I inched my way over to the window, heart thumping like a jackhammer.
When I glanced out, the breath caught in my chest. I’d been fully expecting a hoard of nightmare goblins, conjured from the deepest pits of hell, ready to rip the flesh from my body and wear it around like a cheap costume fished out of the Spirit Halloween bargain bin. Instead, I found a pack of completely normal looking kids, just sitting on their bikes, starring at us with big happy eyes. The ringleader was a little blond boy of maybe twelve with long coltish legs and a broad, almost infectious smile.
Timmy 0.19729B – Normal Human Boy [Level 29]
This is just a normal human kid. Nothing remotely suspicious about this. If June Cleaver and an All-American Apple Pie had a baby, it would be little Timmy here.
For a long beat, I just stared at the kids in bewilderment.
Clearly these things were Dwellers. They had to be. Right? But if that was true, then why were they patiently asking for ice cream instead of trying to rip our arms off or skip rope with our intestines?
Also, I’d never seen a tag like that before. It didn’t explicitly list the kid as a Delver or a Dweller, and it gave him a proper name which was weird. Also, normal human boy? Yeah, that sounded like a load of steaming horseshit. Exactly the kind of thing that a monster, pretending to be a normal human boy, would say. The description beneath the tag was also weird as a three-dollar bill. Although the Codex entries often erred on the side of snarky or darkly morbid, I’d never seen the Codex be just wrong about something before.
Although now that I thought about it, something similar had happened once before.
With Croc.
The first time I’d run into the mimic, its tag had read Normal Human Dog. Croc had been able to actively fool the identification system, which meant the thing standing outside the window was probably some sort of shapeshifter, too. Still, I’d met Croc before I’d equipped the Compass of the Catacomber to my Spatial Core, so that couldn’t explain everything. There was definitely something wrong here. Something that set my teeth on edge.
I dismissed the tag and eyeballed the kid a little more closely.
Unlike Croc, who’d never looked even remotely like a real dog, this little hump dumpling really did look as normal and All-American as apple pie. Just like his description stated.
He wore denim jeans, ripped at the knees, and a white T-shirt with the words, Sunnyside Community Radio, plastered across the front. There was a large cartoon radio right in the middle, with huge white eyes, a smile even wider than the kid’s, and one cartoony hand raised in a wave. Behind the mascot was a radio tower silhouette with what appeared to be a bloody eye perched at the top. Beneath was the station’s tagline, which set shivers racing down my spine.
Always Watching. Always Listening. The Signal Never Sleeps.
The rest of the kids were all spread out behind little Timmy in a wide arc, staring at us with a hungry light glimmering in their cold eyes. They all just stood there, completely silent, which was disquieting in its own way. Although I didn’t have kids, I’d spent enough time around other people’s kids to know they rarely, if ever, stopped talking. These things—because I was sure as shit they weren’t human—had the Children-of-the-Corn vibes cranked all the way to thirteen.
When I scanned the crowd of faces, though, all the tags were just like Timmy’s.
Exactly like Timmy’s. Literally.
Turned out, all the little boys were Timmys while all the little girls were Tammys. Each and every one a Normal Human Boy or a Normal Human Girl. That was enough to tell me that we were definitely dealing with Dwellers, but I was hesitant to light these little fuckers up like a Christmas tree for a lot of reasons.
Strategically, we weren’t in a great position.
Although we could always retreat into the kiosk network if things went sideways, trying to fight a legion of bloodthirsty shapeshifters inside the ice cream truck was suicide. Jakob needed a lot of space to work his magic, and I was just as likely to hit my allies as my enemies inside the close quarters. Plus, there was a shitload more of them than there were of us, and the weakest “Timmy” among them was still level twenty-five.
Between my army of Taxidermized Horrors and all my new spells, I figured we might have even odds if push came to shove, but they didn’t seem to be violent. Not yet anyway.
Croc had told me more than once that not all Dwellers were inheriently evil and violent. That originally, they’d been created as a way to help Delvers—though I wasn’t sure whether I believed that. Still, maybe there was a solution other than murder.
“Mister,” the first Timmy said again, though this time a guttural inhuman growl reverberated beneath the word. “We want ice cream. We want it real bad. We’re hungry, mister. Very, very hungry.”
“I’m not sure you want anything from this truck,” I replied nervously. “Pretty sure it’s all gone bad.” I thought about the horrendous odor wafting from the refrigerator unit.
