by Simon Holt
Henry twisted his body and held his arms out to Reggie. Dad reluctantly let her take him.
“Holy cow, you’re heavy.”
Dad kissed Henry on the forehead, then put his hand on Reggie’s shoulder.
“Come down right after.”
“Yes, sir.”
Reggie carried Henry up to his room and lowered him onto his bed. He slid under the sheets and pulled them up over his chest. Reggie sat down next to him.
“Henry, what happened today?”
Henry lowered his head onto the pillow and closed his eyes. He took a slow, deep breath and opened them again.
“I’m starting to remember things. Terrible things.”
Henry’s eyes seemed to sink back a little in his head, and they took on a faraway gaze. Reggie noticed how old and dark they appeared now. No longer young and innocent.
“A carnival. And a shooting game with heads. And a clown. The one from that movie I watched, the one with the hatchet for a hand.”
“Yes.”
“And a hospital with demon babies and ghosts of dead children.”
“Yes.”
“And Mom.”
“No, Henry. That wasn’t really Mom.”
“But it looked like her. And it talked like her.”
“But it wasn’t her.”
“It was the monster. The monster inside me.”
“Yes.” Reggie brushed Henry’s mussed hair from his face. “But the monster is gone now.”
“You killed it.”
“No, you did.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“But you were there with me.”
“Yes.”
“And you helped me.”
“All I did was help you find the strength you had all along. You had all the power you ever needed to destroy the monster inside you. I just reminded you of that.”
Henry glanced across the room at the empty hamster cage.
“During our spelling quiz today, Otto, our class hamster, was running on his wheel. And I was concentrating so hard, and the wheel was squeaking and squeaking, and then I just remembered.” He blinked. “General Squeak. He didn’t run away like you said, did he?”
“No. He didn’t run away.”
“I killed him.” Henry held his hands in front of his face and stared at them. “It feels like a dream because I was in that other place. But I remember. I can see it happening. I killed him with my own hands. I heard his bones snap.”
Reggie took her brother’s hands in her own. “No. The monster did it. It did it because it was cruel, because it hated the things you loved.” Reggie took a breath. “The monster that was inside you—it was a Vour. Like from the book I read you. They were real, and I was stupid enough to let one get to you. I’m so sorry, Henry, so sorry.”
They both cried, and seeing Henry’s tears relieved Reggie. She was sad, but heartened. Tears were human and a Vour could never cry.
“I didn’t want to hurt him. Billy.”
“I know.”
“I had all these awful things in my head, and then on the playground he said I was weird and creepy, and everyone was scared of me, and he called me a freak. And then, it was like, I knew he was right. I am a freak—a monster. I just wanted him to stop, I didn’t want him to tell anyone.”
“But it wasn’t you!”
Henry had stopped crying, and now he stared straight ahead, thoughtful and unseeing.
“Sometimes I feel it. Like it’s in me. It isn’t in my mind anymore, but still…”
“The monster is gone. I watched it die.” Reggie wiped her eyes. “You loved Squeak,” she said. “You love Dad. And you love Mom, even though she hurt us and left us to grow up without her. You love, Henry. That is something a Vour can’t ever do.”
Henry’s eyes closed, and his breathing became quiet and calm. Reggie stayed close to him and listened as he drifted off to sleep.
“I love you, Reggie.”
“I love you, too.”
She kissed his forehead, then walked to the door and shut off the light. As she looked back at him lying peacefully in bed, she thought of her vision from the morning and began to tremble. Yes, she had watched the monster die, or so she thought, but she was still afraid that the Vour was somewhere inside her brother, lurking, waiting to take him back.
4
The interrogation room wasn’t like the ones Aaron had seen so many times on his mom’s favorite crime shows. There was no mirrored pane of one-way glass. No good cop teamed up with a bad cop to break him down. He sat alone in a gray room, listening to a leaky pipe drip incessantly from the ceiling behind him. A tripod-mounted camcorder stood watch from across the table.
Occasionally, the woman who had brought him in peered through the door’s barred window. She was taller than average and thin, with blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore a black suit and sharp-heeled boots that clicked on the tiled floor when she walked. She was stylish, and she was badass, but her skin was almost gray, and every one of her facial features was pointy and grim; when she looked at Aaron, he was reminded of an eagle searching for prey.
On the ride in from Cutter’s Wedge, she’d told him that her name was Detective Gale, and she was taking him to the police station in Wennemack—but that was all. She ignored him when he asked for his parents.
They’d kept him here by himself, in an isolated part of the precinct, for what seemed like hours. Aaron worked silently through scenarios in his head and tried to stay calm.
If Quinn’s body had been found, surely he’d know by now. But with only circumstantial evidence, it was unlikely that any formal charge would be filed against him. He used this knowledge to keep panic at bay. And one crucial fact comforted him in this mess: the police had not brought Reggie in with him. Aaron planned to keep her out of it.
Drip. Drip. Drip went the leak behind him.
Finally, the door squeaked open and Detective Gale walked in. She set down her briefcase and clicked on the camcorder. A red light flashed as she trained the lens on Aaron.
