The rider dismounted and walked over to the beast, using a knife to cut thick leather st.i.tching running the length of its swollen abdomen. A green gas spilled out and dissipated, revealing a metal crate filled with more sleeping children stuffed inside like sardines. One by one, they were removed and placed in line like the others.

Evan looked to either side at the other children. They weren't having the same experience as him. No panic. No expression. No tears. Only a look of utter bliss, Christmas morning with a decorated tree and countless presents. The children were happy, all of them, except for Evan.

He started to cry then, tears rushing down his dirtied face. His whole body shook. And no one was concerned with his misery. All of Poe's Creek's children continued to stare at a sea of blissful nothing. The riders busied themselves emptying the cargo. He could have screamed at the top of his lungs and no one, nothing, would've even acknowledged his rage.

He cried alone. His fear was something he would have to overcome by himself. If only Sheldon were here. His friend knew what it was like to be afraid of everything around him. They could be terrified together.

Where's Sheldon?

f o u r t e e n First, Sheldon had to get the girl some clothes, and then figure out a way to get those cuffs off.

The back seat of the cruiser was empty and he wasn't about to search around in the front.

"Maybe we can find you something in the trunk. A jacket, at least." She was tethered to him, wouldn't let go of his shirt.

"What's your name?" Sheldon said.

"Kah . . . Kyra."

"That's a beautiful name. Uh, mine's Sheldon." I'm no good at this. Just don't look at her chest. Not now.

"Sheldon . . . "

"Yep. I'm, uh, from Poe's Creek. How 'bout you?" So awkward. They had walked to the rear of the car, her shuffling behind him, following so closely her toes rubbed up against the back of his feet.

A very long pause, and then "Pah . . . Parkston,"

"Parkston? Whoa, you're a long way from home." Sheldon walked a few steps toward the trunk of the car and stopped. It would be locked. He needed keys. The cop had to have them. He turned toward Kyra and gently touched her arm. "Did the parade come through your town, too?"

She nodded her head slowly.

"Any chance the police are following you?" Kyra looked toward the slumped over ma.s.s of the dead trooper next to the cruiser, and then back toward Sheldon.

"No."

"Of course not. The parade made sure of that, didn't they? Look, I'm going to go search for the keys, and I want you to stay right here." She threw herself at Sheldon, almost knocking the wind out of him. He was sore all over and her desperate clinch only added to the pain, but he didn't push her away.

"It's okay. It's okay. I'm not going to leave you. I just don't want you to have to see him . . . it." Sheldon slowly untangled his shirt from her grip. "Just wait right here. I have to try to find the keys to the trunk and to the cuffs. Can you do that for me?"

A pause. Infinite silence. Even nature seemed to have taken a break, leaving them in a sensory vacuum. As if she suddenly remembered to breathe, Kyra finally took in a lungful of air and reluctantly nodded her head. Her eyes volleyed from Sheldon to the body and back.

Nature seemed to relax and exhale, also. A gentle breeze rode atop the harvest-ready stalks of corn and broke like a wave against Sheldon, Kyra, and the car.

Kyra tucked her shackled fists under her chin and turned her back to the breeze. She kept her face toward Sheldon. He shivered and wished he'd thrown more clothes on before venturing out this morning, as if he'd had a choice or the time to make a wardrobe change before being forced out the door.

He shuffled around Kyra, never turning his back on her, maintaining eye contact the entire time, as he made his way back toward the trooper, only turning away from her when his heels b.u.mped up against something hard and wet. His toes made a squelching sound in his sneakers.

Who was he kidding? Didn't want her to see anything. He was a regular Galahad. A knight in shining paisley. He was in no hurry. Sheldon knelt beside the trooper's corpse . . . at least what was left of it.

The engine was lodged in what used to be the pelvic area of the cop. Shards of splintered bone and tangled ribbons of organs spilled out along the metal edges. Everything was sticky with oil and coagulated blood. The rubber hosing that had almost squeezed the life out of him spread along the ground in all directions. Legs jutted out from one side and a ruined torso-minus a head-occupied the other end.

Sheldon needed to make quick work of finding the keys before he started to heave on the entire mess.

