Job Security

By

Sean McCabe

Prologue

Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark.
- Francis Bacon.

Tabitha tried to make herself as small as possible; she put her little pink pillow over her head and tried not to listen to the noises in her closet. Tabitha was almost seven now, and knew that the noises themselves weren’t scary; it was what was making them, in the dark, in her closet. Then he stepped out. Her daddy. They had the same routine every night, the Good Night Routine mommy called it, and daddy would come in and check under her bad, then in her closet for the Boogeyman. While daddy was doing this mommy would stand by her bed talking about their day, or reading her a story. Then daddy would come out saying: “There, no monsters to scare my little darling.” And he and mommy would turn off the light, leaving her in the safe caring glow of her Cookie Monster night light. Tabitha loved Cookie Monster, he was her favorite of all them; he wasn’t scary, not like real monsters. Tabitha scrunched a little further down into the covers; hoping daddy would finish the Good Night Routine and go, hoping it wouldn’t be like last time.

A few weeks ago mommy had had to go away on a trip with her boss. Daddy had done the Good Night Routine, just like he always had. Only this time he didn’t leave after he was done, this time he got into bed with Tabitha. He touched her, and made her touch him, he smelled bad, like beer, and he’d said bad things about mommy. Said she was cheating, called her a ‘bitch’. Then he’d put his thing in her mouth; it was gross and big and tasted bad. Finally after what seemed like forever, after her jaw hurt so much she didn’t think she could take it, daddy grabbed her head and grunted. She’d felt him do something in her mouth, like pee, but not. Tabitha wanted to throw up but she was scared of her daddy when he was like this, she was scared he’d hurt her. After that he’d gotten up and gone to his room, leaving her alone in the dark. He’d forgotten to turn on Cookie Monster. Tabitha spent the rest of the night curled up as tight as she could make herself.

That was the first time she’d heard the Boogeyman. But the truth was Boogeyman wasn’t nearly as scary as her daddy. He’d sounded sad all alone in the closet, as sad as Tabby was laying alone in the dark. Maybe the Boogeyman was ascared of the dark too. That night Tabitha cried herself to sleep, dropping off just after she heard the Boogeyman slip back into her closet.

The next morning daddy woke her up with a kiss on the cheek; Tabitha immediately stiffened thinking he’d want to do more stuff to her. But he just smiled and told her to get up for breakfast. When Tabitha got downstairs she found that daddy had made her favorite: Chocolate Chip Waffles. Still she wasn’t very hungry; she had an upset tummy, and only ate a little so daddy wouldn’t get mad at her.

Daddy looked at the half-eaten waffle on her plate and then at her. “What’s the matter darling?” Daddy smiled as he spoke, like nothing was wrong. “Not hungry this morning?”

Tabitha shook her head, unable to meet his eyes.

“I know what’s wrong, this is about last night. I must have scared you baby, I’m sorry. That’s something only mommies and daddies usually do. But I thought since you were getting to be such a big girl you’d be able to take over for mommy while she was gone. Of course you don’t want to tell her, she might get upset that you can do her job so well.” Tabitha could see his THING sticking up as he spoke to her. She didn’t know what it meant, except that it was bad. When she didn’t reply to him daddy leaned forward and put his hand on her knee. “You wouldn’t want to tell mommy would you baby?” As he spoke he squeezed her knee really hard.

“No daddy.” Tabitha said, close to tears. “I won’t tell mommy.” Her daddy just looked at her, his hand still on her knee. Tabitha knew what he wanted to hear. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“That’s good baby.” Daddy said getting up from the table, his THING still sticking up, wobbling in a way that would be funny if it weren’t so scary. “It’ll just be between me and my baby girl.” As he spoke this last he leaned forward and kissed Tabitha on the head.

“Can I go play now daddy?” Tabitha asked, pushing her plate of uneaten waffles away. “I’m not really hungry.”

“Okay Tabby. Go play.” Daddy said. Tabitha left the kitchen and hid in her room. Mommy came home later that day and Tabitha never said anything to her about what daddy had done. Neither did daddy. Tabitha and her daddy never talked about it again. Now here it was, 3 months later, the night before Tabitha’s 7th birthday. Daddy was checking her closet and mommy was out with her auntie Sue. It was the first time she’d been alone with her daddy at night since that time, and daddy had drunk a lot of beers. That is why Tabitha was scared of the sound coming from her closet, that is why she wanted to hide. Her daddy stepped back into her room from the closet.

“There.” Daddy said. “No monsters to scare my little darling.” Then he started walking towards her bed, and Tabitha knew it was gonna happen again. She could smell his breath, see his THING sticking up. He started whispering in a scary way, not to her but more to himself. “Daddy’s got a special birthday present for his little girl, he’s gonna make her all growed up…” He rubbed the front of his crotch as he said this, making his THING get bigger.

Tabitha prayed that he wouldn’t hurt her, that he’d realize how scared she was and leave, that ‘making her growed up’ wasn’t what she thought it was.

Tabitha felt the bed shift as her daddy got into it, still she didn’t look at him, didn’t want to see him like that. She heard him speaking, to her now instead of himself. “Here now, let daddy see his little darling.” He pulled the blanket away from her face. “There’s your pretty little face.” Tabitha wanted to scream, he was moving slowly towards her, the front of his pajama pants pushing forward.

Tabitha wept silently as her daddy started to unbutton her pink princess PJ’s, she knew crying wouldn’t stop him, but she couldn’t help it. She turned her head away as daddy lifted off her PJ top. That’s when she saw them. Two red glowing eyes looking out from her closet. She knew they were eyes because she saw them moving between her and daddy, and then she saw them blink, just once. Suddenly daddy was roughly grabbing her face and pulling to look at him. “Little bitch look at me, don’t be disrespectful like your mother.” So she stared into her daddy’s eyes as he pulled her bottoms and panties off. She hoped if he saw her, really saw the fear in her eyes he’d stop. He didn’t. “That’s it darling; let me see those baby blues. You’re so pretty.”

That’s when the closet door creaked, just a little. Daddy stopped, turning to look at the closet, and then his attention was back on her. “Guess you got a draft in here baby. Don’t you worry daddy will fix it. Daddy likes plugging holes.” Daddy laughed as he said this, like it was a really funny joke. He was laughing so hard that he didn’t see the Boogeyman comes out of the closet. It slithered across her floor like a centipede, even though it looked like a man. Then the bed bumped up as the Boogeyman slithered under it. Then daddy stopped laughing.

“What the Hell?” He asked looking around. “What was that?”

Tabitha wanted to answer, wanted to warn her daddy. But she also wanted him to stop. Daddy leaned down over the bed and lifted the covers to look underneath. Then he straightened up and shrugged. He started to climb on top of her, still hard, Tabitha closed her eyes.

Her eye’s snapped back open as the slap landed across her face.

“You keep your eyes open; you only get to have a first time once. And daddy wants you to remember it.” With that she felt him start to press himself into her. At first she couldn’t look away from the awful thing that was being done to her, and then she saw it. He rose up from the end of her bed. Long lank blue hair hanging in front of his pale, white face. His long spindly arms staying loose beside his thin legs. He wore a dark blue stripy suit, and had cobwebs hanging off him. But the part she really couldn’t take her eyes off, no matter what was being done to her little body, was his face. Round, white, with deep-set eyes. Tabitha couldn’t decide which scared her more, his sharp, shark like teeth, or the red glowing pits of his eyes.

“Excuse me.” Boogeyman said. His voice sounded polite, like he accidentally bumped into daddy on the street. Her daddy half-turned, fear already showing on his face, the front of his pants drooping.

“Who are…?” Daddy started to ask. He was stopped short when the first pale hand reached around him, clutching him around the chest. The second came around him, clutching his crotch. Daddy’s eyes bulged out as the Boogeyman squeezed him close. “Who am I?” The Boogeyman asked as if the answer were obvious. “I am the fear of children. I am the worries and doubts that fill a young person’s head in the inky dark. I am something your so-called developed brain has forgotten after too many years. The question is not ‘Who am I’ the question is who are you?

“You sir take from these little ones what is rightfully mine, you bring them fears that ruin their innocence, thus stopping me from doing my work. I make them but after people like you are through with them these children have no need of me, no pure fear for me. You have taken my job, and I will take back what belongs to me.”

“You could call it vengeance for those that cannot avenge themselves.”

“You could call it protection of the innocent.”

“But I call it job security.”

With that Tabitha saw the Boogeyman plunged his pale claws into her daddy’s flesh. Causing her daddy to scream without making a sound. Tabitha winced expecting blood to spray across her, but none came out. Instead daddy reached out soundlessly towards her, his hands grasping at nothing, and then he was dragged beneath the bed. Tabitha screamed and pulled her blankets over her head as the bed shook and rattled, she heard her daddy scream echoing her own. And then it all stopped, the bed no longer moved and no sounds came from beneath.

After a moment Tabitha dropped her blanket and looked around. There was nothing, no one was here, not daddy or the Boogeyman. She was just about to get out of bed, go in search of her daddy, or anyone who could help her, when the lights made a small pop sound and went out. Tabitha froze her young body shivering from fear. Then she heard the slithery, skittery, sounds moving slowly back to the closet. The closet slowly creaked close and Tabitha sighed with relief. She was safe from both her daddy and the Boogeyman. She pulled on her pretty pink PJ’s and stepped out of her bed. She was almost to the door when she heard it; the closet door slowly creaked open. Tabitha turned, afraid to look but more afraid not to. The red glowing eyes stared out at her, and then came the perfectly polite, perfectly reasonable voice.

“Just because I am sated for tonight doesn’t mean I won’t get hungry later. Good night for now little one.”

When Tabitha’s mother came home a few hours later she found her little girl curled into a ball on the porch. She had blood on her hands and mouth. When Tabitha’s mother went up to the little girls room a few minutes later she found her husband laying at the foot of the bed. He had been stabbed repeatedly with a steak knife from their own kitchen, but the worst part were the bite marks in his neck and shoulders. They were just the right size for a seven-year-old girl.

When asked later what happened to her father, Tabitha would only say that the Boogeyman got him.

LOVE AND DEATH

Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.
-Marianne Williamson

1

“Hey Tabitha, over here.” Mac stepped out from behind the big old house. He was a big man, with very little of his bright mop of red hair left. Already in his early forties Jeffery ‘Mac’ O’Hanlon was the oldest detective in Wyattville, New York. Tabitha at the advanced age of twenty five was the youngest. Of course there were only two detectives for Wyattville, and the surrounding region. Still it was an honor for Tabitha, especially considering the history this town knew she had. Tabitha was relieved to see Mac, it was only her first day on the force in this town and getting lost at a crime scene did not seem like a good plan to her. It was hard enough returning to this town where she’d grown up. Everyone knew her here, and worse everyone knew what she’d done to her father, and what he’d done to her.

She stepped up onto the path leading to the big old rickety house, as she did so she read the sign on the front: St. Peter’s orphanage. The place looked more like a haunted house than an orphanage. The wooden siding was stained dark with too many years outside; the upper windows stared down upon anyone entering the house like God in judgment. Tabitha felt lucky that she didn’t have to enter the house; the body she was here to look at was around back.

She stepped into the back yard walking the thin walkway all the other police were using in order to disturb as little evidence as possible. The body was laying face down in a little stone fountain at the back of the property. The old building had been a monastery before it had been bought buy the city and turned into the orphanage, it still retained the St. Peter’s part of its title in fact. As a result the gardens in the back were nothing short of amazing for a government run property.

Tabitha walked along the short path leading to the fountain. The woman currently laying face down the murky, grayish, water of the fountain had been identified as Marcy Walter the lady who, until last night, had run St. Peter’s. She was a stocky woman, with short gray-black hair. Tabitha walked up just as they were turning the unfortunate woman over. They’d finished with the crime scene photos, now it was just a matter of picking up the rest of the evidence. This included Marcy herself.

Tabitha bent over the body to have a look as the pulled her out of the fountain. Her eyes were wide open; her mouth was agog as if she’d been terrified when she’d died. Wasn’t really surprising, there’d been a trail of blood all the way form the lady’s office to here, she been stabbed over a dozen times. And that was just at first glance.

“Hold on a second.” Tabitha said as she spotted something strange on the body. She was slightly annoyed when the techs looked up at Mac for confirmation before doing what she said. Tabitha understood why they did it, she was new to them, new to the job as far as they knew, but it still rankled her a bit.

There were five particular stab wounds that she was interested in. They were in a crescent shape right over the dead woman’s heart. To Tabitha they greatly resembled where the fingers of a hand would go, had they been sharp enough to rend flesh. She held up her own hand, fingers bent into claws, and compared her fingers to the wounds. She let out a huff of air as she saw they fit perfectly; there was even a bit of a gap where her thumb was further apart from the rest of her fingers.

“So what are you thinking Tabby?” Mac asked quietly in her ear. “Who’s the killer, Freddy Kruger?” One of the techs heard Mac’s question and started to laugh, a quick look from Mac though brought him up short.

“No.” Tabitha answered, rising from the crouch she was in. “But I think someone may want us to think that way. Look at the wounds; they were carefully made in sets of five, like claw marks. Too small to be an animal, to neat to be a real claw of any kind. Definitely caused by a knife, or knives, but very carefully made to look like claws. Maybe the killer even made themselves a set of claws, like Freddy’s.” Tabitha grinned up at Mac as she said this last.

“Pretty good.” Said a voice coming up behind them. “If anyone cares what I think, I agree with the new chick, but I’d still like to get the body back to the lab and measure the distance between incisions. It’ll hopefully give us a better idea whether it was the Freddy gloves or just five knife wounds placed close together.” It was a woman who’d been standing silently behind them. They turned to find a woman standing there; she looked to be in her late twenties. Her long black hair had bright red streaks running through it, her finger nails were painted the same raven black as her hair, and to top it off she wore thick-soled boots and a dog collar. Her painted black lips formed a sardonic grin as she stepped forward and held out her hand to Tabitha.

“Tabitha this is Branwen Myers.” Mac said with a grin. “Doctor Myers this is Tabitha St. Clair, Detective St. Clair.”

“Tabitha will do though.” She said shaking the other woman’s hand. “Pleased to meet you Doctor.”
The doctor grinned again. “Everyone pretty much calls me Doc, or you can go with Bran if you like, though personally that makes me sound like something that keeps you regular.”

“Nothing wrong with being regular.” Mac said with a grin of his own. In that instant Tabitha knew there was something more than friendship between the two of them. It sounded crazy, Branwen seemed a little crazy and outré, where as Mac was a straight-laced as they come. Still Tabitha wasn’t one to deny her own instincts.

Tabitha cleared her throat to bring the suspected love-birds’ attention back to her. “So, is this the primary crime scene?”

“Well this is where it ended up.” Mac said, was it just Tabitha’s imagination or was he blushing a little?” It started back in her office. There’s a trail of blood spatter leading from there to here. Plus that’s where the witnesses heard the screams start.”

“Witnesses?” Tabitha asked.

“Two kids had snuck downstairs for a little make-out session, they heard the screaming, and then found the lady like this. No one saw who did it though.”

“Ew.” Tabitha said curling her lip. “Two kids were making out?”

“They were ages 16 and 17.” Mac said with a little laugh. “Kids stay here until they’re 18, then they’re on they’re own.”

“Oh, of course.” Tabitha said unable to hide her grin. She really should have known that, after all she’d almost ended up in a place like this. As she followed Mac and Branwen into the orphanage she realized the place she’d almost gone to wasn’t likely to be anything like this. The St. Peter’s orphanage looked as old and rundown on the inside as it did out. It was nice, real oak floors and fixtures, small cherubs carved into the edgings, but it was also ill-kept. Everywhere she looked Tabitha repairs that needed made, a leaky radiator, a cracked window, the banister at the bottom of the staircase was loose when she touched it. This place had gone to seed, and someone had let it happen. For some reason Tabitha thought there may be something to that, something important. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what; she almost had it when Mac stopped her.

“This is it.” He said motioning to a heavy looking oak door. The frame was cracked, as if someone had broken through it, but it was as if someone had broken through from the inside. “Check those out.” Tabitha’s attention was drawn down to the floor. There were bloody footprints, two sets one big, one small, both blood red. Both leading out of the cramped, but cozy office. The prints looked like someone was playing a gory game of tag, with a child being ‘it’. The lead footprints, which matched the shoes the Ms. Walter, the other set, looked to belong to a child between the ages of 8 or 9. Tabitha could even see the tiny Oshkosh imprinted onto the ground from the shoe.

“So what’s this mean?” Tabitha asked indicating the smaller footprints. “We’re supposed to believe some little kid did this?”

“What do you mean ‘supposed’ to believe?” Branwen asked from behind them. “You think this is some kind of set up?”

“I don’t know what it is.” Tabitha said shaking her head, confused to her core. “I do know one thing though. There’s no way a kid did this.”

“Well you could talk to the witnesses; they have a novel theory about what happened.”

2

Jamie Lee Bonnet and Antony ‘Tony’ Puozo were sitting in separate interrogation rooms down at the station. Though interrogation rooms was a bit of a misnomer. They doubled as meeting rooms, offices, even one memorable time as spare bedrooms when officers visited from out of town and had to stay at the last minute. What they actually were, were two small rooms with fold up beds against one wall and a table in the middle. They didn’t even have the fancy one-way glass that the big city police stations had. Tabitha sat in one of the ‘interrogations rooms’ with Jamie-Lee, the girl was 17 years old, with honey blonde hair, and green eyes. She was very skinny, almost all the children Tabitha had seen that day were. Tabitha was getting a sinking feeling in her gut that more than the orphanage had been allowed to decline due to lack of care.

“Alright Ms. Lynn I know you’ve probably already told someone what you’ve seen but I’ve got to hear it again.” Tabitha said sitting down beside the girl. “And to tell the truth, this probably isn’t going to be the last time you tell your story. Not by a long shot.”

“That’s okay.” The girl answered quietly. “I figured when we went to the co- um police that we’d have a lot of trouble ahead of us.”

“It’s okay to call us cops, and we don’t want to cause you trouble, just find out who did this to Ms. Walter.”

“It was the Boogeyman.” Jamie Lee answered almost too quiet to hear now, then her voice began to rise, so that she was almost screaming by the time she finished talking. Her voice cracked with stress as she spoke of what she saw. “We saw it. Me and Tony, we saw it chase Miss Walter down the hall and into the backyard. Tony wanted to go after it, but I just wanted to hide. I was so scared.”

As she finished talking the girl seemed to collapse in on her self, it took Tabitha a moment to realize that she was crying. Tabitha stepped around the table to stand beside the Jamie Lee, and placed her hand on the back of the girl’s neck. She made quiet shushing sounds, until the weeping girl quieted down.

“It’ll be alright.” Tabitha said when the girl finally eased her tears enough to talk. “Whatever you saw we’ll protect you.”

“You can’t.” Jamie Lee said her voice hoarse from the crying. “Tony can’t. No one can. You see this isn’t the first time I saw it. It’s come after me before. It told me…” She paused for a moment overcome by fear. Tabitha thought she wouldn’t be able to continue but it suddenly came all pouring out at once. “It told me that it killed my parents. I mean I’m not really too screwed up by it anymore, they weren’t such great parents in the first place. My dad…” She stopped and looked into Tabitha’s eyes, hoping the older woman would understand so the thing could remain unsaid. Tabitha just nodded, she understood. “Anyway the cops that came and got me told me it was a car crash. Everyone told me it was an accident. Then this THING shows up one night, my first night alone since they died, and tells me it wasn’t an accident. That it’d gotten them somehow, and that it would be back for me someday. It got Miss Walter instead. I don’t know why.”

“Maybe she was trying to protect you?” Tabitha said, too caught up in the girl’s story to point out that the Boogeyman was fiction.

“No.” Jamie Lee said shaking her head. “Miss Walter wasn’t exactly the caring type. She’d more likely give it directions to where I was sleeping then throw herself in front of it. Besides it saw me after she ran, it looked right at me and Tony and it just smiled. It looked…I don’t know, satisfied?” She made the last a question as if Tabitha could confirm it for her.

“Jamie Lee, you know it couldn’t possibly be what you think, right?” Tabitha asked, crouching down in front of the girl and taking her hand. “You know that the Boogeyman couldn’t possibly exist, not in real life. When you were a child maybe you thought that’s what you saw. I don’t know maybe it was the grief, or some adult playing a cruel hoax, but it wasn’t the Boogeyman then, and it’s not the Boogeyman now.”

Jamie Lee started shaking her head as soon as Tabitha started speaking. “No. I know what it was. I saw it. I saw it.”

“Did Tony see it?”

“So you say you say you saw a boy by the name of Freddy chasing Miss Walter down the hall?” Mac asked Tony as the boy sat sweating and nervous in the second interrogation room. “A child about the age of 6 or 7 you say?” Mac was incredulous. Though most of the wounds were found to be pretty low to the ground, well within reach of a child, Mac found it hard to believe that a child was capable of such savagery.

“Yeah it was Freddy.” Tony said shifting his eyes away from Mac’s. “I saw him with my own eyes; I think Jamie Lee saw him too. She looked scared.”

“Why would Jamie Lee be scared of Freddy?” Mac asked. “Did she know he was going to kill Miss Walter?”

“No ‘cause he’s dead.” Tony answered with real fear in his voice. “He drowned in the fountain last year. He tripped and hit his head and drowned. He’s dead, but I seen him. He chased Miss Walter down and killed her.”

“Dead?” Mac said standing up. “How can he be here now then?”

“He came back to get her. To get Miss Walter.”

“Why would he want to do that?”

“‘Cause she let him die. She was supposed to take care of him, and she let him die. She knew that fountain was dangerous but she never got rid of it.” Tony’s voice rose until Mac felt like stepping back to get away from his fear and anger. Then suddenly he quieted. “That’s why he’s back, and he’s coming after us next. Me and Jamie Lee, we’re next, I know it.”

“Why do you think that?” Mac asked leaning over the table to meet the boy’s eyes. “Why would he come after you?”

“We were supposed to be watching him, him and the rest of the kids. We snuck off, into the woods behind the orphanage. We left him alone and he died.”

“The Boogeyman?” Mac asked raising his eyebrows. “That’s what she said?”

“Yeah.” Tabitha answered sitting across from him. “She said Antony saw it too.”

“Well that’s not what he says he saw.” Mac responded looking a little overwhelmed. “Seems our boy thinks it was a kid who died last year at the orphanage. A kid named Freddy King. I remember the case; it was an accident involving that fountain out back. The boy tripped and fell into it, hit his head, and then drowned in the few inches of water that was left in it.”

“Shit.” Tabitha shook her head. “How does that even happen? Shouldn’t that fountain be gotten rid of? Or at least drained?”

“It was drained. At least the city ordered it to be. Even gave Miss Walter some extra money to do it.”

“But there was water in it when we were there. I saw it. It was all grey and murky; I remember thinking it looked like liquid fog or something.”

“Yeah, I saw it too.” Mac agreed with a nod. “I saw the whole damn place in fact. With the amount of money the city was giving Miss Walter in the budget every year that place should have been kept up a whole lot better. And according to Tony every so often the kids got a heaping bowl of oatmeal for every meal, or worse, nothing at all.”

“Aren’t there people who watch for this kind of thing? Doesn’t the city council want to know where their money’s going?”

“There’s an inspector.” Mac said checking his notes. “Man by the name of Campbell, Quincy Campbell. He’s supposed to watch all these state-run type places in the county.”

“Maybe we should go have a talk with him.” Tabitha said rising from her chair. “Monsters or no, it sounds like Miss Walter was misappropriating funds, and that sounds like a motive.”

3

Quincy Campbell was not an attractive man. He was fat, hairy, and his odor would best be left to the imagination. He had never been married, only ever had a few girlfriends, and he had just discovered that the last woman he had slept with had been murdered. This was bad for Quincy on many levels. First the police were going to find out that Marcy had been stealing money meant for the orphanage, then they were going to find out he knew about it, and lastly they were probably going to find out about the pictures. The ones Marcy had let him take of some of the older girls while they were asleep. Then he was going to go to jail for a long time, even longer if they figured him for the murderer.

That’s why Quincy figured that caution being the better part of valor; he’d tuck tail and run. Though he was pretty sure he was mixing metaphors there Quincy didn’t give a damn, all he cared about was getting his fat ass out of town.

He was just throwing the last few things of his into his suitcase when he heard the door creak. It was his front door, it had been creaking like that for the better part of a year and Quincy kept meaning to oil it up, but just hadn’t gotten around to it.

“Hello?” He called out, his hand closing around the gun he’d been keeping nearby just in case. Quincy wasn’t a murderer, and couldn’t have gone up against the cops even if he were, but if worse came to worse he’d end it for himself. On his terms. No way could he deal with prison. Bad enough living without a sex life, the only thing he could think of worse than that would be to have too robust a sex life forced upon him. He moved from his bedroom into the hall, his heart was beating a mile a minute. The police would’ve called out, identified themselves. Wouldn’t they? “Who’s there? I heard you come in!”

The only response was a giggle. It sounded like a fresh, young school girl laughing with her friends, it also sounded like a demon from the depths of Hell somehow. Quincy froze in place, still a few paces from the end of the hallway. After a moment of listening and hearing no more, Quincy decided he’d have to actually look to see who was in his house. So he stepped forward as quietly as he could and peaked around the corner.

The girl that stood there looked to be in her late teens. She was wearing a set of flannel pajamas and standing in front of Quincy’s open front door with her hand folded demurely in front of her. His eyes traveled up her young body, from her feet which were encased in soft blue socks, across the faded grey-white of her pajamas, over her young breasts and finally up to her face. He recognized her; in fact he’d just been looking at some pictures of her in his room. It was one of the girls from the orphanage. The skinny little blond, the oldest girl at the place. Jenny or something. There she was standing in the middle of his living room, in her PJ’s no less, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

“Hello Quincy.” The girl said with a coquettish grin, which flashed her perfect, white teeth at him. “Nice to see you again. Though I suppose I’ve never really seen you before. The time you visited me I was asleep wasn’t I?”

“What do you want?” Quincy asked stepping forward and letting her see the gun in his hand. “What are you doing in my house?”

“I’ve come to see you Quincy, because She can’t.”

