1

Craig got home late, much to his family's disappointment. He hadn't paid them any mind when they turned their heads, sour eyes full of discontent. Dinner was sprawled along the table—chicken and dumplings—Craig smelled it the instant the door granted him entry.

Their looks all asked him the same question, their mouthless, restless eyes: Where were you? Prayer had been said, dumplings chewed, and soup devoured. But where were you, Craig Tucker, when dinner finished? Tardy tardy tardy. Rude rude rude.

Laura Tucker stood from her half-eaten dish, mouth open, ready to spill chastisement upon Craig when her face became a ghostly moon of drained blood. She rushed over to her son, who hung his eyes to the floor. Her fingers grazed his face—grazed his bruises that sunk tinges of ache through him, and raised his head.

"Craig, honey. What happened?"

No answer. She asked who had done it. No answer. She asked where it hurt. No answer. She asked if he was in trouble with school officials and said she hadn't received any phone calls. Craig sniffed; he supposed. Didn't matter.

Past his mother, he caught Tricia's eyes, then Thomas's, who quickly receded to his soup. His face had gone the color of window putty, and Craig knew he had to look away.

Craig, five, split his finger on a foggy Sunday morning at Church. It tucked itself between the crevasse of a door when Tricia slammed it shut. Blood spewed from the tip (like a water hose, Craig remembered thinking), and he wailed down the halls, down the sanctuary, where his father was closing worship. Craig raised his trembling hand toward Father Tucker, and in return, Father retched bile along the altar.

Craig learned from that moment onward to confront his mother on such matters.

Laura took Craig's hand and brought him to the upstairs bathroom. Neither spoke when she patted the dried blood with a moist towel, which fell in rusty flakes. She bandaged and wrapped him, and they returned downstairs. Laura fetched Craig a bowl.

Craig only spoke once that night, and it was in response to his father.

"Did you win?"

No. "Yes."

2

School was hell that week.

Spitballs, rumors, belittlement, Eric-fucking-Cartman's loving words of encouragement...Craig received it all, and he partially blamed his mom for keeping him the first few days to watch his injuries.

"If I don't show up, they'll tear me apart when word breaks I was in a fight," he carped.

"I don't care, Craig. Better safe than sorry."

She didn't understand how cruel kids could be—the cesspool of stingrays that embodied teenagers, each gummy with judgment and stark eyes looking for anything they could rip apart and devour. Teenagers had targets that often came and went: the new kid, home school freaks, boys that cry wolf, and beaten kids from schoolyard scraps...

Whispers flickered and wavered in the rank, school air behind him. The same whispers that quickly extinguished the moment Craig flung his head over his shoulder with a glare that challenged gossipers outside to a dogfight. Nobody challenged him back.

One boy in particular, Craig only knew him by Bohdi Panley (Hanley?), pointed to his bandaged forearm and asked where the barcode beneath would send him. His answer came with a raised middle finger and a simple, "Fuck off."

Other students masked concern with curiosity and asked Craig what had happened, but he never answered questions, and to his gratitude, nor had Wendy.

She was absent that week, and despite her absence, Craig knew she wouldn't answer questions and confirm rumors regardless. It wasn't within her nature. She'd rather punch out teeth, dust off her hands, and get it over with. Rumors were just blood-sucking vampires that drank energy from everyone involved. Championships were just championships, another notch on her belt, and that was all. Craig wondered if he was just another notch.

Bebe Stevens made up for Wendy's absence and, for good measure, her lack of discipline. Craig expected as much for the unfairness of the scuffle, and Bebe was difficult to avoid.

In Biology, a note knocked the back of Craig's head and fell to his feet. The teacher had left the room momentarily to test a student on the anatomy of a cell, and Craig flushed in embarrassment and spun around. His eyes fished for the perpetrator, and when he found her, he cautiously picked up the note. He unfolded it and read:

Where's your little purse dog, Tucker?

It was written in neat, half-cursive handwriting. The text was red and bold and lacked a signature. Who had time for a signature, anyway? He guessed there was no need; the owner was apparent, and her stare threatened to sear holes in him. Craig dared to look back with the same intensity.

Up your ass, honey, he mouthed.

Bebe turned the color of vampire punch.

