### A Hollow Dream of Summer's End

—A Hollow Dream: Season One—

Andrew Van Wey

A Hollow Dream of Summer's End

A Hollow Dream – Season One

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This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover & Layout: Greywood Bay, USA

Editing: Express Editing Solutions, UK

SMASHWORDS edition

Copyright © 2012, Andrew Van Wey.

All Rights Reserved

Published by Greywood Bay.

V.2.28.14

ISBN: 978-0-9840157-2-6

this one is for my childhood friends.

we never left each other to the monsters.

we grew up.

we became them.

-july 2012

###

### —1—

THE SUMMER SHOULD HAVE lasted forever.

Or at least that was how it felt to him, in the waning days of August, sitting in the tree house on the cusp of the night that never ended.

It was impossible that time should slow down, this he knew. It was the opposite, all the grown-ups said that. Yet somehow, the summer had distorted, distended, stretched out until every single day was packed and the hours were full of adventure.

It had begun with a bell at two forty-five on the last day of May. The classroom doors at Guinda Elementary burst open and the students spilled forth into the freedom of summer. They had waved off the fifth graders, exchanged a few high fives and said their see-you-laters to the former rulers of the school. They had reigned for a year, but now they were off to be recycled, back to the bottom of the heap that would be middle school. Such was the way of things, such was the system.

It was a day of chaos that reached a frenzy in the final hours. A day of old homework torn and crumpled, tests thrown to the wind; a day of summer promises and plans; a day where the next three months lay before them as wide and vast as any of the three friends knew. For Brian, Freddie, and Aiden, it was a day of endless possibilities, a horizonless future and all that the golden glow of summer promised.

As soon-to-be fifth graders, it was the first summer they would be almost totally free. The first summer they could stay out until dark. It had hardly begun and they were already making plans in the parking lot at school, Brian and Aiden's bikes nose to nose while Freddie roller-bladed around them.

"We could totally bike to the old water tower," Brian said, studying his hand-me-down smartphone, stickers hiding the countless cracks. "It's only, like, five miles, maybe."

"Five? Try ten, tool," Freddie took the phone. "It's past the cemetery."

"Tool? Your mom's a tool," Brian snapped. "A power tool."

"What does that even mean?" Freddie laughed.

"A di-di-dildo," Brian stuttered as he often did when trying to come up with a witty retort. "Like, industrial strength. Vroom-vroom!"

"You're both tools," Aiden said. "The water tower's nowhere near the cemetery or five miles away. It's here." Aiden double-tapped the map app with greasy fingers and zoomed in. "By the Baylands, see?"

"That's like..." Brian gulped, stifling his stutter. "That's uber far."

"Uber?"

"It's German. It means more-than-super."

"Is your name German for dumb ass?"

Brian swung out to punch Freddie in the shoulder, but the lanky kid was a weasel. The second he saw knuckles, Freddie back-skated and darted off, out of Brian's reach.

"I'll remember that," Brian warned.

"Ah, you'll forget it in five minutes," Freddie teased, turned, and fell onto his ass in the parking lot.

"Karma!" Brian laughed. "See!"

"Damn," Freddie winced, studied his scraped calf. There'd be scabs, a few pebbles for sure.

"Here, you re-tu-tu-tard." Brian hopped off his bike and offered Freddie a hand. "Up and at 'em." He pulled the lanky boy up.

"Guys, I bet if we left in the morning we could get there by the afternoon," Aiden said. "It's totally doable."

"Then let's do it," Brian said. "Just as long as we don't gu-gu-get lost."

"So what if we do?" Freddie said. "That's half the fun, isn't it?"

###

###

###

### —2—

THEY DIDN'T GET LOST that Saturday, or the Sunday that followed.

In fact, they only got lost once that summer, on the old road between the Bixbee Meadow and the Campus Dorms that lined the Alder Glen graduate school. Their adventures, on foot, by bike or even by bus—something they weren't supposed to take, but did—emboldened them. They found the borders of their world expanding, the lands beyond the suburbs and the neighboring cities less frightening. As each day passed they added another adventure—big or small—to their summer accomplishments, until there were too many to count.

They bicycled up the windy roads past the university to Alto Park and back half a dozen times. They climbed Moss Hill and explored the boulder fields and marshes around Estrelle River. They carved their names on the red bricks that made up the crumbling ruin of Frenchman's Tower.

On one of the hottest days, Freddie found a rope swing on the western shore of Alto Lake and launched himself into the water with a somersault and a splash. Only later, as he climbed out, did he discover he'd left his crummy flip phone in his pocket. His mom would be mad; money was tight for his family. Yet it was a small price to pay for the thrill of the swing, like the cuts and bruises and the occasional scraped knee, of which there were many.

In July they spent four weeks at Alder Glen Sports Camp, rotating between baseball, soccer, and lacrosse in the mornings and spending the afternoons at the pool playing water-polo or Marco Polo. They won most of the games they played, Freddie pitching fastballs and Brian belting out triples and one home run. After sports camp they biked home, Freddie donning his blades and sliding down the rails or grabbing the back of Aiden's bike as he pedaled down the tree lined streets of Alder Glen at breakneck speed.

The nights were filled with video games and scary movies, a never-ending cycle of sleep overs between their three houses. Freddie's family lived in the south end of town, where the Craftsman houses had yet to be torn down to make way for McMansions, and where English was often a second language. He was the youngest of four brothers and a sister, Baby Freddie they called him when they weren't pinning him down and farting on his chest. Whenever Aiden and Brian spent the night there they found themselves in a world of chaos, of microwave meals, wedgies, and teenage testosterone. Perhaps Freddie's parents figured, with five children and an income that was hardly middle class, survival of the fittest was a necessity. Or perhaps after all these years they were simply too tired to care.

Brian's parents did care. At least, his mom did. His parents were separated, had been since second grade. It was the same year his dad had fled a fraud investigation all the way back to Hungary, leaving his mom in debt and Brian with a curious case of a lingering stutter. He lived with her in a tri-story townhouse with a jacuzzi that burbled late at night. She was a lonely woman who spoiled Brian and his friends, stuffing them with candy whenever they visited, and somehow never failing to find a way to participate in whatever sports teams and after school activities he was involved in. Brian rarely spoke of his father, only that he was always "away on business" and would visit soon.

Aiden was the only one who didn't live in Alder Glen proper, at least not on the weekends if his dad would have his way. For half Aiden's childhood he had watched his father tinker in the garage in the evenings, building computers and writing code. They had never been poor or, perhaps, if they had Aiden had never noticed. They always seemed a step ahead of Brian and Freddie's families.

While his dad struggled in the garage Aiden's mom managed a boutique off Main Street that sold hand made handbags to the rich dot-commers that drove hybrids and hosted fundraisers for endangered bark beetles. "Feel good idiots," his grandfather always called them. "Wonder how good they'll feel when all those electric cars start plugging in to a coal powered grid." But the feel good idiots paid the bills, allowing Aiden's dad to tinker well into the night while Brian's mom and Freddie's family cheered from the sidelines of their soccer games.

Then, in December, two things happened almost simultaneously: his parents filed for divorce, and his dad sold his patents and his software company to Google. The newspaper had said it had been for just under fifty million, but his dad laughed it off. "It's a little more complicated than that," he had said.

By the end of April his parents had separated and his father moved out and across town. From the two bedroom one bathroom cottage by the train tracks that had been home for a decade, to a six bedroom two floor ranch style mansion, set on a dozen acres in the hills, overlooking Alder Glen. Aiden had protested, almost cried.

Then his dad showed him the treehouse that came with the property.

"Pretty stellar," his dad said, pointing up at it. "Built it right onto the redwood. Even has a rope ladder you can retract to keep out the monsters. See?"

"Cool," Aiden said, gripping the rope ladder and giving it a tug. Sturdy. Very sturdy. "It's really high."

"Thirty feet. Kid that built it fell out and broke his neck. That's why I got the property for cheap."

Aiden studied his dad, shocked. "Serious?"

"No, not at all." His dad chuckled. "He grew up went, to college, according to the realtor." His dad's jokes usually landed somewhere between macabre and downright absurd. "Off like a heard of turtles," he always said at the beginning of the road trips they had taken when he was younger. Back when the laughter between his parents had been frequent. Before the old car that hardly made it south of the peninsula had been replaced by an Audi.

"So whattya think? You want to live here?"

Aiden shrugged and studied the landscape. It was remote. Very. The hills were home to the preserves, a golf course, old sections of university open space sparsely populated with biotech firms searching for answers in DNA and radio telescopes aimed at the heavens. A few distant buildings - part of the linear accelerator, perhaps. Aiden had toured the area with his science class last fall. He still had the prism he'd gotten as a souvenir on his desk, back in his bedroom. Back in Alder Glen.

Back at home. His real home.

"You'll still go to the same school," his dad said, perhaps sensing his trepidation. "You could spend the week days with your mom, come here on the weekends. Or more, if you want. Sound fair?"

"Yeah, I guess," Aiden answered. "Is Julie moving as well?"

"Yeah, buddy. She's coming along too."

Julie.

Aiden didn't like Julie, not at all. She was young, much younger than his mom. She looked like one of the college counselors at his sports camp, and she always smelled of Lush or some sickeningly sweet candy fragrance. Whenever he visited his dad she hung around, always trying to make small talk and using slang in weird ways.

"Those shoes are tight," she had said over breakfast, pointing to his Five Finger shoes.

"Huh?"

"Like, really cool. Tight. The swagger."

"Oh," he said, and rolled his eyes. "Thanks. I guess."

Later, when he was playing Nintendo, his dad came in and sat beside him. "You need to be nicer to Julie. She's really trying to be your friend."

He didn't want a friend, he thought. He wanted Julie gone. He wanted his dad back at 1710 Astor Lane, in the bedroom at the end of the hall in the house he called home. He didn't want to live in this new, big house, even if it was only for the weekends. He would trade all of it, the tree house and the six bedrooms and the TVs, all for that stupid cottage they'd lived in for the first decade of his life. He'd trade the Audi, its GPS and entertainment system, for the junker with the tape deck that never worked. They had never needed GPS and entertainment systems, not on their summer trips to Half Moon Bay or to see the Elephant Seals at San Simeon. They had only needed each other.

Most of all, he'd do anything to trade Julie for his mom. He wanted a do-over, on all of it.

"Can you do that, buddy?" his dad asked. "Can you try to be nicer to her?"

"Okay," Aiden said, and went back to his video game.

"Good." His dad gave him a pat on the back. "Maybe next weekend we'll do something fun. You can have your friends over. Sound cool?"

"Sure, that'd be cool," Aiden answered.

The thing his dad didn't understand was that every day of the summer was a weekend to his friends. Every day was the same as Saturday, the only difference was the name.

Why spend his summer weekends with his dad and that dumb girl on the ranch at the edge of town when he could spend the days with his friends?

Why deal with Julie and her weird words?

Bounce. Chillax. Tight.

The only thing tight was the tension that twenty-five year old created when she tried to be his friend.

Or worse, his mother.

And so Aiden made excuses, told his mom he didn't want to go to his dad's house, and told his dad he couldn't come because he was sleeping over at Brian's or Freddie's, or anywhere. The summer went on, July became August, and every time Saturday rolled around Aiden found another reason to avoid that ranch at the edge of the woods in the foothills.

It wasn't home, he told himself. It would never be. The only thing that was nice was that tree house, and even that was just okay. In Alder Glen they could walk to Game Stop or bike to the Baylands and beyond. They knew the way to the old water tower, and they could always go toss rocks at the ducks by Shoreline Park. That was how he wanted to spend his summer, biking through the suburbs with his buddies, not up in the foothills looking down on them.

###

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###

### —3—

THE HIGHER THE SUN climbed, the longer the days seemed.

It was only as August neared September that the responsibility of the school year reared its head. The dream of summer, of endless bicycle trips and camp outs, was beginning to fade. There were books to read, reports to write, subjects to review. The school had sent every student off with an envelope an inch thick. An envelope that had sat for two months on Aiden's desk, unopened. Only now, with his mom threatening to ground him if he didn't finish his summer reading, were the days and nights beginning to recede. Only now had responsibility woken him.

He saw that final Sunday at the end of the two weeks, the chasm that lay between the days of warmth and the beginning of fifth grade. The sun was setting on this summer. The future now had a horizon

"I hear Mrs. Miller's a real bitch," Freddie said as they sat in Aiden's bedroom and played Xbox. "Like, she made Danny Krugmen cry cause he flunked his social studies test."

"Danny cries at dodgeball, the kid's a spu-puh-puh," Brian swallowed, tried to force the word out. "The kid's a spu-spu-pu—"

"Spu-pu-pit it out you spaz," Freddie said, scooting out of Brian's reach.

Instead Brian simply pointed and said: "Spaz. That's the word."

"My mom says I can't have anyone sleep over anymore," Aiden said, passing the controller to Freddie. "Your turn."

"Why not?"

"Cause of the book reports. I haven't started."

"Me nu-neither."

"Yeah but you're a book worm, you read them like you eat donuts," Freddie quipped. "Two at a time."

"Not boring ones, and that's all we've got," Brian said. "I tried to read Anne Fuh-Frank and I fuh-fell asleep. Pass me the controller, loser."

"You always choose Raiden," Freddie whined. "Can't you play any other character?"

"I would if your hands didn't sweat all over the controller," Brian said, choosing Raiden from the character select screen. "Seriously, this thing's as wet as a ma-ma-monkey's ass."

"How do you know what a monkey's ass feels like?"

"Ask your mom."

"Fatty made another mom joke," Freddie laughed. "That's deep."

"Funny," Brian said. "That's what she said."

"Burn," Aiden laughed, and for once Freddie laughed with them.

"What about your dad?" Freddie asked Aiden.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, couldn't we have a sleepover at your dad's new house?"

"Yeah, I thought we were..." Brian gulped, took a breath. "You were gonna show us the tree fort."

"Right, and you said it's really big. Why don't we go there?"

"I don't know," Aiden said, focusing on the screen and the battle between his character and Brian's. It was no contest really. Brian was ten times as clumsy with Mortal Kombat as he was in real life. Aiden toyed with the big goof just to give him some semblance of hope. "I don't like Julie, she'll just bother us."

"She's pretty," Freddie said.

"That's his mu-mom you're talking about—"

"She's not my mom," Aiden snapped. "She's just his girlfriend and she's an idiot. If you guys want to sleep over, fine. But I don't want to talk to her because everything she says is dumber than the crap you say."

"That's fine," Brian said, dropping the controller as Aiden's character delivered the coup de grace to Brian's character and tore his still-beating heart out of his chest. "But she's still pretty."

###

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###

### —4—

HIS MOM'S SILVER SEDAN settled on the gravel driveway as the gate closed behind them.

"So he bought an old mansion and a new girlfriend," his mother said, studying the property. "Hope he's happy."

"Mom, please," Aiden said.

"You're right, I'm sorry. I love your dad, you know that, right?"

He nodded. He did. Nothing new there, just another jab at the man who left her. There had been a lot of those, this summer.

"Call if you need anything, okay?

"Okay."

A light turned on in the entryway and, seconds later, the red front door opened. Julie stepped onto the porch dressed in form fitting terrycloth yoga clothes. "Hi Susan! Hi Aiden," she said, bouncing across the gravel driveway to meet them

Aiden noticed his mom's eyes studying the young girl's form. "Wish I had all day free to do nothing but Pilates."

"Mom..."

"Hi Julie," his mom said with precise courtesy as she neared. "Well, he's all yours for the weekend. Is Michael in?"

"He's on a conference call upstairs. Hong Kong, I think. Or maybe China."

"That's..." she bit her tongue as Aiden gave her an amused look. "Still working on Friday night I see."

"And Saturday and Sunday. Was he always this busy?"

The question seemed to amuse his mom. She fought off another grin. "Well, we didn't separate because he was lazy, that's for sure. Who knows? Maybe you'll have better luck than I did."

"I doubt it," Julie laughed and turned her attention to Aiden. "How you doing, buddy? Ready to have a fun weekend?"

"I guess," he yawned, wondering when Brian and Freddie were going to arrive. This was to be the last weekend, the sunset on their summer. It would be fun if they didn't see Julie at all. That's what he was ready for.

"Well, it was nice to see you Julie. Give Michael my regards," his mom said, then turned to Aiden. "Kiss."

He kissed her on the cheeks, took his backpack, stepped out of the car and closed the door.

"Love you, kiddo," she said.

"Love you too, Mom."

Soon he was watching her sedan rumble across the gravel and back out through the automatic gate, her wrist rising to give him a final wave. For the second time since his parents separated six months ago, he was spending more than the afternoon away from his mother.

"I'll take your bag," Julie said, but he held on to it.

Last time he slept at his dad's house he had hoped it would feel more like home when he returned.

But it didn't feel like home, not at all.

It felt like another world. And he felt like a visitor.

###

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###

###

### —5—

HIS ROOM WAS AT the top of the stairs.

It was big—twice the size of his room in Alder Glen—bigger than even the bedroom his parents had shared for a decade. It felt strange, uncomfortable, to have a room larger than his mother's to do with as he pleased. He felt like a traitor.

The last time he'd stayed there Julie had asked him what he'd liked, what his favorite movies were, and what sports he played. He'd given little thought to the answers. But now Iron Man, Maroon 5 and A-Rod posters lined his wall. She'd even found and framed an advertisement for Apple's Think Different campaign, probably because he'd said he liked Steve Jobs.

Julie...

She'd obviously put a lot of effort into decorating the room. Yet the harder she tried the more pathetic it felt. It was the opposite of organic, from the posters in their frames to the bunk beds to the dark green curtains, every detail had been culled from the questions she'd asked months back.

Perhaps she had hoped his jaw would drop and they'd suddenly be friends. Neither happened when he stepped into his bedroom. Instead he just looked around, said: "Cool," and went to the bathroom. She was gone when he emerged.

He played games on his smartphone, launched a few angry birds at pigs, and read some comics on his bed. Brian sent him a text saying they still needed to pick up Freddie. That gave him at least a half hour to kill time. He flung more birds, then grew bored and looked out the window. Spanish tiles and a view of the preserve beyond. Without his friends there was little to do but wait and let his mind wander. To soak in the silence of the big house and how foreign it felt.

—

The shape lingered, studying him. Somehow, he had fallen asleep, and if he'd dreamed he remembered nothing.

"Hey buddy," his dad said, opening the door. "Didn't mean to wake you."

"No worries," Aiden answered. "What's up?"

"I like the hair."

"What?" Aiden asked. "Oh, right."

"The blonde streaks. Looks good."

It'd been over two months since he'd put those streaks in his hair. He'd forgotten about them entirely. But to his dad, they were new.

"So, do you like the room?"

"It's cool."