“Who?” Quincy asked his heart beating too fast in his heavy chest. “Marcy?”

“No. Not her. The child the one you hurt. All of the children Quincy.”

“I never hurt no one.” Quincy said raising the gun and pointing it at the girl. “Now you leave here before I call the cops.”

“Now we both know your not going to do that, don’t we?” The girl said as she spoke she began to unbutton her top, just as Quincy had done to her only a few weeks before. “What’s the matter Quincy, don’t you want to see me again? Don’t you want to see more of me?”

“What is this?” Quincy asked lowering the gun as the girl stepped forward, her top now completely undone, her bare chest showing in the gap of her shirt. “Who are you?”

“You should know who I am Quincy. Marcy knew, not until the very end, but she knew. You just have to remember, and when you do I’ll come give you a kiss.” Quincy managed to pull his gaze away from the teenager’s breast long enough to look into her eyes. When he met her gaze he knew. She was a she at all, she was an It. And it was here for him. Quincy started screaming, and tried to raise his gun, but it was too late. The creature grinned at him again, now her mouth was full of yellowed razor sharp fangs as it reached out to touch him. “That’s it Quincy, you remember. The fear always reminds them.”

4

When Tabitha and Mac arrived at Quincy Campbell’s small house they realized right away that something was wrong. The front door was standing wide open, and Quincy’s car was packed up as if he were planning a trip somewhere.

“Damn.” Mac said. “We better be ready for trouble. I’ll go round back, you go introduce yourself. Be careful.”

Tabitha nodded and waited a few moments as Mac headed for the back of the house. Then she walked quietly as she could up to the front door.

The door was not really fully open, only ajar, Tabitha knocked on the door as carefully as she could. She didn’t want to push it wide open if Campbell was waiting on the other side with a shotgun. “Quincy Campbell.” She spoke loudly and with authority. “This is the Wyattville police department. We’d like to have a few words with you.” No response, after counting to ten Tabitha kicked in the door and spun around the threshold gun at ready. As she did so Mac came around the corner of through a door at the back of the room.
Quincy Campbell lay between them, dead. His eyes were wide open, staring at the doorway. One hand held a gun; the other clutched his fat, hairy chest. Mac was already calling an ambulance on his cell phone as Tabitha leaned down to check Campbell’s pulse, though she knew it was far too late for him.

They followed all the normal crime-scene procedures, even though it appeared Campbell had died of a heart attack. While processing the scene they’d found that Campbell was indeed trying to flee, they’d also found his collection of pictures. They’d obviously been taken at the orphanage. At first they’d seemed innocent enough, albeit a little creepy in the situation. Children, mostly girls, running and playing around the orphanage’s grounds. Then there were some of the younger girls in the bath, and finally Tabitha had found the pictures of the older girls, aged 10-17 sleeping. He’d taken off their clothes, touched them, and taken pictures as they slept. Tabitha could only hope that none of the girls knew what had happened to them.

Tabitha was looking at a picture of Jamie Lee, when Mac walked in. She couldn’t bear to show him the young woman she’d been talking to just a few hours before; instead she lifted another picture from the pile.

“How’s this for a motive Mac?” Tabitha’s eyes were narrowed in rage. “That Walter…” Her mouth was having a private war as she tried to form the words, between bitch and… “woman was letting this, pervert take pictures of those kids.”

“You don’t know that for sure Tabitha, Marcy was…” He was cut short as she lifted another picture, this one showed Marcy Walter as well, also molesting one of the girls. “Damn. Still we can’t prove this was murder. The man had a heart attack.”

“He had a heart attack while gripping a gun and making ready to flee the country. Plus he looks plenty damn scared for a man who wasn’t attacked.”

“But there are no signs of an assault, plus I’d look plenty damn scared if may heart started exploding in my chest. Also the man wasn’t exactly in the pink of health.” Tabitha stood; ready to argue more but Mac lifted a placating hand to her. “Look I agree with you, this likely wasn’t just an accident, but who do you think it was? A dead kid? The Boogeyman?”

“No.” Tabitha said lowering her head and thinking for a moment. “It wasn’t a dead kid. But maybe it was a living one.”

Mac thought for a moment before getting her chain of thought. “Tony?”

“Why not? Wouldn’t you be pretty pissed if someone were doing this kind of stuff to your girlfriend?”

“Yeah.” Mac said looking a little sad. “Yeah I guess I would. But did he have time? We were questioning him just before this happened. He’d have to be playing things pretty close to get away with this. He’d have to be a lot cooler than I’d credit him being to race straight here after we questioned him and kill some. By scaring them to death no less.”

“Well he probably hadn’t planned to scare the man to death. Like you say he wasn’t exactly healthy. He’d probably just planned to stab him like he did with Marcy Walter and Campbell there just keeled over. Plus he had no way of knowing we’d put Campbell and Walter together so fast.”

“Whoa! Hold on there Tabby. It’s just a theory, and your talking like we’ve got him locked up already. First thing we’ve got to do is go talk to the boy. Find out if he even knows. I don’t exactly want him seeing pictures of his girlfriend like that if he doesn’t have to.” Tabitha looked guiltily down at the picture in her hands. Jamie Lee shouldn’t have to go through any of this; she seemed like such a sweet girl, this kind of thing could destroy her.

Tabitha sat in the basement of the Wyattville hospital; it was a cold, dank, place that looked more like a prison than anything else. The walls were grey, bare, brick. The fluorescent lights were too bright, and yet seemed murky. Tabitha and Mac had arrived at the hospital a few minutes earlier to get the results of the Walter’s autopsy. Mac had gone in first to talk with Branwen privately about the case, at least that’s what he’d said. They’d been in Branwen’s office for going on five minutes now, and Tabitha was starting to get impatient. Sneaking around stealing kisses in secret was one thing, but they had a case. Tabitha was just considering standing and knocking on the door when it opened and Mac stepped out, followed closely by Branwen.

“Sorry that took so long.” Mac said visibly blushing. His shirt collar was slightly askew and he looked flushed. Branwen on the other hand looked just fine, neat and unruffled, as she stepped forward.

“Hey Tabitha.” She said smiling warmly and leading the way down the hall. “Welcome to the morgue, this is your first time here right?”

Tabitha was about to agree, when a strange feeling of déjà vu overtook her. She suddenly realized that this wasn’t her first trip here, the way they were walking; the doors they passed through, all were familiar to her. Branwen was paused to speak briefly to one of the other hospital employees, and yet Tabitha felt compelled to continue on. As she reached the next door and pressed her hand against it to push it open she suddenly knew when she’d been here before. She was a girl, no more than six or seven years old. She’d come to the hospital with her mommy, Tabby didn’t know why, all she knew was that something bad had happened. Her mommy had gone down the hall without telling Tabby why or where she was going. Eventually Tabby had gotten bored; she didn’t know why she wasn’t scared, it was pretty scary down here. All she knew is that she was bored and wanted to find her mommy. So Tabby got up and walked down the hall where her mommy had gone. She reached her tiny hand up and pushed the door open. Inside the big, cold, white room she didn’t find her mommy. Instead she found a big metal table, and on top of the table was a shape covered by a sheet. That scared her, the big room didn’t scare her, nor the shiny, sharp metal instruments, what scared her was what was under the sheet. Tabby knew it was something bad, something that meant her harm. Tabby wanted to run, to cry out for her mommy, to…anything. But she was frozen; the fear was just too big. It was like trying to swallow the whole world. Tabby didn’t think she could stand it, thought she drop dead from fright where she stood. And that’s when the sheet moved. A hand reached out from beneath the starched white sheet and reached out for Tabby, it didn’t just flop out like she would’ve expected. It reached, slowly, purposefully towards her. Tabby felt a scream bubbling up within her, and still it wouldn’t come. Then the voice rose, like a scary ghost rising from a grave. It was a dead man’s voice, cracked and hoarse it said: “Come on princess, give daddy a kiss.”

Tabby screamed…

Tabitha finally stopped screaming as Mac took a hold of her and looked her in the eye. “What is it Tabitha?” He asked looking concerned, and a little like he felt like screaming himself. “What’s wrong?”

“I was…my…” Tabitha stopped and looked around. She took a deep breathe and saw she was surrounded by not only Mac and Branwen, but also several other members of the hospital staff. “Sorry, I just had a flash back or something. I, I’m okay now.”

After a few more words of reassurance the rest of the group departed, leaving just her and Mac and Branwen. “You sure you’re okay?” Branwen asked leading over to a water fountain. “I know this place can be kind of freaky the first time you visit…”

“That’s just it.” Tabitha said cupping some water in her hand and splashing it on her face. The water was cool and refreshing, just what she needed to calm herself. “This isn’t my first trip here. I was here before, I think I was a just a kid, but I can’t quite remember. I guess I was kind of caught up in the memory, or trying to capture the memory. All I can remember is that something bad happened; either here or it was the reason for my being here. Either way it was not a pleasant memory, that’s why I screamed.”

“You screamed because of a memory?” Mac asked looking concerned. “A memory that you can’t even fully get a fix on? That must be something pretty bad to give you that much of a reaction.”

“It was probably the smell.” Branwen piped up. “Smell is a really good way to trigger memories, and the smell down here is, well unique is a polite way to put it.”

“Anyway whatever it is seems to be gone now, sorry if I freaked everyone out back there.” Tabitha said scrubbing her face with water from the fountain and drying it off with her jacket sleeve. “I’m better now, really.”

“No problem.” Branwen said again leading them down the hall. “We could use some excitement around here. This place is dead.” She grinned mischievously at her own bad pun and headed through a dull, grey, metal door.

5

The room they entered was big, and white, and full of gleaming metal surfaces. Tables, cupboards, and instruments, all metal gleamed up at them as the three walked into the autopsy suite. The only thing that didn’t seem to shine was the white-sheet covered shape in the center of the room. Tabitha felt a chill sweep over her as she gazed upon the sheet.

“Mac and Tabitha, I’d like you to meet Marcy Walter.” Branwen said walking up and lifting the sheet off enough to show the dead woman’s face and shoulders. “Well meet again I suppose.”

“What was cause of death?” Tabitha asked getting right down to business. “The stab wounds near the heart?”

“Nice guess but no.” Branwen said lifting a clipboard off of a nearby counter top and handing it to Tabitha. “Official COD is coronary acute myocardial infarction. AKA…”

“Heart attack?” Tabitha finished for her. “Are you sure, with all those wounds?”

“Well they didn’t help the lady, that’s for sure. But I’m sure, none of the wounds were deep enough to make her lose enough blood, and many of the worst wounds were made post mortem. Plus the body still has too much blood in it for her to have died of exsanguination.”

“Heart attack…” Tabitha said looking at Mac. “That makes two people who died of a heart attack in the last two days.”

“Are you suggesting someone is murdering people via heart attack?” Mac asked quirking an eyebrow at the two women. “Campbell I can almost believe, but Walter had no sign of any health issues. As far as I know she didn’t have any history of health disease.”

“No she didn’t.” Branwen confirmed. “Which makes this even stranger, still I’ve checked twice, her heart damn near exploded from being overworked by stress.”

“Or fear.” Tabitha added.

Despite all that she’d learned, or maybe because of it, Tabitha was glad to be back out in the fresh air. The sun shone brightly above her as she stepped through the glass doors at the front of the hospital. Tabitha took a deep breath of the clean breeze and turned to walk to her car. That’s when the voice called out her name.

“Miss, um, Tabitha?” Tabitha turned to see Jamie Lee standing there, looking if possible even skinnier and paler than last time they’d met. The girl looked embarrassed to have called out so loudly, and immediately hurried over to where Tabitha stood. “I’m sorry; I didn’t get your last name.”

“It’s McCray.” Tabitha said smiling warmly at the girl, trying not to think of the pictures she’d seen only a few hours before. “But Tabitha is just fine Jamie Lee, what can I do for you?”

“I was talking to Tony, and he told me what he saw, at least what he said he saw, and…” Jamie Lee paused staring down at her feet. “I guess I’m just worried you think we’re either liars, or crazy. We’re not either of those things ma’am. I don’t know why we saw…those things, but it was the truth. Please you’ve got to believe me ‘cause.” She stopped as if she were unable to go on.

“Because why?” Tabitha asked taking the girl’s shoulders in her hands and drawing Jamie Lee’s gaze up to meet her own.

“Because I think there’s something bad going on in this town, I think there has been for awhile. I don’t know if it’s related to the thing we saw, or to Miss Walter’s death, but I know it. In my bones.”

“But what?” Tabitha asked confused. “What do you mean ‘something bad’?”

“Talk to the kids at the orphanage, or even on the street. Look at your files, look in the library. Go back as far as you want. This is not a good place to be a kid in. My dad, touched me, my mom let him. Tony’s dad beat him and his brothers up, did some other stuff too, Tony won’t tell me what but I can tell. Almost all the kids at the home they say the same things, except the ones brought here from out of town. I don’t know why it happens, maybe someone made a deal with the devil, or it’s something in the water. I just know that kids in this town get mistreated a lot more often than in other places.”

“Jamie Lee do you know how this sounds?” Tabitha asked she wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince herself or the girl. “What this whole damn town has a grudge against children? How is that possible?”

“I don’t know.” Jamie Lee said pulling away. “I just know it happens. It has been happening for a long time. Maybe since the town was founded. Check Tabitha, I swear, believe me. I think you’re the only one who will.” With that Jamie Lee turned and ran, Tabitha called after her but the girl jumped on the bus and was gone.

Out of the Past

AFRAID? Of whom am I afraid?

Not death; for who is he?

-          Emily Dickinson

1

Tabitha wasn’t sure what to make of it. She’d started with the police department’s own files. At first she didn’t find anything too strange, then patterns started to emerge. Cases of child abuses, all kinds of abuses, were extremely prevalent. Not just by strangers either, their own parents, grandparents, and siblings were often the perpetrators. People the children trusted most, and they’d been the ones to victimize them. That wasn’t all, cases of child abandonment, missing children, and child murders were also appearing with higher frequency than other crimes within the town limits. The town of Wyattville had far more than its share of crimes involving children.

The real strangeness didn’t start to hit Tabitha until she began reading the files from the last 30 years or so. That’s when it she began to see a new pattern, most of the people accused or arrested of these crimes had never had a record before. This was strange, especially in the cases of murder. When it came to violence people didn’t just go from 0 to murder in one fell swoop. Yet most of the people she saw didn’t have anything worse in their records than traffic tickets. Was it possible that the town itself really was adversely affecting the children of the community, or at least those closest to the children?

Tabitha pulled the next file and felt her heart lurch as she saw it. The file was titled Neil McCray. Her father’s file. Her hands shook as she opened it, the first thing she saw was a crime scene photo, Tabitha reached for it to get a closer look when a shrill sound filled the room, causing her to scream aloud.

After taking a moment to catch her breath Tabitha realized it was just the phone. When she picked it up the young voice on the other end told her that the town was trying to create another young victim. Tabitha grabbed her coat and car keys, she wasn’t about to let another child suffer if she could help it. The problem was Tabitha wasn’t sure she could help it.

2

Tabitha pulled to a stop in front of an old gothic style house, that wasn’t so strange most of the houses in the area were done in the same style. What was strange was the lack of lights. It wasn’t too late, a little after 9pm, and if no one was awake in the house then why had the child called. It had been a little girl, no more than 10 years old, and she’d sounded scared. Tabitha got out of the car and carefully approached the house. This was crazy; coming to a call like this without back up was enough to get her fired, if it didn’t get her killed. When she’d left the office without calling it in she’d told herself it was because the night dispatcher had been no where to be found, so there was no time to hunt someone down and explain. But she’d had a radio with her in the car and her cell phone if that hadn’t worked. So why hadn’t she called it in? To be honest Tabitha wasn’t sure. All she knew is she had to get to the child, to save her before…

Her father’s face flashed into her mind, he was looking at her strangely, in a way he’d never looked at her before. Tabitha couldn’t put her finger on where the memory came from. She hadn’t seen her father since she was around 7 years old. She didn’t even remember much about him, she only knew what he looked like from pictures, and there were precious few of those. So where was this coming from, and why did it make Tabitha feel like screaming?

As if in response to her own thoughts a scream rose from within the house. High and piercing, the shriek of a child. Wasting no more time Tabitha tried the door and found it open. She rushed inside, caution thrown to the wind, the screaming child her only thought. Following the cries Tabitha ran up the stairs and into a room with a pink, teddy bear decorated door.

The girl within was covered almost head to toe in blood. She looked at Tabitha, eye wide and white in all that red. Tabitha had overestimated the girl’s age a bit; she looked closer to 7 or 8 then 10. The child’s eyes flicked from Tabitha over to the closet.

Tabitha nodded and held a finger up to her mouth in a shushing gesture. Then she slowly approached the closet, as she did she saw the body at the foot of the bed. In that instant something flashed through her mind, she’d seen this before, not the exact same but so close. Then the thought was banished as she reached the closet. She could hear something from within, a furtive noise, she couldn’t quite identify it but it was on the tip of her tongue. Then she got it, it was a hum. A satisfied hum, like someone enjoying a fine meal. Tabitha braced herself and reached for the door knob, but the voice stopped her.

“Hello Tabby.” It said it was smooth like silk and ever so polite sounding. “It’s such a pleasure to make your acquaintance, again.” Tabitha stood stalk still, her hand still hovering over the knob. “You don’t want to do that, you’re not ready for us to meet. Soon but not yet, I want you to be ready. To be ripe. Soon. For now I’ll allow you to take the child, I’ve fed well tonight and no longer need her.”

Tabitha gritted her teeth, gripped the door knob, and swung the closet door open. It was dark inside, there seemed to be nothing there at all. No man, certainly no monster.

“There.” A new voice said, and though Tabitha didn’t actually remember his voice she knew it belonged to her father. “No monsters to scare my little darling.” With that a light came on at the back of the closet, where no light should have been. It was soft and blue. As Tabitha looked closer she saw that it was in the shape of cookie monster. It filled her with an unaccountable feeling of fear and shame. Then the light’s plastic head turned to look at her, and dropped a single, sly, wink in her direction. Tabitha screamed, grabbed the child and ran from the house.

3

Tabitha stopped running when she reached the car, she was scared and out of breath. She turned back to look at the house, almost expecting the creature to be running out of the house after her. No one and nothing was following her. She put the girl down and looked at her. The child just stared blankly into space, her clear blue eyes focusing on nothing. Though she did not appear to be physically harmed, but Tabitha couldn’t get her to focus on anything, or react to her voice.

“Honey, honey?” Tabitha asked shaking the girl slightly. “Can you hear me?” The girl just continued to stare straight ahead ignoring everything Tabitha said or did, ignoring everything around her. Tabitha loaded the girl into the car, and then quickly ran over to the other side. Climbing into the driver’s seat and reaching for the reaching for the radio. “Hold on honey, well be out of here soon.” Tabitha called in the body on the radio, and then started the car and drove toward the hospital. As she drove away she could hear sirens rising in the distance

4

Tabitha stood at the door outside the girl’s room looking through the window as the nurse checked over the child. The doctor had already been in and had checked the girl over. Tabitha had been informed that The girl, who’s name had turned out to be Emmy George, and she was 8 years old, was catatonic, and would likely not respond to the outside world until she was ready. Tabitha sighed, she'd been too late to help little Emmy, but that wouldn’t stop her from going after whoever had done this. Maybe she could save the next child, and prevent what happened to Emmy from ever happening again.

The nurse wrote on the chart, replaced it at the end of the bed, and walked out of the room. As soon as she’d closed the door behind her Tabitha stopped her, showed her badge, and said “Excuse me, I’m Tabitha McCrae can I have a few words with you about the girl?”

“Of course.” The nurse answered. “What can I do for you?”

“Did the girl show any signs of abuse?”

“There was some bruising but nothing conclusive. I wish I could be more help to you.”

“Thank you for your time.” Tabitha said giving the nurse her card. “Call me if you think of anything else.”

The nurse walked down the hall to the nurse’s station and Tabitha returned to her vigil over the girl.

5

Tabitha had been standing at the door for almost an hour before Mac showed up with a uniformed officer in tow.

“Tabitha are you okay?” Mac asked pulling her aside Tabitha nodded in response. He took a moment to tell the officer to stay put and watch the door, then Mac dragged Tabitha off into a corner. “Well then since you’re physically fine, maybe you can tell me what’s wrong with your brain? You could’ve gotten killed; you could’ve gotten the kid killed. Now we have another dead body, a kid who’s disappeared into her own brain, and God knows what other troubles coming our way, now tell me why you couldn’t, or wouldn’t, call for back up?”

“I don’t know Mac, honestly I don’t.” Tabitha said shaking her head feeling both tired and dejected. “It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I felt like, I don’t know, like I couldn’t trust anyone.”

“Well you could’ve at least trusted me Tabitha.” Mac lifted her chin until they were eye to eye. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah Mac.” Tabitha said suddenly feeling close to tears. “I guess I do.”

“I put your ass on suspension, unpaid suspension, if it weren’t for the fact that we have three bodies and no leads. And according to Bran this last one is definitely murder. Stabbed through the chest and neck at least 2 dozen times. We haven’t found the weapon yet, but there are quite a few possibilities to go through at the house. Also there’s something else. Something a little more disconcerting. It seems there were some bites found on the body, judging by the diameter and size of the tooth marks they came from a child.”

“You think little Emmy did this to her father?” Tabitha asked incredulously. “You think that sweet little thing committed this horror?”

“Calm down Tabitha, we have no proof either way right now. It should be a simple matter to take an impression of her teeth and compare it to the bites. Then when she comes out of this stupor she’s in we can ask her what happened. Until then, I wasn’t blaming her, merely telling you the facts.”

“I can’t believe you would even think its possible though, a child that young could never…” She stopped that déjà vu feeling washing over her again.

“Tabitha what is it?” Mac asked his voice full of worry.

“I just, had a weird feeling I’d heard those exact words before.” She heard them again now echoing in her mind, not in her voice this time but her mother’s. “A child that young could never commit such a bestial act.”

“Yeah Tabitha, I know how you feel, but evidence is evidence.” Mac said responding to what Tabitha was saying, unaware that she was actually repeating her mother’s words, not actually speaking to him.

She looked up at Mac, snapped back to reality. “Maybe the evidence is wrong. Isn’t it possible that we’re missing something?”

“I understand your upset about this, you worried for the girl, but whether she did it or not she’s likely got years of counseling ahead of her.” Mac said. “I feel the worry too. I just don’t see why your getting so worked up, you’ve worked cases like this before. I’ve read your file. Before you moved here most of your cases involved children, it was practically your specialty. You never seemed to let it effect you so much before, why now?”

“I don’t know Mac.” Tabitha said looking as lost as she felt. “I just know there’s something wrong in this town, and I’ve got to stop it.”

6

Branwen whistled softly to herself as she entered the police station, Beatrice the daytime dispatch grinned at her. With a name like Beatrice you’d expect a plum, blue haired, women with granny glasses. You’d be wrong, except about the glasses. Beatrice was a buxom, blonde, haired young women. She had vibrant green eyes, which shone jovially from beneath the thick pink framed glasses she always wore.

“Hey hon.” Beatrice said her honey sweet southern accent changing the words into silk. “How ya doin’ today?”

“Five by five there Bea.” Branwen answered back grinning. “How are you today?”

“I’m just peachy. You here to see Mac this fine morning?”

“Yep. Just bringing him his usual breakfast. He in his office?”

“Nope. Didn’t you hear? He and that new girl, Tabitha? Well they got called off to another murder last night. I guess you weren’t on call for that one.”

“No, thankfully it was my night off. I did nothing last night except kick back, listen to some great music, and read. It was heaven.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I’m gonna go ahead and leave this in Mac’s fridge if that’s okay.”

“Sure hon. You go on ahead.”

Branwen walked into Mac’s office and went to put his breakfast, low fat, chocolate iced latte from the fancy coffee shop one town over, and some cheap, old-fashioned chocolate donuts from Cassie’s Diner in town. She placed the coffee in the fridge, and went to place the donuts on his desk. Mac’s desk was neat as a pin, as usual. Tabitha’s was quite the opposite, covered from corner to corner in files. Tabitha picked one up at random, and saw the name on it. Neil McCray, it seemed familiar for some reason. The answer lay on Tabitha’s desk, right on her name plaque. McCray was Tabitha’s last name, was there a connection? Just then the door opened behind her, Branwen guiltily tossed the file back on the desk and spun around. Tabitha walked in and looked at the other woman.

“Hey Bran.” She said her eyes flicking between Branwen and the files on the desk, specifically the one that bore her name.

“Uh…Hi Tabitha!” Branwen said feeling as embarrassed as she looked. “What’s up? I was just bringing Mac some breakfast.”

Tabitha just shook her head and smiled, well aware of what Branwen had been doing, which was snooping. “You and Mac make such a cute couple.” She moved to her desk and started neatening the papers that covered it.

“Couple?” Branwen said her nose wrinkling cutely as she tried the word on for size. “I don’t think we’re a couple. I mean we have some really good sex, but it’s not like we go on dates or anything.” Branwen glanced up to see the amused look on Tabitha’s face. “Oh my God. I’m over sharing aren’t I? I always do that. I’m really sorry!”

“Its okay.” Tabitha said smiling. Then she remembered the files that she was collecting, and what lay within them. “Hey Bran when did you move here?”

“To Wyattville?” Branwen paused to think for a moment. “It’s been almost exactly a year; I think it’ll be a year next month. Why?”

“Have you noticed anything strange about this town?”

“Lots of stuff. There are no decent record stores; I have to drive MILES to find any good coffee, and everyone used to look at me like I’m from Mars. Some people still do look at me that way.” Branwen paused to take a breath. “But that’s not the kind of things you’re talking about is it?”

“Not really.” Tabitha paused, unsure if she wanted to continue. “I’m talking about the children. I’ve been looking through these files and it just seems like there’s a really high degree of crimes against children in this town.”

“What do you mean high degree?”

“I mean almost three quarters of violent crime here is perpetrated against people aged infant to eighteen, I mean we seem to have twice the amount of these crimes that towns of equal size do. I mean I’m sure there are other variables to take into account, but it seems pretty strange to me. My worry is that I’m seeing things because I want to believe someone. So I was hoping you could look through some of this stuff for me.”

