Cal wrote the words with his Number Two pencil on the blue lined paper, crossing out when they changed their minds.

Fox added more wood to the fire so that the flames crackled as they stood by the Pagan Stone.

At moments to midnight, they stood, three young boys with faces lit by fire and starlight. At Gage’s nod, they spoke together in voices solemn and achingly young.

“We were born ten years ago, on the same night, at the same time, in the same year. We are brothers. At the Pagan Stone we swear an oath of loyalty and truth and brotherhood. We mix our blood.”

Cal sucked in a breath and geared up the courage to run the knife across his wrist first. “Ouch.”

“We mix our blood.” Fox gritted his teeth as Cal cut his wrist.

“We mix our blood.” And Gage stood unflinching as the knife drew over his flesh.

“Three into one, and one for the three.”

Cal held his arm out. Fox, then Gage pressed their scored wrists down to his. “Brothers in spirit, in mind. Brothers in blood for all time.”

As they stood, clouds shivered over the fat moon, misted over the bright stars. Their mixed blood dripped and fell onto the burnt ground.

The wind exploded with a voice like a raging scream. The little campfire spewed up flame in a spearing tower. The three of them were lifted off their feet as if a hand gripped them, tossed them. Light burst as if the stars had shattered.

As he opened his mouth to shout, Cal felt something shove inside him, hot and strong, to smother his lungs, to squeeze his heart in a stunning agony of pain.

The light shut off. In the thick dark blew an icy cold that numbed his skin. The sound the wind made now was like an animal, like a monster that only lived inside books. Beneath him the ground shook, heaving him back as he tried to crawl away.

And something came out of that icy dark, out of that quaking ground. Something huge and horrible.

Eyes bloodred and full of…hunger. It looked at him. And when it smiled, its teeth glittered like silver swords.

He thought he died, and that it took him in, in one gulp.

But when he came to himself again, he could hear his own heart. He could hear the shouts and calls of his friends.

Blood brothers.

“Jesus, Jesus, what was that? Did you see?” Fox called out in a voice thin as a reed. “Gage, God, your nose is bleeding.”

“So’s yours. Something… Cal. God, Cal.”

Cal lay where he was, flat on his back. He felt the wet warmth of blood on his face. He was too numb to be frightened by it. “I can’t see.” He croaked out a weak whisper. “I can’t see.”

“Your glasses are broken.” Face filthy with soot and blood, Fox crawled to him. “One of the lenses is cracked. Dude, your mom’s going to kill you.”

“Broken.” Shaking, Cal reached up to pull off his glasses.

“Something. Something was here.” Gage gripped Cal ’s shoulder. “I felt something happen, after everything went crazy, I felt something happen inside me. Then…did you see it? Did you see that thing?”

“I saw its eyes,” Fox said, and his teeth chattered. “We need to get out of here. We need to get out.”

“Where?” Gage demanded. Though his breath still wheezed, he grabbed Cal ’s knife from the ground, gripped it. “We don’t know where it went. Was it some kind of bear? Was it-”

“It wasn’t a bear.” Cal spoke calmly now. “It was what’s been here, in this place, a long time. I can see…I can see it. It looked like a man once, when it wanted. But it wasn’t.”

“Man, you hit your head.”

Cal turned his eyes on Fox, and the irises were nearly black. “I can see it, and the other.” He opened the hand of the wrist he’d cut. In the palm was a chunk of a green stone spotted with red. “His.”

Fox opened his hand, and Gage his. In each was an identical third of the stone. “What is it?” Gage whispered. “Where the hell did it come from?”

“I don’t know, but it’s ours now. Uh, one into three, three into one. I think we let something out. And something came with it. Something bad. I can see.”

He closed his eyes a moment, then opened them to look at his friends. “I can see, but not with my glasses. I can see without them. It’s not blurry. I can see without my glasses.”

“Wait.” Trembling, Gage pulled up his shirt, turned his back.

“Man, they’re gone.” Fox reached out to touch his fingers to Gage’s unmarred back. “The welts. They’re gone. And…” He held out his wrist where the shallow cut was already healing. “Holy cow, are we like superheroes now?”

“It’s a demon,” Cal said. “And we let it out.”

“Shit.” Gage stared off into the dark woods. “Happy goddamn birthday to us.”

Hawkins Hollow

February 2008

IT WAS COLDER IN HAWKINS HOLLOW, MARYLAND, than it was in Juno, Alaska. Cal liked to know little bits like that, even though at the moment he was in the Hollow where the damp, cold wind blew like a mother and froze his eyeballs.

His eyeballs were about the only things exposed as he zipped across Main Street from Coffee Talk, with a to-go cup of mochaccino in one gloved hand, to the Bowl-a-Rama.

Three days a week, he tried for a counter breakfast at Ma’s Pantry a couple doors down, and at least once a week he hit Gino’s for dinner.

His father believed in supporting the community, the other merchants. Now that his dad was semiretired and Cal oversaw most of the businesses, he tried to follow that Hawkins tradition.

He shopped the local market even though the chain supermarket a couple miles outside town was cheaper. If he wanted to send a woman flowers, he resisted doing so with a couple of clicks on his computer and hauled himself down to the Flower Pot.

He had relationships with the local plumber, electrician, painter, the area craftsmen. Whenever possible, he hired for the town from the town.

Except for his years away at college, he’d always lived in the Hollow. It was his place.

Every seven years since his tenth birthday, he lived through the nightmare that visited his place. And every seven years, he helped clean up the aftermath.

He unlocked the front door of the Bowl-a-Rama, relocked it behind him. People tended to walk right in, whatever the posted hours, if the door wasn’t locked.

He’d once been a little more casual about that, until one fine night while he’d been enjoying some after-hours Strip Bowling with Allysa Kramer, three teenage boys had wandered in, hoping the video arcade was still open.

Lesson learned.

He walked by the front desk, the six lanes and ball returns, the shoe rental counter and the grill, turned and jogged up the stairs to the squat second floor that held his (or his father’s if his father was in the mood) office, a closet-sized john, and a mammoth storage area.

He set the coffee on the desk, stripped off gloves, scarf, watch cap, coat, insulated vest.

He booted up his computer, put on the satellite radio, then sat down to fuel up on caffeine and get to work.

The bowling center Cal ’s grandfather had opened in the postwar forties had been a tiny, three-lane gathering spot with a couple of pinball machines and counter Cokes. It expanded in the sixties, and again, when Cal ’s father took the reins, in the early eighties.

Now, with its six lanes, its video arcade, and its private party room, it was the place to gather in the Hollow.

Credit to Grandpa, Cal thought as he looked over the party reservations for the next month. But the biggest chunk of credit went to Cal ’s father, who’d morphed the lanes into a family center, and had used its success to dip into other areas of business.

The town bears our name, Jim Hawkins liked to say. Respect the name, respect the town.

Cal did both. He’d have left long ago otherwise.

An hour into the work, Cal glanced up at the rap on his doorjamb.