Sour Candy by Kealan Patrick Burke Page A

every day, because this too was routine.
    Only then did the parents scowl and
glare and cluck their tongues, that sweet little boy not so sweet
anymore, and hurry their own little innocents away from the monster
at the epicenter of the crowd.
    And all Phil could think as the
embarrassment swept him away and home, was that if they had the
slightest inkling of what else that boy was capable of, they too
would have screamed.
    Because that scream was a lot more
than just an annoyance. No, the more Phil heard it, the more he
started to think of it as something infinitely worse.
    He became convinced it was a
beacon.
    The child was signaling
the others .
     
    * * *
     
    The plan was to not go very far at
first, just enough to convincingly claim he’d intended to return,
but as he hadn’t left the house unaccompanied by the boy since the
day Adam had first appeared here, he had no idea whether or not it
would work.
    Quietly, he shrugged on his
coat, slipped on his shoes, and eased his way into the hall,
convinced at any moment he would hear the attic door yawn open and
the boy’s voice hailing him in that terrifyingly saccharine
tone. Where are you going, Daddy? Can I
come? Terrifying because the words
themselves would be perfectly ordinary and yet so loaded with
veiled threat, Phil would be paralyzed. Where do you think you’re going, Daddy? You’re not going
without me.
    He scooped his keys up from
the table in the hall and closed his eyes, then took a deep breath
and released it, wincing at the noxious odor as it escaped his
mouth. The candy had not only permanently soured his breath,
resisting all orthodontic attempts to vanquish it, it had also
scraped his tongue so raw he was barely able to speak without it
hurting. But sometimes that pain was good and he employed it now by
rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It energized him,
goaded him onward, reminding him that if he didn’t see this
through, if he didn’t at least try , the end result would be worse
than just a dire case of halitosis.
    The few feet to the door seemed like
miles away, and with every gentle step, his muscles grew tenser.
Any moment now he expected to hear the boy’s voice, or worse, his
scream shattering the air. Or maybe it wouldn’t be the boy at all.
At the thought, he looked ahead to the smoked glass of the front
door and imagined one of those horned, skull-faced things appearing
on the other side. He swallowed and kept moving, and then his hand
was on the door, heart in his mouth, and he was turning the handle,
slowly, slowly, and the door made the slightest squeak, betraying
him, and his heart stopped.
    He listened, eyes shut.
    Nothing.
    Released another foul breath and
pulled the door open. Opened his eyes and found himself blinded by
the morning sunlight. Pulse hammering at his temples, he did not
open the door all the way, just enough for him to sidle out through
the gap. Half the battle won. The air, untainted by the company of
the child, felt like a victory in itself. Easing the door shut
behind him, he quickly moved away and hurried down the driveway.
His car was still gone and likely would stay that way, just like
the phone and Internet had died. The child had cut him off from
outside communication, which was fine. Who would he contact anyway?
As far as the world was concerned, he was the one who was
wrong.
    So he walked, and kept
walking, no partic-ular-place-to-go as the song said, but it felt
good to be alone, unencumbered by the presence of that thing for however long he
was permitted to do so.
    Around him the world carried on as
normal. Leaves fell, the breeze blew. A blonde woman across the
street walking a blonde dog almost as big as her started to wave at
him until she saw his face and then thought better of it. A man out
cutting his grass, a neighbor Phil had spoken to once or twice, but
whose name he couldn’t remember, asked him if he was okay. “My
kid’s trying to kill me,” Phil replied and the man went