by Kayla Krantz
The clean air came as a relief to his lungs and stomach, but now his mind was sick. Thoughts of Milo had him frowning again in spite of their victory. For as elated as Shawn was that he and Jack had once again beaten the odds, that hole left by Milo’s death would probably always be there.
Shawn stared into the water, at his reflection. He was covered in dirt and soot, a lot of it caused by the previous dungeons. Bitterly, he reached out and smacked the water, sending his reflection into a hundred shimmering pieces.
“Hey,” Jack said, setting his hand on Shawn’s shoulder. “We gotta keep fighting. He would’ve wanted that. Would’ve wanted us to show Rhys that we’re not going to back down.”
“I know,” Shawn said, still staring into the water. “But it just feels so wrong to be here without him.”
“I know,” Jack said, sitting down beside Shawn. “I know.”
Shawn ruffled his red hair before he sighed and dipped his hand into the water, scooping up a palmful. He splashed his face, cleaning away the dirt before gathering another scoop to slurp down. Satiated, he looked to Jack. “Anything good in your supplies this time?”
Jack set his bag on his lap, rummaging through. “Good enough, I suppose. Doesn’t look as if I have a blade this time though.”
Shawn thought of the dagger he’d left in the monster’s stomach.
“You’re going to wish you had a blade for this next demon,” Rhys announced. Shawn made a face, feeling as if Rhys were just mocking him. “But you’ve had much too easy of a go so far. As least as far as I’m concerned. I want to see how you do without the proper supplies being handed to you.”
Shawn shivered at the thought. He hated Rhys. He really did, but he had to admit that the supplies both Milo and Jack had been given before each dungeon had been fundamental in their success. Without them, they might not have made it past Mammon.
Shawn almost wondered if it would’ve been easier for them to all go at once rather than one at a time. No, he forced himself to think. Jack’s still here. We’re going to survive.
“Ugh, can’t we have longer than two seconds to rest?” Jack asked, frowning as he stared up at the sky. “I still have the smell of vomit in my nose. I would at least like to breathe without feeling as if I’m going to vomit before I have to fight for my life.”
“You were the ones who insisted you were ready to get this over with,” Rhys pointed out. “The longer you waste here, talking about the future you may or may not have, the longer you will be trapped in this world.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jack said, waving his hand. He looked to Shawn and rolled his eyes.
Shawn was one hundred percent with Jack. He didn’t care much about how long they were trapped anymore. If they happened to survive, part of Shawn would always be trapped in this world, trapped with the memory of how he had failed Milo. What difference did an extra five or ten minutes make? He was so exhausted he was almost ready to call for another time out and take a nap.
Shawn took his glasses off to clean a speck of dirt that was stuck to the lens. Or at least he hoped it was dirt and not vomit as he asked, “What’s next?”
“Your next demon will be Asmodeus,” Rhys replied. “The demon of lust.”
Jack laughed, and Shawn quirked an eyebrow, wondering how he could manage something so human. “Are you pulling all your demons from TV?”
Rhys did not join in the laughter. “Make your jokes now, but I think you’ll find the experience waiting for you to be nothing like you expect.”
The laughter faded, and Jack’s face twisted into something that Shawn deciphered as uncertainty. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
Shawn didn’t either. A dungeon for the sin of lust? Should be easy enough for him. The most he’d ever done with a girl was kiss, and even that hadn’t been as pleasant of an experience as he had hoped. Shawn thought of Jack, of the crush he harbored for his sister, and wondered about his friend. It would be a poetic injustice to him if Jack were to fall thanks to an apparition of Penelope.
Rhys snapped his fingers, and they were whisked away to a country road. Shawn did a three-sixty turn, surveying everything. Trees lined either side of the pavement, and overhead, it was dark. This wasn’t a place that Shawn recognized, and he guessed it wasn’t one in their town. Vaguely, he wondered where they were, if it was a real place on Earth.
“I don’t know if I hate this dungeon or not,” Jack said at last.
“It’s definitely not what I was expecting,” Shawn said. At the very least, the smell of the clean air ridded his lungs of the remaining acrid tang of vomit.
