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Devourer of Souls The Skylark Diner
THE SKYLARK DINERSaturday MorningWhen Father Ward enters I can tell by his expression that something heavy is weighing on his mind. In and of itself that isn’t unusual. As priest at All Saints Church and Headmaster of All Saints Academy he’s got a pretty full plate. Preoccupied seems his constant mental state these days. If he didn’t love his work so much I’d worry about it a little, honestly.Truthfully, in spite of how much he enjoys both his vocations, I do worry, but not about him burning out. Father Ward’s got a good head on his shoulders and a healthy dose of common sense. He knows when and how far to push himself, and when to relax. Plus, he served time in Afghanistan as an Army Chaplain. He saw some pretty rough action (though he’s never shared the exact details) and he survived just fine. You don’t manage that without some serious steel in your spine.No, it’s not Father Ward’s busy work schedule that concerns me.It’s this town, and the strange things that hide here.
Devourer of Souls Sophan - One
ONEMy childhood friend Jake Burns is getting pretty upset, stomping and waving next to what’s left of Mr. Trung’s koi pond. I’m sitting nearby, writing this beneath an old Oriental-style gazebo, which looks just like I remember as a kid, except its white paint has faded with time. Honestly, I can’t believe it’s still standing after all these years.The koi pond hasn’t fared nearly as well. Its concrete border is cracked and crumbling. Water lilies clog its scummy surface. And I have to wonder. Have the koi somehow survived the years? Do they still live and breed in the pond’s depths? Are they still waiting, after all this time, for Mr. Trung to wade into the water, hands upraised, chanting . . . ?No.I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to be here, either.Neither does Jake. He’d beaten me here, was standing over the spot where he once destroyed an old stone chest with a hand-sledge. As I’d thrashed my way through overgrown weeds he’d wave
Devourer of Souls Two
TWOJake Burns never really fit in, no matter how hard he tried. He made crude jokes no one laughed at and possessed few manners. His temper flared at a moment’s notice, bringing a dangerous glint to his eyes. Quite frankly, he was also disgusting, even for an adolescent boy. He burped and farted and picked his nose with reckless abandon, regardless of the company he was in.He wasn’t all bad, though. He could knock a mean line drive down center field (which made him useful during Little League season) and he always found the best fishing holes. But I think we all knew in our hearts Jake was headed for a bad end. We figured he’d do time in the county jail someday for something stupid or that his hair-trigger temper would get him knifed in a bar somewhere.Why did we tolerate him always tagging along?Probably because we felt sorry for him. Jake’s dad beat him relentlessly. Beat him when drunk, when sober, or just on principal when he suspected Jake was “sassing” him.We never talk
Devourer of Souls Three
THREESaturday“Here he comes,” Kevin Ellison muttered as we browsed over a table filled with used comic books at the Commons Trailer Park Yard Sale. I glanced up and, sure enough, there was Jake Burns peddling his clunky old bike down the fairway toward us.I snorted and returned my attention to an issue of Rom: Space Knight. “Peachy.”“Y’know, he really seems to dig you,” whispered Gary McNamara from the other side of the table, where he was perusing an issue of Thor. “I mean really. Like you’re best buds or something.”I shook my head and sighed, trying to lose myself in Rom battling these blobby aliens whose tongues turned into drills that bored into a person’s skull and ate their brains so the aliens could become them. It was a little cruel but as Jake clattered to a stop I wondered if that’s why he didn’t fit in. Maybe he was like one of these aliens. After eating the brains of the “real” Jake Burns a few years ago, he’d never learned how to act like the rest of us.His sne
Devourer of Souls Four
FOURSomething else Jake excelled at was ferreting out deep water holes hidden underneath the creek’s banks and catching what my dad called ‘bottom feeders’ (carp and suckerfish) by hand.I kid you not. Jake would scout out spots along the creek where the bank hung out over the water, lie down and literally reach under the bank into recessed, watery alcoves. He’d then grab either a carp or a suckerfish by the gills and drag it flopping to shore.According to my dad carp and suckers don’t taste so great. But they’re big, sometimes the size of large walleyes or small northern pikes. They provide plenty of meat, regardless of taste. Given the needs of Jake’s family, taste probably wasn’t a big concern. Any type of free food helped.My dad had never taken up fishing by hand because he could never get over the fear that maybe something else waited for him under that bank. Like water moccasins or a snapping turtle. Jake, however, showed no fear. I suppose needing to eat and always being
Devourer of Souls Five
FIVEIt nagged me on my ride home after we all parted ways on Asher Street: something was wrong with Jake. Something had always been wrong with him. It wasn’t just how annoying he was or his lack of social graces or his dirty jokes that weren’t funny or even his lightning-quick temper. It lay deeper, and somehow I understood without actually knowing it had something to do with his dad. Which made me think about the similarities between Jake’s dad and mine, and how similar we were, in a way . . . even if I didn’t want to admit it.Neither of us had a mom. Both our dads worked at the lumber mill (until Jake’s got fired a few months ago) and both fought in Vietnam. Even though he wasn’t a drunk like Jake’s dad, my dad liked a beer every day after work to wind down.This also made me think even more about how Jake had latched onto me, following me around the most. In a burst of juvenile paranoia, I started worrying that maybe Jake hung around me so much because he recognized something i
Devourer of Souls Six
SIXTuesdayI hid my worries for two days. After we’d finished dinner Tuesday night and I’d washed the dishes, Dad was relaxing in the den watching the Mets with his nightly post-dinner beer. I worked up the nerve to poke my head around the corner. “Dad . . . got a minute?”Dad always listened to me, taking everything I said seriously, never treating me like a kid. Even if the Yankees were playing the Mets at Shea Stadium and it was the bottom of the ninth, he’d block it out and listen. I’ll always be grateful for that.Which makes me feel even worse about how I’ve turned out.Anyway he stood, walked to the television and shut it off, sat back down and raised an eyebrow. “What’s up?”“I won’t end up like Jake Burns someday, will I? And you won’t ever be like his dad . . . will you?”Dad sat forward, frowning slightly. “What brings this on? You guys aren’t havin’ any troubles with Jake, are you? I mean, any more’n usual.” He paused, eyes narrowing. “His dad isn’t . . . ”I shook
Devourer of Souls Seven
SEVENDespite Dad’s reassurances that night, I had a nightmare, one of the worst I’d ever had. We were all back at the Commons Yard Sale—me, Kevin and Jake—standing before Mr. Trung’s table. I couldn’t move, frozen in that way we usually are in nightmares. The air felt thick and humid. Everything sounded muffled, as if we stood underwater.Chanting guttural words, Mr. Trung laid tiles out in overlapping rows. I couldn’t see the engravings on them because they blurred and moved across the ivory. He laid the tiles, arranging them, preparing them . . .For us to play.Then Mr. Trung stopped his strange, gurgling song. He stared at each of us in turn. I desperately tried to move my arms, legs, head, something, but I couldn’t. I was locked in place, joints frozen, feet rooted to the ground. Mr. Trung’s eyes—much larger and a deeper black than I’d ever seen—seemed to peel back layers of me until I felt raw, exposed and quivering beneath his gaze.Mr. Trung reached into the black wooden
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