"Just 'cool,' huh?"

"It's nice. Did Julie work on it?"

"Of course. You know that."

Aiden took it in again, nodded just for show.

"She ordered the posters and had 'em framed. Took her a while to find that Apple one. That's the real Jackie Robinson one."

"She didn't have to do that."

"Course she didn't, Aiden." His dad took a seat on the futon. "But she's a nice girl. She wants you to feel at home."

Girl, his dad had said. Not a nice woman, but a nice girl.

Julie was fifteen years younger than his father, but she wasn't a girl. Still, Aiden didn't think of her as a woman either. His mom was a woman, headstrong and stubborn and fierce with her opinions. Maybe his dad had enough with women. Maybe he wanted a girl.

But a girl could never be his mom. Julie never would, no matter how many posters she framed and curtains she hung.

"When are your friends coming?"

"Soon, I think. Brian's mom is driving them."

"Does she still count to five at every stop sign?"

"Yeah."

"Probably be a while. Got any big plans for the night?"

"Maybe, I don't know. Freddie wants to camp in the treehouse."

"Perfect night for it. We've got some sleeping bags and extra pillows."

"Okay."

"What do you feel like for dinner?"

"What can we have?"

His dad laughed and shook his head. "Aiden, you're not a guest here, okay? You want to order a pizza, order a pizza. Or maybe Julie can cook something—"

"Pizza's good."

"Round Table?"

"Sure."

"Pepperoni? Or how about King Arthur's Supreme?"

Aiden shrugged.

"Want to get both?"

"Okay."

"Okay."

His dad's eyes studied him, a gaze that seemed to make his skin shrink. He felt awkward, uncomfortable. A kid, not the fifth grader who had dyed his hair after his birthday this summer.

"Listen, buddy," his dad sighed. "I know this is tough on you, what your mother and I are going through. And, well... I know you think Julie had something to do with it. She didn't, but I know that's what you think. I know that's why you've avoided coming over this summer."

"I was busy—"

"It's okay, really. I understand. My point is, please don't blame Julie for something she didn't do. I love your mom, you know that. And I love you, too. The truth is, well, some people grow up, and some people grow apart. Your mom and I, we'd gone different directions long before I met Julie. But you and me, buddy, we don't have to grow apart. This'll always be your home, as long as you want it be, okay?"

"Okay."

"What I'm trying to say is this: we can drive ourselves crazy trying to wish things weren't the way they were. But part of growing up is learning to let go of what we wish we had, and accepting what we've got. And we've still got each other, buddy. If that's good enough for you."

"Yeah," Aiden whispered. "Of course."

"Good," his dad said, rubbing his son's head. It'd been two months since they'd touched each other, Aiden realized. Two months since they'd hugged. "Now, let's go order a few pizzas. Sound good?"

"Sounds great."

The futon creaked as he stood up and signaled the end of the uncomfortable conversation.

"Besides, Julie's a good cook, but nothing beats a pie from The Table."

###

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### —6—

THEY ARRIVED AROUND FOUR.

Brian's mom fumbled with the intercom, mashing the wrong buttons, hanging up every time Julie tried to open the gate. Finally, Aiden just walked out to the driveway, down the path, and opened the gate with the button inside.

"Holy shit," Freddie said once they were out of earshot of Brian's mom. "This place is awesome."

"I think I can see my house from here," Brian said, looking back at Alder Glen and the surrounding cities spread out below.

"I don't see the homeless shelter," Freddie quipped. "Oh wait, there it is."

"You're a ra-ra...you're a real stand-up comedian," Brian replied. "When you stand up, people la-la-laugh at you."

They made their way to the front door and it opened, just as Aiden feared it would.

"Hi, guys," Julie said, greeting them. "Come on in. Which one of you is Freddie?"

"I am. I'm me," he gulped. "I mean, that's me."

"It's great to meet you. Your mom called and asked me to remind you to take your allergy medicine."

"Okay," Freddie nodded, stiff as a board.

Julie turned to the big kid. "And that would make you Brian."

"Yes ma-ma'am," he answered, cheeks reddening.

"My mom was ma'am. Please, call me Julie."

"Yes, Julie," he said, still red.

"Okay, well I'll let you kids get settled in. Aiden can show you to the bedroom."

They ambled up the stairs, Aiden leading the way.

"Bye, Julie," Freddie called out from the top, giving her a smile and a wave.

A moment later the boys were tossing their backpacks and bags on the futon in Aiden's room.

Freddie's hands rose to his chest, cupping a pair of invisible tits. "J-U-G-G-S," he said. "She's like my sister's age."

"Your sister's a sophomore in high school," Brian said. "That's su-sick."

"Okay, maybe she's a year older."

"She's a ba-ba...she's a fox," Brian said.

"Guys, really? That's my dad's..." Aiden didn't want to say the word, "...that's his girlfriend you're talking about."

"She can be my girlfriend," Freddie laughed.

"Dude, you've even got a TV in here?" Brian studied the flat screen mounted on the wall. "3D, OLED, HDMI, optical... nice!"

"That the treehouse?" Freddie asked, glancing out the window at that towering redwood on the edge of the property.

"Yeah. Wanna check it out?"

"Sure!"

"Buddy," Freddie said, putting an arm around Aiden. "This place is awesome."

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### —7—

THE HATCH SWUNG UPWARD with a groan.

"Sweet," Freddie said, peering into the treehouse from below. Aiden let them go first. It was only fair, after all. They hadn't seen it.

"What's it like?" Brian called out from below.

"Big," Freddie answered. "Lots of windows."

"Well go in so I can climb up."

"Try not to break the ladder, fatty."

"You kidding? It's workhorse rope," Brian said and tugged the rope ladder.

"That what they make your mattress out of?"

"It's what they use to climb mountains, dumb ass."

Freddie disappeared inside the treehouse as Brian ascended the rungs. The rope ladder twisted, swung to the left and right, and Brian came close enough to the trunk to push against it with his leg. He stopped there for a moment, catching his breath and looking down.

"This is kind of high," he said, apprehension in his voice.

He was right. From grass to hatch it was about thirty feet, but if felt more like sixty. From where Brian was, he could look down on the distant Spanish tiles that lined the roof of the first floor, and the checkered top of the patio umbrella. Staring straight down made it feel like looking down on the whole world. Back in Alder Glen, the homeowners association and its regulations would have seen that the treehouse was torn down by day's end. But out here the rules were looser, the houses were bigger, and perhaps the consequences were as well. A fall from full height would snap a pair of legs, at best.

And at worst? Well, Aiden didn't want to think of that. "Try not to look down," he shouted up to Brian.

"Sure it's safe?"

"Safe enough," Aiden answered.

"How safe is that?"

"Good enough for me."

"H'okay," Brian said, resuming his climb, every move calculated and precise. The last few rungs were a mad scramble, desperate and frightened. He grabbed the grips on the edge of the hatch and disappeared inside.

Only Aiden remained, ascending slowly.

Then the wind picked up, only for a moment, and in that brief rustle of leaves Aiden turned his attention to the woods beyond the redwood. The brambles of oak and fir, the moss swaying in the breeze, the tangles of trees beyond.

The property was on the edge of an open space preserve, part of the greater glen that the foothills faded into. Roads and streams and trails wound their way through the folds of the preserve. Small, unincorporated towns popped up here and there, gas stations and markets, a church or a real estate office. It was all uncharted territory to Aiden, the hills and streams and glens and woods and all the trails between. Hanging there on that ladder, looking out at the edge of his father's property into the glow of the late afternoon, he realized that he'd been foolish not to visit sooner. That he'd done the one thing adventurers shouldn't do: he'd stopped venturing off the beaten path.

The wind picked up, carrying with it an odd call. It was a bird, he thought. Or perhaps an insect. A faint call, like a distant throat being cleared, followed by a clicking that drifted on the otherwise silent breeze.

Hwooooooock-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.

Moss shifted among the oaks. A distant bird shot up into the sky with a shriek.

"Dude, c'mon up," Freddie called from above.

Aiden listened again but the sound didn't return. The woods were quiet, still. Only the rustle of leaves in the wind; of moss in the breeze like tattered clothes on old, gnarled lines.

"Coming right up," Aiden said, and continued up the rope ladder.

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### —8—

"THIS WOULD MAKE A heck of a fort," Brian said, leaning out the southern window of the treehouse. "Like, for cowboys and Indians. You could shoot arrows from up here."

"What are you, seven?" Freddie asked. "We haven't played that in years."

"So? It was fun when we did," Brian answered.

The treehouse did have the feel of a battlement. It was an octagon, four large sides that made up the main walls and four smaller sides that acted as corners. The main windows were large, double glass panes that slid open. There were even screens to keep out the insects. From the east side, the window gave an excellent view of the acre of mowed grass between the house and the single redwood that stood in the otherwise barren lawn. To the west: the foothills and the oaks, Bloom Creek and the nameless folds of land among the preserve that flooded in the spring rains. To the south: the town, parts of Alder Glen and the university. To the north: the freeway and part of the old water tower poked up over the hills.

The great redwood pierced the center of the treehouse, supporting the entire structure. Shelves had been built into the trunk, space for a radio and some candles. Patches of bark had been peeled away like mange. The previous occupants had carved their initials: MCB. + AAV, and Pike's Posse.  Aiden wondered who Pike was, and what his posse was like. Were there three of them? The Amigos, as Aiden's dad called Aiden's friends group of friends. Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest?

Had Pike and his posse spent their summers up in the tree fort, thinking of fifth grade and the book reports they'd have to write? Or had they been older? The heart around the initials seemed to say so, like something a middle school kid would carve. Then again, Freddie had kissed two girls last year and hoped to ask Amy out at the end of August. Perhaps Pike and his posse had been Aiden's age, which made him wonder: did he live at this house with one parent, or with two?

They passed the time playing their handheld video games, tossing insults at each other and switching games whenever a winner became too confident and their victories too many.

"Sometimes I wonder," Brian said during a lull on combat.

"Don't hurt yourself," Freddie quipped.

"Ha-freaking-ha, ass munch."

"Wonder what?" Aiden asked.

"Like, if our life isn't just a big va-va...a big video game. And someone else is controlling us. Maybe, like, that's why we get deja-vu. Cause they're do-overs."

"Like checkpoints?" Aiden asked.

"Yeah. From saved games where we had to restart the level."

Silence. Then: "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Freddie laughed.

"Well, you're the dumbest thing I've ever seen," Brian replied. "So that makes us even."

"What are boss fights?" Aiden asked. "In this video game world."

Brian considered it, smiled. "That's when Freddie's mom gets mad."

"Dude, dinner!" Freddie said, spotting Julie setting the pizza boxes on the patio table.

And like that Brian and Freddie raced for the ladder, the heavy boy sending the lanky one stumbling sideways, both kids scrambling to be first down through the hatch.

Julie's voice carried across the yard as the two boys clambered for the ladder. "Supper, boys!"

But Aiden didn't care if he was first.

###

###

###

###

### —9—

"YOU'RE DISGUSTING," FREDDIE SAID. "You eat like a pig, anyone ever tell you that?"

Brian folded a slice of pepperoni over another slice of combination, squeezed, and bit down on the resulting pizza sandwich. Cheese, oil, some mushrooms and tomato sauce dripped between his fingers.

"Seriously, my dog has better manners."

"It's easier this way," Brian said between chews. "Plus, you eat like a girl." He held out a pinkie, holding his double slice like a dainty teacup. "Oh, my name is Fancy Freddie, I only eat my slices with a knife. Pass the tea and trumpets, Wadsworth."

"Crumpets, retard," Freddie said.

Aiden laughed, almost coughed up orange soda. The fizz bubbled behind his nose, making him wince. Julie had set up paper plates, cups, and some mosquito coils. She had even left a few candles out, but in the early evening light there was no need. They still had a few hours of sunlight, two at least.

"What is it about pepperoni and cheese?" Aiden's dad asked, emerging from the kitchen, Bluetooth earpiece still tucked in. "Simple combination, but somehow it's like magic."

"Hey, Mr. Park," Brian said. "Thanks fa-fa-for having us over."

"Anytime. You guys are family, you know that. Aiden, you show them the treehouse?"

"Been up there for the last hour," Freddie answered. "Wicked view."

"Yeah, it's pretty cool, huh?"

They nodded, chewed. Brian slurped his soda a little too loudly, eyes drifting indoors to Julie by the kitchen table, and the way her sundress hung loose around her chest when she bent over. She wasn't wearing a bra, and at that angle, with the sunlight falling through the fabric of her dress...

Aiden's dad followed his gaze. "Ah, you weren't supposed to see those."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to stare," Brian said.

"See what?" Aiden asked.

"Nothing, never mind," Brian lowered his eyes, slurped his soda, reddening.

"Well, it was going to be a surprise but," his dad waved at Julie. "Hon, bring 'em out, would you?

Julie emerged from the kitchen carrying several bright orange and black boxes. Images adorned the covers, the sides. Guns, from the look of it. Sci-fi themed with lasers shooting out of the end. Red and green and blue.

"Whoa," Freddie said, eying the toys. "Are those...?"

"Laser tag kits," his dad said. "Just like the ones at Aiden's birthday, remember? Vests, chargers, guns—"

"Blasters," Julie corrected. "That's what the guy called them."

"Wow," Aiden said, studying the box. "Dad, these are awesome—"

"Well, it was Julie's idea, too. Actually, she picked them out."

Aiden studied her. "Thanks, Julie," he said with a smile that seemed to make her blush. For the first time since she'd entered his father's life, she looked awkward, uncomfortable. It was odd, he thought, as if she was just as nervous around them as he was around her. Maybe she wasn't so bad, he thought. She was trying, after all.

"Oh, it was nothing, really. Your dad mentioned you guys liked it."

Brian was already loading a half dozen D cells into his vest. "These things have a range of, like, I dunno. A lot."

"Three hundred yards in sunlight," Freddie said, studying the box. "Dude, these are really good guns. They use these at LaserQuest."

"They guy at the store said they're the best on the market," Julie said. "What the pros use."

Aiden activated his gun. The front and sides lit up, orange and yellow LEDs flashing along the clip to indicate ammunition. Like something out of his Xbox games, those sci-fi ones with space marines in the year 2500. He pointed the gun at the vest Brian was trying on.

Zap!

Lights lit up all around the vest, indicating a hit. Brian jumped as the vest let out a synthetic sound and vibrated. "Holy shit—I mean crap!"

"Do they work?" Aiden's dad asked.

"Yeah, it even shakes," Brian said as the lights stopped flashing. A damage meter on his gun read: 80% health.

"Dude, they're programmable," Freddie said. "From 'one shot one kill' to twenty five hits. They can even register head-shots."

"That's pretty sweet," Aiden said, studying his own gun. Full health, one shot short of a full clip. He released the clip, pulled it down, then snapped it back in just like at the arena they'd played at. The counter reset and reloaded.

"Hasta la vista, baby." Freddie fired off another shot that caught Brian point blank in the chest. Zap! Another vibration, another burst of lights, and the sound of a direct hit.

"Ah, quit it!" Brian jumped. His gun let out a warning and the damage meter read: 60% health.

"Well, I'd play with you guys but I've got about fifty calls to make tonight," Aiden's dad said. "You boys enjoy yourself."

"What about Julie?" Freddie asked. "You can be on my team."

She laughed at the idea, for once seeming much older than her mid-twenties. "I'm afraid I'd end up shooting you by accident. Friendly fire and all."

"That's okay," Freddie answered.

"Nah, you guys have your fun. Probably got about an hour of sunlight left. If you get hungry, there's ice cream in the fridge."

Brian armed his gun and shot Freddie. Zap! Lights, impact, vibration. Freddie jumped. "Oh, you're dead, fatty!"

Brian ran off and Freddie followed, blasting at him. Aiden lingered, uncomfortable.

"Julie?" he asked as she gathered up the plates.

"What's up?"

"Thanks. This is awesome."

She smiled, nodded. "You're welcome, buddy."

###

###

###

###

### —10—

THE RULES WERE SIMPLE.

It was a straight forward death-match, every man for himself. The bounds were set at the edge of the woods and the preserve below. Anything farther than the old road a mile downhill was too far and, since there were only three of them, they kept it simple: no house, no lawn, and the treehouse was off limits.

"That's our safe point," Brian said. "Our base."

Thirty minutes later, Aiden was crashing over sticks and deadfall, sliding past a log, and dropping into a prone position by a large rock.

There, on the damp ground, he waited. Brian was somewhere behind him, a few hundred feet, perhaps. Maybe more. They'd bumped into each other near the trail. Brian had been ducking beneath the horse fence, Aiden was following the footpath.

It was a genuine "oh shit" moment, a real high noon showdown; two sworn enemies finding themselves fifty feet from each other. They said nothing, studying each other for what felt like an eternity.

Then they both drew and fired.

Aiden got off half a clip before he found cover in the leaves.

Brian squeezed off a few shots, then his chest lit up from a grazing hit and his gun screamed with damage. Aiden used that time to run and reload, cocking the barrel and watching his ammo bounce back up to twelve. Brian's health was at 80%, his own a perfect 100%. Four more glancing hits, or two critical strikes dead center, and Brian would be out of the game.

Pop out of cover and fire as fast as you can, he told himself. Just like Gears of War. He'd done this a countless times with the controller. This wasn't that different.

Only it was, and when he popped out ready to blast he found himself scanning the empty woods. Brian was nowhere to be seen.

He studied the area, waiting. The big boy had to be there, somewhere...

Zap!

His chest rattled and shook as his gun lit up. 80%.

"Oh shi—" was all he had time to say as he threw himself behind a tree and stuck his head out. Brian was somewhere nearby, yet he couldn't see any shadow or shape. No footprints or rustling branches or—

Zap! Another glancing hit shook his vest, sent his heart racing. His gun lit up, belched out warnings. 60%!

And there Brian was, emerging from behind an oak in the opposite direction Aiden had been looking. Unbelievable! The big guy had flanked him. Aiden was totally exposed, didn't even have time to return fire. A turn, a stumble, and off he ran. Somewhere behind him, he heard Brian squeeze off three blasts in succession.

He didn't look back as he ran. It would only expose him, only slow him. This was The Suck, as the space marines said. And he was knee deep in it.

It wasn't real, this game they played, but it sure felt real. The adrenaline and fear of fighting one of his best friends in the woods while being hunted by another made the game as close to war as he had experienced. It wasn't hard to imagine some doomsday situation; a North Korean nuke sailing overhead, obliterating L.A. and San Francisco and half the western seaboard in the pre-dawn hours. Red and blue parachutes with gold sickles and stars filling the sky in the hours after the fallout settled. The three of them taking Freddie's dad's collection of rifles, heading to the foothills to wage a guerrilla campaign against the invaders. Rebels, coming in to the lowlands to ambush convoys and sabotage power stations. Freedom fighters.

