The message on the wall wasn’t just graffiti. It was an invitation written in arterial spray.
TAG, YOU’RE IT.
The blood was still wet. It glistened under the fluorescent lights, a horrific sheen that matched the sweat on the unconscious nurse’s forehead. She was slumped in the corner, breathing in shallow, ragged gasps, but I didn’t go to her. I couldn’t.
In the hierarchy of survival, the immediate threat outweighs the casualty. And the threat was gone.
Julian was gone.
I spun around, my boots squeaking on the linoleum, frantic eyes scanning the room. Elias wouldn’t just take him. Elias was a dramatist. He was a director staging the final act of a play we had been rehearsing for twenty years. He would leave a script.
Think like him. Think like the boy in the wall.
He wanted me to follow. He wanted a chase.
I ripped the sheets off the empty bed. Nothing but the mattress ticking and the smell of antiseptic soap. I checked the floor. Nothing.
Then I saw it.
On the bedside table, propped up against a plastic pitcher of lukewarm water, was a piece of paper.
It wasn’t hospital stationery. It was construction paper—rough, fibrous, and canary yellow. The kind we used to cut into snowflakes in Mrs. Albright’s art class.
I grabbed it, my fingers leaving smudges of grime on the bright yellow pulp.
It was a map.
Drawn in thick, waxy crayon, the lines were aggressive, digging deep into the paper fiber. Black for the roads. Blue for the river. And red for the destinations.
Three jagged ‘X’ marks scarred the landscape of Oakhaven.
The first X was drawn over a stick-figure representation of a slide. A spiral slide.
The second X marked a bridge over the blue squiggle of the river.
The third X was the largest. It sat atop a black, towering block with a jagged roofline. The Castle. The Sawmill.
I stared at the drawing, the scent of wax hitting me harder than the smell of blood. I knew these places. They weren’t random coordinates. They were the Stations of the Cross for our shared childhood.
The Slide—where the bullies used to wait. The Bridge—where Elias had vanished. The Castle—where the monsters lived.
Underneath the map, in block letters that slanted crazily to the left, was a single instruction:
COME ALONE OR THE TOY BREAKS.
“Julian,” I whispered, the name tearing out of my throat like a sob.
Sirens wailed in the distance. They were getting louder, a rising chorus of mechanical screams converging on the hospital. The diversion at the Doll Festival was over. The police were coming here.
If I stayed, Miller would arrest me. He would lock me in a cell for escaping custody, for the theft of the truck, for breathing. And while I sat in a cage, Elias would wait. And when he got bored of waiting… the toy would break.
I shoved the map into my pocket.
I didn’t look back at the blood on the wall. I ran.
I burst out of the room and sprinted down the service corridor, the same way I had come in. My boots hammered against the concrete, echoing the pounding of my heart. I hit the exit door with my shoulder, bursting out into the cold, wet night.
The rain had turned torrential. It washed the sweat from my face instantly, blinding me.
I scrambled into Julian’s truck, the engine roaring to life with a violent shudder. As I threw it into gear, blue and red lights swept across the brick face of the hospital building.
They were at the front entrance.
I peeled out of the rear lot, tires spinning in the mud, fishtailing onto the service road. I kept the headlights off, driving by the gray ambient glow of the cloud cover.
“First stop,” I muttered, gripping the wheel until my knuckles turned white. “The playground.”
The Oakhaven Elementary School had been closed for a decade, a victim of budget cuts and a shrinking population. It sat on the eastern edge of town, bordered by the Weeping Woods.
I hit the main road, Route 9, and risked flicking on the lights. The beam cut a tunnel through the fog, revealing asphalt slick with oil and water.
I checked the rearview mirror. Darkness.
Then, a flash.
High beams.
A cruiser crested the hill behind me, moving fast.
“No,” I hissed. “Not now.”
It might not be for me. It could be backup heading to the hospital.
But then the light bar on the roof exploded into color. Blue and red washed over the cab of the truck, blinding me in the mirrors.
They knew the truck. Of course they knew the truck. It belonged to their fallen golden boy.
“Pull over,” I imagined Miller’s voice growling over a PA.
“Not a chance in hell,” I said.
I slammed my foot on the gas. The old truck groaned, the engine whining in protest, but it surged forward. The speedometer climbed. Sixty. Seventy.
The road ahead twisted like a snake through the timber. This was my territory. I had driven these roads reckless and drunk when I was seventeen. I knew where the camber was wrong. I knew where the black ice formed.
The cruiser gained on me. It was newer, faster, hugging the curves with precision.
I needed to lose him. If I led him to the playground, Elias would see. Come alone.
Ahead, the road forked. The left branch stayed paved, heading toward the highway. The right branch was a logging track, gravel and rutted dirt that led up the ridge.
I yanked the wheel to the right.
The truck drifted, the back end swinging out wide. I corrected, fighting the slide, tires chewing for grip on the loose stones.
I shot up the logging track, dust and mud spraying in my wake.
