Tossing aside his brother’s script, Ricky reached into his back pocket.
“Dad!” he yelled. Ricky tossed his folding knife to his father. Vernon spotted it and snatched it from the air before whipping it open. Ricky ran to the perimeter of the fire pit, where George had left the stick with the rag on it. The rag was still smoldering and vapor hissed off of it when Ricky doused it with more fuel.
When he struck the match, fire exploded, catching his hands and jacket as well as the torch.
“Mom!” he yelled, tossing the torch to her. Mary let it hit the ground and then scooped it up. It was much more effective on the entity. “It’s going for the back of her head. Get behind her.”
Mary pivoted quickly and she was able to keep the monster at bay from the two of them. Vernon was slashing at Dr. Hugs’s back with the knife and streams of stuffing poured from the ripped fabric.
Splashing some spring water from the jugs on himself, Ricky put out the last of the flames.
Ricky had no idea if his thought would work, but he figured he had to rely on instinct and luck. Everything else had failed. Their family kept plastic jugs—a gallon each—and filled them from the spring up on Cottle Hill Road once a week. George had brought four of them out for the ceremony. Ricky grabbed the two closest and tossed one towards George and the other to Amber.
“Drink it,” Ricky yelled. “All of it.”
Amber obeyed immediately. George looked at Ricky with a puzzled expression until Ricky repeated the command. Years before, when Ricky had been faced with his own monster, the only way he was able to detach from it was to drown himself in the lake. He hoped that George and Amber wouldn’t have to go to that length.
With the torch, Mary held the entity away from Amber.
Vernon distracted Dr. Hugs with the knife.
George and Amber drank.
The monsters thrashed and twisted, reacting to an invisible onslaught from above.
Ricky ran back, grabbed the papers and knelt next to a candle. He started from the top, reading the incantation. He heard Amber cough and choke.
Mary said, “Keep going. It’s working.”
Ricky glanced and saw his mother handing another jug to Amber. Most of the water was splashing down her neck and soaking her, but it did look like it was working. The smoke entity had shrunk down and it seemed completely occupied by its own fight for survival.
Dr. Hugs was standing in a pool of his own stuffing. He was shrinking as his insides gushed out from all the slashes. George upended the jug and drank.
Ricky turned the page and read as fast as he could.
“Dad, get out of the circle,” George said, gasping between swallows.
Vernon stepped over a candle and grabbed Mary’s arm, trying to pull her out as well. Mary picked up the torch again and waved it towards the entity, driving it towards the shrinking form of Dr. Hugs.
Ricky finally saw it. He saw a purple flame beginning to take shape under the pile of stuffing. He had read about the purple flame before—it was a sign that the gate was opening. The stuffing began to glow. It was infused with the pulsing purple light. There were more dark shapes overhead, but Ricky ignored them as he finished the incantation.
By the ending lines, the wind was swirling. The entity made of gray smoke was being pulled apart by the gusts. Dr. Hugs’s loose shell was flapping. George began to hunch and retch. The water was coming back up as the flame consumed the stuffing and painted the trees with flickering purple light.
The papers fell from Ricky’s hand, but it didn’t matter. He had read everything. The stuffed bear and gray smoke were being pulled down into the purple flames. George and Amber began vomiting at the same time. The volume of water that poured from their mouths and noses far exceeded what they had taken in. The torrent was flushing the entities down into the flame. Everything stopped at once and all was silent until George gagged and coughed.
The only light in the woods came from the rising moon and the flashlights that Vernon and Mary had dropped. All the fires had gone out—doused by water.
Amber moaned and Mary helped her to her feet.
George spat.
Ricky knew what his father would say when he heard him clear his throat. He wasn’t disappointed.
“I think it’s time for bed.”
Fourteen: Amber
She had no intention of sleeping that night. With her own eyes, she had seen the demon that had plagued her for years, killed her grandfather right in front of her, and then caused her parents to die in a fiery crash. In addition, she was in a house that was no more than an hour’s drive from where she had been attacked in the night by bloodthirsty monsters.
Amber had every reason to keep her eyes wide open and stay awake all night.
After a shower, she sat in the living room on the couch next to George. Tucker snuck up on the couch between them when nobody was looking and he hadn’t yet been ordered to get down. They were watching The Office, and every few minutes Mary would quote a line before it was spoken. Under a blanket, Amber felt her eyes drifting closed and she didn’t fight it.
She woke in the morning to the sound and smell of coffee brewing.
Amber began to push the blanket off.
In one of the recliners, Ricky was asleep with his mouth wide open. He seemed to sense her stare and he shook himself awake.
“You guys go back to sleep,” Vernon said quietly from the doorway. “I have to go to work, but you can still sleep for a bit.”
The sun was streaming through the kitchen
