“That’s not it at all. It’s just—”
“Do you guys have any camping gear?”
Seth wanted to laugh. It was the last thing he’d expected, but he couldn’t risk another life, could he? Wasn’t it dangerous enough?
“I don’t know,” he said. “We didn’t really get that far—”
“It’s funny, don’t you think, that I have all this camping gear?”
“I don’t know if the others—”
“Then, it seems like I should definitely go with you. I knew you’d call me, Seth Auburn. I had a feeling. And I knew you were gonna tell me some fantastic story. Other than that, I didn’t know anything. But I did know that much. What if I told you I had to come along?”
What if something happened to her? Wasn’t Ben somewhere in his thoughts? Seth needed an answer.
Another strange thought occurred to him, something extraordinarily obvious, and he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before:
What if something happens to all of us?
He shook his head, trying to ignore it. He wanted to tell her something else, something to convince her she couldn’t go. The dangers were too great. Was it because she was girl?
Because if it is, Seth Auburn…
He wondered…if they had a chance to survive at all, it would be because of Kinsey.
Seth shook his head. He didn’t want to argue. “This is crazy,” he said. He trusted her, not because he had to, but because she was right.
“You have to take me with you,” she said, matter-of-factly. “It’s as simple as that.”
Seth took a breath, careful with his words. “Well,” he said. “Just so you know, we haven’t even planned anything yet. We don’t know what we’re going to need, how we’re even going to carry all this stuff. If we’re supposed to be gone that long, do you have any idea what that means? The supplies we’re gonna need? We’re gonna need pack horses. We don’t have anything like that. We’re just a bunch of stupid kids! How are we supposed to carry tents and sleeping bags, clothes and food?” Clearly frustrated, Seth realized he didn’t know anything about surviving in cold weather. How would they make fires? What would they eat? What if they froze to death?
“We’ll be fine,” Kinsey said. “We’ll eat dry goods. I know how to make a fire. It’s amazing the shelters you can make as long as you have a sharp knife. You can make snowshoes out of pine branches. Seth? It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
He didn’t understand how she could believe all that. Her tone was confident, even excited.
But for Seth, the terror was too much. He was right. They were a bunch of stupid kids. What could they do? Who knew what horrors they’d face. They were going unknowingly into the unknown. The thought made Seth tremble.
In a land, it occurred to him, perhaps not of Earth.
“Seth,” Kinsey said, stopping again. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Seth, we’re gonna beat this thing. We really are. And we’re gonna survive. We have enough.”
His jaw did everything but hit the pavement. The very words Ben had spoken! How could it be?
You have enough.
Maybe they would make it. The idea wasn’t preposterous. Maybe they would beat this creature, go back to the lives they had. Everything would be okay, the future…
Maybe…
For the first time, it seemed quite possible.
Seth looked at Kinsey and nodded.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, smiling.
But he was worried, terrified for the fate of his friends. A lot would be expected of them. But…what could he do? He couldn’t abandon them. Not now. He’d made the choice. Now or never. Fight or die.
“That’s a yes,” he said. “But I’ll have to tell the others. I’m not sure how they’re gonna take it, but I’ll tell them.”
He nodded, and Kinsey smiled again.
Surprising him, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Kinsey pulled away and looked into his eyes. Seth blushed, feeling something catch in his throat, not knowing what to say. The shock must’ve been evident because Kinsey laughed.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do that, Seth Auburn?”
“About as long as I’ve been wanting you to do it, Kinsey MacKay?”
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him again.
vii
The waters of Samuel’s Creek looked inviting. Trees provided ample shade from the heat, and the area was cool and breezy. The spot was not far from where Seth and his friends had had their meeting the day before.
“Last one in’s a dirty dish rag,” Kinsey said, and ran toward the water.
“Hey!” Seth called, running after her.
Kinsey dropped her root beer and leapt into the air, not bothering to take her shoes off. She made a loud splash and disappeared in the water. Waves rippled to the bank. She broke the surface, soaking wet, eyes big and bright, mouth stretched wide. “What are you waiting for?”
He jumped in, making a huge splash of his own, a luxury compared to the heat of the day. When he broke the surface, Kinsey was laughing.
“You wouldn’t know what to do without me, Seth Auburn,” Kinsey said. “You’re too stiff. Need to loosen you up.”
