Children of the Dark

by Jonathan Janz

  Barley’s mom was the sweetest woman I’d ever known. No matter what she was doing—tending house, cooking dinner, helping kids at the elementary school—she displayed an inexhaustible patience and a warmth that made you want to be hugged by her.

  But now, holding the jagged remains of the splintered chair, she looked like a savage.

  The creature was stunned by the blow, but only for an instant. Then it wrested the mangled chair from her grip and roared at her.

  The sound made me want to crawl under the shabby cell bed.

  The creature raised the fractured remains of the chair with the apparent intention of braining Mrs. Marley with it.

  Then Mr. Marley went crazy.

  Barley’s dad had always been the male version of Mrs. Marley. Kind, laid-back, easy to talk to. I couldn’t imagine Mr. Marley hurting anyone. I certainly wouldn’t have imagined him standing up to a more than seven-foot-tall monster who bent steel and feasted on human flesh.

  But Mr. Marley did.

  It started with him picking up a slender shard of wood from the broken chair. It was maybe as long as my forearm, with a tip that was dagger-sharp. Just before the Eric-thing attacked Mrs. Marley, Mr. Marley plunged that wicked shard right into the monster’s belly.

  This time its reaction was even more intense. It doubled over, shrieking, but rather than standing and marveling at what he’d done to it, Mr. Marley jerked the long shard out, raised it above his head, and jammed it into the back of the thing’s neck, just to the left of its spine. The beast dropped to its knees and batted at the wooden spike embedded in its neck. This time Mr. Marley relinquished the weapon. He swept his wife behind him in a protective gesture, then sidled along awkwardly with her until they had reached the spot where Stuckey was hiding.

  “Gun,” Mr. Marley said.

  After a moment, Bill Stuckey’s hand appeared from under the desk. It clutched the gun.

  Wordlessly, Mr. Marley accepted it and strode over to the creature, which had just dislodged the shard of wood from its neck. Barley’s dad squeezed the trigger.

  Nothing happened. The Eric-thing tossed the piece of wood aside and stalked toward the Marleys.

  Mr. Marley leaned toward Stuckey without taking his eyes off the approaching creature. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “S-Safety,” Stuckey muttered.

  Mr. Marley stared hard at the gun. “Where is it?”

  “Trigger,” Stuckey replied.

  “What do you mean, ‘trigger’? How do you—oh hell.”

  The creature had reached them.

  As the Eric-thing reached for the gun, Mr. Marley fiddled with the trigger. Then the gun erupted and the creature’s fingers disintegrated. It flailed backward, its hands jetting black spume into the air. Mr. Marley followed, evidently having mastered the safety mechanism. He shot the thing in the stomach, the chest. It sagged sideways on a desk, but Mr. Marley was taking no chances. He shoved the gun against its temple and squeezed the trigger again.

  I was reminded of a coffee pot being dropped from a ten-story building.

  The black ichor splattered all over the desk, the blotter and papers instantly soaked with the liquid. A horrid stench filled the office, the mingled odors of fecal matter, hot iron, blood, and something that reminded me of the zoo.

  The Eric-thing slumped backwards onto the floor and lay without moving.

  The double doors swung inward, making us all gasp.

  Cavanaugh stood there, hands on knees, panting like he’d just run a four-minute mile. “You...you get him?”

  We all stared down at the creature. It hardly resembled Eric Blades anymore, especially painted as it was with gore.

  “I think it’s dead,” Mrs. Marley said.

  Cavanaugh glanced over his shoulder. “You can come out from under that desk now, Bill.”

  Sheepishly, Stuckey scooted out from his hiding place and made his way over to us.

  “How did you…” Cavanaugh began, wiped a hand over his mouth. “How did you finally kill it?”

  Mr. Marley glared at the chief. “I’m not saying one more word until you let my boys out of those cells, you vindictive son of a bitch.”

  ¨

  Cavanaugh let us out.

  As we emerged, we took special care to avoid the corpses of Terry Schwarber and the Eric-thing. The police station smelled like a slaughterhouse.

  An especially unsanitary slaughterhouse.

  “Now tell me how you did that,” Cavanaugh said and nodded at the Eric-thing. I edged farther away from it, on some level afraid it would spring to its feet again and rend me apart.

