by E. M. Fitch
“Kill another?” Samantha asked, shouldering the golf bag. All three girls crossed the cemetery, Laney’s hand passing lovingly on Lizzy Palmer’s gravestone, just as Cassie’s had.
“Corra, our queen, was killed recently. But they’re not interested in killing any more of their own. Aidan is mad, quite literally insane. I’ve never seen him like this. I’ve never seen anyone like this,” she finished with a sad note of confusion. “He declared open season on the town.”
“Which means?” Cassie asked, gripping the straps of the backpack and the iron shovel Ryan dropped.
“I’m not sure, but he’s called for the hobgoblins,” Laney answered. Samantha gave a hysterical, disbelieving laugh, one induced from fear and panic. “I don’t know what they are, but I feel we’ll know them when we see them.”
“Will iron … ”
“Stop them?” Laney finished. “I think so. It will slow them down, at the very least.”
“So where are we going?” Cassie asked, stopping at the stone barrier that separated the graveyard from the dirty road that wove along it. She reached reflexively into her pocket for her car keys before realizing she hadn’t driven—Ryan had. She looked back to him and had to tamp down the wild urge to laugh. He looked like a lost child, dirt streaks up his strong legs, his shirt mussed, his eyes wide and disbelieving. If it wasn’t so deadly serious, she would have laughed. As it was, she could only stare mutely.
Samantha broke the stillness. “Hey, Buckner, you coming or what?”
He started with a grunt, and then called back, “Of course, right.” He moved forward on wooden legs, almost tripping over the uneven turf. With a low murmur, Cassie heard Laney clear a path for him. He didn’t even notice, just stumbled blindly until he reached the car.
“I better drive,” Samantha said, holding her hand out for his keys. He fumbled them in his pocket, but eventually got them into her hand. Cassie ushered Ryan into the backseat, crossing in front of the car to get in beside him. As she passed Laney, she caught hold of her friend’s fingers and squeezed briefly.
“Glad you’re here,” she whispered. Laney rested her head on Cassie’s shoulder, a brief touch accompanied by a sigh, and then all four got in the car and yanked on their seatbelts.
Cassie reached forward past the center console, plucking her phone from the cupholder. There was barely any battery, but the screen lit up. Laney looked back over her shoulder as a grin sprang onto her friend’s face.
“Who are you texting?” she asked, smiling herself. Cassie looked up, blinking.
“An old friend. I promised him I would—”
“Tell him the apocalypse is about to start?”
“Close,” Cassie admitted, still grinning. “I’m telling him to brace himself.”
“Couldn’t be fairer than that.”
Hobgoblins looked as though they had stepped out of the darkest Grimms’ fairytale book in existence. Seeing them challenged even Laney, who had thought she had become accustomed to believing in nightmares. Ryan’s reaction was one of gawkish confusion. He stared with his mouth open, gaping uselessly. Laney hoped he would snap out of it soon.
The creatures ran in the shadows, evading attention. Long, yellowish nails scraped the sides of cars as they passed. Already Laney saw the fresh pulp that bled through the openings claw marks left in young trees. It was only an hour ago that, in tones of hushed urgency, Lucas had warned Laney about what was coming.
“They are worse. Worse than Aidan, worse than anything you’ve seen before. Have you heard of Roanoke Colony? Ashley, Kansas? Lake Anjikuni? They wipe towns off the map, hunt until the humans are dead and every trace of township is burnt to the ground, destroyed, decimated. It’s murder to call them forward, nothing more. And it’s only done when we’ve been provoked beyond recourse. This … this is wrong.”
“How don’t the humans know? Haven’t they seen … ” Laney’s disturbance surfaced as confusion. She couldn’t wrap her mind around Lucas’s words.
“On most days, hobgoblins haunt the backwoods, as far from humans as possible. An occasional hiker crosses their path. We only know that because the hiker goes missing, and in the tremors of the forest, you can feel their glee,” he said as they both ran from the gathering. The forest around them keened with terror; Laney could sense it in the agitation of the undergrowth. Things squirmed beneath her bare feet. Or was it exultation? Was it the hobgoblins’ elation at being invited back?
But Lucas hadn’t prepared her for what they looked like.
