Their old, brown, and very-beat-up car pulled up to a large, black, wrought-iron gate and parked upon the asphalt beneath the worn-out vehicle.
Taylor looked up at his mother as she addressed him one more time.
“Now, you get in there and make a good look-around,” said his mother firmly. “You find anything worth grabbing, then you take it. Don’t take too much and get caught. The best things to grab are things like silverware. These rich people always have silver in their kitchen…Got it?”
“Yes, Mom,” sighed Taylor.
“Don’t give me that tone, young man,” frowned his mother.
Taylor couldn’t help it. He’d just met Reese a few days ago. Sixth grade had just started for him, the first year of middle school and a really awkward time, and now both his mom and Ricky wanted Taylor to rob a new friend? What the…?
His mother grabbed him by the chin and had him stare up into her eyes.
“Don’t disrespect me, boy,” she snarled.
“I didn’t say anything!” breathed out Taylor in audible alarm.
“You were thinking it,” grimaced his mother.
She let go of his chin and shook her head no.
“You better tell me what you’re thinking right now,” she warned.
Taylor winced at the thought of riling her up again, but he steeled himself and spoke his mind anyway.
“I just met Reese on Monday!” he said in exasperation. “Why do I have to steal from him? I’m trying to be friends with him!”
“They’re not going to miss anything,” said his mother. “These rich people have way too much to keep track of. They’re not going to miss some silverware, Taylor.”
“But—” he started.
“The only butt is the one I’m going to smack red unless you do as you’re told!” hissed his mother.
“Did Ricky put you up to this?” asked Taylor.
He knew that question was going to be trouble, but he’d asked it anyway.
“You leave Ricky out of this,” warned his mother.
“He just wants to buy drugs,” frowned Taylor.
“SMACK!” went her right hand across his left cheek. Taylor’s head turned to his right, but he quickly realigned his defiant stare back upon the woman who had given birth to him.
“I’m the one who needs the money!” exclaimed his mother.
“He’s the one who got you on drugs,” frowned Taylor. “You just want another hit.”
“You’re the one that’s going to get another hit if you open your mouth one more time!” hissed his mother. “Now get in there and don’t come back out until you have something to show for it!”
Taylor shook his head in frustration. Sometimes, he thoroughly wished Ricky would just up and die, because he knew, he knew, that scumbag was the cause of all this. In the past, he would have cried over this kind of exchange, but he was way too used to it, way too desensitized to this kind of BS.
“Whatever,” he said unhappily.
He opened the passenger-side door and exited the old beat-up vehicle, making sure to slam the door shut, mainly on account of the fact that this junker was Ricky’s car, not his mom’s.
His mother opened up her door and exited the vehicle for a few seconds, just long enough to berate Taylor, but this was par for the course.
“Don’t you slam that door!” hissed his mother. “Now, you are going to do as you’re told!…Don’t give me that face, little man…I’m going to pick you up in the morning…Remember what I told you. Don’t screw it up.”
“Yes, Mom,” said Taylor dryly.
His mother drove off after that, leaving Taylor to stand before the black gate, the only entrance and exit to Reese’s family’s property.
He watched her go…He loved his mother, but he really wished things were different. She needed to get off the drugs, and she one-million percent needed to get away from that scumbag, Ricky.
“Whatever,” he said unhappily.
He reached up and wiped a single tear from his eye and then shook his young head in resolve. In spite of what his mother wanted, he hadn’t come here to steal. He had come here to hang out with his new friend and to get away from home…especially to get away from home.
He took in a deep breath, released it, and then steadied himself…He was ready.
He stared up into the camera mounted on a black-iron pole and then pushed the black intercom button beneath it.
“It’s me, Taylor,” he said firmly and with confidence. “I’m here.”
There was a loud buzzing sound as the gate before him swung open, parting down the middle to form two smaller gates.
“Come up to the door,” came back Reese’s voice over the intercom. “I’ll let you in.”
Taylor walked through the gate and then walked up the long paved drive to the veritable mansion in the distance. Reese’s house was definitely overwhelming in its make and size, but Taylor shrugged that off just so he could function.
Maybe his mom was right about one thing: Reese’s family would probably never notice some missing silverware.
There were beautiful trees on each side of the paved drive that led to the manse ahead, but Taylor didn’t care for that kind of thing. He could recognize the beauty of it all, but this simply made him uneasy…Why in the hell would a rich kid like Reese go to a public school anyway? And why did the boy want to be friends with someone like Taylor?
Something was a little off here, but Taylor shook his head and steeled his resolve. He at least had one new friend in the sixth grade, so he was just going to up and accept it.
Maybe Reese was lonely?…That was probably it.
Taylor walked up to the large wooden double-doors and was about to knock, but the door on his right swung open to reveal the well-dressed if not innocuous form of Reese De Warenne.
Reese was thinner than him, narrower in the face, and the boy wore a well-appointed, child’s, dark-blue suit with a clean-cut white dress shirt and black tie, that white dress shirt beneath a dark-blue vest, this stylish look finished by black dress shoes on the rich kid’s feet.
