Trap

Adam, Cora, and the others were standing at the base of the stairs at the far end of the first floor corridor. Every classroom had been haunted. The corridor itself looked like a deadly obstacle course. Adam had helped Cora make more of those impassable rings of icicles, as well as nets of steel wire mesh, barricades of concrete, and even a seemingly bottomless pit, where a large portion of the floor just disappeared into darkness like a sinkhole had risen up and dragged the cheap vinyl flooring down into the bowels of the earth.

“We’re almost ready to do this,” declared Cora, a grim but determined look on her face. “Everybody choose your weapons.”

Adam was confused for a moment as there were no weapons in sight, then he noticed the cracks appearing around the others. A few seconds later, he was the only one weaponless.

Ridley held a silver and bronze lighter. It had a long cylindrical shape that fit snugly into his hand. He lit it with a downwards flick of his thumb and a flame erupted from its tip that was purple at its base and bright orange at its tip. His thumb rested lightly on a spinning dial near the top of the lighter, a gleeful longing in his eyes. He gave it a small spin and the flame grew to the length of a kitchen knife, then he spun it back down again. Adam wasn’t sure he wanted to find out just how far that dial could spin.

Moan held a stocky baseball bat, made from a dark, rough metal that looked like cast iron, with thick, raised bands of shining steel around its top half. The bat must have weighed more than Adam, but Moan could swing it around as if it were made of air.

Gen’s fingernails were now covered by three inch long claws. The fact that they were coloured by soft shades of blue and pink did nothing to ease Adam’s growing fear of the tiny girl.

For a moment it seemed like Cora didn’t have a weapon at all, then Adam noticed her shoes. They were high-topped sneakers, coloured red, black, and white. But the soles were much thicker than usual, and seemed to be making a deep vibrating hum.

Cora noticed him staring. “My own invention.” She tapped the floor with her right foot, not much harder than a regular footstep. A tremor rippled through the building, the loose vinyl around her foot splintered into dozens of pieces, and the plywood beneath cracked so loudly it gave Adam goosebumps. “One kick from these and you ain’t getting up again no matter who you are,” said Cora with a satisfied smirk.

“Show off,” muttered Moan, his baseball bat swinging limply by his side.

Cora turned to Adam. “Where’s yours?” The others turned towards him too, and Adam felt his cheeks burn red.

After his brief but thrilling crash course with Cora, he felt he was capable of making some sort of simple weapon. The problem was what weapon? The others had all made something that suited them perfectly, that was dangerous but also - cool. He couldn’t just make something boring like a sword.

“Any second now,” said Ridley, playing with the dial on his lighter again, “or shall we come back tomorrow?” Moan snickered.

“I don’t know what to make,” admitted Adam, his face feeling as hot as the flame on Ridley’s lighter looked.

“Ain’t you supposed to be a Wildfire?” said Moan. “The strongest imagination anyone’s had in five hundred years, and you don’t know what to make!”

“Stop pressuring him, he knows.” Cora stepped directly in front of him, blocking out the others. “Just make something you’re familiar with Adam, from a book or movie, or something you’ve daydreamed about. The more comfortable you are with it, the better.”

Everything about Cora in that moment - the way she spoke, the way she held herself, the way her eyes met his - it all told Adam one, vitally important thing. The only thing that mattered. Cora really did care about him. She truly, hand-to-heart cared, and that fact filled Adam with emotions he could not control or fully understand. He felt his face flush bright red and had to turn away so Cora wouldn’t see.

The more comfortable, the better. Adam remembered what it felt like raising his sword above his head in countless daydreams, the way it caught the light and carved through any enemy his mind conjured before him. It was his weapon of choice whenever he was acting the hero, always in his hand as the first warhorns blew. But then he remembered what always happened when the fighting was at its thickest, when the stakes were highest, and the outcome, darkest. His sword was always lost in that moment, and he was saved not by a weapon, but by a companion.

A crack of white light appeared beside him, much bigger than all the ones the others had made combined. Adam was focused, his mind was clear. He knew what was at stake if things went badly in this fight, and he cared too much to let that happen. Out of the crack leapt the fluffy animal with fur like burning coals that Adam had taken on too many adventures to count.

Banter let out a bark that was filled with joy and leapt up to lick Adam’s face, his tail wagging ferociously like this was the happiest moment of his entire life. Adam supposed it must be, given that this was technically the first moment of his life. He scratched Banter behind the ears, letting him lick his face, and felt overwhelmed with joy. Though he saw Banter almost every day inside his head, he never thought he’d get to be with him like this, and he realised just how much the dog meant to him. Banter was more than just an imaginary friend, he was the best part of Adam, responsible for guarding the last strands of Adam’s better nature. Adam had lost almost all of his childhood wonder, and the happiness that comes from being blissfully naive about the world. What little remained had survived in Banter. As long as he had his loyal dog by his side, he felt like he could still one day get it all back.