“Can you just check for us?” the boy asked.
Something malevolent rippled beneath his features, and for a thin moment it was like I was seeing double. A pair of Timmy’s layered right over the top of each other. One was the little blond kid with the ripped jeans, and the other was something unspeakably grotesque. Spidery eyes dotting a bulbous head. A fleshy, tube-like appendage trailed down from its face, ringed by a circular mouth filled with undulating teeth. Huge yellow boils pulsed along its neck and arms.
“Sure,” I said, my fake smile faltering even as the horrific overlay vanished. I braced myself, preparing to get sucker punched in the nose by the rankest odor on the planet, then popped the lid of the cooler with a grimace.
The lid clicked and as it did a weight seemed to settle over me. The sound drained from the room, the light around me dimmed, flickered, and a wave of vertigo washed over me like the incoming tide. The world seemed to reel unsteady beneath me but then, just as quickly as the sensation had come, it vanished. It felt like my ears had finally popped after being in plane for too long and some small measure of my worry melted away.
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I blinked as I looked down into the ice cream cooler and found that it was meticulously clean, with neat rows of buckets filled with ice cream sitting at the bottom. Confused, I glanced back and noticed that the entire interior of the truck had changed as well. The broken glass was gone and so was the mold and the odd, fleshy vines that had snaked their way along the walls. Everything looked to be in perfect, pristine condition.
Beside the cooler, right on the stainless-steel counter which had been mostly barren before, were small paper bowls and boxes of vanilla cones, just ready to receive a scoop. My mouth went dry as my thoughts raced. I still had no clue what in the name of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph was happening here, but if slinging a few ice cream cones could get us out of this van alive, that was a small price to pay.
There was a metal scoop inside the freezer unit. It was warm to the touch, which struck me as odd, but that was the least weird thing happening at the moment.
I picked it up and got to work.
“Croc, Jakob, Temp,” I called over one shoulder. “Help me serve these little buckets of joy, huh?”
I was in a minor state of shock and my hands seemed to move with a life and purpose of their own, quickly doling out cones filled with chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream. Croc took orders, while Jakob and Temperance helped pass cones out to eagerly waiting customers. For their part, the kids waited patiently, forming a neat line to place their orders, and standing in absolute silence the rest of the time. If any of the totally normal human children found it odd that there was a blue talking dog working the window, none of them mentioned it.
In less than ten minutes, we’d served each of the children. I watched from the flimsy safety of the truck as they devoured the cones like rabid wolves, getting a meal for the first time in months. Every once in a while, my vision would swim out of focus and I’d see more of those strange overlays: a normal Timmy or Tammy eating a simple ice cream cone with a gusto while, simultaneously, a deformed abomination with too many eyes slurped fetid chunks of meat from a stained bowl.
They weren’t violent, though, and that was the important part.
Once the kids finished their meal, the leader of their feral pack—the same level 29 Timmy who’d done most of the talking—tipped me a nod, offered me a wide smile filled with too many teeth, then mounted his bike, wheeled about, and took off down the street without a look back. The rest of the demon children followed in his wake, the sound of their wheels humming over the pavement as they quickly disappeared into the distance.
We just watched them go, until we were certain it wasn’t some trick or an ambush.
“That was… unexpected,” Jakob noted with frown and a shake of his head. He pressed his eyes closed and furrowed his brow in a combination of concern and thought. “I vaguely remember the children, but there are so very many holes in my recollection. I didn’t spend long here, and I’m already thinking that was probably for the best.”
“Well, I hate it,” Temperance said, crossing her arms disgruntledly across her chest. “I hate everything about this place. The dull boring houses. The neat yards. The weird children. And the violence. Or rather, the lack thereof.” She rounded on me, her hands planted on her hips. “I was promised violence, Dan. You said there would be a mountain of bodies and instead I served my enemies ice cream. If I wanted to work retail, I would’ve stayed behind at the store.”
“I think we should count ourselves lucky,” I said, absently rubbing at my jaw. “I have no doubt there’s gonna be bloodshed before this is all over, but we want to pick our battles if we can.” I squinted and messaged one temple, trying to alleviate the pain from the massive headache that was building just behind my eye sockets. “The longer we can play nice, the better off we’ll be. Let’s just see if we can find the kiosk we need, then we can pick all the fights you—”
Before I could finish the words, the truck’s radio squealed to life in a burst of static, followed shortly by the chipper voice of a radio announcer.
