A chapter from a personal horror novel still in the works. title- (unofficial, THE LAST NIGHT)

The Last Night
by Brian Main

Corey Marcus Michels never grew to love his stepfather like his mother promised he would two years ago when she told him she was going to marry Mark. At that time, Corey didn't understand why his real father was being replaced or how his mother could kiss any other man then his dad. But despite all his crying, temper tantrums and begging his mother still married Mark Matthew Stevens on July 1, 1992.

Corey sat on the end of his bed pulling at the cartoon faces that covered his sheets. Mark continued to lecture him about his behavior at school. Corey, never once making eye contact with his mothers' husband, sat silently wearing an uninterested face as he half listened to his stepfathers' words. " Corey your mother and I don't need the crap you're pulling in school. Ms Davis says your fighting girls in your class. We hear you hit one of them in lunch today." Corey turned to look out his window as his stepfather continued " we don't hit girls Corey. Only pussy ass bitch boys hit girls. You a bitch Corey?"

Corey kept all his thoughts safely inside while he listened. "Since when don't men hit women Mark? Since when is hitting girls pussy stuff Mark? Are you a bitch Mark?"

Mark was never referred to as tall but often called big. He was short but wide shouldered and his arms where much heavier then Corey's real father's. Mark never lifted a weight, outside of work, in his life (save repeated repetitions of curling twelve-ounce cans in front of the TV.) but was built strong and thick. His hands always had a dirty look to them and though he didn't wash them much, if he did, it wouldn't remove the permanent film of motor oil and grease that always covered them. Corey always thought Mark's hands where to dirty to touch his mother but Corey's' thoughts never where brought into serious consideration since Mark came into their lives. Corey stared out the window wishing he could rip his step fathers head off as the speech went on and on.

" Look at me when I talk boy." Corey looked. "Your mother is fed up with this bullshit of yours and frankly I don't blame her. You can forget sleeping over Jerry's' this weekend, in fact, you can forget everything for the next two months."

Corey screamed as if physically wounded " No! I got to sleep over Jerry's. Jerry's dad bought him the new Troll Killers game and-

"Damn it boy, you need that mouth fixed?" mark said, raising the back of his hand to the boy. " You won't be seeing NOTHING but school, bedroom and bathroom for the next two months and if you don't quit your moaning it'll be three? Do I make myself clear boy?" Mark stood up, using size to send fear into the child.

" Yes.Mark."

"Yes what?"

Corey pictured a million needles enter his stepfathers' eyes. "Yes.Sir."

" Now you better get right to sleep or ill be back up here to make you cry some. Got it?" Mark walked over to the light switch by the door. Staggering slightly from his regular Friday twelve-pack, he turned off the light and walked out of the room. Turning on one heel, Mark stuck his head in and smiled.

" You want to hit girls Core-man? Then I think you're big enough to sleep with the door closed." He slammed the door.

" Mark, no!" Corey screamed as Mark laughed his way to the steps. Settling into his soft bed, the boy listened to his stepfathers' footsteps as they carried him down the front stairs of the big house. Each step had its own signature sound, giving Corey the perfect mental picture of just what stair Mark reached up until he left the stairway. Looking around his room Corey allowed his eyes to accustom themselves to the darkness. With the door closed, his familiar bedroom became foreign and terrible. Corey looked to the ceiling and quietly listened to the house.

At night the house terrified him. Its pipes sounded like people banging to escape the walls when water pushed through them. The foundation often settled at night, causing it to sound as if strangers walked up and down the halls. Corey had lived in the house for two years but he never felt that it was his home. The boy believed that every piece of wood used to build the house must have been cut from an evil tree, found deep in an evil forest. In his imagination he perceived a cognitive personality for the home. In his mind he saw it wanting to gorge itself with fresh, young children.

