Published by Grindhouse Press

POB 292644

Dayton, OH 45429

www.grindhousepress.com

The Horribles

Grindhouse Press #003

ISBN-13: 978-0-9826281-5-7 (Trade Paperback)

ISBN-10: 0982628153 (Trade Paperback)

Copyright © 2010 by Nathaniel Lambert. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction.

Cover art and design copyright © 2010 by Brandon Duncan

www.corporatedemon.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author or publisher.

Also by Nathaniel Lambert

Sideshow PI: The Devil’s Garden (with Kevin Sweeney)

It’s Okay to be a Zombie: An UnChildren’s Book

(Illustrated by Danny Evarts)

The

Horribles

To Melissa, my wife, thank you for helping me face my own parade of horribles.

CAUSATION

Momma was listening to Billie Holiday on a summer day when it was a little too hot outside but the breeze was just right. Sheldon was latched on to the hem of Momma’s dress while she swayed her hips back and forth and hummed along to “Lady Sings the Blues”.

“Why you wanna listen to something so sad, Momma?” he asked while she spun around him with ease to the opposite side of the small kitchen.

“Baby, this here just reminds me how happy I am.”

She moved like water across a smooth rock, navigating around the little boy without even making a ripple. Sheldon’s small hand clinging to the neatly pressed fabric of her dress was more an extension of his mother’s grace than a hindrance. He could watch her dance forever.

Just as Ms. Holiday was wrapping up her last lament, Daddy hollered from the shed out back. Momma stopped dancing and set down the plate she was drying. She tilted her head to the side, her face worried. Sheldon liked the way the sunlight shining in from the kitchen window reflected off her lovely, dark skin. On tip-toes, she leaned against the counter to get a better look outside. Sheldon wasn’t too worried. Daddy probably just hit his thumb with the hammer again. Momma must have thought the same thing, ‘cause that knitted up look loosened around the edges just a bit.

“Go out there and see what your father is up to, Sheldon.” Momma gently nudged him toward the back door. “Make sure he didn’t hurt himself. When you get back, we’ll have to break out that rhubarb pie you’ve been eyeballin’ like a starving vulture.”

“Ok, Momma,” Sheldon said on the way out. Halfway through the back porch he stopped, turned around, and gasped. I forgot my boat, he thought. He left the toy sailboat, the one his father had made from a piece of fine oak, on the top of the front stairs. Someone was sure to snatch it up. If something were to happen to it . . . he’d just die.

With the same grace of his mother he maneuvered around the kitchen table, dashed through the living room, and out the front door. Momma looked up from behind the open icebox when her boy’s bare feet slapped against the hardwood floors. She shook her head, stepped back holding a freshly baked rhubarb pie and shut the door with her hip.

“Praise Jesus!” Sheldon cried softly so his Momma couldn’t hear. His boat sat up against the wrought iron railing where he’d left it, untouched. He scooped the polished wood up in his arms and squeezed gently. The soft cloth of the miniature sail tickled his cheek. Safe and sound. Now he could go check on Daddy and, as Momma said, make sure he hadn’t hammered his hand to a board.

Daddy must have been tired, ‘cause he decided to take a nap right there on all that dirt. Even though it was warm enough to make the Devil sweat, he shivered something awful. Sheldon’s first thought, when he rounded the corner of the old shed and saw Daddy lying on the ground, was to run back inside and get him a blanket and maybe a pillow. It couldn’t be comfortable sprawled out on that hard, dirty ground. There was something dark and thick spilt all around Daddy’s head. Sheldon thought Daddy must have dumped a can of motor oil and accidentally lay down in it. The boy also saw a track of oily footprints leading from the bigger puddle back around the shed toward the house.

He quit moving toward his spasming father. A different thought occurred to him. He hugged the wooden toy tighter and swallowed hard. What if he wasn’t sleeping? What if Daddy slipped in the oil and hurt himself?

Sprinting closer to Daddy, Sheldon collapsed. The oil splashed up on his bare knees and he slid uncontrollably, crashing into the no longer shivering body.

Everything was wrong. Daddy’s perfectly shaved head, normally shiny and smooth, had a big uneven crater on the top. Large jagged shards of white bone were buried in all the red and greyish speckles of foamy fat bubbling out. Sheldon realized what he lay in wasn’t oil at all.

He finally dropped the boat and put two tiny, innocent hands over the hole to try to stop the blood from flowing out. It seeped up to his knuckles. He tried to stop the seepage until it grew sticky and stopped altogether. At the end, Sheldon looked hard into his Daddy’s fading eyes expecting him to wink and let the boy in on the joke. He’d stand up and they’d both go in for a piece of pie. Daddy was always playing jokes, like making it look like his thumb came off his hand. But he never did see a wink. His Daddy’s pursed lips relaxed and Sheldon leaned in close, looking down at his father, to feel one last hot breath rasp out onto his cheek. He breathed in his Daddy’s last breath.

Momma screamed from inside the house.

The distance between what used to be Daddy and the screen door was short, but to Sheldon it felt as long as a football field. He sucked in all the air his tiny lungs would hold and pistoned his legs up and down. He followed the footprints, the bloody ones, back around the shed, up the stairs, crashing right through the metal screen. The burning air he had fought so hard for while running came rushing out when he stepped into the kitchen. All his muscles went loose and his spine melted. He collapsed into a pile on the gore covered floor and curled into a ball. His thumb traveled to his mouth. He didn’t blink and his chest rose up and down rapidly. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep, but the scene before him had shackled them open. He stared straight ahead.

Momma had sprung a leak.

Slumped over the counter with her upper half forcefully crammed into the small sink basin, Momma’s head was completely submerged. The bubbly dishwater spilled over onto the linoleum and left a contrasting trail of white through all the venous red running in a crooked line toward the terrified boy. The angle of her spine was all wrong, too, not so straight, but more like the angle where two walls meet. He wanted to get up off the floor and lift her head out of the water so she could breathe but he couldn’t. Not even parents could stay underwater that long. All he could do was lie completely still with every muscle tightened in his small frame, and suck his thumb like a baby, not an eight-year-old boy.

Momma’d lost a shoe and her bare foot twitched.

Sheldon was saturated from head to toe with the blood of his parents.

Daddy’s axe was neatly placed up against the wooden cupboard like his sailboat against wrought iron railing.

Momma’s homemade pie fell to the floor and exploded.

Its fleshy insides looked a lot like Momma’s.

Sheldon messed himself when he looked at what stood on the counter above his Momma.

It wore large leather boots with too many metal buckles. Straddling the upper half of Momma, it jerked and hitched from side to side like some type of clockwork machine. Sheldon couldn’t make out its face, because it was hidden by the hood of a thick wool coat. It’s too damn hot for wool. That’s what his Daddy would’ve said. But his parents would never say anything again. This thing rocking back and forth, slowly shaking a very human index finger at the boy, had made sure of that.

Sheldon stared back, his brain already void of anything other than fundamental existence.

The boy and monster were locked together in an instant void of time itself, as if the scene was dipped in resin and left to be preserved for a lifetime. Sheldon sealed himself in a different type of resin. This one was deep within and it would take him more time than allotted in an average life to chisel back out. One more lazy shake of a finger followed by a friendly wave, like the ice cream man would give his favorite customer, and then the hooded monster stepped out the window. Sheldon watched transfixed as it leapt out from above Momma’s mutilated carcass like a dust ball caught in a vacuum. He’d just seen the Devil and he never, ever wanted to set eyes on it again. Just before he went catatonic the record player wailed:

Lady sings the blues

She’s got ‘em bad

She feels so sad

The world will know

She’s never gonna sing them no more

No more . . .

PART ONE

WITHIN

Early this mornin’

when you knocked upon my door

Early this mornin’, ooh

when you knocked upon my door

And I said, “Hello, Satan,

I believe it’s time to go.”

- Robert Johnson

o n e

“Good afternoon. May I please speak with Mrs. Stewart? Ah, wonderful.”

. . .

“Mrs. Stewart? This is Sheldon Delaney. Oh, I’m fine, really, just fine. And you . . . ? That’s no good . . . I hope it wasn’t anything too serious. Great! You had me worried for a minute.

“Mrs. Stewart, the reason I’m calling is to let you in on a . . . well, to be honest, to let you in on a steal of a deal. This isn’t something we offer everyone, but our records show that you have been a very faithful customer over the years and we would like to reward you—”

. . .

“That’s very understandable, Mrs. Stewart. And times are definitely hard. That’s why I really need to insist that you take advantage of this unbelievable opportunity. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure how much longer we’re going to be able to offer it. Seriously, we’re losing money on this one, but it’s just one more way for us to show our appreciation.”

. . .

“Well, thank you very much. It’s people like you that make me want to get up and go to work every day. No kidding.

“How does fifty percent off sound, Mrs. Stewart?”

. . .

“I know, I know. It doesn’t even sound fathomable. All you have to do is buy one product at full price and we’ll practically give you another at half the cost!”

. . .

“But you don’t have the new and improved model. Our engineers have really outdone themselves this time. The accessories are mind-boggling. And it’s practically indestructible. Mrs. Stewart, if you order today, I’ll put my personal guarantee on every item.”

. . .

“Wonderful! I’ll put you down for two . . . hold on. Yes. Yes, sir . . . my supervisor has just informed me that orders over fifty dollars qualify for free shipping.”

. . .

“Great! I’ll change the order to three then. Mrs. Stewart, your order should be at your door within fourteen business days. You have a lovely day and take care of yourself.”

. . .

“I’ll definitely try. Goodbye, Mrs. Stewart.”

Sheldon Delaney let the phone receiver roll off the tips of his fingers. The hollow ring of it settling back into the carriage was a familiar and intimate melody of relief. It meant he could return to a life cut off from the outside world. To Mrs. Stewart, or any number of other customers, Sheldon was part of a bustling business environment—a boss hovering over his shoulder, co-workers mindlessly buzzing about, contributing to collective productivity. But in reality, there was only him, a phone strategically placed on the (his mother’s) kitchen table and a never ending list of numbers.

He worked alone, peddling the extraneous from a catalogue to those who neither needed nor could afford it. But the job opportunities for an individual who refuses—who finds it physically impossible—to take a step outside his home are limited. This job was about the only opportunity to be had.

So he grinded out a living. Conversations with the unacquainted were as painful as a visit to the doctor’s office. But the process was well worth the agony, because once the call was disconnected, he could look up, glance around his empty home, and breathe in the relief of being absolutely alone.

Solitude.

“Nothing out there for me, anyhow,” he mumbled and rubbed a palm through his coarse, black hair. He was still sitting at the kitchen table, filling out an order form for the lovely Mrs. Stewart. “You know what happened last time I went outside on my own . . . ain’t that right, momma?”

At that very moment, Momma glided into the kitchen. Still, after all these years, so graceful. She ran a cold, vaporous finger along his neckline as she passed. It gave him comfort and made him shiver all at the same time. He watched her open a cupboard and then close it. She walked past him and proffered a smile before disappearing into the living room. Sheldon returned the smile. It felt good seeing his momma like that, just as he remembered her, before that day, before she was taken. Even if she wasn’t real, it felt good.

Sheldon was real, and unlike the immortal images of his mother and father, he had finally grown up. Changed. The little boy had grown to be a man, grown into the high cheekbones and far set, almond eyes of his mother, and eventually he filled his father’s broad muscular frame, but in many ways, he had never got up off the kitchen floor. The massacre of Daddy and Momma was always fresh in his mind. The absolute nail in the coffin was that he had lain down in all their muck and couldn’t help but gaze into the eyes of the thing responsible for it all. And at that very moment he made a promise to himself. He remembered chanting it over and over again, right then and there on the blood slick, linoleum floor of his childhood home: I’ll never leave again. No go outside. Never again. Never leave. No more. It’s safe in here. Outside is bad. Is wicked. Evil. The Horribles.

I’ll never leave again.

He had yet to break that promise. Had never willingly broken that promise, anyway. There was a time when people had forcefully removed him from his home. To fix him. But mostly he still felt broken.

After he finished filling Mrs. Stewart’s order, he stood up from the small kitchen table, stretched his arms high and yawned. He stepped away from the table and prepared himself for the routine.

Call it his own version of fire watch—walking a worn and well-rehearsed route in the interior of his home. He had a mental checklist that had to be completed each and every day. Sometimes, twice. Occasionally, the routine filled every waking minute in a twenty-four hour period.

Check all the doors: front, back, and basement.

The closets, cupboards, behind the shower curtains, under the bed.

Flip the latch on the windows.

Hesitate, each and every time, over Momma’s kitchen sink, next to the window that horrible thing had escaped through. Shake the mist of poisonous memories away and double-check the lock.

March, march, march. Walk the perimeter. Be proactive, be ready for them.

Anyone in the yard, ducking behind the bushes, crouched beneath the sill? You never know. They’re clever. That one horrible thing could easily become many.

Are there any gaps, anything overlooked? Can they get in? Am I safe? Will I ever be safe?

The Horribles. The Horribles were out there. He couldn’t see them but sometimes he was sure he could hear them breathing. Sometimes, at night, he could imagine their wet maws pressed against the window or the bottom of the door. Sniffing for him. Wanting him to come out.

His father was there with him, helping secure the house. Or a version of him. They walked together from the lime green painted (Momma’s favorite color) kitchen into the narrow hallway. Sheldon ran a finger above a collection of family photos while his father walked behind him. Mom, dad, and child at the beach. A holiday photo. A young Sheldon at the pitcher’s mound. Good times were frozen in those photos. He was with the ones he loved. But the blurred reflection within the glass frames showed him completely alone. Not even his phantom father was revealed.

Only the living were reflected back.

He made his way into the bungalow’s small living room. Everything was still there: a leather couch off to the left against the wall, painting of a cozy cabin hanging above; his favorite recliner tucked in the corner to the right, next to the fireplace, below oak-finished stairs leading to the second floor; a rowing machine he visited once a day for forty minutes placed next to the recliner; TV below the picture window, curtains drawn; books stacked neatly in each corner and occupying the bulk of a coffee table in front of the couch. It looked the same as always. Lived in. Comfortable. The way his parents had left it.

His father sat down silently on the mantle of the fireplace and rubbed his hands together. Sheldon bent over to grab a paperback from the table. The clatter of the metal flap on the mailbox startled him. He shifted his attention from the book, to his vapid father who seemed to melt like wax, to the front door. The noise was unnerving. He hadn’t even heard footsteps on his porch.

The mailman didn’t come ‘til three. And Evan normally brought the mail in for him. This was something different. It changed his routine, his pattern. Not good. Not good at all.

Should he wait for Evan to bring it in? A voice inside ordered him to see what was in the mailbox.

Go see what it is, Sheldon. Take care of it. Then get on with your self-inflicted imprisonment.

He froze, building up the courage to continue, one foot on the kitchen linoleum and the other resting on the carpeted hallway. His body tensed and he listened carefully. Still no sound of an intruder. Then he jumped up like someone had suddenly run a dirty current through the floor. He slowly and meticulously made his way to the front door, almost low-crawling the last few feet. Pausing to take a deep breath, pulse already beginning to double, he quickly yanked the door open. The bells and whistles started to screech in his ears the instant the door creaked open. His vision blurred and the pressure on his temples felt like he’d been placed at the bottom of the Mariana trench. He thought he could see the Horribles emerging from behind bushes, passing in cars, climbing from the sewers cut into the curb of the road. They wore hoods and boots with metal buckles. He closed his eyes. A little better. Not much. With eyes still clenched shut, he shot a hand up and to the left, blindly searching for the mailbox, and scooped out a single piece of paper. Quickly shutting the door, he collapsed to the floor, exhausted after the brief exposure to the outside.

And this was just to retrieve the mail. Imagine how it would be . . . outside.

He waited for his pulse to wane and then looked down at what he had grabbed.

The paper looked to be made of recycled material. Too thick and uneven. An assortment of browns, reds, and black speckled the paper. It was oily and slick to the touch. He assumed it was homemade, probably out of hemp or some other hippie product. It smelled organic, too, like pond water or swamp. There was something else just below the organic smell, an almost sweet scent, but he couldn’t make it out.

“What is this?” he smelled the paper and rubbed it against his thumb and index finger. “What am I supposed to do with this, huh?”

He opened it up slowly, still trembling after his excursion beyond the threshold, but at the same time cherishing a little sliver of something different in his life.

Come one, come all

As the twilights doth fall

When the dusky sunset curtain parts

Births the traveling motor parade

Baubles and trinkets galore!

All free for those who implore

Please, join the traveling motor parade this Saturday for family fun on two wheels.

