NORTH SPRING RIDGE

“We traveled into North Spring Ridge in spite of my warnings. Helen did not believe me; she did not believe that my six-year-old self had talked to Paige and that the dead girl had warned me not to travel into the northern part of the city.

I did not realize it at the time, but Helen was truly damaged over the loss of so many of the residents of Shame, especially the children. I think my description of Renee’s body and the body of one of the twins was what really broke her, but I was honest with my report of what had happened while I was in the lion’s den, an honesty that only children can have.

This was why, I believe, she ignored my warnings then, because she ignored anything potentially traumatic, but ironically, our journey through North Spring Ridge was the very definition of trauma.

We lost innocent lives to the evil that haunted that place, and we would have lost our own lives as well had not Helen saved my old drawing pad and the crayons that went with it. That was when I learned that I could do more than just foretell the future, and that was when I also learned that there were some things so bizarre and so horrifying in this world that they defied explanation.”

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They set up for the day in what would have been considered “the ghetto” of a city like Spring Ridge. Helen could only assume that minorities had inhabited this section of the city, and though that assumption was somewhat racist, it was also accurate in most of the cases she had seen.

Whatever the case, there were no people here anymore, minority or not, and not even the dead walked this area. No, not even the walking dead they had nicknamed “the charred ones” roamed here, a name they had come up with for the shambling corpses that had bits of burnt flesh falling off of them. Their absence was always a red flag for their community, or a red flag for anyone, for that matter, for that usually meant something far worse was in the area.

Still, little Maria’s insistence that…Paige…had warned her not to travel into the northern part of the city…? It was too much for her. Paige was dead, just like all the others, the little children included.

To envision little Renee’s broken body, her face twisted into a permanent scream, or one of the twins, tortured in such a horrifying manner…Helen could not imagine the kind of psychological damage that had done to the poor child. For Maria to see her family that way, people she had known for the last two years…Helen was just glad the poor girl had not seen the bodies of William or Niobe. No one knew what had actually happened to the taken, the ones they had lost to the vampires, but Maria had confirmed Helen’s worst fears over the matter. It was fairly clear they had all been murdered; they had all been tortured and eaten alive.

Maria, herself, was the visual definition of a precious angel in human form; she had a tanned little cherub face surrounded by rich black curls, her dark-blue eyes big and questing in the center of that little tanned circle. She wore a clean white dress with green-leaf print on it, one they had picked up from their previous travels through Spring Ridge, and she had on little black shoes with nary a scuff on them. All in all, she was a beautiful little thing, although, in Helen’s opinion, Maria’s mind was not so stable.

And that thought, of course, led to Jack. It was true that Jack had rescued Maria from the lion’s den, but Helen held the dark suspicion that the female soldier was something other than human, and she did not want Jack around anymore.

Jack never took off her battle armor, never took off her battle mask, and never took off the black shoulder mantle she wore, so Helen had never seen Jack eat or drink, nor did Jack ever seem to sleep, at least, not that Helen could remember.

Helen figured Jack could be some new type of soldier, something the government had put together before the war had escalated into nuclear annihilation, but she had seen Jack do things no soldier could possibly do…maybe. Anything was possible anymore, but it was still a far stretch for her to believe that Jack was something even close to resembling human. Jack did have that long black hair that sprouted from her scalp to fall about her shoulders, but…that was really the only thing that could even remotely identify her as human.

The armor Jack wore was not exactly standard soldier armor, and for that matter, it had changed twice now that Helen could remember, and how that had happened, Helen had no idea.

Jack’s armor consisted of a grey, form-fitting, leather coat that wrapped around her chest, but that coat was a hot red across the breasts, those twin biological mounds marked as if to designate her as, in fact, female. Her mask was a black metal chin strap with a black metal jaw setting on top of a cloth mask that ended right before the eyes, a wide black headband above the eyes, but the skin…Jack’s skin was pitch, jet, starless black, like coal that had been refined to midnight. She had some kind of antenna on the right side of her head, but what that did, only Jack knew.

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It was the eyes, however, that were the most unsettling. Jack’s eyes were an animal yellow, and her sclera were an off-red and pink, like a drunkard who’d definitely imbibed way too much.

There was probably serious protective armor under that getup, but if there was, Helen could not tell.

The pieces of that outfit were all in those strange colors, not the normal camo Helen had seen back before the Great Purge, so she wondered if Jack were like a type of mimic, something that only looked human on the outside, but that thought disturbed her a lot.

Maria’s painfully detailed description of what Jack had done to the vampiress who had abducted Renee…That stuck with Helen. The sheer horror of it…That description stuck with her, the grotesque punishment of doing that to a woman…That stuck with her.

This wasn’t a case of her believing Maria, no…It was quite the opposite. Maria had also claimed that Jack’s battle armor had been damaged and her visor cracked, but the tall soldier in black displayed no such battle damage. Maria’s stories were another symptom of her mental instability due to this monster who only looked like a woman. The little girl created these tall tales to relieve her own fears of this world and its horrors. No, Helen most definitely did not want Jack around anymore simply for Maria’s sake, but she was too afraid of Jack to tell the dark soldier to leave.

Nevertheless, now that there were so few of them left, Helen figured this Jack could at least do them the service of protecting them while they traveled.

Helen had seen the distant explosion of light that had eliminated all of the vampires in downtown Spring Ridge, and she had figured that to be something of Jack’s doing, but little Maria had insisted that it was Paige who had done that; It was Paige who had wiped out the vampires and saved them all. It was a beautiful lie, so she allowed the little girl to believe in it and did not argue with her on the subject.

Still, Maria had been insistent not to travel into the ghetto of Spring Ridge. The little girl adamantly believed that Paige had warned her not to travel here, that there was something truly terrible that defied description here, but Helen knew Maria was mentally damaged now, so she decided not to scold her about that ridiculous belief.

Helen thought about who was actually left within their little group. There was herself, Maria, and old Mr. Lands, her go to boys, Marcos and Blane, and lastly, all of the teens, Debra, Tallia, Emery, Daeshawna, Kiaya, and Laura. That was a total of eleven left out of there once bustling community…

She did not include Jack in that number. She would never include Jack in that number.

In truth, she did not know what had happened to the ones they’d lost, all except for little Renee and one of the twins, but perhaps it was better that way. She did not want to think about it.

Her dark-brown and slightly greying hair had already turned white in places, and it had been that way ever since she had witnessed Jack take apart that ghoul who had killed Giang and Hien. No, she did not want to know what Jack was any more than she wanted Maria clinging to the cold woman like she was some kind of twisted, demented mother figure. She wanted Jack gone, for other than the fact that the female soldier could slaughter them all if she chose to, there was something fundamentally wrong about her, something Helen could not put her finger on and did not want to.

Of course, out of the ones who were left, there were only four men. She thought herself a modern woman, enlightened, but a part of her worried now that they would not be able to fend for themselves anymore with so few men left. It was a ridiculous idea, ludicrous really, but some of that old-fashioned sexism may have seeped into her younger self, and it was just now that this sexism was rearing its ugly head.

She liked to wear dresses, for instance, and some saw that as a regression of the modern woman, though she did not. Helen used to be somewhat dumpy in the past, but with her summer tan and the fact that she had slimmed down due to the state of the world they now lived in, she felt good about her body image. No, she did not need the stress of feeling down about her looks considering she spent most of her time now just trying to survive.

Today she had on a white print dress with yellow roses on it, something new she had picked up at the abandoned Dalbers clothing store in South Spring Ridge. She now had six changes of clothes, and she considered this collection a real treasure.

Along with her undamaged glasses, which currently rested upon her nose, and her grandfather’s pocket watch, which resided in her shanty, these possessions had real and immediate value to her. They were functional and could be used for a real purpose, unlike money, which had no value anymore.

No, anything with real value was either in the category of tools to be used or in the realm of food and drink to be consumed, and considering that actual people were in short supply anymore, the concept of “looting” didn’t actually exist. Anything of use that had been abandoned was theirs to take, and they would take it when necessary.

Whatever the case (and she had said this to herself before), there was nothing within this ghetto area where they had set up, and that bothered her somewhat. The teens did the lion’s share of setting up, and it was good that they had pitched in with all gusto (almost all of them girls), but there was something about an empty residential area that Helen did not like. She did not like it at all.

There was also the matter of Blane. The young man was a poster-child for a “frat boy”; he had beautiful blonde curls surrounding his handsome face, but he had lost his “roommate” Joshua, and it was only until after Joshua had disappeared did Helen learn that the two were more than just “roommates.” Now the young man was grieving in a terribly dramatic way, a depressive funk which threatened to bring down everyone else. He would not speak to anyone, nor would he eat, and the girls had to help him set up his shanty, because he had not even had the gumption to do that simple task.

Helen sighed and shook her head. She had never intended to be any kind of a leader at any point in her life, but now that she was, she had a seemingly never-ending supply of problems, and those problems mainly involved keeping everyone alive. She’d have to deal with Blane sooner or later, but for now, she thought it wiser to just let him grieve.

Right now, there was another, more pressing problem to attend to…and that was Jack. The tall and slender woman in black was over by herself staring at a brick wall, and this made Helen nervous, because she never knew what Jack was going to do. For all she knew, Jack could up and slaughter them all if the mood struck her. Still, Helen wanted to know what Jack was up to, because dark soldier was supposed to be watching out for threats.

Helen walked up beside Jack, but the female soldier quelled Helen’s burgeoning fears before they could begin.

“I don’t like it,” said Jack in her guttural voice.

Her tone was always the same, a menacing monotone, and Helen thought about this and realized she had made a funny comparison in her head. Jack’s tone’s description was like a brand-name color such as Perfection Pink or Summer-Glade Green. It was funny to think about the woman this way, how Jack was a product to be sold, the new and improved Jack with Menacing Monotone, but Helen shook that idea out of her psyche rather quickly. Jack had expressed something that gave Helen genuine concern, for if Jack said she didn’t like something, then the situation wasn’t good.

