The Cursed Codex Read online

  Carlos’s much older brother had been away for a few years with the Air Force, following in his father’s footsteps—only Mr. Rivera had been Army.

  Elliot’s eyebrows became a single, bushy line across his forehead. He continued munching chips while staring at Keith.

  “I’d give it a try,” said Ashur, “but I can’t until Saturday.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty busy too all week.” Carlos yawned. “Saturday sounds cool.”

  “Awright, geez.” Elliot shook his head. “This sounds like it’s gonna be lame, but okay.”

  “Saturday then?” asked Keith. “My place?”

  The boys nodded.

  An ear-splitting electric bwee-oop rolled over the cafeteria. First period.

  “Sweet.” Keith leapt to his feet. “Saturday!”

  3

  The Dragon’s Cavern

  Mowing Mrs. Norris’ lawn turned out to be more of a project than Keith thought. Most of the yard behind the house had grown so thick it choked the mower to a stop every few feet. He called his father for advice on how to deal with grass so tall, and much to his surprise, he’d offered to help once he got home from work. Keith focused on the shallow spots in front of and to the left of the house until his father arrived.

  A little after 5:30 p.m., a familiar grey Camry parked nearby. His father pulled a weed-whacker out of the trunk and spent a few minutes chatting with Mrs. Norris before joining him in the back yard, taking the almost-waist-high grass down to a reasonable level with the weed eater before Keith did the rest.

  I’m gonna keep mowing this for her so it never gets this bad again. Wow.

  When they finished, his father tossed the bike in the trunk (which couldn’t close), but they only had to drive a few blocks. Keith eagerly accepted the ride and went straight to the shower upon arriving home. After dinner, he rushed his homework and face-planted his bed a little before eight.

  Wednesday after school, he had no obligatory yardwork to kick his butt, and hurried home to read the Crypts and Creepers book. With a good few hours to throw at it, he came to understand that he needed more stuff. Most importantly, all the rules and information for people to make up their characters came in a separate book called a ‘Player’s Compendium.’

  The papers tucked into the back end were a multi-page character sheet detailing the stats, description, special abilities, known spells, and inventory for one Kyra Redmane, half-elf ranger, filled in with pencil. He recognized the same precise, curvy handwriting as inside the cover.

  “Whoa… Was this Sarah’s character?”

  He pulled the sheets out and shuffled them, reading over the information that he almost understood. The character had reached eleventh level, and the pages had enough eraser smudges and Chinese food stains to suggest she’d used it for a while. Under ‘player name,’ however, she’d only written ‘NPC.’

  “Huh, weird. Did she make the character for someone else? Neal Patrick Carter or something?” He laughed.

  An hour or so of reading later, he found a reference to ‘NPC’ in the manual, and understood it to mean ‘non-player character,’ or a character controlled by the GM (the person running the game). He looked up from the codex and stared at Kyra Redmane’s sheet next to him on the bed. It had been Sarah’s character, or at least one she ‘played.’

  The same odd need to protect it, as he had the model airplanes, came out of nowhere. With careful reverence, he picked up the character sheets, stacked them neater, and eased them back in place between the rear cover and the pages. He felt almost like a trespasser invading the private sanctuary of a girl who may well have been murdered. Her grandmother said she spent lots of time with this book and her friends. Remembering how sad the old woman had been even talking about it, some thirty years later, left him staring through the book rather than reading it for a while.

  Hearing about some other kid disappearing or being killed was crummy already, but having her stuff in his hands and peeking into a part of her life that had been hidden from all but her closest friends made it more like it happened to someone he’d known. The GM book had lots of notes in the margins in her handwriting, many of which had been funny commentary or rules adjustments.

  He liked her sense of humor, and she seemed smart.

  … and she’s either dead or a grown-up.

  Keith sighed and flipped back to where he’d been.

