Feral (10 page)

L
ittle Andy Couldn't Sleep . . .

He couldn't, he was too afraid.
 
He had gone to bed at nine under the threat of the belt.
 
Dad wasn't having any more of his excuses or stories.
 
Everybody has nightmares
, his dad had said.
 
Get over it kid, it's called growing up
.
 
Then he had sent Andy down the hall to his room with a stinging rap to the back in his head.
 
His dad called them love taps.

Once Andy heard his mom say love hurts, and he knew exactly what she meant.
 
Dad gave his mom love taps too sometimes, and even when they made her bleed and cry they always ended up kissing and hugging again.
 
Dad hardly ever hit Andy hard enough to make him bleed, but he left bruises.

When he got mad he hit harder, so Andy tried not to make him mad.
 
That was why he had closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep after climbing into bed.
 
That seemed like hours ago, and even though he was awake the whole time, he never opened his eyes.

Little Andy Counted Sheep . . .

Mommy was nicer about the bad dreams; she said she had them too sometimes.
 
She said the way to make them go away was to think about good things, and if that didn't work, counting big fluffy sheep might.
 
Andy didn't know what sheep had to do with anything, but he tried it anyway.
 
It never worked.

What his mom and dad didn't understand was that when he
did
sleep his dreams were usually good.
 
Sometimes he dreamed about kissing Kimberly from next door, although he was eight and she was seven. She was pretty.
 
Sometimes he dreamed about running away to the park by the river.
 
He heard at school that lots of kids run away and go to live there, and they did nothing but play for the rest of their lives.

The nightmares only happened when he was awake.
 
It was the man in the closet, or under his bed.
 
Talking to him, sometimes singing to him; like tonight.

Little Andy, Change Your Plans . . .

Andy was going to run away; he didn't like it here.
 
Dad drank too much and hit a lot, and Andy didn't like the friends that he always had over.
 
They called him cum squirt, and little shit, and they always made fun of him.

Mom was nice, but she never helped him when Dad and his friends got mean.
 
She was too afraid.

He was spending Saturday night at Ryan's house, and he was going to leave after Ryan and his parents fell asleep.
 
He was going to Feral Park, and he would do whatever he wanted to from then on.

Say Hello To The Bogey Man
.

But the bad man was back again, singing to him in that soft and scratchy voice.
 
Telling him to change his plans, because he would never make it to Ryan's house or Feral Park, and this time the Bogey Man wasn't hiding in the closet, or under his bed.
 
He was standing above Andy, singing and stroking his cheek with blood-caked fingers.

When Andy finally opened his eyes he saw that shadow face, that wide crocodile smile.
 
Ear-to-ear teeth, all white and shining.
 
Then the teeth opened and Andy could see all the way down his throat.

Told ya, Dad
, he thought.
 
I told you he was real
.

S
hannon drove with the dome light on, crying silently for Jared and Alicia as she drove toward Normal Hills.
 
She had forgotten, but she remembered now, every night spent wide-awake, she and Jared both, finding no comfort except for in each other's terrified eyes.

She cursed her mother and father for not believing them, and she cursed herself for not believing Alicia.
 
How tired and distant she had been the last few weeks of her life, and how frustrated Shannon had gotten with her when Alicia had told her why.

How many times do I have to explain this to you, Alicia
?
 
There is no such thing as the Bogey Man
.

She had even confronted Thomas, accused him of letting Alicia stay up late and watch those scary movies they both loved so much.
 
Shannon was dead set against them, they were pointless and cliché; the only thing they were good for was giving kids like Alicia nightmares.
 
Thomas took every opportunity he could to play the good guy with their daughter.
 
He gave her too many presents, too much candy, and anything else her wicked mother dared to deny her.

Thomas was a hero in Alicia's eyes, but even he had not been able to save her from a nightmare come to life.

Charity slept on the car's floor, the bloody scissors stuck through the belt loop of her new pants like a savage's trophy.
 
The little flashlight rolled and bounced on the floor next to her.
 
It lit her face, turning every angle and shadow into a ghastly caricature.

She was chanting softly in her sleep.

Little Andy Couldn't Sleep
,

Little Andy Counted Sheep
,

Little Andy Change Your Plans
,

Say Hello To The Bogey Man.

Then she jerked awake with a shriek.

“
Shh
, it's okay, baby.
 
It was only a dream.” This was automatic, the parental version of Pavlov's drooling dogs, and she cursed herself as soon as the words came out.

“No, it wasn't,” Charity said.
 
She picked up the flashlight and climbed into the seat, sliding next to Shannon.

Shannon slowed the Chevelle, put an arm around Charity and squeezed her.
 
“I know, I'm sorry,” she said.
 
