They were the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Ricky wanted to fly into those eyes and explore the boundless universe contained within them. It was all his to discover. He could spend infinite lifetimes in that glory.
“Hey, Prescott,” George said. “You dropped this.”
When Prescott looked away, Ricky fell to his knees in sorrow. The one thing he cared about—gazing into Prescott’s eyes—had been stripped from him. Everything he cared about and everything he loved was now lost, but it was only a few feet away from him.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ricky saw George drop something and then Prescott was gone, down into the hole.
Ricky stumbled forward after him.
Forty-Two: Amber
As they said the final words of the ceremony, Amber felt the demon pulled from her again. This time, its departure tore a deep hole in her. She felt like she was losing a connection to her past. It was ripped right from the center of her soul and it left a gaping wound. Amber looked down at herself, thinking that the pain was so real that it must be true. Her headlamp revealed nothing—no blood, no hole.
“Ricky,” George shouted.
Amber blinked and looked up at George. He was yelling at his brother. The fire had collapsed in on itself and tumbled into the darkness in the center of the circle. Amber remembered that they had moved the fire over the hole—Prescott’s hole—and that’s where the swirling vortex had gone.
Ricky didn’t seem to hear as his brother shouted.
Amber saw why. Ricky was entranced by Prescott. The creature was hanging above the pit and slowly moving closer to Ricky.
Amber shouted too. Ricky didn’t even flinch at the sound of their voices. She could see the reflection of Prescott’s gaze in Ricky’s eyes. That alone was almost enough to make her sink into hypnosis. She knew that if she tried to get closer to Ricky, she would just be captured by the creature as well.
“Ricky! Look away,” George said.
Again, the plea fell on deaf ears. George crouched down to dig in his bag. Amber found her spear and tried to reach Prescott. She couldn’t get close enough to stab him. That was almost a relief. She knew that stabbing him with a spear wouldn’t do anything. The brothers had already tried that and, at best, they were only able to hold Prescott at bay for a bit.
Now that Prescott was focused completely on Ricky, Amber could see the monster for what it was. It was sinew and bone, barely contained by moldering old clothes and rotting stitches. Tufts of white hair poked out from its scaly scalp. It reached one of its claws towards Ricky, who looked like he was hanging from invisible threads, attached to his eyes. The rest of Ricky’s body was limp. There was no life in him except for the light reflecting in his eyes.
George stood up, holding something in his hands.
Amber squinted and finally recognized it when her headlamp reflected off of it.
The thing George held was the rearview mirror that she had broken off of Romeo’s truck.
George was holding it out like a crucifix.
“Hey, Prescott,” George yelled. “You dropped this.”
It seemed like an impossible miracle that Prescott turned to look at what George held. The monster immediately began to move towards George and Amber realized that George had just traded one disaster for another. Even if Prescott was entranced by the mirror, he would be close enough to strike. It would be silly to think otherwise.
George dropped the mirror.
Prescott changed direction, following it as gravity pulled it down. The mirror tumbled and Prescott nearly grabbed it, but then raced after it as it descended into the hole.
Ricky dropped to his knees and then began to pull himself forward to follow Prescott.
Amber raced to grab him. He was already picking up speed—falling into the hole—by the time she grabbed onto Ricky’s leg. He kicked, trying to free himself from her grip so he could follow his master.
George grabbed her and Ricky’s other leg.
Together, they were able to pull him back from the edge.
Ricky started to sob.
# # #
Amber inched closer to the hole.
“Ricky, snap out of it,” George said.
Amber found her flashlight and pointed it down. The edge of the hole was sloped. She feared that she couldn’t get close enough in order to see down inside it. She was too afraid that she would lose her footing. Worse, Prescott’s hand might snake out from the darkness and drag her down.
“Help me, George,” she said.
George moved quickly to her and grabbed her arm, trying to pull her away from the edge.
“No, I mean help me look down there.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Are you?” she asked, turning on him. “You think we can just ignore Prescott because we can’t see him at the moment. He could be anywhere, George.”
He clenched his jaw, holding back whatever it was that he wanted to say.
“Stay there,” he said.
George moved to his bag and he began to rummage through it again. Amber turned her light towards the woods around them. She was listening for the sound of galloping hooves. Minutes before, when Prescott was above ground, she had heard them.
“Where did they go?” she whispered.
George returned and wrapped a rope around her waist. He tied it and then looped it around the trunk of a tree in order to belay her.
“Stop worrying about me. Take care of your brother,” she said. Still, she was glad for the tension he provided on the rope as she moved forward.
There was a light down in the hole. Amber thought back to the previous morning so she could remember the layout. The hole descended like a funnel, ending about ten feet down before it struck off in a horizontal direction, back toward the graves. The light on the sides of the dirt hole was faint, but it frightened Amber.
“Get ready to pull me back,” she said to George.
She inched forward. It was