Key chain. Blood. Key chain. Intestines. Key chain . . . He was going to be sick.

Blindly feeling along a thigh to the waist, eyes half shut, Sheldon worked along the belt.

Key chain. Rotting meat.

His fingertips grazed a ma.s.s of what could only be keys, but with the engine pressing down, he would never be able to work them free. He needed more leverage.

Great. He would have to touch that thing. He glanced over his shoulder back toward Kyra. She turned her back to him and stared into the cornfield, lost in its whispering secrets.

The engine was an unearthly balance of mechanical engineering and freakshow. Dendrites of flesh wrapped and twisted around metal. Deep within, Sheldon thought he could make out a ma.s.s of soggy grey. That must be the brain.

For a flitting moment, when he first palmed the engine, he felt something. Right there in the forefront of his thoughts, and then quickly gone. It was similar to the buzz that had come through the bedroom window as the parade pa.s.sed his home; the sickly and fevered vibrations that had given him a crippling migraine.

No headache this time, though. Instead, vivid images. Carnage. A hundred small towns-a thousand-just like Poe's Creek. Streets littered with corpses of politicians, teachers, mothers and fathers. Broken bodies shoved into storefront windows. Mannequins mixed in with corpses. Scenes of unabated rage as grown men and women tear through each other's flesh with bare hands. Teeth and fingernails, the sound of smacking, chewing, growls and gurgles. Amalgamates of human tissue and steel skittering through the blood-soused streets, piercing fleeing souls with fangs and metal teeth. Spiders. Pig beasts rearing up out of the trailers. No. Nothing like this should exist. It wasn't possible. Their exteriors stolen carca.s.ses from a slaughterhouse. Empty cavities crammed full of hydraulics, pistons, fuel lines, and a revving engine. Eyes glowing with the electric charge of spark plugs.

The engines are alive. Don't you get it? We're the host and they are parasites. Oh, G.o.d, help us all.

The pigs waddle over to the curb and tear at their stomachs. It opens a cavity large enough for someone to crawl inside. And all the children willingly do this. A rider comes along and st.i.tches up the holes. The parade drives away, leaving behind an empty and dead ghost town. Taillights disappear over the horizon.

Inside a large warehouse. The children are loaded onto some type of conveyor belt. They're shuttled down the line. Everything is alive. Everything is a part of the parade. The riders peel off all the leather. They've taken their helmets off, too.

Sheldon sees their faces and screams.

f i f t e e n This time it was Kyra who comforted Sheldon, hurrying over when he screamed. He was on his back, trembling. In one hand, stretched toward the star-filled sky, was the keychain. His other hand was clutched in a fist and held tightly to his chest. Kyra knelt down beside him and patted his shoulder.

"I know what this is all about . . . We have to hurry before it's too late. I saw what was behind the masks and I understand. I get it. The parade is alive and this is all about survival. We have to go and save the children. Me and you, Kyra. I need your help. Will you help me?" He was crying again, but not from his own fear. He cried because deep down he already felt there was nothing he could do to prevent the inevitable. "Will you help me?"

"Yes."

"Then let's get the h.e.l.l on the road." Sheldon held out his hand. Kyra took it in both of hers and helped him to his feet. Already, he was starting to become comfortable with her naked flesh. He barely paid it any mind. But, G.o.dd.a.m.n, she was beautiful.

They walked back to the trunk. Sheldon tried all the keys in the cuffs until they clicked open. Kyra worked her hands free, the cuffs falling to the ground, and she threw her arms around him.

Her body next to his felt good, real good.

He bent over to the keyhole on the trunk, went through the same finding-the-right-key game until the trunk clicked open. He grabbed a gym bag and started fishing through its contents.

"Here's a T-shirt. It'll be too big, but better than nothing." Sheldon handed the shirt to Kyra. She slipped it on quickly, while he searched for a weapon or anything useful. Nothing. He was about to close the trunk when something in the back corner caught his eye. He grabbed a shooting range headset and slammed the trunk shut.

COVER YOUR EARS SHELDON IT'S THE ENGINES THEY'LL MAKE YOU DO . . .

