by Rob Horner
I started to say something to her, something inane but meant to be reassuring, when a sound reached us, a skittering like mice behind the walls, or like small pebbles dancing over concrete. Crystal sucked in a breath through her teeth, stepping back between us and latching onto my hand.
We whipped around, staring out, trying to pierce the red veil and see into the darkness, which stared back at us, unseen eyes watching. The darkness took on a weight of its own, oppressive and cloying.
"What was that?" Tanya asked from behind us. "Here, take my hand."
I reached out behind me, not wanting to turn around, but felt nothing.
"Thanks, that's better," Tanya said. Then, "Hey, where are we goi--? Johnny?"
She screamed.
We twisted, holding hands and unwilling to let go, dancing around in circles, looking toward the trailer, then back out into the empty street, then back towards the trailer. There was no glowing white aura. Even if there was, I wasn't sure we could have seen it with the trailer in front of us.
Tanya was gone.
I tightened my grip on Crystal's hand. She clenched mine in return.
"We'll find her," she said.
It wasn't enough, and she knew it. I moved to the side, toward the front of the trailer, one step, then two, unable to see, unsure if she'd even been pulled this way.
She screamed again, the sound heart-wrenching.
"Which way, Johnny?" she asked.
"I don't know," I whispered, because anything louder would have been a wail.
Stuck in the halfway point between the path back to the carnival and the trailer we'd worked so hard to get to, we were frozen, hands growing clammy with fear, eyes surely wider than they were meant to be, straining to see. More skittering noises sounded in the darkness beyond our sight. We needed to get away from the trailer in order to see better.
We needed to get into the trailer to end this.
I turned to look at it, the only thing truly illuminated by the red light, every road-worn crack in the siding starkly visible, the small glass windows in their sliding metal frame shut, dark curtains hanging on the inside.
I took a step toward it, pulling Crystal with me.
"Johnny, Tanya's out there!"
"I know."
"We need to find her!"
Another step, and now the warmth and welcome we'd felt a few minutes ago vanished, replaced by a wave of nauseating corruption, a sense of evil so pervasive and corrosive that every fiber of my being shrieked at the idea of going even one step closer. The thought of entering the place was intolerable.
It knew.
The thing inside the trailer, the black box, or maybe the leader of the ceremony...something in there knew we weren't coming to join them. I wasn't coming to join them. It sensed my purpose and my resolve, and it pulsed waves of negativity at us.
Crystal's head shook back and forth, her ponytail whipping with the motion.
"No, no, no, we can't. You can't. We mustn't!" she cried.
Sweat beaded on my forehead, though the temperature outside had dropped several degrees since we entered the carnival. My knees shook, and my legs ached with the thought of moving any closer, like those evil feelings had the weight of a boulder and pushing it uphill was exhausting me.
"They're all around us," Crystal said, drawing me out of my thoughts. Her head-whipping had been more than just denying the evil in front of us, more than a desire to turn around.
We turned, facing away from the trailer, and saw the truth.
Numerous dark forms were arrayed in a semi-circle at the edge of the redness. Bathed in the light but not illuminated by it, their features were shrouded in shadow. We didn't need more light to see the strange contours of their arms and legs, the spikes jutting from scalps and spines.
Only ten feet separated us from the trailer, and perhaps that much from the encircling demons.
They'd never allow us to reach it.
It had been a trap from the very beginning.
Their eyes watched us, but they didn't advance. Actively listening now, I heard what should have been obvious before: the raspy breathing of a dozen or more of the creatures, closing the net around us. Their hatred burned like the heat from a furnace, but they waited.
"What are they waiting for?" Crystal asked.
"I don't know, maybe for us to make a try for the trailer."
"We're not going to, are we?" she asked.
"No." Then I saw a glimmer of something, far off in the distance, a flash of light which could have been a car's headlight from the far away road, or a pulse from a strobe light inside the carnival, or maybe even more of that movie-magic lightning from the battle back by the entrance.
The light gave me an idea.
"Get ready," I said softly.
"I am," she whispered back.
I waited another few seconds, feeling them out there, wanting to come after us but holding back. Still holding Crystal's hand, I shifted a little, putting her directly behind me. "Remember the park?" I said.
Unsure if she understood the message, but feeling like we couldn't wait any longer, I let go of her hand, then brought mine together in front of me, trying to fan my fingers, willing my power out like a wave.
The light flashed, and demons squealed, blinded by the sudden brilliance, thrown back by the shockwave. The light showed me the way. Grabbing her hand again, I started running directly away from the trailer. Their cries turned from pained squeals to angry growls as they struggled back to their feet, their prey dancing between them.
And then we were among the trailers, running like fools in a place were running could get us scalped on a window vane, or tripped and sprawling on the concrete. The sounds of feet slapping on the asphalt rose behind us, growls and shrieks harrying, forcing us to move faster, raspy breath and claws scraping along metal sidewalls echoing and reverberating between the close-parked trailers sounding like they were coming from in front as well as behind.
"Johnny! Crystal! Help!"
The cry came from our right and seemed to be close. It was Tanya's voice.
