Bryce gestured with the flares. “If we light one of these, they’ll be drawn to the burning red light. It reminds them of the Dark Corner. They hate the evil realm, but it’s the only place they really feel comfortable.” He stopped and glanced around. “But demons are fast. We have to have bikes to keep ahead of them.”
“Adam has a bike in his garage,” Cindy said. “Wait! He has two of them. Watch left his bike in Adam’s garage yesterday because he was going to work on it there. It’s not like it’s really broken or anything, so we can each have a bike. If we sneak around the side of Adam’s house, we can go in the side entrance of the garage.”
“Good,” Bryce said. Then he stopped. “But maybe you should wait here. I can do this myself. There’s no reason for you to risk your life.”
Cindy smiled darkly. “My friends are in danger. That’s the best reason I know of to risk my life. Plus I can probably outpedal you. None of the other kids can keep up with me.” She held out her hand. “Give me one of those flares.”
“Maybe I do need you,” Bryce admitted as he reluctantly handed over one of the flares. “You realize that to get them into the meat locker at the grocery store one of us has to run into the locker ahead of them. Whoever it is, the other one will have to close the door.”
Cindy swallowed. “With the person inside with the demons?”
“Yes. The demons might kill whoever’s inside before the cold slows them down. Promise me, if I get there first, you’ll shut me inside with them. You can’t hesitate.”
“Will you shut me inside with them?” Cindy asked.
Bryce spoke gravely. “I’ll have no choice. It will be the only way to stop them.”
Cindy nodded weakly. “I understand. Let’s do it now, before I have too much time to think about it and get scared.”
Sneaking around the side of Adam’s house and into his garage wasn’t difficult. With the noise of the blaring stereo, the demons couldn’t have heard a battalion of marines approaching. But now came the tricky part. Bryce insisted they ride straight out the front of the garage, with at least one of the flares burning.
“We’ve got to pass close by them to make sure they see the burning red color,” he said. “It’s the only way to drive them wild, and make sure they follow us.”
“What grocery store are we headed for?” Cindy asked.
“Fred’s Foods. It’s open twenty-four hours a day. Ann Templeton shops there every Friday evening.”
“You know her? We were in her castle.”
Bryce nodded. “I heard about that. You were lucky to get out alive.” He glanced through the garage window at the demons. “We’ll both be lucky to survive tonight. Get on that bike and get ready. I’m going to trip the garage door opener. Save your flare for now. Mine should be enough to grab their attention.”
With that, Bryce struck his flare. In the dark of the closed garage, the burning color struck a knot of fear deep into Cindy’s heart. How similar the light was in color to the light that had blazed in the three demons’ eyes at Harry’s Hamburgers. Briefly, Cindy prayed that Harry was all right. Vaguely she remembered Adam’s striking him, and the man falling to the floor. Adam must be a demon to knock out a grown man.
Bryce pushed the garage door opener.
Cindy positioned herself on Adam’s bike, ready to take off.
The garage door creaked upward.
The demons came into view.
They had stopped their dancing.
They were staring at Bryce and Cindy.
“Go!” Bryce cried as he shoved forward on Watch’s bike.
The demons were as quick as Bryce had predicted. Even though Bryce and Cindy were on bikes and had the whole yard between them and the demons—and supposedly the element of surprise—the demons almost grabbed them as they swept by. In fact, one of the demons—it was Sally’s—reached out with long nails and managed to scratch Cindy’s left arm. Cindy felt a stinging sensation and then the trickle of blood over her skin. She cried out as she pedaled into the center of the street, pushing the bike harder than she had ever pushed anything in her life. Beside her, Bryce barely kept ahead of Adam’s and Watch’s demons. The flare burned in Bryce’s right hand and the demons howled at the sight of it.
“Head for the center of town!” Bryce called over. “Stay ahead of me!”
“I’m trying!” Cindy called back.
“Remember what must be done!”