“Sure, I guess.” Branwen said accepting some of the files. “I mean I’m pretty busy these days, busiest I’ve been since I started here as coroner, but I think I can fit it in.” She smiled at Tabitha as she spoke.

“Thanks.” Tabitha said returning the smile. “I really appreciate it.”

Branwen nodded and turned to leave. “Oh! Tell Mac his froofy coffee is in the fridge.”

“Will do.” Tabitha said grinning.

Branwen paused at the door. “Do you really think we make a cute couple?”

“Sure do.”

Branwen’s only reply was a goofy smile as she walked out the door.

Alone In the Darkness

“Understand we’ll go hand in hand,

but we’ll walk alone in fear.”

-          Joss Whedon

1

Emmy was cold. She was cold, and scared, and it was real dark. She didn’t like this place anymore; it had seemed like a really good place while the monsterdaddything had happened. Now it just seemed scary. She couldn’t really remember what happened, she had a feeling she would once she left this place, which was the only reason she was still here. She didn’t want to remember. Emmy was pretty sure something bad had happened with her daddy, and then something bad had happened TO her daddy. Emmy didn’t want to know what.

She thought she saw him sometimes in this place, her daddy. He didn’t talk to her though; she wasn’t even real sure it was him. She just caught him sometimes out of the corner of her eye. Sometimes she saw someone else. He had blue hair, and was all sneaky. She didn’t like seeing either of them.

Sometimes she heard stuff instead, voices mostly. Sometimes other sounds, beeping, and squeaky shoes. Mostly it was voices though especially one voice. The nice lady who came to help her at her house when

Her daddy died

The bad thing happened.

The voice came floating into the darkness with Emmy, and talked to her. Emmy didn’t really understand the words, they seemed to be coming from real far away, but she knew that they were meant to comfort her. And they did, a little bit anyway. Emmy decided that next time she heard the voice she’d go back to the lightplace. She’d go and see her daddy, and the nice lady. But not yet.

For now, she’d just stay here. Alone in the dark.

2

Tony was worried. He hadn’t seen Jamie Lee for almost a day now. She’d taken the bus down to the hospital to see that lady cop and hadn’t returned. At first Tony figured she’d just gone to stay with a friend in town, she did that sometimes disappearing for days at a time. Now though it was careless Miss Walter in charge, it was another lady appointed by the state. She seemed to actually be worried; she’d even asked Tony where Jamie Lee usually stayed. Tony hadn’t been sure what to tell her, if he named names Jamie Lee might get in trouble. But he was worried she was already in trouble, and maybe he was the only one who could help her. He decided he’d tell the new lady whatever he could, Jamie Lee might be mad at him when she got back, but it was better than never seeing her again.

Tony walked down the darkened corridor of the orphanage towards the front office. As he reached the stairs down he heard it behind him. A soft sneaky creak of the old floors. Tony had lived at St. Peter’s ever since the state had taken him away from his mom at age 6. He didn’t even remember why he’d been taken anymore, sometimes he had dreams, dreams about ceremonies, and dark robes, and blood. Tony didn’t remember any more than that, not even in his dreams, and he didn’t want to remember.  The sound brought some of it back, not all of it, just the feelings entwined in those memories. Fear, shame, anger, helplessness. But Tony wasn’t helpless anymore, he was bigger now, stronger, his fear did not control him anymore.

He spun, fists raised, ready for a fight. But whatever nightmare he’d expected to be there was not to be seen. A door creaked down the hall, towards the bathrooms. Gathering his courage Tony walked that way.

Tony heard more hushed sounds as he approached the door, raising his fists again he pushed through the door as hard as he could. Frank fell backwards as Tony almost crashed into him.

“Jesus man!” Frank said, at fourteen he was the only other kid at the orphanage anywhere near his and Jamie Lee’s age. “You scared the living shit outta me. What the hell were you doing smashing through the door like that?”

“Um…I thought I saw some…one.” Tony said looking around the large bathroom. “I mean someone who wasn’t supposed to be here, sneaking around.”

“Whatever.” Frank said walking out of the bathroom with a yawn; in his mind he was obviously already back in bed. Tony sighed to himself, feeling like a world class asshole, that’s when he heard the laugh.

It was more of a giggle really, high and childish, it was coming from the stall at the back of the bathroom. Tony started to walk slowly towards it when the voice rose up.

“Hello Antony.” It was as high and childlike as the laugh had been, but so much worse. It sounded kind of like Freddie, if Freddie’s voice were dead and cold. Tony froze, stuck in place by fear; he felt a warm stream of urine run down his leg as he saw the small sneakers hanging beneath the stall door. “Don’t worry Tony, I can taste your fear and it is delicious, but I’m don’t want you. I want her.”

Tony swallowed the lump in his throat. “Her?” He squeaked out.

“You know who I mean young Antony, your girl, the blonde one. I am looking for her. Tell me where she is and I will bother you no more.”

“I don’t know.” Tony said driven to his knees by the almost palpable force of the fear. “I really don’t, she’s missing.”

“No.” Freddie said his feet hitting the floor as he stood up. “You really don’t do you? But I think you have an idea. I think you can give me a hint. Can’t you Antony?”

“Please…” Tony said weakly. There was no response from inside the stall. There was nothing except silence, and then the lock slid back with a loud clunk. “Wait! Okay I’ll tell you. She has a couple of friends in town, Sally and Cat. I don’t know where they live but she stays with them sometimes. Please just…don’t hurt me.”

The door slowly slid open and Tony was powerless to do anything even look away. But no one was there, the stall was empty. Tony was alone.

3

Tabitha was having trouble staying awake as she drove home from the hospital. She’d spent all last night with Emmy, and a good portion of tonight. Finally the night nurse had come in and kicked her out. No amount of ‘official police business’ nor emotional excuses moved the woman. Which was probably a good thing since Tabitha had to work tomorrow and two sleepless nights in a row seemed like a bad idea. Sighing she pulled into her driveway, took a moment to stretch out her sore shoulder muscles, then got out of the car and went inside.

It was dark inside, and Tabitha felt a vague sense of fear. Normally the dark didn’t bother her much, she knew that scary things happened during the day as well. There was just something about tonight, or maybe it was this town, that freaked her out. Tabitha flicked the light switch in the hallway flooding the room with bright light. She walked further into the, dropping off her bag and coat on the couch along the way. She went into the kitchen and, after turning on the light there, made herself a microwave dinner. As it cooked she checked her messages.

At first there seemed to be nothing important a message from her real estate agent checking to see if she was happy with her new home. Another from her friend Angie inviting her down to the city for lunch next week. Then came the voice, polite, cultured, terrifying.

“Hello Tabitha.” It said and she could hear the sharp toothed grin as it spoke. “I just wanted to call and tell you that I’m standing right behind you.”

Tabitha spun a scream rising to her lips, and there he was standing calmly in her well lit kitchen, arms folded over the chest of his pinstriped blue suit. His pale lips were stretched in a fang-filled grin; his blue hair fell around his face almost hiding the glowing red embers that were his eyes. “Hello Tabitha.” He said again this time the words came from his mouth instead of the machine. “It is quite the pleasure to meet you again Ms. McCray, I’m sure you remember me.”

“I remember you. You killed my father.” Tabitha said sounding weak and scared even as her hand moved towards the sharp knife drying in the strainer.  She wouldn’t allow herself to look at it, or even think about it. She thought it might be able to hear what she was thinking, or at least guess at her surface thoughts and emotions.

“Are sure it was me Tabitha, are you really sure? No one else seems to think it was me at all; no one else seems to think I even exist. You’re a cop, look at the evidence.” The file she’d brought home from work was suddenly in his hands, he opened facing towards her and the pages began to flip of their own accord. “Stab wounds are low to the ground and not very deep, there wasn’t much strength behind the attack. The bite marks are small in diameter, and again not very deep. All the wounds look as if a child inflicted them. Then of course there is the knife.” Tabitha’s slow movement stopped as he reached this point. “A knife from a certain girl’s own kitchen, it was conclusively proven to be the weapon that was used in the murder.” He held up his own hands which were suddenly tipped with razor sharp claws. “Now why would I need to use a knife? I have these. As for my teeth well I have been told I have quite a big mouth.” He smiled showing a wider grin then should’ve been able to fit on his face, full of razor sharp fangs. “I admit I was there, but are you sure that I was the one who killed daddy? He did some nasty business to you, and no one could blame you. In fact no one really did, did they?”

“Your wrong, it wasn’t me.” Tabitha said moving her hand towards the knife again. “I was you, I saw you. I saw you!”

“Yes, you did.” He said grinning. “I admit I did it, but it was for you Tabitha, all for you.” As he spoke he moved slowly towards her, his features reverting to a more human form.

“It wasn’t for me, you were hungry.” Tabitha moved her body slightly, keeping herself between the creature and the weapon, then her hand closed around it. “Well this is going to be your last meal, and I hope you choke!” Tabitha screamed the last as she drove herself forward at the monster, knife slicing down towards it’s face. She felt a moment of savage joy as the creature’s eyes widened with his own fear. Then she was slicing through air as it disappeared.

The last thing she heard was its voice speaking some last few words to her. “For you.” It said, and then Tabitha was alone.

4

Cat was bopping along to the music. This was her favorite CD ever. Cat was never a big fan of the so called normal music other kids listened to, dance or hip hop or whatever. She liked her music a little more hardcore, right now she was really into this group, The Dollyrots, they weren’t as loud as she normally preferred but they were still pretty sweet. Cat frowned as the CD player stopped suddenly.

Cat wrapped her favorite big fluffy purple towel around herself and headed towards her room. She pushed her bedroom door open and looked inside. Everything seemed okay; no one was in here, which was good since she was alone tonight. Nothing was out of place, her window was tightly closed, and everything was the same as when she’d left to dye her hair, it was bright purple now. Everything was the same, Cat thought, except her CD player was inexplicably turned off in the middle of the song. Wait, not turned off, just stopped. Now that was really strange, turned off could mean it was broken, but stopping wasn’t normal broken CD player behavior, at least as far as Cat knew. She pulled the CD out of the player, and checked it out, maybe it was scratched or something. It seemed fine, so she put it back in the case and turned to return it to her CD holder. That’s when she noticed the closet door, it was open. That was really strange; she never left her closet open. Her room was always neat as a pin; she liked to keep everything clean. She thought that maybe she’d just forgotten this time, but she knew in her heart that that wasn’t the case. Cat put the CD down and walked carefully to the closet door. She slowly opened it and looked inside, and there was…nothing. Cat sighed with relief and turned around. The strange man stood next to her CD stand, looking through her collection.

“Some of these are very good, not exactly to my usual tastes, but still very good.” He turned to look at her, smiling gently. His skin was pale, his hair bright blue. He looked kind of cool, very punk rock. “You I presume are one Miss Cat. I’m sorry I didn’t catch your last name; the boy who gave me the information was a tad frightened. I can’t imagine why that would be.” His smile widened, his teeth were straight and pearly white.

“Who are you?” Cat asked her hand reaching into her closet. She saw the man pause his face showing a moment of concern. “How’d you get in my house?”

“Through the closet of course. You may go ahead and get your robe I will turn away so you may cover yourself more fully.” He did so, looking through her CD collection again.

“Thanks.” Cat said pulling on the robe, only dropping her towel when the robe had fully covered her. “You can turn around now. I’m all covered up.”

“Pity.” He said with a grin. “I like to be a gentleman, where I’m from a man treats a lady as she deserves to be treated, but still you are a lovely young girl.”

“I’m like almost nineteen; I’m totally a woman now.” Cat smiled flirtatiously at the strange man. “You came in through my closet? How? Are you like a vampire or something?”

“Or something.” The man said. “You’re not afraid of me are you? Not even a little. Most people fear me immediately.”

“I don’t know, I guess I just don’t scare easy. Besides vampires and monsters and stuff are cool. I’ve always thought so.”

“Interesting.” The man said grinning again. “I’ve never met anyone quite like you.”

“Ditto, man.”

The man laughed a little. “Its too bad that we have to meet under such strange circumstances. I’m afraid I came here to threaten you, so I can find a friend of yours.”

“That’s too bad.” Cat said still smiling and playing with the belt on her robe. “I kind of think your cute, and I don’t really like being threatened. Maybe you should just tell me who you’re looking for and I can think about whether I want to tell you or not.”

“I am looking for a young lady named Jamie Lee; she lives at the St. Peter’s orphanage.”

“Yeah we hang sometimes, she’s like a year younger than me right?”

“Something like that.”

“Well she’s not here, not tonight anyway. I haven’t seen her not for awhile actually. She hasn’t been to school, or hanging out with me and Sally all week. I wish I could help you more.”

“I see.” He said placing Cat’s Dollyrots CD back on the shelf. “Well I’m afraid I must be on my way then.” He moved towards the closet, causing Cat to have to move out of his way. “Nice to meet you Miss Cat.”

“Too bad.” Cat said smiling at the blue haired man as he entered the closet. “And it’s Cat, just Cat.”

“Well goodnight then Miss Cat. Perhaps I shall meet you again sometime.”

Cat just shook her head, in an amused gesture and gave the blue haired man a slight mocking bow. He returned the bow, with out a trace of mocking, and then he stepped into the closet and Cat was alone.

5

Jamie Lee sat with her back to the cold cement. She wasn’t sure what to do next, she new the creature was after her, but she didn’t what to do about it. She’d thought maybe the cop could help her but so far she hadn’t been able to do anything. There was not much else she could think of, except maybe Tony. Dear sweet Tony. Maybe he could do it, maybe if she told him the right way to do it. He’d need something, a weapon, something big. A sword would be perfect. That was it, Tony and a sword, that would be perfect. Maybe everything really would be okay.

Jamie Lee sat alone in the dark and smiled.

Weapons

“I only smile in the dark,

my only comfort

is the night gone black.”

-          Garbage, Only Happy When it Rains

1

Tabitha woke the next morning to the grating buzz of her alarm clock. Mornings were not her favorite thing, in fact apart from psychotic blue haired monsters, they were her least favorite thing. Tabitha headed to the shower, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she stepped into the shower, adjusted the spray and closed her eyes as the spray washed over her. She sighed happily, lost in the pleasure of the moment. Tabitha may have hated mornings, but she loved morning showers.

She was just washing the shampoo from her hair when she thought she heard the doorbell ringing. Getting out of the shower and drying off took Tabitha so long that she figured she may as well have stayed in, but it could be something important, and if it was they’d wait.

Tabitha got dressed in a black suit jacket, black slacks and a white shirt, got downstairs, and got the door open all she found was a small package. It was made of black material, about half the size of a shoebox, and wrapped in a black ribbon. Tabitha found the black wrapping somewhat strange until she saw the card. It was also black, with thin feminine writing on it in silver ink. It simply said:

Welcome.

- B

Tabitha figured that ‘B’ plus the wrapping paper must equal Branwen. She’d obviously dropped it off on her way to work and when she hadn’t answered Branwen had driven on leaving the package for Tabitha to find on her front step. Smiling to herself Tabitha brought the package into the kitchen and placed it on the table. She pulled open the bow that the ribbon was tied into and opened the little box.

Inside was a doll, a tiny doll made of cotton. It had peach cotton for skin, and a little pelt of brown felt for hair. It seemed to be wearing tiny blue pajamas. There was a straight pin, with a black head, sticking out of the little dolls chest. It seemed familiar to her somehow, in a way that Tabitha couldn’t put her finger on. It filled her with conflicting emotions, comfort and fear, familiarity and apprehension.

“Okay…” Tabitha said talking to herself. “As far as house warming presents go this one was a little strange. She looked back into the box and saw a folded piece of paper with the same spidery, feminine writing. Tabitha took out the paper and unfolded it. It said only a few words:

In case of trouble pull pin.

Good luck.

Tabitha raised an eyebrow at this, she’d known Branwen was kind of gothy, but had really thought her more down to earth than this voodoo doll stuff. Even so Tabitha decided to put the doll in her purse, she could use a little good luck, and the little doll reminded her of, well someone. Tabitha wasn’t really sure who, but it still seemed like a good idea to take the doll with her.

Without a further thought she went up the stairs to finish getting ready for work.

2

Tony sat alone in his room, Ms. Markus had let him stay home from school. He wasn’t really sick, just scared and sad. He missed Jamie Lee, he wasn’t sure what to do about her missing. He just wanted her back.

“Tony?” The voice spoke from the doorway. Tony looked up feeling a burst of excitement as he expected Jamie Lee to be standing there. Instead he saw Ms. Markus. She was younger than Miss Walter had been, prettier too. She had long blonde, curly, hair and pretty brown eyes. The contrast between light hair and dark eyes was striking and beautiful. Still she was no Jamie Lee. “You okay? I was worried about you.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m okay Ms. Markus.” Tony replied with what felt like a lame grin. “I guess I was just missing Jamie Lee. Do you think she’ll be back soon?”

“I don’t know Tony, but we’ve got the police looking for her, and with what you told us about the friends she has in town…Well it’ll really help. I’m sure we’ll be seeing her real soon.” She sat beside him on his bed and put her arm around him.

He sniffed, almost in tears. “Thanks Ms. Markus. You’ve been really great, so much better than Miss Walter.” Tony looked up his eyes wide suddenly embarrassed. “I mean, I don’t want to speak bad about the dead or anything, it’s just…”

“It’s okay Tony. I understand, that’s why I’m trying so hard to look after you, all of you kids.”

“Thanks again.” Tony said smiling up at her. It was the first real smiled he had for days. She returned the smile, then she got up and went to the door.

“Anytime Tony. You know where to find me.” With that she left the room, walking towards her office.

3

Tabitha was grinning to herself as she pulled into the police station, this was the first time she honestly felt good for days now. As she headed inside, and moved towards her office she heard Bea’s voice call out to her.

“Hey Tabs!” Bea said pushing her thick glasses back up onto her nose. “Got a message for ya here. It’s from the hospital, they said that poor little thing, what’s her name?”

“Emmy?”

“Yeah Emmy, that’s it. They said little Emmy woke up just after you left last night. She wants to talk to you.”

“Did you tell Mac? Is he in yet?”

“He’s here alright, but the little one asked for you special. I told Mac but he figured you’d wanna go see her in person. Said you might have a special bond, since you pulled the girl out of whatever trouble she was in and all.”

“Well then can you give him a message for me. Tell him I’m at the hospital, but he can beep me if he needs anything.”

“Will do hon.”

“Thanks Bea.” Tabitha said running out the door to her car.

4

It was the tapping at the window that woke Tony up, he was way up on the second floor. Though there was a pretty strong ledge out there, it was skinny and had no railing, in fact the only one crazy enough to climb out there had been…

“Jamie Lee!” Tony rose from his bed as he saw her standing at the window. He hurried over, and slid the window open. “Where have you been?! I’ve been looking for you, we all have.”

“I’ve been hiding, there something after me.” Jamie Lee said as she climbed in through the window. “That thing, the Boogeyman. The one that looked like Freddie. He’s after, he’s trying to kill me. I don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t worry Jamie Lee, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you.” He pulled her close and hugged her. She was shaking, Jamie Lee was the bravest, ballsiest girl he knew and here she was shaking like a leaf. “I’ll do whatever I can I promise.”

“I believe you Tony.” Jamie Lee stepped back with tears streaming down her face. “I’m just not sure what you can do. I mean maybe if we got our hands on a weapon or something.”

“I should tell Ms. Markus, she’ll know what to do, she can help.” Jamie Lee just shook her head in response. “You don’t understand Jamie Lee, she’s different, she’s not like Miss Walter. She, that is we can call the cops, they can protect you.”

“You don’t understand Tony we can’t tell anyone. I don’t want anyone getting hurt. Besides I think it can read minds, a little any. I think the more people who know where I am the more danger I’m in, the more danger we’re all in. The cops, this Markus chick, anyone we tell could end up dead, or we will.”

“But I know, and oh God Jamie Lee, I talked to him. He showed up here, he looked like Freddie. He made me tell him stuff, who you hung with, where you might be. I told Jamie Lee, I told him everything, I was just so scared.”

“I know Tony, its okay. I know how scary he is. I wish I could tell you he was gone for ever, but he’ll probably be back, and when he is we have to be ready. You need a weapon.”

“Like a gun or something?”

“No a gun won’t work here. It’s a demon, we need to behead him, it’s the only way to be sure. We need something big and sharp. Like a sword.”

“A sword?”

“Yeah don’t you know that guy, William or something, the Dungeons and Dragons geek? He has a bunch of swords doesn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Tony nodded. “Yeah he does. I can get one from him, something really big, like a broad sword or something.”

“And when it comes for me, we’ll be ready for it.” Jamie Lee smiled, Tony liked that smile it meant the old Jamie Lee was back. They sat for awhile together, just holding hands and smiling.

5

Tabitha walked into the hospital room and felt a wave of joy flow through her when she saw the little girl sitting up in bed. She was smiling and talking quietly with the uniformed officer that had been watching her. He stood up and all but saluted as Tabitha walked into the room.

“Ma’am.” He saluted, despite being on duty since late last night his suit was smooth and crisp, there wasn’t a hair out of place on his head. He looked fresh and new, better even then Tabitha herself did and she’d just gotten up a few hours before. “The little one here has been waiting for you.”

“Hello Officer.” Tabitha said smiling at the man. “Hello Emmy, how are you feeling this morning?”

“I’m okay I guess, a little scared.”

“I’m glad you’re okay. My name’s Tabitha by the way.”

“Hello Tabitha. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Thank you Emmy, its nice to meet you too.” Tabitha nodded at the uniform to let him know it would be okay to leave them alone now. “I need to ask you a few questions, would that be okay? If you aren’t feeling up to it yet we can wait.”

Emmy sat for a second, she was thinking real hard, she wanted to get it just right for Tabitha, she wanted to tell her all the important stuff she knew. She just wasn’t sure where to start.

“It was dark.” Emmy said in a voice so quiet Tabitha was scarcely sure she’d heard the girl. “It was all dark and scary, and I was all alone. But I wasn’t alone not really. My daddy was in there sometimes, and the scary man with the blue hair. I think he’s the Boogeyman or something. He lived in my closet I told daddy, but well my daddy didn’t really care ‘bout stuff like that lately. He used to be real nice to me before mommy died and we had to move here. I guess, y’know, maybe he blames me for what happened to mommy. That’s why he started hitting me and stuff, ‘cause he hates me now.”

“No honey. It’s not that. He doesn’t hate you because of your mommy. I think its this place. This town.”

“He’s dead now isn’t he? My daddy, the scary thing killed him didn’t he?”

“Yeah. He did I’m sorry. I just want you to know that he still loved you. Even at the end when he was…mean to you, he still loved you.”

Emmy didn’t answer she just pressed herself against Tabitha and cried.

6

“Dude!” Tony called out as he saw William heading down the street. He ran to catch up. “I need to talk to you man.”

“Hey Tony, what up?” William asked pushing his thick glasses up on his face and smiling at him. He was wearing his usual outfit, which consisted of a band t-shirt, in this case The Ramones, a pair of ripped jeans, and an old jean jacket with various band patches stitched on the back. He had wild curly red hair, and freckles.

“I need your help with something, but it’s a little strange.”

“Anything man, what do you need?”

“Well, I need a sword, a big one.”

“A sword?” William looked a little surprised. “I guess, I got a couple for you to choose from, but what for man?”

“There’s this thing, a…well I don’t know what it is. It’s a monster, or a demon or something. I just don’t know any other way to stop it.”

“A demon? For real?”

“Yeah man. For real.”

“Cool.” William replied, slapping Tony on the back and leading him towards his house.

7

Jamie Lee had found a good hiding place. One good thing about living in this crap hole all her life was that she knew all the best places to hide. Soon after Tony had left that new woman had shown up, Miss Markey or something. Jamie Lee didn’t really feel like a heart to heart with the woman right now. So she’d hidden in Tony’s closet, it smelled in there, like sweat socks and mold.

Now she’d found a better place. In the basement behind the furnace. It was dirty and dark down here, but it was better than being found. Jamie Lee was worried now, she’d been hearing noises down hurry, secret scurrying sounds. She was pretty sure it was just the mice she was hearing, but she was still worried. Tony would be back soon though, and when he was she might have a chance against the thing that was after her. Tony would be back soon, she just had to keep telling herself that. Soon.

8

Tabitha sat and held the girl for awhile. After a time the weeping slowed to occasional shutters and Emmy lifted her head. Tear still flowed from her blue eyes, but she was done crying for now.

“You okay sweetie?” Tabitha asked squeezing the little ones shoulders. “Can I do anything for you?”

“Can I have some water please?” Emmy asked sniffling a little. “I’m kind of thirsty.”

“Okay.” Tabitha said smiling in a way she hoped looked reassuring. “Coming right up.”

Tabitha walked out, giving the officer a nod as she went, and walked over to the nurse’s station.

“Excuse me nurse?” Tabitha asked the white uniformed woman behind the desk. “Could I possibly get a cup of water for Emmy?”

“Sure officer.” The dark haired nurse said with a smile. “It’ll just take a second.” Tabitha waited, though it was more like two full minutes than a second. Soon enough the nurse was back and she handed the water over to Tabitha with another smile. “Take care now officer.”

“Thank you.” Tabitha said heading back to the room. Just as she was about to enter she felt something strange. Something was moving in her purse. Strangely her mind flitted right to the little doll that had arrived on her door step that morning. Tabitha opened her purse, but instead of the little doll she saw that it was her phone. It was vibrating.  “Hello?” Tabitha said putting the phone to her ear.

“Hello Tabitha.” Mac said into her ear. Tabitha looked up to see the nurse from the station giving her a look, she followed the nurses pointing finger to a sign which read: ‘No cell phones please.’

“Sorry!” Tabitha called. “Call you back in one second Mac, I’m still in the hospital, I can’t really talk here.” She walked into Emmy’s room and handed the girl her water. She drank with large gulping noises, and then belched loudly.

“Thanks Tabitha.” Emmy said looking a little better now.

“Your welcome Emmy, I’ve got to go make a quick phone call. I might be right back, but if its serious I might have to be a little longer. I’ll be back though, as soon as I can. In the mean time there will be an officer outside the door, you can call them or the nurse if you need anything. Okay?”

“Okay Tabitha, I’ll be okay until you get back.” She smiled sadly.