Those were the words scribbled in Evan's notebook-"cover your ears"-and Sheldon had felt what the parade could do to someone from a distance. What would it be like if he was right next to it? Would he try to do himself or Kyra in? He gripped the headset in his hand, tossed it in the air a few times and then hung it around his neck.

He looked up when a door closed. The cherries went dark. The dome light went out and the only illumination was from the night sky. Kyra was no longer by his side. She'd walked back to the front of the car, killed the cherries, and shut the door. He watched her tip-toe over to the body, grab it by the feet, and start to drag the ma.s.s over toward the shoulder of the road. Her pale legs seemed to glow in the dark like a grave robbing ghoul.

He was about to ask her what she was doing, to yell at her to not touch the engine, when headlights appeared far off to the right. He froze. She continued to drag the body around to the front of the car.

What do I do? What do I do?

He was going to flag down the car, get help once and for all. That's what he was going to do. He started toward the middle of the road with intentions of walking to the highway. His hands were already raised.

"No, Sheldon!" Kyra's raised voice startled him. She'd been so soft spoken. He turned to face her, confused. She barely looked up from her task and hurried the pace to get the body into the ditch.

"But they may be able to help . . . "

"It's the parade."

That was it. Up until that moment, those spa.r.s.e words were the most she'd spoken, and they were enough to change Sheldon's mind. Whether the oncoming car harbored another monstrosity from the parade was irrelevant. He was not about to find out. He sprinted back toward Kyra, grabbed one of the legs, and helped her drag the body the rest of the way. It was heavy with the added weight of the engine and Sheldon was convinced his sore back would snap in two before they were done. Kyra kept silent. If the weight bothered her, she hid it pretty well.

They crouched down in front of the hood and waited for the car to pa.s.s. Sheldon held his breath and Kyra's hand. His heart pistoned in his chest, his throat, and fingertips. The headlights got larger. G.o.d, I hope we're far enough off the main road. He closed his eyes. Maybe if he couldn't see the Horribles then the Horribles couldn't see him.

It seemed to work. The whir of tires on pavement grew loud and waned. Sheldon opened his eyes only after he couldn't hear the car anymore.

"Whew." Sheldon leaned his head up against the grill and tried to catch his breath. It was still warm to the touch. The car engine clicked. He smelled gasoline and oil. As of late, two scents he wasn't very fond of. He turned away in disgust. After this was all over, if he was still around, he'd be a permanent pedestrian.

Kyra stood up and looked around to see if the coast was clear before walking toward the motorcycle. The roles seemed to be reversed. She was the strong and courageous one and Sheldon had a hard time not feeling weak and feeble. And for now, he seemed okay with the change of guard.

It was hard not to watch her body in motion. Even though her top half was covered by the large T-shirt, he couldn't help but lick his lips and swallow the lump down in his throat while her hips swayed gently back and forth. The darkness framed her body, making her smooth curves stand out against the night. She was confident, bold, and half naked. He could get used to seeing that. Maybe even fall in love with it.

Now on the motorcycle, she turned and looked toward Sheldon, giving him a look of impatience as if to say "Well, what are you waiting for."

What are you waiting for, Mr. Delaney?

He had never run so fast in his entire life and closed the gap between himself and Kyra in record time.

She felt good behind him, like that was where she belonged. Her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, cheek rubbing up against his back. He quickly stopped shivering. In fact, he was flooded with warmth from the inside out. He checked the mirrors, turned around, and tightened his daddy's helmet on Kyra's head before starting the motorcycle. It seemed to purr as he navigated the bike around the dirt road and headed back toward the highway.

"On the road again," he sang, whistling an appropriate tune. They continued on down the highway, picking up the pace. Kyra squeezed him harder, and Sheldon smiled. For the first time in years, it felt genuine.

s i x t e e n Eventually, the tears dried up, the sobbing ceased, the terror waned. Evan watched the bustle of the parade as if he were a casual spectator, as if the warehouse and all its h.e.l.lish occupants were on the other side of a looking gla.s.s and he was peering in.

