Well, next chapter, here it is. A tiny bit later than I projected, but also a little bit longer. Please review and tell me what you think!

~*~

We are way too old for this shit, Micheal thought to himself as he watched his friends laugh and shove at each other in the front seat of Bobby Dalton's mud-splattered pickup truck. Actually, when Micheal came to think of it, they were way too old for a lot of things; too old to still be living with their parents, too old to be acting like a bunch of kids, and too old to still be stuck in Hemingford with no discernible direction for their lives.

Actually, it was for this reason that the group of five were friends in the first place—they were all nineteen and not in college. What did it matter that they had barely known each other in high school? They were together now, and spent nearly every night like this, goofing off and pretending they were still in high school.

Yes, they were way too old for a lot of things, but, most of all, they were way too old to be going out in the middle of the night in search of demons.

It didn't take a lot to get a town like Hemingford excited, so news of the Gatlin massacre was like a bomb exploding on the area, and everybody was talking about it, even a year after the whole business had been revealed. Rumors kept getting recycled, recreated, and recirculated, keeping everybody in a constant state of excitement and near-panic.

After all, how long would it be before something like this happened again? A town full of children going crazy and murdering their parents in cold blood for a demonic entity residing within the corn, then quietly running the town for several years completely under the radar and killing all those who happened to pass through? It was all just so terrible and frightening and wickedly wonderful, like poisoned candy given to a bunch of starving kids. The papers claimed mass-hysteria, but talk of evil spirits spread in whispers, and what did the authorities intend to do with all of the remaining children, anyway?

Gatlin certainly had become very hard to avoid these days, much like the flu. Up until this point, Micheal had been able to steadfastly ignore the place, and now, for the first time in seven years, he was going back to his hometown. Perhaps it was irrational to pin his own misfortune on Gatlin itself, but, given the recent circumstances, Micheal was beginning to think that his instinctual, near-obsessive avoidance was more than just the after effect of a traumatic incident.

Either way, paying an impromptu visit to good old Gatlin didn't sit well with Micheal...but it was just so exciting. That's why they were all doing it, after all, for a little excitement, for a thrill. Besides, Hemingford was so damned boring, especially for a bunch of nineteen-year-olds with nothing to do, and the promise of excitement drew them like moths to a bonfire.

Gatlin was supposed to be completely abandoned now, and police had stopped checking the place out ages ago, according to Bobby. Then there were the rumors floating about, of the bloodied weapons, arcane books, and cryptic writings left throughout the emptied town, and the even more impossible whispers of there-and-gone fires, strange voices and childrens' laughter, and inexplicable movement still seen and heard coming from the vicinity of Gatlin. This combination made for an irresistible attraction, a set of unsolved mysteries that Micheal and his friends had taken it upon themselves to try and solve.

Sure, it was practically guaranteed that nothing of interest would happen—they weren't even really hoping for anything—but it provided a night's entertainment, and at least they could say that they were there, that they hadn't been afraid. It was juvenile, but they just had to.

So now here they were: Micheal, Bobby, and Bobby's girlfriend, Taylor, parked in a near deserted gas station/convenience store waiting for Jase and Jess to get off work. Jase and Jess; had a nice ring to it, which was, as far as Micheal could tell, the only reason they dated. Micheal exhaled a long plume of smoke from his cigarette as he watched Jason Donovan argue halfheartedly with some redneck trucker in a wife-beater over the price of diesel and the lack of Twinkies in the service station, and Micheal's bored gaze drifted to the glassy windows of the convenience store.

Through the stickers advertising beer, cigarettes, and lotto tickets, Micheal saw Jessica Walter's skinny frame leaning against the Slurpee machine, staring out into space and pretending to watch for shoplifters. The only people left in the store besides Jess and the older cashier were a couple of thirteen-year-old boys with long, sloppy hair and dirty tie-dyed T-shirts who had been loitering around the dimly lit gas station all night, practicing tricks on their beat-up skateboards.

Micheal stifled a snicker at the way the cashier watched the two punks with a comically wary expression. Ever since everyone had become aware of the whole Gatlin business, adults seemed to be expecting their kids to go ape-shit and try to kill them any day now. Hell, maybe they would, just for a little fun—Hemingford really was that boring.

A loud honk blared raucously when Taylor's elbow bashed against the horn on the steering wheel. Micheal winced, Taylor giggled, and Bobby just adjusted the position of the skimpily dressed girl on his lap, all the while remaining completely oblivious to the death-glare coming from the trucker, who still had yet to leave..

