by Daka Hermon
I spin around, searching for the danger, but there’s nothing there. My heart is pounding so hard it echoes in my ears.
After a long moment, he slowly lowers the stick and tosses it aside. He turns to face us; his expression is blank. I wait to see if he will explain, but he remains silent.
“What just happened?” I ask.
“Something,” he says. “But it’s over for now. Safe in the circle.”
I side-eye Mary. Is she sure Duke is the person we need to help us escape?
“What were we talking about?” he asks, clenching and unclenching his hands.
“You were explaining how the Seeker has more power because of all the kids in Nowhere,” Mary says.
I slide my backpack on and tighten the straps. “How many kids are here?”
“Over three hundred at least,” he says.
My eyes widen. “The last couple of days some of my friends were taken. Nia, Lyric, Quincy, Carla, and Shae. We’ve added to that.”
Duke nods. “I knew you were coming. There’s never been that many so close together. I felt the Seeker’s power grow stronger.”
“Justin still has the mark. No number yet,” Mary says.
“You’ll get one soon,” he says. “It appears shortly after you arrive.”
I search for the mark on Duke’s wrist. From the angle he’s holding his arm, I only see the one, and not the rest of the number. One hundred and something. Wow.
I gulp. The thought of being numbered is terrifying. I’ll officially be the Seeker’s. I won’t be Justin—just whatever number I’m given.
Suddenly, a memory hits me so hard I gasp. A sense of dread worms its way through my body. “Four hundred.”
Duke frowns. “What are you talking about?”
Oh man! It’s all starting to make sense. Every piece of the puzzle is snapping into place. “My friend Zee—”
“You can’t believe anything he says. He’s a traitor, like my brother,” Mary says with a glare.
“Zee escaped,” I say.
Mary scoffs.
“No one has ever escaped.” Duke eyes me suspiciously.
I pace. “Listen, Zee made it out somehow. I don’t know how but he did. He was messed up when he got back, but he tried to warn us about the Seeker. He would say weird stuff, like riddles. It was something like, ‘Four hundred is the special number, to release it from its world of slumber.’ ”
“You can’t trust him!” Mary cries.
I spin around and glare at her. “You don’t know him. I do. He’s my friend.”
“So, that means he can’t lie?” she asks.
“He wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Wait. Just stop. Let me think.” Duke touches the scar on the side of his head. “Four hundred is the special number, to release it from its world of slumber,” he repeats slowly. “And Zee was talking about the Seeker?”
I nod. “Yeah, had to be.”
“You’re not going to listen to this, are you?” Mary says to Duke. “We can’t trust anything Zee said. He was—”
“I’m telling you, Zee was trying to help. His riddles mean something.”
“What else did he say?” Duke’s focus is so intense on me, I flinch.
“He said, ‘Once it reaches its final goal, with the power that it stole, it will win and now can roam. Our world becomes its seeking home.’ ”
“Its seeking home,” Duke says slowly, with a frown. “Its. Seeking. Home.”
“Yeah and …” I freeze. “Oh no!”
“What is it?” Mary asks warily.
I run a trembling hand over my face. The thought is so horrible it takes me a moment to form the words. “This is the Seeker’s world, right? But what if, what if it wants to leave?” I ask. “Our world becomes its seeking home.”
Duke falls back. “What … You think … ?”
“You say it’s getting stronger. It brings us here to feed off our fear, but what if it’s so strong now that it can leave?” I say.
Mary’s hand flies up to cover her mouth.
“Our friend Shae, she was taken from camp a couple of days ago. But there was another Shae at Zee’s party, around the same time, acting really weird. She’s the one who suggested we play Hide and Seek. We think it was the Seeker pretending to be her. That means the monster is able to leave Nowhere, for at least a little while, right?”
“You think the count is leading up to the Seeker’s escape?” he asks.
“What if four hundred kids are the key? The key to free the Seeker from Nowhere. Like to give it the power to cross over to the real world and stay permanently.”