“A parade?” He closed his hands around the pamphlet and squeezed as if it had a neck. “Oh, no! You won’t get me out of the house.” Sheldon balled the piece of paper up and tossed it across the room where it landed next to the sofa. “I should put razorblades on the bottom of my mailbox . . . that would keep them out.”

His father shook his head, picked up the wadded paper and tossed it into a wastebasket. The dishes rattled in the kitchen, followed by the faint click of a tongue. Momma was also disappointed in his reaction.

“What? Do you two really expect me to go?”

Sheldon stood up off the floor, walked over to the living room picture window and peeked out from behind the drawn curtains. Even though his own life was in a permanent standstill, the neighborhood continued to thrive. Children rode their bikes along the sidewalk, racing each other, gambling on who could go the farthest with no hands. There was fear in their wide eyes as they buzzed past his house, but it was a different kind than Sheldon’s. He could see it was the good kind, the same fear you feel after watching a scary movie or just as a thunderstorm rolls in and lets out the first crackle of a lightning bolt.

That kind of fear disappeared when the credits rolled or the clouds dissipated or you grabbed back onto the handlebars when the bike began to tip. Sheldon couldn’t grab the handlebars. His fear was here to stay. The reel never came to an end on this nightmare, and it never felt good.

Parents watched from lawn chairs, proud smiles stretched across their faces. Cars drove by, lawnmowers revved, a basketball barked against the asphalt. A sand colored mutt darted past his view with a wiry tail tucked between its legs. Yep, his neighborhood kept on thriving regardless of his own strife, unaware or unconcerned. He could disappear tomorrow and the view from his window wouldn’t change the slightest. But he couldn’t hate. This was a good town. His parents’ town.

The Delaneys were originally from Minneapolis. Sheldon was just a baby back then. His father had a good job as an electrician for Burlington Northern. They were offered a position up north—close enough to Canada where more than one Poe’s Creek resident spoke with a French accent—and the money was great. Sheldon’s parents were happy to be able to raise him in a small town: good schools and less crime.

Sure, they stuck out a bit among all the Scandinavians, but Poe’s Creek had welcomed them with open arms. They quickly became a part of the community and never once missed the big city. Mr. and Mrs. Delaney had planned on retiring here.

But plans change. Blood is spilled.

Flash forward a few frames. Go right past the good years where mother, father, and child couldn’t be happier. Skip over the incident in the backyard and kitchen. Briefly watch the images of a mental hospital; the therapy, the drugs, disappointment, and failure. Observe a fortress being built around a fragile psyche. The reel slows. Same town, same house. A lonely man stands in a darkened, empty living room. His only company is the ghosts of his parents, whether imagined or real. He’s filled to the brim with self-loathing, hatred, and fear. He’s tired of thinking about the past, but too frightened to look toward the future.

Fixed? Hardly.

Sheldon closed the curtains. He walked back over to the recliner, stepping right through the smoke that was his father and plopped down. He straightened out the wrinkles in his favorite pajamas, picked up the remote control off the arm of the recliner, and clicked on the TV. He hit the mute button before even learning what was on. His mind was too preoccupied to pay attention. He ignored the shadows of his parents filling the rooms of their former home.

The rest of the day would be spent plotting more ways to put up walls and close more doors.

But when three loud, rapid knocks, followed by two drawn out ones, rapped on the door, he didn’t panic. Instead, Sheldon smiled.

t w o

It was their secret knock. Three short and two long. Normally, Sheldon would’ve seen Evan Hovland walking up the stairs way before the boy knocked on the door, but he still must’ve been a bit distracted by the letter.

When Evan finished the secret knock, Sheldon got up and hurried to the door. Before answering, he still gave a cautious look out the fisheye and peeked through the curtained window next to the door to make absolutely sure it was Evan. The boy stood outside holding two paper bags full of groceries. Sheldon smiled. It was always a treat to see his young friend. As if the boy knew someone was watching him, he turned his head toward Sheldon and shrugged, then jabbed his head at the door. He mouthed the words, “Let me in.”

Sheldon gave him a sloppy salute and opened the door a few inches. He stood off to the side so he didn’t have to get a good look outside. Evan squeezed through the crack, taking extra care not to spill the bags.

Sheldon quickly shut the door. He messed the top of Evan’s hair and then took the two bags from him. Evan exhaled dramatically and shook his hands out.

Sheldon made sure he was facing Evan, and then said, “All right, wise-guy. That’s enough.”

Evan pretended to run a finger along the brim of a make-believe fedora. Then he stumbled over to a recliner and collapsed into the worn cushion.

Sheldon took the bags to the kitchen, shaking his head and smiling along the way.

When he returned to the living room, Evan was busy writing in a notepad he brought with him.

Evan finished and handed the pad over to Sheldon.

“You want to know if I’m going to the parade?” Sheldon asked the boy, the only other person on Earth he let into his home and life.

“What parade?” Sheldon said, pretending to be distracted by lint on his shirt. Evan frowned and snatched the notebook from him. The pencil moved quickly across the paper and he handed it back.

“You know which one. We all got the same flyer.” Sheldon looked down sheepishly and shuffled his feet. “Oh, that parade. Well, you’ll be happy to know that I’ve reserved front row lawn chairs right at the curb of Columbine Street for the two of us.” The notebook changed ownership again. Evan wrote out a sentence half-heartedly and handed it over.

“Of course you can stay here with me, but you need to go and be with kids your own age, not a crazy, dried up fart like myself. Go get too much sun and eat your weight in free candy.”

Evan’s pencil scratchings sounded too hollow in Sheldon’s empty home.

All the kids my age are assholes and the candy at those parades is always staler than you! Sheldon read this sentence to himself.

“Damn, boy. Don’t think just because we’re buddy-buddy I’m going to let you talk like that.” Sheldon was surprised how much he sounded like his own father. “Tell you what. Go check it out. If it’s lame, come on back here and we’ll watch a marathon of Tales from the Crypt episodes.”

Evan shrugged and nervously fiddled with the hearing aid in his right ear. It was a habit of his, and Sheldon was sure the boy wasn’t even aware of doing it. He was a handsome kid, tall for his age, athletic. His head of thick, blonde hair gave protest to any attempt at combing. He was also charismatic, and if it weren’t for the hearing aids, would easily be popular. But instead, he spent all his free time with the eccentric neighbor. What was this kid doing here? Sheldon had thought, but already knew the answer. ‘Cause we both live in different worlds than everyone else.

While Sheldon ultimately chose isolation, or was forced into choosing, Evan Hovland was born into it. His mother spiked a high fever early in the pregnancy that obliterated the fetus’s cochleae. The boy came out irrevocably cut off to the entire world. The hearing aids in both ears were more for show and his mother’s obdurate belief that maybe, just maybe, someday Evan would hear something. Anything. Mr. Hovland liked to say his son wouldn’t hear a nuclear bomb go off if it were right in his ear and hearing aids, no matter how big the batteries were, weren’t ever going to change that.

He was dead on with that one—Evan would never be able to hear—but he was so wrong in many other ways. Somehow, to Sheldon’s disbelief and anger, Mr. Hovland looked at his son’s handicap as completely debilitating. Might as well have come out stillborn. Don’t pay any attention to the fact the boy was a straight A student. Never mind that, in Sheldon’s opinion, the boy was a diamond in the rough. Maybe this was a little skewed; Sheldon didn’t get out too much and his circle of friends was about the size of a pinhead. But still, it infuriated him to no end to see the way Mr. Hovland came just short of snarling his lip at Evan whenever they were together.

His father wanted the perfect baby boy to carry on the name, but he failed to realize that he got so much more. Sheldon Delaney took a liking to the boy the first time he saw Evan knocking at the front door holding mail that had accidentally been delivered to their house. Evan didn’t stink like everyone else. Words can act like poison and rot someone right to the core; maybe being deaf he’d been immune to the infection. Sheldon had opened the door without hesitation and as far as Evan went, never shut it again.

When a boy can’t hear, it seems easier for him to not be heard, or seen. Especially if the parents are trying hard not to notice their son. Some parents would have thought it strange their boy spent all his free time with a middle-age recluse but Evan’s parents were thankful for the “babysitter”. As if he needed looking after. The mom was loving enough, but she blamed herself for the handicap. Her avoidance stemmed from guilt. Whatever the reason for pushing him away, Evan found solace in visiting Sheldon every day. Maybe he was a sort of parent to him? Which was kinda funny, right? Sheldon growing up without any parents physically and Evan without any emotionally.

Sheldon watched the boy continue to fiddle with the hearing aid. As far as his part of the deal, he couldn’t help but think Evan was good company. A lot more animated than his dead parents, at least. He smiled at the boy and waved his hand to get Evan’s attention.

“Evan,” he spoke quicker than he should for lip reading. Evan had an uncanny ability to read lips, though. He could do it without even having to look straight at the person. Sometimes, it bordered on mind reading. From time to time, Sheldon would test him, mix up the words to make them sound like something else. From across the room, he’d whisper gibberish.

“Hey, Evan, eye beat yo caint hare aye wawed aye’m sooing.”

But it never worked. He’d just shake his head and scribble LOUD AND CLEAR in his notebook.

Sheldon had the TV as a constant source of background noise, but Evan filled him in on the real juices of Poe’s Creek. The kind of stuff a guy would catch up on if he were to frequent Harper’s barbershop.

Even if Sheldon spent his whole life inside, he was still small town at heart. And nothing screams small town more than drinking a tall glass of gossip.

Deep down, Sheldon really wanted Evan to go to that parade. He needed Evan to take inventory of all the city’s dirty laundry and report back.

“Are your folks going to the parade?” Sheldon said when Evan looked up at him. Then he stood up, and started to walk toward the door, where he would hurriedly see Evan out and then slam it closed. Evan followed him and nodded his head.

“Tell them both ‘hi’ and I appreciated your mother’s casserole.” He really did, too. One thing Sheldon didn’t inherit from Momma was a knack for cooking. Anything made in his kitchen, went right from the freezer into the microwave for five minutes on HIGH.

Evan wrote one more question in his notebook and lifted it up.

“Yes, I’m positive I want you to go.” Sheldon messed the top of Evan’s hair again just before opening the door. “Don’t worry, I’ll be here when it’s done,” and then he laughed. “God knows I’m not going anywhere.”

Evan almost got the back of his foot caught in the door, it shut so fast.

It was the middle of the afternoon and Sheldon had nothing to do. Might as well turn in for the night, he thought. Wake up in the morning and try to squeeze another day out of an already dried up pulp.

t h r e e

Evan almost tripped coming down Sheldon’s porch. His friend had not rudely, but forcefully all the same, sent him on his way with a nudge. But he was used to the quick exits. It was just the way Sheldon was. One of his quirks, as his old friend was fond of saying. Just like having to check the locks all the time, or making Evan look out in the garage for burglars every night before he went home.

None of those things really bothered him, though. Sheldon was a lot cooler than any other adult he knew. He never talked about how hard of a day he had at work, or how many points the stock market lost that day. Sheldon talked about scary movies, the latest X-Men comic and whether Evan had rode a wheelie on his bike yet. So yeah, Sheldon was his best friend. Whatever that was worth. He didn’t exactly have an overflowing pool of friends he could call upon.

The whole deaf thing seemed to get in the way.

His hands were stuffed in his pockets as he stumbled along the weather worn and cracked sidewalk, digging around in a trove of boyhood treasures. If Evan counted correctly, there was a dollar twenty-five, all quarters, in his left pocket. It always felt good to have some money in his pocket. In case he had the urge to run down to the C-Store later for a cream soda. Maybe a Charleston Chew. But his prize possession was in his right pocket. While his fingers closed around the smooth surface of it, he gave Sheldon’s house one last quick glance over his shoulder. Sheldon was looking out a crack in the curtains. Evan waved. Sheldon nodded and the curtains snapped shut.

He took out what he’d been holding onto. It was a pocket knife. Nothing special about it, cheap plastic with some realtor’s advertisement on the side, but holding it always made him feel good. It had been a gift from Sheldon. He said every boy needed a knife. You never knew when you were going to need it. Soon after receiving the gift Evan had borrowed his father’s honing stone and worked the cheap blade until it would slice a piece of journal paper in half with little effort.

It was sharp enough to leave grooves and peel back thin layers of his thumbnail. That’s what he was doing outside of Sheldon’s house when the skin on his nape began to tingle. He jerked the blade away from his thumb just as something crashed into his shoulder. The impact knocked the meaty palm of his hand into the opened blade. The cut was only superficial, but it began to bleed like a sieve. Good thing he moved his hand away.

Sean Keating, a neighbor boy, ran past him holding a basketball tucked under his arm. Sean turned around, jogged backwards and mouthed the words “Move it, retard,” before turning around and hustling away.

Evan wiped the blade on his jeans and stuck his palm in his mouth. His mom would be on him like stink on dookie for staining his pants. He looked down at the ground and kicked at a loose pebble.

Retard? He thought. He’s the fool that can’t even pass summer school math.

Sometimes Evan wished he could get back at kids like Sean. He had even asked Sheldon to beat him up once. Said he’d pay a month’s worth of allowance.

Sheldon had laughed and said, “Ain’t no use in fightin’, son. Win or lose, you’re doing exactly what they want. You’re admitting that they’re getting to you. Besides, not ever going to happen, not unless you get that boy in this house with me. You know that’s for sure.”

Might be exactly what Sean wanted, but it sure would be fun to watch.

Evan breathed in the late summer air. It was going to be a nice afternoon. Not too hot. Not too cold. Maybe his dad would start a fire out back and they could make s’mores. If there were any left over he’d bring Sheldon some.

Nothing to do and all the time to do it, he thought. He walked the short distance to his own house and sat down on a porch that could’ve been a twin to Sheldon’s.

That was the best part of being a kid. No plans. No real responsibilities. Shoot, if he thought about it, not that hard even, he didn’t have anything to do for a real long time, other than get Sheldon his mail. That and the parade tomorrow. If his parents even took him.

f o u r

Sheldon woke up, tangled in a knot of blankets, to what sounded like a jet engine firing right outside the bedroom window. Before he could fully wake up, he’d wrestled himself off the edge of the twin bed and come down hard on the floor. The curtains were drawn tight. Could’ve been midnight. Could’ve been noon. He rubbed his sore backside and scratched his head at the same time (which is supposed to be an impossible feat), trying to figure out if he was in a battle zone. He’d never heard anything so loud.

Slowly, he worked the sailor knots out of the bedding and stood up. The eruptions outside weren’t from a rocket or an a-bomb. It was the motor parade rolling into town, boring down on their throttles just as highway met up with the corner of his house and the rest of the town. A startle like that, being woken up out of a sound sleep, could leave a guy a little unsteady on his feet. He noodle-walked over to the window, smashing the meaty part of his thigh on the nightstand before pulling back the curtains far enough to squeeze his nose through.

Opening the curtain a bit farther, he pressed his fingertips against the glass and could feel all the horsepower drumming up against the window pane. The vibration continued all the way down his spine and out his toes.

Sheldon shivered and . . . remembered.

Mr. Delaney (Sr.) had owned a motorcycle. Not anything like the ones storming past the house, but it had two wheels, handlebars and a gas-powered engine, all the same. It was what he had been working on when . . . well, when he had died. He used to say it was his other son. And sometimes, the way he doted over it, incessantly polishing and fine-tuning, Sheldon thought it may have been his favorite son. He wasn’t jealous, though. Daddy was always more than happy to share it with him.

“Come here, Sheldon,” he’d say before scooping Sheldon’s hands up in his enormous palms. “I want you to hold on tight right here. That’s right. Put your hands on the gas tank and I’ll start it up.” Daddy would straddle the motorcycle with Sheldon leaned up against the tank, holding on for dear life, not quite sure what he was about to be shown. The small engine would give off a few hiccoughs and continue to sputter, on the verge of stalling.

“You don’t need your ears to know something ain’t right. You can feel it.” Daddy would grab a wrench from the workbench and begin to tighten something below the tank. “Now, keep holding on and tell me if you feel the difference.” He would crank the wrench a few times, pause, and place his own hands over Sheldon’s and then turn the wrench just slightly. Slowly the engine’s unsteady vibration became more fluid and monotone. Sheldon could feel the exact point where it became “tuned”. He looked up at his Daddy and grinned. He could hear it, or feel it, without using his ears.

“Everything gets out of tune sometimes, Sheldon, and your ears aren’t what’s gonna tell you.” Daddy had put a hand over his heart and continued. “You use this, my boy.”

