by Adam Dark
It was a little weird to pull the car right up to the first row in the parking lot—as close as they could get to the playground on the other side of the open, grassy area. Which was now covered in frost and patches of snow, just like everything else. Ben couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to a park, but it was most likely before he knew demons even existed. What kid could have fun jumping across the jungle gym after that kind of realization?
There were only two street lights in the parking lot, casting their dim yellow glow over everything. He could make out the dark outline of the slides and triple-tiered jungle gym, the swing sets unmistakable even in the low light. Ben honestly had no idea what to expect when all three of them got out of his car and closed the doors as quietly as possible. Chase’s list had outlined three different “sightings” here, which meant other people had seen the park and some kind of activity while this demon got down to its dirty business—though Peter and April had no idea Ben had actually taken the information and verified it. But they all were quite aware of the fact that the homes around them were filled with people, most of them still awake at 7:00 at night, and that it was always weird for three grown adults to be heading out for some fun on the playground in the dark.
They moved a little warily over the damp sidewalk and stopped at the ring of gravel surrounding the playground. Everything was dark, still, unchanged—until April gently nudged the sleeve of Ben’s jacket and nodded at the closest slide.
Beneath it sat a boy of maybe eleven or twelve, his puffy black jacket and his dark ski hat making him just another shadow. He hunched over himself in the gravel, staring at nothing on the ground. The only time he moved was to pick up a handful of pebbles and toss them hopelessly back down against the rest. But there was no sign here of a demon—no howls or shrieks, no flying objects, no levitating bodies or obvious possession. Ben imagined the act of eating the innocent, compassionate parts of kids’ souls didn’t require much more than finding the right kid with an already broken sense of self. And there were plenty of those to go around.
He felt the little pop of Ian’s presence retreating—maybe that was the right word—into the spirit realm before his friend returned a split-second later. ‘Definitely here. Right now. It’s already found the kid.’
Crap. Ben didn’t know if there was even a possibility of getting back the kid’s already stolen pieces of himself, but they could at least try to keep him from losing any more. And hopefully help a bunch of other kids in the future.
“I see him,” Ben told April. Beside him, Peter peered into the darkness and nodded after a second.
“I don’t think there’s anyone else here,” April said.
“Or a demon,” Peter added.
“It’s gotta be here.” Ben couldn’t exactly tell them Ian had gone to check and come back with a definitely.
“Should we talk to him?” April asked, nodding at the kid again.
“Couldn’t hurt, right?”
“Hey, bud,” Peter said, stepping off the sidewalk and down onto the gravel. He moved slowly, casually, with his hands in his jacket pockets like he had this kind of conversation every day. It actually surprised Ben that his friend would make the first move like this, but then again, this demon’s victims hit kinda close to home—for both of them. He wondered how different things would be if someone like them had tried to help when they were kids. “You out here by yourself?” He stopped a good distance from the kid and waited.
The kid finally looked up at him and blinked, like he’d just woken up. “Yeah.”
“Whatcha doin?”
“Minding my own business,” the kid said. “You should try it.” He scooped up another handful of gravel and hurled it at the bottom of the slide.
Peter turned around briefly to widen his eyes at Ben and April before facing the boy again. Yeah, kid had an attitude. That could have been a side effect of becoming demon popcorn. It also wasn’t anything new coming from a twelve-year-old boy. “It’s pretty cold and dark, man,” Peter said. Then he actually pulled his inhaler out and took a puff. “See what I mean? Not really the best time to be out here.” Ben didn’t for a second think the inhaler bit was just for show.
The boy snorted. “You’re one to talk. What are you even doing out here?”
Peter tilted his head. “Just going for a walk.”
Something about the way the kid eyed Ben and April next made Ben’s skin crawl. “Seriously? Three old people walking around a park? You need to get a life.”
“Old people?” April whispered to Ben. He could only shrug, remembering how old he thought someone his age was too when he was young.
‘Ben,’ Ian chimed in, ‘that demon knows we’re here now. It’s not gonna let go very easily.’
Have any suggestions?
‘Get him out of the park, probably. I don’t exactly know what might happen if we banish the demon when it’s, you know… still eating.’
Gross. And smart.
“April,” Ben said quietly. “Open the box.”
“You sure?”
“You live around here?” Ben asked. The kid looked past Peter to glare at him. “Might be somebody looking for you. Parents, maybe?”
The boy’s eyes literally flashed a fiery red for a split second, and Peter took a tiny step back in the gravel.
‘That pissed it off,’ Ian said.
“I’m sure,” Ben told April, and after what they’d just seen in the boy’s eyes, of course she nodded.
“They’re probably wondering where you are,” Peter told the boy, picking up where Ben had left off.
“They couldn’t give a crap where I am. Why do you care, anyway? You don’t even—hey! What are you doing?” The boy stared with wide eyes at April now, who’d pressed the top panel of the metal box in her arms where she stood. The box snapped open with a thunk against the puffy sleeves of her jacket, revealing one of Peter’s new crystals inside.