Jack looked both ways, tangled brown hair flopping before he asked, “Which way should we go?”
“I don’t think it’ll matter in the end,” Shawn admitted.
“Eenie-meenie-miney-mo,” Jack said, pointing toward the right. “Let’s go this way.”
With those words fading into silence, they turned in the direction of the moon and started to walk. The air around them was stiff and cold. Shawn shivered, trying to hug himself to get rid of the goosebumps blossoming over his skin. The trees on the right side of the road gave way to a black gate and a field. Shawn almost paused, already knowing what they would see inside even before the first tombstone came into view.
“He’s joking with this, right?” Jack asked, stopping in his tracks as soon as he realized it was a cemetery. “A cemetery in the lust demon’s dungeon?”
“Yeah, I don’t want to think too much about it,” Shawn said.
Jack unzipped his bag, sorting through his supplies before he looked up.
“What is it?” Shawn asked.
Jack shrugged. “Just getting ready. We’d be foolish to think there isn’t some kind of trap in there.”
Shawn blinked and swiveled his gaze to the ornate gate. To him, it seemed too obvious to be a trap, but he was far too exhausted to argue. Jack took the lead, walking to the break in the gate. Shawn tagged a moment behind, studying their surroundings again. To him, he would be just as unsurprised if a monster were to attack from the trees while they were investigating the cemetery as he would be if the threat came from the cemetery itself. Jack waited for Shawn to catch up and then they passed the gate, the air growing darker as if only the cemetery had a black cloud over it. Shawn squinted, barely able to see Jack a few feet ahead as they maneuvered through the tombstones and mausoleums.
“Don’t you think we should head in the opposite direction of the creepy cemetery?” Shawn asked at last. “I mean, I’m sure we’re just as capable of getting murdered by something in the creepy woods.”
Jack shrugged. “Probably, but I got enough anger in me at this point that I’d rather fight my way through than walk the long route. This way, if we know the threats are coming, we can’t be ambushed.”
“Fair enough,” Shawn conceded, but he wasn’t so sure. The ground was more open here, but something could hide in any of the tombs. Shivering, Shawn glanced out toward the trees again. He could swear that something was watching him, but with Rhys overhead, that was always true.
Rhys, you give me the creeps, he thought, hoping the demon Game Master could hear it.
Sweet sounds drifted from the darkness then, as if someone were humming a sweet tune, and Jack reached out to put his arm in Shawn’s path, bringing him to a stop beside him.
“You hear that, right?” Jack asked.
“The singing?” Shawn guessed.
Jack bobbed his head, turning his attention to his bag.
Shawn stayed in place, trying to see if he recognized the song. He didn’t, but the song somehow reminded him of the banshee that Milo had gotten tangled with at the very start of their journey. Shawn’s face twisted at the thought of the woods, of the normal evening they thought they’d had in store. It all felt like a million years ago now.
Jack’s digging grew more frantic, and Shawn peered at him curiously. Did he have something that could help? Earplugs perhaps? Shawn took one step closer, but he couldn’t see much
in the darkness. Jack must’ve been deciphering his tools by touch alone.
The singing stopped, and Jack looked up from the bag, squinting through the darkness before he looked over his shoulder. “Where did it go?”
“I don’t know,” Shawn said before the sounds started again, not five feet before him.
Jack looked back down at his bag, ruffling with a ferocity that Shawn didn’t understand. He took a step backward and tried to seek out the creature, but it was nearly impossible to see anything through the haze.
Jack pulled a strip of fabric out of his bag and secured it over his eyes. “Don’t look for it, man.”
Shawn turned to him, ready to ask what when the hint of something white came to him. He squinted, trying to see it better. It was a woman, clad in all white. Her gown was all he could see, and his eyes were drawn to it. Slowly, his gaze trailed up to her face.
“Shawn!” he could hear Jack bellow, but he sounded a million miles away.
At last, Shawn’s gaze landed on the woman’s face, on her eyes, and he felt as if he were melting.
23.