Yet that was a fictional future, a fantasy he trained for, and the present was real. This was The Suck and in this moment his friends were his enemies and the woods behind his dad's ranch were their battlefield.

Somewhere behind him, Freddie shouted. Somewhere, not far off, branches broke. A curse word, several, and the sounds of shots fired, faint and electric. The woods were alive with electronic blasts.

He ran deeper. Leapt over a log, turned at a mushroom covered stump, and pressed on. It was not a retreat, he told himself; it was a strategic rearrangement. Brian had gotten the upper hand, could have fragged him in five shots, but Aiden was too fast. That was his secret, after all. The twitch reflex never failed. Not in Mortal Kombat, not on his bike, and not at LaserQuest when they'd played this game for his birthday. He wasn't retreating. No, he was flanking the big kid. He was gaining the upper ground. And when he found Brian, he'd be the one firing down.

Another distant shout as he pushed on. The ground sloped down, angled on damp leaves and loose dirt. The change was abrupt, sudden, and jarring. He was running too fast, legs carrying him down too steep an incline at a speed too quick to control. He saw the edge rushing toward him. He had no traction, nothing to stop him, and nothing to grab on to.

Then he was falling over.

This shouldn't be happening, he thought. I'm the quick one.

And then the world went sideways and the stony creek bed rushed up to catch him.

###

###

###

###

### —11—

HE DIDN'T FEEL THE impact. Only the fall.

Then the slow cascade of dirt and leaves, pouring over the lip of the crevice like a filthy waterfall. Down it poured onto him, and for a moment he thought he might be buried alive.

Alive, if that's what I still am, he thought.

He spent a silent moment there among the rocks and sand of the dry creek bed, wondering what he'd broken. His arm, perhaps. His leg for sure. The fall was a good ten feet, maybe more. He was probably in shock right now, mangled or worse, and at any second the pain would jar him to his senses.

He had landed sideways on the dry creek bed, among stones big and small, sharp and smooth. Yet none were under him. Lucky, he thought. A few feet further and his brains might have been all over those rocks.

Hwock! Tick-tick-tick-tick...

That sound, he recognized it. It was close, closer than it had been earlier. For some reason not entirely clear to him, that sound served as an anchor, a great chain that pulled him back to the present, clarifying all. And the present situation was serious. He had slid, rolled, and fallen down the sharp incline of a hill and into a creek bed fifteen feet deep. He had fallen, hard. And if something was broken, he needed to know whether to scream for help or not.

"Please..." he said, lifting himself up and waiting for the scream of pain, the crack of shattered bone, the blinding shock. Nothing hurt, not yet, but that didn't mean nothing was hurt. There had to be something. Yet, as he pulled himself up, he found his wounds were superficial. A scrape here and there, a bruise perhaps, but nothing worth worrying about. Nothing worth fighting back tears over.

Hwock! Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick...

His gun, he suddenly thought, realizing it wasn't in his hand. The fall had sent it flying from his grip. A somersault, and then it had been wrenched from his fingers. The gun itself probably cost a hundred bucks, perhaps more. Sure, his dad had money now, but they'd spent a decade eating cheap and saving coupons. Somehow he knew his dad would give him an earful if he'd lost it or broken it in the first hour.

Hwock! Tick-tick-tick-tick...

He pulled himself together and scoured the dry creek bed for the green and orange blaster. The sunset shadows were long, the light in the ravine sparse, dappled, deceptive.

Please, he thought. Please be around here, somewhere. That's not too much to ask, is it?

A glimmer. Something flickering. There it was, his gun! It lay on the ground near the edge of the ravine where the two banks came together in a V. At the meeting of those two embankments, a strange structure poked out from the earth like a half buried ruin. It was a confusing sight, ancient and absurd, and for a moment he wondered if he hadn't stumbled upon the ruin of a forgotten civilization a thousand years old.

No, he realized. It was a drain. It was a large tunnel that formed the outlet of a great drainage channel. It was built of concrete, though the years had turned it to an almost muddy ruin. Iron bars that had once blocked it off were now little more than bones in the concrete, eaten by time and rust. Moss and mushrooms sprouted along the cracks. A few wet webs clung to the dark spots and the shadows. Even the mouth of the drain was slanted, more of an oval than a perfect circle, as if the weight of the hills above had compressed it over the years.

He walked over, bent down, and picked up his gun. It worked, and when he squeezed the trigger an electric blast went off. Lucky, he thought. He had dodged two bullets (or lasers) and didn't want to press his luck any further. Now he just needed to get out of the creek.

Somewhere, not too far off, that bird clicked and called out. Hwack! Tick-tick-tick-tick...

He studied the drain, that large hole disappearing into the wet earth; a diseased orifice. Dark, ill boding. In the winter and spring showers the creeks ran a dozen feet high, but it was the end of summer and Aiden couldn't remember a single wet day since early May. The drain hadn't seen a drink in months. Yet there was a dampness to it, a wetness. All around it were brambles and branches, leaves and run off from some forgotten spring shower. Detritus and decay, as if swallowed.

Hwock! Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick... Hwooock!

And a jacket, he realized. A mud covered jacket lay nearby the drain, its color long ago washed away. Not just one jacket, but several. A few were buried, torn, reclaimed by the earth and the elements. Others made of hardier fabrics, denims and synthetics that had yet to decay. They lay at the base of the drain, as if they'd been carried by some long gone current.

Funny, he thought, the water should have pushed the old clothes away from the drain, not toward it. Funny too, that such a thing would even exist out here, now that he thought of it. There was something old about the drain, ancient. Perhaps older even than the earth and the trees that surrounded it.

Something stirred in the darkness. A rattle, a glisten, and the feeling that something had been displaced. That something had changed.

Hwock! Tick-tick-tick... Hwoooock!

That sound. That congested clearing and clattering, as if from some parched throat, it had not come from the trees. It had not come from some bird. It came from the shifting darkness deep inside that drain.

No, something hadn't changed about the shadows, he realized. Something had moved.

Run, his mind whispered. Run.

Hwock!

But run from what?

Tick-tick-tick...

Doesn't matter, his mind said. Run and don't look back.

Hwock!

A faint clattering, rattling, as if a thousand buttons were dragged across metal deep inside the drain. Louder. Closer. The shadow glistened.

He turned and ran as fast as he could.

—

Trees passed in a blur. Branches snapped beneath his feet. Leaves slid.

Aiden ran faster than he ever had before. Up that damp hill, the sun a sideways glow through the trees. His heart banged like a drum, pushing him forward, upward, ascending. Moss slapped at his face. He ran through a spider web, the silk glistening at the last second, and he would have screamed if it weren't for the feeling in the pit of his stomach that something far worse than a spider was behind him. A thousand teeth and a dozen eyes, wretched limbs and fingers all clattering, rattling, and reaching out for him. Up the hill, faster. His feed pounded, his heart raced. He could feel it on his back, closer, reaching out for him and—

His chest vibrated, his heart leapt into his throat. Sounds exploded and a gasp flew from his lips.

Zap!

He spun, went sideways, and his ankles buckled. His gun let out a synthesized warning: "HEALTH CRITICAL!"

Zap! Zap!

His chest shook violently, the vest pulsating with the impact of the blasts. That electric voice warned: "PLAYER TERMINATED! WEAPONS NOW OFFLINE!"

And then he saw them. Freddie was on his left, fifty feet and still firing at him. Brian was on his right, his vest flashing, signaling that he'd been fragged as well.

"And then there was one!" Freddie shouted, pumping a fist in triumph. "G G, losers."

G G, Aiden realized. Good Game, indeed. He had run right into Freddie.

"I... I thought..." Aiden said, taking a knee and panting as his vest vibrated, lit up, and dimmed. In the dying light of the day he looked like a jogger who'd just finished a midnight marathon. He turned back to the woods behind him, to the hill he'd climbed. Something should have been there, he thought. Something had been inches from him, reaching out, chasing him...

Yet only emptiness lay back that way. Only the broken branches and twigs he'd clattered over, pushed through. Only the lingering feeling that something had been there, awakened. An entity, a chattering, gnashing thing that had reached out for him all the way from the drain and...

"Dude," Brian said. "You were ru-running fast."

"I thought..." Aiden said again, but stopped himself from finishing. Thought what? he wondered. Thought the boogeyman was behind me? Thought some silly monster had slithered out of an old storm drain? "I thought you were behind me," he said to Freddie.

"I doubled back, picked off Brian when he chased you by that fence," Freddie said. "He's a big target."

"Come closer, I'll show you what a big target does to little targets," Brian said, reaching out for Freddie.

The lanky kid ducked, twisted, and danced off. "I'll take your word for it," he said. "Come on, let's get some more pizza.

Freddie fired off a final shot, the blaster emitting a warbled bleep. Then he powered down, the lights of his vest flashing a final time before going offline. Aiden and Brian followed, disconnecting their blasters and powering down as well.

There, in the amber glow of the setting sun, the three friends made their way back home, laughing and reenacting the best moments of the game they'd just played. It was a walk that took twenty minutes, half of it spent trying to find the trail toward the house.

Once back on the dirt path they took it slow. Jagged shadows stretched across the ground. Horseshoe prints and potholes spotted the packed earth, a few deep enough to twist an ankle. Somewhere, a single cricket called out, only once; a chirp in the dying light of a summer's eve.

Aiden waited for an answer, but it never came.

—

They talked about autumn, about the homework they had yet to do, the books that had yet to read.

"Dude, it sucks," Freddie said as they crossed the fence and gate that signaled the end of the preserve. "Seriously, it's like something my sister would read."

"Well, it is a diary," Aiden said. "And it was written by a girl."

"Plus it's like, fa-famous and stuff," Brian added. "I think there's a movie."

"It's still boring. Plus it's only famous 'cause she died, which sucks and all. But still, why couldn't we read about like, vampires or something?"

"'Cause vampires aren't real," Brian said.

Freddie gave Brian a smirk. "No shit, Sherlock."

"Keep digging, Watson."

The woods thinned and the trail ended at the edge of the grass lawn of the back yard. A dozen yard lights shaped like small Japanese lanterns glowed around the perimeter. Bright, warm, welcoming, like the tarmac of some airport seen at night. Maybe it wasn't home yet, but was starting to feel a little more like it.

Aiden turned and gave a final glance back at the woods and the creeks, the rolling hills and folds of the preserve behind them. That dark path, silent and empty. What else was out there beyond the shadows? What had happened, back in that dry creek bed?

And why, when he looked back upon those dark woods, did he feel as if something cold and old was looking back at him?

"Dude, food!" Freddie called out.

Nothing, Aiden told himself. Nothing had happened. Nothing was looking back.

Then he turned and hurried toward the lights of the house, a sunset sanctuary at the top of that cold hill.

###

###

###

###

### —12—

THERE WERE FEW TRUTHS he knew, but this was one: pizza always tasted better after it had sat for a few hours.

Aiden closed the box and put it back on the kitchen counter before devouring another slice. They had enough left over to have three slices each for breakfast. Unless they stayed up past midnight and got hungry, which was always a distinct possibility.

"Where's Julie?" Brian asked, folding two slices over into a sandwich.

Aiden shrugged, sipped his soda. He hadn't seen Julie or his dad since they'd taken off an hour and a half ago. Maybe they were watching TV, or working, or...

"Maybe they're like, doing it," Freddie said with a grin.

Aiden shrugged a second time, not wanting to give Freddie the satisfaction of an answer.

"I bet they are," Freddie added. "I bet they're doing it."

"Dude, you don't even know what 'it' is," Brian said. "And even if you du-du... even if you did, you'd end out doing it wrong."

—

They took blankets and pillows, three sleeping bags, two candles and a flashlight from the linen closet downstairs. They unplugged their Nintendos, now fully charged, and took them, along with Brian's iPad. At half past nine they crossed the great lawn, carrying their gadgets and snacks, a safari expedition in their own minds. It was no different than the countless times they'd done this before, tossing up a tent in one of their backyards in Alder Glen. It was no different except the lawn was an acre long and the tent was a treehouse three stories above. Still, it was familiar enough and comforting, even if the details were different.

"Crap, I forgot my phone," Aiden said, turning to Freddie. "Can you carry my bag?"

"Get it later," Freddie answered. "My hands are full."

The treehouse was lit like a dim torch, a candle on the otherwise dark hillside. The yard lights that lined the perimeter and the houselights from the kitchen were the only signs of human habitation. The freeways and bridges, the distant airport and the rumbling trains that made their way up and down the peninsula, all should have been visible from the treehouse.

Yet they weren't. The dark night obscured what should have been an otherwise gorgeous view of the Bay Area below. A fog perhaps, he thought, yet when he looked skyward he saw the stars above, a faint red-blue among the darkness of space. And a moon, blood red and half lit, high in the sky.

Waxing gibbous, he recalled, thinking of the field trip to the planetarium, and how it felt like a lifetime ago.

###

###

###

###

### —13—

THE SUMMER SHOULD HAVE lasted forever.

And, for the past two and a half months, it almost had. Almost.

Yet everything had its eventual end, even summers, he thought. And here it was, the final weekend before they returned to the courtyards and classrooms, to the friends and fights, to their final year at the L-shaped school they'd known since they'd started at one end as kindergartners and made their way across it and to the other end as fifth graders. This was it, the final night of summer before the final year of elementary school. And beyond both horizons lay an unknown future.

They passed the hours before midnight playing video games, the three of them in their own separate little worlds. They spoke occasionally, Aiden showing Brian the legendary quality sword he'd acquired off a robot hydra on his latest hack-n-slash dungeon crawler. Brian gave a sidelong glance, grunted out approval, and returned to tossing fireballs and swinging fists at Freddie on Street Fighter.

Afterwards they watched a movie on Freddie's iPad. It was forgettable flick about vampires and werewolves fighting each other, and throughout it, some woman in a skin tight outfit flung bullets and one-liners at the bad guys. Freddie fell asleep for the second half until Brian woke him up by pouring water in his ear. The lanky kid whaled on the big kid, five solid punches to his meaty arm until all Brian could say was: "Sorry! Uncle! Sorry!"

The night darkened. They lit citronella candles that turned the air citrus sweet. Midnight turned to one a.m., and yet Aiden still found himself wide awake. It was the last weekend after all, the last time they could stay awake until sunrise and not have a quiz or a test looming on the horizon.

Brian's stomach rumbled as he shifted. "Is it cool if we bring the pizza up?"

"We?" Freddie asked. "Does your stomach count as a separate person?"

"I'm thinking of us, dumbass," Brian said. "It's called manners."

"Yeah, go grab it," Aiden said, adding: "Not it."

"Not it!" Brian and Freddie shouted in perfect unison.

"Arm wra-wra, arm wrestle for it."

"Eff that! You're the one with the talking stomach, you get it," Freddie countered.

"Rock paper scissors," Brian replied.

"Whatever."

One a three count they tossed out paper. On the next count they both tossed out rock. On the third they kept rock. The fourth count, scissors. The fifth, paper. By the time they hit twelve identical counts it had become ridiculous.

"I think you two just broke some record," Aiden said.

"You're totally cheating," Brian whined.

"Okay, Einstein," Freddie replied. "How do you cheat at rock paper scissors?"

"I don't know bu-bu-but you'd find a way."

"What, like I'm psychiatric?"

"You mean psychic."

"Same difference."

Another three in a row, all draws. Brian threw up his hands. "Fight you for it," he said, picking up his Nintendo. "Two out of three."

Freddie fired up his Nintendo as well, the glow from the screen turning his face a sinister blue-green in the darkness. "You're on."

"You two make a cute couple," Aiden said. Like my mom and dad, he wanted to say, but didn't.

It was true. His parents had fought much the same way Freddie and Brian fought, always picking at each other. Their words were less cruel than his friends', but beneath it there was something colder, something that had festered for years. And when there were no words there was a silence that had hung heavy over dinner time, until meals were taken at separate times in separate rooms.

Aiden turned his attention back to his book. Funny, he thought, how the words required reading could turn a story into a chore and drain the excitement from the every page. Still, it wasn't as boring as Freddie had said. In the story the girl in it and her family were now living in the secret room behind the bookcase. They hid from the Nazis at night and tried not to kill each other during the day. Sure, it had started out slow, and the thought of reading some dead girl's diary was a boring chore, but the part he had read tonight was fascinating. It was as if a new author had taken over the act of writing the diary. It was exciting, full of intrigue, fear, terror. Of whispering walls and creaky boards and hungry monsters that wore uniforms and hunted for children to consume.

He turned the page, captivated, curious to find out what was going to happen to the little girl, yet the page was blank.

"Huh," he whispered as the sounds of Freddie and Brian's battle rang out. "Guys. Check this out."

He held up the book, thumbed through it. The pages past the end of the chapter he'd started were all blank. Not one but dozens. Over one hundred empty pages by the time he'd flipped to the back flap, not a dot of ink on any.

"Hope you ke-kept the receipt," Brian said.

"Think I'll get out of required reading?"

"As if," Freddie said, his face furrowing as he focused on his handheld battle.

Brian's face soured as the glow off his handheld game turned from blue to red, indicating a death. "Dammit!" he snapped.

"And stay down," Freddie laughed, putting his handheld down and pumping a fist. "Two zero. Loser gets the pizza."

"You're pu-pu-playing cheap," Brian protested. "All you do is throw fireballs."

"You call it cheap, I call it winning."

"Whatever, I'm du-du...I'm finished." Brian closed his Nintendo and tossed it onto his sleeping bag like a piece of rotten fruit.

"It's alright to cry," Freddie sang, rubbing a fake tear out of his eye. "Crying gets the mad out of you."

"It's 'sad,' dumb ass. That's how the song goes."

"You're the one that memorized it."

"Whatever," Brian said, waving Freddie away like a bad odor. His attention was fixed out the window.

"What's up?" asked Aiden.

"Should we have turned off the kitchen light?" Brian asked.

"Maybe. I don't know," Aiden wondered. He'd left it on for his dad and Julie, thinking perhaps they'd be downstairs. But perhaps they'd already gone to bed. Or perhaps they were upstairs, doing it, as Freddie said. The thought repulsed him.

"Come on, chop chop. The winner's hungry," Freddie said.

"Maybe I'll just eat your slice," Brian answered and swung his feet over the hatch.

"Then good luck getting up without a ladder," Freddie answered. "That's the fat tax to get back."

Brian gave him the finger and climbed down, the rope ladder clattering, the floor creaking from the strain. Then, moments later, he was on the grass below.

"I bet he eats it all," Freddie said to Aiden.