He always felt stupid when he would have his mother leave the hall light on and bedroom door open. Mark teased when Corey would call for his mother to come and check for monsters under his bed or in his closet. "What's wrong cry baby? Afraid of the Boogie man?" he would say. Mark's harassment didn't stop the boy from calling out to his mother. No sense of pride could make him spend a night without the hall light shining from the crack of his open door.

He didn't feel at home here in the old house. It was much bigger then the apartment owned by his mother and father back in Norfolk Virginia. He thought this house was haunted from the first time he had set eyes on it two years ago. His mother promised him that he would love living here. She swore that Roanoke was a great town to grow up in, filled with wonderful schools, playgrounds and children his own age. His mother was wrong. He didn't grow to love it, hated his school and had only made one friend during his two years in Roanoke.

Jerry Carroll lived across the street from Corey and was his only friend. He had lived in Roanoke Virginia his whole life of eleven years and was considered to be a terror by the neighboring families that nestled there. Jerry was the only eleven year old, Corey had ever met, who already earned a police record by the age of ten. Corey's' mom didn't like Jerry much. She thought him to be a bad influence on here son, but seeing as how most kids picked on Corey, she never tried to step between the two's friendship. Jerry was the one who taught Corey the things that "every boy should know" as Jerry always put it. He taught him how to smoke cigarettes without coughing and how to cuss like a man. He even taught Corey how to steal comic books, from the corner store, without being caught by the lady at the counter. Jerry quickly became Corey's best and only friend. Despite the three-year age difference and separate schools attended, the two boys where inseparable. Together, the duo could be found during any free hour, playing
video games or fishing for suckers down at Tully's pond.

Sitting in his bed, Corey turned to look out the window. The back yard was larger then the one he left in Norfolk and was completely fenced in by a five-foot tall wooden fence. The crickets never rested at night and always could be heard, in their never-ending search for summer time mates, singing from unseen hiding places throughout the neighborhood. "Even the crickets sound different here" he thought as he laid back into his bed and pulled the cartoon clad covers up over his nose.

Down stairs he could hear his mother laughing at his stepfather's cruel jokes about coworkers and friends. His mother had laughed a lot more when she was married to his real father, Corey thought. In fact his "real" father made her smile much more then Mark ever did these days. At first Mark was everything to Corey's mom. She never really cared that her new husband worked too hard or drank too much. It never really bothered her when he vented his long days out on the family or when he called her awful names during times when "he needed his space". But soon enough, his temper and drinking started to effect her as time passed. She never mouthed one complaint but her face spoke of unhappiness more and more with each passing month. Corey thought Mark was killing his mother and that he could actually see the life slowly being taken from her once beautiful face.

Somewhere in the house a toilet flushed causing pipes to bang and slam against each other behind the walls. Corey slipped under the covers and waited for the horrible noise to stop. The sound traveled through the house like angered poltergeist, shaking every window in the house. When the pipes calmed he lowered the covers to his nose and peeked at the closet at the far end of his room. The door was closed as he always made sure before bedtime.

In Corey's young mind the closet was the worst thing about the whole damn house. The door was thick, old and covered in a tar black lacquer that looked as if it battled time and lost. It stood ten feet tall and demanded
attention when the room was silent. The weight of the monstrous door rested on giant hinges that never personally knew the oilcan. The door screamed like a dying banshee whenever pulled open. The light socket, deep inside,
never worked and left its' inner territory dark and massive. Corey closed his eyes and fell victim to his imagination. In his mind, hunched over ghouls and flesh craving zombies pushed open the closet door in a rush to grab and devour him. Corey opened his eyes to confirm that the door was still indeed sealed and that no real zombies had escaped from the closet. The room remained still and quite. Quite...all but for the crickets.

Again the world disappeared behind closed eyes. Corey could still see Mark lecturing him half-cocked at the foot of his bed. He remembered the many face to face, one-sided shouting matches that he had with his stepfather over the past two years. The smell of Marks' favorite beer was easy to recall. Corey, visualizing his stepfathers' rage in detail, began to sob softly.

