Sarah Benadine is Dead

Chapter II, Part I

Shannon slept little that night. Nightmares of creatures with no eyes and broken teeth kept her awake. Shannon didn't remember it, but Faye told her that at one point she had sat straight up and stretched her arms out like she was warding something off. It hadn't surprised Shannon to hear.

Shannon's mother watched her in concern all the way through breakfast. Shannon tried to act upbeat, but she was sure that the dark bags under her eyes gave her away. Una did not breach the subject, however, and Shannon had a plan, anyway.

The sun shone bright in the sky when Shannon went outside after breakfast. It had stormed all night long, even worse than it had during the day, but the rain had finally broken at the dawn. The rain had not cooled anything, though. The temperature had broken eighty degrees at eight in the morning and was steadily climbing. It was going to be a hot one.

Dyer's Park looked just the same as it did any other day. The trees blocked out all but tiny slivers of the playground and the three mossy picnic tables; on the inside, plenty of children had found their way back. There was nothing, nothing at all to suggest that the park hadn't been anything like this the night before.

Shannon had to make a conscious effort not to look as she made her way down the street. Her eyes felt magnetized, constantly pulled to look at the park. It was a strange, almost eager compulsion; it was watching a car wreck from the side of the road. She counted the cracks in the sidewalk to distract herself, the old rhyme sounding over and over again in her head: Step on a crack, break your mother's back.

Her count had reached eighteen when she heard someone call her name. She straightened in surprise and turned her head sharply towards the voice, like she'd just been caught doing something she shouldn't have been. Toni Guaraldi was giving her a toothy grin and waving frantically as she ran across the street.

"Hello, Shannon, my dear," Toni said as she skipped up to Shannon's side. "Long time, no see."

"Oh yeah, it's been ages," Shannon said sarcastically.

"You should come over to the park," Toni said, coming to a halt and forcing Shannon to stop with her. "Some of Gianni and Frankie's friends are there; we're having a kickball tournament."

If Shannon had to be honest, exactly none of that sounded appealing. She knew Gianni and Frankie and most of their friends fairly well, and while she didn't dislike any of them, she'd played kickball with them before. It was generally not a good idea to do anything competitive with any of them. Not when they played like the fate of the world hung in the balance. Shannon wasn't particularly good at kickball, either.

Apart from all of that, Shannon wasn't sure if she'd want to go into Dyer's Park ever again. There was already an uneasy twist in her stomach just looking at it, seeing how normal it looked today compared to the night before. Even in the bright sunshine, it seemed sinister.

"Aw, not today, Toni," Shannon said, looking appropriately apologetic. "I've already got plans."

That was not entirely a lie. Her plans were, granted, plans that only she was aware of, but they were plans nonetheless.

"Really?" Toni asked, disappointed. "What're you up to?"

Shannon hesitated, debating telling her. She had no real reason not to; what she was doing was perfectly innocent, in theory. She was more worried that Toni would pry—Toni always pried. She wasn't prepared to answer the tons of questions her best friend was certain to have.

"Going to see Mary Dent," Shannon said finally, after the strange look Toni was giving her told her she was taking too much time to answer.