All color drains from Duke’s face. “No, no, no. That can’t happen.”
“No kid would be safe,” says Mary with wide eyes.
Duke swings around, his arms flailing. “I was so busy hiding … I missed the signs. All this time it had a plan and I didn’t see it. It used to be only a few kids arrived a year, but over time, more and more have appeared in Nowhere. Faster. Sometimes multiple at once.”
“Like me and my friends,” I say.
And the Seeker wasn’t working alone anymore either. He had help from Hyde.
“It’s been taking more kids, unleashing more terrors, gaining power,” says Duke, clutching his head. “And now—”
I cry out as a stinging pain radiates up my arm. The swirly mark begins to shift on my skin. A three appears. Then a nine. Then another nine. Three hundred and ninety-nine.
My eyes fly to Duke and Mary. Their expressions reflect the terror clawing at my heart.
If the Seeker is trying to reach four hundred, it’s now only one kid away.
“I have to find my friends. We don’t have much time left,” I say. “The Seeker could get that last kid any time now.”
“But how do we stop it?” Mary asks. “It’s too powerful.”
“We can figure it out on the way.” I spin around, searching for the way out through the woods. The most important thing is to find Lyric and Nia. I made a promise.
“Justin.”
I get goose bumps. It’s Not-Mom’s eerie voice. My gaze jumps around the wooded area. I don’t see her, but I feel her. It’s a dark, suffocating presence.
“You can’t leave me, baby,” Not-Mom whispers. The wind carries her voice to me and her haunting voice tugs at my heart. I reach for the puzzle piece in my pocket and freeze.
Three hundred and ninety-nine. I stare at the mark on my wrist. Not only is it my number, it’s the amount of time since I’ve seen my mom. Three hundred and ninety-nine days.
My legs wobble. It feels like I’m being split in two.
“Justin?” Duke says.
My head pops up. I stare at him through watery eyes. Chest hurts. Hard to breathe. One, two, three, four. The loud thuds of my heart echo in my head.
“I have to find my friends.”
A panic attack in front of my friends is different than having one in front of strangers. I feel weak and helpless. This is not the image I need to project to get people to help me defeat the Seeker.
“That …” Duke points at me, his eyes pained. “Whatever just happened, it’s going to get worse. More intense. Scarier for all of us if we go after the Seeker.”
I swallow hard. “I can deal if it means at the end we go home.”
He looks down, mumbling to himself. “We could stop it. No more fear. Safe again.”
I watch him wrestle with his thoughts.
He finally lifts his head. “I’ll help.”
Mary wrings her hands. “Me too.”
This is good. The best I could hope for. We’re forming a team. Now I need to find the rest of the players—Nia, Lyric, Quincy, Carla, and Shae.
“Where do we go now?” asks Mary.
“I’ll lead us out of the woods, then Justin can direct us toward an area where his friends might be. Something familiar to them,” Duke says.
He slowly gazes around the area; his weary eyes briefly land on the pond and the shelter he buil
t out of sticks. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking right now. If things go like we hope, this will be the last time he ever has to hide.
He exhales a loud breath, then marches into the woods. We follow him through the maze of trees. I’m immediately uneasy as we push past the low-hanging limbs and thick brush.
The magnitude of what we’re facing hits me in waves, threatening to drown me. My legs are a little unsteady. All the emotions and stress of the day are catching up to me, but I have to keep moving. No time to rest now.
A giggle bubbles up inside and I can’t hold it back. I randomly think about my counselor. Man, will I have a lot to talk to her about. Those are gonna be some interesting sessions. I clear my throat to hold back another giggle and ignore the weird glances from Duke and Mary. They must think I’m cracking under the pressure. I don’t blame them.
When we finally reach the path and follow it back into the park, I breathe a little easier. We leave the shadows of the tall trees and step into the hazy, gloomy environment around us. The silence is creepy. Dark clouds crowd the sky and the constant mist adds to the murkiness.
Duke shifts from foot to foot as his eyes zip around. “Different,” he says. “Not like my woods.”