  Later, at dinner, he tried the sales pitch. The day spent reading had made it clear he needed to get some more things, the player’s book for one. Sarah’s dice bag had plenty, even for all his friends. As far as character sheets went, those he could print since he’d found some online. No sense wasting money on preprinted sheets like the one Sarah had used for her ranger. Those had perforations along one edge, proving they’d been torn out of a book. He couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t simply printed them: much cheaper and easier, plus no need to beg for a ride to a store.

  “Mom, can you give me a ride to the mall tomorrow?” asked Keith over a mouthful of mac ‘n’ cheese. His mother always served it as a side dish with meatloaf.

  “The mall?” asked Mom. “What for?”

  “The book I bought from Mrs. Norris is only part of the game. I need the other half so we can play it, and there isn’t one in the box.”

  His mother took in a breath with the face that usually indicated a negative reaction, but before she could make a noise, his father spoke up.

  “You’re asking to buy a book? Not like some gadget?”

  Keith shook his head. “Nope. It’s a book. Not electronic.”

  “Huh…” His father looked at his mother with an appraising eyebrow raise. “The boy’s asking for a book.”

  “It’s still a game,” muttered his mother.

  “Yeah. I knew a couple kids back in my day who were into that stuff. AV crowd.” He chuckled. “Guess it’s become a bit more mainstream. Still, it’s hard enough to pry him off the computer or the PlayStation. I suppose there’s worse things he could get into.”

  “I have some money, Mom. I think I have enough for the book.”

  His mother raised both hands in surrender. “All right. All right. We can go right after I get home.”

  Keith grinned. His mother worked an early shift and often arrived home around the same time he did. Hopefully, the mall would have what he needed. If not, he’d have to trade some manner of unpleasant chore for the favor of his parents buying it from Amazon. If they had to order it, the book wouldn’t show up in time for Saturday.

  Following an unremarkable day at school, Keith sat around the living room for about twenty minutes before his mother’s minivan rolled into the driveway. He fidgeted and bounced in place while she changed from the teal scrubs she wore at her dentist’s office. An agonizing ten minutes later, she walked over to the front door and gave him an expectant look.

  “Yes!” whispered Keith. He leapt off the sofa and ran over.

  His mother had the same shade of light brown hair he did, only she wore it down to the middle of her back. Keith wanted to let his hair grow that long, but he worried about kids teasing him at school. Between his denim jacket and semi-long hair, his father had once said he belonged in Nirvana, whatever that meant.

  He couldn’t explain how he’d gotten so revved up over a book. It didn’t involve electronics, sound effects, flashing lights, or twitch response. Yet still, he trembled with as much anticipation as he had on the ride when they’d gone to get his PlayStation. Last year, he’d spent a whole summer mowing, and managed to save up about two-thirds of the cost. The parents covered the rest as a pat on the back for a job well done. He did have a little jealousy for Elliot, whose mother bought him whatever he asked for, but then again, Keith wouldn’t dare smash one of his controllers in anger.

  When they arrived at the mall, his mother insisted on stopping at Starbucks first, though he scored a small white mocha out of the deal. His father didn’t really like him having coffee yet, but his mother claimed to have been slurpi
ng down three cups a day since she’d been old enough to see over the kitchen countertop.

  While waiting for his mother’s drink to come up, Keith studied her like he’d never done before. He knew his mother was thirty-five, but he’d never once considered that she had been a kid at some point. What had she been like at his age? The comment about seeing over the counter she’d made on the way into the place got him thinking about that. Trying to imagine ‘Mom’ as one of the girls in his class felt too bizarre, so his brain shifted gears to Sarah, the girl who’d gone missing in ’87. She would be older than his mother if she hadn’t died. Maybe Mrs. Norris was wrong in saying the girl would never have run away. Keith decided to think that the girl had run away and wound up happy on like the West Coast or something.

