Slawter by Darren Shan

night. Keep trying. The joke will wear thin eventually.” She grimaces at a cameraman. “I hope!”
    Salit finally gets through his lines without laughing and they move on to the next scene. The cameras and lights are redirected, the makeup artists make sure Salit and Emmet are looking the way they should, Davida has a last few words with Emmet, then they’re ready to go.
    “OK, people,” an assistant director yells. “We’re going to try and get this right the first time, so we want
absolute
quiet!”
    When everyone settles down, the technicians do their final checks, Davida looks around slowly from one member of the crew to another, then nods. A man calls out the title, scene, and take, and snaps the traditional clapperboard shut.
    “And... action!” Davida roars.
    “‘How could you do it?’” Salit cries, in his role as Bobby Mint, boy-hero.
    “‘What?’” Emmet protests. “‘It’s not as if anyone liked Mr. Litherland.’”
    “‘But he’s human!’” Salit cries.
    “‘He
was,
’” Emmet corrects him. “‘He’s yummy for my tummy now!’” Emmet rubs his stomach with a sick laugh. “‘I’ve always wanted to eat human flesh. I mean, it’s not an obsession or anything. I wouldn’t go out of my way to kill, skin, and cook somebody. But I’ve always been curious, wondered what it would taste like. So, when the opportunity dropped into my lap, yeah, I took it. Does that make me a bad person? I don’t think so. At least, not much badder than a guy who gives in to temptation and steals a candy bar. It’s not like I killed him myself.’”
    “‘But you let it happen!’” Salit cries. “‘You knew about the demon!’”
    Emmet shrugs. “‘What’s done is done. No point crying over spilled milk — or a butchered headmaster.’” He holds out severed, bloodied arm to Salit. “‘You should try some, Bobby. You might like it. It...’” The ground begins to rumble. A foul stench fills the air. For a second, Emmet falters and his gaze flicks to the open manhole. Then he recovers and continues like a true professional. “‘It goes down super sweet, especially if you add a dollop of ketchup. Tastes a bit like —’”
    That’s when the demon bursts out of the manhole and grabs him.
    It happens in a blur, and is so fast, so violent, so shocking, that several people in the crowd gasp.
    The demon is green, slimy, with fierce yellow eyes, four long arms with claws at the ends, a mouth full of fangs. There’s something wolfish about its face, long and lean, with patches of hair here and there.
    The demon whips Emmet off the ground. He screams, not having to fake it, caught off-guard. Salit falls backwards, yelling with genuine horror.
    My world goes red with fear. I’m thrown back in time... that night in the cellar... earlier...my old home... walking into my parents’ bedroom to find Lord Loss, Vein, and Artery at work. Feeling the exact same thing in my gut now as I did then.
    The demon screeches and vanishes back underground, carrying Emmet with it. There’s a moment of hush. Then Emmet’s face appears, sheer terror in his expression. “Help!” he cries. “For the love of —”
    Blood erupts around him, shooting up through the hole like a geyser. The howl of the demon drowns out his final words. His eyes go wide, then dead. As his head slumps, the demon pulls and Emmet disappears again, this time forever.
    It all happened so swiftly, I’m in a state of shock. So is everybody else. Stunned silence. People with hands over their mouths and disbelief in their eyes. I sense screams building in a dozen throats, ready to erupt at once, a chorus of terror.
    “Now that’s what I call a death scene!” Davida Haym roars triumphantly, shattering the spell of fear. “Cut! Did you get that? You’d better have! We’ll never top that take!”
    And suddenly everybody’s laughing, relief flooding through them. They thought for a few seconds that the demon was real, that Emmet was