Friday Nightmares Read online

  She took us to her door and fished out a key. The key made it halfway to the lock before she turned around.

  “Could you… could you please go first?” she asked. “I’m sorry. I’m really scared.”

  “No, no. It’s fine,” I said, flashing her a reassuring smile and hiding the tremble within my own hands. I took the key, pressed it into the lock, and turned the knob.

  Her apartment was one of those two-room affairs that typically belonged to starving artists and small-town kids who wanted to hit it big in the city. It was tiny and thin, with a threadbare couch, brick walls, and a few paintings tacked here and there. Through a nearby arch was a table for two, a row of counters, and a fridge.

  She clearly hadn’t been back since the day she ran out. Brown paper bags stood unpacked on the counter, filled with groceries. A package of bologna and a can of creamed corn had made it onto the floor. The latter had split open and was growing mold. The bologna wasn’t doing so hot, either.

  No sign of the tomato can.

  This wasn’t off to a good start.

  “I don’t see it anywhere,” said Tiffany. “Maybe it’s gone.”

  “Maybe,” I said. This was a lie. I knew that it wasn’t gone because I could detect it in there somewhere.

  There’s a certain darkness that goes along with the Darkon, as their name suggests. They’re outsiders to this world. They don’t belong. Their metaphysical stench, like rot and tar, was easy to detect if you had magic in your blood. This apartment was filthy with it.

  Rusty could tell something was amiss, too. His tail was as close as it could get to being between his legs, and his nose was down to the ground. As my Familiar, he could sniff out such entities better than even a wizard such as myself could.

  “Stay here,” I said to Tiffany as I crept into the apartment.

  There weren’t that many spots for a tomato demon to hide. There was the TV, the couch, and the table, and I could already tell it wasn’t hiding behind any of those places. Then there was the kitchen, which seemed to be abandoned.

  So where could the damn thing be?

  I held out my finger in front of my face, urging my hand to stay steady. I couldn’t hunt Darkon if I was scared silly, no way. I had to be firm and strong.

  Just like Dad always wanted me to be.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I whispered. “I’ve come to chew bubblegum and make pasta, and I’m all out of bubble gum.”

  Darkon were prideful, wrathful beings with egos as big as their appetites. Taunting them with stupid jokes was a tactic my father had always used to draw them out when they were hiding, and I thought maybe I could do the same.

  “Maybe it really is gone after all,” repeated Tiffany from the doorway.

  The row of unopened cupboards sitting adjacent to the fridge was a bad sign. I decided that it was best to just open these remotely, so I stood back against the wall, pointed my finger at the cabinet to the far-left, and whispered, “Aperto.”

  But nothing happened. I may as well have said, “potato” for all the good it did. Clearly, I had gotten the word wrong.

  I knew I should’ve paid more attention in Latin class last year. What the hell was the word for “open?” We learned it right at the start of the year, way back in September, but it escaped me. I thought of Miss Star and her cheap blonde wig, standing up at the board with blue chalk in her fingers-

  And suddenly it came to me.

  “Aperta,” I said, amending the O to an A.

  The cabinet flew open and smacked against the fridge. I peered at it cautiously, heart hammering in my chest, but there were only cleaning products hiding inside. I wasn’t sure whether I should be happy or disappointed that there wasn’t anything there.

  Both were equally bad.

  I did the same with the cabinet beside that, and the one beside that, and the last one, too. Each one clear of paranormal activity.

  “Nothing,” I said, with a pinch of frustration. “Nothing at all.”

  It was then that I realized I’d forgotten about the chandelier.

  I looked up just as the Vextable leapt down and landed right on my head.