The long string of motorcycles growling past the house felt out of tune. Sheldon jerked his hands away from the glass pane and stepped back. They were all . . . out of tune. There was no other way to put it. They sounded all right and he could appreciate the thunderous clapping of all that power, but he’d felt something in his fingertips; something emanating from the parade. There was a feeling of a peaked fever or the clammy skin of the terminal and, as impossible as it seemed, the rattling vibrations clung to his skin. He tried to wring the feeling from his hands and stepped back toward the window, being mindful not to touch the glass.

Stiff leather. High-polished stainless steel contrasted against jet-black paint. The rising sun reflected off the gas tanks. Fat tires gripped solidly on the blacktop. Waves of gaseous heat sizzled off rider and engine. Some of the bikes towed matching trailers. Sheldon thought it must be full of props for the parade. Riders twisted down hard on ape-hanger throttles and the machines roared back. When the trumpeting gurgle from exhaust pipes hit Sheldon like an ocean wave, it drilled a hole right in the middle of his head. The motor parade had left the confines of his small town street and was inside of him, burning rubber on his frontal lobe. His brain screamed for utter silence, but the parade just grew louder.

And the entire time he was struck with the overwhelming urge to go to the parade . . . to join their ranks.

I could do it¸ he thought. Just step right outside and walk right over to them. They’d take me in. Yes. I can feel it.

But then another voice spoke up. It was a younger and more frightened version of himself.

No! Never go outside. Bad things out there. They are bad. The parade is bad. Those are the Horribles! Horrible things riding horrible machines.

Sheldon breathed fast and hard, as if trying to keep pace with the parade. Even with bright white lights exploding between optic synapse and brain, he still had to see the parade. He felt obligated to watch, as if the parade demanded it. His breath had misted over the glass, making it hard to see. There was no way he’d touch the glass again, not with his bare skin. He used the corner of his pajama top to smear away the moisture.

He watched the parade pass. The drum-drum still pounding into his head. The urge to go outside still strong. He squinted his eyes. From this distance, and his condition, he couldn’t tell whether the riders were male or female . . . or both. They were dressed in head-to-toe leather and each wore a helmet with full face mask. It was nauseating to try to focus too much on the details of the parade. Sheldon tried to take in the overall picture of the scene. And if it weren’t for the pain, it would definitely be badass. He sort of wished Evan were here with him to see it.

Eventually, the tail-end of the parade came into view. Just in time, too. Sheldon was convinced his head would crack down the middle and his brain would bubble out of the fissure. Or, worse, he’d give into the urge to go outside. The last rider sat on a trike with slick, fat back tires. Sheldon was surprised when the trike stopped in front of his house. The rider waved at Sheldon, or toward him, at least, and Sheldon stepped back, startled.

“How can they know I’m in here?” Sheldon asked his favorite companion. It was dark and there was only a slit in the curtains.

There were two leather satchels on the back of the trike. The rider reached a gloved hand into one and pulled out a mass of reds, blues and greens, then threw the tangle onto Sheldon’s front lawn.

“What the . . . ?” He asked, perplexed. Confetti? Streamers? A piñata?

As if answering his question the rider made a halo with its hands and mimed placing the halo over its head.

Beaded necklaces . . . what was this? Mardi Gras? The rider gave a wave and opened up the throttle. Sheldon tried to return the wave but winced in pain. He should not be waving at any of these things. They were disruptive and intrusive. The engine roared. Rubber howled against blacktop and the trike disappeared down the road. His headache seemed to follow its lead, waning as the distance increased between his house and the parade.

He leaned forward, his forehead plastered up against the glass. It felt cool and refreshing and that feeling from the vibrations was gone. He no longer felt the desire to flee the confines of his home. He chalked the headache and the bad vibe up to just too much stimulation. It was just too much to take in at once. Going from absolute solitude and silence to being shoved into a wind tunnel of sound, he was amazed all he had was a headache.

“Imagine if I was standing on the curb when that . . . monstrosity went by,” his skewed voice of reasoning reminded him why he wasn’t going to the parade. “I’d split right down the middle.” He yawned and stretched his arms toward the ceiling, freezing abruptly when movement from outside caught his attention.

The ball of necklaces, or whatever it was, had moved. He’d swear it on the Bible he saw it wiggle closer to the house.

All right. Now he was seeing things. He needed to step away from the window before going irreversibly crazy.

No. It was his imagination. Had to be.

It moved . . . again. Sheldon’s eyes grew big. He stepped back from the window, then forward. The ball of red, green, and blue moved again. Sheldon stepped back. Forward. Movement out on his lawn. Backwards. Forward. Sheldon felt like he was stuck in the thrall of an absurd square dance. As the ball of necklaces moved, it began to take on a discernable shape. Backwards. Forward. The tangled ball folded in on itself. Multi-colored stalks—eight of them—shot out from the mass, bent at newly formed joints and dug into the grass. Backwards. Sheldon looked around his small room for something to defend himself with. He ran his hand across the small nightstand, sending the alarm clock sailing to the floor. His hand closed around the neck of a lamp. He ran back toward the window. It was still plugged in. The cord caught and almost put him on his ass. He looked outside again. It was up off the ground and mobile. A beaded mass of spindly legs made a bee-line for him. He hugged the brass lamp to his chest and hid behind the shade.

“Oh, this isn’t good. Nonono . . . “ The gears were starting to slip and Sheldon wasn’t far from curling up into a ball on the floor. “This isn’t happening. I’ll . . . I’ll close my eyes and open them and . . . everything will be right and normal. Yeah . . . nuh-normal.”

It was true. With his eyes closed, he couldn’t see the spider with the mechanical stride, hitching toward his home, but that didn’t stop him from hearing it. There was a loud thud against the window. The Horribles are trying to get in. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, but refused to open his eyes. Another thud, followed by the shriek of eight fingernails against a chalkboard. The next thud was accompanied by the screech of cracking glass. Something inside him cracked along with the glass and he wondered if what would escape from him would be as horrible as what was trying to break into his house.

Open up and take a look, my man, before this thing’s in here with you.

The nightmare his reality had become slowly came into focus. The gap of sunlight normally spilling in between the curtains was blocked by something large and moving. It was the spider. At that point, if it were physically possible, Sheldon would’ve crawled inside his own head and hidden from the impossible creature repeatedly throwing itself against the window.

Never mind that a parade of motorcycles had given Sheldon the worst headache he had ever experienced. Try to forget entirely the parade had stopped in front of Sheldon’s house, acknowledged him through a tiny slit in the shades, and tossed a handful of party favors on his yard. The best thing he could do would be to forget that he had seen those necklaces form a giant, blood-thirsty spider. But he couldn’t forget. An underbelly lined with fangs as big and sharp as kitchen knives, eight legs filed to deadly points etching deep scratches into the glass, and a thick black fluid bubbling out of all its crevasses made it hard to dismiss from memory.

The “spider” dropped from sight. Sheldon held his breath and then screamed when it once more smashed itself against the window. The glass shattered inward, spraying the room with jagged shards. It would’ve landed on him and sunk fangs into the jelly of his eyes, but the spider got hung up on the curtains on the way in. Sheldon held the lamp at arm’s length and braced for impact.

When the cannonball of monster and linen crashed into him, the air rushed out from his lungs like a vacuumed leak. Sheldon fell hard on his back with the spider on top of him. He felt something elastic give in his muscles. He was in won’t-get-up-in-the-morning kind of pain, but refused to let go of his makeshift shield. The spider began to work itself free of the curtains. Shredded bits of fabric sprayed in all directions. Wretched legs tore through and skittered across the surface of the lamp. It sounded like dry bones clicking against aluminum. Fangs scissored free. A bubble of black tar stretched out from its hungry mouth and popped. Sheldon was sprayed with its contents; in his eyes, his mouth. It was venom, Sheldon was sure of it. He spat and braced for the neurotoxin to take its course.

The liquid tasted a lot like motor oil and appeared to not be fatal if swallowed. But he was certain, without further analysis, that the rest of the creature was very, very deadly.

His arms shook under his weight. His adrenaline surged. He was losing his grip. Beaded legs swept vicious arcs in the air just inches from his jugular. He shrieked and lobbed the lamp and spider to his left. His assailant crashed to the floor and skidded to a stop about five feet from him. On its back, the spider wrapped its legs around the girth of the brass lamp and squeezed. Sheldon was up and running just as the lamp buckled inwards like a soda can.

The bedroom door opens inwards, you twit! He tried to order his stubborn body, but his muscles had yet to catch up with his frantic thoughts. He crashed into the door, blocking it from opening. The spider was upright. He could hear terrible click-clicks as it skittered across the hardwood floor. He shook the doorknob desperately, shuffling his feet out of the way until he had just enough room to slip through the door’s opening. He slammed the door and collapsed, his hand gripped tightly around the knob.

He needed to regroup and reorient.

“Ok . . . Ok . . . there’s a giant . . . thing on the other side of this door, which isn’t going to hold it for long. You gotta do something, brother. Ahhh, man, this is all sorts of bad.” He started to cry. He curled his legs up into his chest. A loud thud from the bedroom signaled the spider’s advance. His eyes began to glaze over. His head bobbed forward every time the spider crashed into the door. He went limp and his body slumped to the floor. He pressed his cheek against the floor and stared down the hallway into the kitchen. He could see the fridge, the white cupboards, the sink and the window above it. The shades were still drawn and the low light gave the entire scene a dreamlike feel. He thought he might be dreaming. And it was a familiar image. His kitchen looked a lot like Momma’s did . . . on that day.

The day he had lain down on the floor in all that blood.

Sheldon stared in horror, fixed in place by the terror of the monster with him now, and the memories of the ones from his past, the thought of all those Horrible outside waiting for him every day. Images of his parents’ death fluttered past his eyes in rapid succession; a constant film reel inundated with blood, fragmented bone, and the jagged lines of ragged tissue.

A scream was jammed back down his throat by wave after wave of sickened psychosis. As the facade that he, and his psychiatrist, had spent so many years building began to crumble away, Sheldon felt the urge to laugh maniacally until he passed out.

His father ran at him from the kitchen. Sheldon could see his shoes stop just inches from his face. A ghostly hand reached down and came to rest on his shoulder. Sheldon stared up at his imaginary father. He was mouthing—screaming two words over and over.

Evan wasn’t the only person who could read lips.

His father told him to fight, to rage.

Fight. Rage. Anger spread over him like a fevered rash. Last time he did nothing. Whatever killed his parents could have finished him off effortlessly and he would’ve let it. If given the chance his father would’ve fought it, tooth and nail. His mother would’ve fought.

Father nodded in agreement and faded.

He owed it to them to fight with everything he had.

The next time Sheldon tried to scream nothing stopped it from erupting out. He surprised himself with how loud it was. “NO! NOT AGAIN! NOT THIS TIME! I’M NOT GOING TO LAY DOWN AND JUST LET IT HAPPEN. I’M NOT GONNA LET IT HAPPEN, MOMMA!”

Complete silence. Not a sound from his bedroom. Nothing from the rest of the house. He stood up. He got up on the balls of his feet and waited. When the bedroom door shattered and the spider broke through, he was already on the move, headed for the front door. He ran through the living room, grabbed an iron poker from the fireplace—sending the stand crashing to the floor—sprinted to the front door, heaved it open, and froze at the threshold.

He couldn’t do it. The outside world was just too bright, too loud, too unforgiving. Too horrible. Even if it meant he would die, he couldn’t go outside. He spun around with the poker out in front of him. The spider was there to meet him. It jumped through the air. The spider, Sheldon, and all his misery, tumbled outside.

His senses erupted in a geyser. Bright lights exploded with the intensity of the sun. Bombs went off in his ears. He could smell everything: the malodorous stink emanating from the spider, the grass and flowers and air, his own fear sweating out of every pore. Then everything went black and Sheldon signed off.

Sayonara.

PART TWO

WITHOUT

Well, now it gettin’,

Late on into the evenin’ and I feel like, like blowin’ my home.

When I woke up this mornin’ all I, I had was gone.

Now it gettin’, Late on into the evenin’, man now, I feel like, like blowin’ my home.

- Muddy Waters

f i v e

“There’s nothing to fear, Sheldon. I’m here with you,” Dr. Nemiah spoke soothingly. The tone of her voice always made Sheldon feel safe. “You have to let go. Let go of what happened. Let go of your parents. Here, we’ll do it together.”

“I can’t do it.”

“You can’t do it or you don’t want to?”

“Both.”

“Give me your hand, Sheldon. Let’s open the door and just take one step outside.” Her hand felt wonderful in his. Her smooth skin was a lot like Momma’s.

Sheldon looked straight into the face of his psychiatrist. Her entire countenance was lit up by bright light from behind. She was dark like his mother. And she had the most intelligent eyes. Her greying hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. No make-up save for a conservative application of red lipstick. She was a sophisticated beauty, but no more real than his parents were. He knew this was a dream. He knew she wasn’t real, but it felt so safe. He took a step forward with Dr. Nemiah and then froze. “What if it . . . Horribles . . . are outside waiting for us?”

“Can you remember his name, Sheldon? Do you remember the name of the man that hurt your parents?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me that name, Sheldon?”

“Yes. His name was Oli Thompson. He was a bad man.”

“That’s right. And what happened to him?”

“He went to jail forever.”

“Sheldon, later on, that awful man died in prison. He’s no longer outside. He can’t hurt you. Can he?”

“No.”

“What happened to your parents was chaos, just a terrible, terrible chance happening. The person responsible for their deaths is dead. There won’t be anything waiting for you—us—except for blue skies and fresh air.

“Open the door, Sheldon, and welcome in the world.”

“Ok, Doctor. Just don’t let go of my hand.”

He closed his eyes and stepped through . . .

s i x

Open your eyes.

The world had been knocked off its axis and flipped ninety degrees. Instead of seeing houses, streets, and a tree line, Sheldon only saw sky. Where did Dr. Nemiah go? She no longer held his hand. He wasn’t with her anymore. This wasn’t a therapy session.

Parade, motorcycles, spider, fangs, the chase. His brain fed the events back to him in bite-size installments. The process didn’t ease the panic. He was growing catatonic; legs and arms stiffened. The intensity of his surroundings devoured his lucidity. Something moved next to him, temporarily distracting his plunge into irrevocable madness. He turned to face it. His back muscles screamed in agonizing protest.

Impaled by the poker, the spider twitched once, twice, and then lay still. Up close, he could see it was welded together steel and what looked like tissue; a slab of hamburger with an Erector Set crammed into the meat. Legs and fangs were driven by cogs, springs, and gears. All of this was held together with strips of white tendon and greying muscle.

It was something created, designed, and forged. And knowing that someone, or something, had constructed it was the most frightening aspect of the entire thing.

The stab wound leaked motor oil all over the sidewalk. The gathering puddle made Sheldon think of his parents again. He had mistaken his father’s blood for oil. Instead of ceasing up with panic, he was taken over by rage again. Whatever made this spider and the evil that had killed his parents were of the same kind. He was sure of it.

He had killed—destroyed—this one and it felt good, a sliver of revenge for his parents, but then Sheldon remembered the long line of motorcycles and the trailers they pulled. He gasped.

Those trailers were full of things like this. Bigger, deadlier things. The whole town would be attending.

Oh God. The children.

Evan.

He’d be there with his parents. They couldn’t protect him. Sheldon slowly worked himself up off the ground. He placed a foot on the underbelly of the spider. It squished and more oil seeped out. He grabbed the poker and pulled it free. He wiped it clean on the grass, turned around and looked back at his home, his fortress. Both his mother and father were in the window waving goodbye to him. He wanted to go back in with them. Forget about this whole ordeal. But when he took a step toward the house, his father shook his head no.

There was no going back in once he was forced out. It was a bitter and caustic realization, like dry swallowing his medication, but he knew it to be true. Plunging through that door had been some form of rebirth. He was no longer Sheldon Delaney the agoraphobic, but still had no idea what he had become.

He waved back to his parents, not surprised by the tear that ran down his cheek. They waved again and disappeared.

He walked down his sidewalk and turned toward Columbine Street. He was barefoot and dressed in his plaid pajamas, his favorite pajamas. He had bed hair and morning breath. One hand held the poker, the other rubbed his back. He hadn’t thought of what he would do once he got downtown. All he knew was if something had happened to Evan that would be it.

Lock the door and throw away the key permanently.

His mind was so preoccupied with saving Evan, he didn’t even think about being outside, walking, breathing, living without panic. And it was the first time in years.