  Once his mother had her coffee, she let him lead the way out into the mall. He went over to a map display, searching for any store name that sounded like it might have what he wanted. Two toy stores stood out, though the odds of them having a roleplaying game manual didn’t seem great. His hope started to plummet, but screeched to a stop when his gaze fell upon three words.

  The Dragon’s Cavern.

  His enthusiasm soared when he noticed the green color key for ‘toys and games.’

  “There.” He pointed at the map.

  “All right,” said his mother. “Since we’re here, we’re going to Macy’s when you’re done. You need some more shirts for school and maybe another pair of jeans.”

  Boring, but a small price to pay. “’Kay.”

  He stared at the map for a few seconds more before hurrying off to the right. An escalator up, a left turn, and about ten stores later, he came to a halt by a place with giant figurines in the windows. Wizards, knights, and a pointy-eared woman in a skimpy outfit stood frozen in a mock battle with a dragon (though the dragon was a poster). The figures all had price tags in the $500 and up range and stood as tall as Tira.

  Who would spend that much money on huge dolls?

  Not wanting to waste any time, Keith hurried inside past a bunch of demonstration pool tables to the middle of the store and the bookshelves. It didn’t take him long to spot some Crypts and Creepers titles, but these looked different. The oddity made sense once he noticed they all had ‘fourth edition’ stamped on them.

  He clenched his jaw. No. He needed the second edition one to go along with Sarah’s book.

  A guy in his thirties with long, stringy black hair walked by in a Dragon’s Cavern polo shirt.

  “Hey, ’scuse me?” asked Keith.

  The man stopped and spun around. “Oh, hey little dude. What’s up?”

  “Do you have a Player’s Compendium for C&C second edition?”

  His mother blinked like he’d spoken Greek.

  “Oh wow. Going vintage eh? Hmm. We might.” The guy—Glen according to his name tag—squatted at the bookshelf and ran his finger along book spines. “Lot of people think that’s the best version and still play it. It’s the one I cut my teeth on, too.”

  “I got the GM’s codex at a yard sale,” said Keith.

  “Right on. Which one? Does it have like a brown leather texture or is it the one with the Elf War painting in a movie-screen band across the front?”

  “It’s blue. Dragon scales with a big eye in the middle.”

  Glen swiveled his head around with a sharp snap, staring at him. “Seriously? You got a first-run hardback? Those were printed in ’82 when the second-edition released. They only printed about a thousand with that cover.”

  “Uhh, I guess. Is that good?” Keith shrugged.

  “Yeah man.” Glen nodded, still wide-eyed. “They’re pretty rare now. If it’s in good shape, might be worth a couple hundred bucks to a collector.”

  Keith shook his head, leaning away as if this guy would steal Sarah’s book. “Cool, but I wanna keep it.”

  “Yeah, I would, too. If it ain’t beat up, take good care of it.” Glen spotted something on the lower shelf, and extracted a brown book a little narrower than the Codex. A four-inch tall band across the front had a painting of a forest with armored figures walking among enormous trees. Above and below the painting, the cover artwork made it appear like leather. It had the same smooth, glossy finish as the Codex. “Here you go. Two left.”

  He took it from the clerk and glanced it over. The art on the back depicted a multi-legged monster with three tentacles, all tipped with eyes, sprouting from each shoulder. Along with the usual sales-pitchy ‘the key to great adventure’ text, the print explained this book contained all the rules, charts, and information necessary to make characters for a Crypts and Creepers campaign.

  “Cool. This is it,” said Keith. “How much?”

  Glen tugged the book down so he could see, and pointed at the UPC at the bottom corner. “$18.99.”

  Keith bit his lip. That’s more than he expected, but he had it. “Uhh, how much are modules?”

  “You starting out?” Glen stood out of his squat. “First time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you play the starter module that comes with the Codex? That first-run book you’ve got includes one that wasn’t printed in the later editions. The Devouring is an awesome module. In fact, when the non-collector edition GM Codex didn’t have it, players demanded it so much the publisher re-released the module as a standalone… but it’s really the same as what you’ve got already.”