It was kind of ridiculous for anybody to dress like that at home, but Taylor figured it to be just another eccentricity of a bored rich boy.
“What’s up?” asked Taylor.
Reese looked around Taylor for a few seconds and then beckoned him to come in, seemingly satisfied that there was no one else around.
They walked inside as Reese closed the door behind them, and Taylor took a few seconds to look around in slight wonder.
This place was big.
The living room was all dark-wood walls and floors with old-fashioned leather couches and chairs spotted here and there. There were large double stairs reaching toward higher floors at the back and some electric lamps on brass stands scattered about for lighting, though there was a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
“Nice place you got here,” said Taylor. “Sure beats the dump I live in.”
His mom’s trailer wasn’t exactly paradise, at least, not for humans. The bugs that got in seemed to like it just fine.
“I don’t know about that,” said Reese.
“What I don’t know is why you’re dressed like that,” said Taylor. “What’s with the suit? You’re at home. You should relax.”
Taylor, himself, was dressed in a simple red T-shirt with blue jeans and old sneakers. Why anyone would wear a suit at home was beyond him.
“This is how I always dress,” shrugged Reese. “I was taught this way. Mother wants me to be just like Father, though I have no stomach for it…Perhaps I should dress differently. They’re not home anyway.”
“You talk weird, you know that?” said Taylor. “Wait…Did you say your parents aren’t home?”
“Of course,” shrugged Reese again. “They’re rarely ever home. Father’s away on a business trip, and Mother’s visiting Mr. Allan again…He’s our accountant. She usually doesn’t come home until morning. She tells me not to say anything to Father about it, so I imagine she’s embezzling money or some such thing.”
“Ooo,” winced Taylor.
It was clear that Reese was not very worldly, because Taylor seriously doubted money had anything to do with those visits.
“What?” asked Reese. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” said Taylor sheepishly. “Anyway, what’s there to do around here? You want to watch TV or play games or something?”
“I’m afraid we don’t have a TV,” said Reese unhappily. “Father says it breeds stupidity. I read, mostly.”
“Well, I guess playing games is out,” sighed Taylor. “I doubt you have an Xbox or a Playstation if you don’t even have a TV.”
“What are those?” asked Reese.
“Never mind,” sighed Taylor again.
“I had something else in mind today, if you must know,” said Reese quietly.
“Oh?” asked Taylor. “Wait…Your parents just leave you here all by yourself? You don’t have, like, a babysitter or something?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Reese with a slight chuckle. “I had a nanny, but Old Mrs. Winthrop died two years ago. I’ve been on my own ever since.”
“Dude,” said Taylor with wide eyes. “Who’s here then?…You’re rich, right? You must have a maid or something.”
“Our maids and our cook are out today,” smiled Reese. “I gave them the day off. It’s just you and me here, and I’m going to have lots of fun with nobody around.”
“Uh, huh,” said Taylor warily.
He didn’t understand how they were going to have fun with nothing at all to do…Plus, Reese had said “I’m going to have lots of fun” rather than “We’re going to have lots of fun.”
This was all kinds of strange. Taylor wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Why are you going to a public school anyway?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you be at a private school or have tutors or something?”
“I wanted to go,” replied Reese matter-of-factly. “I wanted to see what the common kids lived like…Father forbade it at first, but it’s only for one year, so he relented, mainly because I whined to Mother until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She convinced Father that I’d be horrified by it after one year, so he had a change of heart.”
“Man, do you talk weird,” snorted Taylor. “I’m gonna have to teach you how the ‘common kids’ talk.”
“I’d like that, I think,” said Reese. “Anyhow, I’d like to show you a certain project I intend to complete.”
“Okay,” shrugged Taylor. “Shoot.”
“Oh, I intend to,” said Reese. “Just wait here by the couch. This will only take a second.”
The rich young man walked over to a small metal box on the west wall, opened it up, and revealed a number of switches swathed in dull red, little white numbers upon those dull-red switches.
“First, though,” said the young man, “I believe a lockdown is in order.”
“A lockdown?” asked Taylor.
Reese flipped switch after switch, and with the flipping of each switch, there came a loud click from somewhere in the house. The last loud click originated from the double doors they had just passed through in order to enter this huge place. Reese then closed the metal lid of the wall box, removed a small key from his right suit-jacket pocket, and then locked the lid of the wall box with it.
“I wouldn’t want you getting out,” he said firmly.
“What?” asked Taylor. “What do you me—”
“You see…” said Reese as he cut Taylor short. “You see, my parents are never here. My father is far too busy with his holdings overseas, and my mother…well…I believe she is much more interested in whatever she can purchase than with what she cannot…mainly spending time with me.”
“O…kaaaaay,” said Taylor warily. “Now, hold up…Did you just lock all the—”
“I think that’s why she allowed me to attend school at all,” continued Reese. “My father has always insisted upon private tutors, but they are all such a bore. I was truly in despair…until I received this.”