“I remember,” Cindy replied, but quietly, more to herself. Straining to stay a few feet ahead of the demons, she felt more afraid than she could ever remember. And the worst part was still to come. How could she close the door on Bryce and leave him to the demons’ mercy?
And what if he had to close the door on her?
Ten minutes later it looked like that might be what had to happen.
For some reason, after only ten minutes, Bryce’s flare began to go out. It must have been defective. Cindy knew most flares were designed to burn for at least a half hour. Of course there was no time to take the thing back to the store and complain. For all she knew, Bryce had bought it at Fred’s Fat Food. The bottom line was that she now had to strike her own flare. As she did so, the demons immediately focused on her. Fortunately, just before the grocery store there were two hundred yards of downhill riding, and she knew she’d be able to put a small distance between herself and her pursuers. Bryce called over to her. His flare was all but dead.
“Throw me the flare!” he said.
Cindy glanced over her shoulder. The demons’ eyes burned as they had that afternoon. She had to fight not to stare into them, to be drawn into their evil depths. Inside, she could feel them willing her to slow down. She wasn’t completely free of their spell.
“No!” she called back. “There’s no way you can catch it! You’ll burn your hand!”
“I don’t mind a little burn! Throw me the flare!”
“No! They’ll get away! I’ll lead them where I have to!”
Bryce stared over at her for a moment before answering. “You can’t do that, Cindy! This is my plan!”
“I’m a part of your plan!”
“No! You’ll be killed!”
Cindy drew in a deep breath and pushed the bike forward as they hit the bottom of the downhill portion of the road. She replied to Bryce but not with a shout. It may have been she was simply talking to herself.
“I won’t be killed,” she said.
The wind flew in their faces. The flare blazed in her hand. The demons screeched at their backs. As the grocery store neared, Cindy decided she wouldn’t perform a normal braking. Instead she would slide the bike into the front door of the store like a baseball runner sliding into home plate. The move, she hoped, would get her a couple of seconds’ headstart for the meat locker.
But then what?
They would just chase her inside.
Bryce would just lock her inside.
The grocery store was fifty yards away now. Twenty.
Bryce began to brake.
Cindy began to tilt her bike on its side.
Her unusual strategy allowed her to stop on a dime. The only problem was that she went down with the bike, and dropped the flare in the process. She barely had time to grab it and climb to her feet before the demons ran onto the parking lot. Bryce was only a few feet behind her, his hand outstretched.
“Give it to me now!” he shouted.
“No way,” Cindy snapped. Turning, she dashed into the store.
The market was relatively empty, and it was fortunate that Cindy had been in the place before. She knew exactly where the meat section was, and therefore where the meat locker must be located. Racing down the cereal-and-sugar aisle, she could hear the demons shrieking at her back. They sounded both mad and excited at the same time.
Cindy dashed into the rear of the store.
There was no clerk in sight. The meat locker was on her right. A steel door into a wasteland of red meat. Without looking over her shoulder, because she was scared
about what she would find, Cindy grabbed the thick handle and pulled it down and open. Inside, it was dark as a cave, as cold as a bottomless well. Holding her burning flare up, Cindy strode forward. Thick slabs of beef hung all around her, like the forgotten victims of some insane war. She hurried to the rear of the freezer, and it was only then she dared look behind her.
The three demons stood in the doorway of the freezer.
They grinned and stepped forward.
“Hi,” the one who resembled Adam said. “We told you to wait at home until we came for you.”
“We told you we don’t like to be disobeyed,” the Sally demon said.
“We told you how we would eat you alive,” the Watch demon said.
The three of them giggled and drew closer.
Behind them, through the open door, Cindy caught a glimpse of Bryce. She almost shouted to him that she made a mistake. That she didn’t want to be locked inside with these monsters. She almost cried out for mercy. But the shout died in her throat. Bryce stared at her with sad eyes, and then he slowly shook his head. His right hand was already on the thick metal door. He seemed to be closing it slowly, but maybe it was just Cindy’s imagination. When the door was finally shut, and the dark settled over her heart as well as her eyes, and the demons’ eyes began to glow a wicked red, Cindy prayed that this whole situation was only in her imagination. That she would wake from the nightmare soon.
