Prologue
Spears Corner never knew it had an uninvited guest in its midst that August afternoon. One that would make the skin crawl on every parent in town if they understood what kind of monster was roaming their streets. In a green Dodge van, it searched for the next boy to quench a thirst and an urge that never faded, never eased, never disappeared. The downtown area, a two-block stretch along Water Street, was full of adults and children alike enjoying a beautiful sunny day. Squeals of laughter bellowed from little ones chasing each other up the brick sidewalks. The group of teens standing in Nirvana and Liz Phair t-shirts on the corner flung curses at the monster as he passed by: “Look, it’s Chester the Molester and his fuck van!” “Fuck off, creep!” “Suck it, asshole!” The van rolled along. Just down the street, an old Credence Clearwater Revival song was being murdered by a howling kid with a beat-up acoustic guitar on the steps of the Spears Corner Public Library. This one caused the monster to brake. Salivating, its sweaty hands clenching the steering wheel, a desperate heartbeat throbbing in its neck, it always liked the loners. They made the best company.
Police sirens blared to life behind the van. Startled, the monster let off the brake and pulled ahead. The two police cruisers, their lights flashing, sped by.
The moment had passed. The van moved along, driving out of the crowded downtown area, and up the hill toward quieter parts of the town.
* * *
“Crap, Johnny,” the new kid, Ethan, said, “that was close.”
Johnny Colby was still shaking. He’d barely avoided getting run down by the asshole in the red Ford Escort. He hated riding bikes through the Shop ‘n’ Save parking lot. He’d nearly been clipped a dozen times. Nobody seemed to watch where the hell they were going. This guy had come out of nowhere and actually made contact. Johnny had been quick enough to raise his foot up and had his sneaker on the guy’s hood before being bumped from his bike and landing hard on the blacktop.
“I just need a minute,” Johnny said.
The jerk in the car shouted, “Stay out of the goddamn way” before hurrying off.
Asshole.
Ethan, a tall, scrawny kid, leaned his BMX against the bench and joined Johnny. “That cut looks pretty bad, man. You want to run in and see if they have some Band-Aids? I have a couple bucks left.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Johnny said. He pulled the red bandana off his head and wrapped it tightly around his bloodied knee. He felt fortunate to come away with this wound and the scrape on his shoulder, and not to have his skull cracked all over the pavement. “It’ll stop bleeding. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
It wasn’t until a couple hours later, when they were up the hill near the Spears Corner Common, that Johnny noticed the ugly van he’d seen twice already parked up ahead. He’d also caught it cruising by the front of the sports card shop earlier, and before that while they were skipping rocks into Jefferson Stream near the trestles. He hadn’t liked the look of it or the way the vehicle seemed to have moved twice as slow as the rest of the traffic. He’d grown up watching 20/20 with his mom every Friday night. The weekly program had filled him with its share of nightmares – everything from catching AIDS from a dirty needle used on him at the doctor’s like Ryan White, to being savagely attacked by an unleashed pit bull, or forced into a Satanic cult by older kids who listened to old bands like Slayer or that new group, Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids – but it also gave him a heightened sense of stranger danger, and this ugly van had his warning alarms going haywire.
“Let’s cross the road,” he said.
Ethan didn’t ask why, he just followed.
When they crossed again further up the street, Johnny looked back and saw the van was gone.
Good.
Bikes in the grass, armed with Pepsis they’d picked up from the 7-Eleven on the other side of the road, Johnny and Ethan sat in the gazebo at the heart of the Spears Corner Commons.
“You think I could spend the night at your place tonight?” Ethan said.
“Ah, I don’t know. I’d have to talk to my mom.” Johnny didn’t really know Ethan Ripley that well. The kid had just come to Spears Corner Junior High at the end of sixth grade a couple months ago. He liked the kid well enough, but enough to have to hang out with him all night? He wasn’t sure.
“That’s okay,” Ethan said, dropping his chin and staring at the plastic bottle cupped in his hands. “It’s just that my mom kind of sucks.”
“Yeah, they all do, sometimes,” Johnny said, unsure whether this kid was going to start crying or spill some sad, sappy story on him.
