MonsterVille
Thirteen

Night was falling when Mellie and River reached the safety of her house. There was a warm breeze gusting through the dark and the sounds of the town coming to life followed them home, classic jazz filtered through the streets and he could have sworn he heard fireworks coming from back at the Lake. Mellie went to change and River started furiously jotting down everything he had learned that day into his brand new journal. He took one look at his hasty scrawl compared to Mellie’s elegant flowing prose and he frowned in frustration. He took a deep breath and slowed down; he didn’t want his messy writing taking up the same space as Mellie’s. It felt… wrong. Like he was defiling her beautiful work.

River wasn’t aware of time fleeting away until Mellie reappeared. He glanced up when he saw movement in his peripheral vision. He had to do a double take. Mellie was wearing a long flowing white dress, strappy white heels and she wore a garland of flowers in her hair. Actual honest to god still living flowers. He had always thought that was just something they did in the movies; he hadn’t thought people actually did it in real life.

“Wow,” he managed to get out.

“I’ll take that as a ringing endorsement,” Mellie said, “I have a… meeting.” She hedged, “I shouldn’t be gone more than a few hours. Just remember stay inside.”

The black eyed children flashed through his mind, “I promise I’m not going anywhere. Or opening any doors.”

Mellie smiled wryly, “Just stay inside and you’ll be fine.” She repeated, before she swept towards the door in a flowing motion of white silk.

Mellie was gone ten minutes tops when the doorbell rang and River nearly jumped out of his skin. After all the creepy talk he knew exactly who would be at the door, knew exactly what he would see and yet despite himself he peeked through the peep hole. Standing on the porch was a little blonde girl in a pale lavender dress, her cheeks were flushed and her lip was quivering and all he wanted to do was open the door and let her inside. She rang the bell again and River stood there, frozen—a sheet of wood all that stood between him and the child on the other side…

She started blubbering, tears running down her cheeks as she rubbed at her eyes and cried for her mommy. River felt like a jerk just standing there, she was just a kid, just a lost little girl who needed help. He was a grown man, he couldn’t just leave a little girl out in the dark could he? He was reaching for the doorhandle before he caught his hand mid reach, his fingers had grazed along the cold metal of the knob before he pulled himself back. What the hell was he doing? Chills ran down his spine and he had that terrifying prescient sense of being watched, of eyes boring into him no matter which way he turned.

River peeked through the door again and the girl wasn’t blubbering anymore, she wasn’t crying or rubbing her eyes or calling for help. She was staring right at him through the peep hole, her cold black eye pressed right up to it. River jerked back at the same instant she pulled away enough to let him see her innocent smile. And it was innocent, everything about her was perfectly harmless… so why didn’t he let her in? Her smile tweaked and he shook the thought off. She, no it. It. Was in his head. Making him want to open the door, making him want to let her in…

River shuddered and turned away from the door. He needed to hide. That’s what Mellie had said… Mellie… the black eyed girl must have been watching and waiting for the moment Mellie left, it’s timing was too coincidental otherwise. His room. It was on the second floor and the door locked, failing that the bathroom attached to his room only had a tiny window, not even a kid could fit through it and that locked too. He just had to get upstairs, just had to… he was frozen stiff.

Across the living room the cardboard he had taped up to stop the wind coming through the broken door had been torn away and there, standing innocently, just beyond the threshold was another of the black eyed children. This one was a boy all of six years old wearing a little black suit, he had blonde hair and a quivering lip and River just wanted to reach out and pick the kid up. He didn’t even remember crossing the room.

He found himself standing on one side of the broken glass and the kid on the other, the little boy raised his arms as if he wanted to be picked up and for the life of him River wanted to do just that. He was stuck mid motion when the little boy started to cry. He looked so scared, so lonely out in the dark of night… but that deep primal instinct screamed at River, screamed at him to run for all his life was worth, screamed at him to hide in a closet, hell to hide under the bed if he had to. A second child appeared behind the little boy, and a third, both little girls five or six years old who just wanted their mommy.

River closed his eyes and tried to move, tried to leave, but he was fixed to the spot, helpless to resist. Some very small part of him wondered though, why didn’t they just come inside? There was no door baring their way, nothing to stop them.

The little boy reached out his hand and River half moved to take it. His arm hovering in mid-air as the boy smiled in satisfaction. It was just for a second, just the smallest glimpse but there was nothing innocent about that smile, nothing child-like. Abruptly River was all too aware of the coal black eyes of the children, he had seen them before of course, had registered them, but at the same time he had dismissed them as if they were perfectly normal. He knew they weren’t.

They were doing something to him, they were inside his head.

River gritted his teeth and forced the words out, “Go. Away.”

“Mommy?” the little girls cried in unison, “Where’s mommy?” Tears flowed down their rosy cheeks and River sunk to his knees in despair.

“Please go away,” he begged.

“Mommy!” they cried out again.

“Hey,” the voice pierced through the despair, through the need to help, it cut away everything else and as one the three black eyed children turned their backs on him to stare up at the woman towering over them. “Scat.” She ordered and dismissed them with a wave of her hand.

“Katie!” River gasped out in relief. She stepped across the threshold of the house and gave the children one last look, shadows stretched around her, reaching for the kids. Before those shadows could reach them the kids turned as one and vanished into the night, the sounds of their childish glee following them. River sagged into Katie-Cam as she lifted him off the ground.

“You’ve looked better honey,” she cooed. “Those little brats have a way of getting into your head.”

“I- I was going to let them in, I couldn’t help it.”

“Oh I don’t know,” she purred, “I think you would have held out. You were doing a marvellous job.”

“You were watching?” he exclaimed. She shrugged in a non-committal manner.

“Maybe, maybe not. But that’s neither here nor there. Oh honey you’re shaking,” she wrapped her arms around him and while physically it helped there was a cold spot where her chest met his, her heart was cold as ice. She rubbed her hands up and down his arms as she cooed.

“Better? Good. We have a party to attend.”