“What is it, Jack?” she asked.

“There’s no graffiti on the walls,” replied the tall woman in black.

Helen looked about and felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. They were in the ghetto of Spring Ridge, a sump area of old and dilapidated red-brick and concrete buildings, and though they had camped in a narrow street between several of these buildings, those buildings should have been tagged with years’-and-years’ worth of graffiti and gang signs. Looking around showed that the walls were clean, no marks to show, and that got her blood up.

“What does it mean?” Helen breathed out in nervous reply.

“It means we will be on guard,” said Jack.

Of that, Helen had no argument with. That was a state of being they were always in, that state of ever-present alertness, and that had not altered just because of the events in Central Spring Ridge.

“We were always on guard in the past,” said Helen.

She was not really talking to Jack, but rather to herself. She had been doing this more often lately, reminiscing about how life was before Shame had dwindled down to nothing, when they had a fairly large population and a bustling community of survivors. It was strange she felt nostalgia for the early days of Shame…

Helen no longer looked back upon how life was before the bombs had dropped. There was no point in doing that.

“We had our men and women watch the community at night,” she explained. “We rarely had any trouble. People left over time, though. Oh, we had our fair share of ne’er do wells, but for the most part, people left on their own volition, looking for greener pastures…or green pastures, period.

“I don’t know why I didn’t leave; I just didn’t. I was too busy making it through each day to notice that our community was shrinking…and shrinking…and shrinking…and then one day there was hardly anyone left.

“And that was the way it was for a while. It wasn’t until the wolves came up from south of the border that we decided upon leaving…So we left…and now there’s…almost no one left for it to matter anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” said Jack. “This world is done.”

There were times when Helen wanted to believe this. She wanted to believe that there was no point in going on, but the day would call her, and there were always things to be done. No, she did not have the luxury to believe in the worst.

“I don’t believe that,” she sighed. “As long as there is one young person out there trying to live a full life…I will never believe that.”

“Then you’re a fool,” replied Jack.

“I would rather be a fool and be optimistic then be whatever you are, Jack,” frowned Helen.

“So be it,” said the tall soldier in black.

“Just look out for threats, Jack,” said Helen.

“I will guard Maria,” said Jack.

“I know,” sighed Helen. “Just remember that anything that threatens Maria also threatens us. Her life is precious, I know, but so is everyone else’s’.”

“No, they aren’t,” grunted Jack.

Helen threw her hands down in disgust as she walked away shaking her head. There was no reasoning with the woman, and she figured there never would be. She hated the idea of the tall soldier in black leaving with little Maria, but she also figured that Jack would do so whether Helen wanted her to or not, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop her.

*****

It was morning of the next day when Helen awoke to screaming. She ran out of her small sailcloth hovel to assess whatever threat was occurring, but the damage had already been done, and the teens had discovered that damaged.

It was Daeshawna who put up the most fuss, wailing and crying to beat the band. The nineteen-year-old black girl was nearly inconsolable about something, though the other teens were attempting to do just that. Their little crowd parted as Helen came upon them.

“What is going on…?” she asked, but her voice died as she looked down at the source of their distress.

It was Blane. The young man lay on his back upon the sidewalk outside his little hovel. His throat had been slit, and blood had spilled in a pool beneath his stiff body, but upon his face was a look of strange serenity, as if he had welcomed such a death.

Helen’s lips turned downward in a wilting, melting foray of temporary grief. She was almost too used to the deaths now, and she knew that, so she allowed herself to feel something for the young man’s passing. She was not an inhuman unfeeling thing like Jack.

“Did anybody see what happened?” she asked.

It was a reasonable question. She had her suspicions about what had happened, that Blane had simply decided to join his partner, Joshua, in a better place, but she did not want to say this out loud. For one thing, Daeshawna had held a flame for the boy, a flame that had grown brightly since the passing of Joshua, and she had actively tried to console him. Helen seriously doubted Blane had even been the slightest-bit interested in Daeshawna, but human beings liked whom they liked, and reason and logic flew out the window in such situations.

“I came out here before the sun was up,” said Emery. “I found him a few minutes before dawn.”

Helen studied the boy’s face to see if there was any deceit.

Emery was awkward and gawky, a skinny boy with a shock of red hair, also nineteen, and his clothes were not in the best condition; he wore a pair of ratty black jeans topped by a grey T-shirt that had seen better days.

For some reason, Helen immediately suspected the worst, that Emery had done something to hurry on Blane’s passing due to jealousy. The teens who were left were all girls, and Blane had been a handsome young thing, someone that Helen could fantasize about if need be, but that was neither here nor there. The point was that Emery was not first on anyone’s list of romantic partners, so she automatically suspected he had done something untoward to Blane. It was a stupid suspicion, something really judgmental and based upon old stereotypes at that, but it broke the surface of her thoughts anyway.

“Why were you out here in the dark?” she asked. “If you saw him lying there, why didn’t you get anyone?”

“I…I did,” stammered Emery. “I went and got Marcos.”

“And where is Marcos now?” demanded Helen.

“He went to find Jack,” said Emery.

Helen took a moment and forced herself to study the scene of the incident. Blane lay on his back with his arms at his sides, and the look on his face was one of…peace…so to speak, so Helen could only assume that the young man had done this to himself, or he had gotten someone else to do it. That latter thought disturbed her a lot.

There was no murder weapon, and the only other clue as to what had happened was the obnoxious chalk drawing upon the redbrick wall next to Blane’s body, a drawing that had clearly not been there the previous day.

Upon the wall was a simple and crude white-chalk drawing of a fat figure with stick arms and stick legs. It had a round face and round eyes with small period-like points in them for pupils, and its smile was a wide slash filled with sharp teeth. It wore a crudely drawn baker’s hat, and in its right stick hand was a large butcher knife. The words “Have you seen the Muffin Man?” were written in large white-chalk letters next to it.

Helen stepped around Blane’s body and looked over the drawing, but it did not evoke any meaning from her. There was a splatter of blood on the wall that had been imperceptible at range due to the color of the red bricks, and it led up to the crudely drawn butcher knife, but that was not unusual. Helen wondered if whoever had drawn the picture had done it that way on purpose. Regardless of that, however, someone had drawn the picture, and that was not good.

Helen did not like the scenario she was building within her own mind. She heavily suspected now that someone had helped Blane commit suicide, and her first thought of a suspect was Emery.

Of course, the thought of Jack had crossed her mind, but the thought of Jack always crossed her mind, and in this case, it made no sense. Jack did not strike her as a stealthy murderer. Jack struck her as a very visible murderer who enjoyed tearing off…parts…of people.

She had seen that firsthand with the ghoul of South Spring Ridge, and if what little Maria had said was true—which Helen highly doubted—the same thing had happened to that vampiress, Monica, but the thought of that, for that to happen to a woman, was something so terrible that Helen could not even fathom it.

No, Blane’s death was not Jack’s M.O.

Still, this was all very suspicious. There was no murder weapon, for one. The means of death had to be some sort of sharp object, and that was nowhere to be found.

The second bit of oddness was the chalk drawing, but Helen had no idea what significance it held. It could refer to something that Blane and Joshua had shared in private, but there was no way of knowing that. Neither one of them had left a diary or anything.

The third piece of evidence was that Emery had found Blane…and Helen’s biases worked against her on this one. Humans always singled out those who did not quite fit in, and she knew this, so she tried hard to ignore that bias, but it was difficult.

“Where is Jack?” she asked the group of gathered teens.

“Nobody knows,” said Tallia.

Tallia was a young lady, seventeen, who was somewhat portly, with a round face, short straw-blonde hair, and speckled, hazel eyes. She was a natural blonde who was somewhat nearsighted, though she did not have glasses to correct her vision. The one thing about her was that she kept her clothes well-tended and free of grime or holes, something that was somewhat of a feat anymore.

The girl wore good blue jeans in her size (she had rather large hips), and she currently had on a pink shirt that read “Blessed” in bold black letters across her rather large breasts, though Helen thought this was kind of a trashy thing for the young lady to wear in general. It was true that Debra had her beaten in the “Hello, I’m a slut” department, but Helen had not said anything to Debra about her choice in clothing, so she had not yet said anything to Tallia, either.

“I want everyone to stay together,” frowned Helen. “I’ve got to find Marcos and Jack.”

She took a moment to study the remaining teens.

Daeshawna was in tears over Blane’s death, devastated over the loss of her crush, so Helen ruled her out as a suspect. The young black teen had a medium-brown skin tone, a pretty face with a broad nose and full lips, and corn rows in her thick black hair. She wore a red tank top matched with bellbottom blues, something that was a throwback to a time when Helen was very young.

Then there was Kiaya, Daeshawna’s younger sister. Kiaya was fifteen and looked a lot like Daeshawna, though she had longer hair that fell straight and full to her shoulders. Kiaya wore a pair of stonewashed bells to go with a dark green sports shirt that had a big white #5 on it, though her clothes had seen better days, as they were faded with some tears in them.

Then there was Debra, eighteen, who looked like she might have passed for a model or a cheerleader back in the day, with tanned skin, an athletic body, and a beautiful face set within a frame of long flowing black hair and rich brown eyes…

Helen couldn’t help but feel a little jealous upon looking at the young woman. This girl wore regular dark blue jeans with a white tank top that she kept very clean, though she had no bra, and Helen could clearly see her large, dark nipples underneath that shirt. The older woman was certain this was by design, though she had never said anything about it.

And lastly, there was Laura, and though Laura was only twelve, Helen did not rule her out as a suspect. Laura was one of the young ladies who had been…mistreated…by Paige, or so the rumors had said. She was a skinny thing with raggedy brown hair, blue eyes, and the beginnings of breast buds underneath her equally ragged dark-blue T-shirt and jeans. Helen had gotten a number of complaints about the young lady’s hygiene from the other girls, but she had yet to say anything about that, either.