“Which way do we go now?” Mary asks when we hit a cross street.
I recognize this area; it’s a few miles from where home should be. “You said somewhere familiar, right? We should try my neighborhood first.”
We walk down the sidewalk. A girl stands on the corner holding a small dog. Their blurry forms flicker in and out like the old man I saw in the cemetery. The dog growls and barks loudly as we stroll past it. It wiggles around, almost jumping out of her arms. She may not be aware that we’re here, but the dog is. Just like Hyde’s dog, Butch.
“Duke—”
“Don’t talk.” He glances back over his shoulder.
“What?” I ask.
“I need to listen. Watch,” he says.
I glance at Mary. She searches the area like Duke.
“We’re not alone,” he says. “Keep moving.”
My stomach drops. I don’t see anything, but that doesn’t mean much. Not here. I quicken my pace, but can’t outrun the panic swirling inside me. What’s out there? What does it want?
We hurry through town. With every turn, I’m hoping to see one of my friends. I have to find them. I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t.
“Hey!” a boy’s voice yells out. “Where’d you go?”
I freeze. I know that voice. “Lyric?” I spin around, trying to see around the buildings. I only see blurry forms of people in the distance. Where is he?
“Wait! I’m right here,” a girl calls out. “Stop!”
I gasp. That’s Nia! They’re close.
“Who is that?” Mary asks.
“It’s Lyric and Nia!”
I start moving in the direction of their voices. Duke blocks my path. “Wait. It could be a trick.”
“No, it’s them. I know it. I have to find them.” As I start to go around him, he cries out and stumbles back.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Mary says, staring at him with wide eyes.
Duke’s body twitches as he frantically pats his clothes. “It burns! It burns!”
He falls to the ground and rolls around, shouting in pain.
My heart skips. I realize what’s happening. He’s on fire!
I reach for him, but he says, “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”
Coughing, he covers his nose and mouth as if trying to avoid smoke. His skin reddens and welts appear on his face.
“What do we do?” Mary asks.
My stomach turns as I watch him flail around. I should help, but … I hesitate. Suddenly a stream of water shoots past me.
I spin around. Lyric holds a blue-and-yellow water blaster. Water douses Duke until his clothing is wet. He groans and collapses onto his back. His chest rises and falls with heavy, labored breaths.
“Are you okay?” Lyric asks. “No more burning?”
Gasping, Duke nods. Mary kneels near him, but doesn’t touch him.
My mind is struggling to process what just happened. Duke was on fire. Lyric is here and he has a water blaster.
“Lyric?”
He doesn’t respond. It’s as if he doesn’t realize I’m here.
Frowning, Mary glances at me, then back at Lyric. “Don’t you see him?”
He lowers the water blaster. “Who? The dude on the ground?”
A chill slides down my spine.
“No. Justin,” Mary says, pointing at me.
“What—” He sucks in a loud breath and his eyes fly back to where I’m standing. “Justin?” His voice shakes. Trembling, he squeezes his eyes shut.
“Why can’t you see me?” I ask.
“He’s here. Justin is here. He found me,” Lyric mutters to himself. “He’s here. It’s okay.”
“Lyric …”
He doesn’t respond to my voice. His chest rises and falls heavily. His hands are clenched at his sides.
I spin to Mary. “Ask him … ask him if he brought his harmonica.”
She frowns. “What?”
“It’s a thing. He’ll understand.”
“Justin wants to know if you brought your harmonica,” Mary says hesitantly.
Lyric’s eyes pop open and widen. They’re bright with tears. His gaze lands on me, and he blinks hard several times. He sees me.
I swallow the giant lump in my throat.
“Justin,” he says with a wobbly smile. “Man, I—”
“Lyric!” Nia races around the corner of the building. “Why didn’t you answer me?” Panting, she stumbles to a stop when she spots me.
“Nia?” Lyric says in awe.
My heart pounds so hard in my chest it’s hard to catch my breath. It slowly hits me. I’ve found them. They’re safe. We’re together again.