“Good afternoon, Sunnysiders. This is Larry Nickles, the voice of WBZT - Sunnysider Radio, coming at you with a few friendly reminders from the HOA Board. Tomorrow night, there will be a lunar eclipse. Please note that during the eclipse, the moon will appear to bleed. This is normal. Do not be alarmed. If you hear knocking on your door at precisely 3:33 AM, do not open it. The knocking will be persistent and may mimic the voice of a loved one. Ignore it. They cannot come inside unless you invite them. Do not invite them.
“In unrelated news, a mysterious Fireworks Pop-Up Tent has appeared on the corner of Main Street and Oak Avenue. According to sources on the ground, the tent seems to pulse with otherworldly power, and casts unnerving shadows, particularly between the hours of dusk and dawn. The tent has been deemed off limits by the Council and has been quarantined for community safety.
“And finally, a quick update on the noise complaints coming from the cornfields: The sounds of children laughing at midnight are just that—sounds. There are no children there, nor should there be. Please ignore them and continue with your evening. If the laughter persists, seek shelter immediately. Once again, this is Larry Nickles, reminding you to trust the HOA. Obey the HOA. We are always watching. Always listening. The signal never sleeps.”
The radio went to static once more than promptly clicked off, returning the truck to silence.
“I am so confused,” I said, shaking my head. “Not a single thing on this level makes a lick of sense? I mean, what the hell was that just now?” I asked, gesturing toward the radio.
“Helpful public announcements?” Croc offered. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but frankly I’m relieved that we don’t have to worry about the lunar eclipse tomorrow night. And if they hadn’t told me not to answer the door, I probably would have. It seems very rude not to open the door for a guest, especially if they’re stuck outside so late.”
“What? No,” I said, shaking my head. “They weren’t helpful, they were creepy as fuck.” I suppressed another shiver. “Everything about this place gives me the heebie jeebies. It’s like the Stepford Wives only worse.”
“I agree completely,” Jakob said, “but I think there might’ve been something helpful, unintentionally buried in that broadcast. The radio announcer, he mentioned a Fireworks Pop-Up Tent. That seems rather odd, no?”
“The moon might start bleeding, and we should ignore any laughter coming from the cornfields, but a fireworks tent is the odd thing?” I asked. “Really? The fireworks tent is the thing that jumped out at you?”
“Think about it, Dan,” Jakob urged. “I for one am not sure what a kiosk here might look like, but a Fireworks Pop-Up Tent seems like a good fit. The fact they it’s been cordoned off also seems rather peculiar to me.”
I grunted, mulling his words over. Finally, I sighed. “Yeah okay, that’s a fair point,” I reluctantly agreed, idly drumming my fingers against the steering wheel of the truck. “And didn’t the radio guy say that the thing just appeared recently? There’s no way that’s a coincidence, right?”
“A coincidence that big could choke a horse,” Temperance replied, “but if that’s true, and the tent really did just spontaneously appear, then there are some troubling implications…”
“Maybe, it’s just me,” Croc said, “but I’m not sure I see that the problem is? So what if the kiosk just appeared. Why would that matter?”
“Because it means that whoever the Director works for didn’t just give us a map of the kiosk network. It means they created a new kiosk access point, right here on this floor. I'll admit, that's a bit of a stretch, but if it’s true, it also means that somehow, they’re capable of manipulating the kiosk network or maybe even the Backrooms themselves.”
“Could be the Researcher,” Jakob offered, more statement than question. “He certainly has the power to do such things.”
Honestly, it was as good a guess as any.
The Researcher had rewarded me with the Kiosk Franchise Placard in the first place and if there was anyone with the god-like level of power needed to actively change the Backrooms, it was probably him. Still, it was suspicious and the fact that I didn’t have a good answer made me wary on general principle. But even assuming that was true, it didn’t really change anything.
It was possible we were walking into a trap, but that had always been a possibility. So far, the Director had been true to her word. We needed to be cautious, but we couldn’t run back to the shop and hide every time something weird happened. The only thing I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt was that the Monarch was coming, and if we played things too safe, we wouldn’t be strong enough to survive once he arrived.
Sometimes, you just needed to roll the dice.
“Well, we’re not gonna get any answer sitting inside this truck. Let’s go find out exactly how boned we really are.”