“A dog,” said Moan, but there was no judgement in his voice. He was smiling at Banter. They all were.

“Not bad, Wildfire,” said Ridley, and Banter ran over to him excitedly. Ridley laughed and started petting him. “Not bad at all. But you were supposed to make a weapon.”

“Banter is a weapon,” said Adam, still grinning from ear to ear. “Watch. Banter, go fetch!” Another crack of light appeared over his hand, then he threw the freshly made ball down the corridor, towards the nearest ring of icicles.

Banter bounded off after it, leaping on top of the razor sharp ice to catch the ball midair. Moan shrieked, Gen gasped, and Ridley and Cora both flinched as they expected to see Banter impaled a dozen times over. Instead, the icicles were crushed beneath him, like he was made of steel. He came bounding back over to Adam and dropped the ball at his feet.

“Good boy, Banter!” Banter’s tail went into overdrive and he barked in happy agreement.

“An indestructible dog,” said Cora softly, looking at Banter with newfound respect.

“You really are a Wildfire,” said Gen with wide eyes that seemed to be glued on Adam.

The red returned to Adam’s cheeks. “No, I mean, it’s not as good as Cora’s shoes, right?”

Cora let out a strained laugh. “Are you kidding? Do you even understand how much easier it is to make shoes that kick harder than it is to make something as complex as Banter? No Adam, we are not in the same league, not even close.” For a moment, fear returned to Cora’s eyes, the same he’d seen when he’d tried to talk her out of this, but just like then, Cora seemed to be able to catch it before it took control of her, and force it back into the depths it came from. What it was doing to her in there, locked in her subconscious mind, Adam shuddered to think. There was an upside to wearing your fear on your sleeves. You always knew exactly what sort of damage it was doing to you.

“Let’s get this over with,” said Cora, and Adam got the impression she was talking more to herself than any of them. “Adam, it’s time to call that creepy friend of yours.”

Distracted by Banter, Adam spoke without thinking. “I don’t have a phone.” The others all laughed, and he was about to explain that his dad wouldn’t let him have one because he thought they were making kids’ brains rot, when he realised that’s not what they were laughing about.

“Not that sort of call,” said Cora, the only one that hadn’t laughed. “A maker is connected to the things they make. In a way, they belong to us. They are us. They need us, like a parasite needs a host. And we can bring them to us, call them to us, just by thinking about them.”

Something about that didn’t sound right to Adam. “I thought about it non-stop last night, but it didn’t come.”

“Last night my dad and his friends were watching your house. It tried to come, but it’s smart, it knew it couldn’t get to you with so many Infernos about.”

Adam felt a fresh wave of anger towards Dorian. “They were there. The whole time?”

“They were trying to catch the Nightmare. They were keeping you safe.”

“And how do you know they aren’t watching us right now?”

“Because,” she stopped herself from saying more. When she spoke again, her voice was bitter. “I just do okay, trust me. No one’s going to stop the Nightmare this time. Just think about it, as hard as you can. Imagine it coming here, and it will.”

Adam didn’t like this. Something felt wrong, and Cora was definitely keeping something from him. He looked at the others. They all had the same grim but determined look on their faces. None of them wanted to do this either, but they would follow Cora’s lead. Because Cora was an Aetos. Suddenly Adam knew with complete certainty that this was all Dorian’s doing. He was the one that had decided to use Adam as bait, but it hadn’t worked. Now he’d given the task to Cora. That’s how she knew he wasn’t watching them. He was going to let Cora and her friends face it alone.

“You don’t have to do this, you know that right?”

Only Cora’s eyes seemed to show just how much she wanted to believe him. “Call it Adam, now.”

Adam wanted to refuse, to tell her this was insane and that Dorian didn’t understand what he was getting her into. But then Cora spoke a single word - “please” - and Adam understood. She needed to do this, but she couldn’t do it without him. And he would rather face a hundred Nightmares than let her down.

Banter gave his hand an affectionate lick, and Adam closed his eyes and thought about the Nightmare.

Skeletal thin, lopsided with that eerily familiar face stretched into a silent scream. Eyes just disks of bloodshot white, and the jerking motion in which it moved. Goosebumps spread over Adam’s body. His heart rate skyrocketed and sweat began to dampen his forehead. He forced himself to keep going. Now he imagined the Nightmare coming towards them through the school. Drawing closer and closer, with no one there to stop it. Now it was staring up at D block. Did it feel excited? Could it feel anything other than the horror it showed all over its face? Adam wasn’t sure, but it kept coming, faster now, towards the one thing it wanted. The only thing it wanted.