Downstairs was now almost quite. His parents' voices no longer echoed up the stairway and in their absence, Corey could hear the soft mumble of the television. Corey could think of only two reasons why his parents would be so quite. He hoped they had simply fallen asleep as he shuddered at the thought of the other possibility. He always thought, "Smooching was nasty", and to Corey, the thought of marks' unshaven face kissing his mother was even worse.

Wind rattled the old, heavy window causing him to jump in his bed and sink deep under his covers. Risking the chance of losing his head to an unseen claw, Corey stuck it out to get view of his closet. Its' dark door remained closed. The windows stopped banging as the wind died. Once again, the crickets where all that could be heard. I know they are in there thought the small boy in his small bed. The mole men, the undead, the snakes and spiders.the Boogieman. They all can smell my blood. They want to eat me ALIVE! Squirming under his blankets Corey felt his heart pumping faster the more monsters he imagined multiplying inside his closet. In his head, it became over crowded with all kinds of horrors. Mutants, goblins, werewolves and blood sucking gargoyles fought to open the huge door from both inside
the closet and Corey's' mind. As long as he didn't hear the rusty hinges squeal, he knew the monsters had not yet succeeded in opening the door. Corey tried to forget his fears by removing his thoughts off of the closet. Re-enacting the days' earlier events in his head, Corey began to forget his room.

~~

He remembered his morning and how ordinary it had started. As normal, Mark had already left for work before Corey was even aware that a morning had begun. Corey had woken up to the smell of a hot breakfast waiting for him at the table where his mother called for him. After throwing the days' first meal down his throat and clean cloths on his back, Corey had hurried out the door with a kiss on his forehead and a bagged lunch at his side. Corey and the other children had met at the usual bus stop at the usual time, like they did every morning. The bus ride was routine with Corey sitting directly behind the Bus drivers' seat. He always sat there in attempts to prevent the noogies, frogs, charlies and wedgies that would certainly result from sitting in the back seats reserved for the much cooler kids. After a short tour of the local area (interrupted by the occasional stops for waiting school children.) the bus arrived at Pleasant Avenue Elementary School where Corey had attended for the past two years. The school day went on as any other. Subjects bombarded Corey as he watched the clock from his small desk. He had patiently awaiting the bell that would announce lunchtime. Lunch was the only part of the school day Corey enjoyed. He wasn't forced to participate in any group activities. He wasn't expected to answer questions that he knew no answers to. In lunch, he was allowed to sit alone and not be bothered by anyone or anything. Corey always found an empty table to sit during lunch and once he claimed it, there was no danger of it ever overcrowding.

After what seemed to be forever, the sound, that all children of Pleasant Ave Elementary longed to hear, rang through its hallways. Children poured into the lunchroom by the dozens. Soon sounds of laughter and amusement could be heard from every table but Corey's. The children feasted from brown paper bags and hot Styrofoam trays, all the while, swallowing down milks both white and chocolate by the gallons.

Most days lunch came and went uninterrupted and uneventful for Corey, but not this lunch, not this time. On this day, Corey would be visited by an element from the "cool table". This element was better known as Brittany Camble. With her she brought her "priss squad", Michelle Davison, Candie Gibbons, Anna Stadalius and Karen Gensler.

Brittany and her entourage were destined to be popular there entire school lives and they knew this even at their tender ages. Each one was driven to school in expensive cars and All came from wealthy families. They wore cloths that most parents couldn't afford to dress their children in. The hair on each their small heads seemed professionally placed, neatly groomed under ribbons and bows that smelled of sweet candies. No one in the priss squad had ever spoken to Corey before and it came to him as a shock that they choose to approach him now. Brittany tossed her soft blond curls with one hand as she sat herself next to Corey.

"What you doing Corey? It is Corey isn't it?" she said.