  Too many horror movies, I guess.

  Mr. Marley said, “It’s obviously something…unnatural, I guess. But it can be killed.” He glanced at Cavanaugh. “I shot it in the head.”

  “Why does it matter?” Mrs. Watkins asked. “It’s dead now.”

  “It matters,” Cavanaugh said, “because there might be more of them.”

  Stuckey’s face wrinkled in disbelief. “Come on. Them? That thing was just a kid who had some, I don’t know, some really severe medical condition.”

  Chris arched an eyebrow at Stuckey. “You mean like turning into a monster?”

  Stuckey blanched.

  Mr. Marley shook his head. “Look, Cavanaugh, I know the legends you’re alluding to, but there aren’t anymore of these…things out there. It’s simply not possible.”

  “Yes there are,” I said.

  Everyone turned to stare at me.

  I swallowed, hating to disagree with Barley’s dad. Especially after he’d been so heroic in slaying the Eric-thing. “I saw one earlier. It killed three people.”

  The silence in the room was oppressive. I was acutely aware of how everyone was looking at me. Most of the adults—particularly Mrs. Watkins—wore dubious expressions. Like I was just some over-imaginative kid trying to get attention. But Chris and Barley seemed to be listening. And strangely enough, Cavanaugh wasn’t mocking me either.

  Cavanaugh said, “Who’d the thing kill?”

  “Pete Blades,” I said. “And two state troopers.”

  Cavanaugh and Stuckey exchanged a look.

  Cavanaugh moved closer to me, but now his bearing wasn’t hostile. “You said two state troopers, Will?”

  “Carl Padgett killed the other one,” I explained. “Detective Wood. Now will you take me to my house? I’ve gotta get my mom out of the basement.”

  “You were telling the truth,” he muttered, more to himself than to the group.

  The outer door swung open, and someone barged inside.

  Mr. Watkins.

  He glanced at Chris and his mother, looking relieved. “There you two are. I’ve been looking all over—”

  “Stay away from us,” Chris said.

  Mr. Watkins smiled, glanced around. “What’s wrong with everyone?”

  Mrs. Marley’s face went hard. “You abusive coward.”

  Mr. Watkins frowned, looked like he was about to snap back at her. Then he noticed the carnage strewn all over the floor and said, “What happened?”

  Cavanaugh ignored that, asked me, “Where do you think Padgett is now?”

  My voice was trembling with suppressed anxiety, but I managed to say, “He has my sister and Juliet hidden in the Hollow. I bet he’s there.”

  Cavanaugh’s frown deepened. “Juliet…that the Wallace girl?”

  I nodded, doing my best to conceal my exasperation. If only he’d listened to me earlier! “We’ve got to get moving. I don’t even know if my mom’s still alive. Peach and Juliet…Padgett’s with them now.”

  “Jesus,” Cavanaugh said.

  “There’s more,” I said.

  “How much more could there be?” Bill Stuckey moaned.

  “Mia and Rebecca,” I said. “They’re in the forest.”

  The muscles in Chris’s neck tightened. “How do you know that?”

  “Brad and Kurt,” I said. “They’re there too.”

  Barle
y moved up next to me. “Will…you’re guessing. There’s no way they’d—”

  “Eric Blades sent them there. After he started to…turn.”

  Barley glanced from me to Chris. “But he never said that. He hardly said anything.”

  “He thought it,” I said. “I know how crazy it sounds, but he was talking to me inside my head.”

  I could see Chris trying hard to believe it, to convince himself I didn’t belong in a strait jacket. “Like telepathy?”

  I looked at him. “You didn’t hear it?”

  He shook his head.

  I glanced at Barley, who shook his head too.

  “Damn,” I said.

  “Listen, kid,” Cavanaugh said brusquely. “I’m prepared to act on what you’re tellin’ me, but I’ve got to know, and there can be no playing around with this. Are you telling me the truth?”

  I met his stare. “I have to go to the Hollow.”

  “Me too,” Chris said.

  Mrs. Watkins shook her head. “Uh-uh. There’s no way you boys are going to the forest. Not with Padgett on the loose, and certainly not with those…” She shuddered. “…those things running around.”

