3752 Kent Ave.

[Anthraxus]

With a squeal the bus pulled away from the stop, leaving the girl in the pink raincoat standing alone on the desolate corner. The wind, heavy with the scent of rain and pollution, brushed past her ruffling the hood and hem of her plastic raincoat.

She looked around the streetcorner that she found herself on, noting the numerous abandoned and boarded up warehouses and storefronts in the immediate vicinity. Drawing out a small scrap of paper from her pocket, she unfolded it and read the note once again.

"3752 Kent Ave. 7 pm. The spiral widens, yet the center stays the same. Fetch ye hither and play the game. Silas"

It was the signature at the bottom of the enigmatic note that captured her attention the most. Silas was the name of her brother, who had disappeared without warning or contact over ten years ago, when she was only eight. It was the sudden disappearance of her sixteen-year-old brother that she credited with the breakup of her family. After Silas vanished, her parents first drew closer, but once the search was called off after six months, the fights began. Her father began drinking, and then doing drugs. Her mother retreated into anti-depression meds, and whenever her medicated trance seemed to fade, Mother and Father would rail at each other, each blaming the other for the loss of their beloved son.

When Amanda received the note in her locker at school, she knew she would have to investigate, if only for the opportunity to confront Silas on what he did and why he did it. With a sigh she folded the note and put it back into her pocket. Under the heavily overcast sky she peered through the fading light, trying to read the numbers on the somewhat ominous buildings. Finally she was able to pick out a couple and headed off down the block.

Outside the vine overgrown warehouse, she paused again, taking a moment to collect her thoughts before grasping the handle of the warped wooden door and pulling. At first the door was tight and refused her, but a second sharp tug resulted in the sound of wood scraping on brick as the door came free. The yawning blackness that it revealed unsettled her and she again considered just turning and walking away.

Before she could, a soft voice called out in the darkness, and a faint light could be seen far back. The voice called again, clearer this time, "Amanda." Memories flooded her, as the voice pulled forward her recollections of her brother Silas. Almost without thinking she stepped forward into the dark of the boarded up warehouse.

Immediately strong hands grasped her arms and a single piercing scream echoed out into the abandoned industrial park before Silas, his white, drawn and scarred face smiling wolfishly into the night, pulled the door closed. At last the sacrifice had arrived, drawn like a fly to honey, and the ritual could begin.