It was too late. The three demons—they even had horns now—were on them in an instant. Adam was struck across the face with a scaly hand—his arms yanked behind his back. He felt a sharp pain in his spine, and he dropped Bryce Poole’s knapsack. For a moment everything went black, and Adam thought he would pass out. Then he realized he was being dragged toward a steel pole, which he had not noticed a second earlier. It stood in the center of his yard, spiked chains hanging off it.
The yard was no longer the same. All around him the scenery was changing, becoming darker and dirtier, lit with a chilling red glow. The heavenly version of Spooksville was turning into a hellish realm. The demon that had hold of Adam leered in his face. The creature’s teeth were sharp, his eyes like those of a wicked cat, green and splintered with thick red veins. The nails on his claws were sharp like razors. He hissed at Adam.
“We have you now, fool!” the demon said as he snapped Adam’s wrists into cuffs attached to the chains. Beside him, Adam saw the same torture happening to Watch and Sally. They both had demons leering in their faces. Adam’s demon giggled, “You’re never going to escape!”
Adam fought to remain calm. “Who are you? What is this place?” The town continued to change into a nightmare realm of ruined buildings and howling creatures. Up and down the street Adam could see many poles where people had been chained. Most hung lifeless, little more than skeletons, but a few still struggled to break free. The demon tugged at Adam’s hair and slobbered on his shirt.
“Who am I?” the demon asked. “I am you. I am your dark half. And this place is the Dark Corner. Those who come here from your world never return.”
“But everything was so nice at first,” Adam said.
The demon howled. “We always put on a show for newcomers! You humans are so stupid!”
Adam tried to sound brave even though he was terrified. Most of the other prisoners looked as if they had been there for ages.
“What are you going to do with us?” he demanded.
“Let you rot until the Gatekeepers come to judge you,” the demon said. He yanked hard on Adam’s head, pulling out a clump of hair. He held it up for Adam and the others to see. “With this I can enter your world, and become you! My partners and I will pass through the Secret Path and ruin everything that is yours!”
“No!” Adam pleaded. “Wait! Can’t we talk about this?”
But the demons weren’t listening. Along with his partners—who had also torn out clumps of hair from Watch’s and Sally’s heads—he put the hair in his mouth and slowly chewed it down. Then, by some wicked miracle, he began to change back into the form he had assumed when they had first seen him. Now he looked like Adam, and the other two demons once again resembled Watch and Sally.
“Now we have a piece of you inside us!” Adam’s demon sneered. “We’re free to go where we wish!”
“You can’t go into our world!” Sally shouted at the demons. “You’ll never get away with it! Our friends will spot you immediately, and you’ll be destroyed.”
Adam’s demon laughed in her face. “By the time your friends know who we are they’ll be here with you! Rotting in the Dark Corner!”
“But maybe we can work out a compromise,” Watch suggested. “I can see why you don’t like living here. It’s a nasty place. We have ghettos back in our world that are like this. Maybe we can help you find a better place to live, and you can let us go.”
The demons howled with delight. “We don’t want to let you go!” Adam’s demon said. “We love it when humans suffer! We live for suffering! Come, my pals, let’s go play with these fools’ friends!”
The demons danced away, heading in the direction of the cemetery and the interdimensional portal. Adam had never felt so miserable as he did right then. His wrists weren’t simply chained, they were pinned above his head, and the spikes in the wrist cuffs were digging into his skin. Watch and Sally looked equally uncomfortable. All around them the air was filled with fumes and ash, making it difficult to breathe. Adam coughed as his throat dried out. Sally hung her head as if she were weeping.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It just seemed like such a nice place.”
“The demons made it seem that way so that we would drop our guard,” Adam said grimly. “But don’t blame yourself. We were fooled as well.”
“But we probably wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for you,” Watch added truthfully.
“That’s true,” Adam had to admit.
Sally moaned. “I said I’m sorry. What else am I supposed to do?”
“If you could reach Bryce’s knapsack, we might get his knife and try to pick these locks,” Watch suggested. The backpack was closest to Sally. “See if you can catch the strap with your foot.”
“I’ll try,” Sally said and strained forward with her right foot for the bag. Just another two inches and she’d be able to reach it, but even arching her back and kicking out, the tip of her shoe just missed the straps. After a couple of minutes of struggling she gave up and sighed. “I can’t do it. What are we going to do now?”
“Probably rot for eternity,” Watch said.
“Don’t say that,” Adam said. “We have to maintain a positive attitude.”
“I don’t know if a positive attitude helps when you’re in hell,” Sally mumbled.
“We’re not in hell,” Adam said. “We’re in a hell. That’s not exactly the same thing.”
Sally stared down the street at the other captured people. A few were moaning and a couple even had bird nests on top of their heads. Black ravens screeched in their dry hair. Sally sighed again.
“Right now I don’t think it makes much difference,” she said.
“Look,” Adam said, trying to sound upbeat, “we’ve been in difficult situations before and we’ve always managed to find a way out. We’ll do the same this time. We just have to come up with a plan.”
“We’re waiting,” Watch said.
“Well,” Adam said. “First we have to break out of these chains. Let’s concentrate on that.”
“I don’t think the power of our concentration is going to break these chains,” Sally said.
“I can’t believe you guys are ready to give up,” Adam complained.
Watch nodded down the block. “It looks like a tall demon is coming. I hope it’s not one of those Gatekeepers the others mentioned. They didn’t sound all that friendly.”
Watch was right. Another monster was approaching.