Sometimes the best kind of therapy for fear is to face it head on. And drive a stake right through its rancid heart.

s e v e n

Evan Hovland knew the parade arrived long before anyone else. He could feel the rumble in his feet and smell all the exhaust before it even turned onto Columbine. How could no one else feel it? It’s humungous. Humungous . . . what a great word, he thought and scribbled it down in his notebook for Sheldon. The parade probably passed right by Sheldon’s home. He must’ve felt it too. Evan sighed, turned his head around to take in the crowd, and waited for the festivities.

Everyone was here. And small town antics were in full bloom. Mrs. Olsen’s hair was as big as ever. And as impossible as it seemed, she figured out a way to wear even more costume jewelry. Evan thought she looked like a walking discount rack at a thrift store. The mayor was there with his legion of ass (Evan wrote “butt” in his notebook) kissers. Town drunks, reformed drunks, gossipers, cheating spouses, reformed spouses, and single moms with a string of children unaccounted for were all in attendance.

Sheriff Boone’s police cruiser was parked lengthwise across the street and he directed traffic as if landing a 747. Evan laughed. His parents both turned and looked at him. He smiled back, and then returned his attention to the gathering.

It was almost poetic watching the town interact. It was like a big bees’ nest or ant hill. Everyone had a role to play, and the players were cast perfectly.

There was real excitement in the air. Evan felt it emanating off every person in attendance. Even he was a bit excited. This was the biggest event in Poe’s Creek for a long time. He wrote down every detail in his notebook for his good friend.

He stopped writing when the first motorcycle turned onto Columbine Street. He didn’t have to be able to hear to know the crowd was utterly silent. Again, he could feel it. This was big . . . real big.

e i g h t

It had been years, but he still knew the route well. At one time this was all his, speeding along on a bicycle, where his feet barely reached the pedals, weaving in and out of driveways, hopping off his bike to look for loose change in the rain gutters. There were all sorts of things down along with the detritus and garbage. He’d found a baseball glove once, never figured out how it got there, and was never able to get it out.

He wondered if the baseball glove was still there. His arms were probably long enough to reach it now. Suddenly, finding that baseball glove felt like the most important task at hand. It would be a closure of sorts to a broken childhood. He stepped off the sidewalk and crossed over to the other side of the street. As he walked, he could almost feel the small hand of a boy inside his own guiding him along the way. He bent down, and for one brief moment thought he saw the scuffed and aged leather of a glove. But it was a trick of the fading light. Nothing there but rainfall and rot.

Defeated, he continued along the curb, dragging the poker behind, searching each gutter for intangible nostalgia.

Even though he knew where he was going, it took a long time—a real long time—for Sheldon to make the trip. He was accompanied by newfound bravery, but the going was slow. Every third or fourth step a wave of nausea and dizziness washed over him. He’d lean up against a tree or a building. Sometimes he’d sit down on the lawn with his head between his knees, arguing with himself to take another step forward.

But it was useless. What was he going to do for the city? Save it from this nightmare? There were people a lot stronger than him out there. He looked down at his tattered pajamas, dirty bare feet, and shaking hands before lowering his head in disgust. He raised his makeshift sword to eye level and sighed. Might as well impale himself on the poker and do the world a favor.

Shut the fuck up and take another step! This ain’t about you. He stood up, took a few more steps, and started the pattern of self-loathing all over again.

Eventually he took a break, leaning his back against an old oak near the curb, and was struck with the sensation someone was watching him. He turned around slowly.

Nothing.

Everything was quit. No neighbors. No noises from any of the houses, which was unnerving. Where was everyone?

At the parade . . . the dead parade.

He was about to shrug off the feeling to wound up nerves, but something caught his eye on the front porch of the house directly behind him. There was someone (something) very small and hunched over sitting on a porch swing.

Was it alive? A statue? Maybe something left over from the holiday.

“Hell . . . hello?” Sheldon called out.

No answer. Whatever was on the porch didn’t move either.

Sheldon crept slowly toward the house. He climbed the porch, pausing after each step, the boards of the deck creaking loudly.

God, it was quiet.

Kind of like the inside of your house. You should feel right at home. It was his cynical self speaking now, thick with sarcasm.

He stopped in front of a slump of blankets, tattered clothing and white hair; overgrown hairs poking from the end of a giant, pock-marked nose, ears like chewed on cauliflower, wrinkles and folds of liver spotted skin spilling from a prominent forehead over sunken eye sockets. Eyes squinted shut behind all those folds in an expression of concentration . . . or agony . . . a death mask? It was a person. Whether alive or dead, Sheldon wasn’t quite sure.

Go ahead, big boy. Give it a nudge and see if its head rolls off into its lap.

“Shut up!” Sheldon scolded himself while reaching forward to rest his hand on a shoulder covered in many layers of clothing and rags.

Still no movement. He was about to scratch this particular casualty up to old age and not the parade, already disgusted with the idea of touching a dead person, when the thing leaned forward and spit out a never-ending stream of chewing tobacco that hit the deck wood with a loud splat.

Then it laughed. The noise that gurgled up from its ancient throat sounded like a child choking on razorblade-laced Halloween candy.

“Sir?” was all Sheldon could manage.

It turned slowly toward Sheldon and stared at him through folded slits. “You’re the Delaney boy, aren’t you?” It asked with a crackled voice. It made Sheldon think of a fist closing over a handful of wasp wings. “Sure you are. Who else could you be? You stick out like a dirt colored birthmark on an otherwise angelic face.” He let loose another strangled laugh.

“A damn tragedy what happened to your parents. But the town found justice, didn’t it? They caught that ol’ drunk Iso-Oli Thompson, the one who used to drink up all the extra Sterno on hand. Well, they found him curled up behind a dumpster with blood all over his hands. Your parents’ blood, so they say.”

A coughing spasm interrupted the conversation. Sheldon didn’t want to talk about this, not with a total stranger, and particularly not with this stranger. Besides, he knew the story all too well. He stepped back, intending to leave the porch, but the old man snatched a claw from underneath the blankets and grabbed hold of Sheldon’s arm. It was so fast Sheldon didn’t even see it happen. One minute he was backing away and the next, the old man had one helluva grip on him.

“Funny, though,” the old man continued, “Oli was so far gone with the drink that he could barely stand without swaying like a buoy. Strange how he could’ve overtook both your mom and dad. They were young and strong folk, those two.

“But that’s how this town works. Call it sterile justice. Gotta stitch up the wound before it goes gangrene.

“Yep. Justice was served.” He spat again, and Sheldon imagined warm blood from a freshly slaughtered sow hitting soiled pavement. “You know Oli died in prison a sober man. The booze had pickled him. Take away the drink and the body starts going bad. Swore to the very end he had nothing to do with those murders.

“Wonder why Iso-Oli didn’t kill the young’un too.”

Sheldon got the feeling the old man forgot he was talking to that particular young’un.

“I figure whatever kilt them two Negroes was like an alligator. Gators drag their kill down into the riverbed and bury ‘em in the mud to soften up. Maybe that’s what Oli was doin’ with you. Waitin’ till you were softened up.”

“Look, sir, you need to get out of here. The parade. It’s bad news.”

“Hah.” Another stream of chaw shot from his dried and stained lips. “I stormed the beaches of Normandy. No need to worry about me. They opened the backs and we all dived into water over our heads. Some of us drowned. Some of us were mowed down by hungry bullets. I barely escaped myself. My brothers. They tried to take me down into the water too. Grabbed my feet and legs. I kicked away and swam for my life.”

“I . . . have to go,” Sheldon meant to back away (run away) from the old man, but he tightened his grip on his arm.

“The dead will hold you down, boy. Try to drown you like a rat in a washtub. Don’t let ‘em do it.”

Sheldon finally freed his hand and backpedaled, stumbled down the stairs.

The old man stood and the blankets fell from his lap. “The dead will pull you down!”

Sheldon turned and ran away from the house, afraid to look back. But just before he ran, Sheldon saw what the old man was wearing. And it wasn’t the first time he’d seen them.

The old man wore a pair of worn and scuffed leather boots with too many buckles on them.

n i n e

The rest of the trip did not take quite as long. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the creepy old man (those boots!) as possible. Even so, if someone’s life depended on Sheldon finishing the sojourn in a timely manner there was a good chance they had perished while he was en route. Eventually he turned the corner onto Columbine and maneuvered around the traffic cones placed along the intersection. He walked with his head down, eyes fixed on his feet, one-two one-two, march-march. It was easy to pretend he was still in his living room, watching the halftime show on TV, marching along to the imaginary drums banging in his head.

BOOM-BOOM, march-march, BOOM.

BOOM . . . click-click-click . . .

The clicking sound dulled the drums of his marching band. The clicking sound was new. It would forever remind him of being in the real world, in Poe’s Creek, where nightmares come true. He wasn’t in his living room. He was downtown, where the parade had been heading. As hard as it was to lift his head and look for the source of the clicking noise, he did. Slowly.

Mister or Missus Twaley, it was hard to distinguish between the two with all the gore, was sprawled out, face down on the sidewalk in a rigor mortis-induced Superman pose. Sheldon knew it was one of the Twaleys by the matching warm-up suits the senior couple were fond of, although blood-soaked and shredded all to hell. Physically, if you took Mr. Twaley’s Hitler moustache and Mrs. Twaley’s bad perm-job away they were identical to begin with. Both being giant, walking bowling pins with textbook pear-shaped physiques. The blood covered up any other distinguishable features. All that was left were patches of naked, spongy flesh leaking insides all over the sidewalk.

Click-click-click . . .

Underneath all the girth grinded the mechanical legs of another abomination. Welded steel and stolen flesh scraped grooves in the cement. Mr./Mrs. Twaley must have fallen on the assailant, squishing it under a gore-seeping mountain.

Pressed up against a picture window, Sheldon slid past the first of many horrific scenes in Poe’s Creek. He felt terrible. Only a few days ago, the Twaleys had walked past his house. He stood at the living room window and watched them waddle by. They had waved. He didn’t return the kind gesture and never would be able to.

Underneath the corpulent body of his neighbor, the creature finally lay still. A single stream of hot motor oil spit against the cement and sizzled. Sheldon walked on. Still uncomfortable with the intensity of the outside world, he held a hand up to his eyes. He gasped at the scene before him.

At first, he thought someone had dumped a lifetime of dirty laundry out on the streets. There were big piles of linen everywhere. Whites and colors (mostly red) were mixed together. After a few more steps, however, he realized it wasn’t discarded wash. Those were bodies littering the streets, piled on top of each other, leaking their insides all over the pavement.

There were only around four hundred adults in Poe’s Creek. If he had the stomach for it, he could’ve done a body count and the math would just about add up. There were bodies everywhere.

What had been unleashed on these poor people? He shuffled closer to the carnage. Had it been more spiders? The Devil himself?

Sheldon weaved and ducked through the bodies, not sure of where he was even going. He did his best at seeing without seeing, not letting his eyes focus on any of the carcasses strewn around his feet. He didn’t want to recognize the Mayor, whose eyes had been gouged out, bits of viscous eye-jelly clinging beneath his bloody, jagged fingernails, ears bleeding, or Principal Meyers with his house key buried deep in his own jugular vein, Darlene Hagan with a mouthful of meat the same size as the piece missing from her best friend, Suzette’s, face.

That wasn’t the postman’s disemboweled body half-in and half-out of the small post office. No way was he chewing on a mouthful of his own intestines.

The Sheriff’s dispatch, Joan, hadn’t smashed her head through a window, grabbed a large shard of glass and carved her face into hamburger.

Sheldon did his damnedest not to recognize any of it.

He refused to believe that his neighbors had done this to themselves.

He did such a good job of not seeing that it took a while to realize none of the fallen were children. With this revelation, he forced himself to once more look around at all the carnage.

Where were all the children? He stole quick glances here and there before closing his eyes and waiting for the nausea to settle. All the bodies were too big to belong to a child. He nudged some of the corpses aside to see if something small could be hidden underneath.

Nothing.

Jesus. They were gone.

And he was pretty damned sure where they went.

The parade.

But where the hell was it?

Other than the carnage, there was no sign the parade had ever come through town. Gone, as if he’d imagined it all and the townspeople had gone insane, maiming and mauling each other in some kind of apocalyptic rumble. And the children had simply disappeared.

A blue rectangle discarded on the sidewalk near an alleyway caught his attention. He recognized it right away. It was Evan’s notebook. He hurried over to the notebook, almost tripping over the bodies of Evan’s parents. Mr. Hovland’s hand was completely buried in the bowels of his wife. Sheldon snatched the notebook up and held it at arm’s length. The cover was speckled with dried blood and flecks of meat.

He prayed none of it belonged to his friend. What had happened to Evan? Perhaps the answer was within the notebook, but it might not be the answer Sheldon was looking for. What if these written words were the last of his good friend? What if it described in detail what happened to Poe’s Creek? Did Sheldon really want to know?

Maybe he should just throw the notebook down, walk back to his house and crawl into bed. Forget about the whole thing. After all, there was no one left to judge him. No one to point fingers. But he was left and Sheldon didn’t know for sure whether Evan was alive or dead. There was still a chance and he had made a mental promise to help his friend. But what if he was already dead?

It was getting harder and harder to cope, and Sheldon didn’t know how much he had left to give.

“Oh, Momma, I don’t even know where to start,” Sheldon said. He leaned one arm against a telephone pole with a liberal coat of blood smeared all along its base and buried his face in the crook of his arm. With his other arm, he hugged Evan’s notebook to his chest. This was too big for him. He needed help. He needed something to go on. What was he supposed to do, just pick a direction and start walking? And then what? By the time he caught up, they could have gone through a hundred towns just like this one. He looked up toward the sky and nodded.

He stood up straight, exhaled, tucked his pajama shirt into the matching pajama bottoms and thought about which way to go. Someone needed to know what happened. He had to call someone.

He looked around for the nearest phone, but sighed in defeat. Strings of severed telephone lines blanketed the tops of all the commercial buildings.

Of course they took care of that. It was probably the first thing they did. It looked like it was up to him. He swept his hands together as if preparing for a hard, labor-intensive job. If he was going to catch up, he needed a ride. The thought of driving made him weak in the knees, but there was no alternative.

It looked like today would be the first in a long time for many things. First, he learned how to step outside again and now he would have to learn how to drive a motorcycle.

He headed back toward his house, taking a different route to avoid the creepy old guy in leather boots. Specifically, he wanted to go to the garage behind his house. He began to thumb through Evan’s soiled notebook. At first he smiled at the boy’s recitation of the beginning of the parade: who attended, who looked hung over, or arrived drunk. With all that had gone terribly wrong that day, it was hard not to chuckle out loud at how perceptive and dead-on Evan was with his descriptions. Mrs. Olsen did look like a discount clothing rack. “Humongous” was a perfect word. He flipped through the pages and steamed along, taking half the time to get back to his house as on the way to downtown. He reached the last few pages of the notebook and slowed. He bit down on the edge of the notebook and dropped the poker. It made a hollow thud in the grass alongside his garage.

Evan had stopped writing about the townspeople. The writing was no longer candid and humorous. The tone changed, the style more feverish and the handwriting almost illegible.

Without even reading the words, Sheldon knew what caused the mood change. In Evan’s world, just a couple of hours ago, the parade had arrived. Panic had begun to set in and the boy’s pencil was driven by fear.

t e n

Everybody’s here, Sheldon. You’re really missing out.

The parade has almost arrived. I can feel it. Everyone is really excited. Even me, I guess.

Wish you were here. We’d make fun of the Mayor’s wife’s lard butt.

The first motorcycle just turned onto Columbine Street. Whoa, what a machine. It’s like one of those custom jobs you see on TV. I should’ve brought a camera.

Here comes the rest. Beautiful. Some of them are pulling trailers. Cool helmets. You can’t see their faces.

Weird. There’s no movement from the crowd. They must be as blown away by these machines as I am. They’re just staring straight ahead as the parade passes.

Wait a minute. The parade has stopped. All the engines are idling. Some of the riders have gotten off and walked back to the trailers. There’s some kind of crank on the back.

The other drivers are revving the engines. The people around me are starting to move again. The adults. They’re bumping into each other. Are they confused?

All the other kids are clapping and cheering. The kids are starting to move closer to the motorcycles. I’m not moving.

They’re winding the cranks now. I don’t like this anymore. Something’s wrong.

The tops are opening up.

Some kind of gas is coming out. It’s green.

OH MY GOD. Dad just grabbed mom by the neck. He’s on top of her. They are all hurting each other. Themselves. The mayor just shoved his fingers in his eyes. I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m scared.

Going to hide.

