The Fell of Dark

by Caleb Roehrig

  “Does Auggie get to make any decisions here?” I ask, annoyed. “Or are you going to snap a leash around my neck and drag me outside like an animal?”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, August,” my mother says in the manner of someone who is not being sent outside where there are actual monsters.

  At the same time, Daphne insists, “I’ll be fine!”

  Then, after a moment, my dad puts in, “We do still have that leash left over from when Scout was alive.”

  Needless to say, I end up walking Daphne to her car. At the risk of repeating myself, Fulton Heights is a boring town where nothing ever happens—save the occasional death by vampiric exsanguination—so it’s not as if she had to fight for a parking spot. Her secondhand Saab is right at the foot of our walk. It’s early March, snow still lingering on the ground, and a cold wind rips the breath from our mouths in shreds of white steam.

  “It was very sweet of you to make sure I didn’t die in the ten seconds it took us to get here, Auggie,” Daphne says when we reach her vehicle. My parents have turned on the exterior lights and are watching through the front windows—as if they’d be able to do anything but wave goodbye if we got attacked right now. Wistfully, my tutor adds, “Sometimes I wish you were straight. And about four years older. And better at algebra.”

  “Two of those things will never happen,” I declare emphatically, “and me getting older is about fifty-fifty.”

  “Well, I guess it is better for me if you stay bad at math.” Daphne gives me a hug. She actually smells really nice, and just for a moment I also kind of wish I were straight; but then I remember what Boyd Crandall looked like when he got dared to make a snow angel in his boxer briefs at school on Monday, and I change my mind. She pulls back and points a stern finger at me. “Keep studying those flashcards until you’ve got your equations memorized, okay? And if you have any questions about your homework, send me an email.”

  “How about I just send you the homework, and—” I stop, mid-swindle, when a strange sensation prickles up the back of my neck, like a breath puffed across my skin. Gooseflesh spreads between my shoulders, and I whirl around, convinced something is behind me. The yard is empty, though, without so much as footprints in the snow—human or otherwise.

  “Auggie?” Daphne steps closer, peering over my shoulder. “What is it? Did you hear something?”

  And then we both hear something, and our heads snap up as a gentle skittering noise comes from the neighbor’s roof, a shower of displaced snow drifting down from the eaves. It could be anything—a house cat or a raccoon, or maybe a weather balloon caught on a downdraft of swamp gas—but either way, it’s my signal to get the hell back inside.

  “So I’ll see you next week,” Daphne says briskly, darting around to the driver’s side of her car.

  “Drive safe,” I chirp in response, and then I’m hurrying up the walk before she’s even pulled away from the curb. Halfway to the porch, however, I catch something with my foot and kick it almost onto the front steps. A rabbit, its fur so white it blended in seamlessly with the snow, rolls a few times before flopping loosely onto its back. It’s dead, and two deep, bloodless puncture wounds in its neck are all I need to know what killed it. There was a vampire in our front yard tonight.

  I sprint the rest of the way to the door, and my heart doesn’t stop pounding for another ten minutes once I’m safely locked inside, a crucifix clutched in my white-knuckled fist. Vampires can’t enter a privately owned building without an invitation, so I should be safe … but I’m not taking any chances.

  It isn’t until I’m brushing my teeth that the most disturbing fact of all hits me, and my throat goes dry: It’s below freezing outside—but the rabbit’s body was still limp. Whatever dropped it on our front walk must’ve just left before I stumbled over it … barely fifteen feet from the windows where I’d been sitting and doing my homework.

  Chilled all the way to my bone marrow, I climb into bed, but it’s hours before my eyes finally slide shut.

  2

  “Auggie, you look like crap.” Adriana Verdugo has been my best friend since we were both in second grade, but not because I appreciate her honesty. It’s between classes at Fulton Heights High, and I have just finished almost certainly failing that algebra quiz.