" Uh.Eating." Corey said raising his half-eaten tuna sandwich in testimony to the fact as if she may not believe him. The five girls giggled in perfect synchronicity as Brittany continued.

" Know what.I think you're cute. We all do."

Corey, baffled by girls in general, was lost for words. " You, you do?"

" Yes Corey. we do. You do find me cute, don't you Corey?" her large blue eyes sparkled, dancing innocently in her head as she awaited an answer.

" Uh.I guess so."

" You guess so?" she said playfully. " I bought you something Corey" she pulled out a small box from her pocket and placed it on the table beside his chocolate milk. Corey wasn't sure how he felt about girls but he did know how he felt about presents. His imagination went wild as he quickly forgot his sandwich and became captured by box and the mystery of its contents.

" What is it?" he said, failing to hide his curiosity.

" Why don't you open it and see? Go on.open it."

Corey rubbed the mayonnaise from hands onto his pants and reached for the small gift. He placed the box up to his ear and softly shook it. It made no sound as he rocked it back and forth in his hand. The girls laughed sharing odd looks between them that caused him to feel awkward.

" Go on Corey.open it." they all sang.

Corey could no longer fight his intrigue. He raised the gift to one eye and slowly opened the box. As soon as the lid lifted Corey screamed loud enough to get the attention of every child in the lunchroom. Falling from his chair and onto his back the girls erupted in hideous laughter. The five girls pointed at Corey as if he was an oddity performing for their personal amusement. The huge, black spider, which had jumped from the box, scurried off and escaped before Corey had gotten to his feet.

"POOR BOY IS AFRAID OF SPIDERS! POOR BOY IS AFRIAD OF SPIIIIDERS!" Brittany began chanting. She danced around urging the gathering crowd of children to join her in the malicious melody. Soon the whole room was filled with the sound of cruel little boys and girls singing along unmercifully through uncontrollable laughter. Corey felt tears rushing down his round cheeks.

Being singled out and ridiculed by the heartless sheep, shepherd into chorus by the precious Brittany Camble, devastated him.

"SHUT UP!" He screamed sobbing.

Brittany glanced at her four friends. Receiving approval for her ingenious prank, she walked up to face Corey.

" Keep crying poor boy. You big pussy." She softly whispered in his ear with a smile, batting her crystal eyes innocently.

Corey pictured ripping those eyes from her fragile head. He saw himself stomping on her pretty face. Smashing it into a horror so unpleasant, that it would cause the most compassionate of onlookers to gasp at the sight of it. . Laughter encircled him from all sides. The children still sang uproariously as Brittany elegantly led them into a second verse, conducting as if in front of a symphony. The lyrics didn't register correctly in Corey' s mind. To him, and only him, the dozens of screaming children seemed to sing a whole different song. "KILL HER! KILL HER! KILL HER!"

The school principal arrived on the instant Corey decided to actually kill her. Corey jumped on her, slamming her to the hard linoleum floor with what little weight he had to throw her with. That is when he hit her. That is when the principle grabbed him. That is what got him in trouble and that is what got him grounded in his room for the next two months.

~~

The copper veins of the house awoke. A thunderous clanking ripped through the house as water rushed through the ancient pipes. Corey snapped out of his recollections and returned back to the reality of his room. Darkness still hung thick allowing shadows to conceal the unreal horrors that Corey imagined hiding within his bedroom. Sudden panic snatched the breath from the boy's chest as what he saw fully came to his comprehension. While his eyes were shut, someone had opened his closet door.

His pulse accelerated in alarm. He fought to recall if he had heard the rusted scream that always came with opening the gateway. He was certain that he would have heard something if it had been opened, yet he remembered hearing nothing. Still, there sat the door unclosed in the darkness at the foot of his bed. Swiftly he vaulted from his mattress and onto the cold wooden floor. He ran at the closet with both hands flailing wildly. His heart felt as if it had stopped and dropped into his stomach as he seized the door's frame and slammed it with all his strength. With one quick shriek the door swung closed.