I can still see from behind the dumpster. The trailers are all the way open. Something is coming out of each. It’s big.

The children are all lined up.

It’s a pig no a beast a machine pink flesh steel teeth rotten alive pistons a slit down its belly opens up children crawling inside laughing holding hands I’m scared Sheldon all the children are inside one of the riders stitching up the holes I can see the bellies moving kids my friends back in the trailer one of them sees me the rider coming this way I’ll throw my notebook find it please

COVER YOUR EARS SHELDON IT’S THE ENGINES THEY’LL MAKE YOU DO . . .

• • •

A thin layer of dust blanketed the entire motorcycle. It hadn’t even been started in over a year. From time to time, Mr. Hovland would give it a tune-up and turn it over a few times. Sheldon would give him twenty bucks and agree to let Evan come over after school. Other than that, the motorcycle had been kept inside, untouched, since his father’s death.

Sheldon ran a finger along the gas tank, making a clean trail in the dust. He swiped his hand across the surface, then his other. Using the sleeve of his pajamas, he wiped down the entire bike. Then he stepped back to admire it.

It was just like he remembered. He sat down on the leather seat, grabbed the handlebars with both hands and breathed in deeply through his nose. He smelled gasoline and musty garage. And for a brief moment, his father was there with him, or at least his smell was; sweat, musk, strength.

It felt good sitting on his father’s ride. It felt good in the garage. He was safe behind the walls and nothing outside mattered.

But you couldn’t sit in a dank garage forever. Eventually a person had to exit, turn on the blinker, and open ‘er up. And never look back.

He found his father’s helmet beneath some old rags on the workbench. He polished it off, too. The helmet had a gold-flake paint job with an American flag emblazoned on both sides. It was dated, but who had time to be choosey? Sliding the helmet over his head, he wasn’t surprised to find it was a perfect fit. Of course it was. After all, it belonged to his father. He’d also found an old pair of sneakers that, for the life of him, he couldn’t remember who they belonged to.

Back on the motorcycle, he blew out a lungful of air. He quickly took inventory of the machine.

Kickstart? Check. It was amazing how easily the memories of his father’s safety inspection before hitting the road came back to him. Throttle? Check. Brake, mirrors, fuel gauge? Check-Check-Czechoslovakia. Here went nothing. He snapped the chinstrap down.

“Well, Dad. We’ll see if I can still remember how you started this thing.” Sheldon threw all his weight into the kickstart.

The first few attempts resulted in a series of sputters and sickly burps. He was about to give up when the sputters turned into a growl and evened out a bit. He nursed the throttle, like his father would have, until he was sure the bike wouldn’t die. With the hand not on the throttle, he reached down and scooped up Evan’s notebook. He stuffed the book in a small saddlebag on the back of the bike.

He slowly shifted into gear and gave the bike a bit more juice. He crept out of the garage into the dirt alleyway, feeling more secure with some horsepower on his side. Shifting into the next gear didn’t prove to be as easy of a task. He popped the clutch, sent the front in the air, panicked, and wrenched down on the throttle. He took out a good section of the neighbor’s fence before getting the motorcycle back under control.

Maybe he’d better take it a bit easier from now on. His heart pounded with the potential power beneath him.

He drove out from the alleyway onto the street. This time he did drive past where he had met the old man. Nothing. The porch was empty. Maybe it was a residual, like his parents.

He slowly made his way back downtown, constantly checking the mirrors to make sure nothing was sneaking up on him. He drove past Columbine Street and turned on the next block. He was fine with running parallel with the carnage, keeping it a block away and out of sight. Something caught his eye a few intersections up, however.

The Sheriff’s car.

Cops had guns. Sheldon didn’t even have the poker anymore. Guns blew big holes in things. And the chances that Sheriff Boone survived were greater than that of any of the other townspeople. Reluctantly, he steered the bike onto the side street and headed toward Columbine.

It looked like the entire parade had run right up and over Sheriff Boone. His spent carcass was almost entirely flat, his organs sprayed out the top of his collared shirt. Thick tire treads were kneaded into his flesh. His head was just a flat smear of yellow, white, and red. A pair of mirrored aviator glasses lay next to the body. If it weren’t for the uniform, Sheldon wouldn’t have been able to identify him.

A revolver lay a few feet from an outstretched hand flattened at the wrist. Sheldon scooped it up and put the revolver in the front pocket of his pajamas. The weight felt strange, too heavy. Like you’d know what a gun felt like, anyways. He hitched his pants up and headed toward the open door of the car.

Sheldon stared disgustedly at the rat’s nest of wires that used to be the radio. That would have been way too easy. He stepped back from the sheriff’s car and folded his arms.

Now what? It was time to make a choice. Should he go for help, or go after the parade?

By the trail of bodies, he could assume the parade went west. Columbine met up with Highway Two about four blocks down. That highway stretched across the entire state, passing through a few dozen small towns just like Poe’s Creek. If he didn’t act fast, this scene would be duplicated, the carnage irreparable, in a lot of downtowns.

The nearest town was about fifteen miles east. And they didn’t even have a police force. He decided to head west. Either he’d run into help or catch up with the parade. He climbed back onto the motorcycle. He navigated around Sheriff Boone’s mutilated body and crept along.

There was new black top on Highway Two for a good forty miles. He idled at the only stop light in the city, right on the outskirts of town. It always flashed yellow to slow people down. He should be able to make good time. The parade would be weighted down, slow-going. He turned onto Two and sped up.

The sun was setting, warming his back. It was big and pregnant and greedy on the horizon, spilling over its own parade of colors onto all the scenery. Thunder clouds loomed to the north. It would be a big and violent storm. Always was when it came in from that direction. But he was looking forward to a good rain. It would wash away the nightmare behind him.

“Go ahead and rain!” he hollered at the thick, black clouds to his left, and then wrenched down on the throttle. A lightning bolt seared a jagged white line in the sky as if in protest. The bike gripped the blacktop like glue and the engine let out a banshee scream, muting the rumble of thunder in the distance. Right then, settled in on his father’s bike, filled with newfound strength and courage, Sheldon was convinced he’d follow the parade to hell and back.

Five miles out of town, a state cruiser pulled out from behind a billboard advertising menthol cigarettes and flipped on the cherries.

Sheldon turned right onto a dirt farming road, drove about twenty feet, and came to a stop. Tall stalks of corn, just about ready for harvest, bordered him on either side. His motorcycle was just feet from a deep drainage ditch. He sighed in relief.

The police. It was a good thing he got pulled over. He’d tell them what happened back in Poe’s Creek. SWAT, National Guard, hell, even the President would be called. They’d hit the parade hard and rescue all the children. Sheldon would be a hero for alerting the authorities.

Just as Sheldon started thinking this thing was a wrap, he could call it a day, a sliver of panic punctured his spine. What if the police wouldn’t help? What if they thought he was responsible for the massacre? Run, just keeping driving and see what this baby can do. These back roads go forever and so can you. But even the new Sheldon didn’t have that much balls. He had already killed the ignition. His first road trip, first time behind the wheel, and he was going to get a ticket for speeding. He patted the front of his pajamas looking for a wallet he knew would not be there. The driver’s side door of the cruiser opened with a metal squeak. It was almost dark and Sheldon had a hard time making out the figure stepping out.

The grind of boots against loose gravel. Footsteps that were too loud between Sheldon and the cruiser. Sheldon clocked the approaching police officer in his mirror. He was massive. Just a few feet away. A lightning bolt cracked a fissure in the fragile sky and brilliant light spilled out. Sheldon was blinded. He blinked his eyes closed. When he opened them, vision still blurred, the officer was standing next to him.

“Ummmm, what can I do for you . . . officer?” Corny. Nice work, Sheldon. If only he didn’t have to talk. Just give me the ticket and we’ll both be on our way. But that wasn’t how things worked on the outside. People interacted, conversed.

The officer cleared his throat and spit out a ball of wet phlegm. It splattered on the ground between them. Sheldon cringed. “Come with me . . . back to the car.” His voice was thick with fluid and each word came out in a lengthy gurgle. Another cough and a wad of spit ricocheted off the back tire of the motorcycle.

“Sure thing, Sir.” Sheldon set the kickstand and swung his leg over the seat. When he turned around, the cop had already begun to walk back to the car. “Sounds like you got a cold there. It’s the season for that kind of thing . . . I think.” No response. “Look, I know I was going a little fast back there, and the pajamas . . . not exactly proper riding attire, but I had to leave in a bit of a hurry. I’m so glad you pulled me over, though. It’s terrible. I’ve never seen . . . you gotta go back to town and . . . ”

By the time they both walked back to the car, Sheldon’s vision had returned. He continued to babble to his silent companion until the cop opened the door and the dome light turned on. Something caught Sheldon’s attention. It hung from the rearview mirror. He froze. The cop reached into the car. Sheldon could see the skin around the back of his neck. It was too white, too . . . dry. Without giving it a second thought, Sheldon stuck a hand into his pocket, pulled out the revolver, and fired at the officer. A dime-sized hole opened up between his shoulder blades. An inkblot of black liquid spread across the back of his shirt before erupting in a geyser of motor oil that sprayed back into Sheldon’s face. He pulled the trigger again. Another hole. More oil. The cop fell face forward onto the front seat.

Backpedaling, Sheldon wiped the slick fluid from his face with one hand and kept the gun pointed at the cop with the other. Halfway back to the motorcycle, he froze and waited.

Darkness. The storm had swallowed up the twilight sky. Another razorblade bolt of lightning cut a hole in the clouds and cold rain came down in sheets. Sheldon began to shiver.

I just shot a police officer. But it wasn’t a cop. You know that. It’s one of those things. It’s a mechanical wolf in sheep’s clothing.

But it’s getting dark outside. You can’t see very well. What if this is blood, his blood, all over me and it just looked like oil?

He had to know for sure.

Sheldon was wet, cold, tired, and on the verge of a mental breakdown. The revolver suddenly became massive, as if he were trying to hold up an ICBM. He closed both hands around the grip and could still barely keep the muzzle pointed toward the vehicle. When he reached the open door he nudged the body splayed out in the front seat with his foot. Then he leapt back and waited for something to happen.

Nothing, just the motionless form of something wearing a cop’s uniform, face down, leaking fluid (maybe blood, maybe oil) all over the upholstery. Sheldon held his breath.

The rain intensified as if to try and wash away the tension. Water rushed in the ditch behind Sheldon. Frogs barked, crickets screamed, and an engine roared to life.

Exhaust puffed out of the holes Sheldon had blasted into the cop’s backside. The body was vibrating slightly from side to side, idling. Even after everything that had happened, this was a hard pill to swallow. The engine was inside the cop, crammed inside a lifeless cavity, animation through combustion, and there was no doubt the thing he’d blasted a hole into was another abominable creation from the parade.

It sat up, bent the wrong way at the waist, its ass now a lap and its feet pointing toward the sky, arms flailing up and down. Even over the thunder and drumming of rain on the hood of the car, Sheldon could hear vertebrae cracking.

Pop-pop-snap.

A barn owl turning its head all the way around was the only tangible comparison Sheldon could make as the cop-thing turned its head to face him. More bones breaking. Sheldon stared at a waking nightmare and whimpered. Black oil bubbled from its mouth, lips, nose, and ears. Something too big, a lump the size of a grapefruit, traveled up its throat, blebbing it out like a bullfrog’s. Its jawbone unhinged at the joint and fell into its ass-lap. Tissue tore, the top half of the cranium peeled backwards, separated, and rolled down onto the floor.

A cocktail of blood and oil and soapy fat erupted from the stump, spraying the interior of the car. Black, whip-like shoots bloomed from the gory hole, shot out toward Sheldon, and wrapped around his helmet. The impact flung him backwards into the water-filled ditch. He went under before taking a breath. Ditch water surged down his throat. Dropping the revolver, Sheldon fought for leverage in the soggy earth. It was useless. His fingers dug frantically into mud while his lungs burned. This was it. He’d drown in a ditch alongside the road and the parade would ride on. Bugs and parasites would gnaw away at his bloated body, detritus would cover his remains, and the world would be no wiser.

Then he was lifted up out of the ditch.

Mouth open wide, sucking and gulping in an ocean of air, he stared down at the monstrosity below. The cop’s body was riddled with black tentacles erupted from his skin. They whipped and swayed in all directions like a snake charmer’s cobra. A steel-hinged mouth with countless jagged, iron-forged teeth sat inside a gaping hole in the chest cavity. It ratcheted open and then slammed shut with a hydraulic hiss. Intestines dangled from the corners of the mouth. Each time it opened and closed, fragments of the organs broke off and tumbled to the drenched earth below. Tentacles snaked around Sheldon’s legs, his waist, chest, and neck. He wrestled his arms free, knowing there wasn’t a chance without his arms. A mechanical roar erupted from somewhere inside the cop, sounding like the buzz of frenzied hornets. The thing slammed Sheldon back down into the ditch. The impact knocked what little breath he had out of him.

Up into the air again. Tentacles squeezed harder around his diaphragm, his throat, his skull. Sheldon’s tongue was thick and swollen in his mouth. His eyes bugged out. He was suffocating. Digging at the thick ropes with his hands, Sheldon made a futile attempt to free himself.

Back into the ditch. Something hard on the bottom of the ditch dug into his backside. He reached behind his back with failing strength and closed his hand around the revolver grip. This time, when he was lifted up, he aimed the revolver at the engine. A metal tripod dug into the earth, balancing the weight of the monstrosity. Sheldon pulled the trigger.

Nothing. A misfire. Maybe the bullets were waterlogged.

There was a wretched, tearing sound from below. Through tunnel-vision Sheldon could see all the flesh rip and slough from the creature, revealing pistons, hydraulics, cogs and spinning belts jammed into skeleton and meat.

Sheldon screamed. The tentacles around his neck tightened. On the verge of passing out, he pulled the trigger again and again. Just as the thick curtains of unconsciousness closed, the .357 fired. He emptied the chamber. Four bullets found a home deep inside the engine. A vacuumed hiss and the mechanical jaws stopped. The creature went slack—the engine no longer running—and then slumped over. Sheldon fell back to the ground face first into the ditch. He worked himself free of all the rubber hosing and low-crawled out of the ditch, collapsing next to the carcass of the cop, not caring whether the thing was still “alive” or not. His lungs felt as though they’d been burned with acid and scrubbed with steel wool. His whole body shook from fatigue.

After he caught his breath, he flipped over on his back. He opened his mouth and let the rain fall in. The taste of mud and God only knew what else was strong. He smacked his lips, running his tongue around the edge of his mouth, and then swallowed a few times.

As quickly as it had blown in, the storm was already passing. The rain was letting up. He saw a few stars peeking out from behind cracks in the edges of the thunder clouds.

It was time to get up. He slowly worked himself up to his knees. He swayed back and forth, almost losing consciousness. His shoulder bumped into what was left of the cop. It rocked back and forth and then crashed to the ground. He used the engine, which was still hot to the touch, for leverage and stood all the way. He shuffled, half bent over, to the hood of the car and grabbed on. He looked through the driver’s side door and shook his head in affirmation when he saw what had caught his attention in the first place.

A string of multi-colored necklaces, intertwined with meat and cogs, swung like a pendulum from the rearview mirror.

e l e v e n

Hard to believe that someone could sleep inside the belly of the beast, but once inside, Evan passed out almost instantly.

Everything happened so quickly. The parade came. His parents (My parents are dead!), along with all the other adults, tried to kill each other. And the kids . . . all the children had willingly crawled inside those creatures. Not Evan, though. It took two of those leather-clad monsters to get him to cooperate. He’d landed a couple jimmy-shots in the process, but it didn’t seem to faze them.

What made everyone act that way?

How could my father do that? He loved mom . . .

It had to be the parade. Evan figured it must be the engines. Sound waves maybe. It did something to a person . . . some kind of mind control. He couldn’t hear it so he didn’t go along with their little plan. Not that it mattered much. In the end, he ended up inside just like all the other kids.

There was no telling how long he’d been asleep. All he knew was he wanted out and fast. It was completely dark. No telling how many were inside with him, only that they were at full capacity; arms, legs, and torsos knotted and tangled around each other. It was steaming hot. Evan was drenched in sweat. The cut on his palm throbbed. Someone was smashed up against his chest, crushing his diaphragm. He could barely take a full breath and the feeling of suffocating only added to his panic.