The young man removed a rather large, beige postcard from his inner vest and held it up. He studied the card for a second, scrunched up his lips in visible thought, and then put it back within his inner vest.
“Hold on; hold on a minute,” said the rich boy. “Let me slip into something more appropriate, and then I’ll explain everything.”
“Okaaaay,” said Taylor as he raised his left eyebrow in slight confusion.
Reese picked up a folded square of black cloth from a wooden chair upon his own right, unfolded the square of cloth, and then slipped into it. It was a hooded black robe cut and fit to his own size, but this was not the surprising part of his new “outfit.” It was the golden mask he picked up and slipped over his face a second later that really got Taylor’s attention.
“Dude, what are you doing?” asked Taylor.
“I had this oni mask specially made to my tastes,” replied Reese. “An ‘oni,’ if you didn’t know, is a type of Japanese demon that looks like an ogre or a troll. It’s quite the scary touter. I like the design, so I ordered the mask months ago, and lo and behold, it arrived last week. I’m quite happy about it.”
Taylor studied the mask in question.
It was all gold, of course, but whether it was real gold or not was anyone’s guess. It held a wide and open smile, a broad flat nose with two huge nostrils, curved slots for the eyeholes, small pointed ears, and small horns upon its head. Its “beard” was actually a curious setting of golden metal feathers that ringed around the bottom of it.
“I had a dream about this very mask and robe,” continued Reese, “so I drew a picture of what I saw, and I sent away for them after I convinced Mother to get them for me. I’m quite happy with them. What do you think?”
“It’s okay, I guess,” shrugged Taylor. “It reminds me of some kind of cult, though. That’s, like, something cultists would wear, man.”
“It’s funny you should say that…” said Reese in a thoughtful tone.
He reached into his inner vest and pulled out the beige postcard he had previously shown.
“You see, as I was saying, I was in despair until I received this,” said Reese.
He waved the card twice to show it off, and then he began to read from it.
“It states…” said Reese with tremulous breath. “It states: To the bearer of this card, one Reese Howard De Warenne, you are cordially invited to join The Children of the Golden Cradle. It has come to my attention that you have been severely neglected by your parents, and as such, you have been left to the cruel whims of fate, just as many children have been shackled to such whims throughout history, but your cries have not gone unheard.
“Know that The Children of the Golden Cradle shall accept you with open arms, and with us, you shall lack any want or desire for anything, but most importantly, you shall never be lonely again. Follow the instructions below, and then insert this card into the post box we shall provide for you…”
Reese raised his golden mask over his head so that his young face was showing, and then he gave Taylor a strange smile.
“There are some instructions I must follow,” said Reese in a weirdly-happy voice. “I’ll follow them of course, but you see, this card is signed by ‘The Matron of the Golden Cradle.’”
“The Matron of the Golden Cradle?” asked Taylor in growing confusion. “That sounds iffy, like—”
“Oh, I believe it,” smirked Reese. “I broke down at the beginning of the year, you see, and I cried for hours one night, and the very next day, I received this card in the mail…
“My parents have never seen this…They were away at the time, of course. Now, I shall have the last laugh at them. I shall join ‘The Children of the Golden Cradle.’ Perhaps Mother and Father shall appreciate me then…or perhaps they shan’t even notice…No matter. I’m going to join. I have to follow the instructions on the card, though.”
“Riiiiiiiiiiiight,” drawled out Taylor. “Listen, Reese, I don’t want to rain on your parade, but you’re mega-rich, so this is probably a—”
“Hold that thought,” grinned Reese.
The young man opened up a small wooden drawer from an equally small wooden stand beneath the locked metal switch box that resided on the west wall. He then withdrew a small revolver, a very shiny, well-polished .38 Special, and held it up for Taylor to see.
“Holy…” said Taylor as his breath caught in his throat. “Is that a real gun, man? Where did you—”
“It’s Father’s,” grinned Reese. “I’m very careful with it, though.”
“Dude, you shouldn’t be messing around with that,” said Taylor. “I knew a kid who accidently blew his brains out a couple of years ago.”
“Oh, I know what I’m doing,” said Reese. “You see, I need it to complete the instructions on the card.”
“Instructions?” asked Taylor. “Wait…Are you talking about that postcard?…Listen, Reese, that’s just some scammer troll…ing…you…”
Taylor’s voice trailed off as Reese pointed the pistol directly at Taylor’s head.
“What are you doing?” asked Taylor nervously.
“You see, I need your blood,” grinned the rich boy.
“Say what now?” asked Taylor.
There was a loud bang that reverberated around the living area as Reese pulled the trigger. Taylor felt the heat of a bullet zing past his right cheek as that same bullet buried itself in the wall behind him.
“Whoa! Whoa!” cried Taylor as he instinctively moved to his own left.