Spinning to face his dark room, Corey pushed his back against the Shellacked face of the enormous door. He could smell the varnish that had chipped away in his grip, covering his palms like tiny black specs of broken candy. His wild eyes searched the dimly lit room. It remained calm and untouched. Action figures still stood paused in small wars forgotten and left for a rainy day. The tangled web of wires that sprouted from his video game console still ran like vines across half the room's stretch of floor. Each wire ended in a brightly colored control handle that had not moved since the last time they had been tossed aside. Everything was undisturbed. Nothing was out of place. Some one was here.

Suddenly a figure walked towards him. The tall shadow seemed to appear from nothing and moved completely silent. Its polished shoes did not click upon the wooden floor as it moved. Stepping towards the startled boy it hissed. Corey's legs, too terrified to hold his weight any longer, buckled from beneath him. Landing on his backside with a small thump, Corey went to scream. The dark figure put two fingers to its shadowed lips as if to playfully hush a lover.

" Shhhhhhh."

The frightened boy felt his voice leave him. His scream wasn't lost to terror somewhere in his throat; it just simply was removed. Corey fought to produce a scream that would bring his mother running to his room to save him, but nothing came. Corey's mouth opened wide as if roaring but remained as silent as the room around him. The phantom glided closer and now stood before the crying boy whose sobs came silent.

The figure, now dimly revealed in the moon light of the window, stood tall and thin. Every piece of clothing that the shadow wore was black as night. A heavy trench coat draped to his ankles with the collar pulled up around his thin neck. The coat's sleeves reached to the knuckles on both of the shadow' s bony hands. Accentuated by the darkness of the man's garments a horrifying face stood out brightly. Pale as cold milk, the face of this nightmare shined in perfect detail under the moon's touch. His lips were small colorless lines tightly pulled into an amused smirk. His colorless face appeared to lack most of its features in this lighting. His well-groomed hair was black, wet and slicked, running like oil from back to front on top of his head. His pale blue eyes seemed almost nonexistent against his ghoulishly white face. The man's voice emerged softly from behind his thin lips.

" You fear me Corey.you fear. everything don't you?"

Without sound, Corey slowly nodded mouthing one word.

"Yes."

He did fear everything. The world always seemed equipped to eat him up. His mother always called it an "over-active imagination" but Corey knew better. His fear was there to warn him. It wasn't over-active it was exceptional and insightful. Corey trusted his fear as a sixth sense acute as any other he possessed and this man, who had appeared from thin darkness, was testimony to that fact as far as Corey was concerned.

" Corey you don't have to fear any longer.I have come to take away everything. Mark, the bullies at school.Everything."

The man raised Corey effortlessly with one hand. The boy's feet kicked violently as he was lifted off the ground and held against the closet door. A slender hand snaked around Corey's throat, pinning the boy in place. The man softly spoke while Corey continued to struggle against the stone grip. " You will never fear them again Corey. You will only fear me before the end of tonight...." Each word hissed past his lips. "After tonight you will never fear anything ever again."

Corey clawed at the cold hand that held him off the ground. The wiry fingers were as strong as steel and firmly attached around his neck. Corey tried to scream, only to release nothing. Not even his suffocation could be heard nor
did his feet kicking upon the door behind him make even a sound. The unnatural silence was only broken by the shadow's inaudible whisper.

" Do you know who I am?"

Again, the boy's lips mouthed one word. " Yes."

" Who am I?" the man revealed perfectly white teeth as his lips stretched into a cruel smile.

" The Boogieman."

Reading the boys lips the man's eyes lit up with extraordinary amusement. Eerie laughter leaked from him like a tire slowly losing its air.

" Yes boy.I am him too. I am all things children fear Corey. I am under their beds and in their closets. I am the devil and more. The natural predator of all little boys and girls. Tonight I've come for you Corey. You always knew I would."