It saddened Helen to think that this was all who was left of the community that had once marked The Shame. In spite of the name, she had grown fond of their little shanty town, and now…now it felt like nowhere would ever be home again.

Perhaps this was why she had not said anything to the girls about their habits; she had not acted as a leader should, but that had to change, because the lives of these young people were in her hands now.

Other than Mr. Lands, an elderly black man who was seventy-nine, Helen was the oldest at forty-six, and only Marcos in his late twenties was left as a reasonable adult. Mr. Lands did not wish to lead, and Marcos had never put forth any desire to do so, either, so it was time for Helen to get herself together and act like a leader again.

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She walked back to her hovel and lifted the curtain in order to check on Maria. She was going to have to wake up the little girl and inform her that she was going to go look for Jack, because Maria’s dark and twisted “guardian” was nowhere to be found at the moment.

Maria exited the shanty before Helen had completely lifted the entrance curtain. The little girl walked out into the morning light and stared up at her with those big dark-blue eyes.

“Honey, Jack has disappeared for the moment,” said Helen. “I need to go look for her.”

“She hasn’t gone anywhere,” replied little Maria in confusion. “She’s right there.”

Helen turned to see the tall and slender woman in black walking up from the south, the direction they had all come from. Jack walked down the street in a slow and deliberate manner, though Helen could not fathom why Jack had gone anywhere in the first place.

She waited until Jack was upon them before saying anything.

“Where have you been?” she asked in frustration. “We’ve had a death.”

“I was scouting ahead,” said Jack in her guttural, sand-locked voice.

“That way is the way we came from,” said Helen in disbelief.

“I know,” said Jack, and she offered no explanation as to that reply.

“I know?” she asked. “While you were out there, Blane died.”

“I went north,” said Jack matter-of-factly.

“No, you went south,” replied Helen. “Marcos went looking for you. I assume he went north…”

“It does not matter which direction he went,” grunted Jack.

“What do you mean?” asked Helen.

“I went north,” said Jack, “and I came up from the south.”

“I don’t understand,” frowned Helen.

And she didn’t. Jack was making even less sense than usual.

“The streets changed,” said Jack. “I went north and came up from the south.”

She was going to argue with Jack some more, but little Maria pulled upon her dress, so Helen was forced to look down at her simply to see what the matter was.

“She means he went north, and then the streets changed,” explained Maria. “Then she came up from the south. She means the streets made her walk in a circle…back here.”

“The streets changed?” asked Helen in disbelief.

“Yes,” said Jack. “This place is a trap.”

Helen did not believe it. She had seen many unusual and disturbing things, but changing streets was not one of them. She snorted out her reply a second later.

“Nonsense,” she frowned. “Marcos went to look for you because…because Blane died.”

“Blane is dead?” asked Maria in surprise.

Helen had already stated this once, and she was pretty sure Maria had heard her the first time, but apparently, she had been wrong.

“Yes, sweetheart,” she said in a sad tone. “You wait here for a moment. I have to show Jack what happened.”

Maria looked down at her little black shoes, but she did not say anything, and her expression was blank, nothing to show. Helen had been concerned about this lack of emotion in the past, but in truth, this was how the little girl protected herself from the horrors this terrible new world presented. This little girl showed a stone face to the world, though in Helen’s heart, Helen believed Maria to be grieving in her own way.

There was nothing more to say over the matter. She led Jack to the body, though with the soldier’s black battle mask and alien eyes, it was impossible to read any intention or thoughts from her.

The group of teens parted at the presence of Jack. Normally they would not go anywhere near the woman, but now they circled around just to see what was going to happen…at least, that was as far as Helen could tell.

“This is where he died,” said Helen matter-of-factly.

She looked back toward the faces of the teens and waved them off.

“Everyone go gather around my tent!” she demanded. “Go watch Maria, and keep an eye out for Marcos! He should be back any minute.”

The teens reluctantly pulled away the weeping Daeshawna. Helen felt sorry for her, but right now she had to get to the bottom of this death, and she needed to relay her suspicions to Jack.

The teens left to congregate around her shanty as she had ordered, and she waited for them to be out of earshot before she spoke to Jack.

“I think he committed suicide,” she said quietly, “and I think one of the teens…or maybe Marcos—I don’t know—I think one of them did the deed.”

Jack looked up at the drawing on the wall, looked north, and then looked south.

“Maybe,” she grunted. “Maybe not.”

“What else could it be?” asked Helen.

“I don’t know,” said Jack. “Something is wrong with this place. The walls change; the streets shift…I don’t know.”

“I don’t know about any of that,” frowned Helen. “All I know is that Blane was killed, and I think one of the teens did it.”

“Maybe,” said Jack. “Maybe not.”

“My most logical guess is that it was…” started Helen, but her sentence was cut short by a high-pitched and shrill scream, the scream of a six-year-old girl.

Jack marched toward the sound without hesitation or interruption, and Helen followed. The circle of teens parted for Jack as the soldier walked up to them. Their parting revealed little Maria sitting on her bottom holding her right cheek, tears spilling down her little face. Daeshawna stood above her, the black teen’s dark eyes filled with tearful rage, her right hand clutching a torn piece of paper, a page torn from Maria’s drawing book.

“This little witch drew me, and—!” began Daeshawna, but like Helen, she did not get to finish her sentence.

Jack punched her just below her stomach, a little above and to the left of Daeshawna’s crotch. The dark soldier’s black, armored, right hand smashed into that area so hard that the young black woman was lifted above the ground and off her feet, only to land on her heels and then fall straight to the pavement of the street below.

Daeshawna screamed in agony as she bent over at her waist, clutching herself and wailing at the same time.

“Jack!” cried Helen.

“Do not touch her again,” warned the tall woman in black.

She’d said it to Daeshawna without emotion, without anger or stress, and she’d said it in that guttural voice of her, as if she had swallowed a chunk of ground cement.

“Like males, females also have gonads,” warned Jack. “They’re just higher up and on the inside. You know this now. If you touch her again, I will tear yours out and squeeze them into paste while they’re still attached to you. You will die screaming.”

The words that had come out of the woman’s mouth horrified Helen, but it also angered her, because it was not Jack’s right to threaten any of them, especially a teenager, and this time her fear of him could not prevent her from saying something about it. She was the leader of what was left of The Shame, and she figured it was time she acted like it.

“Enough! Back away, Jack!” warned Helen. “I will handle this!”

She reached down, picked up the crying Maria, and held her in her arms.

“Someone, help up Daeshawna,” she ordered. “Tallia and Debra. Help her up and into my tent. All of us are going to have a talk about this.”

Daeshawna replied with more wailing and screaming, though her right hand released the wadded-up paper she held onto.

Helen turned and handed Maria over to Jack. She knew that Jack would not attack Daeshawna again if the little girl was in the soldier’s own possession.

The tall and slender woman in black willingly took Maria, though the little girl was quickly drying her own tears.

Helen bent down and picked up the page Daeshawna had dropped as the other two teens helped the crying teen to her feet and into Helen’s shanty. Helen smoothed out the crumpled page in order to study it, and one glance at it told her exactly why Daeshawna had been upset.

The coloring portrayed the ugly chalk drawing that had been on the wall behind Blane’s body, only this time the body on the ground was Daeshawna. The black teen lay bent in a curve while clutching her stomach, and the little red crayon rivulets upon the grey scribbles were obviously her entrails all over the street.

On one level, Helen was horrified at the drawing, but on another, she was sympathetic, sympathetic toward both girls. Daeshawna had a right to be angry over the drawing, but Helen was also sympathetic toward Maria, because the little girl was severely mentally damaged, and this “Jack” was not helping in that department.

Helen turned toward Jack, but Jack warned her further, and this angered her.

“You will warn them not to touch her,” said Jack matter-of-factly.

“I know my role, Jack!” she snapped back. “Do you know yours?”

“Yes,” said Jack. “It is to protect Maria. It is to guide her north.”

She set the small child down and walked away toward Blane’s body.

*****

Helen shared a can of peaches with Maria. The sun was going down outside, but that didn’t matter at the moment. The facts were that Marcos had not yet returned, so they had not pulled up camp and continued onward.

Jack had disposed of Blane’s body. The female soldier had taken the poor boy somewhere, but in truth, Helen did not want to know where Jack had taken him. She had just wanted Blane gone so that his body did not rot in the street.

Helen had said a few words in eulogy for Blane, a short funeral, but that was more for Daeshawna than anyone else. They had lost so many in such a short period of time that just one of them, even Blane, was a luxury in feeling to grieve over.

She had spoken to Daeshawna in private and had explained to her that Maria was mentally damaged. It was not the little girl’s fault she was this way, so Helen had warned the teen not to provoke Jack again. She had told her in all honesty how dangerous Jack really was, explaining what had happened to the ghoul—and Maria’s account of the vampiress, though Helen did not want to believe that tall tale—and that Jack would make good on that threat of…something so terrible, so horrible, Helen did not want to think any more on it.

However, Helen also explained to the grieving teen that she valued her and everyone else over that monster who looked like a woman, and she would find a way to force Jack to part ways with their group as soon as they were out of the city. She had held Daeshawna in her arms as the teen had wept and apologized, but Helen already knew Daeshawna was sorry. She had no doubts about that.

With that now behind them, Helen was enjoying a rare moment of quiet stability with Maria. The little girl loved canned peaches, and since such cans had a maximum of a two-year shelf life before they started to go bad, they had to be eaten first before anything else. It had been a little over two years since the Great Purge, so now was the time to enjoy these cans of sweet treats before it was too late. There was going to come a day when they all had to learn how to grow their own food, but that day was somewhere in the distant future, and it was not something to worry about right now. No, right now the little six-year-old was being precocious in her own way.