They were as short as children, but with skin that was old and dried and cracked. While the Fae Laney knew could pass easily for human, there was no way these monstrosities could, not with skin as rough as bark, yellowing talons for nails, and eyes that burned a deep, dark red—like set bloodstains in their crinkled faces. Hair fell from chins in scraggly wisps, wiry and coarse. And their garbled whispers weren’t the dulcet tones Corey had once lured her into the forest with, nor were they the mysterious tinkle of childish laughter, like the Boys could produce. No, these were harsh and ferocious. Laney was reminded of a wild animal finally set free.
“Everyone can see them, right?” Samantha asked, the car swerving slightly under her trembling grasp. The beasts were headed in the direction of the town hall. Laney was sure that Aidan would follow today. He would let the hobgoblins have their fun, and then he would follow.
He would come to end Cassie.
“I can see them. Follow them,” Cassie murmured. She was staring out the window, one hand clasped Ryan’s. He groaned and bent forward, letting his head fall on the back of Laney’s headrest. Laney smiled softly and reached back, patting his knee. It could have been any other drive to the movies, the four of them riding along together down Main Street, under the single stoplight—it was green—hugging the curves in the windy road that took them through town. They passed a gas station (one of the two), the Liquor Lady, a seasonal ice-cream shop that had opened only last year, and the pizza place. Ahead lay the town hall and the library, and, farther down the winding road, the ambulance bay and the fire station. And in every shadow, every sliver of darkness that clung to each building’s exterior, there grinned a smallish creature, dull red eyes barely visible in the gloom, yellowed claws reaching from the shadows.
“Where do you think they’re heading?” Samantha whispered, her wary gaze darting from building to building as she sped along.
“Town hall,” Laney answered confidently.
“Why there? Why not just destroy everything in their path? What are they waiting for?” Samantha whined, adjusting her grip on the steering wheel.
“A signal?” Cassie wondered aloud. Laney nodded.
“They’re unused to being given full rein,” she murmured, thinking back to the elderly Fae she had left at woods’ edge. Lucas wouldn’t come with her, though she had begged. He told her someone needed to remain with Aidan; someone needed to at least attempt to control the wild king.
“I wish he had never killed Corra,” Laney had whispered to her aged friend. “I wish he wasn’t the king.”
“I wish we had another to step into his place,” Lucas had whispered back, kissing Laney lightly on the forehead.
“We already do,” she answered, a heavy weight sinking in her gut. He smiled briefly and nodded.
“I agree. Be safe, young Laney.”
“And you,” she said softly, but he was already gone, a tremor of leaves all that remained in his wake.
“Let’s just get to the town hall,” Laney said, back in the moment with her old friends. She pat Ryan’s knee once more, not missing the shiver that went through him as she did. “That’s where the goblins are running to, I’m sure.”
“I can’t believe there are goblins,” Ryan murmured, sounding like he might get sick. He swallowed hard; Laney turned and saw his throat bob with the effort. Cassie squeezed his fingers.
“It’s a helluva way to find out,” Cassie said, grimacing. “
And I’m sorry I couldn’t break it to you any easier. But it’s real. And we have to fight.”
Laney nodded and turned back in her seat, lurching slightly as Samantha pulled the car into the library parking lot. Above them, just up the hill, sat the town hall. In the peaceful afternoon of the August evening, it looked deceivingly calm. But along the edge of the forest, from the greenery that crept ever closer over the manicured lawn that surrounded the stout, brick building, scaly fingers reached.
“There are thousands of them,” Samantha whispered, hopeless, as she shifted the car into park. “There’s no way—”
There was a sudden shift in the air, a tremble of the forest. Cassie gasped, and Ryan jolted upright. Samantha left her sentence hanging half-finished in the balmy interior of the car cabin. Electricity surged through Laney’s veins; she gripped the seat cushion hard, biting her lip roughly enough to draw blood. Every muscle in her body went rigid, and she felt as though a seizure might be coming on. A moment later, Aidan’s voice whispered in her mind, and Laney felt sure the others heard it as well, even Ryan, because every one of them groaned as hands flew to ears and bodies buckled and folded inward, with knees drawn up to protect fragile insides.