“She’s…I think she’s worse than most.”
Aw crap, Johnny thought. He’s gonna spill.
“My mom…she drinks a lot. Like, she’s drunk all the time, ya know?”
“Sorry, man,” Johnny said. He sipped from his soda, hoping his ‘sorry’ was enough.
“And my dad,” Ethan began. Tears leaked from both of his deep brown eyes. “He lives up near camp, and when I’m at his place, he hits me pretty good. Sometimes, I don’t know if I can take it anymore. If I should run away, ya know? Or just….”
Johnny had never seen a kid his own age fall apart before his eyes, except maybe in a movie. He was sure Ethan was about to come completely undone. That his skin was going to unzip and flood the gazebo with every bit of hurt and pain he had inside.
“Oh, shit, man,” Ethan said, standing up and wiping at his eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I told you all that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Johnny said. “Life sucks, sometimes, right?”
Ethan, red eyed, the front of his Counting Crows t-shirt wet from his tears, nodded and gave a weak, weepy laugh.
Johnny wanted to change the subject. He pointed to Ethan’s shirt. “You like them?”
“Counting Crows? Yeah, they’re my favorite band.” His gaze dipped, his hand nervously scratching at his neck. “I hope you don’t think that’s too lame.”
“They’re okay,” Johnny said. “‘Mr. Jones,’ right?”
“Yeah, but the whole tape is really special. I mean, it is to me. It’s like every song on there speaks to me in some way. Have you ever had a tape like that?”
He thought about it. He really liked a lot of different bands and their albums. He couldn’t really pick just one. “I don’t know,” Johnny said. “Sure, like, Nevermind or Ten, maybe.”
“Yeah, those are really good ones,” Ethan said. After a few seconds of silence, he added, “I can make you a copy if you want to check it out.”
“Is that the name of the tape?” Johnny said, pointing to the words scrawled across Ethan’s shirt.
“Yeah, August and Everything After.”
“Cool,” Johnny said rising from the bench lining the inside of the gazebo. “Come on, you ever been out to the Pits?”
“What is it?”
Johnny led him down the steps to where their bikes lay. “It’s a bunch of huge sand piles the city uses for all sorts of stuff. Tons of people go out there with four-wheelers and dirt bikes or just to go shoot shit for like target practice.”
“Are we supposed to go there?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t know, really. My buddy Paul and his dad always go out there and ride. I’ve been with them a bunch of times and I’ve never seen any cops. Come on.”
By the time they reached the Pits off Brunswick Avenue, they’d both wished they’d brought some more soda.
“The sun sucks today,” Ethan said as they rode in through the open gate.
“There’s another store, New Mills Market, just down that way,” Johnny said. “Let’s get a few jumps in, and then we can use those last couple bucks of yours to get something.”
“Okay,” Ethan said. The kid was finally smiling.
Good, Johnny thought. He didn’t think he could stand another waterworks display from the guy.
“Wait,” Johnny said, looking at Ethan’s funny hand. “Are you going to be able to land okay, I mean, with your hand and everything?”
“Yeah, it’s not as useless as it looks,” Ethan said. He clutched his bike grip to prove it.
“Cool.”
Johnny was curious as to what happened to his hand, but never felt right to ask. Ethan would tell him if he felt like it.
Johnny took the first two jumps off a smaller dirt pile before Ethan gave it a try. The kid made his first jump like a pro, getting some serious air and sticking the landing better than Johnny ever had.
“Wow,” Johnny said, cruising over next to him. “That was freaking awesome. You must have done this before.”
“I used to ride dirt bikes with my Uncle Pete before we moved.”
“Well, shit, man, you’re gonna have to show me how you do it.”
Ethan’s gaze drifted over Johnny’s shoulder. Johnny turned to see what he was looking at.
“What is it?” Johnny asked, and then he saw.
The green van. The same creepy Dodge junk box he’d seen earlier sat parked near one of the taller sand piles a little farther in the pits.
“Oh my God,” Ethan said. “Let’s go see if he’s all right.”