  Keith stared at the Player’s Compendium in his hands. It would kick the remainder of his mowing money square in the crotch, but he had to have it. Modules could wait. Maybe he could even find some online like he had the character sheets. “No, we haven’t played at all yet. I guess I’ll try that one first before I go nuts buying stuff… I still gotta make sure my friends wanna play this more than once.”

  “Oh they will,” said Glen. “Unless they have no imagination.”

  “Or they want any hope of finding girlfriends,” muttered a man in the next aisle.

  Glen rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to that guy. I still play and”—he showed off a wedding ring—“things aren’t like they were years ago.”

  “Yeah, that’s what my dad said.” Keith tucked the book under his arm and fished out his money to double-check how much he had.

  “Need any dice, character sheets, anything else?” asked Glen, leading the way to the register.

  “I got some dice already. I was gonna print the sheets out.”

  Glen overacted snapping his fingers in disappointment at missing a sale. “Yeah, most people do these days. But you really ought to give that module a shot first. It’s quite comprehensive, designed to help newbies learn how to play. That book you’ve already got is the GM’s guide. If you’re the one who’s going to be running the game, don’t let your players read it. Most of the fun you’ll have from behind the GM screen comes from watching the players try to figure stuff out. It doesn’t work if they already know all the answers.”

  Keith nodded.

  “Oh, these are cute.” His mother leaned close to a clear plastic case full of dice. “What are they for?”

  “Those are the dice, Mom. When something happens in the game, we roll them and what number comes up determines how stuff goes.”

  “Oh. Wow, there’s so many colors. Why is that one as big as a tennis ball?” His mother pointed at a huge twenty-sided die.

  “Novelty dice,” said Glen. “They make metal ones too, but those aren’t that big.”

  “I hope not.” His mother laughed. “That would break the table.”

  Glen rang up the book and slipped a business card into the bag.

  Keith handed over the cash, which left him with fourteen dollars and change.

  “Here ya go.” Glen handed him the bag. “Store’s number’s on the card there. We do game nights twice a month if you’re ever interested in playing with a big group. Also, since you’re a newbie, if you have any rules type questions, we’re more than happy to answer them over the phone.”

  “Cool. Thanks.” Keith smiled.


  On the way across the mall to Macy’s, his mother caught him off guard by asking, “So this game, how does it work?”

  He shrugged more as a reflex to his mother asking something rather than not knowing the answer. “It’s a made-up story, and people have characters and do stuff. I guess it’s kind of like a book, only the ending can change because of what the guys do.”

  “That sounds interesting.” His mother’s grumpiness had faded. “If all it would take to get you to read is having some funny dice, I’d have gotten them years ago.”

  Perhaps comparing it to books made it sound ‘educational’ or ‘enriching’ enough that she changed her mind about it.

  “Do you have everything you need for it?” asked his mother.

  “Umm. Do we have any pencils?”

  She laughed. “You know… I don’t think there’s even one in the house. Easy enough to get some on the way home.”

  “Cool. Thanks, Mom.”

  Now, he had only to suffer through trying on new clothes before he could dive into the Player’s Compendium. In two days, he’d have to be on point to run the game. This stuff, he didn’t mind studying. Even thinking of it as studying didn’t feel right.

  This looked like fun.

  4

  The Devouring

  Friday proved to be tedious at school. From the moment he locked up his bike and saw Tira sprinting away from the three morons in tears, he had a feeling the day would suck. Kurt, William, and Henry didn’t make a move to go after her, but she’d screamed and run anyway, which made them smile. He resisted the urge to start trouble since they hadn’t actually done anything to her other than exist.

  The school day stank in two ways: it took forever to end, and every class except for Mrs. Pomeroy’s art period piled on homework. Evidently, teachers hated weekends. Or at least hated the idea that kids might want to do something other than schoolwork on a day off.