3

The Boy hadn't gone entirely invisible since the incident. Craig expected him to simply return to hell once he learned Craig had no use for him. But he hadn't. The Boy with his lunatic hair, billowy shirt he could never quite button right, and harbor-blue jeans, loitered around the park. Craig caught him often hauling various items each time he drove to and back from school, and admittedly, guilt ate him whenever he passed.

The days passed as sunflower petals fall, and The Boy lost the perfection he once possessed. The Boy's peach-soft skin, the very skin with a slight bruise on his left cheek, grew dirtied and smudged. Dirt embroidered his olive-colored button-down, and his jeans cracked modest grins at the knees. Chillier days brought The Boy trembly hands as he gathered his things. Craig could only imagine nights.

Go home, Craig thought each time. Why won't you just go home?

Nights, as it turned out, weren't just tricky for The Boy but for Craig, too. Headaches became a recurring neighbor, granting themselves permission in Craig's head just before sundown. Some bordered migraines, and Craig's body often felt clammy and cold as he shuffled beneath the covers.

Due to the lack of sleep, Craig spent his nights researching imps. Do they get tired? What do imps eat, and do imps even get hungry? Do imps get cold? How do they return to hell?

Craig researched and researched until the morning sun seeped into the night sky.

4

MISSING

IKE BROFLOVSKI

Date of Birth: December 11th, 2012

Age: 11

Sex or Gender: Male

Race: Caucasian

Eyes: Black

Hair: Black

Height: 151 cm

Weight: 78.7 lbs

Wearing: Blue dinosaur fossil pajamas

Identifying Characteristics: Canadian

Last Seen: Asleep in his room.

Ike smiled that jovial smile folks often complimented him on. The smile of a young boy, too young to know the tragedies of the world yet, who moved happily through each day without so much as a glance toward the illness the world enveloped. The illness adults were prone to breathe in. Ike sat against a window with his knees tucked against his chest. Craig presumed he was on a train.

Where was he now? Craig allowed the thought to darken and mold. Where was he? Was he still smiling, wherever he may be? And where was his smile when his family needed it most?

An idea flickered like fire, and Craig didn't like it. Ike's missing poster wasn't the only one hung and left to rot on the school's bulletin board. No. No no no. There were others. Four others. Four other lost children. And when had these disappearances begun occurring? Twitchy-twitch.

Ike, the sweet golden child of the Broflovski family, was probably left in some ugly ditch off the back roads of South Park. Craig imagined rain slicking the dumped body, shining it with false silkiness, and frost sending its kisses of death along the discolored flesh. Crystals from the chilly nights by the thousands would blanket the corpse that used to be a boy from the wind each night, but that wasn't all. Oh, Craig imagined it so vividly. He imagined three deep gashes puckering the skin of Ike's chest—three holes smothered in lipstick so dry it flaked and attracted the attention of carnivorous beetles and late larva hatchings—three deep wounds inflicted by the prongs of a red trident.

Was this his fault?

Footsteps paused by Craig's side. He hadn't bothered looking over.

The person allowed a moment of silence between them, then said, "Ah gee, another one?"

It was Marjorine Stotch.

The tenderness in her voice gave her away as she accompanied Craig's side. She dressed seasonally as he expected her to; silver spiderwebs glittered on her earlobes beneath riffs of her flipped-up hair, knitted sweater with swatches of autumn, and baggy jeans burying everything but the tips of her Martens. No skin whatsoever, all locked beneath cotton and denim—which Craig was very unfamiliar with due to Rue Newman. How very Marjorine of her.

"Shoot," she said, "that's the fourth one this week. I'm getting real worried."

Craig eyed the poster, Ike's perpetual smile the town loved so dearly. Guilt somersaulted in his stomach; this was definitely his fault. "Hey, Marjorine. Where's Kenny?"

"Ken?" Marjorine's eyes drifted downward, and her eyebrows married. "Oh, yeah. Well, he got suspended. Big ole fight in the schoolyard with some new kid. Poor little guy." Her hands fisted. "I have a bone to pick with that Kenny, but his parents aren't letting him see anyone."

Craig scowled. "A fight? Why?"

"I'm not sure. The only person he really gets violent with is Eric, and he can be kind of a...well, a nutsack sometimes."

