07 The Return_ Midnight - L. J. Smith

stared at him but with eerie, uncanny eyes that were half rolled back in his head. Instead of dropping
him, Matt slapped a Post-It Note on the boy’s forehead, swinging him at the same time to sit on the
back of the car.
A pause and then wailing. The kid must be fourteen at least, but about thirty seconds after
the Ban Against Evil (pocket-size) was smacked on him he was sobbing real kid sobs.
As one, the crawling kids let out a hiss. It was like a giant steam engine.
Hsssssssssssssssssssssss.
They began to breathe in and out very fast, as if working up to some new state. Their
creeping slowed to a crawl. But they were breathing so hard Matt could see their sides hollow and
fill.
As Matt turned to look at one group of them, they froze, except for the unnatural
breathing. But he could feel the ones behind him getting closer.
By now Matt’s heart was pounding in his ears. He could fight a group of them—but not
with a group on his back. Some of them looked only ten or eleven. Some looked almost his age. Some
were girls, for God’s sake. Matt remembered what possessed girls had done the last time he’d met
them and felt violent revulsion.
But he knew that looking up at the gobbling kid was going to make him sicker. He could
hear smacking, chewing sounds—and he could hear a thin little whistle of helpless pain and weak
struggling against the bag.
He whirled quickly again, to keep off the other side of crawlers, and then made himself
look up. With a quiet crackle, the garbage bag fell away when he grabbed it but the kid held on to
what was in—
Oh my God. He’s eating a baby! A baby! A—
He yanked the kid out of the tree and his hand automatically slapped a Post-It onto the
boy’s back. And then—then, thank God, he saw the fur. It wasn’t a baby. It was too small to be a baby,
even a newborn. But it was eaten.
The kid raised his bloody face to Matt’s, and Matt saw that it was Cole Reece, Cole who
was only thirteen and lived right next door. Matt hadn’t even recognized him before.
Cole’s mouth was wide open in horror now, and his eyes were bulging out of his head
with terror and sorrow, and tears and snot were streaming down his face.
“He made me eat Toby,” he started in a whisper that became a scream. “He made me eat
my guinea pig! He made me—why why why did he do that? I ATE TOBY!”
He threw up all over Matt’s shoes. Blood-red vomit.
Merciful death for the animal. Quick, Matt thought. But this was the hardest thing he’d
ever tried to do. How to do it—a hard stomp on the creature’s head? He couldn’t. He had to try
something else first.
Matt peeled off a Post-It Note and put it, trying not to look, on the fur. And just like that it
was over. The guinea pig went slack. The spell had undone whatever had been keeping it alive up to
this point.
There was blood and puke on Matt’s hands, but he made himself turn to Cole. Cole had
his eyes shut tight and little choking sounds came from him.
Something in Matt snapped.
“You want some of this?” he shouted, holding out the Post-it pad as if it were the
revolver he’d left with Mrs. Flowers. He whirled again, shouting, “You want some? How about you?
You, Josh?” He was recognizing faces now. “You, Madison? How ’bout you, Bryn? Bring it on! You