But the demons just kept coming closer.
12
When the inside of the church was transformed into an inferno, Adam and his friends were forced to flee outside. They were all choking on the smoke and were immediately taken captive by the horde of demons. Bryce Poole’s demon, Sorehead, supervised their capture. He seemed pleased with himself for recapturing them and had them bound at the ankles and wrists with steel cuffs. He said they were now going to be taken before the Gatekeepers and judged. Adam thought that would be better than being eaten alive, but after listening to Sorehead for a few minutes he wondered.
“You’ll be brought before a judge,” Sorehead explained as he led them through the horrible night of the Dark Corner. Demons surrounded them and kept trying to grab them. Adam and the others soon got tired of fending them off. Sorehead continued, “There will be a prosecutor and you will be defended by a lawyer. There is also a jury.”
“Which of these is a Gatekeeper?” Adam asked.
“They’re all Gatekeepers,” Sorehead said. “They change jobs. It gives them a little variety. Next week your lawyer might be a judge.”
“You mean, our lawyer is a demon?” Adam asked.
“Sure,” Sorehead said.
“And the jury?” Sally asked.
“All demons,” Sorehead said. “You’re in the Dark Corner, after all. What do you expect?”
“But how can we be judged fairly if everyone’s a demon?” Adam asked.
Sorehead chuckled. “What is this concern with fairness? We’re demons. We’re not supposed to be fair.” He paused and rubbed his head. “Whose idea was it to give me that cold red lemonade?”
“It was your counterpart in our world, Bryce Poole,” Watch said.
“Where is he now?” Sorehead demanded.
“He escaped through the portal,” Adam said. “He used your palm to open it.”
Sorehead appeared momentarily angry, but then he laughed. “He escaped and left you behind! You’ve got to hand it to him, he’s got a lot of me in him.”
“We wouldn’t disagree with that,” Watch said, throwing Sally a look. But Sally looked too miserable to defend Bryce anymore.
After a mile of walking they went into one of the huge red fissures that had opened in the ground. After traveling through a cinder-filled underground tunnel, they eventually came to a huge cavern. The space was surrounded by a volcanic pool. The glowing lava provided the chamber with its red glow, and also made it uncomfortably hot. The sweat that dripped off Adam’s forehead was from fear as well as from the heat.
In the center of the chamber sat the judge, the prosecutor, and the twelve demon members of the jury. They were resting on seats carved of black volcanic stone. The judge’s seat was the highest of all, and the judge himself was a big fat demon with brilliant red hair and purple eyes. He was larger than most human adults. He sneered at them as they entered, and Adam received the distinct impression that he wasn’t on their side. On the table in front of him sat a large black book.
Close to these demons was a massive silver-colored balance scale. It was old-fashioned in design, basically just two metal plates with a weight in the center to balance the two plates. Beside the far plate stood a tall thin demon. He oversaw a huge bag of thick gold coins. Adam had no idea what the scale was for, but figured he would learn soon enough. Sorehead ushered them before the judge and jury. There he smacked them each on the head.
“Bow your heads to the judge and act respectful,” Sorehead said. “Remember, you’re in a court of law.”
Just before they did bow, they each glanced over at their lawyer. He was short and chubby and had a big cigar hanging out of the side of his mouth. His eyes were blood red and his hair was like straw that had been dipped in crude oil. He was a real sleaze.
“Can’t we hire our own lawyer?” Sally muttered as she lowered her head.
“You can’t afford one,” Sorehead replied. “You should be grateful one has been appointed for you by the court. This guy’s name is Foulstew, and he’s not bad.”
“We should at least be given a human lawyer,” Watch grumbled, his head also down.
Sorehead snorted. “He wouldn’t try too hard to defend you.”
“Why not?” Adam asked, his eyes focused on the floor in front of him.
“Because we would just eat him if he won,” Sorehead explained. “We would tell him that ahead of time.”