Reese pulled the trigger again, another loud bang echoed around the living area, and then a large vase shattered off to Taylor’s own right, right behind the very spot Taylor had just been standing.
“What are you doing!” yelled Taylor.
“I told you, didn’t I?” said Reese nonchalantly. “I need your blood. Why else would I attend public school? I couldn’t very well invite over someone I didn’t even know. I had to meet a friend somewhere, and I assumed public school was full of common people no one would miss, so here we are.
“Now stand still so I can properly kill you. If I shoot you between the eyes, it will only hurt for a second. If you keep moving around, I’ll probably have to shoot you more than once, and that will hurt you a lot, and then you’ll scream, and that simply wouldn’t do.”
“You’re nuts, man!” cried Taylor.
He bolted for the front doors, but another pull of the trigger and another loud bang prevented Taylor from reaching them. He felt the heat of another bullet wing past his right wrist, so he turned and ran the opposite direction, but where he was going to go, he had no idea. It occurred to him in the hair of a second that the front doors were locked anyway.
Honestly, he felt like a pinball from just the running back and forth. Of course, that comparison meant nothing at the moment, considering he was still being shot at.
Reese adjusted his golden mask to where it was back to resting comfortably over his young face.
“I just need to concentrate,” said the rich boy as he pulled the trigger again.
Taylor dashed through an open doorway and into a large dining area just as a bullet impacted the doorframe to his own left. There was a long, square, dark-wood table in here with a number of similar dark-wood chairs surrounding it. There were a couple of silver candleholders seated upon the table, long white candles in those holders, one holder at each end of the table.
Taylor jumped up, slid across the dining table, and grabbed a candleholder on his way across. He dropped down beneath the table in-between a couple of chairs just as a fifth bullet zinged over his head, parting a couple of his hairs in that bullet’s wake. He quickly snapped off the large white candle and tossed it aside, ready to use the holder as a rudimentary weapon.
There were a couple of loud clicks a moment later.
“Blast,” came Reese’s disappointed voice. “There must have only been five shots.”
Taylor steeled himself and popped up from behind the table, gripping the silver candleholder until his knuckles turned white.
“Come here, you…crazy…!” he trailed off as he realized that the psychotic rich boy was nowhere to be seen.
Taylor rushed to the open doorframe to the living room in order to look for his so-called “friend,” but it did not take him long to find the insane young man.
“Always have a backup,” said Reese in a confident tone.
The young man was standing near the closed and locked double doors that led out of the house, and within his small hands was a rather large crossbow, or at least, large-looking within his aforementioned small hands.
The deadly weapon was already loaded.
“Oh, shi—!” began Taylor, but he ditched that expletive in order to run back into the dining room.
“Hold still so I can shoot you!” called out Reese.
“Hell no!” yelled back Taylor.
This time, he ran forward toward the large open archway that led into a rather spacious kitchen, and then he ran into that kitchen without further ado.
There was a huge stone oven on the right, a large cutting area on the left complete with three steel kitchen sinks, a big square oak-wood table in the center, a golden chandelier with bright bulbs above, and a tiled floor that was checkerboarded between white and tan tiles below. There was a pair of large steel fridges set within the back of this room, but other than that, the place was a dead end.
“Son of a…!” half-cursed Taylor.
He gripped the silver candleholder and rushed toward the first thing that caught his eye that might also be used as some kind of defense…a large wooden block of a cutting board. He picked up that board and held it firmly in his left hand, the candleholder in his right. He then swiveled to face his would-be killer just as Reese entered the room.
“Got you!” called out the rich boy.
There was a telltale twang as the crossbow fired, the quarrel loaded within it shot forth, and Taylor felt the bolt impact the cutting board in his left hand. The board was knocked from his hand to clatter upon the kitchen tiles, but he didn’t care about that; he was already rushing forward.
Taylor could only imagine the look on Reese’s face was one of surprise, but considering the rich boy was still wearing that stupid “oni” mask, Taylor had no idea what the boy was actually thinking.
Not that it mattered.
Taylor brought down the candleholder upon Reese’s crossbow, the heavy metal striking the expertly-crafted device, and the crossbow was knocked from the rich boy’s hands to slide across the kitchen floor.
Reese cried out once and fell to his rump next to a refrigerator that was positioned at the north wall, one that Taylor had not seen due to a lack of turning around upon his first entering…
Who in the hell needed three fridges?
It didn’t matter. These people had way too much money and way too much time on their hands…Their only child was a nutcase, for one thing. If Reese’s parents had any common sense at all, they would have actually taught him a thing or two about how to be a human being and not…whatever he was trying be.
Taylor gripped the heavy candleholder in his hands and glared down at the boy who had just tried to kill him. He reached down and ripped off Reese’s oni mask before tossing the golden monstrosity aside.
“I should just bash your head in!” he yelled.
The rich boy had tears in his dark eyes as he held his right wrist with his left hand.
“You hurt me!” he cried out. “I think my wrist is broken!”
“Who cares!” yelled Taylor. “You tried to kill me, you idiot!”