For a moment we stare at each other, then everyone is moving at the same time. I rush toward them. We’re a couple of feet apart before I remember the danger. I stumble back away from them. “No! Don’t touch me!”
They freeze, their eyes wide with shock.
“Justin, what’s wrong?” Nia walks closer with her arms extended toward me.
I cringe and take several unsteady steps back. There’s no way I want them to see Not-Mom, to experience what I’m going through.
“Dude, are you okay?” asks Lyric.
I have to take a couple of breaths before I can respond. “If we touch, we’ll share our fears. You’ll have mine and I’ll have yours.”
Nia gasps.
“Whoa,” says Lyric. “Just when I thought it was impossible to hate this place more than I already do … BAM. The Seeker does the impossible.”
Nia smiles weakly. “Well, I’m happy to see you, even if we can’t hug.”
“Same.” Lyric’s blue eyes look bigger with the dark smudges underneath them.
All I could think about was reuniting with them, but this is not how I hoped it would go down. We’re close, but they still feel far away. The fear of touching keeps us apart. I look them over. Their clothing is ripped and dirty. What have they been through? And why couldn’t Lyric see me?
“Who are you?” Lyric asks, staring over my shoulder. “What did I roll up on?”
Duke struggles to his feet. His wet clothing is plastered to his frail body. There are blistered burn scars on his cheeks and neck. Mary stands by his side.
Nia slides closer to Lyric. “Stranger danger.”
“That’s Duke and Mary. They’re …” I pause. What are they? “They’re on our side. I met up with them a while ago. They were kidnapped, too.”
Nia still eyes them suspiciously. “Why is he wet?”
I wince.
Lyric shoves his water blaster back inside his backpack. “He was—”
“That’s the sixth,” Duke answers, examining the burns on the back of his hands.
“What?” asks Nia.
“I was on f
ire.” He looks at Lyric. “Thanks for shooting water on me with that thing.”
“Anytime.” Lyric grimaces. “I mean, glad I could help, but I hope I don’t have to do it again.”
“Why, uh, why were you on fire?” Nia asks Duke.
“It’s one of my fears, one of the ways the Seeker torments me.” He squeezes water from his shirt. “Fire is number six, but there’s more. Nine, I think. No, eleven. Definitely eleven.”
“Uh, Duke has been here a long time. Eighty years,” I explain to Lyric and Nia.
Their jaws drop.
“You’re new. I’m not.” Duke walks a short distance away and stares in the direction we came from. “We need to go. Move now. We shouldn’t be in the open like this. There’s … something. It’s getting closer.”
“I don’t see anything,” says Nia. “Are you sure?”
“I know. I feel it. I always feel it,” Duke says, rubbing his temples. “We’re not safe. Never safe.”
“Justin, we found your friends. Now what?” Mary asks.
“We’re still missing Carla, Quincy, and Shae.” I start walking, heading in the direction of our neighborhood. I’m not sure where they’d go, but it’s my best guess. “We need to find them, too, before we go home. That’s the plan.”
“Keeping it simple and scary,” says Lyric. “Gotcha. Let’s do it, then, because I’m not feelin’ this whole ‘almost real, but extra-scary world’ thing.”
“Parallel world or multiverse, if you want to be specific,” Nia says, as she and the others follow. “If it wasn’t a creepy place created by a monster, it’d be kinda cool if you think about it. Scientists debate about the existence of other universes and we’re stuck in the proof that one exists.” She brightens slightly. “Doesn’t this make you think about other stuff? What if aliens are real? Or Bigfoot? Or the Loch Ness Monster?”
“The Kraken is totally real. That’s why I don’t swim in open water. Pools only for me,” says Lyric with a grimace.
So happy we’re back together. I’m not me without them. I reach out my hand to bump fists with Lyric, then remember we can’t touch. I jerk back. He catches my gesture.
“Mental fist-bump,” he says. “We’ll save the real thing for when we get home.”