Johnny didn’t know what the kid was talking about until he noticed the man down on his hands and knees toward the back tire of the van.
His stranger danger alarms blared again.
“Ethan, wait.”
But Ethan was pedaling toward the van in a hurry.
Johnny stepped on his pedal but couldn’t force himself to follow. His insides felt cold. Gooseflesh broke over his arms. They shouldn’t go near that man or his damn van.
He sat frozen as he watched Ethan dump his BMX to the dirt and walk over to the man on the ground. He appeared to be helping the man to his feet when the man snatched him by the hair and slammed Ethan’s head into the side of the van. The man clubbed Ethan until the boy collapsed to the ground.
That’s when the creep stood and pointed at Johnny.
Oh no, oh God, no.
Johnny wet his pants. The man grabbed Ethan up from the dirt, carried him behind the van, opened the back door and piled him inside. Slamming the doors shut, the stranger turned toward Johnny, who hadn’t been able to move. Johnny’s entire body trembled. He was crying as the man started for him.
The awful man had closed half the distance by the time Johnny finally busted loose from his paralysis and turned his bike around.
He couldn’t go for Brunswick Avenue. The man would go back to his van, catch him, and run him down. There was a path they used to use that went all the way to Talbot Hill, which would bring him over to Bruton Street. From there he could hurry down Church Street and over to the police station.
Johnny pedaled as fast as he could. It felt like the strange man was Carl Lewis, like he was going to break another Olympic record and run him down. Johnny was going to get stuffed in the back of that van.
As he left the sand and dirt behind, his bike tires eating up the grass of the path, he dared a quick glance over his shoulder.
The stranger was no longer behind him.
He didn’t look back again. He pedaled to Talbot Hill. When he got there, he saw his English teacher, Mr. Janz. He asked if he could use his phone, but Johnny never made it to the police. Instead, he called his mom to come pick him up.
He never told anyone what happened to Ethan Ripley. He was too afraid he would get in trouble for not helping him. For not stopping that man.
After the police pulled Ethan’s body from Litchfield Pond, Johnny cried himself to sleep.
Chapter One
“We all have ours picked out.”
Johnny wondered what the kid with the one eye meant.
“That one’s mine,” One Eye said. He pointed into the fog.
“That one?” Johnny said.
“Sure. Johnny, which one do you want?”
Johnny still wondered what they were talking about.
“What makes you think he gets to pick one?” August, a tall kid with a clawed hand, asked. His hollow eyes matched the straight black hair that touched his funny shoulders. Johnny thought it looked like he was wearing shoulder pads made of baby skulls beneath his faded blue Superman t-shirt. Johnny didn’t like that August’s shoulders made him think of baby skulls, but he thought that was August’s fault. Somehow. And those damn eyes. Just two black holes….
“Pick one of what out?” Johnny asked.
“A grave, stupid,” August said.
“A grave?”
“Come on, Johnny,” One Eye said. “Don’t mind August, he’s just sore because he can’t play ball with us.”
August’s black holes seemed to smolder. The clawed hand clutched tightly to one of his baby skull shoulders twitched, and then opened and closed.
One Eye bolted for the fog. “Come on, Johnny, before August gets us.”
Johnny turned to run and tripped over a sign that hadn’t been there moments before. Mud and wet grass smeared into his eyebrow where his face hit the ground. The placard lay on its side in front of him.
“Graveyard Land?” he said, reading the sign aloud.
The fog swirled to life, creeping forward, surrounding him where he lay. The sign vanished within the thick mist. He could no longer see One Eye, but he could hear him calling from far away, “Jooohhhnnneeee….”
Johnny’s chest tightened. His teeth chattered. The surrounding fog prickled every hair on his arms.
Where’s August?
He wanted to get up and run or try to find One Eye. Instead, he pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them. Curled in a fetal position, Johnny cried. He searched the swirling fog. Two black holes peered back.
* * *
“Holy shit.” John Colby scrambled from beneath his sheets. He reached out for the lamp on his nightstand and knocked the stack of magazines he’d been thumbing through before bed to the floor.
“What?” Sarah mumbled beside him. “What are you doing?”