Ben stepped forward off the sidewalk and onto the crunching gravel.
‘Careful,’ Ian told him. ‘That thing’s gonna try to hang on for as long as it can, but I don’t think it can leave the actual playground.’
Seriously?
‘Something about hunting grounds. Kinda complicated, actually.’
Whatever. Bottom line, then—they had to make sure the boy was at least off the gravel before they banished the thing slurping him down for dinner. “You should get out of here, kid,” Ben told the boy. “Go home. Try talking to someone about why you’re so angry out here by yourself.”
“I’m not angry!” The boy lurched to his feet, narrowly missing the nasty knot the bottom of the slide would have left on the top of his head if he were any taller. No, he didn’t look angry—he looked terrified. “What’s that thing she just opened?”
“A really awesome tool,” Peter answered, apparently trying to lighten the mood.
“Shut up,” the boy seethed at him. “I’m not stupid. Why’d you come here? You trying to shove me into your creep-van or something?”
“We want to help you, buddy,” Ben said, moving slowly closer. “That’s all.”
“Nobody ever wants to help me.” The kid’s lower lip trembled, and yeah, those were actual tears in his eyes. Man, Ben felt like he was looking in a mirror from nine years ago.
“We do,” April said. Ben wanted to turn around and meet her gaze—thank her for stepping up—but he didn’t want to risk the kid jumping away to start a seriously unamusing game of Chase the Adolescent. “We know exactly what you’re going through right now. You don’t have to be alone, kiddo.”
The boy threw his head back and cackled, which was a hard thing for a kid to do and sound ridiculously creepy at the same time. He managed it pretty well. Peter and Ben both froze where they stood, having headed toward the boy from slightly different angles. When the kid lowered his head again and opened his eyes, they were a dark, blood-red—and glowing. “Pathetic,” he spat. “You think you have any power over what happens in this world? A
ny ability to change the natural way of things? You come here with toys and empty promises, but this boy has already given himself to me.”
Okay, so now they had to deal with some sort of possession. Awesome.
The kid laughed again. “There has never been as much hope in this world as you fool yourselves into believing. Why do you think I’ve grown so fat here, feeding on what little of its brightness remains?” The boy’s voice was his own, though it had changed pitch a little. But the kid himself trembled where he stood, as if he were completely aware of this thing speaking through him and terrified of it beyond imagining. Ben knew the feeling. “Children have always been so full of joy and promise,” he continued, “and it only gets easier to strip it all from them. They practically give it away, these days.”
‘Okay, now it’s just bragging,’ Ian said.
Ya think?
‘Might be distracted enough, now.’
Right. Ben turned to look at Peter. “Grab him.”
His friend’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Get him onto the grass, Pete!”
Peter lunged at the kid, who turned his head to look at the guy right before Peter wrapped his hands around the boy’s arm. The minute they made contact, the red glow in the kid’s eyes disappeared.
“No!” the boy shouted. “Get off me.”
“Come on, bud,” Peter said, tugging at the kid’s arms.
“No. You can’t make me leave.” The boy struggled against him, his sneakers dragging lines into the gravel. “I have to stay here. Please!” All of him reacted in terror now, and Peter just kept pulling until the kid reached out and hooked his hand over the rim of the slide, jerking Peter back.
“Little help,” Peter shouted.
Ben jumped toward them and tried to pry the kid’s fingers off the slide, but it was like they’d been frozen there. Then a tiny, repetitive scrabbling came from the slide. Ben looked down to see the pebbles there bouncing on the plastic slide and knocking against each other, vibrating with some unknown movement.
‘We are now running out of time,’ Ian said.
“Come on,” Ben grunted and wrapped his arms around the kid’s middle. “Let go, man. You can’t stay here.”
The boy threw his head back and screamed like someone was cutting him open. Maybe in a way, someone had, but it wasn’t Ben and Peter. The slide itself vibrated now against them, and Ben felt the gravel shift a little beneath his feet.
“Hey!” April shouted.
All three of them turned from their struggle at the slide to look at her, and the boy’s grip slipped. Ben and Peter nearly fell backward, but Ben managed to steady his feet and lift the kid a little off the ground to turn toward the edge of the playground.
“I’ll kill you!” the boy screamed. “I’ll fucking kill all of you!”
Woah. Serious issues, here.
Ben groaned and shuffled with the kid in his arms. Peter got a good smack in the face trying to help, and then they were at the edge of the gravel ring. A swift kick to Ben’s shin made him stumble, and the kid flew out of his arms and right into Peter’s. Then they were up on the grass, and all the fight left the boy in an instant. At least that was a good sign.
“I got him,” Peter said, stumbling under the boy’s collapsing weight. It took them both down to the frozen park grass, but Peter only nodded. It sounded like the kid was crying.
Ben turned around and jumped back onto the gravel, steadying himself against the swaying ground beneath him. The tiny stones jumped around his feet like minnows out of water. He turned to April, who swayed on her feet too, and nodded. She all but dropped the open demon-catcher box onto the gravel, her eyes darting around the playground for any sign of an actual demon-looking thing appearing.