  “You can’t stop us,” I said.

  Cavanaugh straightened, hiked up his belt. “You kids aren’t going to the forest, and that’s final.”

  “You’re calling the state and county police, aren’t you, Chief Cavanaugh?” Mrs. Marley asked.

  “On what?” Cavanaugh demanded. “The storm’s wrecked everything. Phone and power lines are down. The towers aren’t working.”

  “And even if you do get ahold of them,” Chris said, “they’ll take how long to get here?”

  “Look,” I said, squaring up to Cavanaugh. “We’ve talked long enough. I’m going to get my sister.”

  “I am too,” Chris said. “Rebecca and Mia need our help.”

  Barley glanced at his mom and dad, who both shook their heads. He gestured toward us. “If Will and Chris are going, I have to go too.”

  “No, you’re not,” Mr. Marley said.

  Barley’s voice was plaintive. “I can’t just leave my friends. Not now. They’re up against—”

  “They’re right, Barley,” I said. “You go somewhere safe.”

  He looked at me like I’d torn up his favorite comic book.

  Chris went over, placed his hands on Barley’s shoulders. “Your parents are right. You need to stay safe.”

  Looking miserable and abandoned, Barley slunk over to where his parents stood.

  Chris’s dad moved closer, his gaze on his son unwavering.

  “And who says you’re going anywhere?” Mr. Watkins said.

  Chris eyed him balefully. “Who says you have any say?”

  Mrs. Watkins cleared her throat. “Chris, please don’t talk to your father—”

  “He’s not a father,” Chris snapped. He glared at his dad. “And he’s sure as hell not a husband.”

  “Enough,” I said, making for the door. “I’m getting Peach.”

  “What about your mom?” Cavanaugh asked.

  I glanced back at him. “Send Stuckey to get her out of that hole. Unless he’s dumb enough to screw that up too.”

  ¨

  Cavanaugh drove, and Mr. Watkins rode shotgun. Chris and I sat in the back of the cruiser, speaking in low tones. I told him the whole story, but I had to repeat myself a couple times because of how much the storm had picked up. The rain was punishing the windshield so relentlessly that Cavanaugh’s wipers couldn’t keep up. Wind rocketed straight at us, causing the cruiser to shudder on the wet asphalt.

  Stuckey had taken Chris’s mom with him to my house. The rain was coming down in sheets, and I didn’t hold out much hope my mom would still be alive in that hole. But maybe…if she was able to stand on her tiptoes…

  “Where first, kid?” Cavanaugh said.

  “Go up River Road, then I’ll tell you when to pull over.”

  “How do you know where you’re going?” Mr. Watkins asked.

  “I think I know where Padgett hid them. Where he’s been hiding since he escaped.”

  Mr. Watkins turned in his seat. “And that is…?”

  “I expect Will here thinks Padgett’s hiding out in the caves,” Cavanaugh said.

  Chris frowned. “Which ones, though? There are caves all over the forest. In the Hollow, in Peaceful Valley…”

  “He’s right,” Mr. Watkins said. “They honeycomb the entire area.”

  Cavanaugh eyed me in the overhead mirror. “Go on, Will.”

  I thought hard. “Padgett had to be able to stake out my house. He watched the Blades brothers and Kurt attack me, and he knew when my mom was home and when she was out.”

  “I thought Padgett was the one who rearranged your face,” Chris said.

  I smiled wanly. “It’s been a busy day.”

  “So you figure,” Cavanaugh said slowly, “that the caves Padgett’s been hiding in are the ones in the heart of Savage Hollow.” His eyes flicked up to the mirror. “That about right?”

  I nodded.

  Cavanaugh eyed me steadily. “You think you know which one it is?”

  I swallowed. “I think so.”

  God, I hoped I was right.

  Mr. Watkins shook his head. “I still don’t see why we don’t go to the county with this.”

  “Normally we would,” Cavanaugh said. “But we happen to be in a once-in-a-decade thunderstorm, and unless you’ve got some means of communicating I’m not aware of, you better just accept it and focus on helping us get those little girls.”

  Mr. Watkins shook his head. “But what if Padgett is too much for us?”