“Helen?” asked Maria.

“Yes, sweetie?” asked Helen.

“Why don’t we camp inside the buildings?” asked Maria.

“Camping inside the buildings is too dangerous, sweetheart,” replied Helen. “It’s too easy to divide us in the buildings, and if there’s a fire, we can all be killed very easily.”

“But people lived in the buildings before,” replied Maria.

“I know,” replied Helen. “And we’ll all live in them again someday, too. We’ll live somewhere with lots of other people who can protect us, and we’ll have fields of grain and corn and even whole orchards with apple trees and…and peach trees. We’ll live somewhere where there’s plenty of water and definitely, one-hundred-percent positively, no monsters.”

“That sounds nice,” smiled Maria. “I like that.”

“Good,” smiled Helen in return.

Their little conversation was interrupted as the flap to her hovel opened, and though this usually meant something bad or alarming was up, this time it revealed the sweaty and exhausted face of Marcos.

“Marcos!” said Helen in happy surprise.

She groaned as she stood and exited her little sail-cloth hut. She walked out into the cool breeze of the budding evening and waited patiently for Marcos to tell his story, to explain his daylong disappearance.

The young Latino was in his late twenties, with a short and stocky build accented by his brown skin, and today he wore a white T-shirt, a blue tank-top jean jacket, and a good pair of work jeans with brown work boots, an ensemble he had picked up from the abandoned Dalbers clothing store in South Spring Ridge.

Marcos was the only surviving member of the Garcia family, though his family had died off in the early days just after the Great Purge. Marcos was a good worker, and Helen relied on him a lot for things like setting up, scouting, scavenging, or carrying extra gear. She was somewhat jealous of him in this fact; his abilities and skills were even more useful now that the world had ended.

“So?” she asked. “What happened? You went to look for Jack, but she came back early in the morning, not too long after you left to look for her.”

Marcos nodded and took a long drink from his canteen. He screwed the metal cap back onto the little container and reattached it to his belt.

“I couldn’t find her after about fifteen minutes,” he explained, “so I decided to come back and get you. I tried to get back, but I took a wrong turn or something, and I got lost…At least, that’s what I thought. I swear I didn’t go that far, but I kept getting turned around and around, and it took me all day to get back here.

“I started cutting through buildings and going up to look out the top windows and out from on the rooftops, and I’d swear the buildings were changing places. It’s like they were never in the same place twice.”

“What?” asked Helen in supreme confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying that the buildings were changing places,” said Marcos, and his expression was deadly serious. “At least, that’s what it looked like to me.”

“No, that can’t be right,” argued Helen. “That can’t be right. No, you just got turned around, that’s all. We’ll pull up tomorrow and move on. Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”

“O…kay…” said Marcos, but he sounded uncertain. “What about Jack? I saw her out there when I came back…What did she think about Blane?”

Helen wanted to tell him her suspicions, but the cold hard truth was that Marcos was also a suspect, and Jack was not. She knew Jack had not killed Blane…Jack was far too direct and visible for any kind of subterfuge. Still, Marcos and Blane were her go to boys; they had worked together quite often, so it was not unreasonable for her to believe that Marcos could have agreed to “end” Blane’s suffering.

“Jack doesn’t have any theories on it,” frowned Helen. “None of us know, really.”

“What do you think?” asked Marcos.

“I…I don’t know,” lied Helen.

“Really?” asked Marcos.

She could tell by his expression that he did not believe her.

“I think someone killed him,” said Marcos.

“Maybe,” frowned Helen. “Like I said, I don’t know.”

The sun dropped below the building line, and a shadow fell upon everything. Nighttime always made Helen nervous, especially now that they were no longer building fires. They would build one if they heard the howl of a wolf; the wolves always signaled their presence long before they arrived, but there was no reason to do that for the time being. They did not have enough people to keep a large fire going all night, anyway.

“I don’t think we can sleep in separate tents anymore,” said Helen quickly. “Not with things the way they are. I’m going to tell Emery to bunk with you. Daeshawna and Kiaya already bunk together, but everyone else is on their own. I’m going to order Debra and Tallia to bunk together. I’ll take Laura in…She needs a mother figure, anyway. Mr. Lands…”

“Won’t bunk with anyone,” finished Marcos.

“I know,” frowned Helen. “There’s nothing I can do about that. All I know is that Blane is dead, and there are only ten of us left. We need to be careful again.”

“What about Jack?” asked Marcos. “Doesn’t she count?”

Helen did not even answer that question. She gave the young man a deep frown and shook her head before walking off to do her duty as leader.

Helen informed Debra first. She lifted the flap to the girl’s shanty, and the young woman already had an electric lamp lit. Debra was sitting upon her bedroll, patiently brushing her long black hair with an old plastic pink brush, and Helen was impressed that the young woman was still diligent about her looks. The eighteen-year-old looked up at Helen in surprise at first, but then she patiently waited for what the older woman was going to say.

“New rules,” said Helen. “Due to recent events, everyone except for Mr. Lands is to have a bunkmate. Emery will be with Marcos, you’ll be with Tallia, and Laura will be with me.”

“But I’m not used to having any—” protested Debra, but Helen cut her off with a shake of her head.

“No arguments,” frowned Helen. “It’s just too dangerous for you to be alone. Do you want to be caught all alone by something nasty?”

“But Tallia’s gross,” scowled Debra.

“Hey! That’s uncalled for,” scolded Helen. “Tallia’s your friend.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want to sleep next to her,” argued Debra. “She’s a total horndog…Ugh. I don’t want her jerking off in the middle of the night next to me. You don’t understand. I’ve bunked with her before. In the morning, everything smelled like rotten twat…Ugh…And she tried to kiss me once, too. It was gross.”

“Young lady, that’s enough,” sighed Helen as she shook her head. “Besides, you’re one to talk with your nipples showing like that.”

Debra looked down at her own shirt and gave Helen a deep frown.

“I don’t like wearing bras,” she said unhappily. “Besides, they’re just nipples. Guys get to show their nipples. The world’s ended…Why do I still have to cover up?”

Helen sighed and shook her head.

“I guess it really doesn’t matter anymore,” she replied in frustration. “Just don’t walk around topless. I have some standards.”

“I don’t see why that’s a problem, either,” frowned Debra. “They’re just breasts.”

“Really?” asked Helen. “Do you really want Emery to see you topless? Can you imagine the grin on that boy’s face?…Because I can.”

“I…I see your point,” frowned Debra.

The older teen shook her head as if to get herself back on track.

“That doesn’t really matter,” she said after a second of concentrated thought on her face. “This isn’t about that…This is about Tallia…I don’t want to bunk with her.”

Helen was tired of this already.

“Just make room. That’s not a request,” frowned the older woman, and she closed the flap in order to cease any and all arguments.

She went to Tallia’s shanty next, but the girl was not in it. This gave Helen a little start, but she forced herself not to panic. Tallia was probably out answering the call of nature, and Helen was confident she’d return soon enough.

She went to Laura’s little hut next and raised the flap, but she was repulsed by the strong smell of body odor.

Laura peered out at her from within, a dark shape within an equally dark hut. There was no lamp or light within the tiny little shelter, and this only further convinced Helen that Laura needed some kind of psychological counseling. The older woman was not a therapist, but there were no therapists anymore, so she would do her best as it was.

“Laura, dear,” said Helen quickly, “you need to come with me.”

“Why?” asked the young teen.

“It’s too dangerous for you to be by yourself anymore,” said Helen. “You’re going to stay with me and Maria.”

“Oh…Okay,” said the girl, though she sounded confused.

“I’ve got some wipes, some water, and some soap,” said Helen. “I want you to go to my tent and undress so we can clean you.”

“What?” asked the young teen. “I…I don’t want to take my clothes off. I don’t…I don’t want to. I don’t like being naked.”

“I know you don’t,” sighed Helen. “I know. It’s just better this way. Honey…you smell bad, and the others are complaining.”

“But…” began the twelve-year-old.

“No buts,” ordered Helen. “Do you want to get eaten by a wolf or a pack of wild dogs? It’s easier for them to find you if you smell bad. Now go on to my tent. Maria’s there by herself right now, and I don’t want to leave her there by herself.”

“I don’t want to!” protested the young teen.

“I just told you it’s too dangerous for you to be—” began Helen.

“No, I don’t want to take off my clothes!” cried Laura.

“Why?” asked Helen, though she already suspected why.

“I just…I don’t…I don’t want to…” pouted the twelve-year-old.

“We’re just going to give you a sponge bath,” said Helen. “That’s all.”

“I don’t…I don’t want you to see me naked…” said Laura.

“Honey, I’m not going to do anything bad to you,” sighed Helen. “You have got to get clean. Everyone else does this every day…I’ll tell you what…I’ll wash down Maria first so you can see how it’s done, okay? Nothing’s going to happen to you, I promise.”

“I don’t…I…I guess…Okay,” said Laura, but she did not sound happy.

Helen waited for the twelve-year-old to gather some things before the girl exited her own tiny hovel. The young teen quickly made her way over to Helen’s shanty and entered it. Helen had her own electric lamp on in the shanty, so it was not difficult for the young girl to find her way.

The older woman made her way to Emery’s hut next, but she stopped in surprise as Tallia exited the boy’s little shanty. The seventeen-year-old zipped up her pants and then straightened her shirt, only to turn around into Helen’s personal space. She gave a little cry of surprise before backing up a bit.

“New rules,” frowned Helen. “Everyone except for Mr. Lands is to bunk with someone else. You’re with Debra.”

“Oh…” said Tallia, though the look on her face was priceless.

Helen could make out that look, even in the dark. The girl looked like she had just been caught shoplifting, because she knew that Helen knew what she and Emery had just been doing.

“And one more thing…” frowned Helen, but the girl already knew what she was going to say.