“I have some questions for you,” Gale said.
“Where are my parents? And I want a lawyer.”
“We’re just talking here. Relax. You’ll get your phone call when we’re done. How well did you know Quinn Waters?”
“Not very,” Aaron replied. “Superstar. Geek. Our species don’t really mix.”
“But you did favors for him, right? Wrote his term papers?”
Aaron grimaced. Someone had ratted him out.
“Is that why you brought me in?”
“Answer the question.”
“I helped him out sometimes… like a tutor.”
“But he paid you. You wrote the papers, he turned them in with his name on them. You had a scam going.”
“No, it wasn’t like that—”
Gale interrupted and folded her hands in front of her.
“You’re a smart kid. Top of your class, attentive at school, on your way to a great college. But you have another side to you, don’t you?”
“I don’t get what you mean.”
“Your parents. Your teachers. They see the Aaron Cole who gets straight A’s, takes all the hardest classes, is a member of the Quiz Bowl team. The good kid,” Gale said. “But then there’s this other Aaron Cole. The sneaky one. The dishonest one.”
“Are you trying to scare me with this?”
“The one with a morbid fantasy life.”
“What? No, that’s just a hobby—”
Gale leaned forward.
“Paging through books like A History of Demonic Possession and The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers is a hobby?”
Aaron squirmed in his seat but said nothing.
Detective Gale opened her briefcase and took out a manila folder. She arranged a series of photographs from it in front of Aaron. They depicted a red Mustang being hauled from a lake. In addition to damage probably caused by being sunk under water for a long period of time, the entire ba
ck end was smashed in.
“Do you know what this is?” she asked.
“It looks like it could be Quinn’s car.” Aaron tried to keep his voice calm, but it cracked anyway. “Can I get some water or something?”
“In a minute. We pulled it from one of the chain lakes up near Fredericks. Based on plant life growth found in the car, my investigators think it was submerged for about six months,” Gale said. “How about that? Six months. Right around the time Quinn disappeared.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“Most of the time, when a car’s been in the water that long, all trace evidence is gone. But sometimes we get lucky.”
Gale paused and crossed her hands in front of her, waiting for a reaction from Aaron. He hoped that he gave none.
She went on. “We know something big and heavy took out the back of this car, like an SUV. So we compared the size and shapes of the dents in the Mustang to every other SUV in this county. And we came up with an exact match. What’s more, there were paint scrapings on the fender. Just trace amounts, but enough to analyze. GMC Silvercube. And of all the students who attend Cutter High, only one family has this particular GMC SUV, in this particular color.” Gale smiled. “Guess whose?”
That was it. The blow he’d been hoping wouldn’t come. He didn’t need to guess.
“I want to call my parents.”
“What happened, Aaron? Did Quinn promise you something besides money in exchange for papers? Status? Popularity? Did he fail to deliver?”
“It was not like that at all,” said Aaron. “And I think I’m done answering questions.”
“Did he go back on his promises? Keep ignoring you in the hall? Rag on you? Maybe you just couldn’t take it anymore.”
“I want my phone call.”
“We’ve called your parents already. They’re on their way, but the roads are a mess because of the storm. There’s a flash flood warning, too.” Gale gestured to the ceiling, where water dripped from a few more places. “See for yourself. This place is leaking like a sieve.”
Aaron’s trepidation turned to anger.
“I’m a minor. You can’t do this. You’re trying to pin something on me, but I’m not going to give you what you want.”
“I think you will.”
Gale stuck a hand in her jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. She put them on, then reached into the briefcase beside her and drew out a pocketknife in a plastic evidence bag. She took the knife out of the bag, and with a snap of her wrist, the blade clacked open. Aaron chilled.
“We found this out at Cutter’s Lake.”
Gale held the same knife he’d taken from the glove box of his mother’s car and used to slash Quinn’s feet; two quick cuts that had reddened the snow with blood and prevented the Vour from chasing after Reggie.
Water dripped from the ceiling all around, faster now and more steadily.
“His blood was found in the hinge joint of this knife, Aaron. He must have been cut up pretty bad.” She set it down on the table, pointing toward him. “It will go better for you if you confess now. The DA is willing to cut a deal. No one wants to see a promising kid like you go down for Murder One.”
The words struck him like an ax. Murder One. Aaron looked away from Gale, feeling the camera’s cold stare and the detective’s probing eyes bear down on him.
Her voice dropped to a wicked purr. “If we find your DNA on this, there’s nothing more I can do for you. I’ll give you a few minutes to consider.”
Gale stood and left the room. The camcorder stayed on, red light flashing. Aaron sat back in his chair, shaking. His mouth was dry, and only made worse by the incessant drip drip drip behind him. It echoed in his head, louder now, like a stampede of thoughts. Murder. Guilty. Prison.
The knife shone dully on the table. Maybe Gale wanted him to attempt something crazy. Maybe she just wanted him to put his fingerprints on the knife. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
Something touched his hair. He looked up, and a fat drop fell and splashed onto his forehead. The leak had spread across the entire ceiling, the water stain creeping across it like a morphing Rorschach test. Droplets showered onto the table and tiles, kicking up spray as they landed. Soon the photographs of Quinn’s Mustang were soaked through, and they began to warp and bend.
