Chapter 3: The Video of the Damned

The argument started the moment they got back to James's house.

"We have to go," Kenny said, pacing back and forth across James's bedroom like a caged animal. "That girl—Janine—she's going to be there in a few hours, and we're the only ones who know what's waiting for her."

James sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his hands. They were shaking again, just like they had in the woods three days ago. "We should call someone. The police, her parents, anybody."

"And say what?" Kenny whirled around, his face flushed with frustration. "That we think the ice cream man is luring kids into the woods based on a conversation we overheard while hiding behind a dumpster? They'll laugh us out of the station."

"Better than getting ourselves killed," James muttered.

"Killed?" Kenny's voice rose an octave. "By who? Some guy who sells ice cream?"

"By that thing we saw crawl out of his back!" James finally looked up, meeting his cousin's eyes. "Have you forgotten about that? The spider thing with the tumors and the clicking legs? Because I sure as hell haven't."

Kenny's expression softened slightly, but his jaw remained set with stubborn determination. "That's exactly why we have to go. Whatever that thing was, whatever it's doing to people—we might be the only ones who can stop it."

James wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Two sixteen-year-old stoners against some kind of monster that defied every law of nature he'd ever learned. It was like something out of a bad horror movie, the kind where you spent the whole time yelling at the characters not to go into the dark basement.

"We're just kids, Kenny. We're not heroes."

"Tell that to Janine when she ends up like Jenny Hall."

The words hit James like a physical blow. He could see her in his mind—that shy girl with the dreamy expression, walking toward whatever nightmare was waiting for her in the woods. The rational part of his brain kept insisting that there had to be another explanation, that ice cream vendors didn't turn into hosts for alien parasites, that girls didn't just disappear because of some elaborate conspiracy.

But the rational part of his brain was losing the war against what he'd seen with his own eyes.

"Even if we go," James said slowly, "what's the plan? We hide in the bushes and watch? Take pictures? What if something goes wrong? What if that thing sees us?"

"We'll be careful," Kenny said, though they both knew how hollow that promise sounded. "We'll stay hidden, get whatever evidence we can, and then figure out what to do with it."

James looked out his bedroom window at the gathering dusk. Somewhere out there, an innocent girl was probably getting ready to meet what she thought was a friendly ice cream vendor. The thought made his stomach turn.

But the thought of facing that creature again made it worse.

"I can't," he whispered. "I'm sorry, Kenny, but I can't do it. Every time I close my eyes, I see that thing. I can't go back there."

Kenny stared at him for a long moment, and James saw something die in his cousin's eyes. Disappointment, maybe. Or disgust.

"Fine," Kenny said finally. "Stay here. Hide under your covers and pretend none of this is happening. But I'm going."

"Kenny, don't—"

But his cousin was already heading for the door. "Someone has to," he said without turning around. "And apparently, it's going to be me."

The bedroom door slammed shut, leaving James alone with his guilt and his fear. He heard Kenny's footsteps on the stairs, heard the front door open and close, heard the silence that followed.

James lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to convince himself he'd made the right choice. He was scared—terrified, actually—and there was no shame in that. What Kenny was planning was suicide, and James wasn't about to throw his life away on some misguided rescue mission.

But as the hours crawled by, the guilt began to eat at him like acid.

He tried watching TV, tried reading, tried anything to distract himself from the images playing on repeat in his mind. Janine walking toward the treehouse. Kenny hiding in the bushes with nothing but a cell phone and teenage bravado to protect him. That wet, pulsing creature scuttling through the darkness.

By midnight, James was ready to climb the walls.

He must have dozed off sometime after one, because the next thing he knew, someone was tapping on his bedroom window. James jolted awake, his heart hammering against his ribs as he tried to orient himself in the darkness.

The tapping came again, soft but insistent.

James crept to the window and peered through the blinds. Kenny's face stared back at him, pale and streaked with dirt. His clothes were torn and covered in what looked like mud, and there was a wild, haunted look in his eyes that made James's blood run cold.

James fumbled with the window latch, his fingers clumsy with sleep and adrenaline. "Jesus Christ, Kenny, what happened? Are you okay?"

Kenny climbed through the window with shaking hands, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps. "You have to see this," he whispered, pulling his phone from his pocket. "James, you have to see what they're doing."

The phone's screen was cracked, spider-webbed with fractures that made it hard to see clearly. Kenny's thumb hovered over the play button of a video file, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane.