The warehouse was a stage. The riders and children were all playing a part. Evan was an actor, but at the same time, he was in the audience. He watched all the riders line up in front of the generator. They removed their helmets, the back of their heads thick with soft, feathery hair. Living electrical wires descended from the ceiling and snaked around the riders. Evan couldn't see their faces. The crab-things scurried behind them and leapt onto their backs. Evan looked away, more out of reflex than anything else.

There was a vibrating tension around the bottom of his legs. He looked down at his feet, which felt like they were on the other side of the looking gla.s.s, too. What he thought was rope turned out to be another extension of the generator. A bonemeal white cord with ropey blue veins running its length wrapped around both his ankles. It was knotted around all the children's feet. Evan watched it constrict and relax, constrict and relax. Liquid flowed through the veins, up one side and down the other. He wanted to feel disgust, revulsion as the slimy cord slithered against his skin, but he was completely empty; emotionally drained.

He looked back toward the generator. The crab-things scissored away at the leather. Clothing sloughed off and piled up on the cement floor. There was something resembling a human beneath. Pink skin stretched in patches over machine-polished steel. In between, purple muscle and white tendon clung to hydraulics and pistons. Evan could see through the ribcages, threaded with electrical wiring. An engine rumbled in the torso of each of them. They glowed red from within, and each engine was very much alive just like the generator. Just like everything inside the warehouse.

Evan didn't even look away as the crabs moved from leather to flesh and made ribbons of it.

Spindly appendages burst from between the riders' legs and balanced the engines while the crabs finished removing the flesh. One by one, the outer sh.e.l.ls peeled away and fell to the floor.

Evan got his first look at the faces of his kidnappers, what was normally hidden behind the helmets, or what was left of them, at least. And what stared back at him from the warehouse floor made the looking gla.s.s shatter.

It was him behind the mirrored facemask, or a version of him. Children. A child's face. Youthful innocence. It could've been any one of his cla.s.smates, neighbors, friends, staring back at him. And all at once the unbelievable made perfect sense. What had been shed on the cold cement floor of the warehouse was what was left of children from a town just like Poe's Creek. This was a processing plant, and Evan, along with the rest of the children, were what was going to be processed.

He dredged up one remaining scream from within. A loud and desperate scream echoing off the steel rafters above.

s e v e n t e e n The tires and slick pavement sang a high pitched duet, accompanied by the screams of his father's engine. Darkened farmland whizzed by on either side. The gap between yellow road lines merged. Sheldon sat behind the handlebars spellbound by speed and desire. The wind had grown teeth. As he buried the needle, it sank frosty fangs into his flesh. But he didn't let up. He grimaced through it. Kyra squeezed tighter. He crouched down behind the windshield and wrenched down on the throttle.

Careful. There were times when the tires skipped across the surface of the road. Sheldon felt like he was flying. The needle hovered at eighty-five, but he wanted more.

Ninety. His eyes wept from the wind. Lips curled back in a permanent grin.

Ninety-five. Fingers frozen to the throttle. The front end wobbled, hiccupped, and then smoothed out.

One hundred. Everything around him roared. In the ditches, crickets sounded like a coach's whistle at halftime. Air blasted past him with a jet engine rumble. He cauterized a hole in Mother Nature. Wind parted around the bike. The road opened up before them. Sheldon and Kyra stole through the night, leaving behind only a brief glimmer of taillight.

Where was he headed? Did this road lead to the parade, to his ultimate demise, or was Sheldon going in the wrong direction altogether? He didn't have the slightest clue, but it felt right. Deep down inside, he knew he was close. This was the right way. He was sure of it.

But the infinite blackness of night gave no leads and told no secrets. The path the parade followed was washed away by rain and covered in darkness. There were no road signs or maps to where he was going. All Sheldon could do was follow the small bubble of amber bursting out from the headlight. One strip of road at a time. That was it.

One strip of lonely road at a time.

Kyra tugged on his shoulders and broke his trance. Sheldon looked to his side and saw her hand gesturing off to the left. There were lights in the distance. Windows. A large building in the middle of a field. He slowed down. He stopped at the entrance to a dirt road and exhaled.

