement slow and deliberate, so that he didn’t knock over any of the confused kids.
One of the boys was smart enough to go straight to a security guard and ask for help, and Mouse and I went the other way. I found myself smiling. I might have skipped a little.
Beating the monsters is kinda fun. I mean, it’s awful when it’s happening, but after it’s over, it’s better than video games.
Maybe that’s crazy to feel that way. I guess I get it from my dad.
Mouse and I got back to the café, and I bought us victory fries. Mouse collapsed flat onto his tummy under the table in pure relief that I was all right, but that was okay. I leaned down a little extra to make sure he got his fries.
My dad came back about five minutes later, walking with a kid a few years bigger than me. He smiled at me, and I smiled back at him.
“Hey there, punkin,” my dad said. “This is Austin. He hasn’t ever seen the gorillas here, either. How about we get some food for everyone and then we’ll go over there?”
“Okay, Dad,” I said.
He blinked at that, and then he smiled so hard I thought he might break his face.
“Whuff,” Mouse said, and wagged his tail.
MY NAME IS Mouse and I am a Good Dog. Everyone says so.
There are many wonderful people in my life, but the most important ones are My Friend Harry Dresden and his daughter, Maggie. I love them, and I love being with them, and I love going to the zoo.
I had never been to the zoo, but from what My Friend said, I just knew I was going to love it.
My Friend and Maggie both smelled very nervous, though they were trying not to show it. My Friend was worried he could not be a good father to a little girl, which was ridiculous—but if he wasn’t worried about it, he wouldn’t be the person he is. She was upset, too, but for different reasons. She was worried that she would have an Anxiety attack, and that then I would have to help her, and that her father would think she was weak and broken and not want to be her father. That, too, was ridiculous, but her life has not been an easy one.
They are both good people, and both often misunderstood by their fellow humans.
You humans have the potential to be the most wonderful beings there are—if you can get past all these enormous stupid spots you seem to have in your hearts. It’s not your fault. You just don’t know how to work your hearts right yet.
That’s why there are dogs.
I think it’s nice to know your purpose.
We rode in My Friend’s car down to the zoo in the park. I used to get confused when we went to the park, but then I realized that humans had made many parks inside their city, not just one. I love parks. And they are one of the many reasons humans are good.
I walked carefully next to Maggie, and she held on to my mane or to the handle on my support-dog vest. Maggie says my vest is red. I don’t know what tha
t means, but it is her favorite, and that makes me happy. I was careful to wag my tail a little and smile as I walked. Humans are little and can be frightened very easily, so it is very important to show them that you want to be friends.
At least, until it is time to not be friends.
My Friend and Maggie walked together, talking. They were saying all kinds of words, but what they were really saying, over and over, was “I hope you like me.” That was silly, to think that they would not love each other—but sometimes humans are slow to figure things out, because they are heart-stupid.
You are, too. That’s okay. Just get a dog. Dogs can teach you all kinds of things about your heart.
I felt Maggie suddenly grow tense, and paused to look at her, one paw in the air. Her expression was intent and serious, and I knew there was one of those creatures she called creeps nearby. Creeps were serious business, a threat to children; adult humans could not seem to sense them at all. Even I could barely tell when one was nearby. I had to get close enough to jump on one to sense it properly, and even then I only saw shadows and smelled cold and hunger.
It was not my place to fight them. I knew that from my nose all the way in my tail, the same way I knew how to use the power that had been given me. It was my duty to defend and protect the home, and these creatures were meant to be a training ground for the young. Humans forgot them as they aged, but the lessons taught by facing such predators lasted for life. It was not my place to interfere in Maggie’s learning.
Unless they came in the house, of course. That was simply unreasonable.
Two humans speaking angrily to each other smelled like old tobacco and mildew, and their voices hurt my ears a little. They were discussing the role of the United States in combating poverty, illiteracy, and terror in Central Africa, and were quite upset about it. They must have been baglered. They were no threat to anything but pleasant conversation.
But the group of a dozen schoolchildren who smelled like sick ferrets and had black shadows under their eyes were a different matter. They were being possessed by more creeps, haunts, by the smell of it, and could be a severe threat to Maggie’s well-being. Not physically—physically, they were only more children, and if the creeps chose to take their battle to the physical arena, the same law that bound my power would allow me to intervene. The true threat they represented was intangible and serious.