“Silence in my courtroom!” the judge boomed, clearing his throat. “The prisoners may approach the bench.”
Sorehead kicked each of them in the butt and they trudged forward. They were forced to raise their heads to see the judge reading from a large piece of burnt paper.
“This trial concerns the case of the fine demons of the Dark Corner versus the wicked and ill-mannered humans of Spooksville, namely, Adam Freeman, Sara Wilcox, and Watch.” The judge paused, raising a dirty eyebrow. “What happened to your last name, Watch?”
Watch shrugged. “I use it so seldom, I forget it.”
The judge turned to the thin demon next to the scale. “A token against the accused, Scalekeeper!” he snapped.
The Scalekeeper took a gold token out of his bag and placed it on one plate of the scale. Immediately that side lowered. Watch spoke to Sorehead.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
Sorehead was amused. “It means you’ve just thrown away a valuable point. If I were you, I’d watch my mouth.”
The judge pounded his gavel, which was a human skull. “Order in the court! The charges against the accused are as follows. Being human. Eating our hot dogs without paying. Escaping from the torture poles. Tricking one of our outstanding citizens with fake blood. And burning down our chapel.” The judge set the paper aside. “How do you plead?”
“We didn’t burn down the chapel,” Sally said. “You burned down the chapel.”
“But you disgusting humans forced us to burn it down,” the prosecutor said, stepping forward. He was perhaps the strangest-looking demon of all. He was extremely short and compact. The top of his head was flat, in fact. It looked as if a huge weight had landed on him, and crunched him into a compact parcel. His eyes were particularly wicked—more like a lizard’s than a cat’s. Worst of all, he wore a cheap wrinkled three-piece brown suit. The prosecutor continued, “My name is Bloodbutton and it is my job to see that each of you burns for your sins.”
Their own chubby attorney with the bad-smelling cigar stepped forward. “And my name is Foulstew and I’m here to have a good time!” He laughed. “And maybe to get you off, if you deserve i
t, which I doubt.”
“And I’m the judge here and all of you shut your mouths so we can get this trial going,” the judge said. “How do you three plead? Innocent or guilty?”
Adam turned to Foulstew. “How should we plead?” he asked.
Foulstew rubbed his oiled hair and took a puff on his cigar. “If you plead guilty, you will be taken from here immediately and tortured for the rest of your lives.”
“What if we plead innocent?” Sally asked.
“You will easily be proven guilty and tortured for the rest for your lives,” Foulstew said. “I mean, at the very least, you’re human, which is a serious crime in the Dark Corner. It alone carries a penalty of forty years of having your nails slowly pulled out of your hands while your toes are being tickled.”
Adam frowned. “Isn’t there a third way for us to plead?”
“Objection!” Bloodbutton shouted. “The defendant is trying to take unfair advantage of this court.”
The judge pounded his skull. “Overruled! You may answer your clients’ question, Foulstew, but please don’t tell everything.”
Foulstew bowed in the direction of the judge and then spoke to Adam and his friends. “It is possible for you to enter a plea of what we call Virtues versus Vices.”
“What does that mean?” Adam asked.
Foulstew nodded to the scale. “We seat you on one end of that scale, and if you outweigh your vices—when we are through reviewing your life—then you get to go free. For each vice we find in you, the Scalekeeper will add one of those heavy gold coins onto the other side of the scale. Obviously, if there are too many gold coins, you will be outweighed and you will lose.”
“But what about our virtues?” Adam asked. “For each one of those do you take a gold coin off the other side?”
Foulstew glanced at the judge. “I ask Your Honor’s permission to respond?”
The judge frowned. “Counsel may respond. But let this court warn counsel that the jury would like at least one of these humans for dinner tonight.”
Foulstew glanced uneasily at the jury before answering Adam’s question. “That is correct. For each virtue or noble deed you are able to demonstrate in this court, one gold coin is removed from the scale. In other words, if you are a good enough person, the charges against you will be dismissed and you will be allowed to go free.”