F. Wilson - Secret Circles

“We‟re coming, Cody!” Jack called, then turned to Weezy. “We‟d better hurry.”

She said, “Thank you, Captain Obvious,” but her tone didn‟t carry its usual edge.

She was worried. So was Jack.

Flashing their lights ahead of them, they broke into a trot. Recurrent areas of debris where the roof had collapsed slowed them, but they kept going.

They arrived at an intersection where the voice seemed to be coming more from their right, so they veered that way. But after maybe twenty feet …

“Eew!” Weezy said. “What‟s that smell?”

Together they skidded to a halt as a rotten odor rammed into his nostrils. They each clapped a hand over nose and mouth. Not the same as the thing in the Pines last night.

“It smells like something died,” he said.

Weezy took a tentative step forward and pointed to a doorway on their left.

“I … I think it‟s coming from in there.” She looked at Jack. “Go see what it is.”

Jack‟s first instinct was to ask her why she didn‟t go see, but he bit it back. They needed to know.

If Cody had wound up in the lost town, then something else might have as well. What ever was stinking up the place probably hadn‟t been able to get out and had starved to death. Cody was looking at the same fate if they didn‟t get him out.

Jack shone his light through the doorway as he inched up to it, but saw nothing but bare floor and walls. When he reached it the smell hit him like a punch in the face. Holding his nose wasn‟t good enough—-he could taste the odor, and it made him gag.

Steeling himself he stepped inside and flashed his beam left—nothing—and right—

Jack stood frozen in shock at the mound of bones piled in the corner—old bones and new bones, a couple with bits of meat still clinging to them, animal bones and human bones, and oh yeah he was sure they were human because he‟d seen pictures and had inspected the life-size plastic skeleton in the school‟s biology lab and who could mistake those two skulls up front there for anything but human and they had tooth gouges and holes in the top just like the skull they‟d found in the pyramid cage in the Pines.

13

Jack reeled backward, bumping into Weezy and almost knocking her down. “Jack!

What—?”

“Bones!” he gasped, trying to catch his breath. “A hundred—a million of them!

Eaten—something‟s killing animals and people and bringing them down here to eat!”

Marcie Kurek‟s name flashed through his brain. Could one of those skulls be

hers?

“People?” Weezy stepped back and splashed into a puddle. “Oh, no!” The water had followed them.

“Hello?” came Cody‟s voice, louder now that they were closer, and from

somewhere to their right, just on the far side of a high mound of debris. “Are you still coming?”

Jack opened his mouth to reply, then recalled what Weezy had said about

something luring people with the sound of a child. He envisioned an angler fish,

dangling its wiggly lure right outside its huge, sharp-toothed mouth, drawing

unsuspecting prey closer and closer until …

“Cody!” he called. “What‟s your last name?”

“Bockman! Where are you?”

Jack glanced at Weezy and saw that she looked as relieved as he felt. “Keep talking, Cody!” he shouted.

They picked their way over the pile of rocks and dirt and came upon a doorway

where a little boy, dirty and disheveled with tear-streaked cheeks, stood blinking in their flash beams. He looked different from the last time Jack had seen him. His blond hair was matted, his face pale, his eyes sunken, but no doubt about it: This was Cody Bockman.

“Who-who are you?” he sobbed, then ducked back inside.

Jack realized that with their beams directed in his face, all the kid could see was

their lights. Jack lowered his beam as he and Weezy slipped through the doorway. “Hey, Code.

It‟s me—Jack!”

“Jack?” He ran forward. “Jack?”

He threw his arms around Jack‟s legs and clutched him like a drowning sailor. It stank inside, but nothing like the bone room back down the passage. He swept

the beam around and saw apple cores and scraps of food—plus his Frisbee, and Eddie‟s Star Trek phasers, and the pink beach ball he‟d seen in the Vivinos‟ yard, and lots of other toys and stuff.

What was going on here?

“You‟re really going to take me home?”

Weezy knelt before him.

“Absolutely.”

He threw his arms around her and sobbed.

“It‟s okay, it‟s okay,” Weezy said soothingly, showing a side Jack had never seen.

“We‟re going to take you back to your folks.”

“Will it let you?”

Jack‟s gut instantly wound into a Gordian knot.

“‟It‟?”

“The thing that took me.” He began sobbing.

“Oh jeez, what‟s it look like?”

“I never seen it. All I know is it smells bad. I was riding my bike in the woods

and something hit me and I woke up here.”

“But how have you survived without food or water or—”

“It brings me food and water. Sometimes fruit, sometimes stuff that‟s old and

don‟t taste good.”

Jack was having difficulty buying this. “And you‟ve never seen it?” “It‟s dark! I can‟t see in the dark!”

Right. Dumb question. But obviously whatever took him had no problem with

darkness.

Jack flicked his beam over to the toys.

“How‟d these get here?”

“It brings them, like it wants me to play with them, but I just want to go

ho-ho-home!”

As he started sobbing again, Weezy rose and took him by the hand. “That‟s where we‟re taking you right now.” She looked at Jack with a frightened

expression. “As fast as we possibly can.”

“Even faster,” he said, and led the way through the door—

—into water. The whole buried town seemed to be filling with water. “Better get a real move on,” he said, “or we‟ll be swimming home.” He started to climb the debris mound. “I‟ll go first, Cody. You stay close behind

and I‟ll help you—”

“Jack!” Weezy said in a harsh whisper. “Listen!”

From somewhere in the distance on the other side of the mound, Jack heard a

faraway growl.

“It‟s coming!” Cody screamed. “It‟s coming!”

14

The knot in Jack‟s gut tightened further as the air thickened around him, making it hard to breathe.

What ever it was that had taken Cody, whatever had eaten the meat off those bones, was approaching along their escape route.

“Quiet, Cody,” Weezy whispered as she pulled him away from the mound. “We‟ll go this way.”

“But we came the other way,” Jack said, keeping his voice as low as hers as he followed her.

“We‟ll get lost.”

“I think I can get us back by another route—by a couple of other routes, actually.”

“How?”

She glanced over her shoulder and tapped her head. “The map—it‟s in here. I think we‟re under the Klenke house. I‟m pretty sure I can get us back to the Lodge. Trust me?”

“I do.”

He‟d trust her even if he had a choice not to—which he didn‟t.

But they had to move quickly, and with Cody looking backward all the way, he was going to slow them.

“Hang on, Weez.” He pocketed his flash, then gripped Cody‟s arm and squatted next to him.

“Hop on, buddy. You‟re going to ride.”

Without a word Cody climbed onto Jack‟s back and wrapped his arms around his neck.

Hooking his elbows under the boy‟s knees, Jack straightened and turned to Weezy.

“Okay, you‟re in charge. Move as fast as you want. I‟ll keep up.”