"Nah, he's honest," Aiden said, knowing it was true. Brian was many things, but a liar was the least of it. Honest to a fault sometimes, which is why Freddie gave him hell. After all, it was hard to cheat a friend who had the opposite of a poker face. Who often collapsed into a stream of confessions from little more than a teacher's stern look.

"I'm gonna watch to make sure he doesn't," Freddie said, and pressed his face against the window, staring out into the dim yard. The faint lights cast dim shadows around the edge of the grass.

"Dude," Freddie said. "Hey, come here. Look at this."

"What's up?" Aiden came over to the window facing the edge of the yard, opposite the direction Brian had headed.

Freddie tapped the glass. "What's that?"

"What's what?"

"Over there. On the path."

Aiden pressed his face against the glass. It was dark, a world of shapes and shadows. The yard lights made it hard to see exactly what he was supposed to be looking for.

"I don't—"

Then his eyes adjusted, spotting the shapes along the edge of the yard and the woods. More importantly, the shapes that belonged there. And the one shape that didn't.

His blood ran cold.

"There's someone standing there," Freddie said. "Holy shit, do you see that?"

"Yeah," Aiden whispered. "I see it."

Sure enough, at the edge of the yard where the path led off into the dark woods of the preserve, a shape lingered at the edge of the darkness. At first he had thought it to be a lump, perhaps some old tree trunk half cut down.

But no tree trunk stood like that. No tree trunk swayed and shifted.

Aiden slid the window open to get a better look. A dozen bugs fluttered against the screen, moths and mosquitos all drawn to light, fighting to get in. He ignored them and opened the screen as well, focusing on the lingering thing at the edge of the yard.

"Hwock! Tick-tick-tick-tick!" came a sound from the shape. It wore something, clothes perhaps, although Aiden couldn't be sure. Rags seemed to flow and fall about it like an old quilt, patchwork tatters almost a part of the woods itself. Its head bobbed, animal-like, as if it had caught a scent.

"Holy shit," Freddie said. "It's coming."

It moved onto the lawn, sneaking almost; a slinking crouch, low and close to the ground. Like a bandit in a dark house, a thief among a thousand traps. Aiden rushed to the hatch, ready to pull the ladder up, but the shape passed beneath the treehouse.

Brian, he realized. It's going for Brian.

Both Freddie and Aiden ran to the opposite window, just in time to see the thing slink across the lawn and toward—

"Brian," Aiden called out, spotting his friend about a quarter of the way across the yard. "Brian!"

"What?" the chubby boy answered, turning back to the tree house.

"Oh my god, it's moving," Freddie said. "It's running!"

And move it did. The shape strode across the lawn, passing a light and giving a brief hint at its attire. Long strips of cloth were tattered and frayed, some covered in moss or bramble. A person, homeless perhaps, wrapped in a dozen different rags. A wretched shamble, humanoid in only the vaguest sense, only on the surface. And beneath that? Something else. Something that ran on limbs too long and twisted for a natural gait.

"Hwock! Tick-tick-tick!" it screamed and picked up speed.

"Brian, look out!" Aiden called out, his words coming high pitched and panicked.

Brian turned the wrong way, exposing his back to the... what? Aiden wondered. The thing. And at the sight of that boy's vulnerable back, the shambling form put on a burst of speed.

"Tick-tick-tick!" it rattled. "Tick-tick-tick!" Then it shrieked, a child-like and terrible sound, both playful and sickening.

"GWEEEE!"

It covered the space between the treehouse and their friend in mere seconds. It moved fast, so fast. And that sound—that clattering ticking, that sudden, fervid shriek: "GWEEEE!"

Brian turned just in time to see the frayed shape emerging from the shadows, wondering for a split second: what on Earth could make such a piercing, shrill call at such a late hour?

And then the answer was upon him.

"Hey—HEY! No, NO. NO!" he screamed and went over backwards as the two shapes merged.

"What the fuck!?" Freddie gasped "What the fuck!? What the fuck!?"

"Run!" Aiden screamed, or at least he thought he did. "Run and don't look back!"

But running was out of the question. Brian was down, rolling on the ground as the shape engulfed his upper half. "Gweee!" it screamed almost gleefully. "Gweee! Gweee!" Then its scream turned wet.

"DON'T PU-PU-PLEASE OH GOD NO DUH-DUH-DUH—" were the last words they heard from Brian's lips before his voice became a gargle, and his shriek reached a pitch higher than any note he had ever sung. The fat boy's legs spasmed beneath the massive form. His fingers dug into the lawn, squeezed a fistful of dirt and grass, flopped about, and then went limp.

"Gweeeee!" the thing shrieked as it reared back and revealed a mouthful of wet teeth. Not just a mouth, a cavern. An abyss, wet and sharp and lined with a thousand foul razors.

"Hwock! Tick tick tick tick..." it clattered and chattered. "Hwock! Tick tick tick..."

"It's a killer! Oh God, oh God, oh God, it's a killer," Freddie was screaming, clutching Aiden's hand. "It killed Brian! Oh God... oh God..."

The world had slowed, gone sideways, and yet, somehow those moments felt more real than anything Aiden had experienced. Sound faded, warped, distorted. Freddie's words were silent, mute. Perhaps his mind simply couldn't process it all, or perhaps Freddie had simply folded in and gone numb. Yet the sounds the thing on the lawn made over the body of their friend felt closer than the sounds of Freddie's gasps and cries inches away.

It was eating, Aiden realized. That person, that rag covered thing, was slurping at their friend like a dog over a plate of fallen spaghetti.

"Gweeeee!" it cackled with joy. "Gweeee!"

It tossed its head back into the air and, for one brief moment, Aiden saw that it was not a person. No, of course not. No such person could have moved that fast, his brain seemed to say in a calm voice. No such noises like that could come from a human throat.

"Hwock! Tick tick tick! Hwock! Gweeeeee!"

Its head was a glistening thing, a reptilian mound covered in tumorous bumps. Its mouth was a maw, a glistening bear trap that stretched across a knotted face. Black eyes, perhaps a dozen, blinked like glistening onyx stones set on the side of a head more lizard than human. Thick strands of liquid—perhaps once a part of Brian—fell from that maw of knives that snapped, chewed, and swallowed.

"Gweeee!" it shrieked. "Gweeeee!"

"That's not real," Freddie mumbled in a daze. "That's not... that's not real... that's not..."

Something seized Aiden, a sudden anger, a rage. Brian was hurt, or worse. If he didn't do something, that thing would have their friend. If he didn't act, he'd never forgive himself.

He grabbed the closest thing he could find: his Nintendo. Then he flung it out the window at the shape.

There were many things Aiden was poor at: math, science, and lately it seemed interacting with his friends and classmates. But one thing he did have was a damn fine arm. He'd pitched two seasons of Little League, played up to live pitching at age ten. He had thrown some wicked fastballs from 46 feet when most of his classmates were still using the machine.

And while it wasn't a baseball, in his hands it flew like one. The Nintendo arced, spun, and caught the thing in the side with a meaty thwack.

Startled, the shape leapt to its right, clicking and clattering in surprise. It's massive maw, that head with no neck, bobbed and lowered, studying the broken object that had struck it. For a brief moment, as it shifted and moved, Aiden saw not two legs beneath the rags but three. Something that resembled a gnarled arm jutted out from the center of its chest. And those eyes glimmered and glistened, its head rising and scanning the yard.

"Tick-tick-tick-tick!" it clattered and clicked, body lowering to a defensive crouch.

"Stay away from him!" Aiden shouted, pitching a glass bottle of iced tea. The second throw wasn't as good as the first; the shambling form sidestepped, just as the bottle clattered and rolled past. The shape let out a gargle and spat something at the bottle. Then, almost like a cat, it bounced over and sniffed the bottle. A faint wheeze, then silence. It seemed to understand the object posed no further threat.

Then it snapped its head in the direction of the treehouse.

"Why did you do that?" Freddie whispered, but it was too late.

The hunched thing scanned the yard, those dark eyes moving quickly.

"Why did you—"

It spotted them. The eyes shifted, a sheen of silver glistening in the black orbs as it blinked and centered on the treehouse. From fifty feet away, Aiden could see those hideous pupils focus in on them.

"Gweeeeeeeeee!" it shrieked. "Gweeeee!"

And it took off toward them.

"It's coming ohmygodohmygod— " Freddie gasped.

It was indeed coming, but not like anything driven by human legs. It skittered and bounded, more of an insect than a human. The frayed clothes and rags flapped like bloody streamers behind a child's bike.

And then it was beneath the treehouse and the rope ladder shook and swayed. Freddie ran to the edge of the room and curled up, his hands covering his face. He was gone, Aiden realized. Gone to some far off place that made sense, more sense than this. The world had turned on a dime, gone dark and sour, and poor Freddie was still back in a land where monsters didn't exist.

But Aiden wasn't. For all his faults and flaws, initiative was not one of them. He didn't want to die, he thought. Not tonight. Not in this treehouse. He ran over to the hatch, slid legs first, and peered over the edge. What he saw sent hot spikes of horror up his spine.

It moves fast, he thought. So fast.

The thing was already nearing the top of the ladder. A grey face of a thousand wrinkles and lumps, a mouth as wide as Aiden's shoulders. It climbed the ropes quickly, wrapping long fingers around each rung as its three legs pulled a bloated body upwards.

He had seen enough, no more was necessary to infect his dreams. And with that he slammed the hatch down as hard and as fast as he could.

Not fast enough.

The thing screamed and clicked, sending a wretched protuberance inside as the hatch smashed down on top of it.

"Mommy. Please. ohGod-ohGod—" Freddie cried in the corner.

"Help me!" Aiden screamed, fighting with the hatch as the limb slapped about the wood floor. "Freddie, fucking help me!"

It wasn't quite an arm that slapped about in the gap. Nor was it a tentacle. It was more of a foreleg, like something found on a praying mantis. Wet, spastic, and strong, it was multi-jointed, quick, yet terribly clumsy as it slapped about and tried to strike. Pocked skin, grey and sickly, contracted over lean muscle joints that bent in bizarre ways. Sweat glistened and dripped from pea-sized pores all up and down the obscene limb. A dozen small barbed tentacles wriggled at the tip, set above a clustered lump of black eyes, berry-like and blinking.

It sees me, Aiden realized with horror. It sees inside and it sees me.

The hatch heaved, bounced, and buckled as the monster rammed against it from below and the impossible appendage swung about.

"I can't—" Aiden groaned. "I can't hold it."

Another bounce, another buckle. The appendage curled upwards, the barbed tentacles straightening out into a dozen small fingers all pointing toward Aiden. It lashed down, a sudden slap against the wood that left a streak of wetness behind. Again it raised up, swayed, and struck out at him. A miss, inches from his fingers. A third time, raising, aiming, ready to strike.

"What...are...you...?" Aiden grunted, pushing against the hatch. It was all he could do to keep that wretched limb from forcing itself into the treehouse.

"Gweeeeeee!" shrieked the thing from beneath the hatch. "Gweeeeee!"

And then it shrieked a different kind of sound. Whatever personal jail Freddie had locked himself away in had opened its cells and the lanky boy was, for the moment, free. He crashed down on the hatch next to Aiden, slamming wood against the limb with all his strength.

"Get out!" he screamed. "You're not real! Get out! Get out getoutGetOutGETOUT!"

The limb thrashed, the full weight of the two children slamming upon it again and again. There was muscle and bone within that wretched thing. Some of it tore and ripped, and perhaps some even broke. The thing beneath them screamed an unmistakable scream.

It was the scream of pain. Large or small, every creature made such a sound when its own flesh was torn and crushed.

The limb thrashed and came down on Freddie, striking his hand and squeezing. Freddie shrieked as the horrible arm with those barbed tentacles tightened around his wrist. For one horrible instant, Aiden thought it would tear the lanky's boy's limb right out of his socket, or simply pull him, screaming, down through the crack and into the darkness.

Neither happened. In an instant the wet arm was gone and the hatch collapsed onto the ropes, leaving only an inch wide gap. There was a loud clatter, the sound of flesh and bone hitting the ground a few dozen feet below, and a bellowing screech and frantic clicking.

It had fallen, Aiden realized. The terrible thing had fallen.

"The ladder," he said. "Hold the hatch, I'll get the ladder."

Freddie pulled the hatch open. Aiden was sure the creature had fallen, or as close to sure as he could ever be. Still, if he was wrong he didn't want to push his face out into the monster's maw. Instead he peeked out an inch at a time.

"It fell," Aiden said. Sure enough, the monster lay on the ground at the base of the tree, wriggling and thrashing about like a flipped turtle.

"What is that thing?" Freddie cried out. "Aiden what is it?"

"I don't..." Aiden found himself almost unable to answer. "I don't know."

Every glimpse of the thing that shrieked and scurried contradicted the last. Three legs, swollen and disjointed, like something on an insect, thrashed about helplessly. That single arm flapping and curling, and its slimy fingers set in the center of a fat, frog-like body. A mouth packed full of crooked teeth, gnashing and bellowing. And those black eyes, child-like, blinking and flickering like wet pebbles. Even the clothes it wore were all wrong, as if they had been wrapped around it ages ago, tattered pieces tied off in weird parts, perhaps holding it all together like some botched operation.

"I don't know what it is," was the closest thing he could say to an answer. "But we've got to get the ladder up before it comes back.

Aiden tugged at a rope and Freddie grabbed the other one. The rungs clattered as the ladder rose. Higher, higher.

Below, the wriggling thing pushed off the tree trunk and righted itself. It jumped, feet propelling it ten feet up. Its arm made a mad grab for the rope ladder but missed.

"Keep pulling!"

The thing crouched, squealed, and made a second leap. Still, it came no closer. The rope ladder was out of reach.

It hissed, then skittered off.

###

###

###

###

### —14—

"IT SCRATCHED ME," Freddie said.

He held out his right hand, a plum, sticky webbing around his wrist and spattered on the rungs of the ladder. He wiped it on the hatch leaving rotten, purple streaks. "It smells like dog shit."

"Gah, that's awful," Aiden agreed, pulling the final bit of rope into the treehouse. Thirty feet of rope and wood lay in a pile on the treehouse floor, several sections spattered with that same filth and muck. "Dude, open a window."

Freddie didn't need to be told twice. He slid open another window, and waved the smell away. Aiden slammed the hatch shut, but not before looking down one last time. Only a patch of dampness at the base of the redwood, an indentation in the soil.

"It's gone," Aiden said. "Where'd it go?"

"There," Freddie said. "Back by Brian."

"What's it doing?"

"I don't know. I don't think I want to know."

The backyard was dark, covered in shadows. Out there on the lawn, between the safety of the treehouse and the kitchen lay their fallen friend. Brian hadn't moved, not once in those long minutes that felt like a lifetime. His body was awkward, a plump lump with legs twisted sideways as if his lower half had been wrenched around the wrong way. His face was stained, a violet mask of the creature's secretions, or Brian's own blood. An eye, a single eye lay open and unmoving, a single spot of white among a world of shadow and grime.

And that thing. Whatever it was doing involved rapid movements and undulations. The tattered form circled around the fallen fat kid, dipping down, rubbing against Brian's shadowed body. One thing was clear: it wasn't eating their friend. At least, not yet.

It let out a grunt and wiggled that massive arm beneath their fallen friend. Then, with a squeal, it flipped the kid over. It made the same motion, rubbing its face against the fat kid like a dog on a scent it liked. That wet clicking echoed across the dark yard, like some horrible insect buzzing in the night.

"Get away from our friend!" Freddie screamed. "Get away!"

The thing paid no attention, no matter how loud Freddie shouted. And why should it? They were safe, up in the tree, and it was down below with its catch. Clicking, clattering, rubbing, and circling. It tugged at the fallen kid's hoodie, that massive maw nibbling along the sleeve like teeth on a hangnail.

"What's it doing?" Freddie asked. "What the hell is it doing to Brian?"

Aiden tried to answer, but words failed him.

"It's..." he said, studying the scene on the lawn fifty feet away. The creature gripped Brian's hoodie with its arm, digging a claw into the cotton fabric. Then, like a lion stripping flesh from carcass, it bit and tossed back its head. A strip of fabric tore free. It gripped the torn cloth with a leg and, like a doctor tying off an arm to draw blood, it wound the fabric around its own leg.

It flexed its protuberance, stretched. Small tentacles glistened in the darkness.

"What is it doing?" Freddie mumbled.

Then it shoved that wet limb deep into the fallen boy's mouth.

Aiden coughed, gagged, felt the bitter taste of something sour in the back of his throat. Freddie covered his mouth and grimaced. "Why's it doing that?"

Brian's body convulsed, shook, and shivered as the creature pushed that limb deeper into his throat. His chest fluttered, neck swelled, and his lips disappeared inward as one joint after another sunk deeper into his mouth. The creature tugged, twisted, up to its shoulder in the fat boy's throat like some wretched mechanic fishing for something deep within. It bobbed about, convulsed.

Then, it let out out a squeal—"Gweeeeeee"—and the entire limb retracted in a heartbeat leaving Brian's mouth wet and wide open. A silent, violated gasp one a face as still as stone. And that eye, that single eye stared back.

It hadn't shut, Aiden realized. And if it hadn't shut for that, it probably never would.

"Your phone," Freddie gasped. "Where is it? We have to call the police!"

His phone! Somehow, all the horror had come at once and Aiden had forgotten about his phone. He reached for it, hand dipping into his pocket but finding only emptiness.

"It's in the house," Aiden said with horror. "It's still charging."

"What? Why?!" Freddie snapped. "Why'd you leave it there?!"

"I don't know, I thought we'd go back! I didn't think I'd need it."

"Didn't think you'd need your phone? What's wrong with you?!"

"I told you earlier! I said I forgot it."

"I'm not your mom! Why didn't you go get it then?!"

"All I do is play Angry Birds on it. And what about you?! You don't even have a phone!"

"Yeah," Freddie fumed. "But if I did, I'd remember to bring it."

Aiden felt the anger rise up, a warmth that made his words heavy, cumbersome. He wanted to shout at Freddie, to scream: "You don't have a phone because your parents are too poor to buy you a new one!"

But he didn't. "Just lay off, okay? Jeez," was all he could come up with. "I didn't think any of this would happen."

Freddie paced, eyes darting about. A long silence passed, punctuated only by that vile clicking below.

"What about his phone?"

"Brian's?"

"Of course," Freddie snapped, starting to rummage through their fallen friend's possessions. "Maybe he left it."

Freddie unzipped the big kid's backpack, poured out its contents. Candy, gum, some Bang-Snaps, and a few loose Nintendo cartridges all clattered to the floor. A box of crushed crackers, some Jolly Ranchers. Nothing of any use.

Aiden rummaged through the sleeping bag, the pillow case, even the iPad bag that sat where the big kid had left it. "Nothing," he said. "It's probably in his pocket."

"What about that?" Freddie asked. "Does it get WiFi?"

