The Devil Crept In Read online

  The moon was out, so the trees glowed a little, but the forest was thick and the clouds were rolling in fast. He was supposed to stay undercover, but there was no way. It was too dark. He was way too scared. Thank God he’d shoved that mini Maglite into his pocket. Pulling it out, he twisted it on and pointed it in the direction Jude had gone. Gone, gone forever, gone.

  The beam wasn’t more than a pinpoint of light upon an endless swath of black. He swept it back and forth along the path, pushing himself to walk fast, partly because he didn’t want Jude to get away, but mostly because he was too scared to go slow. Jude had always been the braver of the two, not seeming to care about getting into trouble or getting hurt. Ever since his dad died, it seemed that he’d been daring God to kill him, and God had nearly taken him up on that challenge.

  Stevie, on the other hand, was far less spontaneous. He was the one who always prepared for the worst, thought better of things, and backed out of stuff. His faintheartedness kept Jude’s feet on the ground. But this time was different. This time, Stevie refused to be a coward. And maybe Jude would be happy to see him. Hey, thanks, he’d say. I forgot to bring my stupid flashlight. Because Jude never remembered things like that. He’d realize just how dumb of an idea this whole thing was, and together they’d turn back and run toward home.

  At least that’s what Stevie liked to think, but it was something only an idiot would believe.

  In the dark, the trail looked like a whole other forest—someplace different and far away. Stevie didn’t recognize any of the usual markers: the big tree whose roots grew across the trail like Mr. Greenwood’s craggy old fingers; the giant boulder so covered in moss that ferns had started to grow from the top of it like crazy green hair. He wished he could see those things, if only to reassure himself that he was going the right way, but instinct pushed him forward. “It’s the only path,” he whispered. “The only path is this path is the only path is this one. This is the right one because it’s the only one so it’s gotta be.” If he kept going, he’d be able to hear the babble of Cedar Creek. Once he reached its bank, it would only be a few minutes to the house he had hoped to never see again.

  He almost yelled when something hit his shoulder. The beam of his Maglite danced crazily across the tops of the trees, then settled on whatever had landed on his arm. An insect sitting there, huge and grinning at him with a full set of human teeth. Jude’s hand, the flesh torn away by too many bites. The shadow creature, leering and naked, hunched over on all fours like a Chernobyl baby. Stevie had watched a documentary about that place, and it had been chock-full of grotesque photos; pictures of kids who looked normal on top but had the legs of elephants on the bottom; infants whose faces looked like they had been split in half and then fused back together; kids born without arms, with fins for feet. And then there were the ones with massive heads, so big they looked like helium balloons.

  But rather than finding a mangled, radioactive hand or a glowing, snarling spider beside his ear, Stevie saw nothing but a round wet spot. A moment later, another one bloomed beside it. He looked up, pointed his flashlight at the sky. Lazy raindrops cut across the beam in sporadic silver streaks. This mission was complicated enough as it was. The last thing he needed was a storm to top it off.

  He jogged despite hardly being able to see the path beneath his feet. There was a fork coming up. One direction would take him to the fort, the other would lead him to a place he didn’t want to think about. There was a sharp swerve in the trail and, after rushing around it, Stevie all but yelped, his heart giving him an inside-out sucker punch. There, sitting in the center of that unkempt route, was Mr. Greenwood’s scruffy old cat, scratching at its tattered fur; Jude’s ambassador, waiting for Stevie to catch up so that he could be led in the right direction. Its eyes gleamed in the flashlight beam like a pair of shiny tacks. Offended by the brightness, it began to move, not in the direction of the fort, but in the direction Stevie desperately didn’t want to go.

  He trailed the cat despite the clanging inside his head. Turn back, heart attack, clack-a-lack, on death’s fast track . . . The feline lead him down that almost nonexistent path, the old farmhouse coming up just around the bend. And what if neither his mom nor Aunt Mandy were disturbed by Jude’s appearance because they simply couldn’t see the change? What if Stevie had magical vision, a third eye, some sort of psychic sight? Perhaps that’s why he saw things differently—the shadow people, the maggots in his cereal, spiders stuffed inside his pillowcase that his mother insisted weren’t there. It could have been that all the stuff that seemed real to him but invisible to others had been preparing him for his ultimate purpose: this purpose. Saving his best friend.

