“Mom, stop! Please don’t —”
“What more do you want, Regina?
Blood?
”
Mom raised the scissors high. They flashed in the light like a silver-winged bird, and then she plunged them into her own wrist. She offered her arm to Reggie like a bloody sacrifice.
Reggie screamed and pulled away from the glass. She opened her balled fist. The nail had pierced her palm. The pain had broken off the hallucination. It bled and hurt like hell, but she’d stopped the nightmare.
“You should have stayed longer. You missed the best part.”
“I hate you,” she hissed.
The Vour grinned.
“We can always count on people to hate and to fear. To harm one another and to be harmed. To kill and to be killed. It is what opens the gate.”
“Yeah, sure.” Reggie snorted. “Too bad you can’t open that window, though.” Now it was Reggie who was grinning. She tapped on the glass. “So tell me ... can you things
die
? I’m kind of hoping you guys are immortal. Forever is a real long time to be stuck in there.”
The Vour sped at the glass. Reggie tried not to flinch.
“LET ME OUT!”
On impact, a million specks of smoke flew apart and then drifted back together like mercury. The face remade itself.
“I have to tell you,” Reggie said, “the smash-against-the-window thing is only scary so many times. You are
never
getting out — that is, unless I say so.”
Part of her wanted to run; part of her relished the chance to study it. It exuded a foulness that was the opposite of warmth, light, goodness, love.
“Unless you say so?”
it asked.
Reggie nodded.
The Vour stared back at her. This close, it still made her quake. She worked the nail into her palm until the pain took the edge off her fear. She could feel the blood warm against her skin.
“You want out? Give me back my brother.”
“We’re making deals now, are we?”
“I want Henry back. When he’s free, I’ll set you free. That’s all I care about. Make it happen.”
The black shape came still closer.
“Stupid girl. Do you think we are all of one mind, that I, one measly being, have such power? Don’t you think I would have called another to free me if I was able?”
It loosed a low, distorted chuckle.
“You know nothing of what we are. You confuse the servant for the master. In time, you too shall succumb to the Devouring.”
“Oh really? How do you plan to do that? Have my eight-year-old brother torment me with magic tricks, or will you just bore me to death from inside your little cage?”
“Perhaps you were followed. Perhaps you have enemies in your midst. Who can say?”
The vaporous face pulsed hypnotically.
“I have a deal for you,”
it said.
“Why don’t you help me come out of here ... and come into you? I gain freedom, you lose fear.”
“You offered Macie the same deal, didn’t you? After you lost your home inside her brother. What makes you think I would accept when she didn’t?”
“You’re full of fear, Regina. In every corner of your mind. And now there is Henry. And us. So much to be afraid of. Can you imagine what your life would be like without fear?”
Reggie’s body felt rubbery; the construction light was too bright, and the room was freezing. Her hand throbbed.
“But it’s not Sorry Night,” she said. “How can you take me if it isn’t Sorry Night?”
“The solstice allows us to enter and feed upon the fearful, as I did to the boy in the cornfield.”
The creature swirled through the corpse’s remains and then slithered back out. Reggie stared at the pile of bones.
“Jeremiah,” she said. “His name was Jeremiah.”
“He was devoured in the dark; the light of a single flame led us to him in the midwinter night. But there is another way.”
The Vour’s grin was almost lustful.
“Surrender to your fear so you may triumph over it. Choose me, open your soul to me, and embrace the Devouring.”
“Why would I do that to myself?”
The Vour pressed against the glass once more.
“Do you believe you came here by your own power, Regina? You’re drawn to me as I am to you. Your weakness is my strength. Imagine the liberation, Regina.”
The voice was serene.
“The power that grows in the place of fear.”
“But you’re not human.”
“We become human.”
“No you don’t. You’re ... a cancer,” said Reggie.
“No. Fear is the cancer. We are the cure.”
“You prey on the weak.”
“And they become strong. Because they feel no fear.”
She wanted to close her eyes. Just for a second.
“Why did you come back, Regina? Was it to save Henry — or to save yourself?”