Now.
Just a single word, a whispered command, but everything changed with that one breath. With a roar, the edge of the wood blurred with movement. Rasping laughter filled the air. Small bodies—but fast, oh so fast—ran at the town hall and scaled the sides. Glass shattered and littered the front lawn. Screams were heard inside the building, and from inside the car, Cassie shouted, “We have to do something!”
But what? Laney looked to the floor of the back seat. She saw the jumble of iron golf clubs and what was left of the Harris family’s fireplace set. She wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the thought. What could three teens and a brand-new Fae do with a handful of iron against thousands of goblins?
Nothing.
“Put these on,” Cassie hissed, chucking masks at Samantha and Ryan. Both followed the commands woodenly, doing as she said because she said it, and not caring why or for what purpose. There was comfort in following commands; Laney knew this as well as the next. She watched as Cassie ripped strips from the duct tape Ryan always kept behind his passenger-side seat. She pulled Ryan’s face toward her first, using the tape to seal all sides of the mask.
“Breathe slow and deep,” she murmured, gesturing for Samantha to come closer so she could do the same to her. “If any of them use that mist they love to use, we won’t get caught in it.”
“You sure?” Samantha asked, allowing Cassie to secure her mask for her and then pulling the roll of tape from her friend’s hand so she could return the favor. Cassie nodded, but her gaze strayed to Laney, the only face not covered in folded linen. In her eyes, Laney saw the truth and wished she could argue against it. The truth was they had no idea.
“Everyone ready?” Cassie asked. In the short time they had taken in the safety of the car, chaos had erupted at the town hall. Every window was smashed, and the people who had made it outside were bleeding, long gashes evident as streaks of blood in parallel stripes through their business-casual attire. A middle-aged man came barreling out of the door, careening toward the empty road and tripping over the curb. He fell ass over teakettle—as Laney’s mother liked to say—down the grassy hill that led to the library, landing in a sprawl on the pavement just in front of them. He didn’t move after that.
Cassie was the first out of the car, and she ran pell-mell toward the fallen man, a golf club raised ominously overhead. With a war cry Laney had only ever heard when her best friend was at bat, frustrated with a particularly tricky pitcher, Cassie swung her narrow club straight at a hobgoblin who was running for the fallen man. The goblin had eyes only for his victim and hadn’t seen the girl coming. But even if he had, Laney doubted he would have expected a face full of iron.
Cassie’s swing drove the beast back in an arc that sent him spinning midair. The reek of singed flesh—half horrifying, half reminiscent of the smell that fumed from the carnival food trucks that, gross as it was, always made Laney hungry—saturated the air around them. Whipping her flaming hair out of her face, Cassie glanced back at her friends with a look of blazing defiance, screaming into the morning, “Are you with me?”
They were. Samantha ran from the car, not evening bothering to shut the door, and, finally seeming to come out of his fear-induced state, Ryan shook his head like a child surfacing after a lakeside dive.
“Laney,” he said, exiting the car and hurrying toward the still unmoving body, “help me move him.”
Laney hurried over, pulling the thankfully still-breathing man out of the middle of the street, just in case. They laid the unconscious man on the grass behind a hydrangea bush in full bloom. He should be safe for the time being. Ryan looked up at Laney, the shock giving way to sadness. But there was no time for that; she caught sight of Cassie, climbing the hill to the town hall, the tip of her club muddy with blood, and Samantha right behind her, both of them facing a swell of hobgoblins who finally seemed to realize there was someone there worth fighting.
With dawning horror, Ryan and Laney ran to catch up.
Cassie ran up the side of the hill as though charging the mound. Breath came heavy and hot through her mask, but she didn’t dare adjust it. If she had been more conscious of the moment, she would have noted the stitch in her side and the ache in her legs from the sudden sprint uphill. The heft of the iron golf club she swung would have registered as a burn in her arms. She would have noted the peculiarity of fighting goblins, not just because that itself was bizarre and otherworldly, but because the sun was shining down on a particular lovely day, too lovely for singed, rough goblin flesh.