  “I didn’t sleep very well.” Even after I finally drifted off, all I dreamed about all night was death, one hideous demise after another. Firing squads, decapitation, hanging, burning … I would jerk awake just before the final moment, panting and sweating, my heart beating so hard it hurt. Each time, I’d stare at the window, convinced a bloodthirsty monster waited on the other side of the shade. “There was a vampire in our yard last night.”

  Adriana shudders, leaning up against the locker next to me. “When will the city actually do something? It’s not like it would cost them much to just burn some of those empty buildings down, right?” Hands on her hips, she states, “I still think we should figure out who to pitch my holy water sprinkler system idea to, because it’s brilliant. There are already pipes running everywhere—all they have to do is put in some sprinkler heads and get a priest to mumble a prayer or two at the public works building—”

  “The city is ten square miles! They can’t even afford to demolish some collapsing warehouses and you want them to put in, like, eighteen thousand sprinklers?”

  “Ugh, this place sucks.” Adriana sighs in defeat just as the bell rings. Reluctantly, we start for class. “By the way, my abuela wants you to come over for dinner again. She kind of won’t shut up about it.”

  “Abuela as in Abuela Rosales?” For the first time today, I finally perk up. “As in my bestest friend, Ximena Rosales, who will hopefully be making her famous guacamole?”

  “Yeah, that’s her. So I can tell her you’re in?”

  “Yes!” I do a little dance move, because Ximena Rosales is possibly the best cook in Fulton Heights. Mentally, I add her to the list of people I don’t want eaten. When we reach our classroom, we see the three boys sitting in the front row, and a very familiar combination of fear, envy, and horniness rolls over me.

  “Okay.” Adriana rounds on me. “Fuck, marry, kill: Boyd Crandall, Dante Gardner, and Kenton Reed.”

  She thinks this is a stumper, but I don’t even have to consider my answer. “Fuck Boyd Crandall, marry Boyd Crandall, and then kill Boyd Crandall and collect the insurance money.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s cheating,” Adriana says, narrowing her eyes. “And Boyd? He’s, like … he’s an assclown. And a bro. And a douche.” She shakes her head. “He’s an assdouche bro-clown, and you’re telling me you would seriously do sex to his body?”

  “In my imagination, he is doing sex to my body, and the answer is emphatically yes.” My palms are sweaty just thinking about it. Adriana knows all about my lust-hate feelings for Boyd—she just doesn’t understand. Apparently, me seriously wishing I could bone someone I don’t even like is a concept she finds mind-boggling. Boyd might be an assdouche bro-clown, and I’ll never actually date him, but I am about 90 percent of the way toward developing carpal tunnel syndrome after a week of private time thinking about him making a snow angel in his underpants.

  “Are you going to be hanging out in the art room after school today?” my best friend inquires now, and her tone is ridiculously casual. As if I don’t know why she’s asking.

  “Yes.” I wait patiently.

  “Tell Hope I said hi. Or whatever.” She acts like it’s an afterthought.

  “Hi … or … whatever,” I repeat, typing it into my Notes app. “Got it.”

  Her face turns scarlet, and she rolls her eyes as she precedes me into the classroom. Adriana may have higher standards than I do, but she crushes on as many girls as I do boys—and yet both of us are perpetually alone. At least it’s nice to not be the only hopeless case in Fulton Heights.

  * * *

  If Adriana’s plan to arson all our hometown’s unwanted buildings ever gets any traction, I will humbly propos
e that our high school be added to the list—with the single condition that the art room be spared. It is literally the only thing worth saving here. The tables and chairs are stained; the walls are covered with yellowing watercolors by students who graduated before I was born; and the air is always gummy with the combined smell of papier-mâché and Murphy Oil Soap. I love it.

  Ever since I was a kid, art is the only thing I’ve really been passionate about. I have dozens of sketchbooks at home filled with my own drawings—from the stick-figure families and their lumpy cartoon dogs I did in preschool, to the complicated sketches I’m working on now. My big dream is to one day illustrate my own graphic novel.

  “Ah, my star pupils!” exclaims Mr. Strauss as he sweeps into the room, beaming at me and Hope Cheng, as if we’re actually doing him some big favor by making him stay after school to make sure we don’t actually arson the place. “What are we doing today?”