She heard the voice echo, and she could feel herself falling like Alice down the rabbit hole. “What ... are ... you?”
“I am beyond your understanding.”
The Vour’s eyes dissolved into the churning darkness, then returned again. She tightened her fist. The pain was excruciating.
“If you refuse, your terror will grow worse, like the girl before you. We know who you are, Regina. You can be sure that Henry has told the others. We will hunt you. We will torture you. And we will never stop.”
Her father appeared before her, gazing down at a photograph of her mother. With his other hand he raised a revolver and put the barrel in his mouth. His finger tightened on the trigger.
She dug the nail deep into her flesh.
“Stop it!”
she cried.
The phantasm dissipated like smoke in the wind. The Vour rolled against the glass.
“Why choose a living hell when I can devour your fears and take them all away?”
Blood seeped from between Reggie’s fingers.
“Does it ... hurt?” she asked.
“No. It doesn’t hurt.”
“What will it feel like?”
“Like you are lost in the cold and dark ... and then you find your way home. That’s what it feels like.”
Its voice had softened, almost to a purr.
The bat Aaron had dropped the day before was on the floor. She bent down and picked it up with her bloody hand.
“I’m scared,” she said.
The Vour smiled.
“Good. I need you to be scared. Very, very scared. And then you’ll never be scared again.”
Reggie raised the bat; as she swung, time seemed to slow, then wood met glass, and the window shattered.
The Vour billowed, black steam gathering itself, floating before her, growing larger and denser.
“Freedom!”
In the bright light, the smoke shimmered; it devoured any trace of warmth around it. The basement’s temperature plummeted. Reggie’s breath steamed as she shivered and faced the monster.
“Give in to your fear, Regina. Let it call to me. Surrender for me, for Henry, for all of us.”
She nodded, but she knew that Henry wasn’t an “us.” It looked like Henry, it retained his memories — but it wasn’t her brother.
The Vour whirled about. Reggie’s pulse raced with adrenaline.
“Was
he
as scared as I am?” she asked, glancing at Jeremiah’s bones.
“He was easy. He wasn’t as strong as you.”
The whirlwind turned faster.
“Is it true that Vours can’t cry?”
“Yes, but you won’t miss it.”
It glided toward her.
“When it’s done, what happens to the me that was scared? Does it die?”
“It does not die.”
“Then where does it go?”
“To a place where it belongs, a place where it is needed.”
The Vour, a roiling cloud with a wickedly shifting face, stared at her with gleaming black eyes.
“It is time. I can feel it in you. I can hear it. Let your fear take you over, so you may say goodbye to it forever.”
The voice was a seductive whisper.
She whispered back. “Tell me why you hate the cold.”
“Because without you, it’s all we can ever feel.”
“Well, if you hate the cold,” she said, “then I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Reggie whipped a fire extinguisher out of the duffel bag.
“This is for Henry!”
She pulled the pin and fired, and with a loud whoosh, a frigid white cloud of CO
2
jetted into the Vour. The thing howled and thrashed. Reggie fired another blast, holding down the trigger until a haze of CO
2
obscured everything. The swirling smoke slowed, and the monster’s moans faded until everything was silent and still. Reggie dropped the extinguisher.
“Cold enough for you? Huh?”
White mist sparkled like fairytale snow. In the fog, Reggie saw something on the ground. She carefully crept toward it, fanning the cloud away.
It was an abomination unlike any she could’ve imagined. The thing lay on the floor like a prehistoric fish. It had the semblance of an elongated human torso, but rather than legs, the body tapered down into a fleshy tail. In place of arms, several slimy tentacles protruded from its sides and lay in tangled piles all around it. It had no visible eyes or ears, and where it seemed a head might have been, there was instead a giant round mouth with an iridescent tongue lolling out between rings of black teeth. Lumps and veins covered its oily skin. It reeked like rotting leaves.
All of the adrenaline and tension drained from Reggie’s body, and she started to weep. Her shoulders shook with every sob. She’d done it. She’d destroyed a Vour.
