like him?

the vanishing

He'd slipped in through the back door like he'd done countless times before, taking advantage of a moment of distraction in the lobby. Inside, it was warm and smelled of popcorn and soda. The theater wasn't full. An old movie flickered on the screen, nothing special, nothing memorable...and for a few minutes, the world felt quiet.

Then someone spoke behind him.

"Hey. Ticket."

The boy turned. The usher was just a man in a worn uniform, a flashlight hanging from his wrist. Ordinary. Stern. Close enough to grab him.

The boy bolted.

He ran out of the auditorium, down the hallway, and ducked behind a large cardboard poster advertising upcoming movies. His heart hammered so loudly he was sure it could be heard. The poster smelled like old paper and glue. From behind it, he watched the usher slow down, scanning the hallway.

"Where'd he go?" the man muttered.

Then the owner's daughter appeared. She was the same age as him, her hair tied back, a soda cup in her hand. She looked at the usher. Then, without meaning to, she looked straight at the poster.

For a second, the boy thought it was over.

"Did you see a kid run through here?" the usher asked.

She hesitated, just barely.
"Yeah," she said. "He already left. Went out the front."

The usher sighed, grumbled something under his breath, and headed toward the exit.

The girl didn't look back.

The boy waited a few more seconds, then slipped out from behind the poster and walked quickly, without running, to the emergency door. Once outside, he ran.

He didn't look back. He crossed streets he knew, passed houses he'd grown up around, until his lungs burned and his legs gave out. When he finally stopped, he realized he didn't want to go back. Not to the theater. Not home.

Not to Derry.

So he kept walking.

More than an hour later, he was on a secondary road, his backpack thumping against his back with every step. Derry lay behind him, wrapped in that familiar fog that never quite went away. His father said it came from the river. He knew better.

In Derry, the fog watched.

When he stuck out his thumb, he didn't expect anyone to stop.

But a car did.

It was a family car, clean, too clean for that road. White, without a single streak of dirt. Inside sat a smiling couple. The father wore sunglasses even though the sky was overcast. The mother's hair was perfectly styled. In the back seat, two kids about his age stared at him silently, wearing identical smiles.

"Where you headed, kid?" the man asked, his voice warm, practiced.

"Far away," the boy said. "Anywhere that isn't Derry."

The woman laughed softly.
"Oh, we left that town years ago. Terrible place to raise children."

That was enough. He got in.

The inside of the car smelled like soap and something else, something sweet, almost too sweet. As they drove, the boy noticed the scenery didn't change. The same trees. The same bent, rusted sign. Again and again.

"Shouldn't we have crossed the bridge by now?" he asked.

Nobody answered.

The boy, his pacifier always in his mouth, watched in silence. He couldn't stop sucking it; it was a habit that calmed him even in the most tense moments. The rubber crunched between his teeth as the family spoke, smiling, but saying things that didn't quite make sense: "Children must always stay calm to grow," or  "Noise feeds what is missing inside us." Each sentence sounded normal, but together, they twisted into something impossible to explain.

"Darling," the mother said suddenly, her voice too sweet, "show our guest what we brought."

The girl lifted a rigid cardboard box and rested it on her lap. She opened it slowly.

Inside were organs. Neat, clean, as if they were pieces meant to be shown, not neglected. The boy stared, wide-eyed, still chewing his pacifier, unable to look away and getting more scared by the second.

The car moved on, but everything around seemed to lose sense. The air filled with sounds: breaths that didn't belong to the number of visible bodies, laughter from nowhere, and the constant crunch of the boy's pacifier in his mouth.

The mother made a low, deep, drawn-out sound. Her body tensed and warped under her dress in impossible ways. The smile never left her face.

The boy kept his pacifier, teeth pressed around it. He couldn't look away, even if he wanted to.

Suddenly, the mother began to "give birth" to something that was not a normal baby. It was flying, it flapped in the air with impossible movements. Its eyes fixed on the boy directly, and though small, there was something ancient and aware in them. It did not cry. It made no sound, except a faint hiss.

The boy covered his ears with his hands, but he couldn't stop sucking his pacifier. The sound in his mouth was the only stable thing in the chaos of impossible noises.

Then, everything stopped.

Silence.

He opened his eyes. The "baby" floated in front of him. It stared at him with clear intent, almost human. It lunged at him.