Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror (9 page)

It was all he could do to block out Jon's blubbering as he walked into the kitchen. He pulled the drawer open and rummaged around. A flashlight had to be in there somewhere.

“Dax, hurry! The shadows!”

Dax found a couple of flashlights and picked one up, tapping it gently against his chin. Maybe it would be better if he did them all a favor and showed Jon that there were no such things as monsters under your bed, nothing at all lurking in the pitch-black night. If he let Jon cry it out just for one night, maybe the kid would grow up and stop being such a baby. Maybe then babysitting him without pay and missing out on the party of the year wouldn't be so bad. Dax mulled this over for a moment, blocking out the whimpers from down the hall. “It's just the dark, Jon. There's nothing in it that isn't there in the daytime.”

Jon screamed. And it wasn't one of those little-brat screams for attention. He sounded terrified. Like his life depended on someone hearing and responding to his terrified shriek.

Dax bolted back to the bedroom and stared in shocked disbelief.

A long, dark shadow was looming over the bed. But it wasn't an ordinary shadow. It was darker than the rest of the room, and moved of its own free will. It was a creature made of shadows. It was alive. Part of it whipped forward and wrapped around Jon's ankle. Jon cried, “Help me, Dax!”

The shadow monster was pulling Jon off the bed, but Dax was frozen in place, staring at this thing that couldn't possibly exist. Jon was flailing, tears streaming down his cheeks. Breaking free from his trance, Dax clutched his brother's wrist, but he was hit in the chest and thrown against the wall. Pain bolted through Dax's back as he hit the wall and crumpled to the floor. He struggled to sit up again, but a tentacle of the shadow monster stood in front of him, defying him to move. There were no eyes or mouth, but somehow Dax knew that the thing was looking at him. He swore he heard a growl, but it had no mouth, no substance. The shadow monster lurched back and ripped Dax's brother free of his covers.

Dax ran forward and grabbed Jon by the ankle. They both flew through the air and into the closet. The door slammed shut, sealing them in pitch-black.

A sound caught his attention, like a large amount of sand falling through a grainy hourglass. It was coming from the floor. Dax looked down. The floor was moving. It swirled around his feet; the sandlike substance of what had once been a wood floor crashed over the toe of his sock in small, black waves. He pulled his foot back, but the sand clung to it. Beside him, Jon whimpered as the sand closed over his arm. Dax brushed it away, but it seemed to have a life of its own. The sand covered him, and all he could do was lie there, feeling the weight of it curl around his feet, his ankles, his legs, knowing he was sinking into it—whatever it was. It moved up his torso, and he felt suffocated. There was no air, only sand.

Beside him, Jon screamed, but his screams were cut off as the sand closed over his small head. Dax grabbed desperately for Jon's hand, but there was nothing to grab. His brother was gone.

Strangely, he could feel his legs dangling on the other side, like he was slipping through some hole. It covered his chest and Dax took a deep breath and held it, not knowing if he would ever breathe again, not knowing what was happening or what to do to stop it. The sand swirled around, tickling his eyelashes, covering his face. He felt the weight of it on top of his head, and wondered if he would ever see Jon again.

Suddenly, the sand impacted tightly around him and, just as quickly, released. Dax fell several feet, landing on the hard ground below. He coughed and drew air into his lungs. His chest burned, but after a few deep breaths, it came easy again. Remembering the flashlight, he turned it on and looked around, gasping at what he saw.

He was in a cavern. An enormous cavern of what must have been obsidian—the walls were shiny and black, the floor smooth and reflective. He shined the flashlight up at where he'd fallen through, but there was no sign of any hole or trapdoor, or even sand. Only hard, black rock. The floor trembled slightly beneath his feet. He noticed the movement less when he stepped forward, but despite the floor's solid appearance, it struck him as fragile.

On the ceiling, just on the edge of the flashlight beam, something moved. Dax chased it with the light, but it remained at the beam's edge. And like that, on the edge of his hearing, Dax detected a sound, like a group of people whispering very softly. “Hello?”

In the distance, a noise. It sounded like his brother crying.

