Children of the Dark

by Jonathan Janz

  At least we’d reentered Shadeland. We were moving past the baseball field and heading downtown.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To settle another score.”

  “You’re going to kill again?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Because if you are,” I said, “you’re digging your own grave.”

  “Shit, kid, who’s gonna catch me? No one even knows I’m here. I’m a ghost.”

  I nodded toward the window beyond him. “That cop might pull you over.”

  When he turned his head I pushed the lock button and threw open the door. Padgett gasped, made a grab for me, but I was already tumbling out of the Highlander, the crumbling macadam along the road’s edge biting into my shoulders as I tucked into a clumsy roll. The Highlander was screeching sideways, Padgett having stomped on the brakes, but I was up then, my knees and elbows hurting but my body pretty much intact. The police station was about six blocks away, but before that there were gas stations, the liquor store. I was underage, but I figured the owner of Bill’s Fine Spirits wouldn’t blame me for barging in, given the circumstances.

  I charged up the hill, past tall, historic homes, the liquor store and a gas station coming into view over the rise. The rain had slackened a little, but it still gave everything a gauzy, indistinct quality that made me feel more than ever that this was some bizarre nightmare.

  The roar of a revving engine shattered the illusion.

  Behind me, the Highlander was reversing, peeling out in a shower of gravel. Then it leaped up the hill after me like a voracious deep-sea fish.

  I pelted up the hill, acutely aware that there were no sidewalks on which to take refuge. I could dash into someone’s yard, take a chance on ducking between houses or hiding under some shrubs, but the prospect of being overtaken by Padgett here among the looming Victorian houses terrified me.

  I had to make it to the business district. I had to go where there were other people.

  I chugged up the hill, nearly to the top. My feet slipped on the wet road, stealing what little momentum I’d built up. Behind me, the Highlander swallowed up my paltry lead.

  I made it to the top of the hill and charged across Vine Street without checking for traffic. If a driver ran me down, at least that would bring an ambulance. At least someone would see me being attacked by Padgett.

  But there were no cars. I veered into a yard, threw a glance over my shoulder, and was stunned to find the Highlander decelerating. I assumed it was some sort of ruse and pumped my legs even harder, but then I saw why Padgett had slowed down. I was nearing the liquor store parking lot.

  Where a police car was parked.

  Padgett knew he couldn’t kill me with a cop less than a block away.

  Slowly, the Highlander turned left onto Vine Street. I knew where it was going.

  Back to the forest.

  Back to Peach.

  No!

  I gained the liquor store parking lot just as Chief Cavanaugh exited the building. I was too breathless to shout at him, but it didn’t matter. He had spotted me, had stopped by his car door.

  I slowed to a jog about twenty feet from the car. Cavanaugh eyed me over the roof of his cruiser. His gaunt form and pale eyes never looked so reassuring.

  But I hadn’t the first clue what to say. Where the hell was I supposed to start? With my mom, who might be drowning? With the serial killer who had butchered Juliet Wallace’s parents?

  But when I reached Cavanaugh’s car, the words tumbled out without thought or volition. “Carl Padgett’s back. He’s got my sister somewhere in the woods. He’s going to kill her and her friend. Plus, my mom’s in serious trouble too.”

  Cavanaugh barely reacted. “Will, there’s a lot happening right now.”

  “Help me, Chief Cavanaugh,” I said, scarcely able to suppress my panic.

  Cavanaugh gave me an appraising look. “Okay. But I’m gonna need your help with a situation.”

  Alarm bells went off in my head. I glanced back toward Vine Street, wondered how close Padgett already was to Savage Hollow. “What kind of situation?”

  Rain thunked on the car roof between us. The chief scratched the back of his neck. “It’s pretty involved, Will. There are a lot of worried people. Did you know Mia Samuels and Rebecca Ralston are missing?”

  My stomach plummeted. Had Padgett somehow snatched them too?

  Cavanaugh nodded. “Like I said, I need your assistance. Will you come with me?”