Inside, it smelled like motor oil, burning fuel, the deli section of the grocery mart, and manure; a weird fusion of livestock and auto garage. He was contorted in a strange and very uncomfortable position. He was vertical, but his legs were tucked into a sitting position. Other children were below him, all around. His head was free and he had full movement in his neck. It didn’t help much. It was too dark to discern anything. His arms were plastered to his side by other bodies. All he wanted was to wipe the sweat from his eyes. If he could accomplish that, things would be a bit easier. He tried to work his left hand free, slowly wiggling it from side to side. At first, nothing, it was as if he were dipped in cement.

Take it easy. Don’t panic. Pretend you’re in quicksand and just move inch by inch.

He could wiggle his fingers. Kids wriggled and shifted around him. Now, his wrist, and then his elbow up to the neck. Bodies shifted positions, making enough space for him to free his entire arm. He mopped away the sweat with the palm of his hand. A little better, not much. He felt blindly around. Clothing, sweaty flesh, faces, hair. He navigated the small bit of space his arm would reach. Above him and behind him was steel. They must be inside some kind of metal crate. He made a fist and banged against the crate. He felt a rumble and the creature shifted from side to side. Whatever they were inside of must have growled.

Evan tried to gauge if they were still moving. He didn’t think so. It would probably be a bumpy ride inside whatever was inside the trailer and right then everything was pretty still. He sat there for a while, trying to control his breathing, using his free arm to make a space between his chest and the kid in front of him. He’d push as hard as he could, take a big breath, and then let up. He had just finished this act, when he got the sensation that the creature stood up. His stomach rolled a bit.

Here we go . . . last stop on the nightmare express.

This must be what it feels like to be in the womb. Surprisingly, the swaying back and forth was somewhat soothing. He felt himself drifting back to sleep. No way. He pinched his cheek hard and shook his head.

You gotta be awake when they split this thing open. It might be your only chance to bail.

The swaying stopped. Evan held his breath. A pinprick of light appeared in front of him. It grew larger until he could see his surroundings. Everyone was still asleep. He closed his eyes. Best to blend in until it was the right time.

The only problem was he didn’t have a clue when the right time would be.

t w e l v e

What a mess. Sheldon took in all the gore covering the inside of the cruiser.

He had just sat down on the passenger side. Only the very edge of the seat wasn’t splattered in filth and he positioned himself halfway hanging out the door to avoid it. The driver’s side door was still open. Cherry lights on top threw a Doppler of red light all around the scenery. The dome light barely spilled out onto the shoulder of the road, but he could still make out the crumpled up mass of what used to be the trooper; shadowed steel of the engine block jutting out of ruined flesh, the faint glimmer of a badge hanging loosely from a torn uniform, a faltering hiss emanating from somewhere inside the engine, tangles of monstrous rubber tentacles slithered in futility against the ground and then lay still.

What had erupted from the cop covered the entire cab. Sheldon couldn’t even see out the front windshield. The dash, steering wheel, and console were slick with blood and chunks of tissue. A shotgun was locked against the dash. He was afraid to touch it. He tried to picture what the inside of the cop car should look like. The ones he had seen on TV, that is. There should be a dashboard full of gadgets and gizmos. More importantly, there should be a radio. He could use it to call in the cavalry. It was almost impossible to discern what was underneath all the mess. He thought he could make out dials and a handset. From where he sat, it was almost impossible to reach the handset without having to move farther into the vehicle and still avoid the pool of blood next to him. He inched his body closer. His fingertips could almost touch the radio. Just a little bit farther.

His foot kicked something large and solid on the floorboard. He looked down and locked eyes with a decapitated head.

Half of a decapitated head, anyway. The jawbone had snapped loose and fallen off when the engine inside the cop roared to life.

There was a sick moaning coming from somewhere near him as he kicked at the skull until it rolled over and those lifeless eyes stopped staring at him. When it came to rest with the bottom facing Sheldon, a fresh stream of oily blood trickled out.

Sheldon realized he was the one moaning. Perhaps an omen of what was to come.

He barely had time to face the open door before his guts exploded up his throat. He vomited again and again. Stomach contents spattered onto the foot he had dangling out of the car. He tucked both his legs up into his gut and continued to throw up, only stopping when his stomach had nothing else to give. Even then, he gagged and dry heaved until his throat burned from the acids.

He closed his eyes. His water soaked pajamas clung to his skin. A cold breeze tickled his fevered flesh. He shivered uncontrollably, both from the chill of the night and fatigue. As exhausted as he felt, he had to get up and out from the vehicle. The smell alone was enough to send him into another fit of dry heaves. With his eyes still closed, he stepped out, pressed his back against the car and scooted along the side. He stood frozen, too horrified to reach back into the cab for the radio, and too physically drained to walk back to his motorcycle.

When someone or something banged on the window behind him, Sheldon’s heart stopped.

He fainted and crumbled into a heap where he stood, slid down the side of the cruiser, and mashed his cheek into the gravel.

Open your eyes. . .

If only Dr. Nemiah really was there with him. She’d help him off the ground, brush the dirt off, remove the pebbles lodged in his skin and, most importantly, hold his hand. They’d look through the window together and no matter how bad things were on the other side of the glass she’d continue to hold on.

But she wasn’t there. She hadn’t been there since Sheldon left the institution. “It would be better if you did this on your own, Sheldon,” she had said before closing the case, shutting him out of her life forever. They’d pumped him full of psychotropic drugs and carted him off to his current residence.

Locked the doors and threw away the keys.

It was the last time he ever saw Dr. Nemiah. She had talked of timelines and the limitations of therapy, but Sheldon knew the real reason: he was just so damn needy and tiring. He didn’t blame her for handing off the mountain of a medical record that was Sheldon Delaney. He was a handful and up until recently, no kind of therapy seemed to work. Under different circumstances, and if he weren’t covered in blood from a state trooper, she’d probably be so proud of the progress he had made.

He closed his fingers around Dr. Nemiah’s invisible hand. A little better. Even the thought of her strength helped.

It was time to get up off the ground. For Evan’s sake as much as his own.

He sat with his back against the rear door of the cruiser. Reaching into the sodden pocket of his pajama bottoms, he took out the empty revolver. Maybe he could just wave it around at whatever was behind him, or throw it. Sans bullets, the gun still felt good in his grip, like holding hands with someone who was a lot stronger than he was.

More knocking on the windshield glass. It definitely sounded like knuckles tapping against the window, not slithering tentacles or metal fangs. Why hadn’t he looked in the back of the cruiser when he was in it? Maybe because he was a bit distracted by an ocean of gore and a disembodied head rolling around near his feet.

He raised into a squat and froze. The knocking continued, more frantic. He stayed crouching and turned around. Something was moving. The dome light threw strange shadows on the interior, long and serpentine.

Better to get this whole experience over with. Either way, I’m too tired to sit here guessing what’s in there.

One . . . Two . . . Three . . .

He jumped up, pointing the revolver at the mass in the back seat while letting out what could be considered a war cry. It was a bit too high-pitched to sound intimidating, but it helped get him to his feet, all the same.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—”

There were no oil-slick tentacles slapping against the upholstery, no metal clockwork crammed into necrotic tissue, no jagged teeth and, more importantly, no sign of an animated, combustible engine living inside a human host.

What was in the back of the car surprised him more than if it had been another abomination from the parade. The occupant, or prisoner, Sheldon guessed, made him blush and wish desperately that the windows would have been tinted.

Sure, he had some experience with women, but by no means was he any sort of Don Juan. In fact, he was pretty naïve in that department. And what experiences he did have with women, naked women, was a lot more discreet than this, the sneaking into each other’s institutional single bed, the lights off, under the sheets, missionary style variety.

All he could think was beautiful, naked, beautiful, naked. While she banged on the window with cuffs around her hands, Sheldon just continued to stare in bewilderment and awe at her: the way her breasts heaved and jiggled when she slammed her hands against the window, silver dollar-sized, reddish-brown areolas slick with sweat; her golden hair plastered around a thin, oval face; giant blue eyes absorbing the bit of glow afforded by the dome light and sparkling brilliantly from within. With all that had happened, and him being surrounded by carnage, he still felt himself stiffen just the slightest. And he felt dirty and embarrassed at the lack of self-control.

“Please, get me out of here!” She pled—screaming—with him. Her hands, cinched together by the cuffs, were held up in a “Don’t shoot!” manner and her eyes darted from the front seat to the door handle. “Please . . .” Tears poured down her face. Her top lip quivered.

Jesus. What was wrong with him? Sheldon snapped out of his trance. He quickly pulled the door handle. The door flung open, spilling the girl into his open arms. He hugged her close to his body, no longer concerned with naked flesh, but only for her safety.

They spent a good amount of time standing there. Her entire body heaved up and down, shaking uncontrollably. He used the collar of his shirt to wipe the tears away, patting the top of her head, reassuring her. Lending what little strength he had left.

“It’ll be all right, girl . . . we’ll get through this. If I can do it, then so can you.”

A complete stranger was in his arms, a beautiful, naked one at that, but still he didn’t know her from Eve. And, surprisingly, he was okay with the whole ordeal, complacent even. The not-so-long-ago Sheldon would’ve flinched in repulsion if this woman tried to touch him. That version, which was still just an arm’s length behind him, would’ve stepped out of the way and let her crumble to the ground.

But the new and improved, shock-therapy Sheldon decided right then that he was and would be the hero of the day. He would protect this stranger, this beautiful girl. He would save the children—Evan—and every last rider in the parade would suffer at his more than willing hands.

A big bite to swallow, but Sheldon felt invincible, for the time being, at least.

They stepped back from each other. She held her cuffed hands in front of her bosom, shielding them from the chilly bite of night. He placed his hands on her shoulders and tried to make eye contact. Her sobbing had waned a bit, but tears still trickled down her face. Slowly, she looked up at him. Even in darkness, he could see the fear in those eyes and it made him that much more angry.

“I can only imagine what those monsters did to you.”

“Please . . . please . . . please.” Those three words were all she could muster before collapsing back into Sheldon’s arms.

“It’s all right. I’m here. I’ll . . . protect you.” That was the first time those words had ever escaped from him. Just yesterday, he’d had a hard time taking care of himself. And now this tattered soul was relying on him for strength and protection. Instead of feeling panic at the additional responsibility, he seemed to grow, to stand a few inches taller. Another’s reliance on his ability to protect was good medicine, plain and simple.

“Now, let’s get you some clothes.”

t h i r t e e n

The pressure against his chest released. Evan could breathe a bit easier, but all the adrenaline made him suck in quick gulps of air. On the verge of hyperventilating, he opened his eyes long enough to see a pair of leather gloved hands (powerful, unforgiving hands) reach in and scoop up another child from the pile. No one resisted. Everyone was asleep, relaxed, pictures of bliss on their cherub faces. He closed his eyes.

God, make this all be a bad dream. Let me open my eyes again and I’ll be at my house . . . at Sheldon’s house and we’ll be watching TV, eating popcorn. Mom and Dad will be there . . .

Another stolen glance outside the belly of the beast reminded Evan this wasn’t a dream. They were inside some type of warehouse with high ceilings. Machinery spinning, hammering, vibrating. Children were scooped up and thrown over the backs of the riders. Some type of assembly line was formed to remove the “cargo.” Soon Evan would be plucked out from the manure, garage-smelling monster. One second, he was relieved to be getting out. The next, he was flooded with terror, the kind that started in his gut, spiraled up his spine to the base of his neck, enervating his entire body. The permanent kind. Forever fear. That type of fear didn’t go away when Mother or Father turned on the lights, made a sweep of the closet and under the bed, and reassured their child there was no such thing as monsters.

In Evan’s world, monsters were for real. The parade was real. His parents were dead; every adult was . . . probably even Sheldon. And soon, Evan believed he would be dead, too. No one was going to turn on the lights and banish the bogeyman back to hell. He was with the bogeyman—bogeymen—and . . .

. . .this was hell.

Vice grip hands, burning hot under the leather, dug into Evan’s shoulders before yanking him from the mass of bodies and throwing him on the back of a rider. A living sack of potatoes.

Try to be loose. Try to stay calm. No matter what, play along. Play the part. Pretend to be asleep. Don’t start to cry. Swallow the tears. Someone will come. The police. Sheldon. Sheldon will come . . . I just know it.

He tried not to flinch as he was tossed back down onto the cold cement ground. He could feel a warm body next to him, and then another dropped down on his other side. They were being lined up in a row, but what for? He felt something wet contract around his ankles.

Rope? Great. Now what do I do?

If only he could hear what was going on. More than any other time in his life, he wanted nothing more than to be able to hear.

Eyes closed. Completely dark. Ears permanently sealed from the outside world. Forever silent. The only noise screaming from within. He battled with his own terror, locked in a wrestling match to see who persevered. And he felt his grip slipping.

He couldn’t play this game anymore. Just when he was preparing to open his eyes, open his mouth, and scream until his vocal cords burst, something grabbed his shoulders and shook him lightly.

He opened his eyes, pretending to be groggy. Play the part! A distorted reflection of himself, terrified, bewildered, stared back at him. A rider knelt down in front of him. The reflection was from the mirrored helmet. His captor reached a gloved hand up—leather, sloughed off skin from a molting python—and messed the top of Evan’s hair like Sheldon was fond of doing. He jerked away from its touch. The helmet tilted to the side, as if to contemplate Evan’s reaction, and then shrugged. It patted Evan on the head, gave the boy two thumbs up, stood up, and moved to the next kid in line.

Now I’m even more confused . . . frightened . . . alone. What was that all about? It was almost nice to me.

Evan took his first real look at his surroundings. The inside of the warehouse was stuffed full of machinery, but at a closer glance the machines were like nothing he’d ever seen. The material of the entire warehouse—floors, walls, ceilings—was so unfamiliar and alien that, again, he thought he may be dreaming.

Everything around him was alive. Giant compressors covered in fleshy membranes heaved and swelled as if breathing. Crab-like things skittered through the rafters, dropped down from the ceiling, and sped across the floor. Off to the left was what he believed to be a generator. He could see thick power cables running in and out of it. There was a logo on the side, a circle with a lightning bolt cutting through from top to bottom. It looked like it had been a standard generator at one point, but now it seemed to be covered in a pulsing mass of skin.

Evan knew he wasn’t dreaming because not even his own nightmares could think of something this strange.

To the side of the generator were a number of green barrels. Hoses ran to each barrel and back into the mass of steel and flesh. Those barrels were full of fuel and they fed the generator, keeping it alive, keeping everything alive.

Big, white tentacles crept out from the top of the generator. The slick, pulsing fingers extended throughout the warehouse, up through the rafters, snaking around the fluorescent lighting, into all the machinery, connecting everything together. He watched a blue arc of electricity run along one of the fingers, up a wall thick with veins and down into a machine directly to his right.

That generator is the brain, the master, and all those white things are nerves.

The pig beasts from the parade were all lined up facing Evan and the other children. They were slumped over (Dead? Turned off?) with gaping holes in their freakish abdomens. The arms were much longer than they should have been and the back legs were not much more than stubs. Nerves from the generator ran to each one of the pigs and were buried into the top of their heads. Evan had been inside one of them. They all had been.

A huge metal door began to slide open behind the pigs. It rolled up on tracts into the rafters. A single rider came in towing another trailer. It stopped. The door ratcheted closed. The trailer opened and a pig beast lumbered out, slick with oil, pink flesh, its snout scorched from exhaust, flesh torn from its metal scaffolding insides. Pistons pumped, fuel burned, and the pig hitched and shook as it took its place next to the other creatures.

The rider dismounted and walked over to the beast, using a knife to cut thick leather stitching running the length of its swollen abdomen. A green gas spilled out and dissipated, revealing a metal crate filled with more sleeping children stuffed inside like sardines. One by one, they were removed and placed in line like the others.

Evan looked to either side at the other children. They weren’t having the same experience as him. No panic. No expression. No tears. Only a look of utter bliss, Christmas morning with a decorated tree and countless presents. The children were happy, all of them, except for Evan.

He started to cry then, tears rushing down his dirtied face. His whole body shook. And no one was concerned with his misery. All of Poe’s Creek’s children continued to stare at a sea of blissful nothing. The riders busied themselves emptying the cargo. He could have screamed at the top of his lungs and no one, nothing, would’ve even acknowledged his rage.

He cried alone. His fear was something he would have to overcome by himself. If only Sheldon were here. His friend knew what it was like to be afraid of everything around him. They could be terrified together.

Where’s Sheldon?

f o u r t e e n

First, Sheldon had to get the girl some clothes, and then figure out a way to get those cuffs off.

The back seat of the cruiser was empty and he wasn’t about to search around in the front.

