The Night Things Will Come

That First page

' if I go missing, I didn't run away. Aunt Jess is wonderful, I couldn't ask for someone better to care for me, if you're reading this, I want you to tell her that. If you're reading this... it means I am missing... I guess I knew it would happen. It started like this...."

A warm hand snatched the book
"Hey there!"
"What is this, some kind of journal? That's lame man" he read the author and his smile dropped, he let me take the journal back.
"How did you know Clemtine?"
"She isn't dead"
"What?"
"Refer to 'er in present tense, she didn't die"
"I said, how do you know her?"
"She's my old girlfriend's best friend"
"Oh you're that jerk that dated Petal Primrose?"
"Jerk? I'm real sorry kid I don't think I know ya well enuff ta have ya call me a jerk"
"Not like, somebody who's mean, more like a loser"
"Well gee don't I feel better" I grinned, knowing damn well this kid didn't mean to hurt a fly.
"Uh, well..."
"I don't mind kiddo, really, but what do you mean loser?" My heart sank a bit. Is this what the kids at school thought of me?
"Do you really want to know?" He fiddled with his short blue locks, they weren't long enough to dip his shoulders, but they were just long enough to cover his pale green eyes.
"You know what? I do"
"You're a drunk... you're always alone unless it's with Petal and you smoke cigarettes.... and all your music is really boring or sad"
"Hey I'm not a drunk and I'm not always alone, I've got my mate Archie"
"20 bucks says you have a bottle of alchohol in that bag of yours"
"I'm not a drunk" I whispered fighting back anger as I thought of the bottle of whiskey in my mail bag
"You haven't even heard my music!"
Let me see your phone.
I rolled my eyes, handing it over.
As he scrolled through my playlist he laughed
"I've never heard any of this before" he pressed on a song and smiled holding the speaker up to his ear
"Told you, sad and boring"
"Hey, I like my music"
"I'm just messin'" he punched me in the shoulder playfully
"So, now back to the real problem, why do you have my girlfriend's journal?"
"Girlfriend?"
"That's right. I'll marry that girl one day"
We walked along the street
"Yer delusional!" I chuckled
He put his hands up
"Alright, we aren't dating. I wish we were but we aren't, she's a goddess and I'm..... me. So why do you have that journal?"
"I'm going to find her"
He stopped walking
"I'm coming with"
"Alright"
"Alright?" He scoffed
"You aren't going to ask me anything?"
I paused in front of a quaint sandwich shop
"Ya hungry kid?"
"My name's Ben"
I nodded, pulling on the door handle "You hungry Ben?"
"Starved" he grinned

We grabbed a table at the back
"Are you serious about this?" I prodded
"Well...are you?"
"I am."
He grinned before biting down on his CLUB sandwich "Then so am I"
"I just... I just don't really know where ta start" I peered out the window trying to grab every stream of sunlight
"Well let's see the journal"
I pulled it out "I was right here before ya interrupted me"
I traced the words with my finger before turning the book upside down and passing it to Ben.

"if I go missing, I didn't run away. Aunt Jess is wonderful, I couldn't ask for someone better to care for me, if you're reading this, I want you to tell her that. If you're reading this... it means I am missing... I guess I knew it would happen. It started like this, Petal Primrose and I were planning to leave, to take a roadtrip and before you lecture me, I realized how stupid that really was, my home is here, my life, my friends. Petal was angry with me for not leaving with her. don't get the wrong idea, I sincerely doubt she'd ever hurt me. But we ended up "breaking up" it hurt, so I finally joined that club I had always wanted to join but knew Petey would judge me terribly if I did"

Ben looked up at me
"The cryptid club" I nodded slowly, gesturing for him to keep reading

"And there I met a boy. He was tall, dangerous, that whole bad boy thing girls love so much. If you know me, you know I'm not one of those girls, I like the quiet poetic type, like-"

He stopped and glared at me
"What? What does it say?" I grabbed the book from him

" like Nicodemus Anders"

I held my hand up as if to calm Ben

"Don't get me wrong, I don't like Nicodemus or anything but I love the idea of him, you know?"

I noticed Ben looked a bit torn
"You don't have to read it, we can just skip ahead!" Ben smiled a half smile
"No, it's fine"

"This story might seem long, but it's important you don't skip any part of it"

I glanced up at Ben and chuckled. He smiled
"Go on,"

"That boy gave me such a bad feeling but I wasn't going to lose this club because of a little feeling. I had already lost my best friend. I wouldn't lose these people. While out camping on one of our friday trips, he hurt me. I don't know why he hated me but he did. He took a knife and he threatened me, told me if I didn't leave the club, he'd kill me. But something really bad happened that night. They found me. They told me they were coming, I was too scared to say anything. I knew no one would believe me. They'd send me to a pysch ward, but even cryptids can find you in a mental hospital. As I lay on the scratchy ground of my tent. I heard something, I really can't explain it... it was like a squealing, as if a pig was being slaughtered, but it had a dark crackled undertone to it. It told me I had pretty eyes; which of course sounds so odd for a cryptid but it was followed by the creature telling me it wanted my eyes. It was going to take my eyes. If I really am missing. It took me. I'm terrified for my life. Help me. If it hasn't killed me yet, please help. But don't let it take you too.

And that was the end of it. That was chapter one, but also the only chapter. I checked a million times.
The next pages had drawing of eyes. Blue, green, brown, bloody, melting. The pages got more and more disturbing, and we realized that the last drawing had blood on it that wasn't fake. I know this because it was still wet. How could blood in an old notebook be still wet? And to that I say, cryptid magic has no logic.
I stared at Ben and pulled out another notebook, this one was my mother's. Pages had been ripped out but all the drawings matched the one's in Clementine's book.
"Well," Ben started
"We know it likes eyes"