Kinsey disappeared under the water again. She tugged at Seth’s ankles. He dipped below, then came back up, gulping and coughing water, a familiar reminder of Warton’s Pond and Jeanie Masterson.
Seth scanned the meadow, the tall grass swaying in the breeze, the mountains in the distance. The sky was intensely blue.
Kinsey put her hands on his head and pushed him under. Her laughter sounded before water plugged his ears.
They splashed around for a while, laughing, teasing, and pretending to drown one another. Finally, out of breath—the cold water creeping into their bones—they climbed out and lay on the grass. They stared up through the leaves, which were already changing with the changing season.
Seth couldn’t stop smiling. Despite the horrors, it was the best summer he’d ever had. He linked his fingers on his chest and looked up through the trees.
“What are you thinking about?” Kinsey asked.
“Everything,” he said. “When we should leave. What’s been happening. The whole summer. Sadie. Howard. But all the good things, too. This moment. I like you, Kinsey. I like this. I just hope…I wish it could stay like this forever.”
Kinsey laughed. “You think too much,” she said.
“Maybe,” he said.
Kinsey rolled over and looked at him, propping her head on her hand. “Mom says if you think too much, you begin to sink. Are you sinking, Seth Auburn?”
“Maybe,” he said, smiling. “But I like this part of sinking.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Anyway,” he said. “If anything weird happens to my brain, I’ll just borrow yours. I saw this movie once where these two characters switched brains. It might be interesting.”
Kinsey laughed. “You can’t borrow mine!”
“Why?”
“Because I have a girl’s brain. It’s got girl thoughts, girl feelings, thinks girl stuff. It’d never work.”
“I’d be able to tell the guys everything. What girls really like, how they feel, everything.”
Kinsey laughed.
“You brought it up,” he said.
“Yeah,” she told him, and lay back down again, staring at the sky.
Seth closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. If he concentrated hard enough, he’d be able to freeze this memory, replay it whenever he wanted.
“What are you thinking now?” Kinsey asked.
“Staying here forever,” he said.
“I think I like you, Seth Auburn,” she said.
He smiled.
“I think it’s time to take another dip,” she said, and leaned over, kissing him on the lips. Shivers ran through his body. She stood up, and jumped into the creek again, making a loud splash.
Seth laughed, stood up, and
followed her.
Yes, he thought. If only…like Masie said. If only this could last forever.
Being with Kinsey now was somehow just as crucial in defeating Ben’s enemy. He didn’t know how that was; it just was. Seth did not think about tomorrow or the days ahead.
He thought about what Malcolm had said…about the quality he had. Not unblemished, he thought but…
Invincible.
viii
The summer ended during the night as he lay in bed, but Seth couldn’t sleep. He stared out the window, and thought about Ben’s immortal companion, the nightmare entity turning Ellishome into a graveyard.
The Dark World was coming to life outside his bedroom window.
The magic ends here, it seemed to say. The battle begins now. You have yet to see my true face.
“Seth, did I tell you about the spiders?” Howard said. The boy knelt by the side of the bed, grabbed the edge of the blanket, and pulled it up to Seth’s chin, as if tucking him in for the night. Spiders crawled over Howard’s face behind his glasses. “Sleep, Seth,” Howard told him. “When you wake, you’ll be in our dreams, and we’ll be in yours. This is what he wants.”
He thought about Kinsey and the magic he’d felt at the canal.
It’s only a nightmare, he told himself.
The light of the moon and the stars shed a blue umber to the world outside. Wind rattled the window. The closet door creaked open to his right.
Spiders scurried over his blankets. Black handprints covered the walls and ceiling. They were tarantulas, he saw, making the entire room shift as they moved.
Thinking about Malcolm’s story—the day he rode toward a similar illusion—Seth threw the covers off, and got out of bed. None of this was real. The only way to banish the nightmare was to face it head on.
Where was his sister, his mother? Couldn’t they hear the laments outside, the moans of the dead?
Clouds pressed close to the earth.
From behind him, long, bony fingers curled around Seth’s shoulder and squeezed, puncturing his skin.
Kinsey, and the day he’d had with her, was already a distant memory.
“She’s dead, too, Seth,” Howard said, still kneeling by the bed. Black eyes turned toward him.
Ben’s enemy stood behind him. The top hat grazed the ceiling.
Sadie’s face pressed against the window, his mouth oozing thick, black ink.
Jokes on you, Seth, Sadie mouthed.