JACK KEPT HIS gaze angled down as he peeled his blindfold up, risking a peek at the ground a few steps ahead of his feet. He recognized Shawn’s sneakers. Beside him was the ghostly image of a torn wedding dress, and Jack cursed. Shawn had already fallen for the spell, whatever it was. Jack thought of Sirens. Beautiful demons who drew in unsuspecting victims. Shawn must’ve looked, even through the haze, and seen whatever the creature was. Jack had just a moment of silent reflection about that. Rhys said he wasn’t going to help them anymore, but the haze had kept them protected until this point.
The creature stopped singing, and Jack was more concerned. The only reason a demon like that would stop its lure was because it already had a victim in its sights. Jack glanced side to side, trying to scope out the area around him without moving his blindfold more than a centimeter. The fact that they were in a cemetery gave Jack a bit of hope. Spirits in places like this were usually tied to something like a grave or a trinket. Whatever this monster’s deal was, he’d figure it out.
“Hold on, buddy!” Jack called, trying to move in the direction that the creature had originally come from.
Shawn was still silent, and something in Jack twisted at the thought. Losing Milo had been hard, but in all honesty, he knew he’d be okay because they weren’t close. Or at least not as close as Jack and Shawn. If something were to happen, and Shawn was taken from him, he didn’t know if he’d have it in him to survive the rest of the dungeons.
Don’t worry about that because it’s not going to happen, he chastised himself.
Despite his thoughts, he moved faster, almost sprinting. Between the haze and his blindfold, he was running blind. Jack’s foot connected with a small gravestone, and his hands shot out to either side, desperate to keep himself from falling. Somehow, it worked, and he peered beneath his cloth to see his surroundings again. In this corner of the cemetery, there was a downed tree by one side of the gate and a mausoleum on the other. There was nothing identifying about who or what had been buried inside the decrepit building, but a feeling in his gut told him this was the place the demon had come from. The rickety old door was half open, looking ready to fall off its hinges.
There was an Irish myth about a demon woman who could be stopped by covering her grave with rocks. If he needed to do something like that to the entire building, they were out of luck. Jack eyed the door. Hopefully, closing it would be enough to seal the creature inside. He hurried to the mausoleum, feeling the roughness of the stone beneath his fingers. The door was heavy, and even after only a second of contact, he could tell it wasn’t going to be easy to move.
From behind him came a choked gasp. In the panic of keeping his best friend safe, he whipped the blindfold to the side and turned to see what was happening. The ghostly woman hovered in front of Shawn, bringing him with it. A translucent black band connected them.
“Oh, God,” Jack said with a shaking breath.
He turned back to the task at hand, gripping the door hard enough to turn his fingers white, and pushed until a pain erupted in his back. The idea of a hernia didn’t pass him by as he tried again, but the door didn’t budge. Jack desperately turned back to his bag. Not that he thought there were any answers to be found but because he didn’t know what else to do. He moved the contents around and at last came upon a vial of clear liquid. The label was yellow and hard to read, but there was a decipherable S. Jack had no idea what it would do, but he was desperate.
In a quick motion, he popped out the cork and downed it, comforting himself in the idea that it wasn’t poison based solely on what he’d seen on the label. The liquid was thick, the texture like blood, but the taste metallic. His stomach turned over, clenching just beneath his ribs with the threat to vomit everything up, and he wondered if he had made a terrible mistake.
Behind him, Shawn made a gurgling sound, the noise that came from breath being suddenly cut off. Jack was running out of time. With the world swirling around him, Jack put his fingers back to the cold stone of the door and pushed, not expecting much to happen. Instead, the heavy stone moved a fraction of an inch, and Jack let out the breath he’d been holding.
The feeling of dizziness was nearly overwhelming, but he gathered the last of his strength, a strangled cry making its way up his throat. The door moved easier and easier, the clash of the stones colliding as it moved into place came as a welcome relief. Shawn fell to the ground with a splat and gulp for air. Blackness encroached the edges of Jack’s vision, and he leaned over, hurling into the bushes. The uncomfortable feeling of the thick liquid coming back up lasted only a second. Then he was better.
