(Excerpt)
Danny paused at the edge of the crater. Smoke rose from its jagged maw, murky and venomous. In his left hand he clutched his teddy. In his right hand, the large kitchen knife his mommy used to cut chicken. He peered into the depths of the stinking pit, seeking those eyes he had seen in the house, but all was clouded and black. The smell. The smell was so pungent and rank it was intoxicating. He had to blink repeatedly and he coughed several times.
The devil was in there. It made him cold and heavy in his guts to think of that. A fierce wind blew up from below, like steam vents in the city, only it felt like little trolls rode on this heat, trolls with golden hammers and silver nails which beat on his flesh in minute places. He clutched Teddy to his chest, covered by the enormous blade of the knife. The blade was glowing hotly now, singeing Teddy’s fur and making the sweat on his arm sizzle and sting. He threw it in the hole and uttered a little shout. The trolls pierced him with their tiny hammers. Moaning, he let panic overtake him and sprinted back toward the house.
Why wouldn’t Mommy move from this terrible place? Why couldn’t she make It go away? Surely she saw It too?
In the beginning he had liked the house. It was gracefully rounded at its edges, hallways full of daylight from high windows. It was the most relaxed and spread-out of any house he had previously occupied. It featured an ornate wooden banister with a snarling lion’s head as a knewel post. The backyard was a square of grass the size of the living room. After living here a month his Mommy put in the jungle gym. He had never used it.
He locked the door, and looked out the window. The hideous smoke still issued forth across the tiny lawn and up to the warming panes, belching out from the corner of the fence near the jungle gym. He hated it with all his heart, bared his teeth against the steamed glass, no hotter than the tears which crawled down his cheeks. His grip on Teddy was furious, nails digging into its stiffly furry exterior. Just as his heart was slowing its manic beats, he heard a growl issue from the form in his hand.
Teddy leapt to his face. His fur stuck like randy quills. No sight. Wasps cackled in curly-q mechanics. Holey wings beat a rapturous hurrah, legs hooked on the coming smoke. The door-latch snapped and fell to the floor with a not-quite-solid clap, steaming and twisted. He opened his mouth to scream and Teddy’s spiny paw stuffed his jaw wide. No sound. His frantic fists beat at the bear, knuckles pricked and bleeding as they connected with the sharpened quills poking out of its fur, his legs staggering backwards and his bottom hitting the floor.
There were other mouths that spoke for him now. He could hear them very close, getting much closer. Their breath made him wet all over. His brain shrieked in rhythmic spasms. He realized that Teddy had rhythm too. It pulsed from within, and its fur twisted without. The fur gradually encased Danny’s head, squeezing and twisting, blood squirting out of his eyes, neck snapping, and the new dark came hissing and hot.