Nutsack felt like an understatement, but Craig agreed, nonetheless. "Oh," he responded dryly, though he was far from uninterested. "Are you going to stay with him?"

She looked at Craig, surprised. Tender blood flushed the tips of her nose and ears like a bashful jack-o'-lantern. "Sure I am. I may be steamed at him right now, but Ken wouldn't pick a fight for the heck of it. Don't you think he should get a second chance?"

Craig felt his face ugly. "Second chance? Marjorine, you don't get suspended for a little fight."

"Didn't you just get into a fight?"

All at once, Craig became aware of every bandage laced against his skin—those icky leeches. Some he'd plucked off, the others dropping as if immature apples from a June drop and leaving behind a sticky, tar-like substance. The same substance—popped leech guts, Craig always put it—he scrubbed for hours in the shower only to tattoo it deeper in his skin; Craig hated the stuff.

"Yeah, but I don't deserve any more second chances," he said.

Marjorine resumed walking down the hall, and Craig's attention swayed from the poster that reeked of death until he caught up with her. Though death was a strong assumption. Maybe the kids were trudging the dreary back roads of Colorado with backpacks hitched high on their shoulders, overflowed with gushers and fruit snacks after nasty fights with their parents. Except...all at once?

"I like you, Craig." Marjorine delivered a smile. "You're kind of a dick, and you may not believe you deserve a second chance, but you do. You just need to discover the right people to teach you that."

Craig tried to fight off a smile and ultimately lost. "You mean that?"

"You betcha I do."

"What about really bad people?" Craig saw him again. That Boy who lived so easily in the wrinkles of his mind. This time, he flashed to the spongy leaves of the forest, Craig pinned with the worms by The Boy's trident as he stood overtop him.

("I could easily break you in two without a fight.")

Marjorine touched his back, and Craig nearly leapt from his skin. "If we didn't give everyone a second chance, we might never discover other things about them."

Craig guessed so, but The Boy? He simmered the thought, let it marinate. The Boy was batshit crazy, but the disappearances and his arrival were too much of a coincidence for him to be comfy. There was blood somewhere on Craig's hands from all this, and he had to fix this.

Craig knew what he had to do.

5

Craig stalked the clock until midnight chimed. The house hadn't groaned in over an hour. Good. That was good. That meant nobody stirred, no ears perked for a footstep or the creek of an ungreased door hinge.

He geared up: Carhartt jacket, engineer boots, winter jeans, hat, pocket knife—is my crucifix enough? Craig chewed the thought. No. He'd need the pocket knife.

He grabbed the doorknob when he felt the need to turn around. Cartman's Wiffle Bat leaned against Stripe's cage, still the same ugly yellow that muddied the blue contrast of his room. Craig stalled. He gnawed his lip until he gave in and grabbed it.

"Be a good boy, Stripe."

Stripe wheeked goodbye, and Craig left.

6

Craig drove to the park and cut the engine. The night kicked whatever light Craig had when the headlights died and left him in a canopy of darkness, and he damned himself for not bringing a flashlight. Maple leaves could be fallen bats for all he knew, and thinned clouds could be cotton strewn across the sky, knitted through the stars to reach the great October moon.

Candlelight couldn't rival the night's competitiveness as it unfolded before him, and he dismounted the truck and fetched the Wiffle Bat in his backseat.

Advancing toward where he assumed the bench was, his eyes followed the vacant outline of one. A large, grub-like shape welded overtop, slowly rising and falling. Craig had to consider who it was—The Boy or some other stomach-churning freak.

Could it be a homeless man? South Park wasn't known for its friendly homeless population, and worse yet, police often cuffed the troubled few who assaulted pedestrians for no good reason. But was The Boy really that much better?

A druggie wasn't a fun idea, either. Craig wasn't excited for the rank breath through mangled teeth so yellow they looked stained of tea. Craig tried to imagine the way druggies attacked and assumed they shot heroin in their arm (like a deranged power-up) and leapt at their prey. He imagined fingernails as long as screws and blackened with rot as it shredded his skin to ribbons as they shrieked through foamed lips.

Craig gripped the bat tighter.

He pretended to press a fabricated button on his space suit: Spaceman Craig to ground control: Entering alien territory.