Corey fought desperately, swinging his legs into the man's stomach. It felt like kicking steel. His stolen screams were not heard as he frantically thrashed his head side to side in all attempts to bring his mother running. The man swung the boy effortlessly, sending him flying across the room and slamming into shelves containing dozens of books that Corey "never got around to read". Despite the violence of the impact, the odd silence was not broken. One by one the shelves collapsed as Corey crashed through them on his way to the ground. Books rained from the shelves impossibly silent as they landed. Without a sound Corey fell hard to the floor clutching the arm that he was sure he had just broken. His eyes flooded with tears as he tried to scream unsuccessfully. Quickly getting to his feet, the boy hurried for the door in hopes to escape from the room only to meet a solid backhand that knocked him off his feet and silently onto the wooden floor. The warmth of fresh blood licked at the corner of Corey's mouth.

" I'm afraid I can't let you leave Corey."

The man gracefully closed the distance between himself and the child.

Looking down upon the prone boy, the man reached down and snatched him up with both hands pulling him close. The child wept uncontrollably, dangling in the grip of his dark visitor. He felt his muted sobs escape his mouth and wished he could hear them. How real it would all suddenly seem if only he could hear something. He spent a moment to wonder if he had maybe gone deaf, then decided that his ears must be fine when the man spoke again.

"They can't hear you Corey." He said, speaking to the boy as if he was an infant. " I took away all the pretty sounds Corey and I'm going to take you, too.".

He twisted the boys broken limb with one hand. The boy's face became a still picture of pain, mouth wide. Corey lost consciousness to a rush of black pain. Everything disappeared. Corey had escaped for now to a safe place inside himself - a place with no suffering, no pain and no Boogieman. There, Corey almost felt safe and forgot all about the evil, dark man and his insane silence. Nothing became everything and everything was just fine.

~~

When the boy awoke he did so in his soft familiar bed in his dark silent room. There was no blinding pain in his arm and no Boogieman throwing him violently around the room. All was quite and in place. Corey stared at his plain white ceiling relieved. Sitting up in his bed he looked around his room searching for every reason to confirm that the whole confrontation with the strange man had only been a dream. His closet was closed and quite as he had hoped it would be. His bookcase still hung on the wall beside his bed. It's unbroken shelves were lined with books untouched and unread. The boy's fear dwindled, as he found no trace of his struggle with the man who had come from within the ominous closet. Laying back he rested his head on his pillow and closed his eyes.

His pillow was soaked from the sweat he had left there. He felt wet beads trickle through his drenched hair as he tried to forget his nightmare. His body felt as if it swam in warm wetness beneath the darkness of his covers. "I must be sick." He thought with a smile, knowing fully well his mother wouldn't send him to school the next morning with even a sniffle. He rested his forearm across his wet brow hoping to find it hot with fever. His forehead was cold and damp and showed no suggestion of illness. He moved his legs together discovering they had fallen asleep and had grown completely numb as he tried to wiggle them awake.

He could feel himself lying in a pool of warm wetness that puddled around his lower body. Wondering if during his nightmare that perhaps he had pissed himself, Corey began to feel embarrassed. He sat mortified at the thought of his stepfather tormenting him. "What's wrong? Did bitch boy wet his bed?" Corey imagined his stepfather laughing obnoxiously, teasing him. " Maybe you need diapers. Maybe we should get rid of your bed and get you a crib. How
would you like a crib, boy?" Corey knew Mark would never let him forget it if he had actually peed the bed. He knew just what Mark would think of a nine-year-old who couldn't conduct himself correctly enough to get to the bathroom when nature called. He put his hand under the covers to feel the wet mattress. Pulling his hand from beneath the covers, he held it up to the light of the window to examine it closely. Colorless slime coated his fingers and dripped in long oozing strands onto his blankets. The slime instantly numbed his hand causing it to feel as if it wasn't his hand at
all. Disgusted, Corey brought his hand to his nose and sniffed at it timidly. The numbing goo was odorless and thick. Corey rubbed his deadened hand on the sheets of his bed finding it impossible to remove the glue-like substance. Confused, Corey ripped the covers from his body and screamed at the sight of what he saw.

