The Devouring Read online

  “Hat!” he called down the corridor.

  Keech stared at him for a moment before the hat came sailing over the crowd. Quinn caught it with one hand and gave it back to Aaron, frowning at the cuts in the sides.

  “Sorry about that, man. I’d kill them myself if they didn’t keep me so damn snug in the pocket.”

  “Football speak, Reg,” Aaron said. “A pocket is —”

  Reggie punched Aaron’s arm. “I know what a pocket is.”

  Quinn grinned at her.

  Aaron looked at Reggie, who seemed to be under some sort of Quinn trance, staring at him with her mouth slightly open. He leaned toward her as he dug around in his backpack.

  “This is business,” he whispered. “Try not to drool.”

  Like I’d even have a chance with him, she thought. Quinn was an A-list guy, and he went out with A-list girls. It wasn’t that she thought of herself as some sort of cow or freak, but she just wasn’t much of anybody. If Cutter High were a movie, Reggie Halloway would be an extra. She wore T-shirts or plain, solid-colored sweaters, jeans, and sneakers or army surplus boots. Reggie considered her best feature to be her long, dark hair, the color of rich chocolate — but because she had to make the family breakfast and take care of Henry every morning, she never had time to style it. More often than not, it was tied back into a long, frizzy ponytail. Makeup usually was at a minimum, too. Her eyes were dark and shining, though. Aaron said they were “vampish”; she guessed that was a pretty high compliment coming from him, but doubted that was Quinn’s taste.

  Aaron had dug a manila folder from his book bag. He glanced around furtively as Quinn handed him a fifty-dollar bill in exchange for the folder. Quinn eyed the pristine five-page paper inside.

  “‘Hamlet’s Dilemma.’ Good for a B plus?”

  “Yup.”

  “Sweet.”

  Aaron had started “the business” two years ago. At first, it had been tricky — finding the right voice to write papers that read like something a guy like Quinn would hand in, only a little better. At this point, he found that keeping his steady clientele to six or seven worked best. It brought in some steady cash and raised his social standing a notch. Reggie considered it unethical, immoral, and illegal. Aaron agreed and looked at it as valuable preparation for the real world.

  Aaron pocketed his fee and started to leave.

  Quinn looked up.

  “Wait a sec. Tell me what —”

  “Sorry — three more deliveries.” Aaron winked at Reggie. “Any questions, ask my protégée.”

  Aaron disappeared into the crowd, leaving the two of them standing together. As people passed by, it seemed as if every other student said “Hey, Quinn,” or “What’s up, Q?” Reggie wondered what it was like to have to say “Hello” back to a hundred people a day.

  Quinn studied Reggie for a moment before saying, “Halloway, right?”

  Reggie was stunned. He knew her name?

  “Uh-huh,” she said.

  “Freshman?” Quinn asked. “I think you’re in my study hall.”

  “Uh-huh,” Reggie said, successfully executing another nod. She was in his study hall, but she hadn’t thought his field of vision extended to the table in the back where she sat.

  Quinn had turned his attention back to the paper. He flipped through it and frowned. Reggie didn’t think she’d ever seen him without his faint, cool smile. They were almost alone now in the hallway. Somehow, it made her a little braver.

  “Something wrong?” she asked.

  Quinn looked up.

  “Huh?” he said.

  Reggie’s mouth felt dry. This is ridiculous, she thought. She was not one of those girls who went all gaga just because a cute boy talked to her.

  “You just look a little … I don’t know,” she stammered. Dear God, he probably thought she was mentally challenged. “You, uh, just look like something’s wrong.”

  Quinn’s pale green eyes studied her. He unwrapped a stick of gum, popped it in his mouth, and chewed nervously.

  “I’ve got English first period — right now — and…”

  “You didn’t read the play.”

  Quinn shrugged and smiled at her. But it was different from his perfect smile. It was wistful, and a little crooked. Right then, Reggie realized she was witness to a historic event. Quinn Waters was human. Imperfect. Uncertain, even. It was almost as if she were seeing a stage actor slip out of character for a second.