“Shawn!” he gasped, turning so fast that he almost forgot to keep his eyes low.
After all, he didn’t know where the ghostly demon had gone. As carefully as he could, Jack hurried to his friend’s side. Eyes on the ground, he peered through the tiny gap of space, seeking out the haunting white gown. It was gone. Whatever the creature was, it had vanished.
“Oh, thank God,” Jack said, surveying the area for any signs of another ghostly seductress. As far as he could tell, the coast was clear, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t last. He couldn’t tell just how large the cemetery was, but there were plenty of graves. Plenty of chances for new creatures to make an appearance.
He wanted to be long gone before then.
Jack tugged the blindfold off and looked Shawn over. There was a splotch of blood on the side of his neck, disappearing under his clothes. It looked as if he had stopped bleeding, but that only served to make Jack feel worse. How deep were the punctures? Had the demon actually taken his blood?
“Come on, buddy, get up. We got this,” he urged, putting his hand on Shawn’s shoulder.
Shawn didn’t stir. Sighing, he looked into his bag again for anything remotely resembling medical supplies. He had nothing. Desperate, he picked up his blindfold and pressed it over the wound. The warmth of Shawn’s blood seeped through, making Jack wince. It was a good sign though. If he was still bleeding, it meant he was still alive.
“Shawn, can you hear me?” he asked after a tense minute.
The blood continued to soak into the cloth, but Shawn didn’t move. Jack picked his glasses up out of the dirt and wiped them on his jeans. He clenched them until he heard a tiny crack. The sound was the only thing he focused on, the only thing that kept him from crying. Jack had seen plenty of horror movies, but he never saw himself as a final girl and couldn’t imagine it now. How could he outlive Milo’s resourcefulness and Shawn’s good instincts? It made no sense. Just when Jack was about to go into a fit of hysterics, Shawn groaned in his throat.
“Shawn, buddy, are you there?” he asked, bringing his face so close to his friend that he could smell the copper-tang of his blood.
Shawn winced and clamped his hand to the rag. Jack moved his fingers, watching Shawn’s eyes slowly flutter open. “What happened?” he asked.
; Jack was silent at first, unsure how much Shawn remembered. The idea that the demon could’ve wiped all memories of the dungeons away from his friend was too horrific for him to want to acknowledge. “There was a ghost,” he said at last.
“Yeah. She got me good,” Shawn said, hissing as he forced himself to sit up. He pulled the scrap of cloth away from his neck, dropping it to the ground. Jack could tell it was soaked in blood by the wet thump it made against the Earth.
“How deep is your wound?” he asked, frowning at Shawn’s fingers when the blood started to seep through the cracks.
“It hurts, but I’m going to live,” Shawn assured him, and to emphasize his point, he pulled his hand away, showing the two holes. They were ugly, but compared to memories of Milo’s final moments, they were nothing but a flesh wound.
“That’s a relief at least,” Jack said.
Shawn nodded. “How’d you get rid of it?”
“Closed the tomb,” Jack said, thrusting a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the mausoleum.
Shawn squinted through the shadows before looking back at him. “Alone?”
“Of course. Found a questionable vial in my bag, but yeah,” Jack said. His stomach did another flip at the thought of whatever it was he had ingested. Partly, he wanted to ask Rhys what it was, but feared the answer.
What was done, was done.
Shawn looked at the streaks of blood on his fingers again. “It was good thinking about the tomb. I don’t know if I would’ve come to that conclusion.”
Jack laughed, dry and low. He couldn’t tell if Shawn was being sarcastic or not. To Jack, it was a basic solution, and he was mad at himself that he hadn’t put it to work before the demon could do whatever it had done to his friend. “Yeah, turns out school projects are vital for survival in the world of D&D. Who would’ve guessed?”
“Not me,” Shawn said, groaning as he stood to his feet.
Jack didn’t respond as he watched his friend. In the moonlight, he seemed even paler than he normally did which was saying something. On a regular day, Shawn’s skin was usually only one shade darker than Milo’s had been. He feared Shawn might pass out. If he did, Jack wasn’t sure what he’d do.