“You’ve ruined everything!” whined Reese. “How am I supposed to join the Children if I don’t have your blood!”
Taylor felt so disgusted he could barely stand it.
“Give me that stupid card!” he growled.
He reached down past the boy’s odd black robe, down into Reese’s vest, and pulled forth the “invitation” Reese had supposedly received from “The Matron of the Golden Cradle.”
One side of the beige card was blank save for Reese’s address, his name, a postal stamp, and a mailing date. There was no return address. The other side, however, was the interesting side, as it was filled with flowery gold print within black outlining for easy reading.
The card stated exactly what Reese had previously read off, but it was actually the instructions beneath the introduction that Taylor was interested in.
“Befriend another child of your age,” read off Taylor, “earn that child’s trust, and then smear that child’s blood across this card. Deposit the card within the postal box we shall provide for you…”
He thought about this, but his rage only grew at the absurdity of it.
“First of all, this is a scam,” scowled Taylor. “This is just some scammer trolling you!…Or maybe it’s just a troll…I don’t know. There are a lot of weird people out there.”
“It’s real!” sniffed Reese. “…I know it is.”
“It’s not real, you moron!” yelled Taylor.
The rich boy at his feet sobbed over this rightful rebuke.
“It is real!” cried Reese. “It is!…How can I get out now! Father doesn’t love me! Mother doesn’t love me!…I want out! I want a real family!”
Taylor shook his head in a mix of both disgust and pity.
“Do you honestly think you’re the only one with a messed-up family?” he asked. “Are you out of your mind!…Wait…Of course, you are…Listen, you idiot. I’m gonna lay down some cold hard facts…You are not the center of the universe. You are not the only one who has it hard…
“My mom is dirt poor and is dating a real scumbag who’s only using her for what he can get. He’s got her hooked on drugs—I’m pretty sure anyway—and I don’t know what to do about it, but I do know that I’m not giving up and I’m not going to go nuts or anything like that. I’m going to work hard and get a better life…I can’t believe you have all this, but you can’t see what other people are going through…
“Guess what? I don’t have all of this. I live in a two-bedroom trailer without air conditioning. Do you think I want to live like that?…Hell no!…But I still wouldn’t kill someone to get what you have…Idiot…
“Did you know my mom wanted me to steal silverware when I came over here?…Huh?…Did you know that?”
“What?” asked Reese as he wiped at his tear-strewn face. “Why would she tell you to do that?”
“Because we have nothing, you moron!” exclaimed Taylor. “I don’t even have a phone!”
“I don’t have one, either,” sniffed Reese. “Father says that’s where all the heathens push their propaganda.”
Taylor snorted out a bitter laugh and shook his head no.
“No wonder you’re nuts,” he grimaced. “Look, I actually wasn’t going to take anything…I was just trying to be your friend, and I was ready to get my butt whooped for not stealing, but you?…You are just pure crazy, and…I might add…you just tried to kill me, so I think I’m calling the cops. Yeah, I’m going to call the cops to come and pick you up.”
“No!” cried Reese. “No! Don’t do that!…I’ll…I’ll give you money…Just don’t tell anyone.”
Taylor thought about this, but he really didn’t like the idea of it. Even if he took money from Reese, the crazy kid would probably just end up killing someone else…not to mention that there was no guarantee Reese wouldn’t screw him over.
“No, you’ll just tell your parents that I attacked you and stole the money,” frowned Taylor. “Plus, you’ll just kill someone else, you nutbag.”
“I won’t,” whined Reese. “Besides, if you call the police, then I will tell them you attacked me and tried to rob me.”
Taylor swore under his breath. This was a bad situation no matter how he looked at it.
“You need psychiatric help,” he said angrily. “All right, we’ll make a deal…How much money are you going to give me?”
“I can give you a little,” frowned Reese as he wiped at his eyes.
“A little, huh?” frowned Taylor. “A little money for trying to kill me, huh?”
Twenty bucks, thirty bucks…not much for the price of a life.
“And how much are we talking?” asked Taylor.
“I can give you a thousand dollars right now,” said Reese. “Mother and Father will never miss such pocket change.”
Taylor’s heart nearly stopped.
A thousand bucks? He could do a lot with that…A thousand bucks?…Holy…That was a lot of “pocket change.”
“Deal,” he said. “You give me a thousand bucks right now, and we’ll call it even. I’ll give my mom two hundred and pocket the rest, and she’ll never know about it. I’m going to save that money so I can have a better life, maybe help my mom get back hers…
“Honestly, though, if you really wanted to help me, you’d find a way to get rid of Ricky, my mom’s boyfriend…N…Never mind. It doesn’t matter…I’ll find some way to get rid of him…You know what? Just give me the money.”
He held up the beige postcard that had started all of this trouble and waved it in Reese’s face.
“As for this…” he said firmly. “This postcard? You have the brains of a monkey on meth if you think this is going to work, but I’ll do you a solid. The instructions call for the blood of another child, genius. It doesn’t say to kill them, you idiot.”