  I chewed my lip, not wanting to go with Cavanaugh but not having any good reason not to. I didn’t think Padgett had gotten to Mia or Rebecca, but I was really worried about them. And Cavanaugh was likely my only chance at saving Peach.

  A sudden vision of the tall, pale creature strobed through my mind. Chills raced down my back. “Okay,” I said. “But only if you take me to my house so we can save my mom.”

  He nodded. “Deal.”

  Cavanaugh moved around the cruiser, opened the back door and helped me in. The dry back seat was a welcome change from the rain-swept day, though I refused to allow myself to get comfortable. Cavanaugh climbed in behind the wheel and started the car. He glanced back at me, his eyes emotionless.

  “Thanks for coming willingly, you little prick. Now I won’t have to chase you down and arrest you for assaulting Eric Blades.”

  ¨

  I gaped at Cavanaugh in the overhead mirror. “What?”

  He leaned forward, peered through the rain. “You heard me.”

  “Are you that stupid? Take me to my damned house!”

  Cavanaugh’s eyes swung up to the mirror. “You’ll want to watch your mouth, Burgess. You’re already on my bad side.”

  I sat forward. “My mom is about to drown, and my little sister and her friend have been kidnapped. Can’t you hear?”

  “The only thing I hate more than a smart-aleck kid,” Cavanaugh said, “is a liar.”

  Cavanaugh backed out jerkily and drove swiftly away from the liquor store, the kind of cop who sped just because he could. The laws didn’t apply to him, but he had no problem busting others.

  I hated him.

  “Listen for once in your life,” I said, my voice growing thin. “Carl Padgett is back in Shadeland. I was just with him.”

  We were nearing the police station, but I could tell I’d gotten Cavanaugh’s attention. He was eyeing me in the mirror, no doubt trying to figure out why I would tell such a lie.

  “Tell me what you’re after, Burgess,” the chief said.

  I gritted my teeth, shook with rage and frustration. “I need you to save my mom and my sister!”

  He blew out disgusted air, shook his head. “You and those idiot friends of yours have been watching too many scary movies.”

  It was too much. I made a fist, hammered it on the Plexiglas divider. “Let me out right now, goddammit! If you’re too stupid to help me, I’ll find someone who will!”

  The cruiser stopped. We’d reached the station.

  Cavanaugh sighed, cut the engine. “If you cause me any more trouble, I’ll throw your mom in jail for forging those prescriptions.”

  I gaped at him.

  “That’s right,” he said, turning in his seat and smiling a little. “I know all about her ugly little habit.”

  I shook my head. “She’s going to die if you don’t get over there.”

  “Bullshit,” he said, like that was that.

  He climbed out, opened my door. I was preparing to lunge at him when I noticed how he’d taken a step back, a hand perched on the butt of his holstered gun.

  His pale blue eyes were utterly emotionless.

  I swallowed. Silently, I followed the chief inside. When I came through the door I beheld five people. Seated to the left with his chair tipped back and his feet crossed on a desk was Terry Schwarber. He was staring at his cell phone and sipping coffee from a mug that said TED NUGENT FOR PRESIDENT. About twenty feet or so away from Terry sat the monolithic Bill Stuckey, who was squint
ing over a newspaper. Since I’d always assumed Stuckey was illiterate, this came as a mild surprise. Or maybe he was just looking at the pictures.

  In the jail cell to the left, Barley watched me with a miserable look on his face, like he’d failed me or something. From the cell to my right, Chris watched me with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher.

  Why had Cavanaugh arrested them?

  The chief saw me staring at my best friend, said, “Eric here told us how you three ganged up on him earlier.”

  Barley hung his head, and Chris muttered something that might have been “Asshole.”

  Eric Blades sat with his back to us in the center of the room.

  The sight of him unnerved me, not only because he was so upright in his chair or because he didn’t appear to be moving at all, but because I’d assumed he’d gone to the hospital. Judging from the size of the gash in his stomach, I was surprised he was still conscious.

  Schwarber looked up from his phone. “Well, that was quick.”

  Cavanaugh nodded. “Burgess has been hallucinating.”

  I ignored that. “What exactly did Blades tell you?”

