Another shrill scream pierces the sounds from the carnival and the crowd opens to reveal a young girl running from the woods just outside town.
“Jenny,” a woman in the crowd says.
She seems stunned and rushes forward with a man and woman in tow. Must be the kid’s parents.
“Help! Monster! There’s a monster after me!”
Jenny screams and looks over her shoulder. I have to give it to the kid; she is booking it. She’s panting, her eyes a little wild. With dirt and tears staining her face, Jenny makes it to her parents, who engulf her. Rye and I move closer to hear what she thinks she saw.
“Okay, now honey, can you take a breath and try that again for me, sweetie?” Jenny’s mother asks, brushing the trembling girl’s hair back from her eyes.
“I was playing hide n seek with Marley and Jonathon when a monster appeared out of nowhere! It was so scary, Mama. We have to go. It’s going to get me!”
Someone groans and a small group moves away from the assembled crowd to return to the festivities.
“Come on, some kid got spooked by her own shadow. Let’s go try the ring toss.”
Slowly, the bodies start to peel away, giving more room for Rye and me to approach the family. The look of concentration on Rye’s face is all I need to know he doesn’t think the girl made any of it up.
“Shh,” her mother hushes her. “If I weren’t so glad to see you’re okay, I’d bust your butt right now, young lady. You know you aren’t allowed to go into the woods alone! It’s crawling with animals that you are scared of, baby.”
“That’s not what I saw, Mama! Dad?”
Jenny turns to her father, pleading silently with him to believe her. He looks at her with tired eyes and shrugs.
“It’s okay to get scared when you are in the forest all alone, sugar. But you really scared your mother and me coming out of there running like that and screaming. Maybe we should call it a night. What do you think, Faith?”
He looks at his wife, who nods, visibly shaken.
“What did you see?”
Rye’s voice rises over any chatter from the remaining carnival goers, who seem to have already forgotten about Jenny’s loud entrance. Jenny steps away from her parents and cocks her head up at Rye. She gives him a stern look, unsure if he is teasing her or not.
“You believe me?”
Rye gets down to her level, hooking his elbow over one knee as he squats over the other.
“I have seen a few scary things in those woods myself. So, what did you see? Maybe we saw the same thing.”
Wow, Rye is good with kids. Who’d have thought? I just smile and stand back, listening as Jenny paints a terrifying picture. Ya-Ya comes over and I have to repress the urge to stop her from shattering the sweet scene. She winks at me and joins Rye.
“Yeah, I have seen some creepy-crawlies in there,” she says, pointing to the tree line that Jenny emerged from. “Tell you what, if your mom and dad don’t mind, we’d love for you to tell us what you saw. Bonus, I will give you my unopened bag of cotton candy in exchange. Is that alright with you?”
She looks to the parents, who share a look of concern but then shrug and nod. That was easy enough.
“What’s going on over here? Faith, Timothy. Are these teenagers causing you any trouble?” Chief Pollard stomps in, huffing.
“No, I don’t think so, Richard. Jenny got scared is all. I think they are trying to help her.”
Chief Pollard glares at all of us and makes a disgusted sound. Before he can say anything else, a fight breaks out over a large stuffed bear and he rushes away grumbling, his boots squeaking under the pressure of his bulbous form.
Jenny has gone silent, but her body still shakes. Her mother chews nervously on her bottom lip and I am afraid if the girl doesn’t start talking soon, we will have to just go investigate blindly.
“O-M-G, Rye, you are so rude for not introducing us!” Ya-Ya nudges him to his surprise. He almost falls over but corrects himself. “I’m Ya-Ya, and between you and me, Rye here is afraid of bunnies.”
Jenny giggles, a little light coming back into her pale eyes.
“Are you really?” she asks him.
He starts to disagree but Ya-Ya clicks her tongue and he straightens as if struck.
“That’s right. I’m terrified of bunnies and their little noses. They always look like they are up to something. You didn’t see a bunny, did you? I wouldn’t be able to handle the woods if you did.”
Jenny laughs and shakes her head.
“No. It wasn’t a bunny.”
Her face goes still again and she looks beyond Rye and Ya-Ya. Her finger comes up to point behind them. We all turn in unison to see what it is in her line of sight. On the side of a large red tent is an old-style movie graphic. It’s clearly from the cult classics and right dead center is a scary as hell monster chasing a petrified woman in canary yellow.
“It looks kinda like that, but scarier. Big claws, long fangs, and it smells really bad. Like when Mama makes Brussels sprouts.”
My heart stops for a beat. She couldn’t mean? Rye mutters, “Slip Demon,” answering my silent thoughts.
“Thank you so much, Jenny. Here.”
Ya-Ya grins at her and hands her the bag of pink-and-blue fluff. Jenny thinks on it then accepts it before jumping at Rye for a hug. He seems put off by it, but before he can react she jumps from him to Ya-Ya, who is a giggling mess when it happens.
“Thank you,” Jenny’s mom says, a little curtly.
She takes Jenny by the hand and directs a silent look at the group of us before they turn to leave. The look seemed to say she was worried about us too. Maybe we seemed
