The Dark

December 23

~ 1

The boy was there when his father died.

And now, Kelan Lisk was there again.

It was maddening, his soul chained to that same dark dream. No matter how harshly he screamed, how badly he wet the bed, he could never hope to wake himself in time; could never stop what would be. What had been.

What if it gets out? the five-year-old said, buckling in. He risked a glance over his shoulder, and his pulse sprinted. His hands grew clammy; the soft hairs on his neck stood on end. Suddenly the front seat wasn’t nearly far enough removed from the cardboard box that sat behind him.

He closed his eyes and wished so hard that his ears popped. When he opened them, one first then the other, the thing was still there—the thing inside the box was still there. At least he hadn’t agreed to carry it to the car. He hadn’t completely lost his mind, even in a dream.

Paul Lisk unzipped his red winter jacket. He turned to his son and handed him that cozy, reassuring smile that always seemed to work. Only when he saw that Kelan had settled did he pull the gray Taurus out of the parking lot of Children’s Hospital.

Well? Kelan said, pushing his black-rimmed glasses up. He could still see the box in the corner of his eye.

Relax, Kay. We’ve got a long drive. It won’t get out.

The car stopped at a stop sign, that of course had the O spray-painted into a happy-face. It always did.

Paul Lisk pointed. See? That’s a good omen.

‘Omen?’ Kelan echoed, wondering why he had asked yet again. He could scream the reply, and when his father uttered those dreaded words—An omen’s a sign, son, a sign that something’s going to happen—he wondered if it was possible to grab hold of a dream and make things happen the way you wanted. He wanted so not to ask the next question, but he did. Again, he did. Are there bad omens?

Some, Paul told him. But not this one.

Kelan prayed. Prayed that just this once he would wake up in time. The thing was, there was no time. No time.

Kaaaay, Paul said. Remember what we talked about?

Kelan shrank in his seat. He sighed. Be a brave soldier.

He wanted to say something more, but he didn’t. There just wasn’t time. His father would be dead in six hours, and in his dream, it would seem like six minutes.

~

They took I-35 out of Saint Paul, the landscape spreading from urban sprawl into featureless plain. The fine weather held until Duluth, quickly turning as it often does in North Country, and they stopped for hot chocolate at a roadside diner until the snowsqualls passed. An hour later, driving through the rugged backcountry of the Mesabi Iron Range, they finally turned due north toward home, the mining town of Key Corners.

Boundless forest swallowed them, the route narrowed to an old gray road split by thin whispers of yellow paint. Nightfall had come, and snow began to strike the windshield in magnificent flakes, splattering like moths and dribbling along the glass like clear blood.

Paul Lisk set the wipers and adjusted their timing. He tousled Kelan’s hair. Looks like we’ll be a little late for dinner, Soldier. Got a name for him yet?

How ’bout Squash?

Kelan …

Kelan leaned just enough to see behind the seat. The box was only slightly larger than a toaster, yet to him it seemed to fill the entire rear of the vehicle. Wide open, it sat with its flimsy flaps taped straight up, as if that were sufficient to encage the horrible creature that lurked within its cardboard walls. Why had he agreed to this in the first place? Why couldn’t he just pee and wake up?

The doctor in Saint Paul, a dark-skinned man with an accent he had never heard before, had asked his father if he might try it. Hadn’t asked him, but his dad, as if he was the one to endure the nightmares. At first his father had refused (wisely, Kelan thought), but the doctor had reassured him that he had seen this approach work with other children, even some adults (although adults often seemed to be more fearful than the children, the doctor had joked), and that there really was no danger.

No danger to the doctor, that was.

Kelan craned his neck for a closer look. He didn’t really want to see the thing, but it was better knowing where it was, knowing it was still trapped and not running around where he couldn’t see it. It was always better when he knew.

Sit back in your seat, son.

I just wanna look. Kelan could see the top of the jar now, a dozen tiny holes dotting it. He rose a little higher, high enough to see the glass. The nape of his neck tingled. Where is it? I don’t see it!

Paul glanced in the rear-view mirror. It’s there. It didn’t get out.

It could have crawled out one of those air holes.

Don’t be silly. They’re tiny.

Kelan didn’t buy it. Each hole seemed as wide as the fist he would use to crush the thing should it escape. You sure, Dad?

I’m sure.

What about the lid? What if it’s loose?

Double-checked it before I put it in the car.

For sure?

For sure. Be brave.

Be brave, Kelan thought. What choice do I have?

The vehicle rolled over a bump, and the box jostled. Kelan nearly screamed. He thought he had seen it. A stubby wedge of wood inside the container had shifted up the glass, its tip suddenly a half-inch from the lid, a mere step from those impossibly widening holes.

The Taurus slowed as the road carved a sharp curve. The wood shifted higher still, and only when it settled did Kelan’s heart slip back in his chest. He turned around in his seat and did his best not to squirm. Dad?