  I grabbed the can and wrestled with it, holding it at arm’s length as it pulled forward against my grip, gnashing its teeth madly. Tiffany’s description of the Darkon had been spot-on: it looked like a giant red tomato with black pits for eyes and razor-sharp fangs, which I had a nice view of as they snapped at my face like a shark to flesh. I threw myself against the wall, tilting my body so that the Vextable would also feel the brunt of the blow. And then I fell against the table, pushing against the can with all of my might, trying hard to think of what to do—

  “Rusty, help!” I yelled at the barking pug while I wrestled the Darkon all over the kitchen. “Grab… onto... the can… so I… can banish-!”

  I lowered the can so that it was within Rusty’s reach. He lept up into the air, grabbed onto the butt of the can with his teeth, and held it there with all his strength.

  In order to banish a Darkon back to the Nether Realm, you needed two things: magic and a rhyme. I don’t know what it is about poetic verse, but rhymes were to Darkon as salt is to slugs. The tricky part, of course, was coming up with a rhyming verse while under attack by an inter-dimensional entity that wanted to eat you. To complicate matters, you also had to know the name of the Darkon, or at least its species. That’s where the Dictionary Infernal came in handy.

  I was no Shakespeare, but it didn’t matter: as long as it rhymed and involved the Darkon’s name, it would be vanquished.

  The catch? I was about as good at poetry as I was at Latin.

  This was going to be a long night.

  “Vile Vextable, beast of the can,” I said. “Leave this house and never haunt us… again?”

  Did that rhyme?

  Apparently, not enough. The Vextable flew out of Rusty’s jaws and careened for my face, nearly taking a bite out of my nose. I hit the ground as my pug scampered away and dove beneath a table. The Vextable soared for the door, but Tiffany shrieked and slammed it shut, safe on the other side.

  I joined Rusty under the table to regroup. I’d focused so much on the rhyme that I neglected the effect part of the spell. I could almost hear Dad yelling at me from beyond the grave: Damn it, kid, he’d say. You forgot the part where you banish it back to the Nether Realm. That’s the whole point of casting it in the first place!

  The apartment was stone-silent. Rusty was shaking, and he probably wasn’t going anywhere unless I forcefully dragged him out. But I needed to confront this thing before it surprised both of us.

  I crawled out from under the table and slowly lifted myself up. I looked around again and saw no sign of it. How was a demented tomato can so good at hiding, anyway? It wasn’t fair.

  “Great Merlin, I hate tomatoes,” I exclaimed. “At least carrots know they’re a vegetable and taste like one. You? You think you’re a veggie, but you taste like ass.”

  Movement from just out of the corners of my vision. I grabbed a frying pan off of the counter and swung it at the Vextable, knocking it onto the stove. I swung again when it rose up, this time swatting it all the way behind the couch.

  That was my chance, and I took it.

  “Vile Vextable, stuck in a can,” I said, “return to the Nether Realm by the wave of my-”

  The Vextable flew at me before I was able to complete the spell. I ducked. It hit a wall and doubled back around, ready to try to bite me again.

  Rusty crawled out from the table and barked wildly at the beast as it rose into the air, opening its jaws as wide as it could go. This time, though, it didn’t come for me.

  It came for Rusty.

  That was all the inspiration I needed.

  I was one thing.

  My pug?

  That was a whole other sandwich.

  The words came to me, one after the other, and soon an entire rhyme was tumbling out of my mouth.

  I pointed my finger and ste
pped in front of my pug Familiar.

  “Vile Vextable, scourge of the stew,” I shouted when it flew toward me. “It’s off to the Nether Realm and away with you!”

  A flurry of blue light burst out from my fingertip and collided with the Vextable just as it reached the pug, ready to bite his tail right off. It froze mid-dive and then, it exploded.

  A rain of red, ketchupy goop burst from its skin like a detonating bomb. The goop covered everything in the kitchen— me, Rusty, the table, the fridge, literally everything—with a slimy coat of scarlet. Including my big, black-framed glasses, the ones which were my second-favorite possession, next to Rusty.

  The door eased open and Tiffany came tip-toeing in. She took one long look at her red apartment and her eyes went wide.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Is it gone?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s gone.”