Tabitha smiled back, squeezed Emmy’s hand, and walked out of the room.

9

William led Tony down to his room, and Tony immediately went to the swords hanging on the wall. He was going to take one at random and then realized he didn’t really know much about swords, or what he was looking for. He turned to William looking a little lost and confused.

“Which one?” Tony asked looking about the room.

“Oh you don’t want any of those man. Those are just for show.” William turned and opened the chest at the end of his bed. He pulled a couple of the swords out, and unwrapped a cloth wrapping from around one of them. It didn’t look like the others, it wasn’t as ornate, or shiny as the others. It was just plain and utilitarian. “These are the real thing man. These are the ones you’d want to use against any Umber Hulks or whatever.”

“Man I told you, this is real, this ain’t a role playing game or anything. This is real, I could die.”

“I know dude, I didn’t mean to make you pissed, I was just saying is all. If there’s a monster, then this is what you want to use to kill it. It’ll take the things head off, in one swipe. Maybe two.” William shrugged. “It’s your best bet from what I’ve got anyway.” Tony was about to answer but just then there was a knock at William’s bedroom door. “One second!” William yelled, placing the swords back in the chest. He put the one Tony wanted under the bed and then called out. “Come in.”

William’s mom stuck her head in through the door. “Hello Antony, how are you today?” She asked smiling at them.

“I’m okay Ma’am.” Tony responded smiling up at her.

“William.” She said turning towards Tony’s friend. “There’s a young lady here to see you, that Catherine girl.”

“Catherine?” William said confused for a moment. “You mean Cat?”

“Young lady with purple hair?” William’s mom said. “Though I think it was pink last time I saw her.”

“Yeah that’s Cat alright.” William said with a grin. “Can she come down?”

“Sure she can William, as long you keep the door open. I’ll send her down.”

“Thanks mom.”

“You boys want some snacks?” William’s mom asked as she turned to leave.

“No thanks mom.” William replied.

“Thanks anyway Ma’am.” Tony added.

William’s mom went upstairs and a few seconds later Cat came bouncing down the stairs. She grinned at them as she walked into the room. Her hair was indeed purple, and her lips were painted with lipstick in the exact same shade. “Hey boys.” She said with a wink. “Too bad Willy boy’s mom is here, otherwise we could have some real fun.” Her grin turned into a smirk as she spoke. She sat down in William’s bean bag chair, careful to keep her legs together. She was wearing a black and purple plaid kilt, and a black sweater vest over a purple blouse. “So what’s up boys? Playing one of Willy’s monster killing games or something?”

“It’s not a game Cat.” William said with a wide grin, obviously hoping to impress the punk girl. “It’s for real this time. There’s a monster out there, it’s after Tony’s girl. We’re gonna protect her.”

“William man, it’s supposed to be a secret.” Tony said looking nervously between William and Cat. “Jamie Lee will kill me if she knows someone else found out, especially one of her friends. She doesn’t want anyone getting hurt. She was worried about me telling you, but I didn’t figure you’d let e borrow one of your swords without knowing why.”

“Oh it’s okay Tony.” Cat said smirking again. “I know all about the monster. He visited me last night.”

“He visited you?” William asked.

“And you’re still alive.” Tony added.

“Yeah he visited me, he was kind of cute actually. And of course I’m still alive dumbass, would I be here talking to you if I wasn’t?”

“Yeah maybe.” Tony said nodding. “I guess maybe I should tell you guys a little more, just so you can be safe.”

9

Tabitha got out into the parking lot and immediately pulled her phone out. She turned it back on and called Mac, hoping that it wasn’t another body. It wasn’t, not this time. All Mac really wanted was an update. She told him everything, well everything that didn’t make her sound bug shit insane. So mostly about what she could prove, her suspicions about this towns high crime rate against the young, her thoughts on what may’ve happened to Emmy, and the few leads she had on the murders.

Mac in return told her about Jamie Lee being missing, and the few clues he had on that front. He seemed worried that the girl was already dead, and they just hadn’t found the body yet. Tabitha was more hopeful on this front. Firstly the murderer had made no attempt in the past to hide bodies, and secondly though Jamie Lee felt she was in danger, Tabitha wasn’t so sure. She didn’t really fit the type that the murder seemed to be targeting. Adults who in some way hurt children. So far the only victims of ‘the Boogeyman Killer’, as the papers called him, had fit these criteria. The woman who’d stolen the orphaned children’s money, and the neglected and abused them. The city official who’d looked the other way at the neglect, so he could feed his carnal needs with the same children. Then finally Emmy’s father, who seemed to have been physically abusing Emmy. So Jamie Lee didn’t really fit into the pattern, therefore she was safe. At least from the Boogeyman, but what if there was something else out there, something causing adults to prey on children, then she was still in danger.

Tabitha wasn’t sure what to do. There were just too many people to worry about. So for now she did the only thing she could, go back inside to talk to Emmy.

10

First Tony told the other teens his side of the story, seeing Frankie chasing after Miss Walter, and then later hearing him in the bathroom. After that it was Cat’s turn to talk about her meeting with the mysterious stranger, who looked strangely like Jamie Lee’s description of the creature she’d seen in place of Frankie.

Surprisingly William had a story too, about his life before his father decided to leave town. His old man had been a bit of a psycho, a former military man who ran his families life as if they were all marines. William was expected to wake every morning at dawn for calisthenics, and then go for a run with his dad, and God have mercy on William if he couldn’t keep up, ‘cause his father sure wouldn’t. After they’re run they returned home where William’s mom had better have breakfast ready and on the table. Then his father drove to work leaving William with a few precious hours of peace before school. If either William or his mother messed up in any way there would be the strap, and then they’d spend time in the coal cellar. The coal cellar was a tiny metal box not much bigger than William, it was small and dark and claustrophobic. His father called it ‘the box’. He was stuck there with no light for hours at a time, sometimes even days, until William’s father decided it was time to let them out.

One night William had been out with friends and had somehow managed to lose track of time, he ended up being 15 minutes past curfew. His father had been livid. After the strap William had been locked into the box. That’s when he’d heard the voice. It had somehow seemed to be coming from within the box. It was impossible; there wasn’t enough room for William in here, let alone a whole other person.

William still wasn’t sure what the voice had said, or at least he didn’t remember. Maybe he’d blocked it out. Either way the next morning William’s mother had opened the box and let him out. William’s father was gone and had never returned.

William had never seen the thing that had talked to him that night, but he’d heard it outside the box for a long time. It was making sounds, humming and smacking and slurping sounds, as if it were messily enjoying a large meal. The noises had never left William’s mind. Which probably went a ways to explaining why he was so skinny.

Tony and Cat stared at their friend in surprise, he’d never talked much about his past, he’d never mentioned any of this about his father or the monster or the daily fear he’d lived in. As he finished William looked back and forth between the two of them and smiled sheepishly.

“That’s why I believed you right away about the monsters Tony.” William said looking somber again. “See I’ve seen a few of them in my day.”

11

Tabitha stepped back into Emmy’s hospital room to find the girl cowering under the blankets. She pulled her gun, ready for trouble, and then saw what was terrifying the child step out of the bathroom. The nurse smiled at Tabitha and finished changing Emmy’s IV; Tabitha tried to slip her gun back in its holster without letting the nurse know it had been out at all.

“Don’t worry sweetie, this should be the last time we have to do this.” The nurse said smoothly going through the motions necessary to change the IV. “By tomorrow we should be able to get rid of this nasty thing all together. Won’t that be nice?”

“Yes ma’am.” Said a small frightened voice from beneath the blanket.

The nurse finished, gave Emmy a wink as she emerged from beneath her linen shelter, and walked towards the door.

“Excuse me.” Tabitha said stopping the nurse on her way out the door. “Why does she need the IV? I thought Emmy wasn’t hurt at all?”

“Yes, but she was malnourished, almost severely so.” The nurse said, and then her voice dropped lower so Emmy couldn’t hear. “I guess her father just stopped feeding her properly. Or at all. The doctor put her on the IV when we couldn’t get her to wake up and eat. Now we’re just finishing what we started. Like I said she should be done with it all by tomorrow at the latest.”

“Thanks.” Tabitha said. They shared a quick smile and then the nurse walked out of the room, heading to where ever her duties took her next. Tabitha turned to the girl, who was looking down at her arm ill-temperedly. “Its not that bad is it?”

“Not really.” Emmy said smiling a little. “I guess it’s just better to think about this stuff then…you know. Other stuff.”

“Yeah I guess I do know.” Tabitha said sitting on the bed next to the girl.

“What was your phone call about?”

“A girl, another girl who saw what we saw.” Tabitha watched as Emmy’s eyes widened a little in fear.

“Is she hurt?” Emmy said practically whispering.

“No, I don’t think so anyway. She is missing, but I think she’s just hiding, from it.”

“It.” Emmy repeated still talking in a fearful whisper. Tabitha could see that the little girl was close to panicking. Her breathing was rapid, her eyes wide, sweat was beading on her upper lip. Tabitha took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Hey do you like Cookie Monster?” Tabitha asked trying to calm the little girl down.

“What?” Emmy asked confused by the sudden change of subject.

“Cookie Monster? Blue Muppet, on Sesame Street? Do you like him?”

“Yeah.” Emmy said, visibly calming, even beginning to smile a little. She had a look in her eyes that made Tabitha realize the little girl knew exactly what the police woman was doing, and appreciated it. “Even if he does eat vegetables now.”

“He does?” Now it was Tabitha’s turn to look a bit confused. “When did that happen?”

“I don’t know, a little bit ago I guess.” Emmy was outright grinning now, real scary blue haired monsters forgotten in favor of the more funny, furry, fictional kind. “He still eats SOME cookies, sometimes anyway, but now he eats vegetables too.”

“Why? He’s a COOKIE monster, why would he eat vegetables?”

“’Cause it’s healthy!”

“Oh.” Tabitha said feeling silly that a child would get it and she wouldn’t. “I see.” She paused for a moment, knowing she had to get on with business. “Y’know when I was a kid I was kind of afraid of the dark.”

“Really?” Emmy seemed truly surprised by this information, as if grown up types were never afraid of anything.

“Really. In fact my daddy got me a Cookie Monster night light to make me less afraid.”

“Awesome! Did it help?”

“It did, a little. Until one night when my daddy forgot to turn it on. That’s the first time I heard it, its voice was coming out of my closet. I guess it eats our fear. We’re the same Emmy, we both met the monster, we both had…well problems with our father.”

“Your daddy hurt you too?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Tabitha said unsure whether the girl was talking about her father, or Emmy’s own. “I really don’t, I think it might have something to do with this town. I believe that my daddy still loved me, and I think that even at the end, when your daddy was treating you badly, he still loved you.”

“I know he did. I could still see it in his eyes, I think it hurt him a lot to hurt me so much. I think he was almost as scared as me.”

“Maybe he was. Why don’t you tell me what happened that night?”

“I was in bed and daddy forgot to make me dinner, again. So I was real hungry, and I was trying to forget that I was hungry. Then I heard that word, from under my bed. Hungry, it said, it was the Boogeyman, he was talking to me from under my bed. I was really scared and I wanted to call for my daddy, but I was also afraid of what he’d so or say. He was being mean and stuff a lot lately. Then the Boogeyman, he got like all mad. He was kind of growling, like a big dog, and he said ‘Not again.’ And then daddy came in the room. He was mad. He called me a bad name, I don’t remember what but I knew it was bad. Then he asked me if I had a boy in the room with me, if I was doing bad things with the boy. I told him I didn’t, I begged him to not hurt me. He was just so mad.” Tears were dripping from Emmy’s eyes now as she spoke. She was sweating and her little hands were shaking. “He took off his belt, and he walked up to the bed, and he looked down at me. It was like I said, he was all scared and nervous and angry. He whipped me, in the back, just once. That’s when HE came out from under the bed. The Boogeyman, he looked so scary, he had white skin and red eyes and really sharp teeth. He grabbed my daddy by the hair and around the neck, and then he pulled daddy into my closet. There was lots of scary sounds and my daddy was screaming real loud. I hid under my blankets, but I could still hear everything. The Boogeyman said if he couldn’t eat what he wanted he’d get his food somewhere else. Then daddy screamed real loud but only for a second and then he was real quiet. I think.” She stopped sniffing a bit, trying to keep her tears under control. “I think that’s when he got dead. I wanted to help him, but I was so scared, I couldn’t even move.” Emmy stopped talking and collapsed against Tabitha’s side, over come by her sadness. “I wanted to, I really did, I wanted to.” She kept repeating the same two sentences over and over, her voice muffled as she pressed her face into Tabitha’s suit coat.

“I know Emmy.” Tabitha said stroking the girl’s hair. “I know you wanted to help. I know you would have too, but you couldn’t. It’s not your fault, trust me, it was beyond your control honey.”

Emmy looked up from where her face nestled against Tabitha’s side a sniffed. “Anyway that’s when you came in. I heard it talking to you from the closet, and then you grabbed me and ran outside. And that’s when I decided to hide in the dark place.”

“The dark place?” Tabitha asked genuinely confused.

“Yeah, it’s inside me. It’s where I was, it was like I was asleep, but I could still hear everything going on around me. I was waiting till it was safe to come out, until it was less scary. Then I heard you, and I knew it was safe to come back. I knew it would be safe if you were here, and I was right. I’m safe now.”

“You aren’t though Emmy, not yet. I need you to be careful especially if I’m not around.”

“I will be, but what can I do? I’m just a little kid.”

“I’m not sure what you can do. I’m not even sure I can do anything, not yet anyway. I’m going to find out though, and I’m going to stop it.”

“I know.” Emmy said smiling, tears gone completely now. “I believe you’ll save me.”

Not Alone in the Darkness

“Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!”

- John Irving

1

Tabitha had spent most of the day by Emmy’s side and then most of the evening at the library looking into two things: The town’s history and Boogeymen. She’d found some interesting things about both, but spending so long at the library meant it was dark by the time she got home; Tabitha was just starting her dinner when her phone rang. It was Mac; it was exactly what Tabitha had feared earlier. Another body, another murder, The Boogeyman had taken another life. Tabitha ran for her car, not even noticing the flashing message light on her answering machine.

She arrived back where the whole thing started only a few days before. The St. Peter’s orphanage seemed to loom over the street. Dark and spooky looking, though Tabitha was sure it was less something the house was putting out, and more her own feelings about the place. She had to admit to herself as she stepped out of the car that the place was actually looking better than last time she’d been here. In the few days that the new head of the orphanage had been here it was already fixed up quite a bit. There had been some minor repairs and some painting done to the exterior. As Tabitha entered the building she saw that it wasn’t just the outside that had been worked on. Inside was definitely looking more cheerful. Though that might have just been the bright yellow police tape strung all over. There was a few officers talking to some of the kids in a room off to the side. It was a large room, but the cold and shadows were being kept at bay by the large fire roaring in the fire place at the center of the outside wall. Tabitha nodded to one of them who had caught her eye, and then ducked under the tape to enter the crime scene.

The real crime scene wasn’t right behind the tape; there was a short hallway, and then a door. Tabitha entered the office of the head of the orphanage. The new woman, who’d taken over for Marcy Walter, was named Ellen Markey. Though Tabitha had never had the met the woman she’d seemed nice. Now she was dead, torn apart, savaged as if by some beast. There was blood all over the office, all over the desk and walls. Ellen Markey lay face down in a pool of her own blood, her blonde hair turned red and sticky. Mac was standing off to the side talking to a man with graying hair and small round glasses. Tabitha assumed it was the town’s other coroner, the one that took care of things when Branwen was busy.

Tabitha walked up to the two men and was introduced to Dr. Franklin. The man smiled and offered his hand to Tabitha. They shook and got right down to business.

“My primary examination won’t really tell you anything surprising.” Said Franklin in a thin monotonous voice. “It would appear that death was caused by loss of blood, due to several large wounds about the woman’s body. The worst of which being the one across her throat, it almost decapitated her entirely.”

“This is bad.” Tabitha said quietly to Mac as Franklin droned. The man’s voice made even gruesome topics like murder and mayhem seem incredibly boring. “That’s two in a row. No ones going to want to take this job now.” Mac smiled distantly, but didn’t respond. “What’s wrong?” Tabitha asked him. “I mean besides the dead lady.”

“There’s a child missing.” Mac said.

“Another one?”

“Well the same one technically, Tammy Lee she’s gone again.”

“Again?”

“She was seen around St. Peter’s here, she was spotted talking to Tony and some of the others, and now she’s gone, again. We searched the whole placed, twice, and we’re doing a third round of searching now. Besides some foot prints down near the furnace there’s no sign.”

“Shit.” Was all Tabitha could think to say in response. She was about to elaborate on that statement when a uniform came in the room calling for Mac.

“Sir, ma’am.” He said nodding to Mac and then her. “We just caught one of the kids from the orphanage here, he was way out back in the woods.”

“So?” Mac responded. “He was probably just a little scared, it’s understandable. A lot of these kids have issues trusting adults. Besides a doubt a child did this, or any of these murders.”

“Yes sir.” The officer agreed obviously eager to share his information. “Except this kid had something with him that may change your mind.”

“Well?” Mac said as the cop fell silent, for a moment, cherishing his chance to be important. “Out with it. What did he have?”

“A sword sir. A big sharp sword.”

2

Mac had wanted to stick around to help Tabitha questioning Tony, but she’d told him she could handle it alone. There was two reasons for this: Mac had a date with Branwen that Tabitha could tell was very important to him, and Tabitha wanted to get Tony alone so she could talk to him about the real threat. Which had nothing to do with Tony or his sword.

Tony sat alone back at the station. He looked scared and nervous, and also sad. Tabitha stood in the doorway and watched him, sitting there looking at his shoes. She stepped into the room and Tony immediately looked up, fear showing in his eyes.

“Hello Tony.” Tabitha smiled in a way that was not meant to be reassuring. “We meet again.”

“Hello ma’am.” Tony said not looking up from his feet.

“I guess you know why you’re here Tony.”

“Yeah, you think I killed Ms. Markey.”

“Did you?”

“No!” Tony said looking panicked. “No way man. I didn’t, I wouldn’t I swear. I would never, I liked her, really I did.”

“Hey calm down Tony.” Tabitha said reaching over and taking Tony’s hand.

“But I didn’t.”

“Okay, then tell me, why did you have that sword?”

“To kill it.”

“It?”

“The thing, the one that looks like Frankie. It was after Jamie Lee, and the rest of us. We, Jamie Lee and I, we figured decapitation well, that’d kill anything.”

“Anything?”

“Well not like, Ms. Markey or anything. We were thinking like demons and stuff. We were thinking that the Boogeyman, or Frankie, or whatever was probably some kind of demon. So I went and got the sword, so I could stop it if it came after Jamie Lee, or anyone else.”

“So where did you get the sword?”

Tony just shook his head. “Uh uh. No way am I ratting out my friends.”

“Alright Tony. We can forget that part for now. Instead why don’t you tell me everything you know about The B- this thing.”

“I told you. That’s pretty much all I knew, it’s some kind of demon as far as we can tell. That’s what Jamie Lee said anyway. It makes sense you know, I mean it can appear out of nowhere, it can change shapes, it’s looks like a nightmare.”

“What?” Tabitha asked. “What was that last part?”

“It looks like a nightmare. I mean when I look at it I always see Frankie, but Jamie Lee told me that when she saw it, it looked completely different to her, like some blue haired ghost-zombie-vampire thing. That's what it looks like to her. And we’re not the only ones who have seen it, two my friends saw, or at least heard this thing as well. I know you probably don’t believe any of this but…”

“I do Tony. I believe it all actually. You see I’ve seen it too. So I know what it looks like.”

“But what is it?” Tony asked looking desperate for answers. “Why is it here? Why is it after us? What does it want?”

“Fear.” Tabitha answered simply.

“Fear?”

“It wants our fear, it feeds off of it somehow. It wants us to keep being scared so it can keep eating. I think maybe this isn’t the only one, the only Boogeyman or whatever you want to call it. I think there are others, all over around the world. I think they live off of the fear of children, sneaking out at night and scaring them.”

“Woah.” Tony said shocked. “But wait, why is it killing people. I mean if these things really are all over the world, well I think people would have noticed all the killing.”

“I think things are different here. There is something wrong here, and it makes adults, I don’t know crazy or something. Makes them want to hurt people especially kids. I think that the kids started feeling more afraid of the adults in their lives, and less afraid of things like the Boogeyman. I think we were starving it.”

“And that’s why it started killing people?”

“Yeah it was protecting its food source. Besides what the only thing that would be scarier than the person who hurts you on a daily basis?”

“Something that can hurt the thing that hurts you.” Tony said putting it all together in his mind.

“Exactly.” Tabitha said nodding. She gave him a moment to think about then continued on. “There are two reasons I’m telling you this Tony. First I wanted you to know that Jamie Lee is probably in no danger. She probably just ran on her own, and even if this thing did take it probably just wants her for her fear.”

“But even if she’s safe physically…” Tony started to say and then could not complete the thought aloud.

“Yeah, but still she’s probably safe from death, and she’s strong.”

“Maybe that’s even why he took her, she’s brave it’ll take her longer to really lose it to the fear. She’ll be a snack for him for a long time, unless we can save her. What if he’s taking her somewhere, like running or something?”

“I think if he was going to leave he’d have done it already Tony. I think if it was that simple for him we wouldn’t be looking at all these murders. But that’s the other reason I am telling you all of this. I need your help. To find it, to kill it if I can. I think that some how it’s causing all this hate, all this hurtfulness between adults and kids. I think that if we can kill it, we won’t just be saving Jamie Lee, we’ll be saving the whole town.”

“Yeah well I’ll help, not ‘cause I give a damn about this town. But just for Jamie Lee.”

“Okay then.” Tabitha said with a grin. “First things first: Where did you get the sword?”

3

Mac was scared, in fact he reflected to himself, this may be the most scared he’d ever been, in his while life. Mac went over his checklist again, he was a big fan of lists and order. He had everything he needed, it was all there, as it had been the last four times he’d gone over it. There was such a thing as being over prepared; he knew that, but that part of him that liked things to be ordered sometimes got the better of him. Now he took a deep breath, wipe his hands against his pant legs to get rid of the sweat there, and rang the doorbell.

When Bran answered the door he couldn’t help but smile, she always had that effect on him. She smiled in return and in that moment Mac knew he’d been stupid to get so worked up over this whole thing. She wanted this as much as he did; it was all right there in her smile.

“Mac?” She said sounding both surprised and happy. “What are you doing here?”

“Well I figured we’d both been working really hard this week, and perhaps a picnic is in order to relax both of us.” He grinned goofily at her, like a teenager on his first date and held up the picnic basket in front of him, wiggling it back and forth a bit.

“Uh huh. Relax eh? Is that what you kids are calling it these days?” She asked dropping him a flirty wink. “I think I’m up for that. Just give me a second to grab my coat, okay?”

“Sure thing.” Mac said with a grin.

4

Emmy was asleep, she felt pretty safe despite what Tabitha had said to her. There were nurses and doctors everywhere, plus there was that young cop outside her door. It was kind of scary being all alone in the hospital, and she missed her daddy, but over all it wasn’t that bad. It was WAY better than her home life had been these last few months, and she didn’t even hurt that much anymore. Emmy had been hurting a lot lately, on the inside and the out. All she’d been feeling was sad, not happy, or even angry, just sad. It was like that was all she had left in herself to feel. But ever since she’d woken up in the hospital, ever since she’d come back from the dark place, and most of all ever since she’d met Tabitha Emmy had felt, well not happy, but at least less sad.

The first little while she’d been too afraid to sleep, she been worried she’d go back to the dark place. It hadn’t happened, and falling asleep after that had been easy. Tonight though something was disturbing her sleep, a dream kept circling round and round in her brain. It was like on Scooby Doo when the Scooby Gang was running through one of those big long hallways with all the doors. They ran through one door and came out the other, in all different orders, and with different people, but it was all pretty much the same. Her dream kept breaking up and coming back together in different combinations.

There was always the dark. There was always trees, stretching dark against the night sky. They looked like skeletons, and Emmy didn’t just mean that as a metaphor, she didn’t even know that word really, she meant they really looked like skeletons. If you looked at them long enough, or close enough, you could see them for what the really were. Corpse that had long ago had the skin stripped from them. There was always the troubled girl, sometimes it was Emmy herself, sometimes it was Tabitha as a grownup, sometimes it was Tabitha as a kid. Sometimes it was another girl, a pretty blonde teenager who Emmy didn’t really know. And HE was always there. The Boogeyman, though it might have looked like her daddy instead, Emmy knew who it really was. The dream kept circling round and round and round in her head. Like a horrible merry go round, like some carnival ride gone very, very, wrong.

In the latest version of this dream Emmy could hear her name being called out. She wasn’t sure whose voice it was. It was like a bunch of voices all smushed together, The Boogeyman’s, daddy’s, Tabitha’s, even her own. All together as one voice. It made it extra scary, like the monster who was haunting her dreams was all those people put together. It was the voice that caused her to wake up, Emmy was sure of that. It was the only part of the dream that had changed.

She sprang up in bed, all sweaty and breathing hard. She was suddenly glad that the IV had been taken out earlier that day, otherwise she might have yanked it out when she woke up. She was breathing real heavy, and that’s probably why she didn’t realize right away that she could still hear the voice. It was real quiet, and at first Emmy couldn’t really hear it, so she thought it was calling her name like in the scary dream.

It wasn’t calling her name though. It was saying the same thing over and over. No. No, no, no, no. Over and over. Not loud, not like it was screaming. In fact it was so quiet that even when Emmy really stopped to listen she couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. All she could tell is that the voice belonged to a kid like her, and that the kid was really scared. Fear was one thing Emmy was more familiar with than any other, even if she didn’t want to be.