Hmmm?

Can we build that snowman when we get back?

Sure can.

Just you and me, right? It’s my first one, and I don’t want Eric to help.

Just you and me. Promise. Paul Lisk regarded the growing storm. See those flakes? Perfect for making a snowman.

A big one?

Bigger than the house.

Really?

Well, maybe not that big. But bigger than me.

Paul smiled warmly and Kelan smiled back. He always did.

~

Time passed. Kelan’s mind began to drown within that endless sea of snow, and he drifted off, to dream within the dream. His eyelids had just dropped shut when the car hit some black ice and skidded onto the shoulder.

Dad!

The vehicle rocked as his father negotiated the car from gravel to pavement. You okay, Soldier?

Kelan nodded. He checked their cargo, and his heart pounded. Dad! It’s out!

Calm down, Kelan, it’s not—

It IS! The box tipped over and the jar is out!

It’s okay, it’s still in the jar—

NO, NO! The top is off! It’s OUT!

Kelan saw it scamper up the seat. How the things moved so quickly terrified him, and now it was free, loose in the car. Almost unconsciously, he unsnapped his seat belt and brought his legs up, swaying on his haunches. He shrank as small as he could and steadied his trembling body between the dashboard and seat. His lungs begged for air. His eyes grew, and before he could stop it, that grave cold gripped him the way it always did.

Kelan! Sit down! Put your belt back on!

Kelan wouldn’t … couldn’t. The thing was loose, it was coming for him. He could hear it scurrying about, its hairy spider legs clicking the way they did, the way only he could hear, the way the dark-skinned man with the strange accent had sworn was only his imagination.

He wasn’t imagining this.

The spider was nowhere in sight. He was going to scream, and then he would feel it, that warm wetness growing between his legs.

Click-click-click. Faster now. Clickclickclick.

Desperate for any edge that might distance himself, Kelan tried to get higher by extending his legs. His head hit the roof and forced him back down. The thing was under his seat now, he could feel it. He could hear it.

Kelan Lisk! Sit down this minute!

Paul applied the brakes gently, and the car slid on some ice and fishtailed. Kelan fell sideways toward him and reached out for support. His hand found the steering wheel and gripped it hard. The weight of his body pulled the wheel right, and the vehicle slipped into a spin.

Daaaaadeeeee!

The Taurus slid into a sharp curve. It rocked as its wheels caught the edge of the road, and before Kelan knew it, he was on his back in the rear of the vehicle. His body flipped about, the world spinning in a terrifying blur.

Kelan screamed. There was a deafening grunnnch as the car struck the guardrail and smashed through. The vehicle tumbled end over end into a ditch, his father somewhere in the car and screaming his name, and with the spider loose and out of sight and surely coming for him, suddenly, like an old clock winding down, Kelan was out of time.

His six minutes were up.

~ 2

Kelan shivered in terror. His bedsheets were soaked in urine and sweat. His brother’s steady snore from the top bunk calmed him. He wanted to reach up and touch that dangling hand just to be sure it was really there. He found Bear instead and snuggled up to the teddy bear’s matted fur.

Why now? he wondered, kneading the sorry ears of his best friend. It had been months since his last nightmare. Spring.

He changed his bed sheets after cleaning the plastic liner he so despised. He washed up in the bathroom and slipped into fresh pajamas. Then, as he always did, he checked the closet door. Still closed.

He slipped into bed and squinted at the glowing full moon. It hung in the window like a frightening Halloween mask.

Kelan …

An unfamiliar voice dove deep inside his brain. If he didn’t know any better, he would have sworn that it came from the closet.

It came again, disturbing and dark. Even though it was only a voice, it seemed to hold some physical presence. It was as if it had wrapped itself around him, like cold fingers creeping all along his body. He tried to ignore it, praying it would leave him. But it kept on, slow and methodical in its violation.

And so he listened, strangely compelled.

Come and play, it teased in a sweet child-voice, and all at once, Kelan found he wanted desperately to seek out its source.

Found he needed to.

Come and play, it said again, then left him.

Kelan slept until dawn, dreamless.

December 24

~ 3

A tangerine sun hovered above the hills of Key Corners, finally dipping behind the highest peak. In the town proper, most were trimming trees and indulging sweet tooths, or soon would be; some were pretending to be glad to be home for the holidays, or soon would be. But standing alone in Heritage Park, barely a half mile from the cradling warmth of his bed, Kelan’s stomach began to twist and turn in the deepening twilight. He could feel countless eyes fixed on him, from every monster his imagination could conjure. The dark was their playground.

And so he wished: Demons … be … gone.

They stole away. For now.

Was there something else?

There was.

The big hungry pikes.