“Come back to bed, Seth,” Howard said. “It’s better here. You’ll see. We get to keep our childhood. We never lose it. We get to play here forever.”
For a moment, he caught a glimpse of its physicality. He was feeding it, bringing the monster to life because of his dark conceptions. His mind accepted the monstrosity, its omniscient power. The demon ate everything in its path. It was universal, tragic in its authority, similar to Ben, only the exact opposite. It swallowed stars, creating chaos. Ben could never completely defeat it, but the tiger could thwart its progress.
The spiders, the wind…even Howard disappeared suddenly. The room was quiet. Still, the shadows brimmed with life, slithering from the closet in a liquid spill, a physical manifestation of smothering black. Tentacles encircled Seth’s arms. Poison filled his mouth, trying to suffocate him. Seth saw a defiled graveyard in his mind. Monsters clawed into shallow graves, feeding on the bones of dead children.
Seth looked out the window. A figure in his backyard, a skeleton, pinned Howard’s body to the earth with a steel pike. Howard gripped the weapon with feeble hands.
Seth stepped back from the window. His eyes went wide, and he shook his head.
Seth willed Ben into his mind. He thought about the laughter he’d experienced at the drive-in. He thought about ice cream cones, Jeanie Masterson, and Rheanna Goodwine. He thought about Kinsey kissing him on the lips, the deep, perfect blue of the sky.
But it didn’t work. When he turned, a reptilian nightmare stood on his bed, snapping its jaws together. The blankets were wet and thick with Howard’s remains. The monster, whatever it was, was chomping Howard into pieces.
The window hummed, settling back into its frame. The wind died down. A quiet moon was visible again, the stars…
My phantom adversary. My immortal companion—
His room was as it had been before. The nightmare images were gone.
My dreams are your dreams.
It was Ben.
Seth went back to bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. It had finally caught up with him. All of it. He leaned over and put his head in his hands. He could not remember the last time he’d cried, but he was drained, exhausted from all that had happened. The real test had yet to begin.
Defeat moved swiftly into his frame. The creature, Ben’s enemy, was more powerful. It was that simple. The memories he’d built with Jeanie, with his friends, with Kinsey at the canal, meant nothing. It was all true. They were nothing more than a bunch of stupid kids, and they didn’t stand a chance.
Seth cried for his friends. He cried for his mother and his sister. He cried for the future and the journey they had yet to take, the uncertainly of it all. He had no hope in that moment. He was just a broken, little boy. He was not a warrior at all.
Seth Auburn sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands and cried for the town of Ellishome.
(This ends Snapdragon, Book I: My Enemy.
The story concludes in Snapdragon, Book II: In the Land of the Dragon)
Thanks for taking the time with this tale, Dear Reader. I hope you enjoyed the ride. Reviews are always appreciated on Amazon, especially is you liked the story.
If you liked Snapdragon, you might try All The Gods Against Me, Calliope and Worlds Away.
About the Author:
Brandon Berntson was born in Boise Idaho, but grew up in various towns throughout Colorado, where most of his stories take place. A fan of dark fantasy, horror, magical realism, and young adult fantasy, he is the author of Castle Juliet and When We Were Dragons, enchanting, magical reads for all ages, along with Body of Immorality, a cryptic collection of horror stories, and the raw, adult-themed, All The Gods Against Me.
A fan of ice hockey, Beethoven, Black Sabbath, classic horror films, and Star Trek, he makes his home in Boulder, Colorado. Visit him at www.brandonberntson.com or his Amazon Author Page.
Go to the next page to see the complete works of Brandon Berntson.
Also by Brandon Berntson:
Urban/Dark Fantasy:
All The Gods Against Me: The Story of Clarence Manning
Calliope
Worlds Away
Snapdragon Book I: My Enemy
Snapdragon Book II: In the Land of the Dragon
Horror:
Corona of Blue
Body of Immorality: Tales of Madness and the Macabre
Donny’s Day
Silly Girl
To Disturb the Dead
The Battle of the Elect
Literary/Magical realism:
The Smoky Dragon (a love story)
Blue Sky Winter (A Christmas Tale)
One World
All It Will Always Be
King of Forgotten Land
Comic Horror:
Buick Cannon (A Joke From the Moon)
Fantasy/Young Adult:
When We Were Dragons
Castle Juliet
Snapdragon Book I: My Enemy Page 38