The one thing Emmy didn’t know is how it could seem to be coming from inside her room. At first she thought it might be a ghost, Emmy figured lots of people die in hospitals, even kids, but it was such a scared voice that Emmy found she could be scared herself. Instead she got out of bed and searched for the voice, she looked everywhere and couldn’t find anything. Then she realized that it was silly to search for a voice with her eyes. So she closed her eyes tight and used her ears instead. She seemed to be able to hear it more clearly now, it was definitely a child. A little boy she was pretty sure. Emmy followed the voice, carefully sliding her feet along the floor as she walked so she wouldn’t trip over anything in the unfamiliar room. She kept walking until she found the source of the voice, it was coming from the wall. The vent near the floor in the wall to be more specific. Emmy knelt down to be sure that she was right, she was. It was probably someone in the next room, a little boy about her own age. And he was scared. Emmy lay on the cold ground and placed her head against the vent, at first she just listened. Then, when she was sure there was no one there but the boy she spoke.

“Hello?” She asked quietly, there was no answer so she spoke louder. “Hello?”

After a moment the voice answered back.

5

Tabitha let Tony go, there was an interim care giver at the orphanage, another one, and she let Tony go with her. Really even if she’d wanted to keep Tony for the murder, which she didn’t, she had no proof. There had been no blood, or any other evidence of the sword. In fact there was no evidence that the sword, or Tony had even seen the inside of the orphanage anytime near when the murder was committed. So she’d let him go and kept the sword in the evidence room. Before he’d left though she’d made him promise to phone her, anytime day or night, if he heard anything from Jamie Lee. Or if he had any contact with the creature he saw as a little dead boy named Frankie.

Now Tabitha was alone in her office finishing up her paperwork, there was a lot of it. She’d kind of been neglecting paperwork these last dew days, it had seemed somehow unimportant. Now with a sigh of relief she saved the last little bit of work and stood up from her desk. She stretched her back and grimaced as she heard an audible popping sound from back there. That was not a good sign, too much time at her desk and not enough at the gym Tabitha reckoned. Maybe when this case was over she could start working out more regularly again. It wasn’t like she’d be too busy after this, Wyattville wasn’t exactly a hot bed of criminal activity.

Tabitha waved goodbye to Donny, the retired cop who acted as night time dispatch for the small crew that was the Wyattville police department, and headed out into the night. It was cool and Tabitha pulled her coat closer around herself. She was half way to her car when she saw the man standing at the far end of the parking lot. He was tall, with black hair, and wearing blue striped pajamas. The man turned and began walking away. Worried that he was drunk, or crazy or something Tabitha called to him as she ran to try to catch up.

When she got to the edge of the parking lot she couldn’t see him anywhere, it was like he’d disappeared off the face off the Earth. Then she felt something moving in her purse, she opened it up expecting it to be her phone. It wasn’t, it was the doll. It was moving around like it was struggling to get out. Tabitha was to say the least a little confused by this and as a result didn’t notice the man standing behind her until his voice slithered out into the night.

“Tabby.” The voice said, cold, dead, and oh so familiar.

Tabitha turned, gun already out, ready to deal with the owner of the voice. He was gone, there was no one there at all.

“Shit.” Tabitha said turning back towards her car. The man stood there, next to her car, his head lowered so Tabitha could not make out his face. “Shit.” Tabitha said again.

“Tabby, why?” It was whispering yet somehow Tabitha could hear it clearly even from across the parking lot. “Why am I here? It was so dark where I was, I want to go back.” It started moving towards Tabitha, shuffling it’s feet, head still hanging low, as if it didn’t have the strength to lift it. “Got a message for you Tabby, got a message from my sweet girl from the other side. They want you to stop. You’re messing with things you were never meant to. Things you weren’t even supposed to see, much less interfere with. If you continue on this course we will be forced to punish you. Oh how I want to punish you my sweet little meat.” Finally he looked up, and as he did Tabitha realized he’d gotten with in a few feet of her, yet she couldn’t do anything. She was frozen with fear, her gun hanging uselessly in her hand. Half his face was missing, she could see the muscle shifting in his jaw as he spoke to her. “Don’t worry baby girl, daddy will make it all better.” Then he opened his mouth impossibly wide and lunged forward. Tabitha screamed and fell back, her butt painfully hitting the pavement. She was still screaming when Donny came out to check on her, she only stopped when she looked into his calm grey eyes. She didn’t see fear there, or disbelief, she saw only understanding. He knew too. That was the most horrible thing of all, for if Donny, a cool headed ex-cop believed in the Boogeyman, that meant it was all real. Far too real.

6

Tony didn’t know what to do. He wanted to help Tabitha, and the cops, and most of all Jamie Lee, he just didn’t know how to do that. How do you kill a monster? Was Jamie Lee right about the decapitation thing? Tony couldn’t actually think of anything that wouldn’t die from having its head cut off. Except cockroaches, he’d heard they could survive for a long time without a head. That they wouldn’t die until they starved to death because of not having a mouth. If that was the case with the Boogeyman then cutting its head off wouldn’t work since it didn’t seem to eat using its mouth, it just sucked up fear somehow. So where does one find information about something as completely weird as the Boogeyman? The Internet of course.

Tony snuck down to the common room of the orphanage; St. Peter’s only had one or two modern conveniences. They had a tiny TV, no cable, most of the kids had a CD Walkman, but the house itself only had an old radio. The one thing they did have was a computer, though an old one, with an Internet connection. Tony was forced to sneak because he didn’t want any of the other kids to see what he was doing, which meant coming down here after lights out.

Tony was a little worried about getting caught by the interim caregiver for the orphanage. Her name was Francis Robins and seemed like a nice enough old lady, but he’d heard stories about her. She’d been the one in charge before Miss Walter took over, and Tony had heard stuff from some of the older kids when he’d first arrived here about her. She’d been called The Witch by most everyone that knew her from before. Tony had heard that she’d been known to carry around a strap in case kids got out of line, and ‘out of line’ pretty much meant anything she didn’t like. But she seemed okay to Tony, he’d only met her very briefly after getting back from the police station. He figured with his getting caught with a sword and questioned by the police, and with her reputation, he was in for a beating. Instead she’d been kind to him, asking him if the police had treated him okay, and keeping some dinner set aside for him. In fact she was such a sweet lady that Tony couldn’t see how any of those rumors about her had survived, let alone existed in the first place. Unless Tabitha was right about this town, unless just living here really did make some grown ups go nuts on kids. If that were the case then Tony wanted to help Tabitha more than ever.

Though he felt silly doing it Tony pulled up Google and typed in ‘boogeyman’. Most of the stuff he got was from that movie they had awhile back, but there was one site of interest. It didn’t tell him much, mostly just confirmed what Tabitha had said: That this wasn’t the only Boogeyman, which is to say that they were all around the world. Unfortunately it didn’t really give him any answers about how to stop it.  Tony decided he’d keep searching; there really wasn’t much else he could do.

7

They stopped at Branwen’s favorite picnic place; Mac had to admit that it was a beautiful spot. It wasn’t in a graveyard as some might have expected from Branwen, but it did overlook one. It was at the top of a large hill overlooking Shady Pines Cemetery. The grass was lush, and green, and at this time of night the view of both the cemetery and the rest of the town behind it, was nothing short of breathtaking.

Mac laid out a blanket, and set down the wicker basket full of food he’d made up earlier. Mostly it was bread and cheese, plus a jar of olives since they were Branwen’s favorite. He also had a bottle of white wine, his favorite this time though he knew Bran liked it as well. Then there was the ring. He’d bought the ring almost 2 weeks ago, but had been too afraid to say anything to Branwen about it. There were so many things wrong about their relationship. There was the age difference. The cultural differences. Different taste in music, books, religion, and politics. Sometimes it seemed the only good thing to come out of their seeing each other was the sex. Except that really wasn’t the case. Branwen made him happy. She made him laugh when he felt like crying. She made him smile just by being in his thoughts. This was the best it had ever been in all his many years of dating. Part of him couldn’t help but think he was being a stupid, silly, man. That part of him spoke late in the night, telling him that Branwen wanted nothing more form him than a good time in the sack. It told him that he was too old for her, to stuffy, not nearly hip or cool enough. It made the ring in his pocket feel heavy, more like a weight around his neck.

He sat next to Branwen on the blanket, making small talk and barely able to keep up with that.

“Bran.” He said during a moment of mutual silence. “There’s something I’ve got to ask you, it’s kind of important.”

“Go ahead.” She said meeting his eyes and smiling a little as if to encourage him with whatever he was about to ask her.

Taking a deep breath Mac pulled the ring from his pocket and started to talk, he couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes as he spoke, it was just too much for him. “I love you Bran, I have since, well not the first time we met, but for a long time now. There is no one in this world that is in my thoughts, and my heart, as much as you are. Now I want to make it all official, I want you to be with me, and only me, for the rest of our lives. Will you merry me Branwen?”

Finally he looked up at her face, meeting her eyes. Mac wasn’t sure what he expected to see there, joy maybe, tears possibly. He was just not prepared for what he did see there: pity. “Aw Mac.” Branwen said shaking her head slightly. “Why did you have to go and do that?”

“What do you mean?” Mac asked breathlessly as she folded his hand back down over the ring.

“I mean this proposal shit. We’re just having a good time Mac, or we were.” She laughed slightly, Mac wasn’t sure if it was nervousness or just cruelty either way his heart broke at the sound. “Did you really think I wanted this? I’m still young; I’ve got, like wild oats or whatever. The point is I don’t want to be saddled with a husband, especially one who’s so much older than me.” Mac tried to keep up a brave face, tried not to show how he was truly feeling. He knew he failed when that pitying smile returned to Branwen’s face. “Did you really think that’s what I wanted? You down at the station with a big old donut stomach, while I wait for you at home and took care of our brats? Sorry Mac but that’s not me. I don’t think it’ll ever be, not with you.”

Mac quietly closed the box on the ring and returned it to his pocket. Then without a further word he collected the picnic up and packed into the car, Branwen just stood of to the side and watched looking awkward. Neither of them spoke another word as he drove her home. She got out of the car giving him a brief and final kiss on the cheek and a quiet sorry.

Mac watched her in the rear view mirror as he drove away, a lump in is throat. After a few miles he pulled over and let his tears flow. Back in front of Branwen’s house the demon smiled and reverted to it’s own more familiar shape. Adults had fears too, they were just a different style.

8

Donny pulled Tabitha back inside, sat her down and got her a warm cup of coffee. She looked into his dark eyes and saw kindness and concern warring with something else, fear maybe. Donny had been a cop ever since he’d turned eighteen. His parents had immigrated to America just before he was born, and Donny had moved here from New Mexico a few years before his retirement. His soft black hair and long ago turned grey and thin, his face was lined and he was moving with the slow care that only the arthritic used. Still Tabitha knew Donny to be tough, smart and strong of heart. She had never seen him scared of anything, until now that is.

“You know something about all this don’t you Donny?” Tabitha asked. Donny nodded but seemed unsure of what he wanted to say next.

“My nana told me stories when I was a little kid.” Donny spoke slowly and hesitantly Tabitha wasn’t sure if he was more afraid of telling his tale, or who was listening to it. “They were about a creature named El Cucuy. It is a little goblin thing that hides under beds, and in closets. It has glowing red eyes and hates children. I have not seen El Cucuy but I have heard stories, being a cop in this town you hear a lot of stories about things like this.”

“Do you know what it is?” Tabitha asked taking the old man’s hand in her own; his hands were ice cold and shaking visibly. “Do you know how to stop it?”

“I’ve heard, again from my nana, that it is a child, a kid who was killed violently. Now he is alive again, only he is not. He is like an evil spirit, like a ghost who has taken corporeal form. He comes back to punish children, to make them suffer the same fate he did.”

“That doesn’t make any sense though, why would a child who died violently want to hurt other children? Was he killed by other kids?”

“I don’t know, the legend doesn’t say.” Donny said with a sigh and a shrug. “All I know is what my nana told me. She did say something another time, not about El Cucuy but about other spirits. She told me: The dead hate the living. They are jealous of us; they want to be like us. Since they can never be like us, they instead try to make us like them. Dead just like them. My nana she was always telling me to beware of evil spirits, because they all wanted to steal our life. As for how to stop them I do not know. My nana she carried a small amount of salt with her, she said throwing salt at a spirit may scare it off, or stop it. I am not sure though I never really believed her, so I didn’t really listen to the useful parts. I just liked the spooky bits.” He smiled wryly as he said this and shrugged again.

“Well I’ll keep the salt thing in mind anyway.” Tabitha said returning Donny’s smile. “Did your nana say anything about bullets by any chance?”

“No, but you could always try silver bullets, those always work in the movies right?”

“Right. Too bad we’re not in a movie.” Donny nodded at this looking down at his shoes as if they would provide an answer. “I guess we’ll just have to believe someone up there likes us, I mean prayer always works in the movies too.”

“Too bad we’re not in a movie.” Donny said looking up from his shoes to meet Tabitha’s eyes. “You want me to walk you to your car Detective?”

“Normally I’d say you should stay here and man the phones, but I think tonight we can make an exception. Thank you Donny, thank you for everything.”

9

“Hello?” The voice said to Emmy, making more of a question than a greeting. “Who’s there?”

“My name’s Emmy.”

“I’m Frank, what are you here for Emmy? Did He send you here? The monster?”

“I’m not really sure; it might have been the monster, or maybe my daddy.”

“I think sometimes they’re the same.” The boy said almost too quiet for Emmy to make out. “I think it looks like stuff that scares us, and sometimes my daddy scared me a lot. How long have you been here Emmy?”

“A few days I guess, I was asleep for the first little bit. I feel really better now; in fact I don’t think I even need a hospital anymore. I just think they got no where else to put me.”

“Why not?”

“Because my mommy and daddy are both dead. So I don’t have anyone else to go to, so they’re leaving me here for now.”

“Just because your daddy’s dead don’t mean he won’t come back. My daddy was dead and he still came to get me.”

“He did?” Emmy asked fear making her voice sound all shaky. “How? Dead means no coming back. That’s what my daddy told me after my mommy died.”

“It’s different here. In this town the dead don’t stay dead. My daddy came back. He pushed me into the fountain. I drowned in the dirty, gross water. My daddy killed me. I came back.” Emmy leapt back away from the vent, her eyes wide with fear. “Your daddy might come back too and then so will you.”

“No.” Emmy said it came out as a whisper and there was no way anyone could’ve heard it, but the boy heard anyway.

“Maybe.” He said and though Emmy she’d now pushed herself clear across the room to the other wall she could still hear him. His voice hadn’t gotten any louder it was more like it was following her across the room. “Maybe he will, and maybe not. Either way I’m not trying to scare you, I know I am, but it’s not what I’m trying to do. I just wanna help; I don’t want you to end up like me. Though it would be nice to have someone to talk to, someone to play with. Still I don’t want you to get dead. So I’ll help if I can, but you have to do something for me. Will you Emmy? Will you do something for me?”

“What do I have to do?” Emmy asked she felt scared of the boy, but also sad for him. He sounded lonely, and almost as scared as she did.

“It’s easy…” He said and then he told her. Emmy’s eyes were wide as she sat in the dark and listened to the dead boy’s request.

10

Tony sat and read page after page of mostly useless information. There were a few pages that talked of Boogeymen in various incarnations. There were a few others that talked of monsters and demons and how to beat them. Neither were terribly specific or very helpful. He was so enthralled in what he was reading that he almost didn’t hear the creak. He did hear it though, and that might have saved his life.

He turned off the monitor and quickly slid from the chair to hide under the desk. At first he thought nothing more would happen that the creak was merely a sign that his imagination was being over worked. Even as he considered this opposing thoughts about Boogeymen and ghost children were also running through his head. He felt like he might split in half if this continued. Then the door slid silently open.

Who ever it was stood framed in the doorway. At first Tony took it to be some kind of skeleton, dredged up fro the grave to kill him, but then he got a closer look and saw it was merely the interim caregiver. Miss Robins was so painfully thin that she really did look skeletal at times, but that if anything meant there was less to be afraid of. After all Tony was young and fit, how much danger could he be in from a frail old lady? That’s when he saw the knife.

It was a big old butcher knife from the kitchen Miss Robins clutched it tightly in her withered hand. She stepped into the room and looked around; Tony could barely make her head out as it swiveled in the gloom.

“Little boys should be in bed.” She said her voice sounding cracked and strained with age. “Naughty little boys will be punished.” She hefted the knife as she spoke, threatening without even seeing him. Tony didn’t say a word; he tried not to make a sound at all. Miss Robins took a cursory glance around the room but did not see him. She growled softly under her breath, then turned and left the room. Tony breathed a sigh of relief; maybe the rumors about The Witch hadn’t been so far off after all.

11

Tabitha finally pulled onto her street and headed for her house. It seemed like it had been eons since she had left her work that morning. Now she was looking forward to popping a frozen dinner into the microwave and eating it while watching dumb sitcoms on TV, then a long hot shower and bed. Maybe she’d even skip the food and shower.

Then Tabitha was pulling into her driveway, she saw the figure sitting on her front stoop and immediately felt her heart lurch with fear. She stopped her car, pulled her gun from its holster, and slowly eased her way out of her car. As she did so the figure looked up.

Mac did not look good. His eyes were red and puffy, as if he were about to cry, or as if he had just finished. “Tabitha?” He asked unable to quite make her out standing in the dark. “Is that you?”

“Yeah Mac, its me.” Tabitha said sliding her gun back into its holster. That made two times she’d pulled her piece on an innocent person. This Boogeyman business was starting to make her paranoid. “What’s wrong?”

“I need, well I guess I need someone to talk to. Normally I’d go to Bran when I need to talk but I can’t this time.”

“Okay.” Tabitha walking up and putting her hand on his shoulder as he gazed up at her. “Do you want to come inside and I can make us some coffee?”

“I’d rather have something stronger if it’s all the same to you.”

“Okay, but I’ve got nothing here like that. You know me Mac, I’m just not a big drinker.”

“We could go to The Stone, if it’s okay with you that is.”

Tabitha couldn’t help but smile, here Mac was looking like he belonged on suicide watch and he was still concerned about how she felt. “Sure, it’s cool with me. Come on, I’ll drive.” Tabitha offered him a hand and pulled him up from where he sat on her stoop. As he rose he pulled her into a hug.

“Thanks Tabitha.” He said squeezing her tightly. “I know we don’t know each other that well, so thanks.”

“Anytime Mac.” Tabitha said returning the hug. “I guess we don’t know each other that well yet. For instance I didn’t know you were such a big softy.”

Mac pulled out of the hug with a small chuckle. “Yeah I guess it’s not a side I show on the job much.”

“Guess not.” Tabitha said returning his grin, then she pulled her car keys from her pocket and shook them a little. “Let’s get going, I do want to sleep eventually tonight.”

12

Tony waited as long as he could listening at the door for the old lady with the butcher knife. This was nuts, just a few hours ago she was a sweet little grandmother type. Now she was more like Norman Bates’ mother, or Norman Bates, or something. Tony had never actually seen that movie, and he never would if he didn’t get out of this house.

He’d tried the windows in this room but they had both been locked. The door was just a quick jaunt down the hall, only a few seconds of running and he’d be outside. Outside was another story though. Though the St. Peter’s Orphanage was technically within town limits it wasn’t by much. After the front door there was a great, big, long, run across the front lawn. Then it was a long lonely road into town. The whole trip usually took Tony over half an hour of walking. Of course he’d be running for his life this time, so one way or the other this trip was going to be a lot shorter. Taking a deep breath Tony reached for the door, and stopped as her heard voices outside in the hall.

“What are you doing here?” Asked old lady Robins. “You shouldn’t have come here, I rule this place.”

“Perhaps.” Said a familiar voice. “But it is still my home. It has been my home for a long time, and will be my home long after you are gone.” Tony eased the door open a little, his curiosity overtaking his concern for his own safety. He could see two figures in the hall, Miss Robins and a tall blue haired man. The man was pale as a corpse and thin as a skeleton; his hair was lank, long and snake-like, like a medusa. He also appeared to have razor sharp fangs and glowing read eyes. That wasn’t the scary thing though, at least not for Tony at least. The scary thing was the OTHER person Tony saw when he looked at the tall man, he also saw Frankie. The boy stood on the same spot as the creepy man, occupying the same space. Tony knew that was impossible on many levels, but his eyes persisted in showing him that sight anyway.

Suddenly, though he hadn’t made a sound, or even moved, both figures turned towards him.

“There’s the naughty boy.” Miss Robins said smiling widely. “I knew you were here somewhere. Such a good hide and go seeker. Now you stay right there while Miss Robins finishes with her uninvited guest, and then she’ll take good care of you.”

“Tony is mine.” The blue haired one said solidifying into just one entity. “And so is this town. I am giving you one last chance to leave harlot, before I finish this, and you, forever.”

Miss Robins just laughed in response, her voice becoming deeper and heavier. It sounded nothing like an old woman’s laugh, nothing like a human being for that matter. It sounded like nothing on this earth in fact, or at least like nothing that belonged here. Tony ran, neither being paid him any mind, but Tony didn’t even realize, he just kept running. He didn’t stop until he was well within town limits. Then he realized he didn’t know where to go from here. So he sat down on the front steps of the Wyattville Public Library and waited.

Tony wasn’t really sure what he was waiting for, morning? Death? Jamie Lee? Tabitha? Frankie? He sat until for quite awhile making mental lists of what could be coming and shivered in the dark.

13

Tabitha and Mac sat in a dim corner of the bar sharing a pitcher of beer and the darkness. Mac hadn’t actually done any talking yet, he hadn’t said a word in the car on the way here, and was currently doing nothing more than staring into his beer stein. Tabitha didn’t really know what to do, she wasn’t very good at getting friends to talk to her, suspects yes, friends not so much. Finally Mac looked up at her and sighed.

“I asked Branwen to marry me tonight.” He said pulling a small velvet box from his jacket pocket. He opened it revealing a small silver ring with a tiny red jewel and Celtic writing on the band. “I know it’s not the usual thing a woman wants for her engagement ring, but Bran saw one just like it once online and loved it. I ordered it for her a couple weeks ago, I just hadn’t gotten up the nerve to give it to her. Until tonight that is.”

“I’m guessing since we’re here it didn’t really go so well.”

“You could say that.” Mac said with a humorless laugh. “She said that we weren’t in that kind of relationship, she said we were just fooling around, that it…we, our relationship didn’t mean anything. She did everything but call me a doddering old man, and she may’ve done that too, I stopped hearing her after a while.” Mac let his head sink at this point and began contemplating his beer mug again.

“I’m sorry Mac.” Tabitha reached over and gripped his hand. “I wish there was more that I could say. I would’ve thought Branwen felt the same. I guess you never know.” Tabitha felt woefully inadequate, she just wasn’t good at offering solace to friends. It was always an area where she felt she just couldn’t measure up. She was sure had the situation been reversed, had Mac been trying to comfort her after an emotional battering, he would’ve done much better. As it was Tabitha could only sit, gripping his hand tightly and watching him try to pull his broken heart back together. Meanwhile his ring sat alone, forgotten, and collecting dust on the corner of the table.

Homecoming

“Where do you find love?
In books and priests?
In gods above? Or in your
Fear that it will cease?”

-          Luxt, Cease

1

Tabitha dropped a slightly drunker, but less depressed, Mac off at his house. Despite her lack of skill in the area of emotional support her just being there with him seemed to help immensely. It was with a sigh of relief that she pulled into her driveway again. Sleep was the only thing on her mind now, she’d eaten a little at the bar, and the shower could wait till the morning.

There was no one waiting on her stoop this time, so Tabitha let herself in. She didn’t even glance at her mail piled up on the floor inside the front door. She just stepped over it and headed deeper into the house. She almost ignored the flashing light on her answering machine too, if she had maybe things would’ve turned out differently, but that’s not how things happened.

Tabitha pressed the play button absentmindedly as she took off her shoes and draped her jacket over the couch, as the message reached the end though she was running for the door, shoes hanging untied off her feet. There was precious little time left.

A robotic voice sounded out first, saying that the call had come in at 5:23 pm earlier that day. Then the actual message started.

“Hi Tabs.” Branwen’s voice played on Tabitha’s answering machine. Judging from the background noise she was calling from her car. It was strange to hear her sounding happy when only a few hours later she was destined to break her lover’s heart.  “I was looking through that stuff you gave me and at first I didn’t really see much of anything. Then I started getting the same things you did, like too many crimes for our sleepy little town, and way too many involving kids. So I decided to dig a little deeper. I remember Mac saying that he’d looked for similar crimes to the ones we’ve been having around here. You know similar MO’s in case the killer had been working his badness somewhere else. Well I thought that if you were right about this town then maybe the answer wasn’t to look elsewhere but like whenwhere, or elsewhen, or… well you know what I mean right? I mean I was looking back and there were some crimes that matched ours, only they were like thirty years ago. One of them was yours Tabs, or rather your dads. Some of those files were sealed, but I think I still got the gist of it all and I just wanted to say, well don’t worry. It wasn’t you, at least if I’m right it wasn’t you that time, and it isn’t a kid now. I’m getting all flustered, I guess ‘because I’m kind of excited right now. The point I was getting to was this: I found a picture of one of the crime scenes from back then, a school teacher that had been kidnapping and torturing kids. He’d been killed, clawed and stabbed and bitten to death, just like our vics. Only thing is it isn’t the corpse that’s got me all riled up, it’s something in the background, or rather someONE. One of the spectators it looks like-“

“Hello Branwen.” Said a voice in the background. “Your telling stories out of school. Not very nice young lady.” Tabitha strained to hear the voice, she couldn’t make it out. Or rather she could, but it was as if there was a second voice beneath the first one. It was that second voice that Tabitha desperately wanted to make out. That’s when the message stopped. Tabitha ejected the tape and ran from the house. She had to find Mac, if what was on the tape was real then Branwen was in deep trouble.

2

Most of what the little dead boy had asked her to do scared Emmy, but if Frank was right then she was in danger being here. Some of the stuff Tabitha has said too made Emmy feel scared about being here. Frank had told her that she should sneak out, that she couldn’t trust the policeman watching the door, that she couldn’t trust anyone. The question was how could she sneak out? She was just a little kid, and the policeman outside was a grown up, a grown up with a gun. Emmy knelt by the door, watching the man’s feet though the crack underneath it.

Then she heard footsteps from behind her, inside the room. Emmy spun around and got to her feet in one graceful movement. A boy stood in the middle of her hospital room, he looked to be about her age. He was shorter than her though, and much paler. Somewhere in the back of her mind Emmy realized that he was so pale because he was dead. She was looking at Frank, even though he hadn’t said a word to her she knew that.