Crystal started to veer in that direction. Every part of my heart and soul wanted to go with her, but my head made me pull her back.
"We have to save her!" she shouted at me, too loud, a beacon for our pursuers. Fear cracked her voice.
"It's too late," I said. "There's no way she's still human and you know it!"
"But you could save her."
"It's another trap!" I exclaimed, frustrated she didn't see it, scared that her cries would bring more of those things down upon us, and tormented by guilt. I wasn't brave enough to go after the woman I loved.
She didn't protest again, which was good. I couldn't have restrained myself much longer.
Another tug, and she followed.
The trailers were a maze. Everywhere we turned there was another wall, and not enough light to always make out the spaces between where we might slip through to a different street. Distance didn't matter. We'd been running for several minutes but there was no way to tell how far we'd come from the red trailer, or how far we still needed to go. The red glow was still back there, off to our left now, and that was enough to tell me we hadn't gone far enough. But after so many hurried turns, dead-ends, double-backs, and second guesses, we were lost.
And then there was another flare of light, blue-white and bright, arcing up into the sky ahead and to our right. It looked close, much closer than I'd hoped. We could make it.
"Look, over there," Crystal whispered.
"Let's go."
We started running again, and despite my desire for caution, the potential perilousness of the ground so strewn with cabling, I moved too fast, my right arm stretching out behind me.
A blast of white light burst from the ground beneath me, doing no damage but distracting me enough that I didn't see the trailer hitch. I struck it with an audible thud, hot pain shooting up my right leg from my shin, sending me sprawling forward onto my face. I let go of Crys
tal to get my hands out in front, saving me from a concussion or a broken nose.
She cried out my name in the instant I started falling, then screamed a second later as I hit the ground. I heard the scuffing of feet as I pushed myself upright, turning toward her, but there was no one there. Another scream and the shriek of a demon sounded from somewhere ahead.
Whipping around, turning, frantic, I whispered/called her name.
Darkness.
Silence.
I was alone.
Chapter 31
Running down a dream
Without Crystal's power, there was no more red light. But there was light glowing behind me. The numerous white and multi-colored lights of the carnival midway were close, not enough to drive away the darkness, but more than enough to guide me out. Go back for my friends or save myself.
There wasn't even a suggestion of a choice in that.
I turned my back on the light, facing the dark trailers, scanning all around. Every muscle in my body was tense as a drawn bowstring, waiting for a hint, ready to react.
Crystal screamed again, calling for help, and I moved toward it. Every step moved me further from one kind of salvation and took me closer to another. Behind me was light, people who were already fighting the same war; running to them might end this horrible night. But ahead of me were my friends, one of them the girl I loved. Finding them, saving them, would do more to salve my soul than anything else possibly could.
I moved slowly now, feeling the press of time but understanding that to hurry was to lose. There was no point in rushing blindly forward. I had to assume they were already corrupted, had to count on my ability to save them, not kill myself trying to prevent them from being changed. I moved in a defensive stance, shifting it forward one leg at a time. This was another trap, but it didn't matter. The trap was sprung the minute they took my friends. Now I needed to find a way to turn it against them.
I tried to control my breathing, wanting to master my fear. But though my motions were controlled, my body on edge and ready to move at the slightest provocation, I couldn't push the fear aside.
The demons were everywhere. Their scampering feet beat a tattoo on the asphalt, sometimes scurrying between two trailers ahead of me, sometimes behind me, always just out of sight. There were sounds like aluminum bending and rebounding, that specific twang which could only mean they were on the roofs of the trailers around me, their weight bowing the tops momentarily. Their claws scraped at the sides, creating a teeth-grinding sound like fingernails on a chalkboard, teasing me, taunting. Their voices called out to one another, sometimes nearby, and sometimes far enough away that it reminded me of a lonely horse, standing at a fence, whinnying and waiting to see if another horse answered.
I began to see flashes of light in my peripheral vision, not steady like the glow of the distant carnival, but moving, bobbing, like flashlights searching, just around a bend or two, not close enough to be helpful. Underneath the sounds of the demons were other noises which didn't fit, metallic scrapes and thuds. The best my mind could come up with were images from war movies, automatic weapons being cocked, magazines replaced. I shook those images away, sure they were nothing more than imagination powered by adrenaline and fear.
Moving forward between three trailers parked facing away from each other, another scream sounded, much closer than any other, and I yelled out, "Crystal!" forgetting my caution. But she answered, her voice just as urgent, pulling me to the right, easing between two of the trailers. As I rounded the corner, there she was, coming toward me.
She burst into tears as I grabbed her, pulling her in for a quick embrace. Her hand found mine in time for me to see red forms and hear the harsh cries of more demons, hot in pursuit. It didn't matter how she'd gotten away. She had, and now I needed to get her out of here. Maybe whoever had the lights back there could help. She'd be safe, and I could go back in search of Tanya.
We turned around, my eyes finding the white glow behind us which was my compass. There really were other lights piercing the night, but they weren't as close as I'd thought. Maybe they were powerful searchlights, dancing among the trailers from back by the midway.