“Oh, come on!” whined the teen. “I have a life, too!…Besides, I’m careful, okay? I know when my fertile time is.”

Helen waved her hands and shook her head no.

“That’s not fair!” protested Tallia. “I have a sex life, too!”

“But Emery?” asked the older woman in disbelief. “Seriously?”

“He was actually pretty good for a virgin,” shrugged Tallia. “Plus, he’s the only guy left now that Marcos is gone…”

“Marcos came back,” frowned Helen.

“Really?” asked Tallia with a slight smile. “Marcos is back? Hmmm…”

“Get over to Debra’s!” hissed Helen.

She swatted the girl on the ass, much to the teen’s dismay. It must have hurt, because the young woman let out a shriek as Helen shooed her off.

“You old witch!” screeched the blonde teen. “You can eat my—!”

Helen shook her head in disgust as she marched up to the younger woman, but Tallia did not back away. even though Helen could clearly see the fear in the girl’s speckled, hazel eyes.

“You may have hormones, young lady,” scolded Helen, “and you may act on those desires, but I am trying to see to the safety of everyone left in our little community, and that includes you. I’m worried for everyone, and I can’t…I can’t see any more of you hurt or…or worse. I opened up your tent, and you were gone, and I thought…I thought for a second that I was going to find you dead like Blane…I…I can’t take that.”

The young blonde girl lowered her head as her expression turned to one of shame.

“I…I’m sorry…” stammered Tallia.

“Just go get your things and move in with Debra,” frowned Helen. “I’ve got to see to Emery now.”

She shooed on the blonde girl and then marched back over to Emery’s little shanty.

The older woman flipped up the flap to Emery’s hovel, but the boy had clearly been listening, because he sat back on his bottom away from the entrance once Helen peered in.

“You…over to Marcos’ tent…now,” ordered Helen.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the boy, a huge grin on his gawky face. “Just give me a few minutes…”

“Now, Emery,” ordered Helen.

She waited for the boy to grab some things and leave his tent. She closed the flap after he left, and she was glad to…The whole of the little shanty smelled strongly of sex.

She decided to check on Daeshawna and Kiaya. She walked to their hut, and it was lit with the glow of an electric lamp. She opened the flap and peered in, but only Kiaya was inside.

“Kiaya?” asked Helen. “Where’s your sister?”

“She went to go pee,” said the young teen.

“Do you know where?” asked Helen. “I want to keep everyone together.”

“Yeah,” said Kiaya. “She went toward the south stop sign.”

“Okay,” nodded Helen. “Hand me that lamp. Let’s go find her.”

Kiaya handed her the small lamp, and Helen took it by the top handle. She motioned for Kiaya to follow, and they went off in the general direction of the south stop sign.

They did not make it far before they spotted the tall and imposing form of Jack. Helen did not know what Jack was doing there, but she did not like the idea of the tall soldier in black watching any of them do their business.

“Jack, what are you…?” asked Helen, but her voice died in her throat as Jack turned and stepped aside.

Down on the pavement near some broken glass was the body of Daeshawna. There was a large sewer grill near the side of the building, the kind seen in older city sections, and that was probably where she had squatted down to go. The black teen lay there now, hands on each side of her unzipped pants, and she had probably just pulled them up when she had been killed.

It was a gory sight. The poor girl’s midsection was a splattered mess, her guts pulled out to spill all over the dark pavement of the sidewalk. She had a look of frozen terror and pain on her dark face, her mouth open as if to scream, but her throat was also slit, and that was more than likely the reason that no one had heard the attack.

Kiaya knelt down before the body of her older sister, and the younger teen reached down to close the dead girl’s eyes. It was the way that the younger girl said nothing, had no emotion or…anything…that got to Helen. She was like Maria in that respect, no sign or indication of grief, and this bothered Helen. It bothered her a lot.

The younger girl looked up at Jack with a pained expression upon her dark face.

“Why did you kill her?” she asked, her voice strained. “She wasn’t going to hurt Maria.”

“I did not kill her,” said Jack. “I found her this way a minute ago.”

Helen had already suspected this. Jack may have threatened Daeshawna, but she knew what the dark soldier was like. Jack would have killed the teen in broad daylight in front of everyone, not off somewhere in the dark.

Of course, this made things far worse, because that meant there was something out there killing them one by one. Helen had accounted for everyone except for old Mr. Lands, but there was no way the old man, sprightly as he was, could have overpowered and killed Daeshawna without the girl being able to make a sound. Only someone or something like Jack could have done that, and Helen did not like that idea at all.

“What did this?” asked Helen.

She did not want to ask that question, but she had to, because Jack might actually know the answer to that question, as awful a question as it was.

“I don’t know,” replied Jack. “I didn’t see it. There is that, though.”

She pointed at the brick wall behind Daeshawna’s body.

Helen raised the lamp and studied the same crudely-sketched chalk drawing she had seen on the wall behind Blane’s body. Beside it were the chalk-written words “Have you seen the Muffin Man?”.

“That’s the same as the other drawing,” said Helen. “It’s a nursery rhyme. What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” grunted Jack. “But I suspect this is the work of a demon.”

“What?” asked Kiaya in marked disbelief.

Helen shook her head and fixed her worried stare upon the black girl.

“Kiaya,” she breathed, “you get back to my tent and wait for me there. Maria and Laura are there. You get back there and wait for me.”

“But she said—” started the young teen, but Helen cut her off.

“Now!” barked Helen. “It’s dangerous out here, and I have to talk to Jack.”

The young black teen squeezed her eyes shut as a couple of tears spilled down her dark cheeks. She got up and ran back toward the encampment, and Helen watched her go to make sure she made it there all right. As soon as she was satisfied with the girl’s safety, she turned her eyes and the lamplight back upon the imposing figure of Jack.

“Now what do you mean, Jack?” she asked.

“I suspect we are in the domain of a demon,” said Jack. “A powerful one. It will not let us leave, not even me.”

“I don’t understand,” said Helen.

“There is nothing to understand,” said Jack. “Demons are evil spirits. They are fallen angels, though each is different with different motivations. This one is invisible. At least, I think it is. I have not seen it, nor can I sense where it is, but it is here, because this place is permeated with its evil.”

“What about the drawings?” asked Helen.

“Demons can emulate the spirits of evil people,” he said. “Someone evil who impressed a demon in their cruelty. Old serial killers from the past, for instance. I suspect this demon is acting like one of them.”

“Like Jack the Ripper?” asked Helen. “This demon is acting like Jack the Ripper?”

“Yes,” said Jack. “This one’s drawing is his calling card. The Muffin Man.”

A cold chill washed over her at the thought of this prospect. She had already had her fair share of evil spirits. Still, she believed Jack, though there was no reason for her to. There was no reason whatsoever for her to believe that Jack was any kind of an expert on such things, but deep down she knew that Jack was an expert on these monsters from Hell simply because the dark soldier was something from Hell, or at least, Helen suspected she was.

Still, Jack had her uses, even in a time like this.

“Dispose of her for me,” said Helen in a low voice. “She deserves a proper burial, but—”

“It will be done,” said Jack, and that was that.

Helen left Jack there at the scene of the crime and then quickly trotted back toward Debra’s tent. They could not just pack up and leave while it was dark; they would have to wait until morning, and that meant a new rule had to be instituted. They would have to go do their business in pairs now, answer the call of nature in a visible way, and no one was going to like that rule.

*****

Helen finished wiping down Laura, and she had put the girl in new clothes, ones that weren’t filthy and reeked of body odor. Laura had been carrying around new clothes, clothes they had picked up from Dalbers way back when, but the girl had never changed into them. It was sad that the twelve-year-old was so damaged she could not even stand to see herself naked, much less have anyone else view her as such. Even so, the young teen was nervous at first, but after watching Helen deal with Maria, she agreed to a bath, even with the sullen presence of Kiaya within their small shanty.

Part of the reason Laura was so forthcoming was due to the news of Daeshawna’s death. The young teen was fearful for her own safety, and Helen was the closest thing she had to a mother figure and a leader. In fact, everyone now looked to Helen for advice and answers, but she really didn’t have any to give, and she found herself relying more and more on Jack, anyway.

She hated delivering that news, that news of someone’s…demise…and she now felt true empathy for anyone who actually had to do it.

Little Maria had spent her time drawing in that book of hers as Helen finished with Laura. It was the curious look from Kiaya that got the older woman’s attention, because she had not thought that there was anything that could pull the young black teen out of her rightful grieving silence. The young woman took Maria’s drawing pad into her dark hands and studied the pictures the little girl had drawn.

“Is that Debra?” she asked in a strange voice.

“Mmm, hmm,” said Maria.

“And this one…This is Tallia?” asked Kiaya.

“Yes,” said Maria matter-of-factly.

“Who’s this?” asked Kiaya. “Is that Laura? I can’t tell.”

“Yes,” said Maria.

“What?” asked Laura.

The young teen sidled over next to the other two girls to look at her own picture. She gave a quizzical look at the drawing pad and shook her head.

Curiosity got the better of Helen now. She gently took the drawing pad from Maria and studied it. On one page was a picture of Debra and Tallia, and on the next page was one of Laura.

The picture of Debra and Tallia was…disturbing. In the crayon drawing, Debra clutched her left eye so that it was hidden, but red rivulets of blood ran down her peach face from underneath those fingers, while the depiction of Tallia was not any better, and in fact, was actually worse. The young blonde was missing the fingers of her right hand, all except for the thumb, and the little severed digits were on the grey scribbles of the pavement below. Blood drops squirted from the bleeding stumps, and the effect as a whole, that of a child’s drawing done in such a manner…It bothered Helen.