“Frank?” She asked in a whisper, moving away from the door so no one would hear her speaking. “Are you Frank?”

The boy didn’t speak, he just nodded sadly to her. He had short brown hair, it was smooshed down against his head as if he’d just gotten out of the shower. In fact all of him looked wet, it made Emmy think at first that it was raining outside. Then Emmy remembered what the boy said about how he’d died. He was wet ‘cause he drowned. Emmy didn’t feel scared seeing him like this though, instead she felt sad. Was he always like this she wondered cold and wet and sad and alone. Emmy thought maybe he was, but even though she felt real bad for him she knew that she didn’t want to join him, not anytime soon.

“What do you want me to do?” Emmy asked moving closer to the little dead boy. “I don’t know how to get out of here.”

The boy again didn’t speak, he just held a finger up to his mouth like he was saying shush, then he pointed towards the door.

Emmy turned to look at the door and as she did it made a click sound and opened just a bit. Quietly she snuck up to the door and looked through the crack. The police man was still standing there, he looked bored and annoyed. Then something caught his attention, and he looked disgusted instead, disgusted and kind of scared. Suddenly the police man ran off down the hall towards the nurse’s station. Emmy could see Frank, he was out in the hall, by the stairs, waving her on. She didn’t need him to tell her though, she knew now was her chance, maybe her last chance. Because Emmy knew something else as well, she knew there was something in the room with her. Something scary and cold and icky. She knew it was behind her, she knew without even looking around. Emmy ran for the stairs as fast as her little legs would carry her.

3

Tony had somehow fallen asleep as he sat on the cold, hard, concrete steps of the library. He awoke with a start and looked around. Tony was unsure what time it was, all he knew was that it was still night, probably late at night. He rubbed his eyes and stood, stretching his sore, stiff, muscles. He almost instantly regretted it as he stepped away from the building and started to shiver in the cold night wind.

Then suddenly all thoughts of the cold left him, all thoughts of pain and discomfort were gone. All that was left was the glimpse of blonde hair he’d seen disappearing around the corner at the end of the street. He’d know that hair anywhere, long and blonde, the exact same blonde as Jamie Lee’s hair. Tony ran, calling out her name despite the lateness of the hour. As he reached the corner he saw her again, this time disappearing down a dark, tree covered street. He saw more of her this time, but still not her face. He was sure though, sure in his heart, that it was Jamie Lee. He ran after her again and found himself at the end of the darkened lane. The rusted sign at the end of the road identified it as Hemlock Avenue. Tony had lived in the town of Wyattville all his life and never seen this neighborhood, let alone this street. There were no houses here, except a big flat stone structure at the end of Hemlock, it was covered in vines and completely dark. Tony could see no more than that, he’d have to get closer for that, he’d have to walk down this dark, disused path. Tony didn’t want to do that, but that was where Jamie Lee had gone, down Hemlock, possibly to the creepy looking building. So that was where Tony was going to go. He couldn’t let her down now.

Taking a deep breath and gathering his courage Tony stepped from the dark night into the darker pathway beneath the trees that was Hemlock Avenue, to anyone watching it would’ve been as if he’d disappeared not just from sight, but from existence entirely.

The darkness swallowed Tony whole, he couldn’t see even a inch in front of his face, he thought for a moment that he’d have to turn around and go look for something to light his way when suddenly a soft glow appeared ahead of him. A light turned on at the end of the street, lighting up the front of the building that Tony was heading towards. He still couldn’t tell what the building was used for, it looked like a prison or a hospital, or some weird combination of the two. It was with this thought that Tony reached the front gates of the building and saw the words written there:

Starkweather Sanitarium

Est. 1818

“Well this ain’t good.” Tony said as he pushed open the rusted gate.

4

Tabitha had been knocking on the door for a good five minutes before Mac finally answered. He was still dressed in the clothes he’d been wearing before, a plain white dress shirt and grey slacks, but his hair was mussed and he looked as if he’d been asleep. Which considering the hour and the state in which Tabitha had left him he probably had been.

“Tabitha?” Mac asked sounding more confused and worried then upset by the unexpected late night visit. “Is everything okay? What are you doing here?”

“I think, well I think something weird is going on.” Tabitha said trying to explain it all to Mac seemed impossible. In the short time that Tabitha had known him she had seen he wasn’t the type to believe in fanciful things like demons, monsters, or the Boogeyman. Still she had to try, so she said the only thing that could get him moving. “I think Branwen might be in trouble.”

“Come in.” Mac said opening the door and stepping aside. “I’ll get my coat and shoes.”

5

It was dark in the stairwell, and Emmy was scared. She figured the dark wasn’t good, and not just ‘cause it was scary in the dark, but because there was always light in the stairs. Her daddy told her even if all the power goes out the stairs had special lights that were run on batteries, so that people could get out of the building if there was an emergency. There wasn’t an emergency right now, and all the lights were on everywhere, so why, Emmy wondered, were all the lights off in here.

Then she felt the same icky cold feeling she’d felt earlier in her room. That feeling that told her she wasn’t alone. That there was someone, or something else in here with her. That maybe what was in here with her wanted to hurt her, maybe even worse.

So Emmy ran, she ran blindly down the stairs. She knew it was dangerous to run down the stairs in the dark, but she figured it was more dangerous to stay in the dark with whatever was with her there.

Emmy finally reached the ground floor, she knew it couldn’t possibly have taken that long she’d only been on the third floor of the hospital. She strode quickly across the cold concrete floor and reached for the metal push bar on the fire door leading outside.

“Emmy.” The voice came from inside the stairwell, somewhere in the dark. It was a child’s voice. It was impossible to tell from where, it could’ve come from up near the top, or right next to the frightened little girl. “Don’t leave me Emmy. I want to play.” At first Emmy thought it was Frank, but he didn’t make her all woogy inside.

“Me too Emmy.” Came another voice, also a kid’s voice but different from the first, and from a different place in the dark. “We want you to stay with us.”

“Here in the dark.” Came a third voice, this one sounded even younger than the other two. “Here in the dark with us forever.”

“Please Emmy….stay….don’t go…don’t ever leave…play with us…hide and go seek….they won’t find you…no one will find you…ever.” The voices, seemingly hundreds of them spoke out from all around Emmy in a tornado of cold dead children’s voices. Emmy had just a moment to wonder how many children had died in this hospital over the years and then she ran, pushing through the doors and out into the cold night air.

6

Tony walked slowly up the short path to the front doors of the sanitarium. He pushed them open slowly and stepped inside, the place was a wreck. There was dirt and grime everywhere. It smelled of mold and rot. It smelled of death, like something had crawled in here to die. Something big.

As Tony walked he saw small footprints leading from the door further into the decrepit building. At first the prints weren’t too small, just about Jamie Lee’s size, then the seemed to shrink until they were the size and shape of a child’s shoes. Not only were they smaller, they were wet. As if the kid in question had just come in out of the rain, or from a fountain. Tony knew it was dumb, first of all Frankie was a good kid, he wouldn’t really want to hurt Tony. Second Tony had outweighed the kid by like 100 pounds, so even if the kid wanted to hurt Tony he definitely couldn’t win in a fair fight. Third Frankie’s feet hadn’t even gotten wet when he’d drowned, only his head had gone under, and not even all of it. But Tony couldn’t help thinking maybe death changed things a little, maybe Frankie was drowning forever, maybe there wasn’t anything but water in the afterlife for Frankie. Maybe death made you stronger. Maybe Frankie wasn’t such a nice kid anymore.

Tony heard a sound behind and spun around, a scream rising from his throat as he expected the dead, drowned, little kid to be standing behind him with a machete or something.

Jamie Lee stood behind him, a sheepish grin on her face. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” Jamie Lee said. She looked too good to be true, she also looked utterly normal. As if they weren’t standing in a creepy insane asylum in the middle of the night possibly being haunted by a dead kid. Jamie Lee was wearing faded blue jeans, and a plain white t-shirt with Guess written across the front. “Where the hell were you going? I called out when I saw you walk in here after me but you were like ignoring me or something.”

“I wasn’t ignoring you Jamie Lee. I was just following these weird footprints.” He turned pointing them out to the girl. They were gone, no Jamie Lee size prints, not damp little boy prints, just dusty, dirty floor. “I swear they were here.” He turned back and looked behind them where he’d been walking, but the only prints there were his own and Jamie Lee’s. “I swear…”

“It’s okay.” Jamie Lee said stepping up and wrapping her arms around him. “It’s this town, it fucks with you something fierce.” She stepped back and looked up at him, there was a smudge of dirt across her cheek bone and for some reason it made Tony’s heart thump a little faster. “Come on I’ve been staying in the chapel, I figure it might keep us safe you know?”

Jamie Lee smiled at Tony and took his hand. Together they walked back the way they’d come and walked into the sanitarium’s old chapel.

7

As they drove to the station Tabitha played the phone message for Mac, she watched his face shift from confusion, to worry, to outright fear.

“When did you get this?” Mac asked, his worried face lit by the dashboard lights. “When did she call?”

“According to my machine sometime around 5:30 tonight.” Tabitha answered here flicking from the road to Mac and back again.

“That’s impossible.” Mac said back to looking confused. “I talked with Bran at, well it must have been at least eight, probably closer to nine. So she must be safe.”

“And she just never mentioned being attacked in her car?”

“Her car…” Mac let the words hang in the air for a moment. “When I went to see Bran earlier I parked on the street, because that’s what I always do, but I didn’t really have to this time, because her car wasn’t there. I just kind of assumed it was in the shop or something, I wasn’t really thinking about her damned car at the time, but it was brand new so it should’ve been running fine.”

“But it wasn’t in the driveway. I’d sat it was somewhere between the station and my house then. I think that’s where she was heading when she called, she said she wanted to show me some kind of picture.”

“We have to turn around.” Mac said as they pulled into the stations parking lot. Tabitha felt a tiny twinge of fear as she saw the empty lot, worrying that she’d see a lone figure standing at the far end of the lot. No one was there though. “We have to back track along her trail. What if she’s hurt?”

“Don’t worry Mac.” Tabitha said making a wide turn around the lot and heading back towards the road. “We’ll find her, she’ll be okay.” Even as Tabitha said the words they felt empty, Tabitha wasn’t sure that Branwen was okay at all. Tabitha wasn’t sure any of them would be okay ever again.

8

Emmy stepped through the door, childish cat calls, tears, and laughter followed her outside. As soon as her foot hit the pavement outside the hospital door though the voices stopped. They didn’t fall off as a real group of voices would, stopping one by one. Instead they cut off instantly as if a button had been pressed. They all stopped in mid-word, or mid-laugh, or whatever. The quietness scared Emmy almost as much as all the sounds had, but at least the weird icky fear feeling was gone from inside her.

Emmy turned and began to walk away from the building, but she almost tripped over something in her path. It was a small pink knap sack. Emmy crouched down and looked closer at it, realizing that it was actually HER small pink back pack. It had the big smiley face sticker her daddy had gotten her to cheer her up when her mommy had gotten sick. It had her name written in black magic marker on the inside, so she wouldn’t confuse someone else’s stuff for her’s at school.

Looking further inside Emmy found a set of clothes, jeans, socks and her favorite blue Cookie Monster t-shirt. Also in the bag was her small white running shoes, and a small box. The box was about the size of Emmy’s tiny hand, it was all black with a black ribbon on it. Emmy was curious, but couldn’t open it now. It had a little tag on it that said:

For Emmy:

Don’t Open Yet,

You’ll know when.

-Frank

Emmy didn’t know when, she wasn’t even sure how she was supposed to know it. All she knew is that now wasn’t the time. She grabbed the bag and ran off the path and into the bushes. Stepping back out fully clothed a few seconds later Emmy wasn’t really sure what to do now. She hadn’t seen Frank since she escaped from the room, and she didn’t exactly have a plan. At least not till she saw the blue glow. It was way down at the end of the street, several blocks away. Even though it was far away Emmy could still tell what it was, Cookie Monster, or more specific a Cookie Monster night light. Just like the kind Tabitha had said she had when she was a little kid. Maybe Tabitha had somehow put it there so Emmy would know where to go now. Emmy knew she wasn’t supposed to cross the street without a grown up around, but she figured this was probably an exception. Not crossing the street would be more dangerous if the scary things found her. Emmy started walking, not as fast as she could, she was being careful, but pretty fast. Soon she stood in front of the light, it was indeed a little blue plastic Cookie Monster that was all lit up. It was plugged into a small electric socket at the bottom of a lamp post. Cookie Monster was looking up at her with his big goofy, googly eyes and smiling, his big furry blue arm was outstretched pointing off to the left. Emmy smiled a little, Cookie Monster always had that effect on her.

Figuring Cookie Monster wouldn’t lead her in the wrong direction she walked to the left. Soon enough she saw another one, this one was pointing to the left too. She followed the Cookie Monsters for what seemed like hours, and soon Emmy found herself standing at the end of a short dark street. She didn’t like the looks of the street, it looked spooky. But there he was again, waiting for her at the end of the street, Cookie Monster. Emmy wasn’t sure how this one was lit up, none of the street lights were, but she could see it clear enough. It was pointing this time, instead it had its arms out to the side as if it wanted to give Emmy a big fuzzy hug. Emmy stepped slowly into the darkened laneway, she was trying to be brave, but soon enough her courage gave out and she was running. She ran right up to the Cookie Monster light and grabbed the gate it was attached to. It was a big metal gate, it was old and rusty and dirty, but when Emmy pushed on it it opened easy. She saw another light up ahead, it wasn’t Cookie Monster this time, just a regular light, but to Emmy it looked way better than walking back down the scary, dark street behind her. Even if it was in that old creepy looking building.

9

Tabitha and Mac drove back along the most likely path from the station to Tabitha’s house. Tabitha had just taken this route not so long ago, but she hadn’t really been watching that carefully, she’d had other things on her mind. She was drive past a spot just like any other when Mac told her to stop. Mac was out the door even before her car had come to a complete stop, Tabitha followed soon after. There in a clump of trees at the side of the road was a small, black VW bug. It was one of the new ones, and like so many others on the road, but Tabitha recognized it even knowing Branwen for only a short time. There was a small skull and crossbones decal on the back trunk, and a bumper sticker that said: ‘Got Goth?’ The car had collided with a thick tree, and its entire front end was caved in.

Mac was already at the driver side looking through the window and calling Branwen’s name out. She wasn’t in there though, Tabitha could tell even though she was further away from the car.

Mac turned back to her looking lost. “She’s not here.”

Tabitha examined the ground near the wrecked car, there were two small impressions in the soft earth near the driver’s door, they lead in a thin line back towards the road. “No and she didn’t walk away either.” Tabitha told Mac as she pointed to the drag marks. “I think we need to find her, and very soon.” Mac just nodded and stuck his head back in through the open door.

He stepped back with a manila folder in his hand. “I think this is the picture Branwen was talking about, look.” He pulled a picture out of the folder and held it in the light coming from inside the car. It was just as Branwen had said in her phone message, a crime scene photo. In the center of the picture was the body of a short, skinny, bald man. He’d been torn up; most of his torso was a red bloody mess. The corpse held her attention so well that it took Tabitha a few moments to do what Bran said and look at the background. There was a crowd of gawkers in the far back of the photo.

“Is there a magnifying glass or something?” Tabitha asked looking past Mac into the little car. She was hoping Branwen had been prepared in case to show Tabitha the photo. Her hopes were answered as Mac handed her a large magnifying glass from the passenger seat, luckily it hadn’t been damaged in the crash. Tabitha applied the magnifying glass to the picture and one by one checked the crowd in the background, soon enough she found who Branwen had been talking about.

“Oh my God.” Tabitha said pushing the photo over to Mac. He gasped as he saw what she was showing him.

“How can that be?” He asked more confused and lost than before. “She looks exactly the same.” In the crowd watching the police work over the crime scene stood Jamie Lee, looking exactly as she did now. “It must be her mother or…”

“Mac listen to yourself, you’re trying to make logical sense of something that isn’t logical. Haven’t you got it yet, this town, all these things that have been happening, you can’t explain them, they aren’t logical. There’s something strange going on here, and if we don’t figure it all out, and soon, Branwen’s as good as dead.” Tabitha realized she was shouting and softened her voice for the last part. “If she isn’t already.”

Mac though about it for only a second before slowly nodding his head. “Okay then. What do we do?”

10

Tony was slightly in the lead, Jamie Lee’s warm hand in his own. It didn’t take long to backtrack to the front of the old mental hospital and from the he could see signs pointing them in the direction of the chapel. Jamie Lee wasn’t saying much, but Tony couldn’t stop talking. He wasn’t really saying much of anything, just talking to fill the air with sounds, and to cover his own nervousness. Mostly he was just glad Jamie Lee was back, he’d never met anyone like her, and she was the first person who liked all the same things he did. Tony knew if they just got through this they’d be together forever.

They came to the thick wooden doors of the chapel and Tony pushed through first to make sure everything was okay. He soon saw that everything definitely not okay. The chapel was a dirty and grimy. It wasn’t really that large a room and the only difference between it and the rest of the place as far as Tony could see was the large cross on the back wall. That and the woman in the middle of the room. She was older than either he or Jamie Lee, and dressed all in black.

“What the hell?” Tony asked no one in particular. He released Jamie Lee’s hand and ran over to the prone woman. She was unconscious, but alive and breathing just fine. Her hands were tied behind her back with an old greasy piece of rope. “Jamie Lee what happened here? Who is this?”

Tony turned back and looked at Jamie Lee, but she wasn’t standing there anymore. A creature stood in her place. It had Jamie Lee’s body, it was wearing Jamie Lee’s clothes, but its face seemed to be melting. Tony screamed as the creature moved towards him.

11

Cat said goodnight to her mom and walked into her room. If she’d known she was going to have company she probably wouldn’t have worn her Modo-Kun pajamas. He sat on her bed as if it were is own, his blue pin-stripe suit perfectly crisp, his long blue hair cascading down around his face.

“Hello Miss Cat.” The blue haired dude said with a big toothy grin. “Please don’t yell I don’t want your mother to know I am hear.”

“Neither do I Blue.” Cat said as she closed the bedroom door behind her. “I’m not supposed to have guys in my room, and I’m definitely not supposed to have them in my bed.”

Blue chuckled softly at this and rose from her bed. “Is that better madam?”

“Much, thank you, and you can call me Cat, everyone else does.”

“Ah, but I am not everyone else. Where I am from it is not proper to refer to a young woman in such a familiar manner.”

“Where are you from exactly? From what my friends say it sounds like it might be Hell.”

“Well that is not exactly the case. I can not tell you the whole story or any of it actually. I am prevented from doing so as much as I would have it otherwise.”

“Why can’t you tell me? What do you mean prevented?”

“I am not a prosaic creature by any means, and my limitations as such are not prosaic. That is really all I can tell you on this subject.”

“You mean since you’re like all magic and stuff you have magical limits on what you can say?”

“Yes.”

“That sucks.”

“Yes. Though now that I have met you my world is a much brighter place. For some reason I cannot comprehend at the moment you can see through the veil that normally changes my visage into something people fear. You do not have the sense of dread that most do when I am near them. There is something special about you young Miss Cat. Something very special indeed, I would like to investigate this further, but alas there are more pressing issues at hand.”

“Like what?”

“Like a young gentleman who is in your circle of friends, an Antony.”

“Tony? What’s the matter with Tony?”

“I cannot tell you any specifics; suffice to say he is in grave danger. What I can tell you is where to go to find him, and what you can do to save him.”

“What’s that?”

“You are friends with another young man I believe? A young master William?”

“Willy boy? Yeah we’re tight, I mean were not like, you know, we’ve never like…”

“I know my dear. I’ve no doubt that you are a young lady above reproach.”

“Yeah, well. What about Willy?”

“He will help you in this, but you must be careful both of you, the one you will be fighting is very powerful.”

“Then why are you sending us? We’re just a couple of kids? Why don’t you take care of it yourself?”

“I am not permitted to, for the same reasons I can not be completely candid with you. I would though go and save Antony myself, except the room they are in is protected from me somehow. So I need you Miss…That is Cat, I need you Cat. Antony needs you.”

“Say no more.” Cat paused for a moment then broke out in a grin. “Well say a little more, like what I have to do.”

Blue spoke for a while longer afterwards he promised to watch over her, William, and Antony. Then he exited through her closet. After poking her head out into the hall to make sure her mother was still sleeping Cat pulled on some black jeans, her favorite Kittie t-shirt, and her leather jacket. Then she snuck out her window and started running towards Willy’s place. As far as she knew time might already be up for Tony, she had to get to where he was and soon.

12

“What do we do next?” Tabitha asked Mac feeling a little panicked. “How the Hell should I know? We’ve got this creature, and I guess it can change shape, and it’s been hiding right under our nose, looking like a teenage girl. I suppose we could go back to the orphanage or…” Tabitha stopped talking as a thought struck her. She pulled the small doll out of her purse.

“What is it?” Mac asked.

“I think Branwen gave it to me, it definitely looked like her hand was behind it. There was a note attached to it, it said ‘In case of trouble pull pin.’”

“What do you mean you ‘think’ Bran gave it to you? Even if she did how could a doll help us?”

“Well it didn’t exactly say from Branwen, it just said B.”

“B?” Mac said sounding frustrated. “That could be from anyone Bob, Billy, Beelzebub! Anyone!”

“I know that Mac, especially considering the other thing.”

“What other thing?”

“It moves. When I saw…well I saw something the creature and it moved in my purse. I didn’t even think about it then, but I think somehow Branwen did make it, and I think it’s supposed to help. I think it somehow reacts to this thing.”

“Well I guess we should pull the pin then.” Mac said gesturing to the doll.

Tabitha lifted the doll back into view but it had changed. There was now a note stuck on the end of the pin, it said:

Not yet.

Look homeward Angel.

-B

“What does that mean?” Mac asked getting more confused by the moment. “The house where you lived as a kid?”

“I don’t think so.” Tabitha replied sounding scared. “I only lived there for a few months before…my father was killed.” Tabitha thought she knew exactly where B meant her to go. “There was somewhere else though; somewhere I lived for almost five years. Somewhere the Boogeyman definitely knows about.”

“Where’s that?”

“I guess I’ve got to show you. Come on.”

13

Tony couldn’t really remember what had happened, all he knew is that his mind broke at the sight of…well something. Now he was somewhere in the rambling halls of the insane asylum and he had no idea where he was or what to do next. There was something about Jamie Lee and another girl, or woman. Was it Cat? No someone who had reminded him of Cat though. Were they in danger? Yeah that sounded about right. So if Jamie Lee and this other chick were in danger what was he doing here?

Tony got up or at least he tried, his side her a lot. He looked down at the side of his light blue t-shirt; there was a dark stain on it. He lifted his shirt and could just barely make out five ragged wounds cut into his side.

“Shit.” Tony said quietly. He tried to get to his feet again and this time, with the support of a nearby wall, managed it. He stood for a moment catching his breath, getting his energy back. He wasn’t sure how badly he was injured but he figured it must be pretty bad if just standing up winded him.

With as much effort as he could muster he started making his way to the door of this room, it was only a few feet away, but it seemed to take far too long to make it across the distance. It also cost him far more energy than it should have, sweat poured down, his muscles quivered in his legs.

Finally he was at the door; it was a heavy looking metal door, with a small window in the left corner. The window’s glass was cracked, and had a wire mesh running through it. Tony looked through it, making sure the coast was clear. No one appeared to be in the hall, he couldn’t really see much of it though. So he held his breath and listened. Nothing, no sounds at all coming from the hallway.

Wincing slightly Tony braced himself against the wall and turned the knob. Nothing, it didn’t move at all. The door was either locked or jammed, either way Tony was stuck and Jamie Lee was alone.

With a small whimper of despair Tony released his hold on the wall and slumped forward against the door. With a loud crash and a large cloud of dust Tony and the door ended up flat on the floor. He looked back, the door may have been locked but with the hinges not being on it that didn’t really matter much.

Tony chuckled slightly under his breath and then his head plopped forward onto the dirty door and he was unconscious again.

14

William was almost asleep; he was in that state of fuzzy half sleep where your brain translates external events into dreams. That is probably why Cat was standing naked before him, she was beautiful. She was also an elf, and her purple hair was her natural shade. William could plainly see that, he could plainly see everything, a fact that made him blush even in his dream.

“William.” She spoke in a whisper and though she stood on the other side of a wide grassy meadow he could hear her as if she were whispering in his ear. “I need you William, please.”

“Willy boy!” Cat was really there, really whispering in his real ear. “Willy wake up I need your help man.”

“Cat?” He asked confused and still half asleep. “What the Hell? How did you get in here?”

“Through the window.” She said pointing at his bedroom window, it was a very small window and he was surprised she’d been able to fit through it. His face must’ve shown some of that surprise because Cat was suddenly smiling with amusement. “What? I’m wicked flexible. Ask anyone at school. Sometimes having ‘that’ kind of rep can be a good thing too.” She winked at William, then got up and started rummaging through the chest at the end of his bed. “Come on, get up, we need to get moving Tony needs our help and fast.”

“Um…What? What happened to Tony?”

Cat looked around the open top of the chest and quirked an eyebrow as if to ask why William was being so slow. “He’s in danger; we have got to get a move on Willy boy. Hurry up.”

“Oh. Okay, um, but Cat, I’m kind of naked under here.”

This time Cat did not poke her head around the chest’s lid. “I know I saw…I realized that when I was trying to wake you up. That’s why I’m still looking in this damn trunk. Do you really think it took me that long to find what I wanted? I’m not dumb Willy.”

“Right, sorry.” William said finally getting out of bed and quickly pulling some clothes on. He randomly grabbed jeans and a shirt. “What are you looking for anyway?” William said when he was fully clothed.

“This.” Cat stepped around the trunk holding one of William’s large swords in her hand. She held up a second one. “Got one for you too Willy.”

“Ok then, what are we planning to use these on?”

“A monster, that’s really all I can tell you ‘cause that’s all I know.”

“Alright.” William said grabbing his coat. “Let’s go then, lead the way.”

“Just like that? I sneak in here in the middle of the night and say: ‘Hey let’s go maybe die fighting a monster.’ And you’re all ‘giddy up’?”