That, Aiden realized, was Brian's iPad. The greasy screen, the scratched case covered in stickers. It was a lifeline, and Aiden was on it in an instant.

Brian had always been protective of his toys, especially his iPad. It had been bought with his Hanukkah money and a few months' worth of allowance. He hadn't trusted Freddie with it, but when it was just the two of them, he let Aiden use it. Aiden had had enough time on the dead boy's iPad to know where to go. In a few flicks he was on the Settings screen, searching for all open wireless networks.

Nothing.

Not a single one.

"God dammit!" Freddie screamed.

"Gweeeeeeee!" answered the distant voice. "Gweeeeeee!"

Of the three friends, Freddie had always been the fastest to blow a fuse. Freak Out Freddy, the kids in his class called him behind his back. Last year he'd thrown his Brian's Xbox controller across the room after losing a round of Street Fighter. In March he'd flipped a desk for failing a math test. Once, he knocked a kid to the floor in gym class for calling him a fag. Even this summer's adventures had always been charged, as if Freddie was one bad comment away from tossing his bike aside and taking a swing at his friends.

Tonight, it was that thing in the yard below that was pushing him, scratching at his sanity.

"Go away!" Freddie screamed and threw a glass candle at the creature below.

It missed by a good twenty feet. The second one missed by ten. The third candle rolled past the creature who gave it a sidelong glance, no more than a passing curiosity. Perhaps, they could have spent the whole night sitting there, throwing things at that shape, but their choices were growing slim. Only a few valuable objects remained; Brian's iPad, their Nintendos, flashlights, and their sleeping bags.

"Go away!" Freddie screamed again and again, his voice cracking.

How long had Freddie been at the window? Aiden wondered. How long had he been screaming? Minutes, it seemed, each one longer than the last. At some point "Go away!" had changed into screams of "Help!" and Aiden found himself joining in.

"Help us!" they screamed into the night, into the dark yard and that warm house beyond, over the thing that was tugging at the corpse of their friend.

"Fucking help us!" Freddie cursed.

"Dad! Julie! Someone!" Aiden pleaded. "Anyone, please!"

But no one answered. No shadows moved within the house. No lights appeared nor disappeared. Only the cold darkness answered back, the taunting dark patch of the vast grass lawn between their treehouse and the warmth of safety of that lit kitchen half a football field away.

"Where are your parents?" Freddie asked, begging almost. "Why aren't they coming?"

Finally, they could scream no more. Aiden simply gave up, and Freddie collapsed to the floor, the boards creaking and groaning.

"Tell me I'm dreaming," Freddie begged. "Aiden, please, I have to be dreaming. Tell me I'm dreaming."

"I don't think this is a dream," Aiden answered, watching the thing clatter and click below. It had stripped Brian's hoodie completely, and the fat boy lay shirtless and awkward in the grass and shadows. His stomach, pale and fat, was a pathetic sight. On any other night it might have made them laugh. But tonight it only underscored how helpless Brian had always been, and how strong he was to deflect their taunts.

How strong he used to be, Aiden thought. Past tense now.

"It's a nightmare," Freddie said. "It's got to be."

"I don't know what it is," Aiden answered. "I don't know."

Behind Freddie's eyes a thousand calculations were going on, a thousand possibilities were being worked out. Then, all at once, those paths led back to the same fact: that the two boys were stuck in a treehouse, trapped by a shambling creature below. A grotesque. A monster.

And at this realization, Freddie's eyes turned to liquid, his battle posture folded in on itself, and the lanky boy collapsed to the floor.

It was not the first time Aiden had seen Freddie cry. That had been last summer, when his dog, Bruno, had died during the height of the summer heat in August. They had found the bulldog outside, swarmed by flies and stiff, still tied to the run that had given him no shade to lie in. Yet, on that day, Freddie had shed only a few tears. Then he had gone inward, silent and brooding for days, until Kenny Baumbach had made a wayward diss at sports camp and found himself beneath a half dozen haymakers and Freak Out Freddie's wrath.

Now, in the dark treehouse lit only by their flashlight and candles, Freddie cried harder than Aiden knew possible. Clutching his scratched hand, that strong boy, always ready to pick a fight, whimpered, sobbed, and curled into a ball on the cold wood floor.

Aiden wanted to hug Freddie, to shield him and say: "Everything is going to be all right. You'll see. Everything is going to be fine."

But he knew that maybe it wouldn't be all right. That maybe it never would be. The doctors, they hadn't been able to save Bruno. Nor would they be able to bring Brian back from the dead. The three best friends had played their last video game together, tossed their last disses at each other.

Now, it was just the two of them in that treehouse.

The two survivors.

###

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###

###

### —15—

THE RADIO DIDN'T WORK.

Or, if it did, no broadcasts made their way this far out into the boonies. Both bands, AM and FM, were a void of emptiness. Nothing, not even static, played as Aiden cycled from the bottom to the top and back again.

It was an old radio, its dials were digital, made back when digital was as new augmented reality and glasses-free 3D. Exposed to the air and moisture up here for two decades or more, the old radio had probably stopped working ages ago.

And what had he been hoping for? A broadcast, a warning?

"We interrupt this evening's performance of A Prairie Home Companion to bring you a breaking news report: a monster has been sighted in the foothills south of the city. He wears tattered clothes, has three legs, a taste for flesh, and goes by the name Mister Skitters. If sighted contact Animal Control."

Aiden let out a private chuckle at that thought: a dozen animal rescue officers all trying to wrangle Mister Skitters with doggie restraint poles. It seemed a little more serious than a rabid possum or a raccoon attack.

He turned the radio off, checked the iPad for the errant end of a WiFi signal, but nothing came through. No good, he thought to himself. They were in a treehouse, but they might as well be on an island in the middle of the ocean.

—

Time passed in a heavy slog, punctuated only by Freddie's faints sobs. Aiden sat there in numb detachment, replaying the events over and over. The thing from the woods, tattered rags and teeth. A mouth large enough to swallow a head. Those gnarled haunches. And that arm, that wretched arm with the double joints, the tentacled fingers, the eyes. Blinking berries and bitter acid. The smell was still thick in the air.

He rewound the events, again and again, yet the horror remained. It was, he thought, not unlike the first time he'd seen a horror movie. Not that different at all.

It had been at Brian's house, years ago, when Freddie was out of town, that Aiden and Brian had stumbled on to his dad's DVD case. They'd scoured the discs until they found one, a gruesome image of six women, bodies forming a skull-like mask. The movie itself had been just as grim. It was a dark tale about a spelunking trip into a cave home to cannibal mutants. At first the monsters killed the women. Then the women killed the monsters. In the end one of the women killed the other, and by the time the credits rolled Aiden didn't even know who lived and who died and who went crazy. It was an ending as bleak as any Aiden had ever seen. And now, three years later, an ending that didn't seem so far-fetched.

Sleep hadn't come in the hours after the credits rolled. Brian had been scared, clearly so, and when Aiden was almost asleep Brian had snuck out to use the bathroom but never returned.

The monsters had gotten him, Aiden thought for hours. They had gotten his friend and he was next.

Dawn was a world away, and so he hid beneath the covers, waiting for the moment the door creaked open and a ghost white mutant with blood soaked teeth entered the bedroom. Waiting for death, he realized.

But dawn did come, and somehow he had fallen asleep, or perhaps had drifted in and out. Brian returned at breakfast, confessing that he had been so scared he had snuck off to sleep in his mom's bedroom. He had abandoned him, Aiden remembered thinking. Brian, his best friend, had left him to the creatures from the cave and his imagination.

Yet it had only been a movie that had caused Brian to forsake his friend that night years ago. A movie they were never supposed to watch.

But this wretched night was no movie.

This was real. His friend lay dead on that great lawn, that no man's land between safety and sanctuary. They had abandoned Brian, no different than Brian had abandoned him on that dark night years ago. Part of him had never forgiven Brian for that, part of him never trusted Brian after that. And he wondered: if Brian ever returned, would he forgive Aiden for leaving him to the monster?

###

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###

### —16—

SLEEP CAME.

It was not a warm respite but a cut, a cold splice between time. There was something, then there was nothing. Then there was a foot in his ribs, nudging.

"Wake up," Freddie said. "Shh, get up!"

It felt odd to have slept. Impossible. Yet somehow his thoughts had drifted to darkness and the time had moved on without him. An hour, perhaps a little more. The candles had gone down, but not too much. And in that dim light Freddie seemed more composed, more put together. A sanity had returned to his eyes.

"How long was I out?"

"I don't know," Freddie answered. "It's two fifteen."

"Is it still there?"

"No," Freddie said. "It's gone."

Aiden sat right up. "Really?"

"I think so."

Aiden hurried to the window, studied the yard. Sure enough, the thing was gone. In its place a half dozen sprinklers clicked and clattered, spraying blooms of water across the dark lawn.

"Sprinklers came on a few minutes ago. When I looked it wasn't there."

The sky was unchanged, a grey cotton blanket. No moon, no stars. Yet the lawn glistened, glimmered, a starry sea in a world of wet shadows. A single patch of grass was more disturbed than the rest. A few holes, some pieces torn out by finger and foot. Evidence of a struggle. And an empty space where their fallen friend had lain.

"Where's Brian?" Aiden asked. "Where did he go?"

"I don't know. Maybe it dragged him off into the woods. I was trying to work the radio when I heard the sprinklers come on. When I checked, they were both gone. Maybe it took him to the woods, I don't know."

The thought of Brian, shirtless and dead in those dark woods, disturbed Aiden deeper than he thought possible. Brian had always been scared of the dark, and Aiden knew of no place more shadowed than an oak forest on a moonless night. No worse place to be alone.

Not alone, he realized. He was with Mister Skitters.

Freddie fiddled with the radio, slapping the side and adjusting the antenna.

"FM's the same," Aiden said. "It doesn't get any channels."

"That's impossible."

"Why?"

"Cause it should be getting something. Like static at least, right?"

"I don't know, maybe," Aiden said, studying the yard below. "Even if we get something, so what? It's just a radio. We can't talk or anything."

"Piece of crap," Freddie said, slapping the silver shell of the old device.

Aiden traced the perimeter of the yard, unable to find any outstanding shape among the shadows. There were a thousand suspects, sure, but none better than the others.

"Do you think we should go down?" he asked. "To check, at least?"

"Yeah, maybe that's a good idea," Freddie answered.

The two boys slowly opened the wood hatch, ready for anything to pop out. But nothing did. They stared down into the wet abyss below. Damp grass glistened in the beam of Freddie's flashlight. The soggy dirt and tanbark at the base of the redwood.

They would get wet. They would have to run through the sprinklers, but perhaps they would get away. And if they did, the cold would be worth it. Anything would.

"I don't see it," Freddie said. "Do you?"

"Hand me the flashlight."

"Don't drop it."

"Duh."

Aiden leaned over the hatch, lowered his head. The world tilted upside down. The grass became the heavens; the dark, cloudy sky a milky seascape below. Aiden panned the flashlight across the yard searching for forms among the shadows. Shapes and faces, so many dark places to hide. Yet he found nothing, no trace of Mister Skitters.

"I think it's clear," he said.

"You sure?"

"No, I'm not. But I think it's clear. Maybe we should drop the ladder."

"Okay," Freddie whispered and started to unroll the ladder.

"Dude, your hand," Aiden said, pointing to Freddie's left hand.

"It's nothing," the lanky boy answered, scratching his enflamed forearm. The skin had taken on a dark discoloration, not unlike the rash of poison oak. There was plenty of that in the woods and foothills of Alder Glen of course, but none that acted that fast. This rash had come from that lash of Mister Skitter's arm.

"It itches, okay? Just stop staring."

"Yeah, sure," Aiden answered, making sure to avoid the dark spots where the filth had spotted and stained the rungs of the ladder. "Okay, that's it."

The ladder dangled thirty feet into the wet shadows below. Again, Aiden dipped his head below, turning the world upside down once more. He scanned the lawn, the perimeter, that faint flashlight beam doing its best to render monsters out of nothing.

And what if that was all it had been? he wondered. A shadow and a fear? A prank his dad had pulled? What if Brian had been in on it?

Perhaps, he thought. Perhaps that was it. Two summers ago it had been the campfire story of the Razor Tickler. Or the woman with the painted face that wandered by the old asylum. Or the twins in the middle of the lake, the ones that could only be seen at midnight on the anniversary of the night they drowned trying to save each other.

And suddenly it didn't seem so scary to climb down that ladder. Suddenly the thought of something that skittered on three legs seemed to be back where it belonged: among the childish fears of shadows in closets and monsters beneath the bed.

"Who goes first?" Freddie asked.

"I don't care," Aiden answered. "Rock paper scissors?"

"Sure."

They bounced their hands in three silent bumps, each throwing paper on the first try. Freddie's fingers were red, long tendrils running down his arm, even more vibrant than they seemed a few minutes ago. Aiden tried not to notice. "Rock, paper, scissors," the lanky boy called.

A second round saw them both throw rock. Then paper. Then three sets of scissors and two more sets of paper. Finally they throw rock five times in a row until Freddie just gave up and snapped: "I'll go. I don't care."

But something told Aiden he did care. He always cared. Freddie tried to hide a lot of things behind a mask of indifference, but at the end of the day that's all it was: a mask.

Then he was gone, descending the rickety rope ladder. Aiden lowered his head, studied that upside down world. Clicking sprinklers. Shadows. A thousand trees on the edge of the property. And that distant house, bright, warm. Sanctuary. Could he make it?

Yes, he thought. Freddie wasn't the fastest, but he could move when necessary. And if anyone had a chance...

Aiden's thoughts turned cold.

"Freddie," Aiden gasped. "Stop, Freddie."

"What?!" Freddie asked, voice laced with fear. "What!?"

"I think..."

"Think what?"

Nothing had moved, no sudden burst of speed, no shifting shadows. Yet his mind said something was there that didn't belong. Something was askew.

"Think what?!"

The sprinklers clicked and clattered, the dull hum of water on grass. And behind it...

Tick-tick-tick.

"What?!" Freddie whined. "God dammit Aiden—"

"Shut up!"

Click-click-click, went the sprinklers.

"Tick-tick-tick," came the sound, so close by it almost seemed...

"Freddie! Come back! Come back now!"

And with that the tree trunk shifted.

"Oh my God, Freddie, come back!"

A horrible black shape extended itself from the tree trunk. A living shadow that clutched the bark like a barnacle to the hull of a ship. It was beneath the treehouse, so close. Those wretched legs were dug into the fibers of the tree.

It hadn't run away, Aiden realized. It had climbed into a dark spot and waited.

The sound that came from Freddie's lips when that long arm snatched at him was a pitch so high Aiden's ears rang and his body tensed. Primal, he thought. Pure fear and terror. The sound any animal makes when cornered and fighting for its life.

Freddie screamed and pulled himself up the ladder as quick as he could. Not quick enough, however. The creature latched on three rungs beneath his foot and pulled the rope ladder toward the trunk. The whole ladder bent and twisted, taking Freddie with it.

"Freddie, climb!"

Aiden reached out a hand, but his friend was still a quarter of the way down. And that arm, it pulled, hard. Alien joints and muscles curled, wet fingers flexed. Aiden's flashlight passed over it and all went to horror. The skin was patchwork stitching, rotten in some parts, fresh and new in others. Tendons and fibers flexed beneath a grey layer wrapped in torn fabric. A piece of Brian's jacket was tied to a bicep, a brown muck seeping out beneath it. And teeth. A hundred teeth in a dark maw. So many teeth all gnashing as it pulled his friend closer.

At the sight of only a fraction of the monster Aiden's mind did what he never thought it would do: it screamed out to him to slam the hatch. To shove his friend down into the darkness. To save himself, and himself only.

And yet, he ignored it. "Reach, Freddie!" he screamed, hand out. "Reach!"

Closer, Freddie climbed. Closer...closer...

The ladder bent. The ropes creaked. Freddie screamed and climbed.

Closer... closer.

A loud crack pierced the air. Bones breaking, Aiden thought. Freddie's.

Yet then the ladder swung the other way, away from the tree trunk. Away from the horror attached to it. Away from that grotesque arm that clutched a broken rung. Three inches of wood had been snapped like a child bending a toothpick.

The momentum caught Freddie off balance and sent him spinning sideways. For a moment, brief and horrible, the rungs were jerked from his fingers, and he fell.

Three rungs passed his fingers. Then he grabbed the fourth, his body swinging around the side of the ladder. The whole rope structure spun awkwardly, a pendulum now rushing back toward what had set it free: Mister Skitters and its snarling, gnashing maw.

Aiden reached for the only thing he could think of and threw it. Didn't know if it was a good idea. Didn't even care. He sent the metal flashlight spinning from his fingers in the hardest overhand he'd ever pitched.

The flashlight let out a meaty thump as it smacked into that tumorous face below. A cloud of dry skin and rot erupted. Tendrils of black ran from broken grey skin. A howl, wounded and furious. And then both the flashlight and Mister Skitters plummeted fifteen feet below.

Freddie scrambled and crashed against the trunk, brushing up against the torn bark and indentations form where the creature had latched on. Seconds later he was back in the tree house. Tears and snot covered half his face. His pants were wet, a dark patch puddling out from his crotch and down his left leg.

But Aiden didn't care, didn't even have time to notice. He pulled the ladder back up as quickly as he could. Far below, the flashlight cast long shadows at the base of the tree. And down there, skittering and rolling among the darkness and light, Mister Skitters squealed and slapped at its face, as if stung by a dozen angry bees. It hissed at Aiden, a resentful shriek, child-like and vulgar.

And then it ran off, skittering into the shadows, leaving the flashlight at the base of the tree. A fallen torch just out of reach. Above, only candles remained. An amber glow, and from within its warmth a boy sobbed.

###

###

###

###

### —17—

HE SPENT A GOOD twenty or thirty minutes crying.

After that Freddie went silent and moved off to the other side of the treehouse to lick his wounds and gather his thoughts. He said nothing to Aiden, no word of thanks or acknowledgement. Aiden tuned the radio through empty channels, thumbed through the iPad. Again, no signal on either.

When Freddie returned all he said was: "You threw our only flashlight."

"I tried to save you," Aiden replied.

"But you threw away our only flashlight," he said again.

"We've got this," Aiden said, holding up the iPad. "Better than nothing."

Freddie snorted as if the idea was stupid, absurd. Still, he took the tablet and flicked it on, the white light filling the treehouse.

"You're welcome," Aiden said when he passed off the glowing tablet.

"What?"

"For saving you. You're welcome."

Freddie gave no reply, simply staring at the glowing screen as if it held an answer.