He shoved the thought from his mind, cradling his trusty snowboard against his chest as if it was Bear. But unlike his woolly friend, White Lightning’s rugged face of chipped wood and scuffed bindings felt like the cold touch of the dead.

If only the demons would stay away. Already they were back, from whatever black caves they would crawl into when they fled. He could feel them sizing him up.

He saw no one.

Kelan straightened his orange toque and drew a deep breath. Stepping closer to the edge of the hill, he stared down its seductive length. He shuddered at the sharp slant of its icy belly, and wondered, What is that sound?

He had never heard the chilling thrum of his heart.

A snowball stung his right cheek, the cold biting like a hundred tiny fangs. The derisive laughter that swarmed about him made his blood freeze.

Only the Pack laughed like that.

He heard them coming from behind, sleds in tow. The laughter dwindled as they neared, turning to queries of his sexual orientation, and when that grew tedious, the chatter spun around his physical shortcomings. He closed his eyes and prayed for an earthquake. Anything that would suck the Pack into the earth.

The group fell silent, a standard warning of all things bad. Arnie Kovacs shuffled up beside him, driving him crazy with that incessant chewing of a thick wad of gum right next to his ear. It was always this way.

You’re never gonna do it, Lishk, Arnie snorted, his freckled cheeks bulging bags of fat. His words usually sounded slippery, mostly because he had half a pack of Hubba Bubba stuffed into his mouth, partly because of his lisp.

All talk, he went on. You never fushing do it. You’re jush a chicken-shit freak.

Freak. Arnie liked to call people that, among other things, but Freak was a red flag if ever there was one. It almost always preceded a punch in the face or a kick to the balls. A slap if Arnie’s mood was a good one.

The Pack’s leader (size does matter) turned to the others. Tony Armano, a year Arnie’s junior at twelve and a good forty-five pounds lighter, gave him a quick thumbs-up. Randy Pillsworth, older than Tony by a day and slightly smaller, served the same approval.

What about you? Arnie barked, glaring at the smallest of the group.

Simon Kovacs looked up at his brother with frightened eyes. The seven-year-old, barely three months younger than Kelan, nodded quickly and offered two thumbs.

Thash better, Arnie told him. You’re learning.

Hi, Kelan, Simon said. He chewed a single stick of gum his mentor had allowed him, and blew a big bubble that hid most of his tiny face. He managed a garbled, Hey, guys, look!, but no one seemed to care.

Arnie whipped around. He stabbed a finger into the bubble, bursting it over his brother’s face. His dark eyes swelled. His flaming red hair drooped over his forehead, spikes of it jutting out like bloodied knives. His left brow, orange and lumpy and twitched only when he got what Kelan called the Itch, twitched. Who the fush you talking to? The freak?

Simon gulped down his gum. His lips began to quiver. He blinked.

Swallowing. Shaking. Blinking. A triple-play from Arnie’s unwritten masterpiece, Seven Signs Of Weakness. To surrender so much as one of the Signs, well, at that point it was over. Arnie could smell fear as if it were stewing in his victim’s underpants.

No one really saw what happened next—Arnie slapped Simon in a breath—but that was the thing about Arnie, he was as big as a tank but could move like the wind. Like the time he kicked Principal Nolan in the jewels not a Fush you after the man had suspended him for smoking. The man had keeled over like a sack of dirt right there in the school parking lot, and wouldn’t you know it, it wasn’t three days later that he had to replace the windshield in his rusting, wood-grained, Olds Custom Cruiser. Apparently, someone had gone to town on it with a baseball bat.

Simon whimpered. Whimpering was another Sign, unlike outright crying, which was an unfortunate side effect of exploited weakness.

Arnie smacked Simon again. He struck him a third time, and Simon cried a river of tears.

Want more? Arnie snapped. Spittle slipped from his lips, and he sucked it up. His raven-black eyes narrowed.

Simon shook his head sharply.

Maybe you like it, Arnie said. "Maybe you’re like Lishk … a faggot."

Faggot. Another Arnie favorite. Freak was one thing, but if Arnie used the F-word (besides his other F-words), that meant one thing: the dreaded Really Good Beating. Arnie called it that, a Really Good Beating. And Arnie always said what he meant.

"Am not," Simon sniffled, wiping his tears on his mitt. I won’t do it again.

Fushin’ better not.

A hush befell the group. Arnie was good—the best—at intimidation, and one of his favorite ways to drive his prey was to stalk it with nary a word. As it was, no one spoke. No one dared. Arnie was working himself into an Itch.

Kelan barely stirred, but oh how he wanted to scream. When the snowball had struck, he froze, and when he froze in front of Arnie, it was nearly impossible to thaw. And of course, Freezing Up was yet another Sign along that walkway of weakness.