She studied the picture of Laura next, but the twelve-year-old’s likeness was…odd. The girl sat on the grey scribbles of the street, but she sat within a white circle, just a line of white drawn around her. On her face were tears, big wet droplets of blue crayon, but other than that the girl looked okay within the drawing. Still, it was disturbing in its own right, and Helen wondered just how much mental damage Maria had actually suffered in order to draw such things on a regular basis.

“Honey, why did you draw this?” asked Helen. “Why did you draw such terrible things?”

“I didn’t,” shrugged Maria. “It drew itself.”

“What do you mean ‘it drew itself’?” asked Helen. “You drew it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but…I don’t know what I’m drawing until I’m done with it,” stated Maria.

Helen did not like that answer, but that didn’t matter, as Laura grilled the six-year-old a second later. Apparently, she did not care for Maria’s explanation, either.

“Why did you draw me?” asked the young teen, and her voice was strained, filled with anxiety.

“I don’t know,” shrugged Maria.

“You do know,” said Laura. “You know, because you drew Daeshawna.”

“I don’t know why I drew you or Daeshawna,” said Maria.

“You did draw Daeshawna,” said Kiaya, her voice wavering. “You drew her dead, and now she’s…she’s…”

The black girl burst into tears, and Helen immediately drew her in for a tight hug, stroking the back of her hair for additional comfort. The older woman was secretly glad for this, because the young black girl needed to grieve, and now she was finally doing just that.

No one said anything during this time, and Helen eventually coaxed the young black girl to lie down for sleep. Weariness must have kicked in for the grieving teen, because Kiaya was out a few minutes later, and Helen was glad for it.

Laura, however, would not let go the matter of her own drawing. The young lady was jittery about it, and she continued to question Maria after Kiaya had gone to sleep. Helen chalked up the twelve-year-old’s noticeable anxiety to childish superstition, and she wanted to break up this little argument between the two children, but she let it continue in spite of herself.

“Why did you draw me?” demanded the twelve-year-old. “You shouldn’t have drawn me. I don’t like that. Why did you do that? I didn’t say you could do that.”

Maria shrugged at first, but then she got a thoughtful look on her little cherub face.

“James used to tell me stories,” said the little girl. “He told me one about a book he read, a grownup’s book. He said a bunch of adults and a girl your age had to walk across a dark bridge filled with shadows, and that the shadows would take one of them away forever.”

“What?” asked Laura. “What do you mean?”

“That’s what James said,” nodded Maria. “He said the shadows took the girl your age, but the person who wrote the book could have had the shadows take anyone, and that this person who wrote the book did it on purpose…take the girl. This made James mad, and he said that if he’d written the book, he’d have picked anyone else. I think that’s why I drew you.”

“What does that mean?” asked Laura.

The older girl took the drawing pad and studied her own picture, her left eyebrow raised in confusion.

“I drew you in a magic circle,” said Maria. “You’re in a magic circle that protects you. The bad thing can’t get you in there. It hurt Debra and Tallia, but it can’t get you because you’re in the circle. I drew you in there because it’s right. It’s right that you’re in the circle, because you deserve to be in there. You haven’t ever done anything bad, so you deserve to be in there. James called that ‘Juss-Tiss.’ That’s what he would have said, anyway.”

“I’m protected in a magic circle?” asked Laura in confusion. “Then why am I crying?”

“I don’t know,” shrugged Maria. “I don’t know what I draw until I draw it…I have to guess what it means…but I’m sure now that you’re in a magic circle. Besides, you’re not hurt, so that’s good.”

“Yeah,” breathed Laura. “Yeah, that’s good. That’s really good.”

Helen shook her head at this. It was kid logic that these pictures meant anything at all to them, but apparently, they did, especially to Laura, but this was not conducive to their mental health. As it stood, Kiaya had silently wept in Helen’s embrace over the memory of her sister’s death, and that was actually a good thing, because the girl needed to grieve. Helen had cycled this thought before, but she reiterated it to herself, because they needed some normalcy in their life, especially now that their lives were threatened.

All of this mattered very little at the moment, however, because she needed to get the remaining girls to bed. They were leaving this cursed place the moment the sun came up.

*****

They packed up at dawn’s light. With so few of them left, it took some time, but they grabbed all necessities they could from the deceased’s gear and left that terrible street they had been at for two days now.

Kiaya had silently wept at various parts of the day, and both Debra and Tallia joined her in that grief, as Daeshawna had been their leader of sorts, and now that she was gone, they had a large hole in their lives that could not be filled.

This petered out as they continued onward during the day, stopping occasionally to look for potable water in the various abandoned buildings around them and to safely stop and answer the call of nature.

Helen did not realize something was wrong until the sun began to go down in the west. It was then that she realized they had traveled some distance, yet on the horizon it seemed that they had made no headway whatsoever. It wasn’t until the sun was dangerously low did she call for them to stop, and that’s when she noticed the street sign: Drury Lane.

Her blood ran cold as she realized that this was the same street they had camped in for the last two nights, which was impossible, because they had already traveled half a city away from that area…yet she recognized the bloodstain where Blane had fallen, and she thought she had seen the same sewer grill where Daeshawna had been murdered…Plus, there was the name of the street. It was Drury Lane, the same name of the lane in that Muffin Man nursery rhyme…

Yes, there was no doubt about it. They were back where they had started.

She was not the only one to notice.

“Why are we back here?” asked old Mr. Lands. “This is where we just were.”

The girls anxiously chattered back and forth to each other in panicked speech, but Helen did not like this. She did not need dissention in the ranks now, not at this time.

“It just looks the same!” she lied. “It just looks similar. We’re almost out of the city. We’ll set up camp here…Everybody follow the rules and stay together! I have to confer with Marcos, Jack, and Mr. Lands…Everybody else get to setting up!…Emery, dear, you’re in charge.”

“What!” cried Debra in huffed anger. “Why does he get to be in charge? This is because he’s a man, isn’t it! Isn’t it!”

Helen frowned, but internally she was smiling. She had known Debra would throw a tantrum over this, which was the very reason she had said it. It immediately diverted the teen’s attention from the fact that they had looped back around to the same place they had left earlier in the day.

“Fine,” said Helen in false exasperation. “You can be leader for today…if you can handle something so big.”

“Oh, you’re damn right I’ll handle it!” huffed Debra. “I can handle anything big that Emery can handle!…Wait, that…that didn’t sound quite right…”

The teens laughed at Debra’s verbal faux pas, and their distraction temporarily relieved Helen’s fear of the overall situation. Still, they were all in danger, and she knew this, so she motioned for the three people she had called out to come into a tight circle around her.

Mr. Lands was the first to comment, as Helen knew he would be.

“We are back where we started, aren’t we?” asked the old black man.

“Yes,” said Helen in a quiet voice. “We all need to be on guard. I think Jack can explain it best…”

They looked toward the tall and slender woman in black, but if she had an expression, it was thoroughly hidden behind that cloth battle mask of hers.

“We’re stuck in a trap,” grunted Jack.

“A trap?” asked Mr. Lands.

“Yes,” said Jack.

“Jack thinks a…a demon has trapped us here,” said Helen.

“El Diablo?” asked Marcos. “Really?”

“Y…yes,” stammered Helen.

It sounded unbelievable, even to her own ears, but she suspected deep down that it was true.

“Well, Jack?” asked Mr. Lands. “What are we going to do about it?”

The old man was not stupid. He knew right well that only Jack could handle…whatever it was that held them hostage. More importantly, though, he knew that Jack was not feeding them a song and a dance. If the tall and slender woman in black had said it, it had to be true. Jack did not lie.

“I have not seen it,” said Jack. “I think it is invisible, or it can only be seen at certain moments. Whatever the case, I think we are in its domain.”

“What does that mean?” asked Mr. Lands. “In its domain?”

“We are not in Spring Ridge anymore,” said Jack. “We are in its realm…It’s like a nightmare it has created. The only way to leave it is to kill the demon.”

“I agree with that,” said the old black man. “So how do we do that?”

“Wait, wait…” said Marcos. “This is real? You’re talking like this is real.”

The old black man gave Marcos the stare down until the young Latino shifted his attention to his own work boots.

“Normally a spirit must be exorcised,” continued Jack. “Once exorcised, it must be contained in an object or banished to Hell…but we are in its realm. This is its domain, so if we kill it here…we kill it for good. It goes straight to Hell.”

“Can you kill it?” asked Mr. Lands.

“Yes,” said Jack. “If I can see it, I can kill it. If it attacks us, it must be corporeal. That is why I think it is invisible.”

“If it’s invisible, then how do we catch it?” asked Mr. Lands.

“There are rules,” said Jack. “There are rules it must follow, even in its own domain.”

“Rules?” asked Marcos. “Why is that?”

“Because only humans have free will,” said Jack in his gravel-strewn voice. “This one may must follow rules. It is the divine order. It is why demons hate humanity.”

“Oh,” said Marcos, but Helen could tell that he was confused.

“I think it must show itself when it attacks,” said Jack. “I suspect it is emulating the soul of a serial killer. It leaves a calling card.”

“Those drawings?” asked Marcos.

“Yes,” said Jack. “It leaves them because it must. That is part of the rules. That is how I will catch it.”

“How’s that, Jack?” asked Mr. Lands.

Jack did not answer him due to a tugging at Mr. Lands’ pants. Little Maria tugged at the old man’s beige slacks, and he looked down in order to receive a drawing from her, a page torn from her book. The old black man stared down at the page, studying it intently, and then he shook his head a couple of times. He stared at Helen, a slight frown upon his lips, a stolid look of resignation carved upon his dark, weathered face.

“That settles it, then,” he said firmly.

“What’s that?” asked Helen.

The old black man handed her the drawing. It depicted him lying on the street in a pool of his own blood, his arms and chest slashed with red lines. Helen was tired of these drawings, morbid as they were, and she let the little girl know as much.

“Maria!” she scolded. “Why did you draw this? Answer me!”