Taylor walked over to the kitchen counter where the sinks were located, pulled a knife from a cutlery block—a block he should have seen when he had come running in the first time but unfortunately had not—and used that butcher knife to slice open his left palm. It hurt, but if it kept Crazy-Pants from trying to screw him over, a little pain was worth it.
He smeared his blood across the beige card and held it up for Reese to see.
“Here,” he said unhappily. “Take your stupid card…Now give me my thousand bucks. I need to call home and get my mom out here to come pick me up…Wait…You don’t have a phone. Do you even have a landline?”
“Yes,” said Reese. “There’s one in the living room.”
“Good,” frowned Taylor. “I’m going home…I want to get the hell out of here.”
Reese gave him the most piteous look ever conceived by a human being as the rich boy wiped another tear from his right eye.
“Will you still be my friend?” asked Reese.
“You really are nuts,” sighed Taylor as he rolled his eyes.
*****
Reese walked through the dining hall in order to head to the kitchen. Taylor had gone home, and Reese was all alone again, so now it was time for ice cream.
He always dug into his favorite French Vanilla whenever he was in a particularly dark mood. His plan to join The Children of the Golden Cradle had technically succeeded, as Taylor had provided him with the blood-smeared card, but he had also lost his only friend, which, in retrospect, would have happened anyway had he succeeded in killing the underprivileged boy, but that was neither here nor there.
Thankfully, his right wrist was not broken, just bruised. This was good, because he was already going to have to explain to his parents why there were bullet holes in the walls of the living room.
It didn’t matter. He had more important issues right now, and those centered around his favorite flavor of ice cream.
Still, there was the matter of the card…
He walked into the kitchen, pulled out the beige postcard from his vest pocket, and stared longingly down at it. It occurred to him, however, that a post office box had to be “provided” for him, and he had no idea what that entailed. He had no idea how he was going to mail it…
Perhaps Taylor was right. Perhaps this was all a scam by some “troll” somewhere…
He looked up from the card and watched in fascination and slight fear as a tan tile on the kitchen floor, one located past the central table and next to the oven, slid open, and a small golden box arose upon a golden pillar, that box and pillar rising straight out from the new opening in the floor.
The box, itself, was etched with the pictures of cradles about the lid and sides, that lid firmly locked by an embedded gold lock upon its surface, and there was a single slat within the front side of said box for the deposit of Reese’s card.
“It is real…” he breathed.
He stared down at the card and clutched it with trembling hands.
Would he do it?…It was now or never.
His decision was as swift as his conviction was solid…He had come too far to quit now.
He walked over to the box, held the card above his head, and stared up at it.
“I told you it was real, Taylor!” he cried out, though he knew Taylor could not hear him. “I told you!”
Reese lowered his head and grinned…This was his salvation, not whatever nonsense Taylor had spouted about “hard work.”
Of course, not everything Taylor had said was nonsense.
“You’ve indeed done me a ‘solid,’ Taylor,” whispered Reese. “The blood worked…I promise…nay I vow…that I shall repay you in kind once I join the Children. Of that, you can be sure.”
He deposited the card within the box, shoving the blood-smeared paper into the slat without any hesitation.
The box dropped back into the floor as the golden pillar carried it back to…wherever it had come from. The tan tile slid back over the black space where the box had descended, and the kitchen floor took on its normal appearance once more.
Reese looked up as a loud rumble sounded out. He steadied his footing as the house began to shake, and then he watched in yet more fascination and yet more fear as the wall between the two back fridges split in twain. The divide widened as the back refrigerators and southern walls were absorbed into the eastern and western walls, and a long golden hallway appeared within the divide, a gleaming monstrosity of bright gold with doorways on each side of a hall that went on forever.
However, his attention was not upon the gleaming hallway with its golden walls and its golden ceiling and its golden-tiled floor. His attention was thoroughly fixed upon the four dark figures that stood before him in the golden distance.
They came out of the hallway and surrounded him.
There were four of them, four children his own age, or at least, he assumed they were his age. They were all wearing hooded black robes and golden masks, outfits just like the one Reese had ordered due to his own strange dream, and these people were all around his height and weight, so he could only assume that they were indeed children just like him.
Reese swiveled and looked upon each child in turn, but the hairs rose up on the back of his neck as he studied them…Something was not right here.
Each of them wore a golden mask, each mask different, one like a fox, another like a swan, one with a long goblin nose, and the last with no nose or mouth at all…but there were no eyes. No, the eyeholes were there, but behind them were gold eyes, not golden eyes…Their eyes were all a golden metal. He could tell just by looking through the eyeholes. It was as if there were no living persons within the robes, as if the children were robots out of science-fiction, and their hands, their hands were…
Two children gripped each of his arms respectively, the swan and the goblin, and their grips were like vises, and with good reason…Their hands were solid gold.