  “I told you,” Cavanaugh said. “Once Stuckey gets Will’s mother to safety, he’s going to the state police post on Highway 43 to get reinforcements.”

  The cruiser slowed. Ahead, I made out two or three cars stopped on the road.

  Cavanaugh leaned forward in his seat. “Now what do we have here?”

  “Flashing lights?” Mr. Watkins asked.

  Chris and I crowded the seats in front of us so we could better see through the windshield. We could barely make out, through the wildly thrashing wipers and the freshets of rain assaulting the glass, an orangish-yellow light flashing just around a curve. It was a utility vehicle. With all the telephone lines down, it made sense. Still, the delay couldn’t have come at a worse time. The clock was ticking.

  “Hold on,” Cavanaugh said. He parked the cruiser but left it running. He climbed out and moved into the maelstrom.

  Chris said, “You think they’ve gotten your mom yet? Or are they…”

  He let that hang, but I knew what he was thinking. The storm was too violent to see whether or not one of the cars stopped ahead of us belonged to Bill Stuckey. If Stuckey and Mrs. Watkins were delayed, my mom’s chances of survival would diminish.

  I eyed my door in mute frustration. The cruiser’s back doors only opened from the outside.

  “Let me out,” I said to Chris’s dad.

  “Why should I?”

  I ground my teeth, flailing for a lie. “Because I’m about to piss my pants.”

  Sighing, he got out, came around, and opened my door.

  I pushed out of the cruiser. The rain crashed down on me like a tidal wave.

  My hair was plastered to my head, the rain considerably colder now than it had been earlier on. I swept a hand across my forehead so my hair wouldn’t drip into my eyes, and as my vision penetrated the shimmering sheets of rain, I distinguished a man in a white helmet talking to—or rather arguing with—Chief Cavanaugh. I hustled toward them, scanning the stopped cars as I did in the hope that none of them was Stuckey’s cruiser.

  I distinguished three cars but recognized none of them.

  I finally reached Cavanaugh and a burly utility worker. I saw from the decal on the door of the white truck that he was from TIPMONT, the local power company. A second later I spotted the problem: an entire set of power lines lay sprawled across the road.
Since the lines had fallen at a diagonal, they didn’t reach all the way across. Whether or not it was safe to pass seemed to be the crux of the argument. Cavanaugh was motioning toward the forest, and the utility worker was spreading his hairy arms in a helpless but stubborn gesture.

  “What’s the problem here?” a deep male voice asked.

  I turned and saw a tall man in an expensive gray suit glowering at Cavanaugh and the electrical worker. The man looked about fifty, with salt-and-pepper hair that had no doubt been neatly styled before but was now becoming soggy and matted. Behind the tall man, a white Audi’s door hung open.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to explain,” the beefy worker said with an irritated nod at Cavanaugh. “This road is closed for the foreseeable future. You all shouldn’t even be this close to the downed lines. One of those things starts to spark, it’ll be just like a rattlesnake.”

  “I understand all that,” Cavanaugh said, an impatient edge to his voice. But there’s enough room right there to pass—” He indicated the space between the concrete retaining wall and the severed power lines. “—and this is a life-or-death situation.”

  “And I,” the tall man in the suit added, “need to get to Lafayette for a meeting.”

  The utility worker put his hands on his hips, squinted. “I know you?”

  “I’m Jeff Perlman, from Perlman, Fisher & Myers, and I’m not wasting any more time with you.”

  Great, I thought. Yet another lawyer.

  Cavanaugh regarded Perlman coldly. “You will listen to this worker and turn around right now.”

  Perlman grunted mirthless laughter. “And I suppose you’re going to pass?”

  Cavanaugh nodded. “What I do is none of your business, but yes, my authority supersedes a downed power line.”

  The burly worker scratched the curly hair at the base of his neck. “Technically, Chief, it doesn’t. The public’s safety comes first, and it’s just not safe—”

  “My sister,” I broke in, “is not safe. She’s in those caves up there, and we need to get through. Right now!”

  The utility worker blinked at me a moment. Cavanaugh gave me a disapproving look, but he didn’t contradict me.

  “You’ll let us all through,” Perlman said, “or there’ll be hell to pay.”