‘You need a line this time?’ Ian asked.
Pretty much like the last one, right?
‘Yeah.’
Then I think I got it.
Ben had just enough time to surprise himself with his sudden confidence here, and then he kicked it aside. “This boy does not belong to you,” he shouted over the quaking playground. “He had no idea what he was giving away, and he made no pact. These symbols were…” Crap what was the rest?
‘Carved into the seal binding you from this world,’ Ian said.
“These symbols were carved into the seal binding you from this world.” He glanced self-consciously at April, who just stared at him with a tiny frown. “And now I command you into this stone within them.” The piercing grating of plastic being bent before it almost broke filled the air, and still the ground trembled.
‘The hunting ground, Ben.’
Right. “This is not your hunting ground, and you will stop coming here!”
A spray of gravel kicked itself up from the ground to pelt Ben’s face and chest. Cursing, he turned away from the sting of so many tiny rocks against his skin. A low, thunderous laugh bellowed from everywhere and nowhere, and the ground lurched beneath Ben’s feet. He fell to his knees, where the gravel jumped away from his fingers.
“Ben!” April shouted.
Why isn’t this working?
‘I gotta take over, buddy.’
Wait a minute—
Before Ben had the chance to even think anything else, he felt himself blasted into the back of his own being like he’d just been thrown across the whole park. But he saw—through the dark tunnel of his vision that Ian now controlled—a column of churning gravel rising from the ground in front of him. Ian raised them up onto their knees and extended a hand toward the flying rocks that really shouldn’t have been able to do that.
“By the ancient laws dictating your right to feed, I name this hunting ground sealed.” He brought their palm slamming down onto the gravel, where a literal shockwave of pebbles rippled out toward the twisting column of rocks. It fell where it was, scattering a rain of more gravel over their head, and a thin, glistening stream of what looked like white smoke filtered up from the ground. The playground quaked again, and the smoke drifted toward the crystal within the open box at April’s feet.
She stepped back until she was up on the sidewalk again, and when what Ben could only hope was every bit of this hope-sucking demon disappeared into the stone, the whole thing took on an opaque, swirling pinkness. Like a drop of blood in milk.
Then Ian retreated, and Ben was shoved back into the forefront of his own body. He fell forward into the dirt in front of him, which had been completely cleared of gravel, and gasped. His hand was on fire.
He heard the click of April closing the metal box around the stone; it sounded abnormally loud in the sudden silence now. Footsteps crunched toward him, and then April’s gloved hand pressed gently down on his back. “Ben?”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “I just need a second.”
She stood again but waited there right beside him. Finally, Ben felt like enough of himself again to push up from the ground and sit. He lifted the hand Ian had used and winced when he brushed off the pebbles embedded in his palm. Three large, purple blood blisters were already there under the patch of his pretty recently graphed skin, but nothing had pierced the skin.
Ian…
‘Yeah, we’ll talk about it later. I know.’
Just because I’m saying thank you doesn’t mean we’re cool.
‘Got it.’
Ben leaned back on his other hand to look over his shoulder at Peter and the boy, sitting next to each other on the frozen grass with wide eyes.
The kid let out a shuddering sigh. “What was that?”
“Something you’ll never forget,” Peter said. He gave the boy’s shoulder an awkward pat, then took out his inhaler again for two puffs. When he let out a long breath, he added, “It’ll take a while to get past it, too. But you will.”
Ben planted his foot to stand, and April offered a hand to help him up. He took it, and they walked toward Peter and the boy together. Peter helped the boy to stand too.
“There’s a lot of weird stuff in the world,” Ben said. “I
can’t even explain most of it. But none of it’s your fault.”
When the boy blinked, a few tears trickled from his brown eyes. “I don’t know…” he started, then winced and bit his lip. “I didn’t mean to…”
“I know,” Ben said. “It’s okay.” He glanced at April, who only gave him a concerned frown and a thin smile of regret. They’d managed to get the kid out of the trap he had no idea he’d fallen into, but none of them could know how the rest of his life would play out—if they’d even helped him in time to make much of a difference at all.
“We can take you home, if you want,” April said, clutching the metal box in her gloved hands.
Swallowing, the boy looked out over the playground, which looked like it had been hit by a hurricane, and nodded. “Yeah. I live just a few blocks away.” He didn’t meet any of their gazes as they walked back across the grass toward the parking lot.
Normally, Ben would have been the first to admit the kid should know better than to accept a ride home from three strangers doing weird crap in the dark. They didn’t even know each other’s names. But at this point, it didn’t matter. People didn’t go through something like this together and come out on the other side still suspicious and wary of each other. They weren’t strangers any more—not really. He just hoped the kid would remember some of that after they took him home.
“Arcady?”
The voice came out of nowhere, and April tensed beside Ben as they made their way back to his car.
“Arcady! Wait a minute.” A man in in his mid-to-late twenties sort of jogged toward them from the other side of the parking lot, a ridiculously long hat flopping against the back of his neck like a bright-red windsock. “Hey, it’s been forever.”