He could feel the full metal of what held him fast, and he did not like it one bit, but even this did not shake him like it did standing in the presence of the woman who had orchestrated all of this to begin with.
Reese looked up and shook in terror as an old woman in black approached him. This thing in a funeral dress wore a black veil, but Reese could see the withered and stark-grey skin beneath that veil, a flaking pall of skin as if from a corpse, a desiccated and ancient mummy of a thing that bore down upon him without mercy. Reese stared at the two menacing golden eyes—real eyes, not gold eyes—behind that veil and shook in terror as realization kicked in.
“You’re no matron!” he squeaked out. “You…You’re a witch!”
This ancient crone, this decrepit mummy of a thing, held up Reese’s previously mailed card and grinned, revealing gold-plated teeth behind her dark veil.
“Your invitation…” she drawled out in a raspy and withered voice.
She flipped the card around to reveal Taylor’s blood smear across the front side of it.
“Is accepted,” she finished.
She laughed after that, not a cackle, no, but a truly terrible and uncaring laugh lined with sadistic mirth.
“No! No, wait!” cried out Reese as the old crone stepped aside.
The gold tiles of the golden hallway’s floor slid open, and a huge smelting device as if from a foundry arose from that golden floor of that golden hallway, the channels along the smelter-casting’s black sides bubbling with molten gold, and in that mold’s center was a distinct and hollow human-shaped hole, a child-shaped hole where Reese was to be laid down, laid down so that he could fully and finally join The Children of the Golden Cradle.
The Witch of the Golden Cradle laughed as Reese struggled to no avail, and he was dragged forth without mercy, screaming all the way.
*****
Ricky walked out to his old, brown, beat-up car. He had parked down the street from his favorite bar in order to throw off any cops looking to pick up drunk drivers, because now he was headed back home, and he wanted to get home without getting arrested, if home was what you called that rundown dump his girlfriend owned.
That woman was pure trailer trash, literal trailer trash, and her kid was a mouthy little turd that he was going to flush someday, but that was beside the point. That woman was providing a roof over his head (barely), and he was going to take advantage of that for as long as he could.
He stumbled up to the passenger’s side of his car. He was intending to go around and get in, but he needed to lean on the rear passenger’s-side door for a second. He’d gone a little too wild with the drinks, but his woman’s kid had just brought in some serious cash just for visiting a rich boy. Two hundred bucks that snotnosed little punk had brought in, so a solo celebration had been in order.
Still, Ricky was the only one parked in this little out-of-the-way lot, and the silence out here, that deafening silence that set one’s teeth on edge, was creepy as heck. The buildings out here in the business district were all closed at this time of night, and there was only one street lamp to light his way in this small parking lot…
He turned and sucked in his breath at the sight of a small dark figure standing in the black of night.
“What the…?” he asked himself as he studied the thing in front of him.
Ten feet away was a kid dressed in some kind of Halloween outfit, but it was the end of September. Halloween wasn’t for another month.
This kid was draped in a hooded black robe, and he wore some kind of weird golden mask over his face, a mask with curved eyes, a broad, flat nose, little horns on the top of the mask, a wide mouth, and weird feathers around the bottom of the mask that looked kind of like a beard.
Whatever the case, Ricky didn’t have time for this BS.
“Beat it, kid!” he slurred out. “This ain’t Halloween, and I ain’t in the mood for trick-or-treating.”
He pushed off of his car door and stumbled around to the trunk, but he was met with more figures in the darkness. These new, strange, child-like figures were also draped in the same hooded black robes as the original little turd he’d just told off. It was only the masks that were different.
Now there was a kid with a golden swan mask over his face…her face? He didn’t know. There was also a kid with a goblin mask with a long nose, and one with a mask that had no face, just eyeholes.
“What the…?” he said again as he stared with blurry eyes at these little nutjobs.
He stumbled back around to the passenger’s-side door, unlocked it, and opened it wide. He reached in and grabbed his sawed-off wooden baseball bat out of the passenger’s seat for good measure. Something weird was going on, so a little “discipline” was in order. He had sawn off the top of this bat a long time ago for faster swinging, and it had never let him down.
He turned and slammed the door shut, but he received a sudden start. The original kid, that one with the weird, feathered, horned mask, was standing right in front of him.
“I told you to beat it!” growled Ricky as he brandished his half-bat.
This kid did not so much as twitch in fear at Ricky’s threat. No, this bold little turd just stood his ground.
Ricky leveled his half-bat at the creepy kid’s golden mask.
“I’m gonna count to three before I cave in your skull, kid,” he warned. “One…two…”
This kid reached into his black robe and withdrew a long, golden knife. The deadly blade in the kid’s golden right hand was slender and gleamed with a wicked sharpness in the light of the parking lot’s single streetlamp.
Wait…Golden hands?
This kid moved forward and raised the blade, and Ricky’s drunken brain finally put two and two together.
“Get back!” yelled Ricky.
He swung his half-bat without thinking, and the wood solidly connected with the left side of the creepy little kid’s small hooded head…
It was like hitting concrete.