The frosted front doors of D block burst inwards and shards of ice flew in every direction. The five young makers jumped and spun around to face it, fear coursing through their bodies with such intensity they felt like they’d been struck by lightning. Banter let out a deep, rumbling growl.

The Nightmare stood in the open doorway.

It was just how Adam remembered it, yet somehow so much worse. It was smaller than Gen, but seemed to corrupt the air around it until it felt bigger than Moan. It stood still for a brief moment, looking directly at them, and for the second time Adam caught a glimpse of the underlying intelligence beneath the horror. It was measuring them, and the hallway of obstacles between them. It wasn’t going to blindly walk into a trap, just as it hadn’t last night. Adam felt a flash of hope that it would decide to walk away from them now, that it would wait for an easier moment to come for him. Then the Nightmare began to run, its limbs jerking erratically, like a zombie from a horror movie. It reached the gaping pit in the floor and launched itself onto the wall, scuttling along it on all fours like a deformed spider.

Gen screamed.

Moan began shouting, “HOW THE HELL IS IT DOING THAT - “

Ridley roared as he lit his lighter and spun the dial all the way to the end, sending a jet of purple and orange flame all the way down the corridor. The Nightmare dodged the flame, moving as nimbly as a dancer despite looking so clumsy it seemed a miracle it could move at all.

Only Cora remained outwardly calm. She reached her hands out, her eyes narrowed with focus, and a great BANG echoed up the corridor as the door to every single classroom burst open.

The Nightmare, halfway up the corridor by now, paused in its tracks. The entire building seemed to shake. There was one brief second of stillness, and then all hell broke loose.

Desks burst their way into the corridor, splintering as they crashed into the door frames and each other. Through the gaps came the chairs, the textbooks, even the whiteboard markers, streaking through the air like colourful darts. Adam couldn’t help but be impressed by Ridley and the others. They had done an incredible job. The Nightmare disappeared from view as the haunted objects descended upon it. The noise was deafening. Adam felt a triumphant shout rising in his chest, but by the time it reached his throat it had turned into a shriek of fear. A few of the desks had crashed their way through the chaos and were hurtling right at Adam and the others.

“I forgot about those ones,” said Cora with a sigh, and Adam realised she was talking about the desks he’d helped haunt in the first classroom, the ones that were happy to attack anything and anyone.

There were three of them. Ridley took aim at the one on the right, dousing it in flames so hot that it burnt to pieces mid-flight. But the largest of those pieces didn’t stop coming. The other two desks and the burning remains of the third hurtled towards them with the speed of a moving train, and a gut-wrenching thought came to the forefront of Adam’s mind. This is all my fault.

The centre desk reached them first. Cora moved so fast Adam could barely follow it. One moment she was standing with her right leg poised behind, and the next she had delivered a perfect sidekick that didn’t just knock the desk back - it atomised it. Where there was once a rampaging desk, there was now just a cloud of dust. The sound it made was terrifying, like a mountain had been dropped from the sky and split the earth in two.

The burning pieces reached them next. Ridley and Moan stood side by side to face them. With the aim of a sharpshooter, Ridley incinerated piece after piece with perfectly placed bursts from his lighter. Moan handled the rest. His bat made no noise as it swung through the air in a blur of speed. Despite how heavy it looked, it clearly weighed absolutely nothing to Moan. Each strike sent a burning piece hurtling back down the corridor. Not a single one came back for seconds.

The final desk went straight for Adam. He tried to think, tried to imagine something to protect himself, but his mind was still crowded with that single thought - all my fault.

A blur of black, white, and orange blocked out the desk. A playful bark rang out, and Banter swiped the desk aside with a single fluffy paw. The desk crashed straight through the wall and into the room beyond, where it collided with the floor with so much force the shock wave made Adam’s whole body tremble.

Banter landed gracefully in front of Adam and smiled up at him with his tail wagging and his tongue hanging out.

“Good boy, Banter.” He reached down and gave Banter a few scratches behind the ears. Banter closed his eyes and upped the speed of his tail-wagging, clearly loving his reward. It occurred to Adam that even though it was all his fault that they were here fighting monsters, he was also the reason they had Banter. It was the most comforting thought he’d had in a long time.

“Uhh, guys.” The sound of Gen’s quivering voice broke them all out of the good mood their small victories had given them. As one, they turned their attention back down the corridor.

The air was clear. The broken remains of the haunted objects littered the floor, making Adam think of dead bodies on a battlefield. Standing amongst the mess was the Nightmare. There was not a single scratch on it. No blood, no bruises, not a single thing to show that it had just been attacked by half a building’s worth of furniture and school equipment.