  “Keep your trap shut,” Stuckey growled. He tossed the newspaper aside and rose to his full height. It was like watching a monstrous breaker growing out of a peaceful surf. “You wanna run your mouth after the crap you pulled today, I can crack your head for you.”

  “Into the cell,” Cavanaugh said.

  I’d noticed the cells the last time I’d been here, but I hadn’t really studied them. Now I took in their cramped spaces, their dingy cinderblock walls. It was as though Cavanaugh kept them ugly to make people’s stay here as awful as possible.

  Chris gaped at the chief. “You’re locking Will up too?”

  “Don’t worry,” Stuckey said with a mean grin. “At least you two can kiss each other through the bars.”

  Barley said, “Don’t we get a phone call? That’s like, in the Constitution.”

  “Phone lines are all down,” Cavanaugh said. “Anyway, I’m going over to your parents’ house. That’s better than a phone call.”

  I stared incredulously up at the chief. “Why drive to Barley’s? My mom and sister—”

  “I hear another word about your mom and sister, I’m gonna crack someone’s skull.”

  Stuckey lumbered toward me, as though eager to crack my skull.

  “Don’t touch me,” I said, backpedaling. “Don’t—”

  Stuckey seized me by the back of my neck, hurled me bodily into the open cell. Before I could gain my feet, the cell door rammed shut. Then Stuckey locked it, just like I’d seen cops do in the movies. Only this was real.

  “Come on, Bill,” Cavanaugh said. “Let’s head over to the Marleys’, see what we can find. Terry, you stay here and watch these idiots.”

  “Says the king idiot,” Chris muttered.

  If Cavanaugh heard that, he gave no sign. He’d made it nearly to the door when he paused and frowned down at Eric Blades, who hadn’t said a word since we’d arrived, and who was sitting with his eyes closed and his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets.

  “You okay, Eric?” Cavanaugh asked.

  The chief’s kind-hearted tone caught me off guard. Then I realized why he was being so deferential. Eric Blades was the son of the school superintendent. He was considered an important person, at least in the chief’s eyes.

  Blades didn’t answer.

  Cavanaugh studied the back of Blades’s head a moment longer, then he nodded. “Deputy Schwarber here’s gonna stay with you. These jerks give you any trouble, just let him know, and he’ll bust some heads for you. All right?”

  Again, no answer.

  Cavanaugh went out. A moment later, Bill Stuckey lumbered after him.

  Leaving us with Terry Schwarber and Eric Blades. For a long moment the police station was almost silent. The only sounds were the low hum of the air conditioner and an occasional squawking noise from Schwarber’s phone.

  I glanced at Blades. “How’d you get away from the creature?”

  “Huh?” Chris said.

  “What creature?” Barley said at the same time.

  How could I explain to them all that had happened since I’d been in the forest with the state police? Pete Blades. The monster. The dead cops. Carl Padgett shooting Detective Wood through the heart. My mom, maybe already drowned in that hole in our basement.

  And the Wallaces. God, the way their body parts had been strewn all over their living room. The bloody writing on the walls. Peach and Juliet, trapped somewhere with a cannibalistic serial killer. A man who was maybe not a man after all, but part monster.

  “Will?” Chris said. “What are you talking about?”

  Barley’s voice shook. “Seriously, man. You’re starting to scare me.”

  Join the club, I thought. I’d been in a state of perpetual terror for several hours now. If my nerves got wound up any tighter my whole body might explode from the pressure.

  I looked at Chris. “Where were you when Cavanaugh picked you up?”

  Chris looked down, his face reddening. “My house. When my dad hits my mom…” He grimaced, got control of himself. “…Mom always goes over to Barley’s house. Mrs. Marley helps her…I don’t know. Clean up, I guess. And Barley comes to stay with me.”

  I tried to suppress the surge of betrayal I felt. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  Chris wouldn’t look at me. “I guess I didn’t want you to worry.”

  My throat went tight. I suddenly wished there weren’t bars between us because I’d never wanted so badly to hug my best friend as I did then.

  The silence drew out.