There was a dull “TING!” noise as the bat impacted, and the kid’s head leaned slightly to the right, but the creepy little turd didn’t budge, didn’t even stumble.
“What the…?” said Ricky for a third time.
He raised his bat again, but the little demon in front of him stepped forward and slashed once with the golden knife it wielded. A line of blood opened up across Ricky’s old and stained blue work shirt, a horizontal slash that surprised Ricky more than it actually hurt.
His senses were currently dulled by too much alcohol, but this attack was more than enough to kick in his fight-or-flight response.
“Son of a…!” he cried out as he planted his right boot in the kid’s stomach.
This little monster was like a solid rock. This kid didn’t budge at all.
Ricky used his own attack to stumble toward the front of the car, but he was blocked by another kid, a new one, this one wearing golden fox mask. More importantly, this new kid held a long and curved gold knife in his right hand as well.
This new kid got underneath Ricky’s guard and stabbed him straight through the stomach.
Ricky stumbled past him as he was stabbed in the back from the kid he’d just hit. He dropped his half-bat as pain, real and honest pain, caught up with him. He bent over as he clutched himself, and then he stared down at the very real blood smeared across both of his palms.
“You little…!” he cried out. “I’ll kill you! I’ll murder you! I’ll murder you all!”
He stumbled away from his old, beat-up car and fell to his knees. He looked up and drooled out bloody spittle as the five little brats surrounded him, each of these munchkin monsters holding some kind of wickedly-sharp golden blade.
“I’ll…kill you…” slurred out Ricky.
He was getting sleepy for some reason.
He stared up into the faceless face of the kid with the weird horned and bearded mask. He reached up out of strange instinct and pulled off the mask of the very first kid, the one he had struck twice to no avail.
“You little…!” he began, but his voice trailed off as he stared up at his first assailant.
Beneath that mask was the polished, gleaming, bald head of what could only be described as a childlike mannequin made of solid gold, the expression blank and uncanny, the eyes unseeing yet knowing, the stare unforgiving and without mercy.
“What the fu—!” began Ricky.
His expletive was cut short by his own screams as the strange and dark children closed in on him, their masks gleaming, their knives flashing, his blood spraying.
BONUS STORY: THE WITCH
Polina looked up at the quaint cottage door and knocked politely.
It was unusual for her to approach a house on her own accord, but she was hungry, and the thick forest behind her looked rather uninviting. She had been wandering through the dark wood all day long, but there had been nothing to eat then, and there was nothing to eat now, so it came upon her to try something else. This house before her was her last resort.
Unlike the dark blot of trees behind her, the cottage before her was a small and attractive little house with sturdy brown plank walls, round windows and a round door, lights burning within to indicate a warm presence, and a thatched roof with a cobblestone chimney that billowed white smoke out into the dusk of the setting sun.
The door opened a moment later, and a tall and beautiful young woman looked down upon her in open curiosity. This woman was gorgeous, with long, licorice-black hair, bright blue eyes like the color of bog bilberries, and full red lips like ripe cherries waiting to be plucked. She wore a fine brown dress with a white top, immaculately clean for a peasant woman, but this caused Polina no mind. Perhaps she was just cleanly.
“And who are you?” asked the young woman. “Why, aren’t you a sweet little thing!”
Polina smiled and put on her best face, though her face was rather plain for a little girl of her apparent age. She was somewhat scrawny from lack of food, and her plain brown hair was disheveled, her clothes somewhat tatty, but she was hungry, so she did her best to look pleasing. Her stomach felt like it was digesting itself.
“Please, miss,” she begged. “I am lost in these woods, and I am so hungry. Could you invite me in for some food? I am so very hungry, and I feel like I might faint.”
The young woman peered out into the dark forest in the distance and frowned, her eyebrows pitching into a noticeable “V” shape.
“What are you doing out here in the first place?” she asked in audible confusion. “Don’t you know these woods are dangerous? There are wolves, bears, and other things that roam the forest. You could have been snatched up and eaten.”
“Please, miss,” begged Polina. “I’m so hungry. I haven’t eaten in such a long time.”
The young woman frowned, lowered her head as if in thought, and then nodded twice.
“You’d better come inside,” she said firmly. “Come in quickly before the sun goes down.”
Polina walked in upon this kind woman’s usherance, for she was truly hungry, and she could not turn down such a delicious meal simply handed to her in such a forward manner.
She smiled as the door closed behind her. She had not thought that anyone would be foolish enough to actually take her in.
Her smile widened to split her little face in twain as multiple rows of glistening white fangs dropped down from her gums, those fangs spiraling down her little throat…
Yes…It was time to eat.
The Children of the Golden Cradle Copyright © 2024 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
The Witch Copyright © 2020 100 More Tall Tales Matthew L. Marlott
The Witch Copyright © 2024 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
Author’s Note: The image above was created via artificial intelligence courtesy of Canva.com.