"I was too late," Kenny said, his voice hollow. "By the time I got there, she was already... God, James, they had her in the circle with the others."

"What others?" James asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

Instead of responding, Kenny hit play.

The video was shaky, clearly shot from a hiding spot in the underbrush. The image quality was poor, made worse by the phone's damaged screen, but James could make out the scene well enough to wish he couldn't.

The clearing wasn't the same one where they'd seen the Ice Cream Man collapse. This was deeper in the woods, larger, surrounded by a ring of ancient oak trees that seemed to loom over the scene like silent witnesses. At the center of the clearing, arranged in a perfect circle, knelt dozens of people.

James recognized faces in the crowd—neighbors, teachers, the mailman who'd delivered their birthday cards just four days ago. They all wore the same vacant expression, the same dreamy smile he'd seen on Janine's face outside the ice cream truck.

And there, kneeling among them, was his father.

"No," James breathed, grabbing the phone from Kenny's hands. "No, that's not... he's at home. He's downstairs watching TV."

But even as he said it, James knew it wasn't true. His father had been acting strange lately—distant, distracted, prone to long silences and that same empty smile. James had chalked it up to work stress, but now...

"Keep watching," Kenny whispered.

In the video, the Ice Cream Man stood at the center of the circle, no longer bothering with his friendly facade. His movements were jerky, unnatural, like a broken marionette. As James watched in horror, the man began to convulse, his back arching at an impossible angle.

The same tearing sound they'd heard in the woods three days ago filled the phone's tiny speaker. The Ice Cream Man's uniform split open, and that wet, pulsing creature emerged, larger now than it had been before. Its spider-like legs clicked against the ground as it scuttled from person to person, touching each one with what looked like a proboscis or feeding tube.

Each touch sent ripples of movement under the victims' skin, as if something was crawling just beneath the surface.

James felt bile rise in his throat as the camera panned across the circle, revealing more familiar faces. Mrs. Henderson from the grocery store. Dr. Martinez, their family physician. And there, near the back of the group, her gray hair glowing silver in the moonlight, was his grandmother.

"Turn it off," James said, his voice barely a whisper.

"There's more."

The creature had moved to the center of the circle now, where a small figure knelt apart from the others. Even through the poor video quality, James could see it was Janine, her brown hair hanging like a curtain around her face.

The thing reared up on its hind legs, exposing what looked like an ovipositor—a long, segmented tube that pulsed with its own internal rhythm. James watched in sick fascination as it positioned itself behind the girl, preparing to—

James lunged for the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before his dinner came back up in violent waves. He retched until there was nothing left, his body shaking with the effort.

When he finally stumbled back to the bedroom, Kenny was sitting on the bed, staring at the phone's dark screen.

"I couldn't save her," Kenny said quietly. "I wanted to, but there were so many of them. And they all looked so... normal. Like they were at church or something."

James sank into his desk chair, his legs too weak to support him. "How many people were there?"

"Fifty, maybe more. Half the damn town." Kenny looked up, and James was shocked to see tears streaming down his cousin's dirt-streaked face. "They're all infected, James. Whatever that thing is doing to them, it's spreading."

"My dad," James whispered. "My grandmother. How long have they been..."

"I don't know. But I think it's been going on for a while. Maybe months." Kenny wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "That's why no one reported Jenny Hall missing right away. That's why the police aren't looking very hard for her. Because the people who should care are all part of it now."

The full horror of the situation was beginning to sink in. They weren't just dealing with one monster—they were dealing with an entire network of them, hidden behind familiar faces and friendly smiles. People they'd trusted, people they'd loved, all of them compromised.

"What do we do?" James asked, though he suspected there was no good answer.

"We run," Kenny said simply. "We get as far away from here as possible and hope that whatever this is hasn't spread beyond our town."

James wanted to argue, wanted to insist that there had to be another way. But as he thought about his father's recent behavior, his grandmother's too-bright smiles, the way the adults in his life had seemed increasingly distant and strange, he realized Kenny was right.

They were alone in a town full of monsters, and their only chance of survival was to run.

"We'll need money," James said, his mind already shifting into survival mode. "Food, gas, somewhere to go."

"I know where we can get cash," Kenny replied. "But we have to move fast. Once they realize I was at the ceremony tonight, they'll come looking for us."

As if summoned by his words, James heard the soft creak of footsteps on the stairs outside his room. Slow, measured steps that paused at each landing, as if the person climbing them was in no hurry at all.

The boys looked at each other, terror passing between them like an electric current.

Someone was coming.