In the service station, the two boys slid their sticker-covered boards over to the Slurpee station, where one tried to flirt with Jess while his friend sniggered furtively in the background. Jess looked at them through jaded eyes and asked if they would like cherry or blue raspberry.

Once the kids had payed for the drinks, Jess proceeded to usher the cashier out, insisting that she would close up for the night. Once the red-haired woman had left, Jess switched off the lights, grabbed a six pack of whatever-beer and exited the shop, locking the door behind her. On her way out, Jess passed the two boys from before sitting on their skateboards. The pair made cat-calls through mouthfuls of chips that they most certainly had not payed for, returning promptly to their pilfered snacks when Jess ignored them completely..

Finally, the redneck was pulling away after getting his gas. Jase held his hand out for the money that the trucker had yet to give up. In lieu of paying, the man spat on the ground at Jase's feet.

"Freak," He sneered before gunning the engine and pulling out.

"Yeah, a nice night to you too, Sir" Jason called after him. He ran a hand through his dark, already messy hair and rolled his eyes at Jess, who returned his look sympathetically.

"Hey, you two coming?" Bobby honked the horn again and yelled out the open window, "I don't have air-conditioning in thing, and it's like a freaking oven in here."

"Cool it, Bobby," Jess called in response, "It's not gonna be any colder in Gatlin."

All the same, the couple walked more quickly towards the car and crammed into the back seat with Micheal.

"Nice hair, Mike," Jess commented as she slid into the ripped leather interior. Micheal groaned and tugged the baseball cap farther down on his head, hoping to hide the misshapen, almost-mullet he had ended up with at the barbershop today. Never again would he try to look like Billy Idol. Ever.

In the end, Micheal just sighed, "Give me one of those beers."

Without another word—bless her heart—Jess handed Micheal a can, and he couldn't help but smile at her. The avenging angel of alcohol. Micheal held the pleasantly cool can against his head for a moment before popping it open and taking a long swig.

"Rough day for you too, huh?" Jase observed, raising an eyebrow.

"Not that bad," Micheal confided, "Just kinda burnt, I guess."

"Bummer," Taylor muttered absently as she applied shimmery orange lip gloss (Peach Passion, she reminded them constantly.) The sickly sweet scent of it mingled with the ingrained smells of stale beer and cigarette smoke. She popped her lips once and craned her neck to look in the mirror.

"Trying to look good for the devil-worshipers?" Bobby teased, earning a chuckle from Jase and not much else.

"They're not devil-worshipers," Jess reminded him, "the kids worshiped that 'He Who Walks Behind the Rows' thing, not Satan, and that's what we're looking for."

Of all of them, Jess was probably the most sincerely interested in the massacre, as evidenced by the fact tat she had saved every single article from every paper she could find on the subject.

"Whatever," Bobby grumbled, staring out at the empty, pothole-riddled road, "it's freaky shit any way you slice it."

"Freaky shit happens in Gatlin, sometimes," Micheal said vaguely, barely realizing he had spoken out loud until Jase gave him a strange look.

"Hey, yeah, you used to live in the freak town, right?" Jase recalled, and Micheal shrugged, not very thrilled to be on the spot at the moment.

"Whoa. So, did you know any of those psycho kids?" Now Jess was staring at him with wide, excited eyes.

"Of course I did," was all Micheal said, looking away from his friends and staring at the endless corn flashing by his window.

The question made him uncomfortable, mostly because that fact was what freaked him out the most. He had known those kids; he had played tag with older boys and pulled the girls' pigtails when he was a kid, and he had chaperoned the younger ones as they trick 'r treated with Rose. Of course he knew them, he had known each and every one of them. This hadn't even really hit home until he had scanned the list of names in one of the papers regarding the matter. Right there in black and white, there had been Joseph Jameson—Rose used to ride bikes with him to and from school—and then there had been Malachi Boardman, Micheal's one-time best friend. Micheal hadn't spoken to the redhead since they were both twelve years old, but after seeing his name on that paper, he wished he had. Micheal had known all of those kids all right, and they had all done the impossible.

Just as Micheal finished thinking this, the dim headlights of the car flickered over the ancient sign:

Gatlin: 1 Mile

Well, Micheal was ready for anything; he just hoped Gatlin was prepared to deliver.