“I don’t know…” said Maria in a frightened voice, but Mr. Lands shook his head and answered for her.

“It’s not her fault,” he said as he rested the dark fingers of his right hand upon his white straw hat.

“What do you mean?” asked Helen.

“I suspected as much,” said the old black man. “Old Nan had told me about this back in the day, but I hadn’t put much stock in it…but now I know. This little girl has the sight.”

“The sight?” asked Helen.

“She can see the future,” said Mr. Lands. “Or I guess she can draw it. I figured that when I saw poor Daeshawna’s picture. It came true, didn’t it? Is that how she died? Like in the picture?”

“Yes,” stated Jack.

“Y…yes,” said Helen uncertainly.

“I knew it,” nodded Mr. Lands. “That means my number’s finally up. You see, I found this before we left…”

He dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a large piece of white chalk. He held it up for them to look at in the dying light of the setting sun, and the sight of it made Helen shiver.

“I figure it’s a sign,” said Mr. Lands. “This is where I check out. It’s my time now. The drawings on the wall, her picture, this here piece of chalk…”

The old black man reached down and gave the piece of chalk to Maria.

“You take that, honey,” he said gingerly. “You go draw on the street with it over there by the girls. Go have fun. The grownups have to talk.”

Maria looked up at Helen for the okay, so the older woman nodded at her in acceptance. The little six-year-old took one determined look at the piece of chalk in her hand before setting off toward the center of the street where the bigger girls and Emery were setting up camp.

Mr. Lands turned back toward them and gave them one more nod.

“I’m going to go off by myself,” said the old man.

“What?” asked Helen. “No, you can’t do that…”

“He is right,” said Jack.

“Jack!” hissed Helen. “He can’t go off by—!”

“Yes, I can,” said Mr. Lands. “It’s my time. Now I figure that if I’m by myself, ol’ Jack here can catch this thing when it comes out to attack me. She’ll be waitin’ nearby…”

“And I will kill it,” grunted Jack. “When it comes for him, I will catch it, and I will kill it.”

“That’s the same thing you did with the ghoul,” frowned Helen.

“The ghoul?” asked Marcos. “You mean that was real?”

“Yes,” frowned Helen. “Keep up, dear.”

“Oh,” said Marcos with a look of dark surprise, but he said nothing more.

She shook her head in frustration and turned her attention back upon the old man.

“You can’t keep using yourself as bait,” frowned Helen.

“Doesn’t matter this time,” said Mr. Lands, his lips a tight line of determination.

“What do you mean ‘it doesn’t matter’?” asked Helen. “Of course, it matters!”

“It means he will die no matter what he does,” said Jack. “Maria has drawn it, so it will come true. He knows this. That is why he is putting himself up as bait.”

“You mean that’s real?” asked Helen in surprise.

Her voice and action were a virtual carbon copy of Marcos’ previous surprise over the knowledge that something ridiculous was actually real.

And she was surprised. It was one thing for Mr. Lands to say it, but if Jack said it…

“Yes,” said Jack. “If Maria has drawn it, it will be so.”

Helen’s eyes went wide with horror as she realized something they did not.

“But that’s not the only picture she’s drawn!” she gasped. “Oh, my God…Oh, my God! We have to get everyone together! We have to get everyone together now!”

But that statement was met with the dying of the light. The last of the sun’s rays dropped as the sun itself pitched below the buildings’ skyline. Helen knew this thing struck in the dark, so their first and best defense was light.

She left the little group of men to warn her kids of the impending danger. She felt it coming down on them, an omen of sorts, a dark feeling that would not go away.

“We need light right now!” shrieked Helen. “Everybody set up the lamps!”

The kids stood and stared at her in stupid silence.

“Now!” screeched Helen. “Get the lamps! Go!”

Helen practically dove into her own tent to grab her electric lamp. She bolted out while flipping on the device, little Maria at her side. The little girl had appeared as if out of thin air, and she clung to Helen’s dress, effectively tripping her up. Helen scooped her up in one arm while running in order to survey what was going on. It only took one glance behind herself to see Kiaya following them, an intense look of fear upon the girl’s young, dark face.

Helen intuitively ran toward Mr. Lands’ position by the east brick wall on the east side of the street as the last of the sun’s rays faded. She stopped, turned, and held up her lamp to peer out into the burgeoning darkness.

Kiaya stood next to her, and the fifteen-year-old wrapped her darks arms around Helen’s waist, a reflexive, protective instinct, Helen figured, but she was not annoyed at this, no. She was happy the young teen was treating her like a parent, because she felt like one, especially now that her own adrenaline was up and running due to the danger they had all been thrust into. She knew at that moment that all of these kids were hers, and though they may not have come from her body, they were part of her soul, and she would give her life for them without a second thought.

She lifted her lamp to shine its light upon her charges. The teens had exited what they had put up of their shelters, though Debra’s was really the only one that was even remotely near completion. They were scattered at that moment, a circle of them, each ten feet apart, with Laura in the middle. The twelve-year-old had no light source, and she stood in the middle of the street, a look of wide-eyed confusion upon her small, thin face.

“Put me down,” ordered Maria, and Helen complied without thinking.

She set the little girl down, and Maria immediately dropped to her hands and knees. She began to draw a line of white with the piece of chalk Mr. Lands had given her, but Helen ignored this for the moment.

“What’s going on?” asked Emery, though his voice was raised due to distance.

“Does everyone have a light?” asked Helen.

The redheaded boy stepped forward and raised his lamp to swing it a little in the darkness.

“I’ve got mine!” he called out.

The other teens began to answer, but the lamps began to flicker on and off, all of them at the same time, even the one Helen was carrying. The lamps went out completely, and everything went dark.

“What the…?” she began to say, but she was interrupted by a shout.

“SON OF A…!” shouted Emery.

Helen snapped her gaze toward the expletive, and the lamps shone their brightness in the dark as if on command. Emery set down his lamp and then clutched his upper right arm with his left hand. Even in the shadows of the lamp next to him, Helen could discern the red of blood squelching out from between the boy’s fingers.

“What happened!” she shouted.

“I got cut!” he cried out. “Something sliced me open!”

“Did you see it?” asked Marcos.

The young Latino held up his own lamp, a nervous, dire expression upon his brown face.

“No!” hissed Emery between gritted teeth. “No, but I’m hurt! It hurts bad! I think it’s deep…”

“Put pressure on it!” cried Helen.

She moved forward by instinct, but a tugging at her skirt convinced her to stop. Little Maria shook her head no and looked down at her own feet. Helen followed her gaze to view the crudely-drawn chalk circle the six-year-old had made around the three of them, Helen, Maria, and Kiaya, and she stupidly stared at it for a moment.

“How bad is it?” came Debra’s voice from out of the darkness.

Helen looked up in time to see the older teen start walking toward Emery. The lights flickered on and off, on and off, and then they went out completely for a few seconds, but those seconds were broken by Debra’s high-pitched scream. When the lamps came back on, the older girl was kneeling, lamp in her right hand, her left hand over her left eye. Blood poured down her left cheek as she screamed in both pain and fear.

“What happened!” cried Tallia as the blonde stepped forward in Debra’s direction.

Helen knew what was going to happen before it happened, but Tallia was moving before she could shout a warning to stop. The lamps flickered on and off for a second, and then they turned off altogether, the same as the last two times. Helen could see Tallia holding up her own lamp in her left hand, could see the girl staring at the lamp as it went out, and then she heard the girl’s cry of pain a second later.

When the lights flickered back on a few seconds later, Tallia was staring at her own right hand in shock as she too dropped to her knees. She held up her bleeding right hand, the fingers gone, those digits lying on the street below. She clutched her hand to her chest, her mouth wide open in a silent gasp, her speckled hazel eyes already watering with tears.

Helen remembered what Jack had said. He had said something about rules, about how monsters were bound by them, and she knew this thing, this demon, was no different…

But they were on a steep learning curve, and time was a luxury they no longer had. She figured the lamps flickered and died whenever one of them moved, and that’s when it struck, when the demon attacked.

“NOBODY MOVE!” screeched Helen. “Everyone, stay near your lamps and don’t move! It attacks in the dark, and it turns out the lights when you move! Stay in the light and DON’T MOVE!”

The older woman held up her lamp as her gaze fixed upon Laura. The poor twelve-year-old was struck still in the middle of everyone, no lamp nearby, and the stranded girl’s gaze traveled from Emery to Debra to Tallia and then back again to Emery.

The look on her poor, thin face, that face framed by a mess of raggedy, tattered brown hair…that look was one of pure terror. She burst into wailing tears a second later, her small mouth wide open in absolute, abject fear, a high-pitched and keening sound that tore at Helen’s heart, a sound that drowned out and overcame even Debra’s huffed cries of pain and Tallia’s low moaning.

Helen could not stand to see the young teen in this state. She had to fight her own instincts to rush forward, to sweep up the wailing twelve-year-old within her own arms. She fought it because she knew she would be cut down before she ever reached the poor girl, and that would not do any of them any good. She was not afraid for herself anymore, but she was terrified of having anyone else getting hurt or killed, especially her kids.

Kiaya hugged her tightly and buried her dark face in Helen’s dress as the girl sobbed in fear. The situation was dire, and Helen was rapidly losing faith in her ability to protect these kids.

Maria tugged at her dress, and Helen stared down at her, her own mind frozen in both fear and confusion. The little six-year-old held Mr. Lands’ large piece of chalk in her hand, that chalk pointing down at the white circle they stood within, and Helen fixed her gaze back upon Laura, upon her wailing twelve-year-old, fixing her gaze upon the chalk circle that Maria had drawn around Laura not five minutes previously. She knew right then that Maria’s ability to draw the future afforded the little girl something they did not otherwise have…a way to bend the rules.