  “Don’t get the wrong impression, okay? I’m not a dumb jock. I can write term papers just fine. I started the play, dug the whole father’s ghost thing, but then I got slammed…”

  His closeness made Reggie’s pulse quicken. He smelled really good.

  “Teachers love to pour it on before break. Some sort of code,” she said, slumping melodramatically under the weight of her satchel. The shoulder strap ripped, and Reggie’s books and binders spilled all over the floor.

  “Damn it!” Her face reddened, and she wished she could climb into her emptied bag and hide there. And just when she had started speaking like a functioning person, too.

  She knelt on the ground and began shoving the books back into her bag. Quinn bent down to help her and picked up the journal before she could stop him.

  “What’s The Devouring?” he asked, examining it curiously.

  “Huh? Oh, that. Just some monster story. Written like a journal. I collect…” She was nerding out and couldn’t stop. “I’m a horror fan and I collect stuff like that — scary stories and stuff. I know. I’m a total geek.”

  Quinn helped Reggie to her feet. “No, no. Not at all. That’s cool. Very.” He handed the journal back to her.

  “Cool? Very?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “You got me. You are a geek.” Quinn laughed and ran his fingers through his hair. “But not a total geek — total geeks aren’t usually cute.”

  He stopped abruptly, as if he couldn’t believe he’d just said that out loud. Reggie felt her cheeks burn.

  “So, um, Hamlet,” she said.

  “Right! Hamlet!”

  “The nutshell: he knows his uncle killed his father and waffles about whether or not he should take revenge.”

  “Does he? Take revenge?”

  “Yeah, but he’s too late. He poisons his uncle but then —”

  “He dies, right?”

  “Everyone dies in Shakespeare.”

  “Sweet.” Quinn glanced around the empty hall. “Late for class. Gotta go turn in my paper. Thanks for the help.”

  Reggie stared up at him like a puppy dog. “You’re welcome.”

  Quinn walked a few steps but looked back at her to say, “See you in study hall. I’ll save you a seat.”

  She nodded, not entirely believing what had just happened.

  3

  The wind, like a stranger demanding entry, rattled the window shutters of Reggie’s bedroom. She lay on top of her bed’s quilt, absently flipping through an old Vault of Horror comic. Aaron sat cross-legged on the floor nearby, reading aloud from The Devouring.

  They lurk in the cold and dark. Hungry and

  wicked, they wait for their one chance to devour the

  weak on Sorry Night. Then the Vours feast on a

  banquet of fear. Your fear. They steal your soul but

  your body remains. No one knows the difference.

  He looked up at Reggie. “Whoever wrote this journal was clearly insane.”

  “You love that stuff.” She tossed the comic book aside.

  “Oh, hell yeah!” Aaron laughed. “Ever since you let me borrow it, I can’t get it out of my head. So, are we still going to give the Vours a call tonight, Bloody Mary–style?”

  “If you brought the supplies, sure.” She grinned. “We have to terrify ourselves. That’s how they got Jeremiah.”

  “So if I get devoured, will you come save me?”

  “Not a chance.” Reggie took a lighter from her pocket and then lit the three black candles on her nightstand. She s
witched off the bedside lamp. “You ready to face your fear?”

  “God, we’re über-geeks,” Aaron said. Shadows cast in the flickering candlelight cavorted across the wall behind him. “First night of vacation, other kids party, but we —”

  “What’s with the candles?”

  Henry stood in the doorway, scratching his pajama-clad butt. Reggie frowned.

  “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

  He yawned before saying, “Not tired. What’re you guys doing, anyway?”

  Reggie stood up and pointed to the doorway. “Go back to bed.”

  Beyond the window, a gust of wind howled. The shutters rattled in reply. Henry winced.

  “The blizzard’s keeping me awake. I should just stay in here.”

  “Nice try,” said Reggie. “Bed. Now.”

  “But Dad’s gone tonight! Who cares?”

  When Dad said he was going to be out of town overnight bidding on contracts, she knew that it wouldn’t mean more freedom, but less. Most kids would see it as a chance to have a house party, but for Reggie it meant an unpaid babysitting gig.

