Chapter Text
It was just after midnight when a boom, followed shortly by a loud crash, startled Annie Walker out of a deep sleep. Bolting upright in bed, she clutched her Bedtime Bear Care Bear - affectionately known as Luna - and stared around the dim room, only the faint glow from a nightlight along the far wall to illuminate the boxes around her room. They were supposed to be moving in a few days - just to a different house in town, according to her mom - although Annie didn’t understand why they wouldn’t just stay in their current house.
Annie and her mom had been living in Sioux Falls for a little over six months. Before that, Annie had lived her entire life in a small town in central Virginia. Moving halfway across the country had been a surprise in itself, as Annie’s life had been perfectly normal until then, or as normal as growing up with a single parent could be. It had always just been Annie and her mom. She knew she had a dad somewhere, but she’d never met him, and despite her mom’s assurances to the contrary, Annie was convinced he was a deadbeat who had abandoned her mom before Annie had even been born. The girl didn’t lose much sleep over not having a dad around, though. Her mother was devoted to her, and not a day had gone by where Annie had ever felt lacking in love. In Virginia, her mom had been an accountant, and they lived in a nice, two-story house in a good neighborhood. Annie had attended a highly regarded public school from pre-k up through third grade, where she had lots of friends and thrived both academically and socially. Despite being a single mother, her mom never missed an honor roll ceremony, school event, or any milestone in the girl’s life.
It was a month before the end of third grade that they’d abruptly moved to South Dakota of all places.
In Sioux Falls, Annie’s mother had transitioned from full-time accountant to business owner, opening a small boutique downtown. She still offered private accounting services from time to time, but she focused on the shop, which sold all sorts of things - crystals, jewelry, soaps, candles and incense, assorted herbs, little odds and ends. The change had surprised Annie at first, but everyone who came into the shop loved her mom, and business had to be doing well because they weren’t struggling financially. Annie had slowly adjusted to her new environment - the weather, her neighborhood and school, her mom’s job - but she’d settled in. Her mom was still there for her in every way she’d been for all of Annie’s life. In fact, she’d gone trick-or-treating earlier that evening with her mom and one of her friends from school.
Her fairy costume and bucket of candy were still sitting on top of her desk beside a cardboard box of books.
Annie sat there a few minutes, listening for any odd sounds while waiting for her heart to stop racing, before she slowly slipped out of her bed and padded out into the hallway in her socks, Luna still clutched to her chest. The house was dark and silent, aside from the soft whisper of a breeze. A chill ran through her body, and Annie shivered as she headed for her mom’s bedroom.
The light was off, but the moonlight was enough for Annie to see that her mother wasn’t there. In fact, her bed was still made. She hadn’t seen a clock so she wasn’t sure how late it was, but from what Annie knew, her mother wasn’t really the night owl type. Deciding she must be downstairs, Annie quietly made her way to the top of the staircase. The bottom of the stairs seemed less dark; she wondered where the light was coming from, as it didn’t seem to be bright enough to come from any of the lamps or light fixtures they had in the house.
Halfway down the stairs, though, Annie noticed several things at once. The front door was open, allowing a gentle but icy breeze into the foyer. It appeared that the light illuminating the bottom half of the stairs was coming from the porch lamps.
And in the middle of the foyer, not five feet from the bottom step, her mom was lying on the floor.
“Mom?” she asked, her breath quickening as she hurried down the remaining steps and nearly slid to her mom’s side, kneeling down. Her mom’s eyes were closed, and she wasn’t moving. “Mom?” Annie asked again, putting her hand on her mom’s shoulder. She shook her shoulder lightly, and while her mom felt warm, it didn’t look like she was breathing. It was then Annie noticed a dark puddle that seemed to be coming from beneath her mom’s head.
“Mommy!” she screamed, clutching onto her mother as she lay the side of her head on her chest. To her horror, she couldn’t feel or hear a heartbeat. Holding on tighter, Annie burst into sobs. They’d learned about CPR in health at school, though they hadn’t been taught how to do it, but even if she’d been able to perform it, she knew it wouldn’t do any good. She couldn’t explain how, but somewhere deep inside, Annie knew her mom was gone and that no matter what she or anyone else did, she wasn’t coming back.
As a sheriff, Jody Mills hated Halloween.
Every year, something would force her to work late, whether it was a stupid teenage prank or something of the supernatural order. She’d gotten to the point where she’d just planned to work through the night every October 31, so at least she’d save herself the frustration of being roused from sleep by a call from one of her deputies.
So when her rookie deputy, Parker, walked into her small office at the station at five past midnight, Jody wasn’t the least bit surprised.
“We just got a call about a possible explosion near McKennan Park. Neighbors reported a bright light and a ‘boom’ moments ago.”
