The Knightstick Chronicles, Rough Justice

Ch6, The Boy who Hides

The cold morning air bit my face as I ran. Focusing on the road instead of my discomfort, I took measured breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Even so, I wheezed embarrassingly; still very, very out of shape.

Morning runs were part of my Uncle's new training regiment. The schedule was the same, regardless of the weather, so even in the frigid January air, I was out here. It had been two weeks since I started, and every day I wanted to quit, throw my morning alarm against the wall and bury my head under the covers. Unfortunately, there were other, stronger motivations besides my uncle keeping me on track...

Whenever I started slipping back into old slothful habits, disturbing visions of invisible monsters, including more spider ghouls, crept forth. I wasn't even allowed to sit and binge TV for long before the Negasites started skittering around the walls, and I hadn't been able to touch a drink in peace since that day.

Leo's Aetheric Negative Parasites were too much of a mouthful to say on the regular, so I started calling them "Negasites" for short. I thought it was clever, but Leo called me a "coot" whatever the hell that meant. Regardless of the vernacular, the problem remained the same, and the solution demanded running. So, run I did.

At the third mile marker, I came around the bend and slowed to a fast walk, puffing hard. I walked up to a chain link fence off the sidewalk, and placed my toes at the base of the fence post, stretching my hamstring as the morning traffic whizzed past behind me. Catching my breath, my gaze swept over the school playground on the opposite side of the fence where children were at recess, running and laughing.

In the contained chaos of their play, I saw one little boy, no more than eight, sitting on a swing by himself away from his classmates. Watching the boy, it felt as though I were seeing something and missing it at the same time. I stood up from the fence, brow furrowed, and tried to look closer.

He swung lazily back and forth, staring down at his toes. I could make out his clothes were dirty, his hair disheveled and one of his laces was untied. I felt a tug inside my chest, as emotions I couldn't trace welled up in me. Somehow I knew, he was lonely... sad. I thought I could make out something behind him. I squinted and leaned forward over the fence trying to make it out.

Suddenly the innocent playground was invaded by a nightmare. The boy swung forward, and a creature appeared, crouched behind him. It had swirling red patterns across black bare flesh, a long face with a pointed chin, and tall straight horns protruding out the top of its head. Black and yellow eyes leered at me as a forked tongue lashed across its lips. Startled, I sucked in a breath at the sight of it, but before I could fully comprehend what I'd seen, on the boy's backswing, the creature vanished.

"Can I help you?" A stern-looking woman yelled at me from the yard. I flinched at the sound of her voice, and tried to shake off the disturbing image of the creature, "No, sorry, just...just stopped to stretch." I moved away from the fence and slowly picked up my jog again.

About a half hour later I ended my run at the entrance into Old Town and walked the rest of the way, stopping at Marv's dinner across the street to grab a cup-of-joe and bagel before heading upstairs. When I finally got home, I walked through the door and was greeted by the sight of Leo, lazing at my desk and reading a large, old-looking leather-bound book. I had no idea why, but he did that a lot; manifesting intangible objects, and acting as though he were doing something other than just bothering me. By now I was starting to get used to his regular encroachments into my personal space and was unphased by his presence.

I pulled the talisman from my pocket and tossed it with my breakfast on the counter before grabbing a mat from the wall, spreading it on the floor, and starting to stretch.