“Maybe we can find you something in the trunk. A jacket, at least.” She was tethered to him, wouldn’t let go of his shirt.

“What’s your name?” Sheldon said.

“Kah . . . Kyra.”

“That’s a beautiful name. Uh, mine’s Sheldon.” I’m no good at this. Just don’t look at her chest. Not now.

“Sheldon . . . ”

“Yep. I’m, uh, from Poe’s Creek. How ‘bout you?” So awkward. They had walked to the rear of the car, her shuffling behind him, following so closely her toes rubbed up against the back of his feet.

A very long pause, and then “Pah . . . Parkston,”

“Parkston? Whoa, you’re a long way from home.” Sheldon walked a few steps toward the trunk of the car and stopped. It would be locked. He needed keys. The cop had to have them. He turned toward Kyra and gently touched her arm. “Did the parade come through your town, too?”

She nodded her head slowly.

“Any chance the police are following you?” Kyra looked toward the slumped over mass of the dead trooper next to the cruiser, and then back toward Sheldon.

“No.”

“Of course not. The parade made sure of that, didn’t they? Look, I’m going to go search for the keys, and I want you to stay right here.” She threw herself at Sheldon, almost knocking the wind out of him. He was sore all over and her desperate clinch only added to the pain, but he didn’t push her away.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m not going to leave you. I just don’t want you to have to see him . . . it.” Sheldon slowly untangled his shirt from her grip. “Just wait right here. I have to try to find the keys to the trunk and to the cuffs. Can you do that for me?”

A pause. Infinite silence. Even nature seemed to have taken a break, leaving them in a sensory vacuum. As if she suddenly remembered to breathe, Kyra finally took in a lungful of air and reluctantly nodded her head. Her eyes volleyed from Sheldon to the body and back.

Nature seemed to relax and exhale, also. A gentle breeze rode atop the harvest-ready stalks of corn and broke like a wave against Sheldon, Kyra, and the car.

Kyra tucked her shackled fists under her chin and turned her back to the breeze. She kept her face toward Sheldon. He shivered and wished he’d thrown more clothes on before venturing out this morning, as if he’d had a choice or the time to make a wardrobe change before being forced out the door.

He shuffled around Kyra, never turning his back on her, maintaining eye contact the entire time, as he made his way back toward the trooper, only turning away from her when his heels bumped up against something hard and wet. His toes made a squelching sound in his sneakers.

Who was he kidding? Didn’t want her to see anything. He was a regular Galahad. A knight in shining paisley. He was in no hurry. Sheldon knelt beside the trooper’s corpse . . . at least what was left of it.

The engine was lodged in what used to be the pelvic area of the cop. Shards of splintered bone and tangled ribbons of organs spilled out along the metal edges. Everything was sticky with oil and coagulated blood. The rubber hosing that had almost squeezed the life out of him spread along the ground in all directions. Legs jutted out from one side and a ruined torso—minus a head—occupied the other end.

Sheldon needed to make quick work of finding the keys before he started to heave on the entire mess.

Key chain. Blood. Key chain. Intestines. Key chain . . . He was going to be sick.

Blindly feeling along a thigh to the waist, eyes half shut, Sheldon worked along the belt.

Key chain. Rotting meat.

His fingertips grazed a mass of what could only be keys, but with the engine pressing down, he would never be able to work them free. He needed more leverage.

Great. He would have to touch that thing. He glanced over his shoulder back toward Kyra. She turned her back to him and stared into the cornfield, lost in its whispering secrets.

The engine was an unearthly balance of mechanical engineering and freakshow. Dendrites of flesh wrapped and twisted around metal. Deep within, Sheldon thought he could make out a mass of soggy grey. That must be the brain.

For a flitting moment, when he first palmed the engine, he felt something. Right there in the forefront of his thoughts, and then quickly gone. It was similar to the buzz that had come through the bedroom window as the parade passed his home; the sickly and fevered vibrations that had given him a crippling migraine.

No headache this time, though. Instead, vivid images. Carnage. A hundred small towns—a thousand—just like Poe’s Creek. Streets littered with corpses of politicians, teachers, mothers and fathers. Broken bodies shoved into storefront windows. Mannequins mixed in with corpses. Scenes of unabated rage as grown men and women tear through each other’s flesh with bare hands. Teeth and fingernails, the sound of smacking, chewing, growls and gurgles. Amalgamates of human tissue and steel skittering through the blood-soused streets, piercing fleeing souls with fangs and metal teeth. Spiders. Pig beasts rearing up out of the trailers. No. Nothing like this should exist. It wasn’t possible. Their exteriors stolen carcasses from a slaughterhouse. Empty cavities crammed full of hydraulics, pistons, fuel lines, and a revving engine. Eyes glowing with the electric charge of spark plugs.

The engines are alive. Don’t you get it? We’re the host and they are parasites. Oh, God, help us all.

The pigs waddle over to the curb and tear at their stomachs. It opens a cavity large enough for someone to crawl inside. And all the children willingly do this. A rider comes along and stitches up the holes. The parade drives away, leaving behind an empty and dead ghost town. Taillights disappear over the horizon.

Inside a large warehouse. The children are loaded onto some type of conveyor belt. They’re shuttled down the line. Everything is alive. Everything is a part of the parade. The riders peel off all the leather. They’ve taken their helmets off, too.

Sheldon sees their faces and screams.

f i f t e e n

This time it was Kyra who comforted Sheldon, hurrying over when he screamed. He was on his back, trembling. In one hand, stretched toward the star-filled sky, was the keychain. His other hand was clutched in a fist and held tightly to his chest. Kyra knelt down beside him and patted his shoulder.

“I know what this is all about . . . We have to hurry before it’s too late. I saw what was behind the masks and I understand. I get it. The parade is alive and this is all about survival. We have to go and save the children. Me and you, Kyra. I need your help. Will you help me?” He was crying again, but not from his own fear. He cried because deep down he already felt there was nothing he could do to prevent the inevitable. “Will you help me?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s get the hell on the road.” Sheldon held out his hand. Kyra took it in both of hers and helped him to his feet. Already, he was starting to become comfortable with her naked flesh. He barely paid it any mind. But, goddamn, she was beautiful.

They walked back to the trunk. Sheldon tried all the keys in the cuffs until they clicked open. Kyra worked her hands free, the cuffs falling to the ground, and she threw her arms around him.

Her body next to his felt good, real good.

He bent over to the keyhole on the trunk, went through the same finding-the-right-key game until the trunk clicked open. He grabbed a gym bag and started fishing through its contents.

“Here’s a T-shirt. It’ll be too big, but better than nothing.” Sheldon handed the shirt to Kyra. She slipped it on quickly, while he searched for a weapon or anything useful. Nothing. He was about to close the trunk when something in the back corner caught his eye. He grabbed a shooting range headset and slammed the trunk shut.

COVER YOUR EARS SHELDON IT’S THE ENGINES THEY’LL MAKE YOU DO . . .

Those were the words scribbled in Evan’s notebook—“cover your ears”—and Sheldon had felt what the parade could do to someone from a distance. What would it be like if he was right next to it? Would he try to do himself or Kyra in? He gripped the headset in his hand, tossed it in the air a few times and then hung it around his neck.

He looked up when a door closed. The cherries went dark. The dome light went out and the only illumination was from the night sky. Kyra was no longer by his side. She’d walked back to the front of the car, killed the cherries, and shut the door. He watched her tip-toe over to the body, grab it by the feet, and start to drag the mass over toward the shoulder of the road. Her pale legs seemed to glow in the dark like a grave robbing ghoul.

He was about to ask her what she was doing, to yell at her to not touch the engine, when headlights appeared far off to the right. He froze. She continued to drag the body around to the front of the car.

What do I do? What do I do?

He was going to flag down the car, get help once and for all. That’s what he was going to do. He started toward the middle of the road with intentions of walking to the highway. His hands were already raised.

“No, Sheldon!” Kyra’s raised voice startled him. She’d been so soft spoken. He turned to face her, confused. She barely looked up from her task and hurried the pace to get the body into the ditch.

“But they may be able to help . . . ”

“It’s the parade.”

That was it. Up until that moment, those sparse words were the most she’d spoken, and they were enough to change Sheldon’s mind. Whether the oncoming car harbored another monstrosity from the parade was irrelevant. He was not about to find out. He sprinted back toward Kyra, grabbed one of the legs, and helped her drag the body the rest of the way. It was heavy with the added weight of the engine and Sheldon was convinced his sore back would snap in two before they were done. Kyra kept silent. If the weight bothered her, she hid it pretty well.

They crouched down in front of the hood and waited for the car to pass. Sheldon held his breath and Kyra’s hand. His heart pistoned in his chest, his throat, and fingertips. The headlights got larger. God, I hope we’re far enough off the main road. He closed his eyes. Maybe if he couldn’t see the Horribles then the Horribles couldn’t see him.

It seemed to work. The whir of tires on pavement grew loud and waned. Sheldon opened his eyes only after he couldn’t hear the car anymore.

“Whew.” Sheldon leaned his head up against the grill and tried to catch his breath. It was still warm to the touch. The car engine clicked. He smelled gasoline and oil. As of late, two scents he wasn’t very fond of. He turned away in disgust. After this was all over, if he was still around, he’d be a permanent pedestrian.

Kyra stood up and looked around to see if the coast was clear before walking toward the motorcycle. The roles seemed to be reversed. She was the strong and courageous one and Sheldon had a hard time not feeling weak and feeble. And for now, he seemed okay with the change of guard.

It was hard not to watch her body in motion. Even though her top half was covered by the large T-shirt, he couldn’t help but lick his lips and swallow the lump down in his throat while her hips swayed gently back and forth. The darkness framed her body, making her smooth curves stand out against the night. She was confident, bold, and half naked. He could get used to seeing that. Maybe even fall in love with it.

Now on the motorcycle, she turned and looked toward Sheldon, giving him a look of impatience as if to say “Well, what are you waiting for.”

What are you waiting for, Mr. Delaney?

He had never run so fast in his entire life and closed the gap between himself and Kyra in record time.

She felt good behind him, like that was where she belonged. Her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, cheek rubbing up against his back. He quickly stopped shivering. In fact, he was flooded with warmth from the inside out. He checked the mirrors, turned around, and tightened his daddy’s helmet on Kyra’s head before starting the motorcycle. It seemed to purr as he navigated the bike around the dirt road and headed back toward the highway.

“On the road again,” he sang, whistling an appropriate tune. They continued on down the highway, picking up the pace. Kyra squeezed him harder, and Sheldon smiled. For the first time in years, it felt genuine.

s i x t e e n

Eventually, the tears dried up, the sobbing ceased, the terror waned. Evan watched the bustle of the parade as if he were a casual spectator, as if the warehouse and all its hellish occupants were on the other side of a looking glass and he was peering in.

The warehouse was a stage. The riders and children were all playing a part. Evan was an actor, but at the same time, he was in the audience. He watched all the riders line up in front of the generator. They removed their helmets, the back of their heads thick with soft, feathery hair. Living electrical wires descended from the ceiling and snaked around the riders. Evan couldn’t see their faces. The crab-things scurried behind them and leapt onto their backs. Evan looked away, more out of reflex than anything else.

There was a vibrating tension around the bottom of his legs. He looked down at his feet, which felt like they were on the other side of the looking glass, too. What he thought was rope turned out to be another extension of the generator. A bonemeal white cord with ropey blue veins running its length wrapped around both his ankles. It was knotted around all the children’s feet. Evan watched it constrict and relax, constrict and relax. Liquid flowed through the veins, up one side and down the other. He wanted to feel disgust, revulsion as the slimy cord slithered against his skin, but he was completely empty; emotionally drained.

He looked back toward the generator. The crab-things scissored away at the leather. Clothing sloughed off and piled up on the cement floor. There was something resembling a human beneath. Pink skin stretched in patches over machine-polished steel. In between, purple muscle and white tendon clung to hydraulics and pistons. Evan could see through the ribcages, threaded with electrical wiring. An engine rumbled in the torso of each of them. They glowed red from within, and each engine was very much alive just like the generator. Just like everything inside the warehouse.

Evan didn’t even look away as the crabs moved from leather to flesh and made ribbons of it.

Spindly appendages burst from between the riders’ legs and balanced the engines while the crabs finished removing the flesh. One by one, the outer shells peeled away and fell to the floor.

Evan got his first look at the faces of his kidnappers, what was normally hidden behind the helmets, or what was left of them, at least. And what stared back at him from the warehouse floor made the looking glass shatter.

It was him behind the mirrored facemask, or a version of him. Children. A child’s face. Youthful innocence. It could’ve been any one of his classmates, neighbors, friends, staring back at him. And all at once the unbelievable made perfect sense. What had been shed on the cold cement floor of the warehouse was what was left of children from a town just like Poe’s Creek. This was a processing plant, and Evan, along with the rest of the children, were what was going to be processed.

He dredged up one remaining scream from within. A loud and desperate scream echoing off the steel rafters above.

s e v e n t e e n

The tires and slick pavement sang a high pitched duet, accompanied by the screams of his father’s engine. Darkened farmland whizzed by on either side. The gap between yellow road lines merged. Sheldon sat behind the handlebars spellbound by speed and desire. The wind had grown teeth. As he buried the needle, it sank frosty fangs into his flesh. But he didn’t let up. He grimaced through it. Kyra squeezed tighter. He crouched down behind the windshield and wrenched down on the throttle.

Careful. There were times when the tires skipped across the surface of the road. Sheldon felt like he was flying. The needle hovered at eighty-five, but he wanted more.

Ninety. His eyes wept from the wind. Lips curled back in a permanent grin.

Ninety-five. Fingers frozen to the throttle. The front end wobbled, hiccupped, and then smoothed out.

One hundred. Everything around him roared. In the ditches, crickets sounded like a coach’s whistle at halftime. Air blasted past him with a jet engine rumble. He cauterized a hole in Mother Nature. Wind parted around the bike. The road opened up before them. Sheldon and Kyra stole through the night, leaving behind only a brief glimmer of taillight.

Where was he headed? Did this road lead to the parade, to his ultimate demise, or was Sheldon going in the wrong direction altogether? He didn’t have the slightest clue, but it felt right. Deep down inside, he knew he was close. This was the right way. He was sure of it.

But the infinite blackness of night gave no leads and told no secrets. The path the parade followed was washed away by rain and covered in darkness. There were no road signs or maps to where he was going. All Sheldon could do was follow the small bubble of amber bursting out from the headlight. One strip of road at a time. That was it.

One strip of lonely road at a time.

Kyra tugged on his shoulders and broke his trance. Sheldon looked to his side and saw her hand gesturing off to the left. There were lights in the distance. Windows. A large building in the middle of a field. He slowed down. He stopped at the entrance to a dirt road and exhaled.

“This is it. I’m sure of it.” Sheldon turned to tell Kyra she didn’t have to come with him, that he would go alone, but the words never got out. Moist lips against his, hard pressed, stealing his breath. Kyra kissed Sheldon with fervor. Caught off guard, Sheldon just sat there and didn’t reciprocate the action. Then hormones and lust took over and he returned the favor. He tore the helmet from her head and let it drop. It hit the ground with a hollow thud. He ran his fingers through her silk hair, wrapped them around the back of her head, and kissed her as hard as he could.

It was the greatest moment of his life. Her lips fit perfectly against his and he was concocting a plan to take her right there on the back of the bike. He was on fire. His skin burned like embers. He closed his eyes and blindly guided both hands all over her body. Beautiful. Smooth. Perfect. Then Kyra jerked away from him. It was too dark to make out her expression, but her outline heaved up and down. They were both out of breath. He moved in to kiss her again, but she stopped him halfway.

Kyra began to pant. She tore off the shirt and arched her back, driving her breasts up into the air. Sheldon grabbed for them, but never had a chance to touch her. A searing hot, jagged piece of steel burst from her abdomen and plunged into his side. The makeshift knife cut deep. Fat and blood sizzled on the hot metal. He could feel the pressure of his internal organs release and heard the air leak out. He also heard the engine turn over inside her and roar.

She was one of them. How could he be so stupid? This was bad. He was so close to Evan, and now he’d die just outside.

He cried in disbelief and shoved Kyra backwards. She tumbled off the back of the motorcycle, taking the knife along with her. The pain of the knife retracting almost sent him over the edge. His vision blurred and he was light-headed. The hole she’d left behind was serious. He put one hand over the gash and the other on the handlebars. He pedaled his feet on the ground and moved the idling bike forward.

All too familiar noises came from where Kyra lay; the bone-crackling kind. Something was emerging from within her and Sheldon wasn’t going to stick around to find out what it was.