He was right, Aiden thought. Throwing the flashlight had been a stupid idea. Yet Freddie hadn't thought of a better one. Aiden had taken initiative, as his coach said. Taken initiative and acted. All Freddie had done was pissed himself and screamed.

"It's quiet," Aiden said. Again Freddie gave no reply. "At least it'll be dawn soon."

Aiden opened the hatch, stared into the darkness below. At some point, the sprinklers had gone off. Thirty feet down the flashlight lay among the dirt at the base of the damp tree. It might as well have been thirty miles.

"Think it'll come back?"

"Of course," Freddie said. "It's waiting."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," Freddie answered, hand scratching inside the pocket of his hoodie. "Yeah, I'm sure."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

"We can wait it out," Aiden said. "The sun'll come up. My dad and Julie will come out. They'll help us."

"Yeah, maybe," Freddie chuckled, his voice dripping with annoyance. "Like when they came out to save Brian. Oh, they didn't, did they?"

"Maybe they didn't hear."

"Or maybe it got them."

Aiden opened his mouth to respond, but found himself unable to come up with anything. The words were heavy, thick. What if it had gotten them? It was an idea so horrible it hadn't even occurred to him. What if his dad and Julie were the meals, and they were the desserts? Maybe that's why the lights were still on, why he hadn't seen them since the game of laser tag.

"Don't say that," Aiden said. "Please, don't say that."

Freddie shrugged and stared off at a dark corner, lost in thought.

Maybe it had gotten to them first, Aiden thought. His mind went back to that idea again and again. What if Julie and his dad were off in some horrible black cocoon, acid flowing through their veins as that horrible thing turned them from family into a feast?

No, he thought. His dad was smart, strong, resourceful. He'd seen him knock a ball out of the park once a few years back before his work became the only thing he ever did. Back when they played catch until the sun set. Back when they lived in the same house, and Julie was just a woman that answered the phone at an office.

But that was a different life, a time when they were a team and not three fractured pieces.

"What time is it?" Aiden asked again.

"Five," Freddie said, turning the iPad on and off.

"Can I see it?"

"Why?"

"'Cause I want to see it. Why's it matter?"

"It matters," Freddie said slowly, "because I don't want you to throw it like you threw the flashlight."

"Dude, what's your problem?"

"I don't have a problem. I also don't have a flashlight."

"Yeah, and you wouldn't have anything if I hadn't thrown it." Aiden felt warmth run up his body. "I saved your life."

"Yeah, so? Whose stupid treehouse are we stuck in? Whose stupid house did we go to?"

The heat built, climbing. Aiden felt his fists ball up, tight. "I didn't make you come here," he said. "Plus, it's not like I knew some freaking monster lived in the woods, okay? What's your prob?"

"My prob? What's my prob?" The lanky boy's voice hardened, primed. He stood up, swaying. Aiden saw a fist inside the pocket of the hoodie, another one at Freddie's side. Dark veins, pale skin.

He's losing it, Aiden thought. Just like he punched Lloyd in P.E., or Brian or...

"My prob is that we're stuck in some tree, that thing's down there. You threw our only flashlight away! We don't have any way to get out, or call out or anything! That's my prob!" Freddie pointed a finger, red and swollen, right at Aiden's face. "It's your fault! All of it!"

The heat rose, from a simmer to a boil. Aiden slapped his hand away. "Don't take it out on me! I'm only trying to help."

Then Freddie was upon him, fists swinging. It happened so fast, a blur really. A left and a right cross sent him back, more open handed slaps than full on punches. One popped his ear and he heard crickets and bees and felt warmth.

Fists flew from both kids, angry haymakers that went too wide or too narrow and bounced off shoulders or missed altogether. Freddie pinned but couldn't get enough torque to land more than a glancing blow. And all throughout the assault that heat rose. Hotter, hotter. Aiden's hands seemed to pull him up from beneath his friend like a marionette on strings. Rising, fighting, shouting, and the treehouse went sideways.

And suddenly he was the one on top. Suddenly Freddie was beneath him, hands scratching at Aiden's face, fighting him off. Suddenly the four inches Freddie had on him didn't seem to matter at all. Strength, fire, heat that was what mattered. Aiden was a lucid flame, fists alight.

"Guys..."

"Stop it!" Aiden shouted and struggled with his friend. "Stop it!"

"Guys..."

"Fuck you!" Freddie frothed and flailed. "This is all your fault!"

"Guys... help..."

"STOP IT!" Aiden shouted, pinning the lanky boy to the wood.

"Please... help me... guys..."

And then Freddie stopped fighting and Aiden did too. They had both heard it. A faint voice, quiet and tired. Exhausted, perhaps. It came from far off, from the shadows.

It came from below, they realized at the same time.

"Is that—"

"—Brian?" Aiden cut in.

And with that Aiden got up and Freddie wriggled free. They raced over to the window. Nothing but darkness and wet grass outside.

"Brian?" Aiden called. "Brian, buddy, is that you?"

"Brian!?" Freddie shouted, almost a cry. "Brian!?"

"Help me," came the voice, faint enough to be a whisper.

"The hatch," Aiden said as they scampered over and threw it open.

Thirty feet below, among the dirt and tanbark at the base of the redwood, standing over the fallen flashlight, was their friend.

Brian stood, swaying and grey. A beard of wet darkness covered his chin, his neck. He had been stripped of his shirt, his pudgy girth hanging over a drawstring on his cargo shorts. One of his shoes was missing. His skin was cold and dirty on one side from where he had lain for hours. Leaves clung to his neck, his shoulders, his wide chest.

"Holy shit, he's okay!" Freddie said. "Brian we thought you were dead—"

"Ladder," Brian said softly. "Ladder down."

He hadn't been killed, Aiden realized. Only injured.

"Okay buddy," Freddie answered, gathering the rope and wood rungs. "Did you get away—"

"Stop," Aiden said.

"What? It's gonna come back any second now," Freddie snapped. "We've gotta get him up!"

"No," Aiden held the ladder back. "Look."

"Ladder," Brian said from below. "Laaaa-duh down."

Freddie jerked the ladder out of Aiden's hand. "Look at what?!"

"Look at him, you idiot!" Aiden snapped. "Listen to him."

"Throw down," Brian mumbled. "Laaaa-duh. Help. Help."

"I don't understand," Freddie furrowed his brow. "Look at..." Then air escaped his throat; a sudden exhale followed by a grasp, and his face soured. "What... the fuck...is that?"

"Help," Brian mumbled. "Help. Laaaaa-duh down."

From the big kid's back dangled a shadow, a wet tendril that glistened in the flashlight. It ran, hose-like, from the base of his spine all the way to the ground, where it curved and snaked around the tree.

"His stutter," Aiden said. "His voice. It's all wrong."

"Oh my god," Freddie whispered.

"Help... Laaaaaa-duh," Brian said, staring up at the two boys. "Down laaaaa-duh. In. In you let. Up. Help. Laaaaaa-duh."

The tendril moved and twisted, a grotesque umbilical feeding the fat boy words. Between the sounds Brian's lips moved awkwardly, mouthing invisible words. And his eyes... they stared not up at his friends, but beyond them, perhaps miles away.

His eyes were black.

"Help me..." The umbilical twisted and flexed. "Help me," Brian mouthed.

"It's hurting him," Freddie gasped. "It's fucking hurting him."

"No," Aiden answered. "That's not Brian down there. It's using him, like a puppet or something."

Using him, or speaking through him. A transformation had occurred in the hours since he'd vanished. A grotesque protrusion had sprouted from Brian's mid-section, like a pregnant lump distending from his back. A horrible hunch, visible behind him, inflated and deflated.

"It put something in him," Aiden said. "Earlier. It must've infected him, or—"

"Aiden Park," Brian mumbled, words all wrong. "Aaaaay-din Park. Lad-duh."

And his skin, that too had all gone wrong. It was grey around the hunch, as if it were old, ready to shed off the big boy's bones.

"You're not Brian!" Freddie shouted. "You're not our friend."

Brian blinked, eyes coming into focus. And then he was there. Then the face looking up at them was that of the friend Aiden had known for years.

"It's so cah-cah... It's so cold in the woods," Brian said. "So cold and empty. Nothing but nothing, forever. Just night."

Those eyes, staring straight at Aiden. Into him. Boring a hole to his core. There was pity in those black eyes, he realized. Brian was crying, perhaps for them.

"You wah-wah-won't get away. You can't. All the time won't make any difference. You'll see. It's all fuh-fuh... it's all falling apart. It's all gone to rot. Just open the hatch and let us in. We need to go back to the woods. We need to go back to the deep. We all just need to sleep. Laaaaa-duh..."

Brian's eyes glazed over, went distant and numb again. Aiden noticed the fat boy's left arm, and how it now seemed to have an extra joint. How the fingers moved like liquid, like there were no bones beneath the skin. Like tentacles.

"Down," Brian mouthed, tongue clicking. "Down.... Gweeeee. Laaaaa-duh. Gweeeeee!" The voice was wet and hoarse. "Gweeeeee!"

"Leave him alone!" Freddie screamed.

"Gweeeeeee!" Brian screamed back, hysterical. "Laaaa-duh... Gweeeeeee!"

Freddie had reached his fill of the night's horrors, this Aiden knew. Everyone had a breaking point, adults and children and all in between. Tonight, Freddie had crashed through his own. Perhaps seeing Brian die had dislodged something inside of him. Perhaps it was the thought of being trapped in the treehouse until dawn, or beyond. Or perhaps it was just the sight of their friend for the past four summers, transformed and puppeted by some wretched horror that lurked just out of sight.

Most likely it had been all those things, Aiden thought. All of them and more. How he himself had not cracked and shattered, he didn't understand. All he knew was that he was thankful for that.

"It's not Brian!" Freddie screamed and retreated, back into the corner of the treehouse, wrapping himself in the sleeping bag he had, hours earlier, helped Brian carry up into the treehouse. "Shut up!" he screamed. "Shut up!"

"Help me..." Brian's voice bounced between the one they'd known for years, and this abomination. "Help me... Gweeeeeeeee!"

"Go away!" Aiden yelled. "You're not our friend. Go away!"

The appendage detached from Brian's back, a horrible undulation that made the chubby boy spasm. Rolls of fat bounced as Brian's eyes rolled back into sockets, two white marbles in an ashen face. Then, the boy collapsed sideways into the trunk and slid facedown into the dirt, a marionette without strings. A final, horrible action: Brian's limbs curling in on themselves, like the throes of a dying insect. Then their friend was still.

A moment later, Mister Skitters emerged, clicking and clattering, tiptoeing forth on uneasy legs into the patch of light. It let out a bitter hiss upwards at the treehouse. Vile and spiteful, like that of an angry child. A brat, tattled on. A failed trick.

A dozen black eyes studied Aiden. A dozen dark jewels glimmering, blinking. Hypnotic, almost.

Ladder, Brian had said. Throw down the ladder.

Only it hadn't been Brian, had it? It had been Mister Skitters, speaking through Brian. And if that thing below could speak through their friend, perhaps it could understand them. Perhaps it could listen.

"Why are you doing this?" Aiden asked.

For the longest time the thing just stood there, clattering and clicking, black eyes blinking like stars in a dark sea. Then, it raised that arm upward and curled in on itself. The gesture was clumsy, imprecise. It drew that limb to its own head and touched wet tentacles to its head.

It was tapping its own temple.

Think about it, it seemed to say.

"I don't understand," Aiden said. "What do you want from us?"

Mister Skitters studied him, those wet eyes shimmering, blinking.

Maybe it hadn't understood him, Aiden thought. Maybe it had just been a reflex, like a dog cocking its head sideways.

"What do you want?" he asked again.

That limb unfurled, raised, and stretched through the darkness. Wet fingers curled in on itself, all but one. The gesture was universal, and with it Aiden felt his stomach drop.

It was pointing straight at Aiden.

You, its gesture said. I want you.

"Gweeeeeee!" it screamed.

Then it wrapped that limb around Brian's ankles, and bounded off into the shadows, dragging their dead friend with it.

It wasn't gone, Aiden realized. It would never be. It was merely waiting, baiting them. Playing its own sick game until the kids came down, or it found a way up. One way or the other.

Aiden closed the hatch and collapsed against the wood. He was tired, exhausted. He thought of his dad, and of Julie. He wondered: where were they? What were they doing? Why hadn't they come and was he really alone?

"What did it say?" Freddie asked, voice little more than a squeak among the shadows. It was good that he couldn't see his friend, Aiden thought. The treehouse had become an asylum, and Freddie was quickly becoming its first inmate.

"What?" Aiden asked.

"I heard you talking. What did it say?"

It wants us, Aiden thought. It wants us, and it's going to wait there forever and ever. And if that doesn't make your head spin, than soon there might even be two of them.

"Nothing," Aiden said. "It didn't say anything."

"So, what do we do?"

"We wait," Aiden replied, perhaps more to himself than to Freddie. "We just have to wait. Someone will come, you'll see. Someone will come."

In the darkness those words became his mantra, his lighthouse.

Someone will come, he thought. Someone will come.

###

###

###

###

### —18—

"IT'S NOT UP!" Freddie's voice was a panic that cut through the darkness. A knife that severed shadow and sleep.

There had been darkness, the creaking boards of the treehouse in the breeze. And there had been a dream of summer. Aiden was out at Frenchman's Tower with Freddie and Brian at the height of July. He was carving his name into the red brick that made up the ruined tower, just as they had.

Yet every time he checked the brick his name had been erased and so he started over. Then his father was there, and he shook his head and said: "Don't drive yourself crazy trying to wish it all away. Like I said, part of growing up letting go of what we want, and learning to accept what we've got."

Then Freddie's voice cut through, laced with fear, and the dream was gone.

"It isn't up!" he whimpered. "Why isn't it up?!"

Aiden opened his eyes, instinctively looking for the rope ladder. But there it was, in a pile by the closed hatch. "What are you talking about?"

Freddie was staring out the window. "The sun. It isn't up."

"What time is it?"

"After eight," Freddie said. "It's after eight and the sun isn't up."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. Look!"

Aiden didn't have to look. If the sun had been up, light would've been pouring in through the window, between the cracks and boards, in through the holes. But it wasn't. Only darkness painted the world inside the treehouse.

Still, he stood up and peered out into the night. A grey world of shadow lingered over a black lawn, a distant house, a kitchen light.

"See?!" Freddie said. "See?!"

"Are you sure it's morning?"

"Of course I'm sure!" Freddie held out the iPad. The clock read: 8:17 a.m. "Check your Nintendo! It's the same!"

Aiden opened the case and studied the start-up screen. Sure enough, 8:17 a.m.

"I don't understand. It's gotta be a glitch."

"A glitch? On the iPad and the Nintendo? What about the birds?" Freddie asked. "Where are the birds!?"

"Let me think for a second, okay? Jeez."

Aiden paced, studying the world through the window. Darkness everywhere. No stars beyond that grey sky. No crickets, no sounds. Only the creaking of the boards beneath his feet, Freddie's trembling voice.

"Has the moon moved?" Freddie asked. "It hasn't, has it? Tell me it's moved."

Aiden studied the sky but couldn't find the moon. No waxing gibbous among the dark blanket above. No stars.

"I can't find it," Aiden said. "What about Mister Skitters? Is it still—"

"What?" Freddie's voice was confused, desperate. "Skittles?"

"The thing," Aiden corrected. "Is it still down there?"

"I don't know. Aiden, why isn't the sun up?!"

"Just... One thing at a time, okay?" Aiden opened the hatch, peered down. The flashlight glimmered, still shining like a beacon at the base of the tree. The ground was peppered with pieces of fabric, and something else. Flesh, perhaps. Pieces of their friend. Aiden didn't want to know, so he put that gruesome thought out of his mind, looked beyond the mess and scoured the yard for any sign of the creature. The woods, the lawn, the tree and that long trunk it had climbed. A dozen shadows, a dozen places, yet no sign of Mister Skitters.

"I don't see it," Aiden said. He took a length of rope ladder, held it over the hatch.

"What are you doing?" Freddie asked, a weakness creeping in to his voice, to his words.

"I'm just testing the water, okay? I won't drop it all the way."

"Why?"

"Cause we gotta see if it's still there."

"Where else would it be, huh?"

"Gone, maybe. I don't know." Aiden ignored him and lowered the ladder down. Two feet. Five. Ten. Fifteen. "So far so good..."

At twenty feet a shadow broke off from the tree line and raced toward them. Freddie gasped. Aiden's stomach tightened.

"Up! Pull it up!" Freddie panicked.

Aiden yanked the ladder up, the shadow still a good fifty feet away.

"See?!" Freddie whispered. "It's still there, I told you!"

Hooves kicked up grass as it slid to a stop. "Hwhoooooock!" it hissed. "Tick-tick-tick." Then it turned and scampered off, back to the woods.

"It's waiting for us," Freddie said. "It's gonna starve us out. Oh God, it's gonna wait forever."

"It's not gonna starve us out, okay?"

"Sure it will. It's gonna stay there until we get hungry, and then what?!"

"It can't stay there forever."

"Why not?"

"Because," Aiden said. "It just can't, okay?"

"And the sun's supposed to come up at six, but that didn't happen. So now what?"

Aiden turned on the iPad, double checking the time. Half past eight.

"Could we run?" Freddie asked. "Think we could run?"

"Run where?"

"The house. We could run to the house and hide or get knives or something."

Aiden studied the distance from the treehouse to the kitchen. Knives, yes. He also knew his dad had a gun, locked away in a box. Or he had at the old house. "No, not both of us," Aiden said. "It's too fast, we'd never make it."

"What if the sun never comes up? Then what do we do? We can't just wait—"

"It'll come up," Aiden said, growing frustrated. "It has to. That'd be like, I don't know... freaking gravity going wrong or something."

"Then why hasn't it come up? Why?"

"I don't know, okay!?" Aiden snapped, those hands balling in on themselves again. "I just... I just think we should wait, okay?"

Freddie winced at the words. Aiden studied him. He was desperate, Aiden realized, because he was in pain.

"I don't think I can wait much longer," Freddie said, voice cracking. He looked on the verge of tears, weaker than Aiden had ever seen him. "I'm so scared." Freddie's eyes dropped down to his arm and his pocket.

"What is it?"

Freddie removed his arm from the pocket of his hoodie. "It hurts so much," he said.

"Aww, jeez," Aiden coughed.

The smell was what hit him first. It was a vile stench; of rot and curdled things, of death and decay. Red tendrils traced an infected circulatory system from finger to elbow. Black and blue and green fought off patches of yellow and orange like layers of rust. The olive hue and freckles that once covered the tall boy's arm had been swallowed by infection. Even his fingernails were dark and grey, and two had fallen off.

"That's not good," was all Aiden could say. Not good at all. He'd seen enough zombie movies to know that when something went to infection that fast nothing good could come of it.