He found the lamp and poked at the switch. The darkness retreated.
“What? Nothing. Go back to sleep, Sarah.”
“What time is it?” she asked. Her voice was muffled from the pillow she’d pulled over her face.
“Not time to get up. I’m gonna go grab some water. It’s all right. Go back to sleep.”
She was out before he lifted his ass off the bed. He walked down the hallway and went straight for the kitchen sink. He didn’t bother with a glass; he just craned his head to the faucet and took it straight from the tap. His horizontal view through the open rectangular window above was one of beauty. A gorgeous, full moon; the mostly clear night offered the thinnest clouds to float past its pale face.
Rolling like fog.
The thought brought back a piece of the bizarre dream. He’d been having them a lot lately. Always in the cemetery with these two boys seemingly alone in the fog. John ceased slurping the water and instead let the cool flow pour over his numb lips. A howl off in the forest beyond raked a chill down his spine. He lifted his head, ran his hands through his short, mostly brown hair, though specks of gray had begun to appear sometime over the
last year, and listened. The yipping howl came again. The moon’s beauty was tarnished by the trace of a bad dream and the cry of the nocturnal.
John wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and headed back to bed.
* * *
Morning offered a cabaret of warm sunlight, the smell of fresh-cut grass rolling in through the open window on a warm summer breeze, and the sound of Sarah singing Katy Perry from the shower. John raised his arms and stretched. The extension of muscles and a wonderful mix of Saturday morning’s easy peaceful feeling made for that rare moment: life in perfect balance.
Pat must have already finished mowing the lawn. John had to give it to the punk. Mohawk notwithstanding, Pat was a morning miracle worker.
“Hey, Morning Glory, what’s the story?” Sarah said. She stepped to the bedside in her blue silk robe with the pink flowers on it that he’d gotten her for her birthday a few months back. “I opened the window as soon as Pat finished with the lawn, probably about twenty minutes ago. Thought you might like waking up to the smell of magic.” She said this with the smile that made him fall in love with her. He loved that she referred to life’s good stuff as magic. Fresh lemonade on a hot summer day, snow on Christmas, hitting the search button on the radio and the first station it lands on is playing ‘Walking on Sunshine’– magic. He still couldn’t believe she’d said yes nine years ago. He was grateful every day.
“I was wondering how I slept through the mower. Pat still wearing his punk rock uniform?”
“He had his Mohawk spiked to the sky, sleeveless jean jacket with all those patches, but…”
“What?” John asked.
“He was wearing bright green shorts. Pac Sun. I’d know ’em anywhere.”
“No sex pants?”
“Sex pants?” she asked.
“Yeah, you know, the plaid pants with all the zippers and bondage straps and shit?”
When she looked at him like he was weird, he said, “A guy I worked with once called them that.”
She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “Get up and brush your fangs, I want to kiss you like I mean it.” Her brown eyes sparkled, casting a spell all their own.
“Yep, I’m on it.” He jumped out of bed and glided around the corner to the bathroom.
* * *
After they tangled up the sheets together, he followed her dancing booty down the hall to ‘the best part of waking up’. John figured this morning could challenge Folgers for the rights to that title. Sarah grabbed them each a mug, while he snatched the French Vanilla creamer from the fridge. Caffeine in hand, John went to sit at the table.
“No,” Sarah said. “I hear the porch calling.”
Sitting on the steps, staring at the freshly mown front yard, John sipped his morning buzz and hummed an old nineties song. It could have been something by Dinosaur Jr., but just as likely Everclear.
“So, did you wake up freaking out again last night or did I just dream that?”
Sarah’s inquiry put a permanent hold on his mystery tune and placed a set of cold hands on the shoulders of his perfect morning. “Yeah, I had another crazy dream.”
“Was it the same one? With those kids?”
He’d told Sarah about August and One Eye, not their names, but their oddness. “Yeah, it was messed up.”
“You want to talk about it?”
He wanted to forget them, but at least relaying the dreams aloud killed their creepiness with how foolish they sounded.
“Yeah, I was by a field with those two I told you about—”
“Were you still a kid? ...
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