Aaron glanced about, confused. Water now streamed down the walls all around him, collecting in pools on the floor. Then he felt the room shake, like an earthquake had hit. Aaron leaped out of his seat.
“What’s going on?” he called out.
Streams of red trickled from the knife and oozed across the tabletop, the dried blood mixing with the water. With no drainage in the room, the water level rose quickly, and soon it sloshed around Aaron’s shins. It was brown and dirty with the rust from the pipes, and it smelled of mold and iron. He splashed over to the door and started pounding on it.
“There’s a flood! Hey! Let me out of here!”
Aaron heard the sound of creaking metal, and a pipe in the ceiling above him exploded, bursting a hole in the drywall. Dark water gushed through the gap, and he pressed himself against the wall. Horror ripped through him at the sight of the filth now up to his thighs.
Just beneath the surface, it surged and undulated with life. He felt something whip around his legs, and his knees nearly buckled. He thought he saw red eyes glowing in the murky water. The creature surfaced: it was a rat the size of Aaron’s shin. Its fur was slick and greasy, its teeth like daggers, and it padded at the water with sharp claws. It swam around Aaron once, then disappeared beneath the surface again.
The water was above his waist. Waves moved through the interrogation room, and more rats plopped down from the broken pipes. Aaron felt them bump against him, their small paws clawing at him. He tried to kick them away, but then a stab of pain shot through him as a pair of fangs bit into his thigh. He screamed.
The camcorder buzzed and shorted out. Aaron tried to regain control of his mind and push the terrors away, but the teeth continued to tear at his legs, his arms, his chest. He shrieked until the flood reached his mouth, the water rank with his own blood, drowning him in a sea of hell…
The digital camcorder relayed the feed from the interrogation room to the station’s security control center. A few officers stood around, observing the Cutter High boy’s disturbing behavior. Minutes earlier he had begun pounding on the door and clawing at the walls, shouting about a flood and drowning and rats. But the only water was just a tiny leak in the corner.
“Guess he’s going for the insanity defense,” said one officer, taking a sip of coffee.
“The kid is truly screwy,” said another. “Gale’s going to have her hands full with that nutjob.”
They all nodded, but none of them noticed that, in the corner of the screen, the video showed Detective Gale standing behind the reinforced window. A smile played about her otherwise dull and dead-looking face as she gazed intently at Aaron, watching his descent into madness.
But Aaron noticed. Before the sludge engulfed him completely, before he drowned in water that wasn’t there, he glimpsed her through the glass and saw a wisp of smoke drift from her nostrils.
5
Dad mixed his scotch and soda, the ice cubes clinking softly against the glass as Reggie walked into his office.
“He loves you more than anything,” Dad said without turning around. “That boy’s heart is so big I almost can’t bear it. But I don’t know how to help him.”
“You’re doing your best.”
Dad took a sip of his drink. “Am I?” He walked over to the weathered brown leather couch and sat down. He looked worn. “I’m not so sure.”
Reggie stood in the doorway, awkward and uneasy. She’d witnessed her father when he was furious, even irrational. And as much as those moments upset her, nothing made her as nervous as when he appeared lost.
“He almost cut a boy today.” Dad took another drink and rubbed his eyes. “Where does the viol
ence come from? I’ve never raised a hand to either of you.”
“I know.”
“But just now? He seemed so sweet. Is it an act? Is my son turning into some kind of monster?”
Six months ago, the Vour had quietly violated the sanctity of their home. It slept under their roof. It ate their food. It assumed its dark and evil place inside an innocent little boy. Then slowly it tried to rip apart their fragile lives.
And Thom Halloway had never suspected a thing.
“No, Dad. He’s not a monster.”
“Then what’s happening to him, Reggie?”
Reggie moved to the swivel chair next to her father’s drafting table and sat down.
“He’s a good kid. He just needs our love and support. He’s been through so much. First Mom. And then the accident.”
Dad looked at Reggie, his eyes fixed with hers.
“The accident.”
His shift in tone sent shivers through her.
“We’ve never talked about what happened that night.”
“You know what happened.”
“No. I don’t. I know what you told me. But I could never make sense of it. Not really. Reggie, your brother lost part of his ear to hypothermia. What the hell were you doing out there on the lake?”
Reggie squirmed in her seat.
Throwing my possessed little brother into freezing water to make the Vour inside him weak enough for me to enter his fearscape. Naturally. What else would we be doing?
“We were skating,” she said. “I told you.”
Thom Halloway sat forward in the couch, his large, strong hands pressed against his knees with enough force to make the knuckles turn white.
“Bullshit.”
The response caught Reggie off guard, and she instinctively pushed herself away from her father on the wheeled chair.
“Stop lying to me.”
“I’m not lying!”
Her father got up and stood over her.
“I can see it in your face, Reggie!”
Reggie jumped to her feet. She wanted to hold her ground against her father, but she felt so small next to him.
“It was an accident! That’s all. A stupid mistake. We never should have been out there, I know, but—”