“Laura, don’t move!” yelled Helen. “Baby, don’t move! Don’t leave the circle! It can’t get you in the circle! Maria drew the magic circle just like she said she would! Don’t leave the circle! Just sit down and cover your eyes, honey! Don’t open them!”

The terrified twelve-year-old sank to her knees within the chalk circle and covered her eyes with both hands. She cried into her hands, but she did not move, and that was good enough for Helen.

The middle-aged woman’s gaze moved back over her wounded teens. They were all seriously injured, especially Tallia, and Helen did not know if any of them would bleed out or not, but she did not have the luxury at the moment to treat their wounds. She had to take control, and that meant telling them what to do, even if she did not know exactly what those orders should be.

“Nobody else move!” she shouted. “It can only attack in the dark! It shuts off the lights when you move! Do you understand! Nobody move, and stay in the light! Stay in the light! Put pressure on the bleeding! I will help you as soon as I can!”

Tallia gave a weak nod as she clutched her right hand close to her chest, wrapping the severed stumps in her pink shirt, that shirt now stained dark with her blood. Debra silently cried into her left hand as she held up her own lamp. Emery stood next to his lamp, still putting pressure on his own right arm, his face pale and strainged with pain and fear.

Laura wailed again as she cried into her hands, her shoulders moving up and down as she sobbed. The young teen was truly terrified, and Helen once more had to fight her own instincts to rush forward to her.

“Laura, sweetheart, you’re going to be all right,” said the older woman as calmly as she possibly could. “It’s all right. You’re in the circle. Don’t leave the circle. It can’t get you while you’re in the circle; it doesn’t matter whether it’s dark or not. I’ll come and get you as soon as I can, baby. Don’t move. Just stay there!…Jack!…JACK!”

She yelled for the tall dark soldier in black, but the woman did not answer. It took her a moment to realize that Jack was a mere ten feet away on Helen’s left, in between Mr. Lands and Marcos. Jack had not moved from that position but was instead shifting her animal gaze from left to right, methodically scanning the shadows outside the lamplight, waiting for something else to happen.

They did not have to wait long. The lights flickered on and off and then went out altogether, but no one had moved, so this terrified Helen in that instance, because she had been positive that her rules were correct and true.

There was a loud and sharp cry of pain and fear from behind Helen and to her left…

It was Mr. Lands. When the lamplights flickered back on, the old man was already lying on his back near the east brick wall that was closest to Helen. He had obviously walked over toward her and Maria, and he was not even carrying a lamp. She knew he had done it on purpose, had brought about his own death on purpose so that Jack would have his demon.

The old man was slashed across his arms and belly, his white tank-top stained with gore and blood, his right suspender cut across the middle from the vicious attack.

“No!” cried Helen.

The old man looked up at her and nodded once, his face a grimace of pain. He opened his mouth to spit out blood, but he said two very important words before he closed his eyes forever.

“It…moved…” he choked out.

His head rolled back upon the asphalt as he breathed his last breath.

Kiaya cried out in fear and squeezed Helen even harder, but the young black girl did not leave her side and thus did not leave the protective chalk circle they were in.

Helen did not know what the old man’s final words meant, but as she shone her light upon the old black man’s body, she saw it…the crude chalk drawing upon the brick wall behind him. It was there now, and it had not been there just minutes before.

The older woman looked down at little Maria, stared at the chalk line around them, stared over at her weeping twelve-year-old within her own circle of chalk, and then studied the drawing upon the wall. She stared at the crude circle of its face, it’s crude round eyes with the pinpoints for pupils in them, stared long and hard at it for those few seconds…and then it stared back at her. She watched the pupils move, watched the slash of its mouth twitch, and then she knew.

“Oh, my GOD!” screamed Helen. “IT’S THE DRAWING, JACK! IT’S ALIVE!”

That thing on the wall moved in a blur as the lamplights flickered on and off. Jack jerked backward as if struck by something, the lamplight flickered, and she was struck again.

Helen could see it now, could make out the chalk blur upon the pavement before it struck.

Jack was struck again across her left leg, and the tall soldier went down to one knee without a sound. Helen watched the chalk blur come back around like a great white shark in shallow water, and it struck Jack again as the lamplight flickered in time with its movement.

Jack flew backwards through the air as if struck by a semi. The tall and slender woman in black and grey hit the asphalt and rolled until she was a mere five feet from Helen and Maria.

Helen stared down at the soldier in black, but she knew it would take more than those hits to put Jack down…and that’s when she had an epiphany.

Jack had been attacked because she had moved and she was the only one of them other than Laura without lamplight. There was no possible way Jack could catch this thing if it was a drawing…but these things followed rules, and Helen had already seen one person take advantage of those rules, and that was little Maria.

The six-year-old’s chalk circles worked somehow; Helen knew in her heart for this to be fact. It occurred to her that if the little girl could make an impenetrable circle with that piece of chalk, then she could also make a doorway, a window to that creature’s plane of existence.

“Maria, honey, draw a doorway for Jack to reach through!” blurted Helen, and she spoke those words so quickly that she was not even sure if the little girl understood her at all.

Maria got down on her hands and knees and took to drawing. She angled the chalk line in one perfect run, but she exited their protective circle in order to do so. Kiaya shrieked as the chalk creature rushed toward them, toward Maria as the lamplights flickered on and off. Maria finished the chalk line just as the creature came upon them, a flickering of powdery form and strange light as it rose from the pavement the moment it hit Maria’s drawn doorway.

It never reached the six-year-old. One black armored hand reached down and grabbed its crudely shaped baker’s hat, that hat now solid, like some weird growth upon an equally weird head. Jack peeled the thing off the pavement, pulling it out of the chalk doorway Maria had hastily drawn, the thing’s two-dimensional form shifting and pulsing in a writhing of gnashing drawn teeth and stabbing stick arms and legs.

“You…” grunted Jack.

This thing stabbed into her armored left arm with its drawn butcher’s knife over and over again as Jack held its odd-looking hat in both hands. The tall and slender woman in black ignored the stabbing wounds, wounds that left no blood, wounds that puffed out wisps of shadow as they appeared, and she focused upon the twisted, deformed drawing made real in her hands, her voice an echo of pure menace and hate.

“Are…” said Jack in her dark voice.

She pulled her right hand toward herself as he pushed out her left hand in a tearing motion. This thing, this demon in chalk form, tore at the top of the hat, a split line that spit out weird and screaming brightly-colored lights like fireworks.

“Done,” finished Jack.

She ripped the thing in half, right down the middle, like tearing a piece of paper. Weird brightly-colored balls of light spit out from its torn body, spiting in every direction as a high-pitched screeching emanated from it, and then the pavement beneath them, the very street itself, cracked as if struck by a massive, car-sized fist.

Thunder rolled overhead as lightning arced across the sky. A whirling of dark clouds appeared above, forming a hole within the black of night, that night lit up by random streaks of bright lightning.

The screeching parts of this thing were ripped from Jack’s hands as lightning struck down from the hole in the sky, five feet from Jack’s armored black boots. The thunder strike boomed louder than anything Helen had ever heard before, and then a red and hot glow appeared from the cracked street where the bolt had struck. Both halves of this thing were drawn screeching and tearing and kicking with little stick hands and little stick legs into the cracks of the street, drawn downward, Helen knew, to the very depths of Hell itself.

*****

Helen watched them go. It was midday, the edge of the city, and she watched little Maria go with the tall and slender soldier in black. The pair of them walked across the bridge, the highway out of the city, that highway strewn with dead and rusted-out cars.

“Do they have to go?” asked Kiaya. “Did you have to make them leave?”

Helen pulled the young teen in close for a protective hug.

“Oh, honey, I didn’t make them leave,” she breathed. “They have somewhere to go, and we can’t go with them.”

“Why not?” asked Laura.

Helen looked down at her other young teen. She stared at Laura’s thin face, shook her own head, and gave the girl a sad smile.

“Those two bring Death with them,” said the middle-aged woman. “Jack is a monster, baby, and Maria…Maria is something so special that we can’t take care of her. I didn’t want her to go, I really didn’t, but…I really believe that creature in black will protect her when no one else can.

She may look like a soldier, but…I don’t think Jack is human, sweetheart, if she ever was…On the bright side…this city, Spring Ridge…it’s free now. There’s nothing bad here anymore. Jack saw to that…I suppose they both did.”

She turned and looked upon her kids. Emery’s arm was bandaged, as were Debra’s lost eye and Tallia’s lost fingers. All three of them were on antibiotics, because this cursed city still had medical supplies. In fact, it had food, water, and a stock of emergency generators and gas. This place was now free of all evil, and it was well-stocked, a perfect place for them all.

Marcos was uninjured, and he had been a Godsend in helping the injured kids get what they needed to recover. Other than Helen, herself, he was the only real adult left. No, there was barely anyone left of The Shame, but Helen didn’t care anymore. As long as they had one young person willing to struggle against the odds, to live a full life, they would always be strong.

Helen studied her youngest charges, but the girls were looking just fine now that the horror of what had happened was finally past them.

Her twelve-year-old looked over the three bandaged teens behind them and then looked back up at Helen.

“We still have each other,” said Laura with a hopeful, lopsided smile. “Debra and Emery and Tallia got hurt, but they’re still alive, and at least you and me and Kiaya and Marcos weren’t hurt.”

Helen gave her youngest charge a sad smile.

“Oh, honey, I was hurt,” she said sadly. “You just can’t see the wound.”

She moved a strand of ivory hair out of her eyes. Her hair was entirely white now, but that was to be expected, all things considered.

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North Spring Ridge Copyright © 2026 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott

North Spring Ridge Copyright © 2019 Jack Be Nimble Matthew L. Marlott

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Note: The image of Jack from North Spring Ridge was generated via artificial intelligence courtesy of SendFame.com and modified courtesy of Canva.com. All other images for this story were generated via artificial intelligence courtesy OpenAI and modified courtesy of Canva.com.