He had dreaded their arrival. The odds had been in his favor that the Pack (officially known as the Four-Pack in school) wouldn’t show up, but he wasn’t what Eric called Really Lucky, he wasn’t even Regular Lucky, he was what his brother called Not So Lucky, and that these turds had shown up now was the proof. They had reared their ugly heads last year at this time, and had beat the crap out of him after he had Chickened Out—Sign number six if he remembered right.

Faggot needs a lesshun, Arnie said, snapping the silence. The others nodded. Simon kept on nodding long after Tony and Randy had stopped, raising two thumbs again, just to be safe.

Kelan waited for it—for Arnie to give the order—and there it was, falling from the sky like an anvil in the Road Runner cartoons. It came sharply, the way it always did, the way Arnie loved to say it, the General leading his men to battle, the word exploding in Kelan’s brain like a cannon.

Formation.

~ 4

Kelan bit down on his lip and braced himself for a Really Good Beating. Boots swished through the snow as the Pack assumed their predictable positions, Randy left, Tony right, their crazed commander in the middle. Only this time, Arnie stood behind him, out of sight like a giant spider lurking in the darkest corner.

Without warning, Arnie jolted him. Kelan shot forward, tripping over his snowboard. He nearly tumbled down the treacherous slope but somehow slid right and fell flat on his stomach. His glasses popped off, leaving him blind, and he gaped as a red and white streak whisked down the hill at a velocity he had only dreamed of. White Lightning made a gallant solo effort, but it veered off the slick runway and slammed into an enormous oak. His heart sank.

The Three-Pack (Simon popped several bubbles as he watched and learned) roared in laughter, icing their cake with a volley of snowballs. They kept on Kelan like wild dogs. Arnie kicked him, and Kelan swallowed a scream. Screaming wasn’t another Sign, but it pretty well raised the white flag, and with most bullies the strategy would have worked. Fact was, Arnie told you when you cried uncle, and that was that.

Kelan suffered in silence. A second blow to his abdomen winded him, and he rolled to his side in anguish. He wanted to get up but knew enough to stay down. The Pack taunted and teased, called him Faggot and Freak. But then they simply stopped, picked up their sleds, and wandered off.

Kelan blinked. Blinked again.

Arnie had given the order—he was always giving orders—and had told them to stop. Maybe a squirrel had caught his fancy, or maybe another hapless kid had wandered by. Whatever it was, Kelan lay there, mystified at his luck. His side throbbed, but he had gotten off easy. He squinted in disbelief as the Pack shrank in the distance.

Maybe Eric was wrong. Maybe he was Really Lucky, after all.

Kelan found his glasses, blew the snow off them and slipped them on. He removed one of his gloves and pretended to squash Arnie’s head between his thumb and forefinger.

He rose slowly, sighing at the sight of his snowboard under the oak. The light of the moon guided him, and he stepped carefully down the slope. He grabbed his board and made his way back up the hill. The Pack had already crested the last hill and was on its way out of the park, but as Kelan plunked himself down out of breath, he knew he wasn’t alone.

He stared out over the hill, flush with worry and want. His tummy refused to settle. The trees were preying giants now, the park growing darker with each beat of his heart. The demons were there. They were watching. Waiting for their chance.

He glanced skyward and drew strength from the moon’s silvery glow. It seemed to cradle him with invisible arms, and he found he could wait just a little bit longer.

After all, a few minutes more wouldn’t kill him.

~ 5

Kelan sat for a spell. The hill egged him on, and while he reconsidered his plans, he recalled the words of warning he had heard last August. Eric had taken him downtown for ice cream (not because his brother wanted to, but because Mom had told him to) and while they sat on the steps of the variety store lapping it up, old man Krieger, perhaps the oldest living creature on the planet, waddled past and began his daily two-hour trek across the street to the Post Office. Bony as death, the man trembled like a leaf in an autumn breeze. But the moment those droopy old ears heard what Eric was going on about—this very hill, the Run—he spun around like a top and made his way back in two short licks of Kelan’s vanilla.

You boys take heed, Krieger croaked, rapping his walking stick on the boiling sidewalk. You don’t go near that thing. Mind me now.

Kelan felt the ice cream thicken in his throat. Why not?

The old man’s piercing eyes narrowed in the midday sun. He grumbled something, and then stabbed a crooked finger at Kelan. And what the man said next sent a chill down Kelan’s spine, that even now felt as cold as ice.

The Run’s alive, the old-timer said, his lips taut and thin. He smelled like olives. His liver-spotted skin, baked in the wisdom of ninety-six summers, seemed perfectly lifeless. It’s a monster, and if you don’t steer clear, it’ll eat you alive. It’ll swallow you whole.

A week later, Norm Garbula, a miner at Tilsen laid off that same morning, struck Krieger with his half-ton just after the old man picked up his mail. There were flyers and bills everywhere, but no sign of the walking stick. They buried Krieger the following Saturday, Kelan’s birthday, the same day he found the walking stick behind the Post Office. It was too weird by half.