  “How’d you… how’d you get rid of it?”

  “Magic.”

  “Magic?” She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me that’s real, too. What are you, a wizard or something?”

  “I am, but don’t tell anyone.” Not that her telling would be a concern for much longer. I took off my glasses and tried to clear them on my shirt. No good: they just smeared even more. “Bad things happen to us when we reveal our secrets to too many humans. This one will have to stay between just us.”

  “You’re sure it’s gone?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “For good?”

  “Yes, for good. But I wouldn’t go shopping at that store for a while. Who knows what you might end up with next, a Shoggoth in your shiitake mushrooms? A Gorgon in your Gorgonzola?”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice. So, what do I owe you? I mean, I don’t have much, but-“

  “Your happiness.” I smiled to show her my wish was sincere. “That’s all. Just your happiness.”

  I really pulled a hard bargain.

  “Surely there must be something I can do,” she protested, reaching for her purse and pulling out a ragged fifty. She shoved the money toward me. “Take it. Please.”

  I’ll admit, it was tempting. But still, I persisted. I knew how much more fifty dollars meant for someone like her; way more than it would ever mean for me. I shook my head and gently pushed the money away. “Nope. Just live your life. Be happy. That’s payment enough for me.”

  The tears in her eyes this time were tears of gratitude, not sorrow.

  I felt warm all over. I’d helped her out. I’d defeated the Darkon and saved her day, just like my father had done hundreds of times before. I couldn’t help but wonder if this is why he stuck with this job, even as it ripped his heart into tatters. Maybe this, at the end of the day, made the pain worth enduring.

  “Thank you,” she said, putting the fifty back in her purse with a sort of bittersweet resignation. “I owe you everything. You, too, Rusty.”

  Rusty was just as happy as she was, his curly tail wagging merrily from side-to-side. And soon I felt happy also, even despite the fact that I probably looked like an extra from an ‘80s horror flick.

  “But first, one last thing,” I said. I held up my hand and placed it in front of her eyes. “Obscuria.”

  Her eyes clouded over and her face went blank. When the hex was done taking effect in a few minutes, she would forget everything that had happened to her — from the Vextable to me. Perhaps one of the saddest parts of my father’s job was the fact that all humans who he helped eventually forgot he even did so. He had all the work and none of the gratitude after the job was done. But that was the way it had to be, per the deal the Candle wizards had brokered with the Council of Magi many years ago: humans’ memories had to be wiped in order to preserve the secrecy of our race.

  I slipped out before the hex could take effect and make her forget. I was walking out into the foyer of the apartment building when I first noticed the hooded figure standing in front of the exit. Rusty noticed it too, alerting me to its presence with a growl that was about as threatening as a bunny rabbit in a Christmas sweater.

  If there’s one thing being the son of a wizard detective taught me, it’s that nothing good could come from a figure in a black cloak. I stopped dead in my tracks, readying a battle spell in my head. If I was going to go down, I would go down fighting and covered in goo. Such was the way of the Candle wizards.

  “You have five seconds to tell me who you are before I turn you into a burger and feed you to my dog,” I announced. “And I should warn you: we have plenty of ketchup.”

  “There is no need for threats, Henry Candle, son of James,” the mysterious figure said in a deep, rumbling voice that sounded far from pleasant. “I am a representative from the Council of Magi. I come bearing a message from your late father.”

  From my late father.

  I let the words sink in.

  “A message? From Dad?”

  The hooded figure snapped its fingers and a folded-over slip of paper appeared in my hand. “How? He’s dead. What does it say?”

  “It’s been enchanted so that only your eyes can see what is written there. Farewell, Henry. Magic walk with you.”

  I had plenty more questions for this strange messenger — why give it to me now? How was it found? Did my father somehow send it before he died, or did he send it from the afterlife? Why are you Council types always so creepy?— but I didn’t get a chance to ask any of them. He vanished as quickly as he’d appeared, leaving the paper as the only piece of evidence that the encounter had even occurred in the first place. Strange, but so was the reclusive Council of Magi.