“Pretty much.” William said nodding. “Well for you anyway.” William added wish a downward look and a blush.

Cat just smiled and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Thanks Willy, um, William. You’re the best.” Then she stepped away from him and started climbing through the window again. A goofy grin spread across William’s face, and his blush deepened. First she’d kissed him and now he got to watch her butt as she struggled through his tiny window. Finally she made it through and leaned back in to grab the swords off of him and give him a hand through the window. He grasped her Cat’s hand and she started to pull him through the window. That’s when she spoke again. “And I’m NOT your ‘Elf Princess’.”

15

It didn’t take long to drive over to Hemlock Avenue, but it seemed to take forever for both Mac and Tabitha. Though Tabitha hadn’t seen this street, or the facility that lay at the end of it, in many years she still remembered exactly how to get here.

“Starkweather?” Mac asked sounding truly surprised. “I knew you stayed in a state run facility as a kid but I didn’t know it was Starkweather, I guess I should have figured.”

“Yeah well, when I told a bunch of people the Boogeyman killed my daddy most of them decided I’d had a break with reality. My mom was one of those people, she put me in here. By the time I was ‘well’ again mom was dead. I went and stayed with some family out west. But yeah as far as home goes for this town I spent way longer here than at either my childhood home or my current address. Plus it seems like a very Boogeyman style place, you know what I mean?”

“Oh yeah.” Mac said sounding a little spooked. “I definitely know what you mean.”

They got out of the car and walked towards the closed down mental hospital. “What happened to this place anyway?” Tabitha asked keeping her voice hushed for no good reason she could think of. Even if someone or something were inside it couldn’t hear them from here.

“Got closed down for a whole list of reasons, both health code violations and a whole mess of worse things. Some of the doctors were accused of molesting some of the younger patients. You weren’t…” He left the thought unfinished.

“No, I guess that was after my time, or maybe they were just afraid of me. A lot of people were afraid of me back then; I could see it in their eyes.”

Mac was about to respond when a scream pierced the air. It came from inside the sanitarium. “That sounded like a child!”

“Let’s move.” Tabitha said as they both ran for the front doors of the Starkweather Sanitarium.

The Final Meeting

“And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.”

-          Frank Sinatra, My Way

1

Tony woke up and immediately started coughing dust out of his lungs. “Ugh.” He said to himself. “That sucked on so many levels.” He started to pull himself off the ground, it seemed easier this time. Maybe all this time spent knocked out on the dirty ground was good for him, or maybe the wound had just started healing a little, at least enough for him to move more freely. Either way he was up and moving, trying to figure out where to go next. The chapel Tony realized, that’s where he last remembered seeing Jamie Lee and the other woman. With a small grunt of pain Tony started moving as quickly as he could towards the end of the hall.

There Tony found both good news, and bad. There was a small sign pointing out various areas around the sanitarium that visitors may have wished to look for. The chapel was included on this list. That was the good news. The bad was that he’d somehow managed to get himself on to the second floor. With his side the way it was he felt barely able to walk slowly on even ground, Tony was not at all sure he could deal with stairs. And he definitely didn’t want to know himself out again, either due to exhaustion or falling down a flight of stairs. Still Jamie Lee might still be down there, and she might be in trouble. He had to go.

After what seemed like too long Tony made it to the stairwell, he was already breathing heavy, and coated in sweat. Judging by both the pain and the sticky wet feeling at his side he’d also reopened his wound. Wincing he leaned over the railing and glanced down. It was only one floor, it didn’t look that far down. Actually to Tony at this moment in time it look like he was atop Mount Everest about to free fall. He swore under his breath. Then gripping the railing tightly he started making his slow torturous way down the stairs.

2

Emmy was pretty sure this was as scared as she’d ever been, although she’d probably been thinking that very thought in the stairwell back at the hospital. And in the room when Frank was talking to her. And in the scary place her mind had put her while she slept. And in her own bedroom with her own daddy and the monster. In truth Emmy was having a really bad week. As Emmy walked into the scary old hospital looking place she realizes it was just going to get worse. He was here, the scary blue hair man who’d killed her daddy. He was just standing there in the hallway, looking into a room with a little cross on the door, his attention was on whatever was in the room.

Suddenly Emmy wasn’t scared anymore, suddenly she was nothing but mad. Mad that this creature had spent the better part of a week scaring her, mad that he’d taken her daddy away from her, mad at everything he’d done to every kid in this town since Tabitha was a little girl, and probably even before then. With a thin cry of rage she ran forward at the Boogeyman.

He probably would’ve heard her, or at least noticed her presence behind him if it hadn’t been for the other man. He was more of a boy really, just a teenager, but he was still older than Emmy. He fell through a door at the end of the hallway, covered in sweat, blood soaking through his t-shirt. Instead of turning towards the sound of Emmy’s tiny feet running along the dirty hall floor the monster instead turned towards the bleeding boy.

Emmy’s put all of the strength in her little body into the kick, and even more importantly all of her not inconsiderable rage. Her tiny white sneaker landed directly in between the monster slightly spread legs.

With a groan of pain the creature sank to his knees, holding his injured groin. Emmy turned and saw what had been holding his attention before. She almost wet herself, and she hadn’t done that since she was a kid. Now Emmy realized that THIS was a scared as she’d ever been.

3

There was no way Cat and William would have been there in time if Blue hadn’t told Cat his super secret route. After riding Cat’s Vespa through small streets and back alleys they came to the fence behind the crazy house. There was a sizable hole in the fence. Which doesn’t sound that strange at all, until that is you consider that the fence was made of wrought iron.

“Whoa.” William said, he was sitting behind Cat on the Vespa, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist. He’d never taken such a crazy ride in his life. Cat drove the motor scooter like it was a Harley and they were getting chased by ravenous Hell Hounds.  “That’s a big freaking hole.”

“Yeah.” Said Cat grinning. “And it’s our way in. Let’s get a move on Willy.” William was expecting her to get off but she just urged the Vespa on through the hole in the back fence, then through another hole in the wall of the mental hospital. They rode on for awhile when for no reason William could see Cat stopped. “We walk from here.” William got off the bike and grabbed one of the swords that they’d strapped to the back. Cat followed suit.

“How do you know where to go?” He asked in a whisper.

“A little bird told me.” Cat said with a mischievous grin. “A little blue bird.”

“You’re weird.” William said shaking his head and staying slightly ahead of her, which considering she was showing them where to go was rather difficult.

“Is that so?” She asked pulling his arm as he tried to head off in the wrong direction.

“Yeah, but don’t worry, I like weird.”

“Good.” Cat said taking his hand and pulling him quickly but quietly down the hall. “Lets do something weird then.”

They made their way through the building, soon enough, mostly due to mysterious large hole in the wall, they were found their destination. Cat stopped them when they reached a set of double doors, though William was a little turned around he was pretty sure they were near the front of the building now. Cat poked her head through the door for a moment, then said ‘no!’ under her breath and pushed through, William followed quickly afterwards.

They were just in time to see Tony come through a set of similar doors at the other end of the hall, at first William thought that was what Cat was upset about after all he didn’t look so good. Or maybe it was the blue haired dude that had upset her, he did match Tony’s description, but according to Cat’s own story she liked the guy. Except it seemed like Cat hadn’t seen either of them yet. Her eyes were focused on a little girl, she looked to be about 8, who was running full tilt at the blue haired man. The little twerp nailed the blue hair in the balls a good one. The man collapsed on to his knees gasping in pain.

“Dude!” William said with surprise. “Boogeyman’s got nuts!’

“No.” Cat said drawing William along beside her. “We've got to help him.”

“What? I thought he was the bad guy?” William said feeling very confused. Then he yelled out Cat’s name and hurried down the hall after her.

“Not him!” Cat yelled as much to the others in the hall as to William. “Not him! He's not the one, its...” She stopped as another figure launched itself into the hall and on to the fallen blue haired creature. William and Cat ran forward as the two things began to fight.

4

Tony was having a lot of trouble, obviously the wound on his side was worse than he had first thought. There was too much blood, and even more pain. He made it to the bottom of the steps and out the door into the hall, then he collapsed again. When he managed to look up he saw the blue haired creep staring at him from near the chapel door. Tony tried to get up, to fight the creature, all along cursing it in his mind. Then he heard it, not aloud with his ears but in the bruised and batter center of his mind.

“No Antony.” It spoke its tones soft and cultured. “I am not your enemy, remember, please.” While it spoke to Tony in this matter it had its attention completely on Tony, and not on the little girl running up behind it. The girl smashed a solid kick into the things crotch. Tony could hear it's pain in his head, as it fell to the ground holding itself.

“Yeah!” Tony cheered as he somehow managed to find the strength to get to his feet and rush the creature. He had to get it while it was still down. Unfortunately for Tony he didn't get there first. Another creature rushed the Boogeyman first. As Tony got closer he realized it wasn't a creature at all, it was Jamie Lee. “No!” He yelled unable to believe he'd confused Jamie Lee for a monster, even for a moment. “Leave her alone you freak!” Tony managed to run up to the two fighters and pulled Jamie Lee from the fray.

Everything froze for a moment, and Tony could see it all so clearly. The little girl in a small blue Cookie Monster shirt standing off to the side pressed as hard as she could against the wall. William and Cat running at the whole group of them screaming at them, or maybe it was him to stop. The Boogeyman looking up at Tony with a strange expression on it's no longer frightful face, it appeared to be pity, mixed with concern. Most of all though he saw Jamie Lee, he saw her as she truly was and his mind shattered.

“Hello lover.” Jamie Lee said her voice gone as bestial as the rest of her had. “Thanks for coming to the rescue, but you got him here.” She gestured to the Boogeyman with one clawed hand. “So now I'm afraid you've out lived your usefulness to me. Goodbye.” With that she threw Tony into the chapel, clear across the room, and into the cross hanging on the back wall. The cross was shattered with the force of the collision and so was Tony's spine.

As he lay broken on the floor, darkness overtaking him he suddenly got it. Not just this business with the town, or the Boogeyman, or even what was happening with Jamie Lee. He saw it all, he saw it all clearly for the first time. And then he was gone, nothing left but an empty shell. The last thing he heard was the little girl, she was screaming.

5

Mac and Tabitha ran in through the front doors of the old hospital. Inside Tabitha was surprised to find not one monster, but too. Upon putting all the clues together Tabitha had figured the creature had been posing as Jamie Lee, not that Jamie Lee herself was a monster. Tabitha froze in confusion and Jamie Lee took that moment to look around, size up her odds, smile, and then disappear into thin air.

“Tony!” A purpled haired girl and a teen boy cried at the same time, they ran past Tabitha and Mac, around a corner and into a room that appeared to be the chapel. They ran right past the blue haired monster without a second glance. Tabitha was concerned between her concern for Tony and her worry over Emmy, who seemed to be unharmed physically but was looking close to breaking on other levels. Finally it was the teen girl’s anguished cry that caused Tabitha and Mac to move. They ran past the monster who remained, he did not even try to stop them. Tabitha scooped up Emmy and the three sped through the door of the chapel.

Tony lay crumpled on the floor at the back of the chapel, the young punk girl held him in her arms and wept. The other teen knelt beside her, his arm around her back. Tabitha was so concerned for the three teens that she didn’t even notice Branwen until she heard Mac call her name.

He rushed to her side and pulled a gag from her mouth. She gasped loudly, tears running from her eyes as she saw Mac crouching over her. “Oh Bran!” He said as he untied her hands. “I was so scared.”

“You were scared?” Branwen said looking gratefully up at him. “I was the one kidnapped by a freaking fairytale monster!”

Mac just laughed and pulled Branwen into his arms, hugging her tightly.

Tabitha put Emmy down near the happy couple and walked over to the decidedly unhappy trio of teens. She took one look down at Tony and knew there was nothing she could do for him. His neck was twisted badly, and she could see bone sticking out. The purple haired girl, young woman Tabitha saw now, was weeping and rocking back and forth, refusing to let go of her friend’s body. She kept repeating ‘too late’ over and over again. The other teen beside her was whispering quietly to her, trying to get her to calm down, telling her there was nothing she could’ve done, they’d gotten here as fast as they could.

They both looked up as Tabitha crouched down before them. She saw some hope in the girl’s eyes, only sadness in the boys. “I’m sorry.” Tabitha said leaning forward and closing Tony’s blankly staring eyes. “But there is nothing you could’ve done, there’s nothing any of us could’ve done. We’re in danger now though, and we have to move.” At first she thought the young woman wouldn’t release her hold on the corpse, that they’d have to drag her out of here. Then something in her eyes went hard. She lowered her dead friend to the floor, and stood, sword hanging from her blood coated hand.

The girl nodded her head and spoke with resolve. “Right then, let’s go.”

Then the lights went out, leaving them all in pitch darkness.

Back in the Dark

Unquiet souls.

In the dark fermentation of earth,

In the never idle workshop of nature,

In the eternal movement,

Yea shall find yourselves again.
-Matthew Arnold

Cat in the Dark

Cat nodded just once, she had no intention of leaving this place, not while there was still a chance to kill the thing that had hidden among them, abused all of they’re trust, and ultimately murdered her friend. “Right then.” She said to the blonde woman who was so obviously a cop. “Let’s go.”

That’s when the lights went out. Cat stood still for a second, unsure what to do. She didn’t exactly want to start flailing around blindly well holding a friggen sword in her hand.

“Um cop lady?” She asked the darkness. “Willy? Blue?” No one answered her though, instead a doorway appeared with a corona of light surrounding it. That was weird Cat thought, hadn’t the door been further away, and on a different wall altogether? She reached carefully out, with the hand not holding the sword and soon found the door’s handle. It was a long metal handle, like the kind you would use to drag a door sideways to open it. It was cold in her hand, not cool cold. For some reason the cold filled her with fear more efficiently then anything she’d seen so far. The last of her rage slipped away from her leaving her feeling alone, and cold. Cat backed slowly and carefully away from the door and smacked into a wall. Now that was surely wrong, Willy was behind her, and then the wall was a good 2 feet away, she hadn’t even taken a full step. The wall felt cold and rough, with a gasp of fear Cat realized where she was. The freezer, the big old freezer that was in the restaurant she worked at. At least the one she had worked at until this summer. Cat had gone into the freezer to get some instant potatoes or something like that, but when she’d gotten to the back the lights had gone out. Cat hadn’t freaked, at least not at first, but she was already feeling pretty claustrophobic in here and that was BEFORE the lights had fucked off on her. She’d dropped what she was holding and turned back towards the door, feeling her way through the various unseen things hanging or blocking her path in the dark. Eventually she’d found the door and pulled. Nothing, it didn’t even seem to move. Her brain slipped a little at that point, suddenly she started laughing. She was wearing a thin, short sleeved blouse, and a tiny black skirt. It was fine when she was outside, it was hot out there, but even in the restaurant with it’s air conditioning blasting she found it a bit chilly. She’d only dressed like this because short skirts equaled better tips. Now in the freezer she realized that perhaps her skirt was a little too short. She laughed harder, the idea of freezing to death during one of the hottest summers on record struck her as ridiculous. Then suddenly the laughing fit turned to a screaming fit. Cat was pounding on the heavy metal of the door screeching at the top of her lungs, tears streaming down her face.

The door suddenly flew open from the other side, Ryan her smarmy blonde haired, preppy boss stood on the other side grinning like an idiot. “Calm down kitten.” He said to her with a little laugh. “It was just a joke.”

Seconds later Cat was stepping over his unconscious form. Punching the asshole had cost her her job, but it was a pretty crappy job in the first place. She wrapped a towel around each hand, they were bleeding from pounding on the walls so hard, grabbed her stuff and walked out. As she stepped into the alley behind the restaurant she heard the kitchen staff erupt in a cheer. Cat wanted to smile, but she was still freaking out. Instead she went and sat on her Vespa and cried until she felt well enough to go to the hospital and get her hands checked out.

Now she was back, inside the freezer, and she was pretty sure there was no creepy prep boy on the outside to let her out. Cat moved back towards the door and was reaching for it when something slammed into from the other side. Cat couldn’t tell what it was, but she was sure of one thing. It was wicked fucking big.

Emmy in the Dark

Emmy was standing near the two grownups. She’d met the man before, while she was at the hospital, and they seemed to be Tabitha’s friends so she felt pretty safe next to them. Then the lights went out.

It was pitch black or anything, but she still couldn’t see the grownups, or anyone else for that matter. In fact everything looked different, but it all looked really familiar. She realized she was back in the hospital. At first this made Emmy feel all squirmy inside, she hadn’t liked the hospital even before her recent visit. It smelled bad, and Emmy knew that people died there. Her mommy had died in a hospital, and every time her or daddy had to go to one it made Emmy worry one of them would be next. And then her daddy had died, and Emmy got sent to the hospital. Now she was back there again.

Emmy looked down at her self to make sure she was still dressed and not in the yucky hospital clothes. She was, Cookie Monster shirt, jeans, the whole deal. So how had she gotten back here?

The Boogeyman, she thought first. He did it. He sent her here. Maybe. He was probably mad ‘cause she’s kicked him in the crotch. Her daddy had told her never to hurt a man there unless he was a bad man who was trying to hurt her. Her daddy had said it hurt real bad. So Emmy had never done it, not even when mean old Stanley Watson had pushed her in the mud and laughed at her. But when she saw the monster she’d just gotten so mad.

But the pretty girl with the funny purple hair said that Mr. Boogeyman wasn’t bad. Emmy had heard her say it in the hall right after she’d kicked him. Also there had been the other one, the other monster. The one who’d killed that boy. She kept changing how she looked. Wasn’t it possible, Emmy thought, that SHE was the one who was hurting everybody?

Emmy didn’t know, all she knew was that she was back in the spooky old hospital and there were no grown ups around. That fact didn’t really surprise Emmy, grown ups were never around when the really scary stuff happened. Emmy was starting to wonder why that was when the sound happened.

The sound itself wasn’t really that scary, it was just a little squeak, like the sound the kitchen door use to make before daddy oiled it. It was the fact that the door squeaked behind her somewhere, while she was alone, in the hospital, in the dark. Emmy turned, eyes wide just in time to see the little boy disappear through the squeaky door. There was something wrong with the boy, Emmy couldn’t really tell what, but she was sure there was something wrong with his face. Emmy thought maybe he was hurt, or that he needed help. Either way Emmy was sure of something, she didn’t want to be alone here anymore.

Emmy walked over to the door, cringing a little at the way her running shoes made little squeaks of their own against the shiny hospital floor.  She walked right up to the door and pulled it open. The room looked like a regular hospital room to Emmy, there was a bed, and one of those rolley tables, and a curtain hanging from the roof instead of the windows. What there wasn’t is a boy. Emmy took a few more steps into the room, she was about halfway across it, about to peak around the curtain, when she heard the squeak again. It wasn’t from her shoes this time, it was from the door.

Emmy spun around. There was the boy, he’d been hiding behind the door, which he was now pushing closed with one pale hand. Now Emmy could see what was wrong with his head, it was flat on one side. It was all smooshed like a Wile E. Coyote when he got hit by an anvil. Only this wasn’t funny, not one bit, it was gross and scary.

The boy smiled at Emmy, his teeth were all yellow and there were little white worms crawling in his gums. “Time to play Emmy.” It said in the voice/voices from the stairwell.

“Shit.” Emmy said and had time to think that that had been her first swear word, and maybe her last.  Then the smooshy headed boy ran at her.

Branwen in the Dark

Branwen found herself very suddenly alone when the lights went out, she’d just been about to invite the little girl to share the hug with Mac and her, the kid had looked like she could use a hug. Then poof, no lights, no little kid, no Mac. Just her alone in an empty room. Then a light appeared. It looked like window at first. On the other side was a room very similar to this one. Sitting in the center of the room looking both scared and confused was Mac.

Mac stood and looked around, his confusion and fear growing in equal measure. Then he turned and looked right at her, Branwen waved and called his name. Mac didn’t react at all, his face didn’t change and his eyes moved on, it was like he hadn’t seen or heard her at all. Than Branwen realized she couldn’t hear him either, she walked up and pounded on the glass. Nothing he turned away from her now, examining the wall behind him.

Suddenly Branwen heard an evil laugh coming from the window between the two rooms. That was when the woman stepped out. She was the one who had appeared in Branwen’s car and caused her to wreck it. Branwen knew her name was Jamie Lee. Only now Jamie Lee looked different, she looked older, not by much but definitely not jail bait anymore. She was also naked.

Jamie Lee walked slowly up to Mac while Branwen shouted useless warnings at him. She wasn’t sure if she was shouting to warn him about the monster, or scare him away from the pretty young woman. Either way it was to no avail. Mac heard her no more now than he had the first time she’d shouted. He was busy examining the wall across from Branwen as the girl walked up behind him.

Suddenly Jamie Lee seducing Mac wasn’t as much of a concern as long sharp talons slowly extended from the tips of her fingers. Branwen screamed louder, and pounded on the window until it felt like her hands were breaking, still Mac heard nothing. In fact he didn’t turn until the first razor tipped finger tore across his back. It ripped through his shirt and his back leaving a long red tear across his back. Then Mac turned, but it was already too late. Five claws slammed roughly into Mac’s stomach, Branwen could see his insides leak out as he collapsed to the ground in front of the monster.

The Jamie Lee thing turned her head back to look at Branwen and smiled fiendishly. Then it turned back and tore her lover’s face from his skull. Mac fell wetly to the ground and was still.

Mac in the Dark

Mac was back on the hill over looking the graveyard. Their spot, his and Branwen’s. It confused him to stand here, and not just because he’d been suddenly transported here from clear across town. He still wasn’t sure who he’d been with before, Branwen or some kind of monster.

“Mac?” He heard from behind him. Turning he saw Branwen standing there, she was looking a little concerned to say the least. “What happened? Weren’t we just…somewhere else?”

“Yeah.” Mac said walking over and taking her hand. “I’m not really sure what happened, I guess the creature somehow…” Mac stopped, Branwen wasn’t listening all of a sudden, she was staring at his hand in hers. After a moment she looked up at him.

“Mac, do we have to go over this again?” She asked looking annoyed. “Look what we had was fun, but it’s too late for this now. Way too late. You ruined it.” Branwen pulled her hand away and turned from him. “Why couldn’t you just have let things be?”

“I thought it was what you…” Mac started to say, then he saw what was happening. “You’re not her. It never was her. Branwen wouldn’t talk to me like that. Even if she doesn’t want to get married, she would never.” He pulled the large crucifix his mother had given him from his shirt. “Turn around and face me monster.”

She did, Branwen’s features slowly melting into Jamie Lee’s and then further into something else…

William in the Dark

Cat was gone, the lady was gone, even Tony's corpse was gone. Everyone was gone. It was just William and the box. It was tight and dark and smelled of sweat, fear, and desperation. The worst part of the box, the part that William never told anyone was that there was no lock on it. William could get out anytime he wanted, there was nothing stopping him. Except his father. All William really had to do was stand up to his dad and he would be free of the damned box, for now and forever more. But William couldn't do that, his dad was bigger, stronger and most of all scarier than anything William ever knew. There really was no getting out, not now. William would be stuck in this box, in one was or another for the rest of his life.

Then he thought of Cat. Her funny hair, her pretty eyes, her smooth skin. He thought of the way her smile was crooked, and the way she smelled, like licorice and cigarettes. He thought of how she called him Willy Boy and how though he always complained about secretly within his own heart he loved it. He thought of her as he often did, while he was all alone in the dark with his thoughts. He closed his eye and held her in his mind, and in his heart.

He knew that she was somewhere nearby. Even if her couldn't see her he knew she was there, and somehow he knew she was in danger.

When he finally opened his eyes the box was gone. William got up. He had to find Cat.

Tabitha in the Dark/Tabby in the Dark

Tabitha reached out for the teens in the dark and found herself alone. This didn't really surprise her. After all why would they be in her bedroom? No one was supposed to be in here especially not this close to bed time. Tabby stiffened as she heard a noise coming from her closet, she knew it was just her daddy, he was looking for monsters. She wasn't sure why that scared her so bad, daddy wasn't something to be scared of. Daddies were for scaring monsters away.

“There!” Daddy said stepping out of the closet. “No monsters to scare my little slut.”

“What?” Tabby asked scrunching under the covers.

“I said no monster to scare my little darling.” Daddy smiled and sat on the bed next to her. “Would you like a hug before you go to bed little one? A special daddy hug for my little one?” Before she could answer he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her.

At first Tabby felt safe and secure in the circle of her daddy's arms. Then he started to squeeze tighter, it started to hurt. Then his hands were moving on her, it seemed like he had way more than two hands, and they were touching her all over. They were touching her in places that daddies shouldn't touch.

“That's it sweet one, time to make daddy happy. Time to be daddy's little slut. Daddy's little whore. Daddy's sweet little bitch.”

“No.” Tabitha said, finding the strength within herself to push him away. Her father fell off of her, off the bed entirely. Tabitha pushed herself against the wall, ready for him to get back up. She knew he was going to hurt her, hurt little Tabby, and there was no way she was going to let that happen. Somehow they were both here in this place that was not her childhood bedroom. They crouched together in the small pink bed that was not her childhood bed. Tabitha sat holding the child and waited for the worst monster she'd ever known to come for them.

William and Cat into the Light

“Not funny.” Cat said her rage was back up. “Not funny. This is not a joke, people are dead. Tony's dead, and you're playing some kind of fucking practical joke on me? No fucking way!”

With that she ran forward and threw her full weight against the door. It flew open sending her into a very surprised William.

“Cat?” He asked sound as perplexed as she felt. “Are you alright?”

Cat nodded. “Oh yeah, I am now anyway.”

William smiled at her and pulled her into a hug. “I'm glad. Come on we should try and find the others if we can. And get the heck out of here if we can't.”

“That's for damn sure.” Cat said stepping back and smiling at him. They were about to walk off when Cat stopped. “Wait a sec.” She said, then she turned back to the door she had just burst through and reached inside the cold room. She came out with a large meat hook in her hand.

“Holy crap.” William said looking a little impressed. “Where'd that come from?”

“My nightmare.” Cat said with a smirk. “That's the past now man, time to go kick some ass.”

“Or save some.” William added as the walked hand in hand down the hall.