  She stood up and loomed over her brother. “Go.”

  Henry hung his head.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Night, Henry,” said Aaron.

  “Night.”

  “Come on. I’ll tuck you back in.”

  They walked back to his room, and Henry squealed when Reggie snatched him up and flipped him onto his bed. He wriggled under the covers.

  “What are you and Aaron going to do?”

  “None of your business,” she said as she walked toward the door.

  “Wait! What if I have nightmares?”

  “Is this still about the Vours? Henry, they’re not real.”

  “But tonight’s Sorry Night!”

  Reggie sat down on the bed.

  “Listen, if you get scared, close your eyes and think of something really good. A good time you had, or a favorite place, or somebody you love. You’ll be asleep before you know it — and it’s a hundred percent nightmare-proof. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Henry kissed his sister on the cheek and lay back, pulling the covers up to his chin.

  “Good night, Reg.”

  “Good night. Sweet dreams.”

  When Reggie walked back to her room, it felt colder. Aaron looked ghoulish in the candlelight; his face seemed waxy, and shadows filled his eye sockets. Her heart quickened when he pulled a jar from the backpack beside him. A dark shape crawled about inside it.

  “He okay?” Aaron asked.

  “Henry? He’s fine. Just a little spooked by the story.”

  “Me, too.” He lifted the jar to her as if proposing a toast. “Ready?”

  “No. But this is the only night to do it.” Reggie closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and stuck out her hand. The jar lid scraped as Aaron unscrewed it. “So do it.”

  Something prickly stepped onto her palm. It moved slowly at first, exploring the hollows of her knuckles as it wandered up her fingers.

  Pointy legs skirted over her thumb. Reggie flinched.

  “Open your eyes,” said Aaron. “Face your fear.”

  Reggie peeked. The face of her fear was a wolf spider with a swollen body and bristling legs. It was nearly the width of her wrist.

  “Oh, God.” Reggie cringed. As if the spider could feel her fear, it scuttled up her arm in a matter of seconds.

  “Time?” she demanded.

  “Forty-five to go,” said Aaron, glancing at the stopwatch in his hand. “Forty…”

  Reggie clenched her eyes shut. She felt the spider crawl up her neck and into her hair, the gorged abdomen dragging across her scalp. Now the crown of her head, then down onto her forehead. Her stomach lurched and her skin crawled, as if both were trying to squirm away from her body.

  Its legs brushed past her brows and stopped on the tip of her nose. She wanted to scream, but her throat constricted. All that came out was a weak rattle.

  “Five … four … three … two … one. Done!” shouted Aaron.

  “Get it off! Get it off!” Reggie shrieked, swiping the spider off her nose. It landed on the rug and scrambled off into a corner before Aaron could grab it. Reggie jumped around her room and brushed at her face, still feeling the tiny legs on her cheek.

  “Great, now that thing’s loose in my room,” she muttered, once she had calmed down a bit.

  “It will probably have spider babies in your sock drawer,” said Aaron brightly. “So, are you a Vour?”

  “Don’t think so.” Reggie shivered. “But then again, if I were a Vour, how would you know?”

  “This is true.” Aaron poked Reggie’s forehead. “What did you do with my loser friend, you Vour bastard?”

  “Still … hungry … must … eat … more … fear … ” Reggie grabbed Aaron’s wrist and dragged him down the stairs to the back porch, her laughter drowning in the howling wind.

  Squeak — squeak — squeak.

  General Squeak ran around and around in his metal wheel. Sometimes he would skitter about all night, making all sorts of little noises, but Henry liked knowing he had a friend with him in the dark.

  Especially tonight.

  Outside, the blizzard raged. Gusts of falling snow swirled against the windowpanes like ghosts seeking escape from the cold. The house quaked beneath their wails.

  Henry pulled the blanket over his head and covered his ears. Why hadn’t he told Reggie to close the blinds? Think of something good. She’d said to think of something good.

  Henry closed his eyes and tried to imagine all the things he liked about winter: his snowboard, hot chocolate, Christmas presents, Reggie taking him sledding…

  Reggie … why couldn’t he hear her through the vent connecting their rooms?