  Something made me look at Eric Blades. He was sitting there with his head down and his eyes apparently closed. Like he was an elderly man dozing in a nursing home rather than a drug-dealing delinquent.

  “Why didn’t the creature kill you?” I persisted. “He killed your brother. He killed the cops. Why did he spare you?”

  Without looking up from his phone, Schwarber said, “The hell are you talking about? Quit stirring things up, Burgess. You’ve already caused enough trouble.”

  “Tell him, Eric,” I said. “Tell the deputy about your brother’s death. Tell him about Hubbard and Flynn.”

  Eric did not answer.

  I willed him to open his hateful brown eyes, to return my stare.

  Then Eric did open his eyes.

  My legs liquefied beneath me. I grasped the bars to keep from melting to the floor. Because Eric’s eyes were no longer brown.

  They were green.

  And much larger than they’d been before.

  ¨

  “Uh, what the hell is wrong with his eyes?” Barley asked.

  I thought of Padgett’s story, of his friend Greene.

  The one who’d transformed.

  “Dude,” Chris said. He backed away from the bars. “There’s something seriously messed up here…”

  He wasn’t all the way changed yet, Padgett had said, but he was most of the way there. Glowing green eyes, fish-white skin.

  Barley smiled uneasily. “That’s some kind of trick, right? Like, contact lenses or something?”

  But I knew they weren’t. The similarity was too great to ignore. The eyes leering out of Eric Blades’s sockets were uncannily like those of the monster. And wasn’t his skin a good deal paler than it had been? I thought so.

  (You know so. You know what’s happening, you mewling little coward.)

  I shook my head. Blades continued to watch me with those huge, unblinking green eyes.

  (You’re not worried about your family. It’s not about your mom, it’s not about Peach—)

  “Shut up,” I said.

  (—it’s about you, you sniveling little worm, it’s always about you)

  “Shut up!” I shouted.

  “Hey, Will?” Barley said. “You’re really freaking me out.”

  Chris asked, “You know something we don’t?”

  (Tell them! T
ell them about the slit on my stomach! Tell them about how the glorious beast fed on my brother, the way he feasted on those pitiful policemen!)

  Oh my God, I thought. The voice was in my head. Eric Blades—or whatever Eric Blades was becoming—could read my thoughts.

  (I can do more than that. I can pry your ribcage open and devour your entrails. And I will, boy. I will right after I dine on this deputy.)

  I shot a look at Terry Schwarber, who was still gazing serenely at his iPhone. You moron! I thought. You’re in danger, and you don’t even realize it!

  “Deputy Schwarber,” I said. “There’s something you need to know.”

  Without looking up, Schwarber said, “Shut your pie hole, Burgess. I got things to do.”

  Barley was watching Schwarber. Barley’s eyes narrowed. “Hold on a minute. Is that…is that Angry Birds?”

  I realized with dull anger that it was indeed Angry Birds.

  “I told you to shut it,” Schwarber growled.

  Chris came forward, clutched the bars. “Put down the damned phone and look at Blades!”

  Blades’s eyes seemed to grow larger, his leer becoming increasingly hideous. A chill coursed through my body.

  “Deputy Schwarber!” Barley shouted.

  “Dammit,” Schwarber said, “you broke my concentration. I was almost to the end of the level.” He slapped his thigh in disgust.

  But he didn’t look up.

  Blades, however, continued to watch us.

  “What did that thing to do you?” I whispered.

  In answer, Blades reached down, grasped the bottom of his T-shirt, and drew it up.

  The gash in his stomach had almost entirely healed.

  But it wasn’t his stomach that shocked me the most. It was his hands, the hands he’d been hiding in his pockets. They were long, spidery, and very pale. The fingers, I estimated, had almost doubled in length.

  My God, I thought. He really is turning into one of them.

  The thing that had once been Eric Blades began to nod.

  “Please let us out of these cells,” Barley said.

  Schwarber made a scoffing sound and continued to play Angry Birds.

  Enunciating as clearly as I could, I said, “Put the phone down, Terry, and look at Blades.”

  The use of his first name did it. Schwarber finally tore his eyeballs off his game and glanced at Blades.