  I unfolded the letter to reveal my father’s scratchy, shaky penmanship. There was no mistaking it. This note was from him.

  Somehow.

  Someway.

  He had sent me a note from beyond the grave.

  I read what it said and my heart sank to my toes.

  BEWARE, HENRY.

  HE WILL COME FOR YOU, TOO.

  Two

  Where There’s a Will, There’s a Catch

  My old man once told me that there were few things better than coming home to a warm shower after finishing a hard case. The dirt of a hard day’s work, he said, washed off easier than a lazy day’s grime. I discovered that night that he was wrong, and that there were actually many things that were better than that. One of them was coming home to a warm shower after being splattered in sticky, wet tomato-demon goop.

  Home for me was at the northernmost edge of Boston proper, in a cozy little seaside suburb called Dunwich Heights. Victorian almost-mansions that were older than time itself were a dime a dozen, along with the ominous willow trees that lined the sidewalks. Between they and the cast-iron fences that closed most of the houses in, the whole neighborhood gave off an eternal Halloween-ish vibe no matter the season.

  My grandparents lived in one such Victorian, in a stately Queen Anne, which was old and broken in like a pair of blue jeans someone had worn out to play in the mud. Same color, too: aqua linoleum splattered with areas of old brown decay.

  I parked my car in the driveway and hurried up to the front door with Rusty close behind me. The sky was dark and a cold wind was blowing in anticipation of a rainstorm, which was not uncommon for Boston in October. I felt a jolt of fear that I was being watched, and took it as a warning that I should be running rather than walking.

  “C’mon, Rusty,” I urged him. “Let’s not waste any time. Not today.”

  Beware, Henry.

  He will come for you, too.

  I didn’t know who this “he” was, but hopefully, he wouldn’t be coming tonight.

  I opened up the door, kicked off my goo-splattered Vans, and wandered down the hall.

  “Grams, I’m home,” I called as I walked into the foyer. “Grams? You there?”

  The inside of the Miller residence was an eclectic mixture of old-fashioned style and modern-day sensibility. There was a flat-screen TV that played in front of a green chaise couch. There was floral wallpaper and grandfather
clocks and a Roomba that darted around as if it were alive. There was a Google home stationed atop an end table that’d been manufactured when FDR was president. Three floors, a dozen rooms, and endless desserts.

  Living with your grandparents because your dad was an irresponsible drunk wizard had its perks.

  “What’s that? Who’s there? Do we have a burglar?” drifted Grams’ voice from the kitchen. “Thank God. Maybe you can help me search for money. I’m fresh out.”

  “Really?” I called back. “Then I guess I’ll just have to kidnap this Henry kid and sell him on the black market.”

  “Eh, he’s not really worth much. His pug, though? Now, he’s priceless.”

  Grams waltzed into view from around the corner of the kitchen archway with a batter-caked spoon in one hand and a bowl in her other arm. Once she saw me — or rather, the mess all over me — she stopped dead in her tracks, playful teasing ended. “Henry. James. Candle. What on Earth-“

  “I know, I know, it looks bad,” I said, holding up my hands as if begging her not to shoot me dead. “But it’s not blood. I promise. It’s tomato-”

  “I don’t care what it is!” she cried, pointing at my socks with her spoon. “You’re dripping all over the floors! I just scrubbed ‘em this morning!”

  Of course, she had. The pristine floors of our home were Grams’s pride and joy, more precious to her than pancakes were to Rusty (which was saying a lot). Truthfully, I figured she had every right to be so proud of them and the rest of the house as well. She and the dust mites of the Miller residence had been engaged in a war that had yet to be decided, even after decades of combat. She fought its battles valiantly, however, and more often than not came up the decisive (if temporary) victor.