“Jon? Where are you?” But silence answered him. Dax called out again, but the only sound was his voice chasing after itself in an echo.

The last thing he wanted to do was move deeper into the cavernous tunnel, to move away from this spot, which he feared was the closest he would ever be to home again, but Jon had sounded like he was getting farther and farther away, so he had no choice. He had to find his brother, and then, he had to find a way to get them out of here.

Clutching the flashlight in his hand, Dax moved through the cavern. All around him he could hear faint whispers but couldn't understand what they were saying. He paused several times, shining the light behind him, trying to catch whoever—whatever—was whispering, but each and every time there was no one there. Dax was, despite the nudging of the darkest corners of his imagination, completely alone.

Jon was nowhere to be found. It was as if he'd vanished into thin air.

The large tunnel broke off into three smaller tunnels up ahead. Dax listened, but heard nothing that told him which one Jon might be down. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair and, just as he'd decided to take the middle tunnel, the whispering stopped and a new sound began. A small click as something hit the floor, then an even smaller noise, like something rolling several feet. He pointed the flashlight down, searching, sweeping the floor for any sign of movement. The sound ceased as whatever it was rattled to a stop just in front of his feet. He bent down, focusing on the item with the light. In near disbelief, he plucked it from the ground, turning it over in his hand.

A red, shiny button. Just like the ones on Jon's pajamas.

Dax stood, shining the flashlight on the tunnels again. “Jon?”

He stepped forward and, just as he was about to enter the center tunnel, he saw movement with his peripheral vision. Taking a step back, he shined his light on the right tunnel entrance. At first there was nothing, but after a moment, Dax thought he could hear a small whimper. He hurried down the right tunnel, clutching the button in his hand and calling out for his brother.

Several yards in, the whispers returned, but though they were louder in the smaller space, Dax still couldn't determine where they were coming from or what they were saying. It was unnerving, as though he were being followed by someone without a voice, who insisted on making themselves known. His flashlight flickered and went out. The whispers grew louder and felt as if they were closing in, but that was crazy. They were just noises . . . weren't they? Dax knocked the light against his palm. When the flickering subsided and the light returned, the whispers ceased . . . and someone was standing in the tunnel with him.

He would have recognized that face and those pajamas anywhere. Relieved to see his brother again, he stepped forward. “There you are. I've been looking everywh—”

The child had his arm extended, stroking the walls in a loving manner that sent a chill up Dax's spine. Something about the way he moved seemed unnatural. Suddenly, but calmly, he turned his head toward Dax. Dax's trembling fingers found his open mouth, hushing a gasp. The child had Jon's mouth, his cheeks, his forehead, his hair, but the eyes . . . they were filled with shadows.

The thing in front of him might have looked like Jon, but it wasn't his brother. It was something else. Something sinister. Something dark.

Dax backed up, clutching the flashlight tightly to his chest. When he hit the tunnel wall, he expected it to be cool, but it was warm, almost like a living entity. Even though he knew that it wasn't Jon, he swallowed hard and whispered his brother's name.

The Jon-thing turned slowly, without speaking, and disappeared around the bend.

Dax's heart slammed against his ribs. His breath came in quick gasps. Panic overtook him, but he forced himself to move forward, because something inside of him told him that the Jon-thing knew where his real brother was. Dax turned around the bend, reluctantly following wherever it was that the Jon-thing was leading.

By the time he turned the corner, it was already moving around the next bend. Dax picked up the pace, jogging after the thing that looked like his brother.

After several more bends in the tunnel, he turned a corner into a small room. A boy was lying on the floor in the fetal position, shuddering with sobs. Raising every hair on the back of Dax's neck, the Jon-thing bent down and stroked the boy's hair wordlessly with its small, pale fingers. The boy scrambled away from him, terrified, and Dax shot forward, hugging his brother—his actual brother—tightly. At first, Jon screamed and pushed him away, but then, realizing that it was Dax, he clung to his brother's chest, sobbing into his shirt, soaking the fabric. “It's okay,” Dax whispered into his hair, not entirely certain he was telling his brother the truth. “It's going to be okay.”