  He braced himself for the appearance of that scary house, imagined it glowing ghostly in the moonlight that, tonight, was fading fast. What would he do if that shadow thing was on the porch again? Sweeping the flashlight beam back and forth across the path, he searched for a downed branch big enough to serve as a makeshift club. If that thing rushed him, he’d need protection. But when his torch light found Jude’s back, Stevie reversed his trajectory in a quick backward scramble.

  There, not more than twenty feet away, was his cousin, unmoving. Jude didn’t turn. There was no About damn time smirk as a hide-and-seek consolation prize. Stevie’s light outlined the slope of Jude’s shoulders, hunched in a way that made Stevie’s skin prickle beneath his rain-dampened sleep shirt. Jude’s right shoulder was higher than his left, as though a crick in his neck had paralyzed him from the ears down. Except he wasn’t incapacitated. That shoulder was twitching; a quick spasm of a muscle every other second, resembling a sobbing shudder . . . or a silent, quaking laugh.

  Stevie’s mouth was suddenly full of glue—tacky and bitter, threatening to cement his top and bottom teeth together if he continued to clench them as hard as he was. He imagined stepping around to his cousin’s front, pictured a pair of glazed-over eyes upon an expressionless face. Or he’d see that seed of rage that was becoming more commonplace, the stuff that gave birth to Jude’s manic anger, his threats.

  And then there was the shiny thing that glinted in Jude’s hand. Stevie pointed the flashlight at it to identify what it was, his stomach pitching like a Tilt-O-Whirl when he finally recognized Aunt Mandy’s meat tenderizer—the kind that looked like a metal mallet with big diamond-shaped teeth; the kind of tool torturers used on their victims; a weapon that could inflict mass damage with a few good hits.

  Stevie didn’t want to believe that Jude would ever truly mean him any harm, but logic and the sour churn of his stomach advised him to put as much distance between himself and Jude as he could, and fast.

  Hey Jude, he’s not anymore, he thought. He’s something else, something dangerous, no good, very bad, dark.

  As if reading Stevie’s thoughts, Jude became unstuck. He slowly turned his head, gave Stevie a look, spoke—“So, do you have a pair or what?”—and started to move down the path again, heading toward the house along the abandoned road. Stevie watched him for a moment, unnerved by the lumbering gait that seemed to have taken over his typical walk. It was a subtle thing, one that nobody but he and possibly Aunt Mandy would have noticed—except, no. If she hadn’t noticed Jude’s creepy plague-face, why would she ever take note of such a small and subtle difference? Stevie, however, was quick to pick up on it. It almost looked as if Jude had rolled both ankles during his nighttime hike, each step now hindered by obvious pain.

  The butterflies in Stevie’s stomach flailed, drowning in the acid of his belly, but he followed anyway, not daring to take his eyes off that meat tenderizer for more than a few seconds at a time. It was easy to focus on, catching the light of Stevie’s flashlight. Better to fixate on Jude’s weapon than on that stiff, ambling zombie walk.

  Mr. Greenwood’s cat was now heading the trio, and Stevie told himself he should have been happy. Animals could sense danger, just like Dunk had said. It’s why birds disappeared before storms, why forest animals fled areas before earthquakes.
If there was real danger where they were heading, Mr. G.’s cat wouldn’t have been so eager to get there, no matter how weird and sickly it was. At least, Stevie hoped not, because that hope was the only thing keeping him from running away.

  When the trail crossed the old road and the house came into view, Stevie’s anxiety clanged like the bell at the top of a strongman High Striker game. Something about seeing that house in the dark made him want to vomit. The difference in energy was palpable; like watching a scary movie in the middle of the day versus watching it on a stormy night, alone, with a Ouija board at his feet and a grinning demon in Terry’s chair.