But, in the harsh light, the frozen hide began to sweat beads of pale green liquid. Yellow sludge bubbled up from the mouth and pooled on the floor. The remains of the monster sagged and oozed into a pool, like toxic waste, nearing Reggie’s boots. It touched the soles and climbed onto the scuffed leather. Reggie’s stomach twisted. The Vour wasn’t disintegrating — it was changing. The lumps of its broken body morphed into dozens of new creatures.
Blood-red spiders.
They leaped at Reggie’s feet, and she swatted and stomped furiously, determined to crush every last one. The spiders burst beneath her boots like pustules until the floor glistened with their crushed remains. Out of the corner of her eye, Reggie saw something scuttle across the floor, a small puff of black smoke spilling from a red abdomen.
The Vour’s voice echoed in her head.
Fear is the cancer. We are the cure.
Reggie snatched up the spider. It stared at her, eyes filled with hate.
Fear is the cancer. We are the cure.
The story of King Mithridates. Eat the poison. Make it a part of yourself.
She grabbed the spider with both hands. It wriggled in her grasp.
We are the cure.
Her jaw hurt from gritting her teeth.
We devour your fear.
She brought the spider to her mouth.
Devour your fear.
She opened her mouth and stuffed in the horror. Its fangs dug into her tongue, a hot, searing pain. The hairy legs flailed against the inside of her cheeks. The spider belly squirmed against her throat. She gagged, and the spider wiggled halfway out, but she crammed it back in and bit down.
The tough flesh of the spider’s abdomen burst between her molars, filling her mouth and throat with a gush of thick, bitter liquid. She growled, forcing herself to bite down again and again. The meaty fang-appendages squashed between her front teeth. Her brain screamed:
Devour your fear!
She gagged again but kept chewing; she turned the spider to a slick, bristly mash. Nausea surged from her stomach, but she sucked in as much air as she could through her nose and swallowed. The vileness slid down her throat, still twitching.
A final gulp and it was done.
She slumped, gasping, spitting, shivering from the cold but drenched in sweat. The lump of Vour remains was gone. The thing was inside her now, in her blood. The monster had not taken her over. She had enslaved the monster.
“You will regret doing that,”
it said in her mind.
Reggie grinned weakly.
“I already do,” she said. “You taste like ass.”
Then Reggie sank against the wall, into oblivion.
Reggie awoke on the basement floor. Something was leaking through the ceiling boards. She caught a drop of the liquid in her hand and sniffed it.
Gasoline.
Footsteps crunched on the bones above. Someone else was in the house. Reggie raced up the steps and pushed against the trapdoor. It wouldn’t budge. Heat radiated from the ceiling.
She put her shoulder to the door and shoved as hard as she could. The trapdoor opened an inch, and the heat and light of flames lashed at her face before it fell again.
“Come on!”
She threw herself against the door. It lurched open and fire roared all around. Thick swirling smoke choked and blinded her. Reggie staggered backward, tumbled down the cellar stairs, and hit the dirt floor.
She lay on her stomach, coughing and wheezing. Her clothes were smoking and she smelled her singed hair. She staggered up, and ash floated down around her. The stairs caught fire and blazed as she circled, looking for options. She dragged the chair across the floor and set it beneath one of the basement’s high windows, then stepped on it and stretched up on her tiptoes.
She jumped, but her fingertips were still a foot away from the window. The ceiling had become a sheet of fire, and the smoke and heat were suffocating. She grabbed the empty fire extinguisher and hurled it through the window, and the hot air sucked out of the room.
She’d bought herself a little more time.
With a sudden, torturous
crack,
the stairs collapsed into the room. The flames pushed Reggie back, roaring like demons, hemming her in.
She looked up and saw a cast-iron pipe a few feet below the ceiling that ran the length of the room. The house wasn’t straight, and neither was the pipe. It was lower at one end of the room than the other, and it rose up all the way to the window.
Reggie set the chair against the far wall, squatted, and sucked cooler air near the floor deep into her lungs. She climbed onto the chair and jumped. Her hands grasped the pipe, the metal already hot enough to sear her palms. She moaned but would not let go.