  “I still have my sculpture to finish.” Hope gestures at the project she’s been working on for the past few weeks, which sort of defies an easy description. She’s building a statue out of pine cones and glue, but it honestly looks like a robot made of spiky turds.

  “How about you, Auggie?” Mr. Strauss turns to me as Hope empties a bag of pine cones she’s salvaged from who-knows-where all over one of the art tables.

  “I guess I wanted to practice with the charcoals some more.” My big flaw as an artist is that I get easily mired in details, and I’ll spend forty minutes trying to perfect a single tree before I finally give up and accept that everything I’m doing is pointless. Mr. Strauss suggested I work with charcoals for a while—a medium that allows for quick sketches that focus on shape and composition rather than minutiae.

  Unlocking the supply cabinet, our teacher retrieves all the necessary materials while I clip a wide sheet of paper to an easel. Hope sets up her turd monster on a table across from me, and before I put my headphones on, I clear my throat. “Adriana told me to say hi.”

  “Oh.” Hope tosses her hair, turning away just as a little smile touches her lips. “Tell her I said hi back. I listened to that K-pop group she was talking about at lunch last week, and I really liked them.”

  “You know, if you want to say hi back, you could always text her…” I let my inflection go up at the end—a suggestion and a question. Hope is very cute and totally Adriana’s type: ethereal and witchy, all hippie skirts, flowing hair, and mismatched accessories.

  “I don’t know.” Hope bites her lip, swiveling her sculpture around like she’s trying to figure out which part to make worse first. “What if she thought I was trying to, like, flirt with her?”

  “Ugh, you guys are both ridiculous.” I take off my glasses so I can pinch the bridge of my nose. “Flirting is the whole point!” Adriana will totally kill me for going off script, but come on. “If you’re not into her, that’s okay; but if you are, I promise you don’t have anything to worry about. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Hope doesn’t look over, but I watch as she bobs her head a little, absorbing the information. Finally, she says, “Well, maybe I will text her.”

  Feeling smug, I slip my headphones on and start my playlist. It’s a lot of ambient stuff—background music with a heavy beat to get my blood going. When I start to feel the rhythm, I pick up a stick of charcoal and get to work.

  A hand claps me on the shoulder and I jump about a mile, the headphones slipping down around my neck. Mr. Strauss hovers beside me. “Sorry—didn’t mean to scare you! It’s just that the sun is going to set pretty soon, and we need to lock up.”

  I blink, my eyes dry and my head swimming. “What do you mean? We just…”

  My voice trails off as I notice the advanced angle of the daylight shining through the classroom’s windows, and when I look over at Hope’s workstation, I see her poop goblin has sprouted an entire arm out of nowhere. She’s staring at me, too, and I blink a few more times as Mr. Strauss asks, “So what have you been working on for the past two hours? You’ve been so focused I hated to interrupt.”

  The past two hours? Dazed—half convinced my favorite teacher is gaslighting me, but unable to deny that the actual angle of the sun has changed—I face my easel and freeze. What was a blank sheet not ten seconds ago is now filled edge to edge with a tableau I have no memory of drawing. It’s a mob scene of some kind, so dense that the people in it spill into shadowy suggestion in the background. The faces are all vague and featureless, but the attitude is undeniably angry.

  “This is … Auggie, this is incredible work.” Mr. Strauss sounds awed, his fingers tracing the motion of the crowd. “The composition is pretty straightforward, but I can’t believe how much emotion you’ve captured with so few details! Even without expressions, you can sense the rage coming off these people.” The scent of rotten eggs tickles my nose, and I sneeze as my art teacher points to a group of figures in the center of the picture. Rendered in heavily layered black, it looks like three women in veils and old-fashioned dresses. “Who are they?”

  “I … I don’t know,” I croak.

  “Why did you make them the focal point of the image while everyone in the crowd is looking back at the viewer?” He persists. “What are they watching? Why are they angry?”