  That house, while thoroughly terrifying in the daylight, was nothing short of evil-looking in the dark. Everything about it was wrong, from the way the roofline sagged to how the moonlight reflected off its dirty windows and peeling paint. And the covered porch, the place where that thing had lurked, was now so enveloped in shadow it was darker than the night that surrounded it. Anyone, or anything, could have been standing there, licking its chops as it watched two hapless, approaching boys. Or maybe it was just one boy . . . and Jude, the something else. The Jude-not-Jude. The whatever-it-is. The not-who-he-was.

  Stevie shined the light onto the house to make it less frightening. That flash of light garnered a sudden pause in Jude’s movements, as though he’d been spooked by the glint of the beam reflecting silver off the windows. Stevie pointed the light down at the road again, nervous that his cousin was going to whip around and charge. But a half second later he was so distracted that he forgot his fear, because there, half hidden in some brambles, was the handle of Jude’s old hammer.

  The last time they had come here, Jude had sneered at Stevie like some starved, snapping beast—or had he? Stevie didn’t know anymore. Regardless, he had run, but what he had been sure of was that a chase had turned into an unexplainable game of tag. Jude must have dropped the hammer during that relay, which was why, this time around, he had been forced to settle on that mean-looking mallet. And now, there was good ol’ Stanley lying in wait, as if offering a warning. You’ll need me. Stevie bit his bottom lip and glanced over to his cousin, who continued to walk toward that house. Before he could argue the fact that he didn’t need a weapon—that this whole thing wasn’t that big a deal because Mr. Greenwood’s cat was there and he wouldn’t have been, not if there had been any real danger around—he swept the hammer off the ground. Only then did he realize that his hands were shaking. Tremors at age ten. Like the last two leaves of a tree on the final day of fall.

  Jude was halfway to the house when Stevie fell into step again. He nearly tripped over a root as he rushed to catch up. Jude moved past the broken picket gate, past the dilapidated chicken coop, and stalked across the front yard. Stevie’s steps hitched like a windup toy at the end of its wound spring when Jude paused and looked over his shoulder, his eyes meeting Stevie’s wide half-dollars. Come on. A faint smile quirked at the corners of Jude’s paper-dry lips. This is gonna be fun. And then he turned back toward the house and made a beeline for the front door.

  No, Stevie thought. He’s not just going to just walk in there just like that, is he going to? No way . . .

  His fingers squeezed the rubberized grip of the hammer in his left hand, still holding the small Maglite in his right. He paused at the base of the porch steps when Jude seemed to hesitate beside the front door. Stevie considered finally speaking up. Please, Jude, think this through. But before he could suggest a retreat, Jude shoved the door open and stepped inside. Mr. Greenwood’s cat followed him in.

  “Oh no . . .” Stevie could hardly breathe, let alone move his feet. “Oh no, no, no . . .” That open door. The darkness inside. But this is what he had wanted, wasn’t it? Somewhere inside those shadows lay the answer that he sought. What’s happened to Jude? How do I get him back?

  He forced himself up the steps, his anxiety causing him to stumble over the last one. He floundered his way into the foyer, gawked at the house’s interior. There was furniture strewn everywhere, as though there had been a fight. Spiderwebs clung to the corners of the rooms. And there was blood. Lots and lots of blood smeared across the floor.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered, the curse tumbling out of him without so much as a second thought. “Oh man . . .” He looked up from the floorboards, searched for his friend. “Oh shit, oh man.” They weren’t supposed to be in there. It was too dangerous.

  But Jude was gone. Stevie was alone, his nerves left to buzz with electric terror. If he was going to run away from this place, it meant leaving Jude behind.

  “I won’t. I won’t. Can’t. Won’t. Can’t. Won’t.” Using that mantra of refusal to propel himself forward, he followed the rust-colored ribbon—a trail that would inevitably lead him to something he was sure he didn’t want to see. The devil demon, schemin’, dreamin’ about boys like us, like us, like us.

  It led him through a kitchen.

  An open basement door.

  “Jude . . . ?” A whisper, nothing more.

  He stepped over the threshold, paused on the wooden landing that creaked beneath his weight. The only light down there was the pale moonlit square that shone in from the door behind him, but it faded fast, eaten away by the shadows that lingered beyond the third and fourth steps. Stevie swept the darkness with the trembling beam of his flashlight, left to right, that back-and-forth motion keeping time with the rabbitlike quiver of his heart.