I watched the mirror.
The cruiser slowed at the fork. The low clearance sedan hesitated. Then, it turned.
“Persistent,” I spat.
But the gravel leveled the playing field. The cruiser bounced violently, its suspension screaming. I pulled away, the distance between us growing.
I drove for a mile, then two. The trees pressed in close, a tunnel of ancient firs.
I saw a break in the brush on the left. An old skid road, barely wide enough for the truck.
I killed the lights.
I slammed the brakes and swung the truck into the gap, crashing through a wall of ferns and saplings. The branches whipped against the metal, screeching like banshees.
I drove twenty yards in, then stopped. I killed the engine.
Silence rushed in, heavy and suffocating, broken only by the ticking of the cooling engine and the rain on the roof.
I held my breath.
Through the trees, I saw the wash of blue lights passing on the logging road. The cruiser moved slowly, searching. The beam of a spotlight swept the treeline, missing my bumper by inches.
It continued up the hill.
I exhaled, my head dropping to rest against the steering wheel.
I was alone.
“Sorry about the paint job, Julian,” I whispered.
I couldn’t drive the rest of the way. The playground was back down the ridge, through the woods. The truck was a liability now.
I grabbed the flashlight. I checked the revolver in my pocket—five rounds, cold steel. I touched the map one last time to memorize the route.
I opened the door and stepped out into the mud.
The forest was alive tonight. The wind stripped the leaves from the alders, tossing them like confetti. The fog was a living thing, curling around my ankles, trying to trip me.
I started to run.
I ran through the undergrowth, ignoring the brambles tearing at my jeans. I ran toward the memory of the playground.
Ten minutes. Fifteen.
The trees began to thin. The ground leveled out.
And there it was.
The Oakhaven Elementary playground.
It looked like a graveyard for giants. The swing set was a rusted skeleton against the charcoal sky. The merry-go-round was half-buried in weeds, tilted at a drunk angle.
And in the center, rising like a twisted monument, was the spiral slide.
It was yellow plastic, faded to the color of old bone. Graffiti covered the tube.
I stopped at the treeline, my chest heaving.
I scanned the area. No movement. No shadow man waiting by the monkey bars.
“Elias?” I called out. The wind snatched the name away.
Nothing.
He wasn’t here. This was a waypoint. A station.
X marks the spot.
I walked out into the open. The rubber mulch of the playground squelched under my boots. It felt spongy, unstable.
I approached the slide.
It was tall, maybe ten feet. The ladder was rusted, some of the rungs missing.
I walked around to the bottom, where the slide spit you out into the dirt.
There was something resting on the lip of the yellow plastic.
A small, white loop.
I stepped closer, shining my light on it.
It was a plastic hospital bracelet.
I picked it up. It was wet.
PATIENT: THORNE, JULIAN. DOB: 05/12/1990.
It had been cut. Snipped cleanly with scissors or a knife.
My thumb brushed the plastic. It was still warm. Or maybe that was my imagination trying to keep him alive.
Next to the bracelet was a small, black object.
A portable cassette recorder. The same kind he had left in the motel room.
I picked it up. There was a note taped to the speaker.
LISTEN TO THE RIDDLE.
I stared at the device.
He was leading me by the nose. He was making me dance.
I pressed play.
The tape hissed.
Then, his voice. Not the gravelly monster voice. The child voice. He was pitching it up, mimicking the boy he used to be. It was terrifying.
“Round and round and down we go. Into the dark, into the snow. The Dragon fell, but who opened the door? Tell the truth, or he breathes no more.”
The tape clicked off.
Tell the truth.
The riddle wasn’t about a location. It was about a memory.
The Dragon fell. Richard.
Who opened the door?
He wanted a confession.
I looked at the recorder. There was a red button. RECORD.
He wanted me to answer. He wanted me to speak into the machine and leave it for him to find. He was nearby. He had to be.
I looked around the desolate playground. The fog swirled around the jungle gym, creating phantom shapes.
“You want the truth?” I shouted at the darkness.
I held the recorder up to my mouth. I pressed the red button. The little wheel started to spin.
“I opened the door,” I said, my voice shaking. “I unlocked the back door. I let you in. I knew what you were going to do. And I let you do it.”
I released the button.
I placed the recorder back on the slide, next to Julian’s bracelet.
I waited.
A moment passed. Then two.
Then, a sound from the top of the slide.
Clatter. Clatter. Slide.
Something was sliding down the tube.
I jumped back, raising the flashlight.
An object shot out of the bottom of the slide and landed in the mulch at my feet.
It was a stone. A river stone.
painted on it in white paint were coordinates. And a single word.
BRIDGE.
I looked up at the top of the slide structure. It was empty. He had dropped it from the darkness above, or thrown it from the trees.
He was watching. He had heard my confession. And I had passed the first test.
I grabbed the stone.
“I’m coming, Julian,” I whispered.
I turned and ran back toward the woods. The game was on. And I was done hiding.