This wasn’t the way things were supposed to end. He had convinced himself he would be the savior, and to not even get the chance to try infuriated him. He maneuvered the bike around half a circle and lined himself up with Kyra.

The headlight revealed what had risen up from her spent carcass. He caught a glimpse of another monster from the parade. More black tentacles whipped through the air toward him. An engine burst out of flesh, balanced on steel legs, and began to lumber toward Sheldon.

“Fuck all of this!” Sheldon hollered and hammered down on the throttle. The tires barked, spun against the loose dirt of the shoulder and then caught hold, almost throwing him completely off. He hit the engine dead-on. The tires spun on the slick gore and then jumped into the air. The jerk kicked his feet up and over the side of the bike. He held onto the handlebars while his legs dragged on the road below. The bike finally lost the battle with gravity and tumbled on top of him. More bruises, abrasions, and blood.

He worked himself out from under the bike and fell to his knees. His body was riddled with scuffs and burns. Blood flowed unchecked from the stab wound. The jig was almost up. Sheldon was about to sign off. But when he saw what had happened to what used to be Kyra, it fueled him with just enough energy to stand up, and for the time being, carry on.

A fuel line inside the creature had ignited. A blue flame sucked inwards and the engine exploded from within. The earth shook. A mushroom cloud of flames plumed upwards and then dissipated. What remained—skin, shards of bone and steel—rained back down to the ground.

e i g h t e e n

The cement floors of the warehouse vibrated. For just a brief moment Evan felt a rumble, and then it was gone. It reminded him of what the blast of a firework would feel like from a long distance away. He looked around to see if anyone—anything—had noticed it. No one—nothing—had. Of course they didn’t. Only he relied on so much more than just hearing something.

What he had felt gave him a sliver of hope. Someone was coming.

I can feel it.

n i n e t e e n

The motorcycle wouldn’t start. Either the spill had done too much damage or Sheldon didn’t have the energy to push down on the kickstart. He was forced to walk the bike down the dirt road. If it hadn’t been his father’s bike, he would’ve abandoned it. Each step was more painful and laborious than the last. Slumped over, one hand barely kept the bike upright, the other pressed against the wound. His nerves hollered in agony each time his foot hit the dirt. But that’s how he did it: one bloody step at a time.

When he was close enough to the warehouse to make out a giant metal door, he set the bike down on its side. There was a screened in fluorescent bulb above the door providing enough light for Sheldon to see.

He took the headset from around his neck and placed it over his ears. Safety first, boys and girls. He was inappropriately giddy, almost laughing before unleashing a series of blood-filled coughs.

This is how people act right toward the end. The exact opposite you’d expect them to. They try to laugh it off, make fun. Stir things up a bit in an attempt to ward off Death for a while longer.

He limped over to the door and felt around for a handle or a button. Nothing. It must open from within. He made his way over to a window to the right. As he walked, his hand slid along the length of the door. Below the window, he stumbled, panting, strings of saliva dangling from his dried, cracked lips.

He muscled his way up to the sill and glanced into the warehouse.

Just what he thought. A room full of bad, bad things. The nightmare kind. Living flesh fused with heavy machinery. But he didn’t have time to be afraid, because in that brief look inside, he had also seen Evan.

Now, he just had to get the boy’s attention.

t w e n t y

Evan waited for something to happen. He didn’t care that the rope around his feet tightened, dragging children up onto a conveyor belt running behind him. He wasn’t concerned with any of the atrocities around him. All Evan cared about was finding the source of the boom. Soon, he’d be on the belt, and an engine would be placed inside of him. He’d become a permanent part of the parade. At least until his own parts wore out. But for now, Evan held on to the hope that it was Sheldon who’d caused the rumble and any minute he’d break down the doors and rescue them all.

So when he saw Sheldon’s tired, grimacing face framed by the window, it took a moment to realize it wasn’t a figment of his imagination. It really was him and he was mouthing something to Evan. Something about a door.

t w e n t y - o n e

There wasn’t much time left, both on his end and Evan’s. The hole Kyra had opened up in him was bad; the lights out for good kinda bad. He felt a deep ache in his bowels. His own fluids were filling up the empty spaces inside. The pressure made it hard to breathe. All he could focus on was the pain.

But there were still things to do.

Shelve it, Sheldon. For the kids’ sake.

“Just . . . a bit further, Momma. Then maybe we can do some catching up.” He had slid back down the aluminum siding of the warehouse. His hand was on the inside of his pajamas, cupped against the seeping blood. He grabbed the windowsill with his other hand and tried to stand up.

He had to get Evan and the others out. Thinking became increasingly difficult. His body fought hard against anything but going limp right where he crouched. Then he heaved himself up with everything he had. His head lolled back and forth before clunking into the glass. He coughed. A speckle of blood splattered against the pane.

Through a rose tint he could see Evan and the other children seated with their backs against a moving conveyor belt. Evan looked terrified and exhausted. His cheeks were covered with tear-smeared dirt, knees tucked into his chest. Some type of fleshy rope cinched around his and the other children’s ankles.

It wouldn’t have helped the situation if Sheldon took his eyes off Evan and saw what else was in the warehouse.

He would’ve probably given up right then if he had seen what had come out of all the riders. The things now jacked into the generator. All the engines vibrating, as if communicating, a surge of electricity running through each of them. Discarded exteriors of children piled up around the base of each engine.

But he didn’t look around. He kept his eyes trained on Evan and his thoughts focused on how the hell he was going to get Evan to open the door.

How am I going to get his attention without him hearing me scream his name?

“Evan . . . the door . . . open the door. Evan . . . ” He exaggerated each word, opening his mouth wide and slowly closing it.

“Evan . . . the door . . . open the door. Evan . . . ” Sheldon smacked a bloody palm against the window. Evan was looking all around for something. What? Maybe Sheldon. He could only pray. All the other children wore cherub smiles fixed on their faces.

The rope constricted and pulled taut. The first child was scooped into the air and placed on the conveyor belt. Spiders click-clicked toward the belt.

“I NEED YOU TO OPEN THE DOOR!” Their eyes met. Evan blinked rapidly. He looked confused. Sheldon waved his hand and mouthed, “It’s me. It’s me.” The look of confusion dissipated and was replaced with what could only be hope. He nodded.

Thank God for lip reading.

“OOOHH-PENNN THE DOOR.” Sheldon pointed to his left toward the metal door. Evan nodded again. The boy’s eyes darted to the right and then back to Sheldon. This time it was Sheldon who was confused. Evan looked toward the right again, jabbing his chin in that direction. Sheldon smashed his cheek up against the window to get a good look.

A generator. What used to be one, at least. Beneath all the membranous tissue and thick tendonous cords. He could see the olive drab paint job peeking out between the monstrous casing holding it. It was a big one, too. Big enough to power an entire parade.

Evan wanted him to see the generator, because that’s what he needed to take out.

They both nodded one last time, and then Sheldon stumbled back toward the motorcycle.

God, let it start. Just this last time, let my Daddy’s ride turn over.

t w e n t y - t w o

Think fast. I gotta get this . . . tentacle off of me. Evan patted down his front pockets. He felt a familiar shape. Thank God it was still there. A boy should always have a knife. You never knew when you were going to need it. His heart fluttered and he smiled. Preoccupied, the bikers continued stripping the flesh from their metal interiors. Evan still removed the knife slowly, glancing around from left to right to make sure nothing saw him.

The blade was small, like a toothpick compared to the thick rope around his legs.

It’ll have to do. Evan raised the knife. Just when he was about to plunge it into the slick cord at his feet, the cord contracted again, lifting Evan into the air.

He was headed toward the conveyor belt. Processing time. He screamed and drove the blade into flesh. Everything stopped. Evan quit advancing. The conveyor belt ceased. All the crab-things halted. The fleshy sack around the generator swelled up as if in agony. Evan didn’t wait to see what came next. He punched holes in the slimy flesh again and again. Tissue tore, black oil sputtered out and sprayed down onto the cement floor. Evan felt the rope slacken, his feet slipped out, and he crashed down onto the ground.

The air whooshed out of his lungs on impact and he was left fighting for his next breath. He stood and ran toward the door without waiting for it to return.

The pigs had come to life. Evan just snuck in between two of them before they stood up on their long, spindly legs, smoke pluming from their snouts.

Evan ran faster than he ever had before. He slammed head first into the door with a loud bang. The impact rattled the teeth in his mouth. Everything was in pursuit now. He could feel it. Evan looked behind him at a panoramic view of terrible, terrible creatures. Mechanical pigs, crabs, living engines. Fangs and jagged steel scissored through the air. They were coming for him and there was nothing he could do.

He reached above his head and pushed the red button next to the door. The drive kicked in and the door began to lift. He closed his eyes and waited for the end.

t w e n t y - t h r e e

“Please . . . please start for me, baby. Just one more time. Me and you . . . we need to take a little ride on the Midnight Highway,” Sheldon pleaded with the motorcycle, begged. He sat panting, slouched over and bleeding all over the gold-fleck paint job. “I only got one more try left in me. Let’s . . . get this show on the road.” He kicked down with everything he had. The motorcycle coughed and sounded a lot like Sheldon’s blood-soused hacking, wet and sickly, before roaring to life. He didn’t wait to see if it would die.

I’m going to go as fast as I can toward the door. Either it’ll open, or I’ll hit it doing seventy miles per hour. If that happens, this little adventure is over.

He punched it, gave it all he had and held on tight. It was about four hundred feet to the door, and halfway there Sheldon was relieved to see a growing light emerge from the bottom. Evan had done it. He didn’t know how, but the little sonofagun had done it. He zoomed through the opening with only about an inch to spare.

He jerked the handlebars to the right. Tires screamed against the cement. Everywhere he looked his vision was filled with monstrosities, hitching and jerking their way toward him. He didn’t even flinch. Sheldon was headed toward the generator, the brains of the operation, and he’d ride up and over every last one of the motherfuckers to get there.

Fifteen feet. This is for Mom and Dad. Ducking, barely missing tentacles snapping at his head.

Ten feet. This is for Kyra and me and what might’ve been.

Up and over a spider. The tires spun on all the slick gore, spraying a strip of blood and oil down his back.

Five feet. This is for Evan. A thick pink arm of one of the pigs came at him, hit him on the stomach and jerked him off the bike. He skidded on the cement and then came to a stop.

Too late. The bike hit its target dead-on and erupted in flames. The steel covering of the generator buckled in. The membrane around the generator popped and deflated, letting out a wet fart sound.

An arc of electricity ran from the heaving machine into the ceiling, following the path of nerves running from its top, criss-crossing through the light fixtures, each one exploding into a fireball that rained down glass and sparks onto Sheldon’s limp body.

The warehouse went dark and completely silent. All the abominations slumped over on themselves.

t w e n t y - f o u r

Evan opened his eyes when he felt the bike crash into the generator. He watched Sheldon tumble and skid to a stop; his limbs all tangled underneath. Everything driven by the generator stopped and fell over into piles. The lights exploded and he was plunged into absolute darkness.

Auxiliary lighting kicked in. Maybe there was another generator. Evan wondered if it was a monster, too. The low, red glow of emergency lights gave him just enough visibility to make his way back toward the children. He needed to get them all out before this whole place went up in flames. Evan zig-zagged through all the still (dead?) monstrosities from the parade. With the low lighting, the creatures looked comical, almost like Jim Henson puppets. But he’d seen what was underneath these puppets, and it wasn’t anything you’d find even on the darkest corners of Sesame Street.

When the generator was taken out by Sheldon, Evan assumed the children must’ve come out of their trance. They were all huddled together, sobbing softly, looks of complete bewilderment on their chubby faces. They’d worked themselves free of the rope. The ones that were up on the conveyor belt (so close!) had climbed down and joined their friends on the floor. Evan stood each one of them up slowly, but at the same time wanting to get them and himself out of the warehouse as quickly as possible. He made each one hold the hand of the kid in front of them. Then he took his place in the very front and faced the children.

My eyes, he mouthed. Only look at my eyes. They fixed their attention on Evan and the entire lot slowly made their way outside. None of them even stole a glance toward the evil sprawled out on the warehouse floor.

Evan walked them to where the dirt road met up with highway. He sat them all down on the shoulder—all of them still holding on to each other’s hands for dear life—and then approached one of the older kids. It was Sean Keating, of all people. Poetic justice, Sheldon would say. Sean was strong. He’d help with the other kids. But right now, Sean didn’t look anything but scared.

Watch them. I need to go get Sheldon, he mouthed the words again and waved his hand toward the rest. At first, Sean shook his head no but, realizing he was the oldest and biggest, reluctantly said yes.

Sheldon was unconscious. He was still breathing, but it was very shallow. His arm was bent the wrong way at the elbow. With the help of adrenaline and desperation, Evan was able to drag him to the entrance of the warehouse and out across the dirt driveway. The gravel couldn’t have felt good against Sheldon’s skin, but it was the only way he could move his friend.

It was almost dawn. The sun was beginning its daily plight for dominance of the sky. There was a purple crescent framing the horizon. Beautiful. A brand new day. One where the parade no longer existed. Evan gently placed his friend in a patch of soft grass and was getting ready to head back out toward the road when something moved from inside the warehouse. One of the engines, closest to the door, heaved up and shook several times before crumpling to the ground.

t w e n t y - f i v e

This isn’t over yet. And it wouldn’t be. Not until there was nothing left of the parade. The generator, the bikes, the creatures, they all had to be destroyed.

There was more movement from inside, and Evan could feel the vibration of engines turning over. What lights remained flickered from above. Then a deeper, more powerful rumble began.

The generator (mother . . . master) was coming back to life. Evan ran, not away from the warehouse but toward it—into it. He knew what had to be done, and it was a very adult decision.

Everything was alive again, but not completely. The pigs jerked and hitched as if stricken with convulsions. They tried to stand back up, but collapsed from the effort. Engines, the ones he’d watched emerge from inside those poor souls, were glowing red again and vibrating.

Only a small flicker of flame remained beneath the wrecked motorcycle.

This was a one shot deal. All or nothing. Without slowing, Evan reached down and scooped up the mutilated remains of the crab-thing Sheldon had driven over. Its fangs retracted once and then lay still. He dove at the thick, black hose running out from the generator and into the drums of fuel. Evan hacked away at the hose with his makeshift knife until it split entirely in two. Fuel sprayed from one severed end and began to pool at Evan’s feet.

He breathed once, twice, dropped the crab-thing and then grabbed onto the hose. He lobbed it like a grenade toward the motorcycle, fuel drenching him from head to toe. Evan ran toward the door and the hose landed perfectly on top of the small flame. It ignited and the flames traced their way back toward the drums.

When the warehouse exploded, Evan had made his way halfway down the road. The impact still lifted him off his feet. He came crashing down hard into the ditch, scratched and bruised, but alive.

Even though he couldn’t hear, Evan swore he could feel the parade screaming in agony within the wild flames.

t w e n t y - s i x

When Sheldon opened his eyes, all the children were gathered around him. They were accompanied by his parents and Dr. Nemiah. His father looked so proud. His mother cried. Dr. Nemiah no longer looked at him like he was an unsolvable puzzle. She smiled. The children reached down and patted him, as if to say thank you. They looked terrible. Evan was covered in black from smoke and had a nasty gash on his forehead. The others were ghostly pale from the entire experience. But who was he to talk? He could only imagine what kind of shape he was in.

A multitude of sirens wailed in the background. Finally, the cavalry decided to arrive.

The sun had risen and peeked over the tree line above Sheldon. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Fat with vibrant colors and overwhelming. He could feel the warmth bathing his bruised and tattered skin. For a brief moment, the pain dissipated and all he felt was bliss. The intricacies of the outside world were so much more vivid when you were right in the middle of it. This wasn’t a spectator sport; you couldn’t experience it from inside your fortress. A person had to step through the threshold and fully embrace it.

He closed his eyes and quickly drifted away. Inside his head, he watched a small boy get up from a kitchen floor, dust himself off, and walk out the door.

His last thoughts were of tearing down walls and opening doors.

Nathaniel Lambert is a research scientist banished to the lawless lands of North Dakota. He is the co-author of Sideshow PI: The Devil’s Garden, Sideshow PI: All Fall Down, and wrote the story for an UnChildren’s book titled It’s Okay to be a Zombie. He eats email for breakfast. Send him some kibble at: nathaniel@devilsfootlocker.com

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Vampires in Devil Town by Wayne Hixon

House of Fallen Trees by Gina Ranalli

Morning is Dead by Andersen Prunty

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