Krieger aside, Kelan had heard the stories (in Key Corners, all you ever heard were stories), and this one had stirred him like no other. One kid perished in the 1930s, another fell prey to the ’40s, and two more were lost in ’55. The ’60s came and went, but legend spoke of the Run’s last meal in the winter of 1971. They never did find that black kid, and in fact, in over a century of running the Run, not a single person had slain the beast. Not one.

But Kelan Lisk was going to change all that. He would rewrite the history book, and the world would sit up and take notice. For the most part, he enjoyed his anonymity, but there were times when he felt lost among the throng. He had heard someone on TV talking about their fifteen minutes of fame, and he knew his wasn’t going to fall into his lap. He’d have to reach out and grab it.

It was time. Kelan rose and stepped to the edge of the Run. It glistened in the moonlight, teasing like candy under glass. Though not the longest slope in the park, it was surely the most perilous. A razor-straight runway, it had no bumps, no dips, no nothing, to slow its prey. At the bottom, those gutsy enough—or just plain stupid enough—to see it through met a heart-stopping six-foot leap across Potter’s Creek. Even at minus-forty, the swift rapids rarely froze, and even when they did, it was suicide to walk on them. Should the impossible happen and one actually make it across, the only way back was to inch along a narrow timber crosstie that was probably as old as Krieger. And probably as rotten.

At the water’s edge, nailed to the oak, was a faded white sign stroked in chipped black paint:

NO SLED NG NO TOB GINING

EX REEMLY DANG RUS

Kelan saw tracks where earlier in the day, other kids had taken the slope. All had either wiped out or had stuck out their boots to stop themselves in time. Most of them had made it halfway before fear or common sense had kicked in, but at least one foolhardy soul had come within five feet of the rising jump before reality had slapped him in the face. Indeed, one of the many games played on the Run was to see who could come closest without going over … a kind of twisted version of The Price Is Right.

Hadn’t anyone made it? Ever? Surely the stories were wrong. At least, incomplete. Only two winters past on a blustery Sunday in January, a kid in sixth grade nearly soared into Run history. Using one of those plastic Krazy Karpets (his second mistake, Kelan thought, the wind in his face being the first), he’d been that close. Six inches from slaying that mythical beast called The Other Side. The kid had been pulled from the water just as the current sucked him under, but the thing was, he had almost made it. Everyone who had seen it, and most who hadn’t, talked about it for weeks. Some still did. Even Arnie had said it was cool.

Given the right conditions—no wind, no Arnie Kovacs, a snowboard of lightning—it could be done.

But Mom didn’t think so.

Kelan understood her concern (and wasn’t that an ordeal whenever the subject was breached), but as always, it was his brother who had made the deepest impact. In fact, Eric had nearly made him abandon the idea just last week. Lying in their bunks, Kelan had voiced his desire again, and Eric, tired of the obsession, took it upon himself to give him the straight goods on drowning victims. Kelan hadn’t slept for two nights afterwards, and now there it was again, his brother’s terrifying whispers reaching from the dark.

It’s scary stuff, Kay, real scary stuff. At first they don’t find your body, but after a few weeks it’s usually some old fisherman who tears into you with this really sharp hook. If you’re Really Lucky, the hook just tears off some skin. If you’re just Regular Lucky, they hook your gut and tear out your stomach. If you’re Not So Lucky, like you, they hook your face and rip out your eye. That’s when the big hungry pikes come, Kay. They can smell the blood.

Kelan backed off from the edge. He nearly screamed as a sudden gust sliced through the calm, making the oak sway and reach. A branch struck the ground, startling him, and as he started to run, the nylon leash of his snowboard slipped from his hand. The board slid forward and began its descent without him, and he gushed in relief as he caught the rear binding with his left boot just in time.

The hair on his neck stiffened. Something lingered in the stilled night like curious ghosts who have no place to go.

W-who’s there?

Silence from the woods.

Arnie?

Please God, let it be Arnie.

This isn’t funny, Kov—

His words died sharply, as if the limbs of the oak had reached out and snatched them from the night. His chest pounded, and as he took up his snowboard and held it for dear life, how he wished he could hear that comforting snore of his brother. Even Eric’s faceless whispers were far better than this crippling silence.

Kelan bolted. The snowboard slipped from his grasp and he tripped over it, the rope strangling his boots. He tumbled into the snow and nearly choked on a mouthful. Scrambling, he freed his tangled legs and got to his feet. He scarcely made ten yards before he stopped cold.

White Lightning. He had to go back.

As if an icy hand had snared him by the throat, a haunting voice crept inside his mind. It seemed vaguely familiar, like a fleeting bad dream; it hung there, teasing him. Drawing him.

Do you really want to go, kiddo?