We started moving, but we weren't fast enough. The demons gained on us, steadily closing. Whenever I turned my head to look behind us, their glowing forms were closer, their footfalls louder. A sound remembered from that first night came through the quick steps, scrapes, hoots and growls. It sounded like heavy breathing, or sniffing, like someone taught a hog to follow a trail like a bloodhound.
They were only a turn behind us.
With the aid of the moon, I spotted a large area of space between the underside of a trailer and the asphalt. Without stopping to explain, I pulled Crystal to the ground and slid/shoved her under the trailer, hurriedly crawling in behind her. The asphalt here was wet with condensation, or perhaps from a leaking pipe overhead. There was a smell wholly different from the scent of concrete and perspiration, a mustiness that I tried not to think about. I refused to think about what other kinds of liquids might be under a trailer parked in a place like this, with no access to bilge trucks or plumbing hook-ups. The air was damp but not unpleasant, hopefully heavy enough to muffle the sounds of my rapid heartbeat and ragged breathing. I tried to make myself as small as possible in the cramped and humid space.
Within seconds, the sounds of the demons approached, then paused. The claws on their feet scratched the pavement as they moved around, searching. I prayed the frantic beating of my heart, or the ragged sound of my breathing, wouldn't be loud enough for them to hear.
The snuffling sound was closer, like a dog with its nose to the scent but with a snout full of mucus.
They were going to smell us out!
But maybe, since the ground here was wet, and there was a smell a little like swamp water, that combination of musty and damp, it might be...
Musty and damp air? Sniffing for us? Hunting...
...enough that it would cover our scent and keep us hidden.
They didn't smell me out last time, did they?
The snuffling continued for several long moments, and I gathered my legs under me, prepared to lunge at the first demon head that popped under the trailer.
But then, incredibly, the demons moved off. They hadn't found us. Long seconds passed, maybe a minute, during which my pulse dropped out of turbo mode and my breathing grew quieter.
"I'm glad you found me," Crystal said.
"Be quiet!" I hissed at her, shocked at the how loudly she'd spoken.
Oh, don't worry about them...
"Oh, don't worry about them," she said, again much too loudly, and my mind reeled with a sense of déjà vu. I'd heard those exact words before, and under the exact same circumstances. But how?
"They won't hurt me," she said.
"What'd you say?" I asked. "What're you talking about?"
She was silent for a long moment, and I heard her breathing, irregular and ragged, and the truth, the memory, exploded in my mind even as she spoke again.
"The only one who's in any danger is you." Her voice was different, raw and rasping.
"No!" I shouted, gathering myself, knowing that I needed a way out, a chance to fight her without banishing her, maybe knock her unconscious, so I could rid her of the evil inside.
Her hand reached out in the darkness, clamping onto my forearm through the sleeve of my shirt, pinning it to the ground.
My body took over, lessons learned but not remembered from my dream last night guiding my motions. I rolled away, tearing my arm from her grip. There was a slap that might have been her other hand hitting the ground, instead of gaining a second grip on me. I threw my right hand back out as I moved, praying for the strike, holding back the part that banished. Light flashed in the enclosed space, and she screamed with a demon's voice as my power blasted her away from me, giving me enough room to twist and roll my way out from under the trailer.
Scrambling to my feet, my mind was on escape. Just get away and come
back later, find the carnival another time. I raised my head to seek out the lights and saw a wall of demons in front of me.
"Join usss," she hissed, coming around the trailer from the other side, moving close, but not quite inside my arm range.
I could still hit her though. These things had no idea how fast I could move or how far I could reach. I could easily cover ten feet with a skipping roundhouse. Crystal didn't know, because she'd never seen me fight, not really. And if she didn't know, then neither would the demon riding in her.
Another demon spoke. "Can't grab him," it said. "But I can move thisss."
And the trailer behind me began sliding toward my back. The jack at the front, anchored to the ground, twisted, bent, and the trailer tipped forward, adopting a ten-degree tilt.
"Tanya?" I asked. I couldn't tell which one had spoken. All I could see were dozens of red eyes staring at me, disappearing for a split second as the creatures blinked, sometimes moving to the side as their bodies shifted back and forth.
"He can't fight if he can't ssseee," another voice hissed, and my eyes burned as bright white light flooded my vision. Another demon with a power! It was probably the same one who'd made me trip earlier.
I closed my eyes but worried it hadn't been fast enough. Purple spots danced in the redness behind my lids, like looking up at the sun on the beach.
Unthinking, I brought my hands together, but instead of the feel of palm meeting palm, sending out a wave of force, my hands were stopped by...something.
I knew that feeling, a barrier that gives, that compresses only so far, and I remembered it. Smiling grimly, I kept my hands pushing together, and sent my power into it.
A demon screamed, and as soon as the resistance disappeared, I repeated the motion, knowing she wouldn't be able to stop it a second time. As my hands met and the flash of light brightened my face, as bodies flew away, striking the sides of trailers, I charged forward, opening my eyes and letting out a relieved sigh. Though some spots remained, the blinding light was gone. Demons were scattered like tenpins, some of them down on their backs, though none showed any sign of transforming back to human.