"It itches so much," Freddie said, wincing. "I didn't think anything could itch so much."

"We need to get you to a doctor."

"How? How do we go to a doctor or a hospital when that thing's still out there and the sun hasn't come up? Tell me how we do that, huh?"

"I don't know," Aiden said, rubbing his temple. "I don't know, just let me think."

Think. Easier said than done, especially when you'd been tree'd by a monster and time didn't seem to be operating the right way. When nine in the morning was no different than nine at night.

Think, think! He'd always been the leader, the glue that kept Brian and Freddie together. That compass that led the way to the adventures. But now that Brian was gone the balance was all wrong, and Freddie couldn't keep stay on the rails. He'd reverted, gone back to Freakout Freddie, as the kids called him. Back when every insult led to a fist fight.

Think, he told himself. Come up with an action, a plan, something. Yet every course of action led back to one problem: that they were stuck in a tree. That there were two of them. That the thing below ran faster than either of them did.

Unless...

No, he thought. No, that's a horrible thing. A terrible idea. He tried to put it out of his mind, to think of alternatives. Yet it kept surfacing like a bottle in a stormy sea. A bottle with a single, brutal thought inside.

Perhaps he didn't need to run faster than the thing. Perhaps he only needed to run faster than his friend.

Suddenly, the treehouse felt smaller, cramped. Suddenly, Freddie's eyes seemed to darken, to study him. Wondering.

"What?" Freddie asked.

"Nothing, I'm just... I think I've got an idea," Aiden lied.

"Really? What?"

You and me in a race, Aiden thought. Winner takes all.

Yet the idea repulsed him. His hands tightened, tensed, and he paced around the treehouse trying to buy enough time to think up something less grim. There had to be another way.

"What is it? What's your idea?" Freddie whined.

Don't go there, he told himself. You've known each other since second grade. Three years, at least.

But another part of himself chimed in that he'd known Brian longer, since they'd both fought off Rickie Rachbane by the handball court in kindergarden. Almost half a lifetime. And yet he'd watched Brian scream, watched him die. And what had he done to save him? Screamed back and flung rocks, that's what.

"Okay, it's kind of a stupid idea," Aiden said, trying to buy more time.

Yes, a stupid idea, but it would work. The thing came from the woods to the east, and the house was to the west. If they were down there, Mister Skitters would have to choose: a meal that ran, or one that didn't. A thirty foot drop would hobble Freddie, probably knock him out cold. It might even be painless.

Totally painless, he told himself. Totally.

"What is it?" Freddie asked again.

And then a sickening feeling rose in his gut. What kind of friend are you? he wondered. What kind of person are you?

The kind that lives, a voice answered. The kind that survives. Only half a day ago they'd hunted each other through the woods as enemies.

But that was a game, and this was real. That was for fun, and this...

So what? he told himself. Which would he rather lose: a game, or his life?

"Okay," Aiden walked to the window, scanning the yard theatrically. "It probably lives in the woods, right?"

"Okay, so?" Freddie asked.

"So, I've been thinking," Aiden turned and pointed to the hatch. "If we can lure it out of the woods, maybe get it to come out again."

"With what?" Freddie asked.

With you, buddy, Aiden thought as he walked over to the hatch. In a fair fight they were about an even match. Freddie was strong, but gravity was stronger. And if Aiden caught him by surprise, well, anything was possible. An open hatch, a shove, and the fall would take care of the rest.

"Come here, take a look down, okay? It's actually pretty simple."

Simple and quick. Just a little closer and you'll understand everything, he thought. Just a little closer, buddy.

"I've got a better idea," Freddie answered, and when Aiden turned to hear it he saw a flash of metal and glass in the darkness. Stars erupted—so many stars—and his legs went to liquid and the world bent sideways.

###

###

###

###

### —19—

THE FLOORBOARDS EMBRACED HIM.

Somehow, the treehouse had become an ocean. Somehow the world had gone to liquid. Warmth pooled around his ear, his face. Had he fallen, stumbled, tripped?

"I'm sorry," a voice mumbled in the darkness. "I'm so sorry."

Hands gripped him, pulled him, and suddenly he was moving across the floor. Something was dragging him.

And then the pain came, crashing in waves. With it a sudden clarity emerged, a sobering horror. He was on the ground, bleeding from his head. Not five feet away lay the shattered iPad, its screen cracked and broken. Broken, he realized, from when it had struck him.

"I'm sorry," Freddie said again, tugging on him. "I'm so sorry."

"Why..." Aiden coughed forth, trying to pull himself up again. "...are you doing... Why?"

"Because we both can't make it," Freddie said. "Like you said, it's faster than us. And I need to go to the hospital. I hurt so bad..."

Aiden felt his fingers tighten, tried to push himself up. Freddie's foot came down on his face, hard and fast. For a moment he saw the cross hatches and that familiar circle and star of Freddie's shoe-print. Then the stars multiplied to a million and all went sideways and white.

Please stop kicking me, he tried to say, but his tongue had forgotten how to form the sounds.

"Just lie still," a voice cried from within the light. "Please, just don't fight."

The brightness receded, shadows shimmered back into shapes he knew. The central trunk of the tree moved past, the walls of the treehouse. He felt hands gripping him again, heard the creak of wood. His eyes rolled about, lazy and unfocused, and within the shadows he saw a square moving at an odd angle toward him.

Funny, he thought. That looks like a door. A door in the floor. A hatch, he realized with sobering fear.

Freddie had opened the hatch and was now fumbling with the rope ladder. "I'm so sorry," he said. "But it's you or me, and I don't want to die."

Nobody wants to die, Aiden thought. And nobody wants to watch their best friend die. But when all's said and done, we have to look out for ourselves. In the end we're all playing a one player game.

"Sorry," Freddie said, gripping Aiden beneath the shoulders and giving him another tug. The hatch was near, inches away. He felt the rope ladder and the wood rungs pass beneath those limp legs that hardly belonged to him. Freddie turned him, now pushing. Then he felt his feet drop through the hole and dip into nothingness.

Dear God, he thought. He was going to fall. His friend was going to throw him to the monster below. This was how he was going to die: fed to a demon in a broken heap beneath a treehouse on a night that never ended.

"No, no, no!" he screamed, fighting through the sideways shapes, through the pain. He reached out, found hands and fingers, cloth and skin inside that storm of shadows.

A hand emerged, an arm, and then a face that shouted: "No, don't—LET GO!"

But he didn't let go. He pulled. Pulled on those fingers and that fabric as hard as he could. Pulled until the shadows parted, the focus crashed back, and brought with it the shape of the world. Pulled until it all came forth. And there was Freddie at the center of it all, the pocket and collar of his hoodie held in two tight wads between Aiden's fists.

And then he was through the hatch, falling, and the treehouse was above him. He tumbled, intertwined with rope and wood as Freddie's body crashed against his and they both screamed.

This is it, he thought. This is how I die. Darkness, a rapid descent, a sudden crash, and a cut to black.

And, for a moment, he was right about it all. There was darkness, a descent, and a jarring crash. Yet the cut was not to black but white, blinding and rattling as every bone in his body clattered. He would have screamed but the air was knocked right out of him. His teeth snapped shut on wet skin and a taste of iron filled his mouth.

Had he fallen all thirty feet? Had he broken something, everything?

No, he realized. The world was upside down, the redwood bark swinging closer and further from him. He was swaying, hanging from legs entangled in the ropes. The ground was beneath him, but not for another five feet. For one glorious second, everything was right and perfect; he had come within feet of death and had been saved by the rope ladder.

"Pwease... Pwease heb me," came a shrill voice below. "Oh God, Mama heb me pwease..."

Aiden untangled and lowered himself, felt the damp ground beneath his feet. Damp, but still hard enough to break the body of a twelve year old boy.

"Oh Mama pwease... Mama pwease..."

A dark pile lay in a twisted heap a few feet from the flashlight. Freddie, he realized. The fall had transformed him, wiped away almost all human features and turned him into a broken pile of pain. On the ground, at that angle, the flashlight acted like a stage lamp illuminating a sight that broke Aiden's heart.

Bone jutted through flesh. A shoulder was distended, dislodged and pushed clear up to an ear. A leg, a knee or perhaps a thigh, had been snapped back the wrong way. His face was pressed into the ground, leaving a small crater like some wretched cartoon. Bloodied lips gasped, fish-like, sputtering whimpers past broken teeth.

"...heb...meeeee...oh pwease heb me...Eeeeeh-din, Eeeeeeeh-din...Ma-ma...Ma-ma!"

Heb me, Eeh-din, he was saying. Help me, Aiden.

And he did try to help him. Despite the fact that, moments ago, Freddie had tried to throw him from the tree house, Aiden started for that tortured pile. Freddie needed him, and he couldn't leave his friend.

"Tick-tick-tick-tick," came the sound from the woods. "Hwock! Tick-tick-tick!"

"...oh God...oh Ma-ma....Eeh-din, puh-wease...don-duh leave me...Eeh-din..." Freddie's lips sputtered as his body shook.

He's trying to get up, Aiden realized. He's trying to get up on a body of broken bones. Don't just stand there, help him!

But that terrible sound stopped him in his tracks and turned his blood cold. At the edge of the dark woods, a shape crashed forth from the bramble. Freddie didn't see Mister Skitters but he didn't need to. The sound it made was one of cruel delight, of malice and surprise. If creatures could make a more wretched sound, it was one Aiden was incapable of imagining.

"Hwoooooock! Tick-tick-tick! Hwoooooock!"

Freddie's eyes rolled upwards, blinking at Aiden with a thousand questions, a thousand hopes. This friend, this kid who had shared three summer adventures with, had just tried to kill him. And now he was begging for his help.

"Hwock!" came the sound, closer now. "Hwock! Tick tick tick!"

The tattered thing was upon the lawn, bounding five feet at a time. God it was big, bigger than it had seemed from above. Down here, at its level, it was the size of a bear.

"...Eeeeeeh-din...Eeh-din, heb me...heb me," Freddie begged. His fluttering eyes followed Aiden's hand as it reached out toward him. "Eeh-din, heb me pweeease."

But Aiden's fingers closed around the flashlight and he took it. The beam left Freddie's broken form and sent it back to shadow.

"I'm so sorry," were the final words Aiden said to his friend.

Then he turned and ran.

"Eeeeh-din!" Freddie called out. "Eeh-din! Help! Help!"

Aiden gave one last glance back. It was all he could muster. Three things stood out, clear as stars among a sea of black: the treehouse, his friend, and the bounding shape that was bearing down upon him.

"Gweeeeeee!" it screamed. "Gweeeeeee!"

Run, he thought with curious familiarity. Don't think, just run.

It was only four weeks ago at summer camp that the three friends had all lined up for the fifty yard dash. Freddie and Aiden, and even Brian, all shoulder to shoulder with a dozen other kids. The sun had been hot that day, so hot. There had been games, the final day of a week worth of competition. That morning they'd lost the water balloon toss contest when Brian had thrown his overhand at Freddie instead of underarm. The rest of the day didn't fare any better. What had started as a sure shot at first place that morning had become a lost cause by midday. They didn't have enough points to win, even if Aiden aced the fifty yard dash. Instead, they decided to have some fun.

"You just run like hell, we'll take care of everyone else," Freddie had said to Aiden. "Your job's to get across that line."

"Ours is to play defense," Brian laughed. "Duh-duh... Don't think, just run."

And run he did. When the whistle blew, Aiden didn't even look back, he didn't stop. He only heard the screams, the shouts, the counselors yelling. And behind all that he heard the laughter of his two friends.

"Run! Run!"

He coasted across the finish line, first by a good twenty seconds. When he turned around all behind him became clear. Brian and Freddie had linked up arms, becoming a pair of human bolas. They'd clotheslined several kids and simply slowed down others. Now, the two lay on the ground, entangled with the members of the opposing team, everyone scrambling to get back into the race.

They didn't win that day, they knew they couldn't. But for fifty yards and fifteen seconds Aiden had run faster than he'd ever run.

Until tonight.

The lawn and the lights at the edge passed in a blur, streaks and shapes like headlights in the rain. Somewhere behind, receding, he heard Freddie's screams reach a pitch of an impossible frequency until it was consumed by that gleeful shriek: "Gweeeee!"

Aiden's mind washed the sound out and tucked it away in corner of horrors he simply didn't acknowledge. One day he'd go there, he told himself. One day he'd open that box and remember Brian and Freddie and the night that should have never happened. One day he'd bring cops and guns and his father and they'd come back and hunt that horror until it screamed no more.

But that day lay ahead, in front of him, and he needed to run to it. Damp grass and earth beneath his feet, the lights of the house growing closer. Forty yards. Thirty five. Thirty.

"Don't think just run," Brian had said.

A squeal from behind him, a clattering. A sidelong glance revealed that clattering shape, those three legs leaping across the grass. A face spattered and wet, a maw and a hundred teeth stained crimson. Eyes, a dozen cruel pebbles, fixated on him.

It had finished off Freddie and now it was coming for him.

Twenty yards.

Fifteen.

The light through the French doors of the kitchen glimmered across damp grass and slate rock. The back patio. Dew clung to the redwood bannister.

Running, faster.

Ten yards.

"Tick-tick-tick," came the noise right behind him.

Seven yards.

He leapt up the steps, stumbled, and spilled across the deck. A backwards glance revealed the tattered horror in mid stride, that arm swinging like an awful phallus as it ran. A garden lamp snapped beneath its cloven foot.

Scrambling to his feet, up the steps. Faster. Reaching out...

He threw open the kitchen door, crashed in, and slammed it shut.

"Dad! Julie!" he screamed. "Dad, please help!"

And then Mister Skitters was there. The door buckled, shook, and then shattered. Wood and glass bounced across the floor as the monster crashed through.

Aiden circled around the table, a ten foot space between himself and the creature. Its legs slipped and slid on the hardwood floor, hooves fighting for traction. Then it found its footing and it rose.

Over the years, light had always tamed Aiden's nighttime terrors. Scorpions or scaled horrors had been bred among the shadows, much as they often were by those with an active imagination. Yet the warm glow of a lamp or an overhead light had always turned them back to piles of clothes or jackets swaying from hangers. Light had always purged the terrors, purified, cast out the monsters of his child's mind.

But no longer.

Bathed in the glow of the kitchen light, the thing that clattered and rose to its feet was nothing like Aiden had ever imagined. It was construction of flesh and fur, warped skin and scales and dozen mismatched parts growing out of each other. Tattered rags held soft skin and supple organs in like a dozen tourniquets. Three weak legs held up a tumor lined body, a squat grotesquery of thing with an ever-gnashing maw.

Funny, he thought. Funny that such a terrible thing should seem both fragile and fearsome. Funny that such a nightmare could even exist in this world.

Then it shrieked and lashed out that horrible arm and all his thoughts went to putting as much distance between himself and the terror as he could.

A second lash, the arm swung out, and a vase exploded to the right of his head. Freddie turned and ran backwards into the hallway as a third strike tore a gash in the wall. Pictures flashed past. Empty frames and white photographs, pictures that had once shown a family. Then he came out into the entry way, shouting: "Dad! Dad! Julie!"

His words echoed off white walls, white stairs, and a white door. The entry way had been painted, a bleached bone color. Every single square inch.

"What the heck?" he asked, taking in the enigma before him. The entrance to the house was utterly and completely empty of detail. Only a sea of white...

No, not painted, he realized. It had been erased. Scrubbed clean of pictures and color, scrubbed clear of every detail.

And then the thing was crashing, squeezing down the hall, coming for him. Plaster tore and pictures cracked.

Aiden threw open the front door, hoping to find a car, something to put more distance between himself and that clattering, chattering horror. The front yard was a void, a sea of white beneath ashen clouds. There was no gate, no fence, no mountains or trees. There was only a vast white world scrubbed of color that receded into a thousand miles of emptiness.

Erased, all of it. He had only a moment to think, to wonder: video games sometimes glitched and rendered impossible landscapes. Could his mind be doing the same? Or the world itself? Had he somehow slipped beyond the borders of reality?

Then those thoughts were washed away as fast as they arose, and only this reality mattered: that something horrible was coming for him.

Run, he told himself. Run and don't look back.

But run where? Outside there was only emptiness, an unformed landscape stretching for a thousand miles. Were there colored hills beyond the bleached horizon? Or simply a white oblivion?

He turned in time to see Mister Skitters come crashing out of the hallway, shattering the doorframe and sliding sideways. He raced up the stairs, the creature leaping at his heels. He smelled rot and felt heat from the beast as it stumbled and tried to climb the hardwood steps. Its legs were unbalanced, unsure, and for every two steps it took up the wood stairs it lost one and swayed back.

A great crack echoed out as it stumbled into the bannister, half snapping it. Then it leapt forward, a tremendous pounce that brought it to the landing and only a few feet behind Aiden.

"Gweeeeee!" it shrieked, putrid breath tainting the air. "Gweeee!"

Six furious steps brought him to the top of the stairs, the second floor and its separate bedrooms like an unrendered purgatory of colors and pure whites. At the end of the hall, the master bedroom where his father and Julie slept was a void of space; white walls and white furniture and white floors and white light. To the other end the hall was dissolving, its color bleeding out.

Only his bedroom held color, familiarity, and the suggestion of safety. He rushed down the hall, feet sliding on the hardwood floor as he threw the door open then slammed it shut and locked it.

He took in the room, the familiar surroundings, the posters and the bed. It was all the same as it'd been a half day ago, all identical to how he remembered it.

Yes, he thought. It was exactly as he remembered it. Exactly. But he'd never been to the other parts of the house, never filled in the gaps in his mind. For all he knew, they had always been white, unrendered, and empty.

The door rattled and shook as Mister Skitters crashed against it. Another terrible thud and the door grew a dozen cracks. Plaster cracked along the ceiling, little waterfalls filling the air with white dust. A third crack buckled the door, a broken bulge blooming out from the center, and from within it that arm flailed about, thrusting and tearing at the splintering wood. Beyond the cracks those horrible eyes, those abyssal pupils all focused on him. Beyond, teeth ground and gnashed.

For a moment, brief and beautiful and soothing, Aiden felt his sanity slip sideways and a giggle seemed to rise from within.

"Sometimes I wonder if our life's a big video game," Brian had once said. "And we get deja-vu 'cause we've messed up and had to restart."

A game, he told himself. That's all it was. That's all it had ever been. Twelve years of life, twelve stages to the game he was in.

A game. And perhaps this was the final boss. Perhaps it had even been a three player game but Brian and Freddie hadn't made it to the big battle. After all, Aiden had always been the best, but he never beat anything on the first try. And if that was the reality beneath it all; if this was the final layer, then perhaps all would be right, in the end. Perhaps he would get a retry, a do-over. A continue.