Kelan shook his head, just the once, unaware he had done so.

And when he turned, barely able to breathe, he saw it wasn’t a dream.

~ 6

Susan Lisk stood in the sidewalk that crossed her driveway. Her eyes ran up and down a darkening Pine Street, the lamps from the street lights only now beginning to glow.

It’s your fault, Sweetie.

It was Mother, her sourness unmistakable. Susan had always hated it when the bitch called her that, especially in her thoughts. It grated like a buzz saw.

She shivered and zipped up her coat. She tried to convince herself that her son would come strolling up the street any second, his head bobbing in that adorable little walk of his. But something grabbed hold of her, told her no. He wasn’t coming home. Not now, not ever again.

He’ll be home any minute.

Pepsi barked, and Susan turned to the sound. Coke, the Anderson’s other German Shepherd, came running up and passed her, then crossed the street and joined his twin three doors down. Pepsi was up for some meaningless hijinks, but the other beastie spoiled the mood, barking his displeasure. Susan watched their antics briefly then resumed her vigil.

Any second now.

But her child didn’t return in the next second, the next minute, or the next five, and she suffered that cold stir again. Kelan always came home. And always before dark.

The dark. He feared it; feared it more than spiders. She could always tell when he’d seen something in the shadows, always knew when his imagination had gotten the better of him. It was as if he felt ghosts were stalking him.

Horror shot through her like a rushing river. She tried to deny these terrible thoughts, but as the sky grew deeper with each passing minute, she found herself unable to combat their will. She knew, as she always had, she supposed, exactly where her child was.

What else could it be? He was always on about that hill, about how he saw some other boy almost make it. How he was going to be the first. It was insane.

The accident had left him empty and withdrawn. Only a miracle had spared him, but the ordeal had turned a fun-loving child into a distant shell of a little boy. He had been in no shape to attend the funeral, but what had driven her to more tears than those she had already cried was his steadfast refusal to see his father’s resting place. Denial was a powerful thing … how well she knew.

She had clung to hope when his nightmares had finally ended, yet even now he showed no signs of a changed heart. All he wanted—all he needed, it seemed—was to fly down that hill so he could kill himself.

She shouldn’t have let him stay out this late. Not on Christmas Eve. Shouldn’t have let him out, period.

Shut up, Mother, she snapped, silencing the hag. She ran back to the house, told Eric she would be back in a minute, and stepped out to her stoop. Pepsi barked. She took the steps and started briskly down Pine Street, and as panic gripped her, started to run.

~ 7

Kelan closed his eyes tight and held them shut as long as he could stand it. But when he opened one—it was always safer opening one, because if there really was a demon there, he was certain he could shut one faster than two—it was still there. The demon was still there.

Only, this wasn’t a demon. What it was he couldn’t figure.

He opened his other eye.

The boy in front of him seemed the same age, give or take, but there was something about his look that made Kelan wonder. His gray mackinaw was old and ratty, just like the coats those kids from way back used to wear. Kids from way back, in those grainy black-and-white movies from the 19-whatevers. A dirty brown cap didn’t sit quite right, with woolly flaps that drooped past his ears. His scarf was thick like a snake. His corduroy pants were wet, as if he’d been rolling in the snow. They had a tear in the right knee. The kid’s boots were big ugly rubbers with buckles, and when he took a step forward, they made this awful sloshing sound.

He had deep, dark eyes. Scratches on his face. He looked older than he was. Looked like he could use a good meal.

He stepped closer still, and Kelan stepped back. The kid’s mittens (Mittens, Kelan thought, how lame is that) dangled from his coat sleeves, secured with sewn ribbons. His sled, a stubby wood toboggan with a chipped stripe of red paint across its middle, lagged behind him. The thing looked like it had been built about a hundred years ago. Maybe even before TV.

Who are you? Kelan said.

The kid blinked at him. Just the right eye. The left didn’t move. It looked like a marble made of wood. Ugly wood.

Well? Kelan said. You can talk, can’t you? Got a name?

Again, the blink. That dead eye was starting to freak Kelan out. Jeeze, you—

Kelan jumped. The kid did speak … inside his head.

I’m Bobby. You’re Kelan, aren’t you.

Kelan was stupefied. He tried to see if those lips moved, even a little. He’d seen ventriloquists, of course, but he could always tell. This was so weird. And that eye—

The boy turned about and took a long gaze down the slope. Does your ma know?

Kelan swallowed. He wondered how the boy knew his name, how he knew that his mother would kill him if she knew where he was. He feared the worst.

Everything’s aces, the kid told him, reading his mind. She don’t need to know.

Kelan brightened.

The kid set himself upon his toboggan, flat on his belly.

Hey! Kelan cried. What are you doing? You won’t make it on that!

But he did.

~ 8

Susan picked up her pace. Checked her watch. The sun had set a half hour ago.