  Staring at the crowd, I feel lost, because I have no idea why. I have no answers to any of his questions. Helpless, I repeat myself. “I don’t know.”

  “Hmm.” Mr. Strauss studies the sketch for another moment. “Do you mind leaving it here, so I can take some pictures? You should have high-quality digitals of your work when you’re applying to art programs next year.”

  “Yeah, sure.” I’m glad for him to keep it, this ghost sketch that apparently just stole two hours of my life. The horrible dreams that kept me awake last night crash through my brain again—angry mobs, firing squads, faceless executioners. I’m so flustered that it takes me three tries to get my headphones back into my bag. “I should get going. My parents will freak if I’m not home before dark.”

  Hope is watching me, looking frightened and concerned. “Auggie? Are you—”

  “See you tomorrow!” The words are still ringing in the air when I burst through the door, running for the exit like I’m trying to escape from something.

  But what?

  My phone confirms that it’s two hours later than when I walked into the art room after the final bell. Whatever just happened really happened, and my stomach cramps in a very unfortunate, borderline-diarrhea type of way. Shoving through the side exit to the parking lot, I trot past the overhang and into the waning sunlight, gulping down great helpings of crisp air.

  “Everything okay?”

  Confused and wild, I spin back around to see a guy I don’t know leaning against the wall beside the door, a cigarette tucked behind his ear. His dark eyes study me in a way that makes me feel comfortable and uncomfortable at once, and I clear my throat. “I—yeah. I’m okay. I just felt … sick for a second. It’s over now.”

  “Cool.” The boy points to his cigarette. “You don’t happen to have a light, do you?”

  His voice is smooth, a British accent curving his vowels into shapes I don’t expect, and just like that I’m horny again. He’s about my age, and ridiculously handsome: light brown skin, high cheekbones, pillowy lips; dark, fluffy hair cut in a fade; skinny black pants ripped with fashionable precision to show off his knees. How is it possible that he has sexy knees? Can knees even be sexy? Is this what it feels like to have a kink?

  “Uh, I don’t smoke.” My cheeks are warm, and when his eyes meet mine, it’s like he knows what I’m thinking. “And you can get in trouble for smoking on school grounds.”

  Instantly, I want to throw myself off a cliff. Who says that? Why don’t I just tell him that I’m a hopeless nerd-virgin rather than supplying him with all these careful hints? He gives me an impish smile, though. “School’s out, right? Anyway, I’m not a student here, so what can they do?”

  “You’re not?” I look around at the mo
stly empty parking lot. My bike is one of only two left chained to the rack by the sidewalk. “Are you … waiting for someone?”

  With an enigmatic shrug, he moves his gaze over my body in a way that makes my cheeks even warmer. “Who says I’m not waiting for you?”

  An awkward church giggle comes out of my mouth, and I can’t look him in the eye anymore. My mind has gone blank. To buy some time while my last two brain cells collaborate on a witty reply, I adjust my glasses and examine his jacket. It’s denim, artfully distressed, and under it he appears to be wearing nothing but a thin T-shirt. Inspired, I blurt, “Aren’t you cold?”

  “Why?” He cocks one of his brows. “You want to warm me up?”

  Now my face is an inferno. “I … I, um…”

  “Sorry, that was rather forward of me.” He does not look sorry in the least. “My name is Jude.”

  “Augh—” I begin, and then choke on some saliva, “—ust. August. Or ‘ee.’ Auggie is, too, also fine. Auggie or August. Is … my names.” Shutting my eyes, I let out a deep breath. The past sixteen years have been okay, but I am very ready to die now.

  “I know who you are, August.” His tone is still mild, friendly even, but when my eyes snap open again I see him very differently than before. “I told you I was waiting for you.”

  His breath isn’t clouding the air the way mine is, and he doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by the sharp chill in the air, in spite of his thin jacket. The sun dips lower, splashing the parking lot with honeyed light, but the overhang above the side entrance to the school creates a small pocket of lengthening shadow—and Jude hasn’t stepped out of it since we started talking. My hands shaking again, I make a show of searching my coat pockets.