Then the door shattered and with it went any idea of save points and continues. Perhaps the world was all a game or perhaps he had woken a true horror, but neither mattered in that moment. There was only this: the acrid stink of a tumor covered horror, a dozen eyes, a hundred teeth, and the sheer desire to fight on. To put as much distance as he could between that thing and himself. To run to the ends of the Earth, if he had to.

But there was no way out. It had the door, had broken through part of the wall even. There was no way out, except...

Go, go, go, he told himself, and then instinct took over.

Aiden threw the chair into the window and, seconds later, followed with his body. A dumb move, perhaps, but the only other choice was to wait for the teeth and the hope that there were indeed save points somewhere among his twelve years of life.

For the second time in twenty minutes, Aiden fell. Glass rained down with him, and then, suddenly, he was rolling, sliding, tumbling down the Spanish tiles of the roof. He saw the edge only seconds before he was over it, yet somehow his hand found the gutter and latched on. It was a reflex that saved him for a second time that night. The gutter snapped and swung, not quite breaking the fall, but slowing it enough that when the wooden deck rose up to catch him it didn't snap his legs.

Glass and dried leaves rained down, followed by the clatter of the gutter. Then he was rolling free, pushing himself up on sore legs and an ankle that stabbed and screamed.

Go, he told himself. Keep going.

And he did. Limping, he pulled himself up and pushed on as a thundering clatter rattled out above. Tiles fell, the creature screamed, and all sounds above spoke of an imminent crash. If the thing had trouble climbing stairs it probably found the roof downright impossible.

Go! Run and don't look back.

Hobbling, he made his way across the deck to the fallen flashlight and scooped it up. His legs were clumsy and his right ankle cried as he drove his weight down upon it and pushed off. Everything below his ankle was awkward, uneven. Everything above, too heavy. Running was like balancing a stick upon a marble and trying to keep it from rolling.

He was ten steps onto the lawn when the thing let out a scream and tumbled from the roof. A long swath of red brick tiles had been knocked free like some absurd crash site. The green canvas umbrella, the wood outdoor table beneath it, and one of the Adirondack chairs all lay in a heap, splintered beneath the convulsing torso of the creature. Furious, frantic, the creature tried to disentangle itself, those legs sliding about on the broken bricks.

He had thirty seconds, a minute, perhaps, if he was lucky. It'd taken less when it had fallen out of the treehouse but it hadn't been wrapped in canvas. It wasn't much time, he thought, but it could be enough. It would have to be. On a flat plain the creature was fast, too fast for him. But on an angle, on a slope like the stairs or the roof...

That's why it didn't catch me, he realized. Back when he'd found it during the game it had been uphill. That's why he had been able to out run it all those hours ago.

Ignoring the screaming pain and daggers that drove themselves into his ankle, Aiden ran. The damp grass cushioned each step, lessened the pain but only slightly. He focused on a distant spot, a goal close enough to make it to soon. A checkpoint. The edge of the woods. He'd make it in twenty seconds, he told himself. Instead he made it in fifteen.

By the time he reached the woods, the creature was still on the redwood deck, tugging itself free from the umbrella and flailing. When it spotted him it let out a shriek and jerked. The table spun sideways like an anchor, the redwood bannister snapped, but Aiden didn't wait to see if the creature had broken free. He did what he had done before, what had kept him alive this endless night. He ran.

Only this time, he ran not toward the light but into the darkness.

Sticks cracked underfoot. Branches slapped at him, scraped his face. The flashlight was dying, had been for hours, and offered only a little more light than a candle. It wasn't much to see by, or to guide himself through the woods with, but it was close enough. Cobwebs glistened in its beam. The downhill slope was a dark blur, shapes and sticks and stumps emerging as if from a black fog.

He pushed deeper, into the woods. Faster.

The ground accelerated. Somewhere, not too far back, he heard the terrible sound of branches snapping and deadfall crunching beneath a body that cared not for silence. Mister Skitters was coming.

Not tonight, he told himself. He'd run too far, gone too fast. If it was his death the thing was after, it would have to earn it.

Aiden pushed himself, faster and faster. Down the damp darkness, the cold slope of the woods, and into the wild. For a moment he thought of Brian and Freddie, of his two friends and the game they'd played. Of the last time he'd laughed and how distant it felt. He'd run like just like this, half a day ago.

Half a day, or half a lifetime? he wondered. Had the sun not come up this morning, or for a hundred of them?

Perhaps if he ran fast enough he could find them, his two friends, among the dark woods of the preserve. Perhaps his dad and Julie were there. Perhaps that was where it all went, the sunrises and colors and senses of the world that had been stripped bare by that monster and the madness it brought.

Perhaps...

Running among those dark woods he dreamt of a dawn and a dozen answers, a justice for his friends and his family, for everything that had shifted and changed on that dark night at summer's end.

Perhaps...

The ground was a blur, an unsteady torrent beneath his feet. Too fast, he thought.

And then the ground was no more, the world was sideways, and he was falling through darkness and shade. He saw it at the last second, a glimmer of damp rocks and water, the reflection of a moon above in a sky that had been covered in clouds for too many hours. The dry creek bred rushed at him and embraced him.

And all was white and silent.

###

###

###

###

### —20—

GWEEEEEEE! CAME THE SOUND from the light. Hwoooock! Tick-tick-tick...

He didn't know how long he had lain there among the rocks. Minutes or hours, the time didn't matter. Only that sound and what it heralded. Only the thing that stalked him.

Straining, he pushed himself up from the rocky creek bed. He found the flashlight, the bulb a dim amber among the darkness. He picked it up, pointed it at the shadows, and chased them away with the dying light.

And then his heart broke at what he saw.

Thirty feet away lay a dark oval, a concrete mess of rusty metal, cobwebs, moss and mushrooms. It was the collapsed entrance to the ancient drain he had found earlier. That wet tunnel into the earth.

Anger, absolute and without forgiveness, washed over him. He had run into the woods to escape the terror. And yet in his hurry and confusion he had come back to the very place he had first found it. He had fallen straight into the creek that housed the lair of the beast that had killed his friends.

"Hwock! Tick-tick-tick!" came a sound from the darkness inside the ancient drain. Shadows shifted and moved. "Hwock! Tick-tick-tick..."

"No," Aiden said, taking a step back from the rotten tunnel as something glistened from within. "No, no, no, please..."

"Hwock! Tick-tick-tick!" the shadows rattled and something skittered into the light.

It was a shape, terrible and twisted. Legs were bent the wrong way. A dozen dark eyes blinked beneath a sickly lids. But it was different to Mister Skitters. Horns and a hard shell covered places where tumors and skin had dotted the other creature. Tribal tattoos and scars were carved into ancient shell.

It took a tenuous step forward and Aiden took a step back.

"Hwock! Tick-tick-tick!" came the sound from the drain as the darkness shifted again. Another glimmer, another glisten, and a second tattered shape emerged. Pincers replaced teeth, fur replaced horns. The details were different but the broad strokes were the same.

Wet lips spat out a familiar song. "Hwock! Tick-tick-tick!"

A third shadow crept out of the drain. A fourth. A fifth. Small, large, and somewhere between. For every step Aiden took back they took two forward. A hundred different eyes all blinked. A dozen legs shifted. Tattered bodies pushed against each other to get a good look at this human, this kid who had stumbled into their nest. This invader...

A sixth shape joined them, bobbing on awkward legs. Like the others, it was a tattered mess of torn clothes and tumorous skin. Only the clothes it wore had once been Brian's. The clothes, and the skin, Aiden realized.

Little else of his friend was recognizable. Only the vague shape, a detail here and there—a tuft of red hair, freckles among the lesions and tumors, fingers among the tentacles—but all else was twisted, transformed.

It had all fallen apart, like Brian had said. All gone to rot.

"Gweeeee!" the thing shrieked. "Gweeee!"

A scream never left Aiden's throat. It was stillborn, dead deep within. He had no energy left, no will after this endless night. All he could do was step back, one foot at a time, away from that dark drain.

And then his foot hit something soft and he stumbled backwards. The rocks rose up, a hard embrace that rattled his bones. A charge ran up his spine and erupted, two flashbulbs behind his eyes. The creek was hard, rocky, and he'd fallen back onto it.

Fallen, because of something. Something beneath his feet. Something soft and covered in clothes.

A body, he realized.

A body lay in the dry creek bed. A hoodie soaked wet with dew, legs that disappeared into the shadows. And hair. Chestnut with blonde streaks in it.

He recognized the hoodie, the jeans, the hair. The gun that lay a few feet away, the laser tag vest wrapped around its chest. He recognized the body that lay there.

It was his.

A dirt trail led from where he had fallen hours ago, from the ridge above and tumbled down into the dry creek. And up there, at the edge of the creek, circled that horrible thing that had stalked him through this endless night. The thing that had devoured his friends. The thing that stalked him from twilight into...

A dream, he realized. Or a nightmare.

Either way, it was a land beyond the world of the waking, a land where the sun never rose. A land he could soon leave.

As soon as he woke up, he thought. That was all he needed to do! To stop the dream, to end the nightmare!

His heart leapt, a joy perhaps only exceeded by a sunrise, a glimpse of a rendered world free of shadows and horrors. A promise that all would soon be right.

All I need to do is wake up, he told himself. That was all!

And he grabbed that body that lay before him—his body—and as he shook it the tattered creatures circled and closed in.

"Wake up," he said to himself.

"Wake up!" he screamed.

And then he stopped shaking the body and his hands recoiled, cold and shivering. A pool of blood lay beneath the sleeping body. The rocks were red, stained with it. A dark mat of hair, red and hard and stiff, above a raw patch of skin on the boy's temple.

The flashlight was no more than a candle, a match in a monsoon, dying in a few final seconds. Yet in that time the light chased away one final shadow, and with it all went cold.

He saw his own eyes, the eyes of the sleeping boy before him, and he realized one thought, horrible and absolute.

He wasn't sleeping.

No one sleeps with their eyes open. No one sleeps on rocks.

Closer, they crept. Closer...

No. No, if I'm not asleep... he struggled to finish the thought, but it was as heavy as the stones that lined that creek, as old as the world itself. If I'm not asleep...

"Gweeeeee!" The creatures closed in, chewing through darkness, wet voices screaming: "Gweee! Gweeee!"

Then they were upon him, a legion shadows, teeth sharp and cold and endless as night.

And he thought: if I'm not asleep, then what am I?

###

###

###

### —Afterword—

"Let me tell you a dream I had..."

There are few worse ways to start a conversation than to tell someone about your dream. It would probably go then that there are there are few worse ways to start a story as well, yet this is one of them.

A Hollow Dream of Summer's End was born in the early mornings of late July in 2012. My bed was set in a loft overlooking the rest of my small apartment, an enclave that, despite the two fans and near constant air-conditioning, proved to be little more than a convection oven. Sleep was something of a rare visitor during the late summer, and most nights I simply baked, my mind drifting in and out of various levels of consciousness, perhaps due to heatstroke.

At some point I became aware of a presence in the apartment. Impossible, of course, the door was locked and my apartment was on the tenth floor. Impossible, and yet... I felt it there.

Something was downstairs, in the apartment below my loft. Something was looking around... looking, for me.

A fear unlike anything I'd felt in years, something primal and childish, whispered: "Do not roll over. Stay still. There's something terrible below you. Do not roll over. Stay still."

I don't know how long I fought that battle between my rational mind and the childish fear that cast all logic aside. A half hour? Longer, most likely. Time behaves in funny ways in the early hours of the a.m. I do know that at some point I forced myself to roll over.

I wished I hadn't.

In the reflection off the window I caught the reflection of a dark shape directly below the loft. Some thing was crouching, hiding beneath a table. I only remember its eyes, and that there were a dozen at least, all black and all glimmering, all staring at the window and the reflection in it.

It was staring back at me.

Every inch of my being told me to hide, to pull the covers back over. It was a fear so specifically child-like it seemed comical, and yet it was an action that was impossible to do. The thing below had seen me, and I had seen it.

Worse than the shadow was what it was dragging. In its hand was the corpse of a man, one wearing the very shoes I had worn that day—Vibram Five Fingers, if you must know. That was my body down there.

It gave me a knowing look, and then dragged my other body into the bathroom.

I never knew when I woke up, yet I was in the same position as I had been in the dream. At some point on that hot summer night the dream faded gracefully and without detection, and reality bled back in.

And yet a doubt lingered as it always does in that grey gap between the waking world and the one beyond. Reality seemed so fragile, mortality just a flimsy veil. As Poe asked so long ago: "Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?"

Sometimes, I wonder.

And I no longer sleep in a loft.

—

I wanted to write a story that explored that childhood fear of being trapped by a monster coming into conflict with the rational mind of a young adult, one that tells us with almost unwavering certainty: monsters aren't real. I wanted to examine what best friends would do under pressure as their reality crumbled. In the end, A Hollow Dream of Summer's End became more than that to me. It became a story about the end of innocence in the worst possible way.

Yet I wasn't happy leaving Aiden at the bottom of a dry creek bed, learning what he did on the night that never ended. There was more to this world, more to Mister Skitters, and more to the mysterious tunnel Aiden discovered.

Like that dream, I wanted to know more. Like Aiden and his friends, I yearned for further adventures.

So if you are happy leaving Aiden in the cold creek, to the tentacles and teeth of death, then this, dear reader, is where we must part ways.

But if you wish to take the next step, to venture into that dark tunnel and see what's on the other side, consider this story the opening chapter of a journey into a world beyond.

See you on the other side.

—Andrew Van Wey

###

###

###

### —About the Author—

Andrew Van Wey was born in Palo Alto, California, spent part of his childhood in New England, and currently lives as an expatriate abroad where he doubts his sanity on a daily basis.

As a child of the late 80's and early 90's, Andrew fondly remembers a time when cell phones were the size of bricks, a good scare could be found in a stack of Stephen King books, vampires didn't glimmer nor go to high school, and a sleepover was best spent scaring friends with low budget horror on VHS.

When he's not writing he can probably be found hiking with his dog, playing video games, or sleeping with the lights on. He considers gelato and pizza to be a perfectly acceptable meal and shorts to be business-casual if paired with a scarf.

You can visit him online at andrewvanwey.com

###

###

###

### —Also by Andrew Van Wey—

Forsaken – A Novel of Art, Evil, and Insanity

A Feast of Infinite Rot

A Debt of Bacon

A Hollow Dream Series

A Hollow Dream of Summer's End

A Hollow Dream – Eternal Autumn

A Hollow Dream – Winter's Scream (coming soon)

A Hollow Dream – Shattered Spring (coming soon)

 Death has come for Aiden

On the last night of summer, a child's game has turned grim. Aiden has fallen and woken up to a terrible truth: he is dead.

Yet Death is Just the First Step

Fleeing through a tunnel between worlds, Aiden discovers others, those who have found sanctuary in a place beyond existence.

—Life is Cruel, Death is No Different—

Welcome to Eternal Autumn, a land of whispering mystery between existence and nothingness. Here, among the frozen colors of Autumn, is a world home to the memories of the dead... and the demons that hunt them. A city of collective memories and agless children; dark swamps and darker magic; and an ancient ritual that just might bring Aiden what all dead truly want...

... a Second Life

A Hollow Dream – Eternal Autumn is the Second Chapter in a Harrowing Series, where Fantasy meets Horror at Childhood's End.

108,000 words / / Coming Early 2014

 "Finally! A True Horror Novel!"

YOU'RE LIVING THE DREAM...

A beautiful house, a loving wife. Two kids, a dog, and a professorship teaching art restoration at the local university. Your name is Dan Rineheart. You've got it all.

...BUT ALL DREAMS MUST END.

On the cusp of autumn a mysterious painting arrives. No name. No date. No signature or frame. Only a note that reads: Here in art, denial. It's a disturbing work of grotesque perfection; two children with cruel eyes, a window onto an endless field, and a dying tree on top of a hill. A work of art... that changes with each viewing.

SO BEGINS THE NIGHTMARE...

...Where wretched children crawl from a canvas prison to stalk the quiet halls of this happy home.

...Where painted clocks tick-tock away in the dark hours before dawn, and a missing dog whimpers from between the walls.

...Where all answers lead to a dark artist and an impossible creation, a cursed canvas with a twisted past...

...AND A HORROR THAT WILL DEVOUR ALL.

Curl up, if you dare, with a dark novel readers are calling: "Beautifully written" — "A Must Read!" — "Stunning" — "The Scariest book EVER!"

FORSAKEN is an intelligent blend of ghost story, suburban supernatural thriller, haunted house, and mystery. Perfectly written for fans of early Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Peter Straub, it's a terrifying tale of secrets and lies, of nightmares made flesh; where the scariest stories are the ones that coldly whisper into your ear until madness and death are a welcome gift.

Lock your door.  
Turn on the lights.  
Do NOT read FORSAKEN late at night

108,000 words // 459 pages // Mystery - Horror

 "Every tale is born in truth, just as every tree comes from a seed. And so it is in these tales that we learn about life, fiction and fact both leading us along. Which road you choose to follow, which details you choose to believe, I leave up to you, dear listeners."

And so begin three dark tales at a nameless inn on the edge of the New World. Three stories told in lieu of gold, payment for refuge and a feast. Three tales that may reveal or conceal a storyteller's darkest secrets.

\- The Hag's Reckoning -

At forest's edge lives a twisted woman, a creature the children will soon learn to fear. When a prank goes wrong and accusations of witchcraft are spoken, a cruel vengeance is unleashed and a dark reckoning comes.

-The Elder of Aldritch-

A dying vineyard serves as the staging grounds for experiments that seek to unlock the energies of the earth. An arcane scientist, a spoiled son, the perfect wine, and an imperfect murder.

-The Timberman's Daughter -

A traveling tutor, a beautiful daughter, and a forbidden love turned to terror on one bloody night.

A fusion of dark fantasy and horror, A FEAST OF INFINITE ROT is a novella of intelligent tales of terror all tied together by a traveller whose eyes have seen twisted horrors few would believe. Savored by themselves or devoured altogether, these stories are sure to leave the reader unsettled.

Come in from the cold world outside.  
Savor the smell of spiced meat and mulled wine.  
And sink your teeth in to A FEAST OF INFINITE ROT

30,000 words // Fantasy - Horror
  1. Chapter 1
    1. A Hollow Dream of Summer's End
    2. —1—
    3. —2—
    4. —3—
    5. —4—
    6. —5—
    7. —6—
    8. —7—
    9. —8—
    10. —9—
    11. —10—
    12. —11—
    13. —12—
    14. —13—
    15. —14—
    16. —15—
    17. —16—
    18. —17—
    19. —18—
    20. —19—
    21. —20—
    22. —Afterword—
    23. —About the Author—
    24. —Also by Andrew Van Wey—