The boy's cry wasn't heard, even by his own ears. Corey tried to muscle out the scream that his terrified facial expression suggested he should be making. No sound escaped from his gaping mouth. Corey stared into the eyes
of the Boogieman who had already swallowed half the young boy's body like a python consuming its' prey. His lips wrapped around the boy's waist, inching their way up his soft torso, slowly devouring him whole. Corey watched his own stomach disappear into the mouth of the horrible man who squirmed half hung over the foot of his bed. The monster's eyes rolled up into his skull, showing only the whites beneath his pupils. He softly moaned with sick
pleasure while gobbling down the boy inch by inch. Corey kicked at the insides the thing's belly feeling nothing but numbed emptiness. "NO! NO! NO! NO!" was all the muted boy couldn't say.

Corey reached to the corners of his bed, ripping at the sheets in attempt to stop his descent into the deep cavity of the man's gut. Cold hands seized Corey's arms and folded them to fit into the never-ending mouth. The man slithered onto the bed as he consumed more and more of the boy. His mouth - now stretching to engulf the width of the boy's chest- made slurping sounds as the boy's head tossed side to side in horror. Soon Corey's small shoulders disappeared into the creature's mouth and left only his head to be seen. Corey felt his body go numb inside the man as cold lips sucked tightly around his neck. Corey tried ripping at the insides of the nightmare's belly. The child felt wet things tear and break off in his desperate little hands as he clawed at the core of the Boogieman. Now the man's ivory face was right in front of the boy's wild eyes that bolted violently back and forth in his head. The fiend's neck was bloated with the size of Corey's upper body contained inside it. Thick, sticky saliva bubbled from him, numbing the boy's entire body from his neck down.

Looking directly into the face that was devouring him, Corey's cries softened as he began to simply whimper soundlessly. He begged the man to stop with words silently simulated by his moving lips. The man's eyes unrolled from up inside his head revealing his bright blue irises as he stopped ingesting the boy so he could speak.

"I can taste your suffering Corey. Mmmmm so sweet, so soft." His words were unslurred with his mouthful of child.

" Human children die best. Void of shame and so emotionally rich. To feast on anything less would be disappointing." A long black tongue slithered from the man's mouth and continued to wrap around the child's small head. The
serpentine tongue licked at the boy's eyes blinding them with desensitizing slobber.

" A human adult needs to be taught how to scream correctly, but not a child.ah, a child is an expert in suffering. Children are the only human artists in the performance of agony and pain. No creature of your earth bleeds better. No thing of your world cries more uncorrupted or pure." Corey then disappeared forever into the mouth of the man. Inside he would struggle to escape only to soon suffocate and drowned on the bile of the Boogieman's internal cavity. The kicking and punching carried on for some time before finely subsiding. Corey Jacob Michels would never fear anything
or anyone ever again.

~~

The next morning Corey's mother would find her son's room empty with the window left open. She would find the letter written in her son's hand writing explaining his reasons for running away from home. She would find his favorite toys had been taken along with a few pairs of pants and shirts thoughtfully packed for his journey. She would never forgive herself.

The Roanoke police department would conduct an unsuccessful island-wide search for the runaway as well as question all the children who knew Corey from school and from around his neighborhood. Countless telephone poles and milk cartons would be plastered with Corey's smiling face throughout Roanoke and its surrounding towns. Corey's stepfather would offer a reward in return for any information leading to finding the Boy. There would be no information, no rewards and no finding Corey Jacob Michels. He would simply join the thousands of children who had run away from home to never be seen or heard of again.

© Brian Main

February 2000 HofP