The Child Thief

Peter turned, his face horrified.

And that was when Nick heard the voices—soft and far away at first, but quickly moving closer: the light calls of children, sweet chorus of women, and deep baritone of men. Laughing and gay, as though they were all on their way to a summer picnic. But behind these, or maybe within, he heard wailing, a sad, terrible keening. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

“They’ve found us,” Peter said, his voice dead as stone.

“Found us? Who’s found us?”

“Nick,” Peter said, his words quick and urgent. “No matter what you hear, no matter what you see, ignore them. Avoid their eyes. And whatever you do, don’t dare speak to them.” Peter glanced into the fog. “If you lose the path, Nick, your bones will never leave the Mist.”

Nick’s mind was one big WHAT THE FUCK! Then he caught movement. The mist had begun to stir.

Shadows, mere shades of gray on gray, began to swim around them, some hulking and sluggish, almost lumbering, others small and fleet as sparrows, most just furtive wisps of indefinable vapor. Their whispers and calls echoed around them, crawled right into Nick’s head.

Nick glanced at Peter. Peter kept his eyes directly forward and marched onward at a quick, steady clip.

Nick gritted his teeth, balled his hands into fists, and clamped them tightly to his chest. He tried to slow his breathing. Don’t fall behind. Whatever you do, don’t fall behind. He picked up his pace, keeping tight to Peter’s heels.

The mist next to him began to swirl, almost to boil, until the shape of a woman formed, her skin pale and shimmering. She smiled at him demurely, floating along, twirling and rolling. The tendrils of her gown and hair trailed out behind her as though in an underwater ballet.

Nick struggled not to look into her eyes, but felt powerless to do anything but, and when he did, he saw that she was beauty itself. She began to sing to him. He couldn’t understand the words, but he recognized the tune. The same lullaby mothers have been singing to their children for thousands of years. It promised to keep him safe and warm. It promised an eternity of maternal love. She stretched her arms, beckoning him to her.

It would be all over if he went to her. Part of him knew this, the part that was screaming somewhere deep inside to stay on the path. The rest of him knew this too, but thought it was okay, because it would be such a sweet death. Cradling him in her loving embrace, she would rock him, soothe him. All his fears, all the bad things would simply drift away forever. Nick found himself wishing for nothing more.

Peter’s voice came from somewhere far away, little more than an echo. “Stay with me!” And a face, the terrified face of the boy, the one in the high-tops, flashed in Nick’s head. He blinked and forced himself to tear his eyes away from the woman.

Where’s Peter?

Nick saw only a vague silhouette in front of him. Is that him? How’d I fall so far behind? He noticed sheets of mist drawing together like curtains, as though trying to build a wall between them. Panicked, Nick sprinted forward, stumbling across the soft, undulating surface, almost knocking Peter over when he caught up.

“Hang on,” Peter whispered. “You’re doing good.”

Doing good? Nick wanted to scream. Doing good at what? What is going on? What the fuck is going on?

The woman continued to float alongside of him, her face now mournful. Crazily, Nick found himself feeling regretful. Then she raised her arms above her head as though entering a swan dive, arching her back, snaking her body through the smoky tendrils of mist. Suddenly Nick was very aware of how full her breasts were, discovered he could see the shape of her large, dark nipples beneath the thin veil of her gown and the dusky shadow between her legs. A warm, tingling sensation began to grow in his crotch. Nick felt his face flush and glanced away. When he did, he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. A tail? He blinked. She had a long, scaly tail. She also had scales on her arms, small and delicate, and her fingers were long and clawlike. He squinted. Oh good God, he thought, her hair. Her hair is full of worms! No, her hair was worms, thousands of tiny, squirming worms.

Nick jerked back and almost fell over.

She scowled, dark and angry. Her eyes shrank to mere slits, her nipples stretched into long antennae, her belly opened up into a gaping maw, and Nick saw row after row of jagged little teeth!

Oh, no! Oh no! Oh no!

A sound came out of that mouth, like a thousand angry hornets, and she came for him.

Nick screamed and crumpled to the ground, arms out, watching helplessly as she fell upon him, watching as her huge mouth, a mouth easily as tall as himself, engulfed him. So this is how I will die, he thought. But no jagged teeth tore into his flesh. All he felt was a blast of cold air as she passed through him. It took him a moment to realize that he was still alive.

Peter! Where’s Peter? He thought he saw a shape plodding away from him. Was that Peter, or another trick of the fog? “PETER!” he screamed and scrambled to his feet. Now there were three different shapes, each heading in a different direction.

“PETER!” he shrieked, then an inner voice, the one from deep inside of him, said, Stop wasting your breath. Think! Nick stopped, concentrated, tried to clear his mind. Footprints. Find his footprints. They were there, the faintest trace, disappearing as the moist earth rapidly filled them in. Nick gritted his teeth and ran in their direction. And just ahead was Peter, not another illusion but truly Peter.

“PETER!” Nick raced forward and grabbed Peter by the shoulder. “WAIT FOR ME!” he screamed. “WHY WON’T YOU WAIT FOR ME?”

“Steady,” Peter said, not losing a step. “Have to keep steady or all is lost.”

Nick clutched Peter’s jacket, twisting his hand in the fabric, wishing he could close his eyes and make them all go away.

They came, dozens, then hundreds, all shapes and sizes, filling the air with their screams, laughter, wails and cries. A swarm of disembodied heads flew past, singing, a host of naked old women with large, saggy breasts skipped merrily around, holding hands and laughing through wide, toothless grins. A throve of tiny children with grasshopper bodies buzzed insistently, all manner of hungry-looking beasts, with sharp teeth and claws, stalked alongside them, and small, shadowy men with protrusive blank eyes and bird beaks danced wildly.

“What are they?” Nick cried between clenched teeth. What is going on? A short time ago he’d been eating Chinese food in the middle of Brooklyn. How could he now be lost in a fog with these horrors? Things like this can’t really happen!

He felt their wispy fingers crawling through his hair, his clothes, over his mouth and eyes.

A little girl’s face shot up to him, her eyes black holes, her mouth frozen in a scream that made no sound. She just hung there staring at him. He tried to wave her away, but every time his hand went through her, she just giggled, giggled while wearing that horrible scream, giggled until he thought he’d go crazy.

“Oh God,” he cried. I can’t do this. Not any longer. He needed to run, he didn’t care where to, he just had to run.

If you run you will die, came the familiar voice. Calm but stern, it was his voice, his inner self, the boy that had been through his share of hard times and had managed to keep it together. And how had he done that? How had he dealt with watching them shovel dirt onto his father’s casket? How had he dealt with hearing his mother cry herself to sleep night after night? How had he put up with the bullshit at school—the endless taunts and bullying, and Marko fucking with him every day? He’d simply withdrawn deep within himself, pretended as though all the bad things were happening to someone else and that he was just along for the ride. And this had always got him through. It didn’t make it okay. It didn’t make the hurt any less painful later, but it got him through. And right now he just needed to get through.

So Nick went there now, to his safe place, and watched the show from afar. And from afar it was clear that the mist was all noise and bluster, merely trying to scare him, confuse him, drive him from the path.

Nick looked through the mist, locked his eyes on Peter’s back, kept them there, and plodded onward— steady.