  Something skittered across the shaft of light.

  The sway of the beam stopped dead with Stevie’s pulse.

  It paused upon a leg.

  A lady’s leg.

  A foot. An ankle. The curve of the calf. A ratty Birkenstock laying not too far away, knocked free, as if lost in a fall.

  Don’t be a chicken . . .

  He moved the light up the appendage. Would the woman be lying facedown in a pool of her own blood, her eyes open, staring at him, imploring as to why someone hadn’t come sooner to help? Was this the lady Jude had been talking about, the one he’d come back for with that meat tenderizer in tow?

  He inched the light upward, his dread amped up to eleven. Because she wasn’t dead. It was all an act. If this was “mother,” she was a kidnapper. But as his flashlight beam trailed up that leg, it became clear: there would be no sudden upward bound. The pillar of light stopped just above the woman’s knee, which was where the leg stopped, too. There was a heap of something a few feet away. Bloody. Tattered. The leg, though. It wasn’t attached.

  A yell punched out of Stevie’s throat. He scrambled backward, lost his footing, his butt hitting the stairs hard. His Maglite jostled free of his damaged right hand. He lurched to grab it, but it was too late. The stubs of his pointer and middle fingers just grazed the aluminum body before it bounced down the stairs, lighting up the entire basement like a disco ball. The beam hit the ceiling, the walls, the floor, over and over, as it went flying off the side of the staircase to the cement floor ten feet below. It landed with a metallic clang, continued to roll, the ray crawling along the base of the far wall. Crawling until it stopped.

  Stopped and shone upon the back of a naked, knobby spine. A fleshy tail. A huddled thing.

  Stevie sucked in air to yell again, his fingers of his good hand instinctively tightening their grip around the hammer he had found outside. If the thing came at him, he’d embed that hammer right in the creature’s giant skull. But Jude . . . Where’s Jude, Jude, Jude, JUDE?! Jude had a mallet. He would come at this guy, too. They’d both get away.

  The flashlight kept rolling, and when it came to a stop, the scream that had scurried up his throat was stunned into silence. Because there, just shy of where the hunched monster-man was crouched, was Stevie’s best friend. The silver sheen of the meat tenderizer marred with blood. His hands smeared with dark.

  Stevie’s eyes jumped to the heap between Jude and the beast. It’s the lady. The lady, mother, mom. And yet, rather than Jude using his weapon on the monster, he sat beside it like a docile dog. And
then, as if Stevie’s once-best friend couldn’t have been more terrifying, Jude spoke.

  “He’s here.”

  The twisted-up man-thing snapped its giant head around.

  It sneered, its teeth black and glistening with gore. A cord was looped around its neck. Had Jude put it there? Was this thing some sort of pet? Was that why Jude kept returning to the woods, to this house? Was he taking care of this monster the way someone takes care of a pet? Stevie wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

  He scrambled away, shoved his hands against the step, rushed to his feet.

  Something moved fast across the concrete floor behind him. There was a thump against the bottom riser. Stevie was sure he was about to be lifted off the ground and thrown backward. Any second, he’d join the boy that used to be Jude against that far basement wall. And yet, somehow, he found himself bursting into the kitchen, that trusty Stanley glued to his palm.

  The blood trail . . . Thank God for the blood trailing out the door, to the porch, into the woods, the trees, the trail through the trees, tree, flee, run, go . . . Had it not been there, Stevie wouldn’t have known which direction to take. But that macabre path kept him on track, pointing him out the open front door.

  There was clawing behind him—long nails skittering across a slick surface. Stevie didn’t know how he had outrun this thing before. But something assured him his luck had run out. If he tried to outrun it and barreled headlong into the trees again, it would catch him. Something about the darkness beyond the front door gave promise that this time, he wouldn’t make it. He had to stop and fight.

  Against all reason, he veered around and exhaled a scream as soon as his sneakers hit the warped planks of the porch. He swung Jude’s hammer in a wide, blind arc, slashing at the air.