The Dark Ones (7 page)

He moved away from the window and grabbed his cell phone from the nightstand. He selected a recipient from his contacts list and keyed in a text message:
ARE YOU AWAKE? I SAW SOMETHING
.

He hit the Send button.

He sat there and waited for a reply, knowing it might not come. It was possible they wouldn’t be able to discuss this until the next day. But the phone buzzed in his hand a few moments later as the reply came through:
AWAKE. CAN
’
T BELIEVE U R THO. WHAT
’
S UP
?

Kent keyed in his response:
I SAW THEM. THE DARK ONES. OUT IN THE STREET
.

The reply came almost immediately:
THE DORK ONES? REALLY? LMFAO! WHAT ABOUT THEM?

Kent hesitated. He didn’t need the kind of trouble the thing he wanted to say might start. But he thought of Mark Bell’s face illumined in the light of the street lamp and felt that unsettled feeling winding through his guts again.

The hell with it.

He punched buttons on the keypad.

WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THEM
.

T
EN

“Did you see that light come on?”

“Yeah.”

“And that shape at the window?”

“Yeah.”

“Who lives over there?”

Mark laughed. “The Hickersons.”

“What’s so funny?”

Mark shrugged. “You know who Kent Hickerson is, right?”

“Know
of
him, don’t know him.”

“But you know his reputation.”

“King of the douche bags.”

Mark smiled. “That’s right. He thinks he’s fucking perfect. But he’s so fake.”

“How so?”

“You can tell he spends hours every day thinking about what clothes to wear and how to style his hair. He poses a lot. Like he thinks he’s a model or pop star, indulging the fucking paparazzi. It’s fucking hilarious. I just burst out laughing at the guy at school one day and he got all upset.”

“How come you never told me that before?”

“Because nothing happened. He’s a pussy.”

“You think that was him in the window?”

“Don’t know. Maybe.”

Mark took out the Southern Comfort bottle again. He spun the cap off and took a generous swallow. The alcohol was already acting on his system, igniting the first little tingle of intoxication. He took another swallow and passed the bottle to Natasha, who, as before, knocked back an even bigger helping. He wondered about that. Either she really loved Southern Comfort or she was showing off, maybe demonstrating what a tough chick she was. A girl who could handle her booze, as much as any guy, maybe more. The idea that she might want to impress him was kind of cool.

“You’re staring.”

Mark blinked. “What?”

“You’re staring at me. Like you’re in a trance. Look.” She touched a corner of his mouth, wiped away a speck of moisture with the ball of a thumb. “You’re drooling.”

She giggled.

“Ma-ark likes me. Ma-ark likes me.”

She was making fun of him. But it didn’t bother him. “Yeah. I do.”

“Of course you do. I’m awesome.”

“I know.”

She grabbed him and kissed him with sudden enthusiasm. He staggered a bit and wrapped his arms around her to keep from falling over. She pressed into him, continuing to kiss him, her mouth working against his with a hunger that made his whole body feel electrified. She broke the kiss off just as abruptly and they stood panting in the middle of the road, eyes locked, her hands hooked around the back of his neck.

“Holy shit.”

Natasha made a purring sound. “Mmm. You taste like bubble gum and liquor.”

“Uh . . . yeah. Had a stick of Doublemint earlier.”

She pushed against him again. “You should see a doctor. There’s a lump in your pants.”

He held her tight and said, “You’re the only cure for that.” His eyes widened. “Oh, shit!”

Her face twisted with confusion. “Mark? What—”

No time to break it down for her. A police cruiser was at the far end of the block. Its blue lights weren’t on and it was possible they hadn’t been spotted yet, but that wouldn’t last long. He seized Natasha by a wrist and dragged her into the closest yard. She yelped once, but quickly fell into step with him as they pounded across the grass and passed beneath the long and low-hanging branches of an old tree. In the darkness, the branches looked like the extended limbs and talons of some scary creature. It didn’t take long to orient themselves. This was the Smith property. The house abutted a small field cleared out by bulldozers some time ago. Nothing had been built there yet and it was overgrown. Several huge slabs of rock had been pulled out of the ground from the field and placed along one side of the Smith property and down a small stretch along the edge of the front yard, forming an L-shaped barrier of granite. Neighborhood kids liked to play on the rock barrier. They would pretend to be soldiers storming a beach or ancient warriors guarding a stone fortress. There was a deep depression in the part of the field where the rocks had been excavated, but because the field was so overgrown, the depression wasn’t obvious to the naked eye.

