Right, next chapter! There will be two more short-is ones after this, which is mostly just transitional, and the next one is probably going up during the weekend or something. Thanks for the reviews!

~*~

"Quick vote," Bobby had to yell to be heard over the static-marred Queen song blasting from the radio, "who here thinks there's anything to this demon shit, and who says the little bastards were just nuts?"

"I vote nuts," Jase played along, blowing a plume of smoke from his cancer stick into Jess's face.

"Ewww," Jess gave Jase a shove before chiming in herself, "I'm gonna have to go with the demon."

"Psycho," Jase teased his girlfriend, who just stuck her tongue out at him in response.

Taylor bit her thumbnail, "I dunno, like, what if there really is a demon? How do you fight that? What does a demon even look like, anyway?"

"Like Mr. Tanner, my tenth grade algebra teacher," Bobby chortled.

"Yeah, bald with huge glasses, orthopedic shoes, and a giant 'F' stamp," Jase went along with his friend's lame joke.

"Yeah, shoulda brought him along, I'd be plenty happy if the demon just ate him...or whatever the thing's supposed to do," Bobby reflected, "and I say the kids were crazy."

Jess rolled her eyes before looking over at Micheal, "What's your verdict, Mike?"

"Yeah, what does our town expert say?" Bobby turned eagerly to look at Micheal as well before Taylor yelled at him to watch the road.

Micheal had no idea as to what he was going to say until he actually said it, "I vote...demon."

"Yes!" Jess pumped her fist as though she had won some huge argument.

Now Taylor was looking a little more nervous, twisting around to peer at Micheal with wide, overly made-up eyes, "You really think so, Mikey?" She asked softly, and Micheal felt a strange lurch; no one had called him Mikey besides Rose, not even his parents or any of his friends. He shook it off, Damn, I'm so out of it tonight.

Outwardly, Micheal smiled at Taylor, feeling the need to reassure her, "I don't know for sure or anything, but even if there ever was a demon, I bet it's not there any more," Micheal said, even though he wouldn't bet anything on that at all.

"Well that's what we're here to find out!" Jess exclaimed, clapping her hands together, and her dark eyes were hot and excited again.

"Amen to that, sister!" Bobby shouted, proving once again his inability to stay out of a conversation for more than twenty seconds as he rounded a sharp curve.

Micheal groaned inwardly and prayed that Bobby would run out of "jokes" soon. No sooner had Micheal finished thinking this than the tires of the pick-up truck squealed to keep from slamming into the barbed wire fence that was suddenly before them.

"Shit!" Bobby yelled as the fence seemed to spring up in front of the car. Taylor shrieked and Bobby slammed his foot on the gas pedal. The car screeched to a stop just before the fence, jerking them all forward in their seats and causing Jess to slam against Micheal. As the tornado of red-brown dust settled around them, the group let out a collective shaky laugh.

"Close one," Jase whistled to himself.

"Welcome to Gatlin," Micheal muttered, and Jase punched him in the arm and told him to stop being such a prophet of doom.

The fence had been put up shortly after the massacre, most likely to keep bored thrill-seekers like themselves the hell out. The nineteen-year-olds slowly got out of the car, leaving the headlights on and the radio blaring, even though it was practically all static by now. Bobby rooted around in the trunk of the car for flashlights and anything else that might be useful.

In the glare of the headlights, they drank cheap beer and past around a box of stale doughnuts Taylor had found on the floor of the car, and the whole scene carried the disturbing feeling of a last meal. Despite their overtly casual poses, they all stared warily through the fence into the sad, empty town illuminated by the headlights.

Finally, Jess tossed her beer can onto the ground somewhere and took something shiny and square from the trunk of the car approached the group again, "Hey, check this out!"

"That is not what I think it is," Taylor eyed the object.

"I dug it out of my attic, I forgot I even had it!" Jess's grin widened as she looked affectionately at the box. Soon, everybody was grinning as the headlights lit up the glossy surface of the Ouija Board, "We can like, commune with demon and shit."

"I haven't used one of those things since I was twelve!" Jase declared, hopping up to examine the thing, "God, I can't believe you still have one."

"Those things are so freaky," Taylor laughed, "one time, in sixth grade, it pointed to 'C', and I went out with Cal Asher the next week, totally weird."

"At a party this one time, it spelled out 'DED', and Savannah Wesley's dog died the next day," Jase put in happily, and now they were all laughing and sharing their freakiest Ouija Board moments.

All previous tensions vanished, and cigarettes were being ground and beer cans being chucked wherever. Last of all, Bobby cut the truck's engine, leaving them with the moon and stars for light and the crickets and cicadas for noise.

Everybody ready? It wasn't spoken, but it passed through all of them, and everybody was ready, to face whatever was in store for them. So, armed with two mostly operational flashlights, an Ouija Board, and Bobby's father's bowie knife, they went out to face Gatlin.

~*~

So, what do you think is gonna happen? Free cookies to anyone who can guess right!