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George used to tell him that there were ghosts in the old steel factories, the fields of grain were full of zombies, and cicadas were reincarnated serial killers. On lazy summer days they’d sit in a tree house and watch the fireflies, and George would tell him how the world really was.
Brandon believed him until he didn’t, until his mom told him that the creaking sound he heard at night was just the tree branch, until his dad said that it wasn’t that his cousin Mo was a warlock, he just spoke Arabic. George still insisted, but it didn’t matter. Brandon wasn’t a kid anymore. He knew when someone was tricking him.
“Don’t go in there,” George said once when they were younger, walking past the old convenience store. Long closed, the sign still went on at night, DIE MART burning across the sky every evening. “That’s where the dead kids go to buy your soul.” Brandon always walked on the other side of the road after that, even in the daytime. Long after everything else had gone — the tree, the zombies, Mo's words he couldn't understand — Brandon still didn’t like the DIE MART, still avoided it if he could.
Except one day there was a boy sitting on the curb outside of it, and never, not once, had Brandon seen someone outside of the store. The kid looked like he was waiting for someone, but there was no one to wait for, no cars around. Nothing. He looked like he was Brandon’s age, maybe, and kind of a dork, with a floppy haircut, a white shirt and overalls.
Brandon shrugged and picked up his pace. He figured the kid was meeting someone there. None of his business.
Except the kid was there the next day. And the next day. And the next. Brandon walked more slowly by the DIE MART now, trying to stare at the kid without being caught. One time the kid raised his hand in a wave, and Brandon waved back instinctively. The next day the kid smiled at Brandon, and his face was like sunshine. Brandon smiled back.
He was biking home one Saturday and the kid was there. And Brandon thought be brave and George is a jerk anyway and veered into the parking lot. He hopped off his bike, let it clatter to the ground.
The kid leaned back on his hands and beamed up at Brandon. Up close his clothes looked weird, older and kind of shabby, and he wasn’t wearing any shoes. Brandon sat down next to him on the curb and tried to remember if he’d been wearing shoes before.
“Hey,” he said.
The kid reached up and brushed his hair out of his face. “Hi,” he said, voice soft, eyes fixed on Brandon.
Brandon stuck his hand out. “I’m Brandon.”
“Ben,” the kid said, and took hold of Brandon’s hand, shook it.
His hand was so cold it hurt.
Brandon couldn’t stop looking at his eyes, his smile. They’d stopped shaking hands, but Ben was still holding his, rubbing his fingers against Brandon’s palm.
“Brandon,” Ben said, voice still so soft, scooting towards him. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”