Mark risked a quick glance over his shoulder just before they reached the rock barrier. The cruiser’s blue lights still weren’t on, but its spotlight was. It was closer by half now, and the slowly rotating light was just beginning to turn in their direction.

They vaulted over the rock barrier and landed in the narrow dirt path between the rocks and the field, ducking as a wash of light approached. In the next instant they were plunging into the field and sliding down into the depression. Natasha gasped when Mark piled into her at the bottom of the hole. She twisted around in discomfort and got her body straightened out as he stretched out beside her. He put his face close to hers and started to speak: “Do you think—”

She clapped a hand over his mouth and shook her head.

He nodded and held his breath, waiting.

He turned his head in the direction of the road and stayed very still as he listened for the cruiser. Its engine soon became audible. The soft rumble indicated it was just sort of creeping along. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Bored cops would occasionally make slow sweeps of the neighborhood because they had fuck all else to do. Ransom wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity. So the local law liked to hassle the kids, especially newcomers.

Fucking asshole cops
. . .

But the sound of the cruiser’s engine faded at last. “Shit. That was close.”

He braced his hands on the ground and started to push himself up.

Natasha grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him back down.

“Hey. They’re gone. What’s—”

“I know.”

She slid a cool hand inside his waistband and down the front of his jeans. Her hand curled around his dick and he instantly grew hard. He looked into her eyes, able to see her more clearly now that his eyes had adjusted to the deeper gloom of the hole. Her eyes looked very intent.

“I don’t want to wait for the house.”

“You mean . . .”

She nodded. “Yes. Right here.
Now
.”

Mark grinned.

Yes. Why not here?

She raised her mouth to kiss him even as her hand retreated from his cock to undo the button of his jeans. She tugged his underwear down and he uttered a shuddering moan as his erection sprang free and twitched in the cool air.

Then her hands came away from him as she started tugging at her own clothes.

He helped her.

E
LEVEN

It sensed them.

The thing in the darkness.

For the second time in less than a day it stirred toward wakefulness, toward something close to full awareness. This was unusual, considering that very frequently years passed between stirrings. There had been shorter gaps, of course, times when weeks or only months passed. But this degree of frequency was almost without precedent. One other time, a decade or so back, it had stirred three times within a matter of hours. A volatile energy had emanated from the place above its prison. A wild, heady mix of anger, panic, and desperation.

And violence.

And death.

Someone, a human, had died somewhere in the vicinity.

Alas, the energy waned and the creature slipped back into its silent slumber, resigned to the dreary likelihood that a similarly energizing event might not occur for many more years or decades, if ever.

But something was happening now.

Somewhere . . . up above.

Humans had come to this blighted place again. It opened its inner eye—the one that felt rather than saw—and detected their unique psychic markers. It probed at the edges of their minds, which was the limit of its reach in the absence of some psychic upheaval (or removal from its prison).

It sensed something.

The humans . . . they were trying to come closer.

To come inside the house.

The air in the basement grew warmer and vibrated with demonic laughter.

Yes
, it thought.

Come inside
.

Come . . . to me
.

Kevin slammed one blunt end of the sledgehammer against the heavy bolt fastened across the front door several times. The bolt didn’t budge.

“Goddammit.” Kevin wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead. “Goddamn door might as well be a vault at Fort fucking Knox.”

Jared shot a smirk at Derek. “Let me give it a try.”

Derek smiled.

Now we get in
.

Kevin shrugged. “Be my fuckin’ guest.”