A passing motorist nearly ran her down as she ignored the stop at the end of the street. The horn startled her, and the driver gave her the finger. She returned one, her heart settling into her chest. She continued down the other side of the street, nearly falling again as she made her way through a deep bank to reach the sidewalk. She brushed herself off, and her urgency suddenly overwhelmed her. The street was disturbingly silent; even the night seemed strangely still. Had she not known better, she would have sworn someone was watching.

She hurried.

~ 9

I’m dreaming, Kelan thought. I’m asleep in my bed with Bear.

What else could explain it? It was hard enough to believe what he’d just seen. But this?

His gaze raced down the hill, following the tracks the kid had made. They stopped at the leap—picked up on the other side—exactly where the kid had been standing not a moment ago. But now Bobby was right beside him, his ancient sled in tow.

Holy crap, Kelan muttered.

Bobby’s face was stone. If it had been him, Kelan would have had ants in his pants, bursting at the seams about telling someone. Arnie, mostly.

Shake a leg, kiddo.

What? … Ohhh, no. No.

Bobby turned without a word and made his way to the edge of the hill.

I don’t want to, Kelan said anxiously. He moved up beside Bobby.

Bobby picked up the snowboard and offered it.

Kelan felt something thick clog his throat. I gotta go home, he said. It’s late—

Bobby spun around. He stared across the field, peering into the darkness.

What is it? Kelan said. He was certain the kid had seen a demon. They were everywhere.

Bobby sneered, still staring into the night.

What’s wrong? Kelan said. What’s out there?

Bobby slapped the snowboard into Kelan’s hands. Do it now. Do it now, or you’ll never do it.

Kelan exchanged glances between Bobby and the slope. He thought he heard someone call his name—Mom?—but a sudden gust that seemed to come out of nowhere swept the sound away.

Bobby hounded him. Come on! Don’t be a chicken like that lame-brain Arnie says you is. You’re not scared, are you?

Kelan stirred. A teasing warmth came over him, growing with a deeper warmth that seemed to rise within him. It was as if someone had injected his veins with hot soup, as if he were drowning inside a wonderful dream. And when he looked to Bobby and those words came, so silent, so loud, his jaw dropped.

C’mon, kiddo—be a brave soldier.

Kelan turned to the slope. Its menace lured him. The voice lured him closer.

I can give you what you want.

Kelan nodded. He turned his snowboard over and back, carefully examining the hard outer shell and cool steel edging. It looked the same yet felt very different, as if the foam core and wooden casing had been replaced with lighter, faster materials.

He placed it down and stuck his right boot into the forward binding. Kelan was goofy-footed—a right-foot-forward snowboarder—but he never cared much for the term; it was the way he did it, and if he looked goofy doing it, so be it. He latched both bindings and secured the leash around the leg of his goofy foot with the plastic buckle.

He inched ahead. The rush of the water seemed to draw him nearer. And there was Bobby, pushing him to the edge.

I can give you what you need.

Pushing him over.

Kelan felt his body slip forward, and he let himself go. Helpless to stop, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to. His snowboard took a will of its own as it gathered speed. Trees whisked by in a blur. He resisted the urge to leap from the path, for that voice was still there, warm and reassuring, giving him what he wanted, what he needed, in the moment: faith.

His knees bent, his weight on his goofy foot, Kelan spread out his arms to maintain his suddenly magnificent balance. There was little room to maneuver, yet he was able to carve and sideslip with unexpected ease. He caught air and roared with a half-scream, half-laugh at the midpoint, bringing his board up behind him and performing a brilliant backscratcher before touching down.

And then he saw it. The creek came for him like a charging tiger, a hungering black hole into which he would surely be sucked. It was too late to change course; a last-second turn and he’d spill into the icy water. He tucked and let loose a cry as he hit the rise, the roar of the creek swallowing him.

Kelan soared onto a glorious moonbeam. Terror pierced his heart, exhilaration spilled from it. The moon slipped out from behind a curtain of lazy clouds, its pitted and pock-marked face smiling at him against the inky canvas of starry space. It hovered so tantalizingly close.

I can touch it—

Kelan reached out, only to yank his hand back in fright. He sensed something dark and shapeless before him, and as he shut his eyes tight and started to scream, came crashing down in a heap. All at once it was over, and he lay there, spent and reeling, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry.

He did both.

~ 10

Susan reached the park and stopped to catch her breath. She waded through a snowbank and started in, following a stretch of firmly packed snowmobile tracks. They veered right suddenly, forcing her to abandon the route. Barely fifty yards in, she passed the playground, and knee deep in snow, she stopped short.

She feared she might scream. She knew how a scare felt rippling up her back, how unsettling it was when someone stepped across her grave. But this, this thing that had suddenly stabbed her like a dagger of ice, threatened to cripple her. Terror gripped her as she quivered, cold invading her body.