"This is it. I'm sure of it." Sheldon turned to tell Kyra she didn't have to come with him, that he would go alone, but the words never got out. Moist lips against his, hard pressed, stealing his breath. Kyra kissed Sheldon with fervor. Caught off guard, Sheldon just sat there and didn't reciprocate the action. Then hormones and l.u.s.t took over and he returned the favor. He tore the helmet from her head and let it drop. It hit the ground with a hollow thud. He ran his fingers through her silk hair, wrapped them around the back of her head, and kissed her as hard as he could.

It was the greatest moment of his life. Her lips fit perfectly against his and he was concocting a plan to take her right there on the back of the bike. He was on fire. His skin burned like embers. He closed his eyes and blindly guided both hands all over her body. Beautiful. Smooth. Perfect. Then Kyra jerked away from him. It was too dark to make out her expression, but her outline heaved up and down. They were both out of breath. He moved in to kiss her again, but she stopped him halfway.

Kyra began to pant. She tore off the shirt and arched her back, driving her b.r.e.a.s.t.s up into the air. Sheldon grabbed for them, but never had a chance to touch her. A searing hot, jagged piece of steel burst from her abdomen and plunged into his side. The makeshift knife cut deep. Fat and blood sizzled on the hot metal. He could feel the pressure of his internal organs release and heard the air leak out. He also heard the engine turn over inside her and roar.

She was one of them. How could he be so stupid? This was bad. He was so close to Evan, and now he'd die just outside.

He cried in disbelief and shoved Kyra backwards. She tumbled off the back of the motorcycle, taking the knife along with her. The pain of the knife retracting almost sent him over the edge. His vision blurred and he was light-headed. The hole she'd left behind was serious. He put one hand over the gash and the other on the handlebars. He pedaled his feet on the ground and moved the idling bike forward.

All too familiar noises came from where Kyra lay; the bone-crackling kind. Something was emerging from within her and Sheldon wasn't going to stick around to find out what it was.

This wasn't the way things were supposed to end. He had convinced himself he would be the savior, and to not even get the chance to try infuriated him. He maneuvered the bike around half a circle and lined himself up with Kyra.

The headlight revealed what had risen up from her spent carca.s.s. He caught a glimpse of another monster from the parade. More black tentacles whipped through the air toward him. An engine burst out of flesh, balanced on steel legs, and began to lumber toward Sheldon.

"f.u.c.k all of this!" Sheldon hollered and hammered down on the throttle. The tires barked, spun against the loose dirt of the shoulder and then caught hold, almost throwing him completely off. He hit the engine dead-on. The tires spun on the slick gore and then jumped into the air. The jerk kicked his feet up and over the side of the bike. He held onto the handlebars while his legs dragged on the road below. The bike finally lost the battle with gravity and tumbled on top of him. More bruises, abrasions, and blood.

He worked himself out from under the bike and fell to his knees. His body was riddled with scuffs and burns. Blood flowed unchecked from the stab wound. The jig was almost up. Sheldon was about to sign off. But when he saw what had happened to what used to be Kyra, it fueled him with just enough energy to stand up, and for the time being, carry on.

A fuel line inside the creature had ignited. A blue flame sucked inwards and the engine exploded from within. The earth shook. A mushroom cloud of flames plumed upwards and then dissipated. What remained-skin, shards of bone and steel-rained back down to the ground.

e i g h t e e n The cement floors of the warehouse vibrated. For just a brief moment Evan felt a rumble, and then it was gone. It reminded him of what the blast of a firework would feel like from a long distance away. He looked around to see if anyone-anything-had noticed it. No one-nothing-had. Of course they didn't. Only he relied on so much more than just hearing something.

What he had felt gave him a sliver of hope. Someone was coming.

I can feel it.

n i n e t e e n The motorcycle wouldn't start. Either the spill had done too much damage or Sheldon didn't have the energy to push down on the kickstart. He was forced to walk the bike down the dirt road. If it hadn't been his father's bike, he would've abandoned it. Each step was more painful and laborious than the last. Slumped over, one hand barely kept the bike upright, the other pressed against the wound. His nerves hollered in agony each time his foot hit the dirt. But that's how he did it: one b.l.o.o.d.y step at a time.