  Another wail, louder this time. Closer. Henry poked his head out from under the covers; his panicked gaze darted around the room.

  The blue glow of his penguin night-light, usually so comforting, had the opposite effect tonight. Everything looked submerged, crystallized — frozen. Even Kappy the Koala, his favorite stuffed animal, had a sinister air. The bear’s deformed shadow, a long inhuman shape lunging across the floor, seemed to be cast by some other malevolent thing.

  Henry remembered the story of Jeremiah: how he was left alone on Sorry Night, terrified in the dark, with the glow of a single lantern at his feet. The Vour had come to him like a moth to the flame.

  The night-light flickered.

  When dark creeps in and eats the light…

  His breath came faster.

  Another icy gale howled outside, and the walls shivered around him. The night-light flared briefly and then, with a sharp buzzing crackle, it died. Winter night swallowed the room. Henry trembled, alone in the dark.

  He crawled out of bed and felt his way to the door.

  “Reggie?” he called out.

  He opened his door and then crept down the hallway, feeling along the walls. Henry hurried to Reggie’s door and pushed it open. Three black candles burned on the nightstand, their flames mere pinpricks of light in an empty room.

  “Reggie? Aaron?”

  No one answered.

  The window’s shutters banged and rattled, and a frigid draft snuffed out the candles’ meager light. He ran back to his own bedroom and threw himself into bed, burying himself in blankets. He choked on his breath.

  Reggie, Aaron — they were gone.

  Bury your fears on Sorry Night…

  He wanted his mother, but she was gone, too.

  Think of something good, Reggie had said. A good time you had, or a favorite place, or somebody you love. Henry squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember the day his family went to the carnival. He thought of cotton candy sweetness dissolving on his tongue, of waving to his parents from the carousel, of winning Kappy the Koala from the water-gun game, of his mother’s dark hair shining in the July sunlight…

  “Why did you leave us?” he whispered, tears nestling i
n the corners of his lips. “Come back, Mommy. Please come back.”

  Only the weeping wind answered his pleas, flooding him with fear, chilling his thoughts, and coagulating into something black and dead — until something alive and hungry pulled him toward sleep.

  The snow continued to swirl against the window, but the mournful gusts came less frequently now. The storm was passing. The soft melody of a carnival calliope played in the distance.

  For in the winter’s darkest hours…

  The doorknob turned. The bedroom door opened just enough to let in a slant of the dull orange hall light, and a cool draft carried with it the aroma of buttered popcorn and powdered sugar. Henry pulled the covers tightly around him.

  “Reggie?”

  There was no answer. All was still. Then a figure stood in the doorway. Her long brown curls, wide blue eyes, and gleaming white smile all seemed so real and wonderfully alive.

  Comes the feasting of the Vours…

  “Mommy?”

  Soundlessly, she crossed the wood floor and sat in her familiar spot on his bed. Her thin, elegant arm reached for the lamp on his nightstand, and the metal chain chinked against the ceramic post.

  Henry gazed at his mother’s beautiful face in the lamplight. She was here. He wiped his tear-filled eyes.

  “Mommy, is it really you?”

  “It’s me, sweet boy. You called to me and I’ve come.”

  The voice was hers, the face was hers, the hair and the smile and the smell were hers. It was her. Henry clutched his mother fiercely, burying his face in her breast. But the deeper he pressed into her, the more he shivered.

  No one can see it, the life they stole…

  “You’re cold, Mommy.” Henry sobbed, digging into her clothes, trying to feel the warmth of her body. “You’re so cold.”

  “I am, sweetheart. Very cold. But I’ll be warm again soon.” She coiled her arms around Henry’s quivering body.

  The bulb in the lamp faded as a cold wind sighed through the room. Frost spider-webbed across the window, jagged icy cuts interlacing over blackness.

  “Am I dreaming, Mom?” He flailed in the wintry darkness, grasping for heat and some small promise of love. “I don’t want to be dreaming. I’m so scared…”