Then it was moving again, running in its terrible jerking way, crashing straight through the obstacles Adam and Cora had made, or avoiding them by crawling along the walls or ceiling. The fluorescent lights along the corridor were flickering worse than ever, casting the Nightmare in and out of shadow, and tricking their eyes into thinking it was moving forward in great bursts, erasing the distance between them faster and faster, its bloodshot white eyes never leaving them.

Gen was the first to take a step back, then Moan and Ridley. Adam would have run for his life if not for Banter crouched before him, giving off a slow, deep growl. He looked over at Cora, who was staring down the corridor like she was lost in a dream.

“Cora!” Adam cried out to her. She didn’t turn to face him, but the sound seemed to wake her up again. She stepped forward with her left leg, placing the right one in the same position it had been before she’d kicked the desk out of existence. She continued to stare at the charging Nightmare, but her eyes were wide and alert now. She was no longer just watching. She was waiting.

The Nightmare was on the ceiling as it cleared the last hurdle, then it dropped to the floor just a few metres in front of them. It did not slow down. There was no caution anymore, no thought of danger. It seemed the Nightmare had already decided that they were no threat to it. Though Cora stood closest, it veered to her left, aiming for Adam.

Time moved strangely, as it always does for people who think the moment they’re in might be their last. It didn’t slow down for Adam. If anything, it sped up, but so did his ability to process everything around him. He saw the Nightmare, clearer than ever before, the silent scream on its face, the hands and limbs that were nothing more than bones wrapped in skin, and the shape of its eyes - so horribly similar to his own. But that was not all Adam saw.

Cora - pivoting lightly on the balls of her feet, like a spinning dancer. Her right foot, arching through the air, the red and black of her sneakers blurring like the tail of a comet. Her kick hit the Nightmare right in the centre of its face. The sound it made was so loud and destructive that Adam could not imagine any living thing surviving it.

The Nightmare’s head snapped backwards, and it staggered away from Adam. One step, then another. It stopped moving altogether, and the corridor was still and silent for the first time since it had burst through the frosted doors of D block. Adam didn’t even dare to breathe. Let it be dead. Let it drop to the floor and never move again…

The Nightmare’s head slowly lifted back into place, its neck making popping and snapping sounds like the bones in its spine were restacking themselves. There was a red mark on the bridge of its nose, and one small drop of blood running from its left nostril. Other than that, it looked like Cora’s kick hadn’t hurt it at all.

Terror spread through them like fire through kindling. Every instinct in Adam’s body was screaming at him to run, but before he had time to act, the Nightmare had lunged towards him.

This time things did slow down, including Adam’s thoughts. He only had time to think, I’m sorry Cora, before the Nightmare was on him. It grabbed him by the shoulders, just as it had done to Marcus Kirk, their faces only inches apart. Then Adam sensed it. The same feeling he’d had when he was being beaten up. The feeling of losing himself. It was like a dial was slowly being turned, shutting off his own thoughts, and replacing them with the Nightmare’s. And he realised that he’d never really known fear, only its surface, just as a sailor only knows the swells of the ocean and nothing of what lies beneath - in the fathomless depths. The Nightmare knew though. Oh yes, it knew. And it wanted Adam to know it too. Words began to play inside his head, and he realised the Nightmare was talking to him.

Be with me… hide with me… you are in danger… but I’ll keep you safe… the only way… the way you taught me… we’ll hide together… inside forever… INSIDE FOREVER…

Adam screamed, but it was drowned out by a ferocious bark that no normal dog could’ve made. Then he saw Banter bite down on one of those skeletal arms, and with a great thrashing movement the dog threw the Nightmare away from Adam. The relief was instant. Adam felt his own thoughts rising up to the surface again. He breathed in deeply and realised he must have been holding his breath, the fresh oxygen reminded him that he was still alive, and still himself. The Nightmare hadn’t gotten to him properly. He beamed at Banter, ready to throw his arms around the loyal dog and tell him he was the best boy in the whole world. But the Nightmare got there first.

It grabbed Banter by the throat and lifted it up off the ground. Banter thrashed about wildly but couldn’t free himself. His growl became a whimper, then a cry filled with pain. Adam felt like his heart was breaking into pieces. “BANTER!”

Banter went limp, and the Nightmare hurled him at Adam, who caught him in his arms and was knocked off his feet. He skidded on his back until he crashed into the stairs. Pain erupted all along his neck and shoulders, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was Banter, clutched tightly to his chest. “Banter? Banter? Wake up boy, wake up.” But Banter was still.

“RUNNNN!”

Adam wasn’t sure whose voice it was, but kept Banter in his arms as he scrambled to his feet, and joined the others as they sprinted up the narrow stairs, bouncing off the walls and each other like they were inside a pinball machine. The Nightmare followed them at an easy pace - a hunter who knew its prey was cornered.