Items knocked against his boots as he edged the bench, and Craig held his breath as he looked down at it. Hair as wayward as corn leaves tussled out from beneath a quilt, but a nearby streetlight reached far yet failed to scratch the bench, so he wasn't sure.

Craig fixed his grip on the bat as his breaths became puffs of ghostly exhaust. If anything went awry, he was ready.

He nudged the shoulder of the thing and jostled backward when it bolted awake and screamed. Yep. It was definitely The Boy.

"Don't freak out, demon. It's me."

Craig thought he saw The Boy squint as he drew backward. "That tells me nothing!"

"Craig. It's Craig."

The jerkiness of The Boy subsided as he tucked the quilt around his shoulders. "Nngh, Craig? What are you doing here?"

"Get up." Craig had the bat positioned high toward the moon like a batter in a backyard baseball game.

This apparently didn't bode well with The Boy, who jerked handfuls of his shirt through the crack in the quilt. "Augh! What? Are you gonna sacrifice me? I don't wanna die! I have too much to live for!"

The night swallowed them both, and Craig swallowed a pebble of remorse and lowered the bat. How many nights had The Boy fended for himself with nothing but his will to stay alive?

And why won't he just go home?

But this is The Boy, not some poor homeless man. The Boy's responsible for the disappearances!

"I'm not going to sacrifice you. I need you because I have questions."

The moon brought somber light to the eccentric puffs whistling from The Boy's lips of his sunken face. Craig could see it now, and his heart constricted.

The Boy still shook. "Ahh! Promise me you're not going to sacrifice me?"

Craig shushed him again, and his voice dimmed as if speaking to a hurt animal. "I promise."

The Boy rose, though the fatigue prevented him from doing so timely. He kicked his things beneath the bench, and Craig hadn't the heart to tell him they wouldn't return for them. Instead, he kept quiet and waited. The Boy faced him when he finished. Craig told him to ditch the quilt and follow him, and he did.

7

Gravel popped beneath the Ford's tires as they pulled into the Tucker's driveway.

Quiet. They had to be quiet.

Craig closed his door, found The Boy's door, and helped him out with a finger pressed against his lips. That was the first time Craig soaked in how cold The Boy really was. It looked like he wore the skin of a diseased man—the very ones Craig envisioned earlier in roadside ditches.

They slipped inside. Craig flipped on the kitchen light, and The Boy sat at the bar top as told. The yellow light, faint as the faintest sun, glowed the tease of summer on The Boy's face. It revealed what he once was, now dirtied with tinges of tree rot and the vacancy of blood.

Every part of The Boy defined hunger. It was as if the moon that sculpted his face had melted away a little each night until the craters were his sunken cheeks and helped hollow his thin arms. Craters, the worst of them, weighed the tender flesh beneath The Boy's blue eyes. The Boy cradled his head in his folded arms on the table. His eyes blinked repeatedly as if wishing away sleep, but all it did was take him further.

"Do you want anything?" Craig asked.

"Coffee."

The word was airborne so quickly Craig imagined The Boy prepping the simple answer for hours. Coffee. What a strange request at such a time.

Craig bobbed his head, heated some water, and asked if The Boy had eaten anything.

The Boy shook his head and yawned, and that's when Craig noticed the faintest dab of color on his face. The bruise where Wendy scored him was still there, as if time hadn't bothered powdering it away. A dim, apricot bruise.

"Only the coffee grinds I found in the garbage outside some corporate coffee shop," The Boy said nonchalantly, despite how he quivered in his seat and the absurdity of the response.

Craig had the kettle in his hand and poured the bubbling water into a French Press when he abruptly stopped.

You what? he thought. Sorry. I missed that. You what?

Craig shook his head and continued his pouring. He kept a grimace because the only corporate coffee shop in South Park was Starbucks, and he couldn't imagine pretty boy pretty dumpster diving for fucking coffee grinds.

He finished and allowed the roast to flavor the water while he started a chicken noodle soup. It finished, and Craig set the food in front of The Boy.

The Boy put little effort into suppressing his desire for the coffee, and Craig stood back bewildered when The Boy finished it in seconds with a few hearty gulps. Then The Boy's face scrunched, and his eyes fell to the mug.

"That was shit, but it's been so long since I've had a cup."