She gasped and held her breath. A debilitating rush surged through her, sweeping up, up, up, until her head drowned as the frigid fever shackled her. She called out for her son, fearful that only the man in that silvered moon could hear her. A gust broke through the stillness and swallowed her cry. She tried again but there was no reply; only that maddening bluster that seemed to possess a mind of its own.

The cold rippled through her. She felt herself falling and tumbled onto her back. Somewhere, a fleeting voice teased her. Was it Kelan? It was impossible to tell; she could only hope.

Then, from the darkness came a high-pitched scream, an unmistakable beacon of sound.

Kelan.

Susan couldn’t speak; couldn’t call for her child. Something had entered her, had consumed her. It had come like a bullet, as had that voice—that relentless thing inside her head, the one she had tried to tell herself could not be there when it had first rammed into her brain only moments before.

The park began to spin. The sky whirled in endless waves, the stars streaking across an ocean of black. She tried to resist, tried to cry out, only to fall silent as that voice cut ever deeper into her and bled her like a lamb. Bled her into unconsciousness.

~ 11

Kelan lay still. He wanted to jump up and down in celebration, but his unease tempered him. He was certain he had sensed something. It was as if the fat globe in the sky had been a mask, the man behind it not a man at all but a creature ready to devour him.

He unbuckled his boots and got to his feet. His head was still dreamy, that hot soup flowing through him even now. He steadied himself, and as he grabbed his snowboard his gaze drifted across the creek. A wee grin crept along his face.

He leapt up with a shout and pumped the air with a triumphant fist. He found Bobby standing on the crest of the slope and waved frantically. He was bursting. "Did you see? Did you see?"

Bobby nodded. For the first time, he offered a small smile.

Kelan’s heart sank. He had spent months dreaming of this day, but had never given a second thought to its aftermath. Not a first, even.

How was he going to get back?

He moved to the water and found the din frightening. The creek sounded hungry. It was crazy, but it seemed to sense his presence, growing more menacing with every beat of his heart. Old man Krieger was right. The Run was alive.

Despite its weather and wear, the crosstie seemed sound. There had been a wide swath of four ties years ago, but time and rot had taken three of them. Kelan extended his goofy foot and tapped the beam. Tapped it harder. It didn’t budge.

He took the first step. The narrow bridge held, and he used his snowboard for balance as he worked his way out to the middle. He told himself not to look down, but the rush of the icy water caught his eye, and he lost his footing. Only dumb luck kept him from falling, and his heart rolled back in his chest. He settled a moment, and then risked another step.

The crosstie gave behind him. It broke from the bank and slid down, lodging itself on a rock. The impact jarred him from the beam, and he screamed.

They were right. Krieger, Mom, and most of all, Eric. He was going to die, horribly so, and so he closed his eyes tight, bracing for the creek’s ice-cold fangs to rip into him.

But no.

Something snatched him. It snared him by the wrist, and before he opened one eye, then the other, he was upright, standing on the beam. Bobby was there, holding him, and how the kid had managed to move down the hill so quickly mystified Kelan. Still, he was so thrilled to be alive that it didn’t matter. His new friend had saved him.

Maybe you are dreaming, he thought. Maybe none of this is real, and when you wake up you’ll still be a nobody. A chicken-shit freak.

Bobby led him across, and Kelan breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped onto the bank. He looked up. The oak stood like a monster, its scraggly limbs more like legs of a giant spider. He feared it might spring to life and snare him with those clawlike branches. And when a limb did reach down, his heart skipped.

Everything’s aces, the kid told him. See?

Kelan’s jaw slipped open. The limb crept toward him, and without knowing why—just knowing that he should—he extended his hand and plucked a stiff branch from it. The branch pricked him through the palm of his glove, but the discomfort was fleeting. That odd warmth swept through him again, and he held the branch tight. Suddenly it seemed the most important thing in the world, the most dear, and before his next breath, he found himself standing at the top of the slope. Somehow, he was.

Bobby was there, seemingly spinning. The world was. And before Kelan knew it, he was slipping off his glove, unable to fathom why. He simply did, burning with expectation.

A small wound bled in the middle of his palm.

It’s kinda green, he said, examining the strange, dark blood. Incredibly, the words leapt from his mind, not from his lips. Somehow, Bobby could hear him. It was all so strange. All so wonderful.

Come and play, Kay. Come and play.

Kelan tried to speak, but could only sigh as the warmth in his palm worked its way into him. It tingled, almost tickled, and he grew faint as the fluid coursed through his body. He shivered once as it claimed him, just once, and let himself drift in the current that swept him up. He tried to resist yet found it impossible, and so Bobby led and he followed, to a place far from where they were, to a world of wonder … and for a time, he forgot that this one ever existed.

~ 12

When Susan came to,