Jared took the sledgehammer from him and twirled it easily in his hands, like a baseball slugger practicing his stance in an on-deck circle. The sledgehammer had been Kevin’s find, so of course they’d deferred to him in the beginning, despite how obviously futile his efforts would be. Kevin wasn’t exactly a weakling, but he lacked Jared’s raw physical strength.

The muscles in Jared’s arms bulged as he flexed his fingers. His face twisted as he brought the hammer down. There was a ferociously loud
CLANG!
The bolt sagged on the first blow as the thick screws holding it in place pulled partially free from the wood. Jared hefted the sledgehammer again and brought it down one more time. The bolt came all the way free and hit the porch with a clatter.

Kevin’s grin was sheepish. “I, uh . . . loosened it for you.”

Jared’s belly heaved as laughter boomed out of him. “Yeah, man. Of course you did. That’s what we call fuckin’ teamwork.”

Derek snorted.

That’s what we call fuckin’ bullshit
.

Jared propped the sledgehammer’s handle on one of his broad shoulders and slid the fingers of his right hand along an edge of the thick sheet of plywood nailed over the front door. “Knocking the bolt loose was the easy part. What we really need is a crowbar. And some flashlights.”

Kevin popped the tab on another can. “Why do you need a fuckin’ crowbar? Why not just bash your way in?”

“I could do that, I guess.”

“So what the fuck?”

Jared looked at Derek and indicated the Bud carton with a tilt of his chin. “Beer me?”

Derek grabbed a beer out of the carton and tossed it to Jared, who snatched it out of the air in a one-handed grab and popped it open. “Bashing the plywood to pieces would be a lot of work. A lot of messy work. Splinters and shit flying everywhere. A crowbar is cleaner and simpler. We just pry the plywood off and then I knock the lock off the goddamn door.”

Kevin was nodding. “Okay. Yeah. I can see that. But . . . flashlights?”

“It’s gonna be dark in there, man. Like, really, seriously dark. I’m talking blackest-pit-of-hell dark. And you can call me a pussy if you want—”

“Pussy.”

Jared showed Kevin the middle finger of the hand gripping the Bud can. “Think about it. There’ll be boards on every window in this place. And I’m not about to take them all off, man. I came out to party tonight, not work my fuckin’ ass off. I also wanna see where I’m going once we get up in this motherfucker.”

Derek glanced at Kevin. “Man’s got a point.” He swung himself over the porch railing and hopped down to the ground below. “I can get everything we need from my dad’s work shed. And my house ain’t that far. Don’t you motherfuckers drink all that beer while I’m gone.”

Kevin snickered. “I take that as a challenge. I’m drinkin’ all these motherfuckers.”

Jared shook his head. “Like hell you will.” He looked at Derek. “Hurry back.”

Derek turned away from them and continued across the clearing into the woods, where the darkness swallowed him. The fear he felt then surprised him. He knew his way through these woods better than anyone, could negotiate his way through them with nearly equal ease during the day or night. So why did it feel like the darkness was pulling at him tonight? Like it was a living thing and it was trying to wrap him up in its spiderweb-sticky embrace?

Fuck
.

He knew it was crazy and irrational, but he couldn’t fucking help how he felt.

He picked up his pace.

T
WELVE

The doorbell rang.

Clayton Campbell was sitting on his sofa and watching
Doctor Who
on BBC America. He groaned and leaned forward to set his beer on the coffee table. The coffee table was overflowing with an accumulation of magazines and unsorted mail. He shoved a stack of unopened envelopes aside and set the bottle down on the heavily stained wood. He didn’t use coasters, which meant the wood was imprinted with countless overlapping condensation rings from the bottles. It didn’t matter. The only company he ever entertained tended not to be too picky or judgmental about such things. Most of them were kids coming to him for some favor or other.

They almost always came calling at night.

It was as if they were allergic to sunlight. If Clayton hadn’t known better, he might have suspected they were vampires. They weren’t vampires. Of course not. No such thing. Ditto for any other goddamn thing that supposedly went bump in the night. Just a bunch of made-up nonsense, despite the crazy things his cracked-in-the-head father used to tell him.