He raced through the trees, thorny branches snatching at his clothes, sweat pouring into his eyes and making them sting.
The monster crashed through the brush behind him. It snarled and sometimes spoke in odd human sounds, yet not.
Sid ran until the stitch in his side felt like a razor blade cutting his abdomen. He’d gotten turned around, though he didn’t know when.
Full night had fallen, and the moon was mostly hidden by thick clouds.
His feet hit hard ground, and his toe caught on a rock. He pitched forward and landed on hands and knees. He suddenly knew where he was at: the pit.
Behind him, branches snapped and breath heaved from the boy monster who stalked him through the woods.
Sid looked around wildly, his mind blank for an escape. Could the creature swim?
Sid imagined diving into the black water and watching as the beast followed him in, circled below him, and reached up to grasp his ankle.
He shook his head and plunged forward, coming to the high cliff and looking down for a dizzying moment. He no longer had time to decide.
The monster had broken from the trees, its face white and leering, black eyes shimmering in the moonlight.
Sid turned and crouched, grabbing ahold of the ledge and lowering himself over the side, planting his feet on outcroppings of rock. His heart hammered. His hands felt slick, as if he’d rubbed oil on them, and he knew any moment, he’d lose his hold and begin to fall.
He imagined Stone from his and Ashley’s story. Stone, of the cat people with perfect night vision. Stone, who had to descend into the black depths of the deep water to save Sapphire from death.
As he climbed down, his foot swung in, finding open air rather than the rock wall. He’d come to the Witch’s Cave.
Painstakingly, he moved sideways, finally wrapping his arm around the rock and stepping onto the ledge of cave. Unable to see, he crawled on hands and knees into the darkness.
As he crept deeper, his legs trembled, his muscles threatening to seize at any moment. When his hands caught something soft and stringy he gasped, jerking his fingers back.
He fumbled with the lighter he’d stolen from his dad’s pants pocket and struggled to depress the button.
The orange flame leapt out, offering a halo of light.
He stared at the hairy thing on the ground, his brain piecing the image into something sensical. As it registered, he felt the throb of his bladder. It pinched and then let go. Urine seeped out and soaked his pants.
A mass of pale blonde hair lay piled below him. Dark streaks matted the once light hair. Beneath the hair, he saw the slope of a shoulder. The pale skin was mottled and gray.
Sid didn’t move. Shock caused every muscle in his body to firm into concrete. His breath wheezed out from his clenched teeth.
“Oh god, oh god,” he whispered, the stones of the cave biting into his knees, the stink of his piss only mild compared to the other smell, the rancid smell of Melanie Dunlop’s body.
SID HAD LURED the monster away.
Ashley stared into the dark forest where Sid and the thing had disappeared.
Beneath her palms, blood oozed thick and warm from Shane’s head. She felt the mush of his ear and the throb of his heartbeat through the pulsing blood. She’d dragged him onto the porch, but he was too heavy.
Her ankle throbbed.
She had to leave him to get help.
It took ages to break from the trees, and when she did, the road lay empty and dark. She limped toward the houses she knew lay several blocks away.
Suddenly, headlights barreled toward her and she paused, gazing at the oncoming car, but unable to move.
The car’s brakes screamed as it skidded to a stop. The driver’s door opened, and a man jumped out. Only when he stepped into the beam of his headlights, did Ashley recognize Mr. Wolf.
“Ashley?” He took her by the shoulders. “Come on,” he said.
To her surprise, he didn’t ask what had happened. He scooped her up and deposited her in the backseat.
“You have to help them,” Ashly begged, blood filling her sock and soon her tennis shoe.
“Sid and Shane. The monster’s after them.”
Max and the man in his passenger seat exchanged a worried look.
“Where’s the doll, Ashley,” Mr. Wolf demanded.
“The doll? What? No! Didn’t you hear me? They’re hurt. They’ll die.”
“The only way to stop Vern is to destroy the doll. We have to get to the doll first,” he insisted, craning around in his seat.
His words sunk in. The doll they’d found in the coffin.
“It’s in my house,” she blurted. “But we have to call the police because Shane Savage and Travis Barron are both hurt. They’re in The Crawford house.”
SID DIDN’T MOVE until he heard the unmistakable sound of something climbing into the cave.
He released the lighter. The darkness immediate and unnerving.
It was coming for him. He would die like Melanie. When his parents went to bed each night his mother would soak her pillow with tears and his father would gaze in sleepless worry at the ceiling above him. But worst of all, he would leave Ashley. He would never see his best friend again.
The thought so jolted him that he stood to his feet, squaring off against the mouth of the cave.
He didn’t wait for the monster to come in and devour him.
He barreled forward at full speed and pushed the boy as hard as he could.
The creature howled and reached out its bony hands to grab ahold of Sid, but Sid’s own arms and hands were slick with sweat.
The monster plummeted backward into the yawning sky that hovered over the pit below.
The monster shrieked, but his cry was swallowed by the dark water.
45
Ashley sat on her front steps, a blanket draped over her shoulders.
Max had shredded the doll on her kitchen table while the other man had carefully collected the bones and teeth and tucked them into his pocket.
They left Ashley to phone the police while Max had raced to The Crawford House to help the boys.
More than an hour passed before he returned, and when his car pulled into her driveway, she jumped to her feet, wincing at the sting in her ankle.
Mr. Wolf stepped from the car. “Shane and Travis have both been taken to the hospital. They’re alive,” he said.
She nodded, grateful even for Travis’s life being saved, but…
“Did you find Sid?” she asked, balling her fists at her sides.
Max’s face fell.
“I’m sorry, Ash. I looked and I called for him. There are men searching the woods. We’ll find him,” Max promised, but his voice sounded hollow, and Ashley knew they hadn’t destroyed the doll in time.
If only they’d have known. They could have ended it all the moment they’d found it.
“It’s not your fault, Ashley,” Max said, as if reading her mind.
Ashley sat back on the step, dropping her head.
How would she live without her best friend?
Max rested a hand on her shoulder, and Ashley leaned into him and started to cry.
“Wait, what’s that?” Max asked suddenly, standing up.
She squinted into the darkness trying to place the sound. A rhythmic whoosh grew closer and the unmistakable plink, plink of Spokey Dokeys sliding up and down the spokes of a bicycle.
Ashley shot to her feet, this time the pain in her ankle didn’t register as she ran to the end of her driveway.
Sid rode into the beam of a streetlight.
When he saw Ashley, he rode faster. At her driveway, he jumped off and ran to her, throwing his arms around her.