Embarrassment jump-started in Craig's face, and he imagined the ravenous flush etching the curves of his nose and ears as he frowned—a look that only whispered words of malice. "I'd like to see you do better."

The Boy jerked in his seat as he gripped the mug tighter. "Ahh! Half of it was just coffee grinds!"

"Quiet!" Craig blurted, half-whispering past a finger shoved against his lips. His eyes flinched to the staircase. No parents, no sisters, no nothing. Nothing but the quiet house with a devil boy and a soon-to-be priest.

Craig calmed, and he felt the flush return. "It was textured."

Quiet laughter spiked the air from The Boy. It was the first time Craig ever heard him laugh, and then The Boy returned to his soup.

"Alright, I'd like to ask you some questions, demon."

The Boy waved his hand dismissively and finished his bite. "Sure, man. But you need to quit calling me demon. What if they're listening? We'd both be writhing in our graves right now! It's Tweek."

"Why do you keep saying they? Who's they? And Tweek? Your name is Tweek? Like...a tweaker?"

Craig had never heard such an odd name, though he didn't mind how it rolled off his tongue. Tweek.

Tweek blinked up at Craig with heavy eyes. Those two blue plates tinted silver as the foam from waves licking sand on hot summer days. Those two tired eyes, tired enough to cradle the world's weight and ask it to resume its ventures tomorrow.

Tweek opened his mouth to reply when it was Craig's turn to raise a hand.

"How tired are you?"

Tweek half-smiled. "Very."

Craig nodded. Like hell he'd accept half-assed answers when the little fucker could hardly stay awake.

He allowed Tweek to finish his soup and took him to the downstairs bathroom. He had him shower, and Tweek agreed after Craig assured him they didn't plant holy water in the shower nozzle. Craig set out pajamas for Tweek to borrow and waited. He wasn't concerned about his father coming down to the sound of the shower since Craig often took them late night, and he picked the carpet until Tweek finished, and they went upstairs quietly. Craig showed him to the closet of his room.

Craig had a small walk-in closet, nothing fancy. It was brag-worthy in elementary school because what kid doesn't want to sleep in a small, cramped space? Losers and freaks with claustrophobia, that's what. And Craig used to fit Tolkien and the guys in there, curled up with the closet doors closed until sunrise. Now, it could fit a max of two bodies, though rather uncomfortably. He set up a bed in the closet after school, and all his shit was strewn along the floor like odd decorations his mom could have a cow over later. But that was later, and this was now. Tweek's bed was a few throwaway pillows that Craig found in the storage closet and some extra blankets on his shelf. Nothing heavenly, which was perfect for demon boys.

"This is where you'll be sleeping. I hope you're not claustrophobic because that would suck."

"Wow, you made me my own bed? I thought for sure you were gonna make me sleep in the shed outside." Tweek went over and sat. "Thank you, Craig."

Craig thought he felt his heart jerk when Tweek smiled at him. He stood and lightly kicked the mattress. "Sorry, it's not the best. I haven't had a sleepover in ages, and I'm about to make it a lot worse." He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and dangled them by a thumb. "You have to wear these. I don't trust you waking up and killing someone, then coming back here in the morning as if you haven't done anything."

The handcuffs were stolen from Officer Barbrady when Craig was a kid due to a dare by Eric Cartman, and Craig got away with it easily, too. But that wasn't saying much when Officer Barbrady hardly knew up from down and ended up locking poor Marjorine Stotch behind bars (again) instead of the true perpetrator. Craig kept the handcuffs as a prize; he'd be proud of them, too, if it wasn't for the Lord.

"Oh, so this is what this is about?" Tweek lost his smile and sighed. "Yeah, that checks. Fine. Cuff me, copper."

Craig didn't understand. What else would this be about? Why else would Craig feed and house him? A charity event? He saved those for the church.

"Sure, but first thing in the morning, you're answering questions," Craig said and pushed Tweek aside to cuff him to a far metal pole in the closet—one connected to the walls. Craig distanced himself. "And you're silent in here, understood? You'll be nothing but flayed demon if my dad finds you."

Tweek freaked, agreed, and Craig left, unfolding the closet shut once Tweek got comfortable. He killed the lights and crawled into bed, and for the first night in a while, Craig didn't get a headache.