“Address?” Jody requested, tugging on her jacket.
As Parker rattled off the familiar street number and name, however, a horrible feeling grew in the pit of her stomach. Grabbing her keys, Jody jogged out to her vehicle and slid in, taking off at record speed even as she kept her sirens off.
A conversation from a month ago sprung to the forefront of her mind - the single mother she’d befriended months earlier giving her a safety deposit box key for safe keeping and asking her to promise to find her daughter’s father if anything were to happen to her. Jody had thought it just the typical preparations of a single parent wanting to ensure their child’s future, but now, she had to wonder if her friend had known more than she’d let on.
Pulling up in front of the historic two-story house, everything seemed normal at first. There was no sign of an explosion or any other disturbance in the yard. As she stepped out of her car, however, Jody caught a whiff of sulfur in the crisp November air, and as her eyes fell on the front of the house, Jody realized the door was wide open.
On guard, Jody had just stepped onto the sidewalk, her hand resting on her firearm, when she heard a heartbreaking shriek.
“Mommy!”
Sprinting the rest of the way up to the porch, Jody caught sight of a small body dressed in flannel teddy bear pajamas, hunched over the body of Carly Walker. ‘Oh God,’ she thought to herself. “Annie?” she asked gently, stepping over the threshold and into the dark foyer, the only light coming from the porch lamps outside.
The child didn’t show any sign of hearing Jody as she sobbed over her mother’s lifeless form. Jody inhaled purposefully. Even though the door had been open and there was a gentle breeze, she caught no hint of sulfur inside the house. “Annie,” she repeated a little louder, walking over to kneel next to her. Jody carefully grasped Annie’s shoulders and began to ease her away from Carly. “Come here, sweetie.”
Annie fought her at first, but once Jody had shifted her enough to be able to get the child to look at her face, Annie practically threw herself at the sheriff. “Mommy…” she sobbed, unable to say anything else at the moment.
“I know,” Jody murmured, holding her tight as she rubbed Annie’s back. She felt something soft squished against her stomach, and she knew it had to be Luna. Jody reached out with one hand to covertly feel Carly’s wrist for a pulse, but as she’d expected, she found none. “I’ve got you. Come on.”
Slowly pushing to her feet, Jody lifted the child into her arms - even at nine, the girl was easily the smallest in her class and much closer to the size of an average seven-year-old - and carried her into the adjacent living room, taking a seat on a sofa where Annie would no longer be able to see her mother’s body. Settling Annie on her lap, she hugged her with one arm as she fished out her phone with the other, calling the station. She spoke softly as she explained the situation to Parker and asked him to contact the coroner’s office, not wanting to upset Annie any further than she already was.
By the time someone had arrived from the coroner’s office, Jody noted that Annie’s sobs had quieted to sniffles and the occasional hitched breath, though her grip on Jody hadn’t lessened. “Listen to me, sweetie,” Jody told her, keeping her voice as soothing as possible. “We’re going to go out to my car, and I’m going to take you somewhere safe for the night. I want you to keep your eyes closed until you’re in the car. Can you do that for me?”
Feeling a small nod, Jody moved to her feet, shifting Annie onto her hip as the girl buried her face in Jody’s jacket, eyes shut tight. She made sure she had a secure hold on Annie before carefully walking through the living room, past the people working to prepare Carly’s body to transport to the coroner’s office, and out into the cold air. Feeling the child shiver, she held her a little tighter, mentally scolding herself for not grabbing a jacket or a blanket for Annie first. “We’ll be in the car soon, sweetie,” she promised, crossing the lawn.
Jody made sure Annie’s seatbelt was secured before running a hand through her dark blonde hair. “You can open your eyes.” As light green eyes opened to look at her, glassy with leftover tears, Jody took the opportunity to glance quickly over her, just to make sure she hadn’t missed an injury earlier. “Are you hurt at all?” When she received a small head shake in response, Jody offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’m going to take you to a friend’s house for tonight, okay?”
Still in shock, Annie nodded, not bothering to ask who the friend was or what was going to happen after that. Jody knew the ‘proper’ procedure would’ve been to have Annie checked out at a hospital, but smelling sulfur in her yard changed things. Even if the house had been clear, it was obvious that one or more demons had been on the property, and Jody had to make sure Annie was somewhere irrefutably safe until she could figure out what the hell had happened.
“It’s okay to close your eyes and sleep a little if you’re feeling sleepy,” Jody encouraged before closing the door and slipping into the driver’s seat. Starting the vehicle, she cranked up the heat for Annie’s sake and headed straight for the highway that would lead out of the city. Only once she was on the interstate did she pull back out her phone and dial a familiar number.
“Hey, Bobby? I know, I’m sorry to wake you, but I need a favor.”