The Jon-thing tilted its head. When it spoke its voice mimicked Jon's perfectly, but still something seemed off about it, false. “You shouldn't lie to children.”

Dax sneered. “What are you?”

It smiled, its dry, cracking lips stretching back from its Jon-like teeth, which seemed sharper than Jon's, hungrier. “We are shadow children.”

Instinctively, Dax looked around, but saw no one else. “We?”

The Jon-thing smiled and looked up, as if exchanging bemused glances with someone that Dax couldn't see. “We tire of the darkness. We want to live as you live.”

A small trail of colored dust, shimmering and full of light, floated in the air between Jon and the monster that was mimicking his form. Jon swooned, not at all steady on his feet. He looked pale. He looked weak. The sickening realization hit Dax that the creature was somehow feeding on his brother, sucking his essence from him and stealing his shape. Maybe it was the only way the thing could become solid. Maybe without whatever it was that it was stealing from Jon it couldn't become anything more than the horrible shadow that had snatched Jon from his bed. Maybe it couldn't face the light before and somehow Jon knew that, and when Dax had forced his brother to remain in the darkness . . .

Dax swallowed the lump in his throat. It didn't go down easily.

It was his fault. Jon knew that these things existed, and he knew how to keep them at bay. Dax ignored that, brushing it off as just a stupid little-kid fear, and let the monsters in.

It stretched out its hand again, caressing Jon's hair the way someone might pet a puppy. Dax jerked Jon from it and glared. It met his gaze with its shadowy eyes, blinking like it couldn't possibly understand why he wouldn't want it touching his brother. “You cannot escape.”

Dax gripped Jon to him, standing, holding his brother as tightly as he could without hurting him. He looked at the Jon-thing and tightened his jaw. “Watch me.”

With Jon in his arms, he bolted back down the tunnel, back the way he'd come. As he ran, the indistinguishable whispers started again, quickly growing louder until they were almost deafening. Jon cried against his chest, so scared of what was happening, and Dax ran as fast as he could, darting around corners with ease. The whispers grew faint as he ran. He was beating them, beating them all. Finally, out of breath and with nowhere else to run, he entered the large cavern that they had first fallen into. Dax sat Jon down on the ground, only then noticing that the trail of shimmering dust still hung in the air, winding its way through the tunnels. Running from the Jon-thing wasn't enough to sever that essence-stealing tie. His brother tugged at his sleeve, still trembling, but Dax was firm. “Hold on, Jon. Let me figure this out.”

On the ceiling, just on the edge of the flashlight beam, something moved.

Dax chased it with the light, but it remained at the beam's edge, just as before. Then suddenly, his ears were filled with a thousand whispery, deafening sounds. He waved the flashlight around, and terror filled him.

Strange shadow creatures, like the monster that had grabbed Jon from his bed, peeled from the cave's ceiling, from its walls and floor. One flew dangerously close to Dax and he ducked back, but not before seeing the image of a young girl's face reflected in its shadowy substance. The sight of it startled him. It wasn't just Jon that they were after. They flew from their place in the cave and swirled around the two boys, surrounding them completely, blocking any chance of escape. Each of the shadows wore the face of a child; some Dax knew personally. The Jon-thing had said that they tired of the darkness, that they wanted what Dax and Jon had, what everybody had. The creatures were going to make mirror forms of every kid on earth, and then what? Kill them all? Suck them dry of their essence, leaving them empty, hollow shells? Panic set in and Dax gasped for air. Layers and layers of the cave floor and walls peeled away until Dax could see what they were peeling away from—and it wasn't black rock. With horrified understanding, he realized that there was no cave. The creatures
were
the cave.

Thousands, maybe millions, of shadow monsters out to replace the people of the world. Dax's heart raced. Beside him, Jon screamed as the shadows closed in.

The floor shrank until there was only an island of shadow left. It trembled wildly beneath their feet.

Dax whipped his flashlight around in desperation. On a low part of the cave ceiling, he saw a flash of color, something brown and familiar.