Branwen Makes a Stand

Branwen fell backwards, sinking to the ground her heart and mind both tearing themselves apart with what she’d just witnessed. She hid her face in her hands, tears streaming from her eyes. She didn’t look up until she heard the abomination’s voice above her.

“Poor lost Branwen.” It said as Branwen looked into it’s grinning maw. “All alone again, no love, no hope.”

“No way.” Branwen said thrusting her heavily booted foot forward into the things gut. Branwen felt a moment of savage joy as she took the Jamie Lee thing by surprise knocking it back into the window. There was the satisfying sound of shattering glass at it fell through into…

Nothing, there was no room on the other side, no Mac, just an empty hall. Even the monster was gone. “Damn right” Branwen said to herself. She wiped a few stray tears from her eyes and stepped into the hall. “Come on back anytime bitch, I have a ton of boots where that one came from!” Branwen straightened her long black coat and strode down the hall. Mac, Tabitha and the others were still out there somewhere, and she was going to find them. Nothing on this earth better get in her way.

Mac, Blind Faith, and Hope

“Well, well, well.” The Jamie Lee thing said smiling a fang filled leering grin. Her rough monsterous voice was filled with amusement. “The cynic's found faith in something. Come on Mac, we both know you don't believe in God, or religion, or anything you can't see with your very own eyes. In fact you still don't really believe in me, not even now. You think I'm some kind of mutated creature, a new form of primate. I've got news for you Mac, I'm not a new anything. I've lived for a hundred years now, ever since my father killed me. I'll live for a hundred more. Nothing you, or your stupid faith can do will stop me.” As she/it spoke she/it moved closer and closer to Mac until she was right up in his face.

Mac looked at the piece of metal in his hands, his mother had given it to him when he'd gone to the academy. When he'd first seen it he figured she'd seen one too many movies. It was the biggest crucifix he'd ever seen that wasn't hanging on a wall. He figured she secretly hoped if he ever got shot it would maybe stop the bullet. That maybe somehow the combination of so much metal, and her true all encompassing faith would save his life. He let his head drop down, a look of surrender on his face.

“Your right, I don't have faith. I don't believe in God.” Then he looked it in the face and slammed the cross forward in to it's eye. “I do believe that hurt though.”

The creature screamed, falling backwards and flailing it's arms. Then it was gone, no puff of smoke, no brimstone in the air, it was just gone. Mac expected to find himself back in the chapel with Bran and the others, but he was still on the hill.

He tucked the crucifix back into his shirt, and with the first prayer he'd said in almost a decade slipping from his lips he ran back towards town.

Emmy Makes Friends

I'm only a little girl' Emmy thought as the scary ghost boy walked towards her. 'Little girls aren't supposed to have to do this kind of thing.'

“Stay away from me.” She said searching her pockets frantically. Had she dropped it? Was it lying on the ground back in the scary old place where the monsters were? Then her small hand closed on the box and she drew it from her pocket. “You want to play?” She asked with as much courage as her little heart could muster. “Play with this!” She yanked the top off the box not knowing what to expect.

A beam of blazing white light? Another monster capable of beating this one? Maybe her daddy would come back and save her one last time?

Sitting in the small box was a yoyo. A small, shiny, blue yoyo.

“Wow thanks!” The squishy headed boy said grabbing the yoyo from the box. “I love these things!” He looked up at Emmy grinning, and suddenly he didn't look so scary.  “I guess we're friends now right?” Emmy could only nod, not sure what to do. “Well then I can't do what the scary girl wanted, not if we're friends.” The boy turned and walked towards the door. “Come on.” He said motioning with one hand and yo-yoing with the other. “There's someone waiting for you, I think she's your mom or something.” With that he continued walking, and Emmy followed.

Tabitha Looks Homeward

“That hurt.” The voice said from below her bed. Tabitha pressed further back against the wall, holding Tabby tightly. She felt something press back, she almost screamed, she almost jumped out of the bed. Luckily managed to do neither. She realized that what ever it was was too small and soft to be dangerous, probably just one of Tabby's stuffed toys. “That REALLY hurt.” The voice from beneath the bed spoke again. It was the voice of her father, and The Boogeyman, and Jamie Lee. It was the voice of everything Tabitha feared. They rose from beneath the bed like a vampire rising from the grave. The Jamie Lee/Daddy thing did not look good. It had nicks and cuts all along it's body, it was missing an eye, it looked bruised and hurt. It also looked really, really, pissed.

“Why did you have to come back?” It said sounding more like a petulant child now than a monster. “Everything was going so well. More than a hundred years, I got my revenge for more than a century. Revenge against the adults who would hurt their children, revenge against the children who wouldn't fight back, and most of all against him!”

“Him?” Tabby asked still wrapped in Tabitha's arms.

“Him! The Boogeyman, El Cucuy, Khokan, Hastrman, the bag man, le croque-mitaine. The motherfucking Boogeyman! He tries so hard, he tries to save his precious food source. He's killed for them, for YOU. Where was he when my father drowned me? Where was he then?”

“I don't know.” Tabby said. Tabitha realized it wasn't Tabby at all, maybe it never had been. Emmy sat up, pulling herself free from Tabitha's arms. “But I do know one thing. I don't care. You made my daddy hurt me, you made Tabitha's daddy hurt her. You hurt so many people 'cause you were mad.”

“Are you sure child?” Jamie Lee asked. “Are you sure it wasn't really your daddy? How can you know?”

“I'm sure.” Emmy said as she said it Tabitha realized she was sure too. “My daddy loved me, he wouldn't never do any of those things to me. I'm sure of that, I can feel it in my heart. I'm sure of something else to Ms. Boogeyman lady. I'm sure my friends are here.”

Jamie Lee just smirked at her. “The teens, and the lovers are busy elsewhere. Your only friend is right here, in just as much trouble as you are child.”

“Not them.” Emmy said grinning in a very grown up way. “Not the grown ups. Them.” Jamie Lee turned to look where Emmy pointed. Standing in a row behind her were the children from the hospital, Frank stood in front of them as if leading the charge. “You killed their mommies and daddies too. I don't think they are too happy about that do you?”

“No.” Jamie Lee said turning to face the group of dead children. “You are mine, you listen to me, not her.”

“Naw aw.” A little boy holding a yoyo said. “Emmy's our friend, we listened to her. She told us the truth.”

“You should go.” Said a little Chinese girl with pigtails.

“We don't want to play with you anymore.” Said a chubby boy with freckles.

“Leave now. Or we'll make you.” Finished Frank.

Jamie Lee growled, it wasn't a sound a human would, or could make. She turned back to look at the two figures on the bed.

“You think you've won?” She asked them. “This isn't over this hasn't nearly begun.” With that she was gone.

The children smiled at Emmy and Tabitha.

“We did good huh?”

“We scared her off!”

“That was fun.”

“We'll see you later Emmy. We gotta go. I think our parents are calling.” The children slowly faded from view and were replaced with William and Cat standing hand in hand in the door way, with Branwen close behind them.

“You guys okay?” Branwen asked looking concerned.

“Yeah.” Tabitha said getting up and helping Emmy off the bed. “We really are.” She gave Branwen a grin. “Come on.” Tabitha said holding Emmy's hand and taking Branwen's in the other. “Lets go find Mac.”

Together Again

Accept the things to which fate binds you,

and love the people with whom fate brings you together,

but do so with all your heart.

-Marcus Aurelius

1

Together the small group of weary friends stepped outside into the early dawn light. Hemlock Avenue did not look nearly so frightening now as it did last night. Instead in the early morning light it looked sad and worn down. Tabitha pulled her cell phone from her pocket, she could do nothing to save Tony, not anymore, but she wouldn’t leave him lying in that dirty place longer than she had to. Before she could dial she realized that they were not alone, another had joined their procession.

He stood looking up into the red morning sky, his face no longer looked frightening. His face looked less pale, his eyes were still red, but now it could’ve been reflected sunlight. He smiled up into the air, his mouth full of straight white teeth. In fact he looked almost beatific as he turned to dress the weary group.

“Hello.” Blue said smiling softly at them. “I’m glad to see you all. I was worried when she got into your minds.”

“You look different now.” Tabitha said with wonder in her voice. “You aren’t frightening to me.”

“Yeah.” Emmy added holding Tabitha hand. “I’m not ascared of you either.”

“He looks the same to me.” Cat said her hand wrapped tightly in William’s. “How ‘bout you Willy Boy?”

“No there’s definitely something different.” William said too distracted by the former monster to feel self-conscious about the pretty girl’s attention on him. “What’s up with that?”

“Well I could say it is a result of you facing your own worst fears.” Blue said smiling first at William and then at each of them in turn. “Or that you see me in a new light now, and know that I am not truly your enemy. The truth though, is that I do not know. Young Miss Cat has always seen me this way, and until I met her I was not aware it was possible for anyone to look upon me without a strong degree of dread. So perhaps it is I who have changed, perhaps I am a new…” Suddenly Blue’s bright red eyes widen in pain and surprise as one of a sharp shaft of steel tore through his chest from behind. He looked briefly at his wound, and then his eyes dulled as he collapsed to the ground.

“I’m sorry.” Jamie Lee said standing over Blue’s unmoving body. “Did I interrupt your conversation? How rude of me.”

2

The stunned group stared at the thing they’d known as Jamie Lee, they were unable to move, frozen in place by fear and shock.

“What did you think?” Jamie Lee said with a self satisfied grin. She held William’s second sword in her other hand, his first still protruded from Blue’s back. “That I would just let you go? That you were the heroes of this story? Wrong. I am. I’m the wronged party here. I’m the one who he allowed to be hurt. I’m the one who he let live with a monster. I’m the one he let die.” With each sentence she poked the sword into Blue. “I’m not the villain here, I’m not the monster. He’s the one who feeds off children, and in return he’s supposed to protect them, but he let ME DIE!” Jamie Lee paused regaining her composure. “And now he’s failed you as well, you will die and he can’t do anything to save you. You’ve hurt me but no one will ever hurt me again. No more nightmares, no more specters, no more illusions. Just me, this sword, and a whole pile of corpses.”

3

Tabitha was moving as slowly and carefully as she could. She didn’t want the creature to see what she was doing as her hand eased towards her gun. As the former teen finished her speech she moved slowly but deliberately towards the group, that’s when Tabitha made her move. She pulled the gun and fired over a dozen times, all of them hits, emptying the gun into the monster’s chest. It didn’t even slow down, there was no clue that it even felt the bullets except and enraged scream as it increased it speed. It charged full force into Tabitha knocking her backwards into the iron fence surrounding the old sanitarium.

Tabitha felt her head strike the metal bars, and then the hard concrete as she fell to the ground. As she blacked out she saw the creature turn its attention on Emmy.

4

The thing that wasn’t Jamie Lee anymore charged the little girl, and would’ve gotten her if not for the intervention of Branwen and William. Together the two hurtled into the on rushing demon, knocking it to the ground. It was barely a second before it was back up, casually tossing the two aside as if they weighed no more than feathers. Both of the new friends hit the ground with a sickening thud, and neither moved from their prone position on the ground.

The creature turned towards the child again only to find Cat, screeching like a banshee and rushing towards it. "Take it bitch!" Cat screamed as she slammed the meat hook she was still holding into the monster's shoulder.

The demon let out an animalistic hiss and wrapped its taloned hand around Cat's smaller more human hand. There was a sickening crunch that was hidden beneath Cat's scream, as her bones were crushed and twisted. She fell to her knees, tears streaming from her eyes, blood streaming from her hand. The Jamie-Lee-Thing chuckled, as if she found the sight of Cat's pain truly funny, and raised her fist as if to dash Cat's skull into dust.

Then Cat was gone, knocked aside by Emmy's small but tough body as it hurtled through the air pushing the injured teen away from the scary lady. "No!" Emmy said trying to cover the other girl with her body. "You're not gonna hurt no one else!"

The Jamie-Lee-Monster just laughed. "Do you think you can stop me?"

"No." Tabitha said, finally regaining her feet. "But I think I can." With that she reached into her pocket and withdrew the tiny doll she had found earlier. It moved frantically in her hand. Tabitha realized that it wasn't the doll that was moving it was the pin, and it was quivering in the center of the doll. Tabitha pulled the pin out, feeling it change in her hand, feeling it grow, feeling it heat up. It burned white hot and grew to the size of a sword as Tabitha slammed it home into the creature's black heart.

This time it did not merely hiss, it screamed. It's screamed sounded like all the devils in Hell crying out in chorus. As it screamed it shrank, getting smaller and smaller until nothing was left but tiny, cotton Jamie Lee doll, with a long straight pin sticking out of its chest.

Tabitha looked down at the tiny doll, dressed in Jamie Lee's kilt and blouse, with Jamie Lee's long honey blonde hair, and bright green eyes. Then she looked at her own hand, with a long burn mark straight down the center, as if she'd grasped a red-hot poker. In a way she had.

Tabitha knew that this feeling or lack of feeling, running through her meant she was in shock. Everything seemed far away, and unimportant. Cat's gasping pain filled breaths, Emmy's quiet crying, and the deep burning not-pain in her hand. She even realized she could smell a strange odor in the air. Not quite sulfur, not quite smoke, not quite festering rot. It was the smell of demon, the smell of the thing that would never be Jamie Lee again. Not if Tabitha could help it. With a half sob, half sigh Tabitha sank to her knees beside Cat and Emmy. It was over.

She almost screamed as she felt the hand fall upon her shoulder. Looking back and up she realized it was just Branwen, a large purple goose egg already rising on her head. Branwen smiled down at Tabitha, and then motioned with a thrust of her chin down the street. Mac ran towards them, his face filled with equal parts concern and relief.

William was already up and comforting Cat as Mac reached them. "Is everyone okay?" He asked. "Is it over?"

Tabitha looked towards the doll and Blue's limp, lifeless body. "Not everyone is okay." She said sadly. "But it is over. I hope it’s over for good."

Prologue

I am the one hiding under your bed

Teeth ground sharp and eyes glowing red.

-          Creature Under the Bed, Nightmare Before Christmas

1

Cat kind of wished it would rain, not because of some melodramatic idea that it should always rain at a funeral, but because Tony had always liked the rain. Not that he’d hated sunlight or anything, it just seemed to Cat he’d have had a lot more fun running around in a sun shower, then getting a sunburn in the oppressive heat or bright light of the day. But Tony wasn’t going to get a sunburn. Not unless the rays penetrated 6 feet into the Earth. Not unless corpses still tanned.

“Hey Cat.” William said coming up beside her and taking her hand into his own. He squeezed her hand, trying to comfort her with his touch. He didn’t understand though, or maybe he did, maybe he knew her well enough. Cat wasn’t sad, she was a strong believer in karmic debt, and figured Tony had paid his in full. She felt that where ever he’d gone when the light had left his eyes it was probably a good place. She squeezed Willy’s hand back and turned her smile upon him. No more was said as they walked hand and hand over to their friend’s graveside.

2

Tabitha checked her watch, and felt a twinge of guilt as she realized how late they were running. It had been hard enough to convince the elderly Miss Robins to let them take Emmy out of the home today. The older woman had been very concerned for Emmy’s well being, telling Tabitha that the little girl had been quiet and withdrawn since she’d come to St. Peter’s Orphanage. To Tabitha it would seem an obvious response to the last few days the girl had experienced, Hell Tabitha hadn’t been that gabby herself. Tabitha had finally been able to convince Miss Robins after Emmy had interceded on her own behalf and asked the lady for permission herself. That is how Tabitha ended up here on this day waiting for Emmy so they could go to Tony’s funeral together. As to why Emmy was running so late Tabitha couldn’t say.

After what seemed like an eternity Tabitha heard the machine gun rattle of small footsteps running down the old wooden stairs of the orphanage.

“Hi Tabitha.” She said finally starting to sound like a normal, happy, child again. “Sorry I took so long.”

“It’s okay, but we have to hurry.” Tabitha said looking down at Emmy with a smile. “Are you ready?”

“Yep!” Replied Emmy with a bright smile on her face.

“Alright then let’s go!” Tabitha said brightly, finding the girl’s enthusiasm to be infectious.

3

When they arrived at the graveyard Tabitha was not surprised to see that Cat, William, Branwen, and Mac had all beaten them here. They stood close together in pairs, as couples are wont to do, and held hands. Tabitha felt melancholy as she saw the happy couples, and found herself wishing for the first time in a long time that she had someone to share that kind of rapport with. As the thought ran through her head she felt a tiny hand slip into hers, and looked down to see Emmy smiling sweetly up at her.

“Don’t be so sad Tabitha.” Emmy said misunderstanding why Tabitha looked that way. Or maybe the little one understood more than Tabitha gave her credit for, after all she didn’t usually get wound up over this sort of thing. “Cat said that Tony is happy now. She said that ‘cause he died being all brave the Valkyries got him and took him to heaven.”

“She did, did she?” Tabitha said

“Yep! She said that when brave people die they go to a special brave people heaven. Do you think that’s true?”

“Well…” Said Tabitha after a moment of thought. “I don’t know for sure, but I am pretty sure he’s gone to some kind of heaven.”

“I thought so.” Emmy said then she suddenly ran off yelling Branwen’s name before leaping into the woman’s arms.

Tabitha shook her head; a wide grin spread across her face, and walked over to join her friends.

4

Tabitha stood by the graveside after everyone had left. There was to be a small wake, hosted by William’s house by his mother. Tabitha was planning to attend but decided she needed some time to herself first. Some time to think, and to apologize to Tony for letting him down. So she’d gotten Branwen and Mac to drive Emmy to William’s house, and promised to meet them there later.

Now she stood alone in the cemetery and tried to think of something to say, some way to explain to the young man why she’d failed him. She knew what parts had been her fault, all the ways she hadn’t been quick enough, or smart enough, or brave enough. Especially not brave enough. Tabitha figured she’d done okay in the end. She’d stopped something that should not have existed in the first place. She’d saved a whole generation of children, and perhaps the next several generations to come. But she hadn’t saved Tony, and so she felt like a failure.

“I do not think he needs an explanation.” A voice spoke up from behind Tabitha. It was a cultured voice, a familiar voice. Turning Tabitha beheld a pale man, with blue hair, and red eyes. He was not dressed in his familiar pinstripe suit; instead he wore something more modern. It looked like Armani, and was plain black. He smiled at her, but it was a soft and gentle smile. “I also do not believe you need to justify yourself to anyone.”

“I thought you died?” Tabitha said shock evident in her voice.

“I did, after a fashion. I am like fear though, I can be defeated for awhile, but I will always return when needed.”

“I’d never considered fear to be a good thing before.”

“Well not good perhaps, but necessary. A needed part of human evolution.”

“Also like you?”

“Indeed.” He smiled again, this smile less gentle, more predatory. “I admit my intentions were not purely altruistic. I was protecting myself, my food source, my job. I wouldn’t call what I did generous, nor would I call it evil, it was merely…”

“Job security.” Tabitha finished for the creature, remembering a night very long ago when it had said something similar. The creature nodded, more somber now, perhaps also remembering that night.

“I was going to say ‘in my nature’ but your way is perhaps more apt.”

“Is the rest of it over? With Jamie Lee or the thing that looked like Jamie Lee.”

Blue pulled an old yellowed picture from within his suit pocket. It showed a young woman who looked exactly as Jamie Lee had. “She was Jamie Lee; at least she was many years ago. I was…” He paused his eyes downcast; Tabitha thought she could actually see him fighting back the tears. “I could not do my job, could not show her real fear. Her father was one of those that was worse than I could ever be. In the end she was right when she said I let her die. I tried but nothing I could do would deter her father from his dark path.” At this Blue paused again and returned the picture to his pocket. “After she died I began to see her still walking the Earth. She was like me, but horribly different. Perhaps it is because whatever I am, I was never human. Perhaps it was due to the ire within her heart. Either way she turned her attention to destroying my food source. She somehow changed the adults, made them wrong, and made the children fear them more than they feared me. If the children would not be cowed by their new fears, if they still feared me, she would simply kill them, or have her pawns do it for her. I found out about her shortly after I met you young Tabby…I mean Tabitha.”

“It was shortly after this that I began interfering in a more permanent way. We, that is my kind, are not supposed to do anything but frighten humans. I stepped well beyond that boundary on many occasions. I imagine that eventually I will be called upon to answer for my deeds. Perhaps then Jamie Lee will get her justice.”

“No matter. I did not come here to ponder my fate with you. I came to make sure you knew where the fault for young master Antony’s death lay. That is with Jamie Lee, and myself. It was our war and unfortunately you and all the others who died were but casualties. For that I am sorry, but you should not be. You are a hero Tabitha; remember that if you remember nothing else.” With this Blue looked up at her, smiled one last time. He then turned, walked a few steps, and vanished in broad daylight. He vanished not only from Tabitha’s sight, but from her memories as well. This left her feeling confused, as if the last few weeks were too traumatic to remember. All she knew was that she comported herself well, bravely, and that she had done all she could.

With one last backward glance at poor Tony’s grave, and one final goodbye Tabitha walked to her car and drove away from the graveyard.

5

Though no wake could ever be described as ‘nice’, do to the melancholy nature of the events, Tony’s was a pleasant experience none the less. William’s mother had made a lot of food, and Tony’s friends had all sat together sharing their experiences and memories of him. Soon after Tabitha arrived a small bus from St. Peter’s orphanage had pulled up and dislodged a group of Tony’s friends and housemates. All in all Tony was honored well.

Tabitha drove Emmy home later that night, and was slightly disconcerted to hear the girl talking to herself as she sat alone in the back of the car. At first Tabitha thought that maybe the stress of the preceding days had driven the girl too far, but then Tabitha realized what was really going on. An imaginary friend. It wasn't that strange really, many children who had it easier than Emmy relied on imaginary friends to help them through the rough spots. Tabitha smiled, Emmy's little friend even had a name:Frank. Emmy's new friend was a little imaginary boy.

6

Cat and William sat together after everyone else left the wake. William's mother puttered around in the kitchen, obviously chaperoning them while giving them their privacy. Cat thought that it was pretty cool of Willy's mom to do that. Not that they were doing anything, just sitting holding hands, thinking their thinks as Cat's own mom said sometimes.

“Willy can I ask you a question?” Cat asked breaking the heavy silence.

“Sure.” William answered quietly. “You can ask me anything.”

“Did all that...stuff...did it really happen? Do you, like, remember it and everything?”

“Yeah, but I don't think anyone else does. I mean none of the adults seem to remember. Detective O’Hanlon and Dr. Myers sure didn't anyway. When I talked to them they seemed to think that Jamie Lee was just some crazy chick who killed a bunch of people, and tried to kill us. They didn't remember the weird walking nightmares, or the claws, or anything.”

“Neither did Tabitha.” Cat paused for a moment and when she spoke again her voice was full of pain and worry. “Do you think we'll forget? Do you think we'll maybe even forget Tony?”

“I think we'll remember Tony.” William said pushing his glasses back up on his face as he spoke. “The others all remembered him. So I think even if we forget all the other stuff we'll still remember Tony, and how awesome he was.”

“Good.” Cat said sniffing back tears. “Can I ask you another question?”

“Sure.” William said laughing a little.

“Are you ever gonna have the balls to kiss me?”

“I guess I was just...” William started to say before being cut off by Cat's lips pressing against his own.

As she pulled back she looked into William's face, he looked a little surprised.

“What?” She asked smirking a little. “Did you think I was going to wait forever?”

This time it was William leading the charge as their lips met again. They stayed like that, sitting in the dim room kissing in the shadows for a long time. All the while Cat clutched the tiny cotton doll in the form of Jamie Lee in her hand, and made sure the pin never moved.

7

Branwen Myers and  Jeffery ‘Mac’ O’Hanlon sat together at their favorite spot, the hill overlooking the graveyard. There hands loosely touching, not speaking, not really doing anything except sitting and watching the sun rise above the horizon.

“I'm getting too old for this sitting up until dawn stuff Bran.” Mac said smelling her scent, a combination of forensic chemicals and bubblegum scented shampoo.

“I doubt that.” Branwen said elbowing him in the side playfully. “Anyone who drinks as much coffee as you can't be tired yet. Next your going to be claiming you're ready to retire.”

Mac laughed. “Maybe not quite yet.”

“Well I'm not ready to retire you ether dummy.” Branwen said pulling his face to hers and planting a kiss on his lips. She snuggled closer as they continued to kiss in the reddening light of the early morning. She felt a lump pressing against her hip as she moved.

“Well, well, well Mac.” She said pulling away slightly, grinning, and waggling her eyebrows comically. “Is that a gun in your pocket Detective, or are you just happy to see me. I hope it's happy to see me, 'cause I'm not so big on guns.”

“Oh no!” Mac said suddenly nervous, he reached into his pocket. “It's not...I mean...it's not that. It's not a gun either I...Damn. I wanted to be a lot smoother when I gave you this, more romantic. Why is it you can always make me feel like a damn teenager?”

“It's my useful excuberance.” Branwen said grinning impatiently. “Is it a present? For me? Give it!”

Mac pulled the small black velvet box from his pocket and opened it in front of Branwen's eyes. “Branwen Myers will you marry me.”

Branwen stared mutely at the box and it's contents. The suns red glow shone dully off of the ring and reflected on her face. She was quiet so long that Mac began to worry. “Uh, Bran?” He asked nervously.

“Oh!” Bran said her face spreading into a wide smile. “Yes! Of course! I mean duh! What did you think I'd say silly?” She plucked the ring gingerly from the box and slid it onto her finger. She gazed happily at it for a moment before leaning forward and kissing her new husband to be.

The sun finally broke the horizon and glowed brightly above them. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.

7

Tabitha tried to make herself comfortable as she snuggled down into bed. She'd been having nightmares, nightmares about her father. She didn't know where they came from, or why now, but she knew she hadn't been sleeping well the past few weeks. Tonight felt different though, she thought that tonight maybe she would sleep straight through, with nothing but happy thoughts and sweet dreams. She clicked off the bedside lamp and lay her head on the pillow. She was almost instantly asleep, not even snoring slightly as the pleasant images filled her dreams.

The glowing read eyes watched from her closet for a few more moments, and then when he was certain she slept well the closet door closed. Leaving Tabitha alone, and sleeping peacefully, in the dark.

THE END