Cassie wasn’t particularly aware, however; every pull and ache of her body would register sometime other than now, if she survived it all. She wasn’t aware of Samantha, gasping for breath and struggling up behind her. She didn’t notice the streak of blood that ran across her cheekbone. All she saw was snarling goblins, black lips pulled over yellow teeth, and the maniacal laughter that reminded her of the Red Caps sucking blood from her classmates. She brought the head of the golf club down again and again. The iron melted flesh in tarry streaks, and goblins fell—dead or stunned, Cassie wasn’t sure—to the ground as she raced for the building ahead.
People ran from the front door. One elderly man teetered on the ledge of a shattered first-floor window, one leg in the building, the rest of him already outside. He pulled at the leg still swallowed in the darkness of the town hall; something gripped it.
“Sam, help me!” Cassie called breathlessly, her voice muffled through her mask. She rushed to the man with gray hair, a beige suit, and a bloody leg. Cassie pushed through rhododendron bushes, ignoring the fresh scratches that marred her exposed skin, and poked her golf club past the man, forcing the creature gripping him off with a wild howl. His leg now free, he toppled into the bushes, landing on top of Cassie and flattening the shrubbery. Samantha arrived in time to help Cassie scramble to her feet.
Inside the darkened town hall—someone must have killed the lights—a scurrying of bare feet and the scrape of claws could be heard whispering in the darkness. Cassie heard the shrill voice of their First Selectman, Mr. Fisk, calling from the front door.
“Is there anyone left?” he screamed. In his panic, he was more high-pitched than Cassie had ever heard him. Nothing answered him but a hiss of laughter. Shivers traveled the length of Cassie’s spine at the non-human sound. The old man at her feet struggled to stand. Ryan appeared beside him and hauled him up. Cassie watched the window, her club at the ready, waiting for a dark grin to appear.
“Seal up the doors,” someone shouted from behind Mr. Fisk. He hurried to pull them closed. A middle-aged woman in a burgundy wrap-dress pulled out a phone charger that had been shoved in the pocket of her cardigan. A dozen individually-wrapped mint Life Savers fell in a cascade on the paving stones. With shaking ha
nds, she thrust the white charging cord into Mr. Fisk’s hands, and he used this to tie the doors shut. What good it would do, Cassie couldn’t see. Nearly every window was blown out.
She back away slowly, gesturing for Samantha and Ryan to do so as well. No one seemed to register the three masked teens brandishing clubs. Their world had gone too insane for that to matter. Laney stood at the back of the crowd, whispering in her faery way that people should forget, that they should go home, gather their children, and lock the doors. By the confused and blank expressions Cassie saw on each and every face, she suspected it must be working. Whatever faery magic her best friend could weave into words, it was enough to muddle the brains of the confused and terrified people standing on the sloping lawn of the town hall.
The whine of a police siren stirred the whispered hush in front of the town hall. Behind them, the patrons of the library were slowly filing out into the bright summer sunshine. The forest leaves caressed each other, murmuring over the crowds from every direction. People that had rushed from the town hall, some clambering through broken windows, trailing glass onto the jewel bright lawn, started to leave. In quiet trails, they moved toward parked cars, keys pulled from pockets and purses and now dangling from fingertips. No one spoke. Laney looked exhausted but pleased, wiping a hand over a sweaty brow and nodding at Cassie. It had worked, the nod said.
“What are we gonna do about them?” Samantha whispered, peering over Cassie’s shoulder into the darkened town hall. The rustling of the foul creatures could still be heard, low, but absolutely distinct.
“What about them?” Ryan whispered, pointing vaguely toward the street where the whine of the siren was louder still. Cassie hadn’t lowered her golf club, but she rested it on her shoulder, like a batter stepping out of the batter’s box. She tilted her head in consideration. If the people got away, they could take care of the goblins. It would be messy and hard, but the golf clubs proved handy. They worked. More creatures seemed to wait in the trees, but she had a feeling they were all headed to the center of town. She could climb through the window and wipe them out herself, maybe with Ryan at her side. She could lay in wait for the rest to eventually enter the building. Samantha could talk to the cops, keep them on the road for as long as possible. Laney could find Mr. Fisk and whisper sweet nothings into his ear, make him say something, anything that would make sense and give Cassie time to clean up the inside. If this was the only thing—