Charity clung to her arm, the little girl who just that morning had fought like a wolverine to escape them.
 
She guessed maybe Charity had awakened from a similar dream then.

“Was it him?”

“Yes,” Charity said.
 
“Andy's dead.”
 
She began to cry again.

Shannon felt the patter of tears on her arm, and wiped them from Charity's eyes.
 
“Who's Andy?”

“Don't know,” she said.
 
She sniffed, spent a few moments in silent concentration, and the tears stopped.

I wish I were that tough
, Shannon thought.

“He's punishing me.
 
When he's mad at me he makes me watch,” she said.
 
She stared at Shannon, and when Shannon looked back, into Charity's eyes she could almost see it happening inside her head.
 
“I took his scissors, so he tore them open with his hands.
 
I thought if I took them he wouldn't be able to do it again, but he did anyway.”

Shannon squeezed her again, but said nothing.
 
She didn't know what to say; Dr. Spock had never prepared her for this.
 
She passed the entrance to the old Normal Hills Cemetery, and slowed.

“I need my arm back, sweetie.”

“'Kay.”

She took the next right turn, a single lane trail through the trees and brush.

“Where we going?”

“Normal Hills.
 
I used to live there.”

“We hiding?” Charity asked.

“Yes, for now,” she said.

The trail went on straight for a few hundred yards then swung a sharp left toward town.
 
The road was uneven and stony, the ride rough and slow.
 
Shannon cringed as a low-hanging branch scraped the Chevelle's hood.

Charity watched the woods with nervous eyes.
 
All around, the great pines pressed in, rough green walls on each side, blending into the darkness before and behind them, blocking out the night sky above.

“Almost there?” she asked.

“Almost,” Shannon said.
 
“Just ahead here.”
 
The trail ended, an old house stood in ruins in a cleared lot.
 
In the glow of the headlights she could barely make out the faded
condemned
sign nailed to the warped front door.

“What is this place?” Charity asked, not bothering to hide a look of disgust.

“It's my uncle-in-law's house.
 
Crazy Ernie Pitcher, my ex-father-in-law's brother.
 
He was kind of a weird old hermit, died when I was a kid and his brother just let the house rot.”
 
Shannon drove slowly through the yard, around the side of the house and parked in the back next to a long-abandoned international pickup.
 
“When I was a kid I used to party here with my friends.”
 
She got out of the car, walked through the weeds and dust to the cellar entrance.

Charity followed warily.
 
“I hope it looks better on the inside.”

Shannon smiled in spite of herself.
 
“Sorry, kid, what you see is what you get.
 
Hold on.”
 
She dropped to the ground before the cellar door and searched blindly along the foundation.
 
“Thomas wired the cellar once, tapped into the power line and ran it into the basement.
 
If it's still here,” she said, then stopped.
 
“Here it is.”
 
She pulled the female end of a thick, orange extension cord, faded with age, from the debris around the foundation.
 
Sticking out under the closed door like a pig's tail was the male end of a similar cord.
 
“I just hope this is still live,” she said, and plugged them in.

Light shone from the edges of the warped door, weak but comforting.

Shannon opened the door, peeked in warily and, satisfied, stepped in.
 
“Your room awaits.”

Frowning, Charity stepped inside.
 
Shannon followed her down, closing the door behind them.

As she reached the bottom, stepping down on the old, loose floorboards, Shannon basked in the nostalgia of the place.
 
This was where, once upon a time, she'd had her first drink, awaking the next morning with her first hangover.
 
She had spent more time here between her sixteenth and seventeenth birthday than she had at home.
 
After her mother died, home became a bad place, her father a beast whose last chain had finally broken, and in that nightmare year before she had moved in with her best friend Lacy, this had been her safe place.

She guessed that was the reason she'd come here, the old comfort.
 
Her own Bogey Man had never been able to follow her here.

She knew that wouldn't be the case with Charity's monster, but for now it was as good a place as any, and there was light.

“You came here to escape your monster,” Charity said, then looked away, almost ashamed.
 
“Didn't you?

“How could you know that?" Shannon asked.

“Everybody has monsters,” she said.
 
“I'm sorry, you don't have to talk about it.”

She's too wise for her age
, Shannon thought.
 
Why do we do that to them
?
 
Why do we make them grow up before their time
?
 
Why, Dad
?

“Yes, Charity, we do.”
 
And yes, she did.
 
Everybody had his or her personal monster, and though she had forgotten about the Bogey Man, she would never forget the monster that had driven her down here.

C
razy Ernie's cellar hadn't changed at all, except for an extra decade of rot.
 
The same old fun room, floors and walls the color of dust, the same green vinyl couch resting against the far wall.
 
The same army surplus cot folded in the corner next to it.
 
Two antique beanbags flanked a crazily tilted end table, one of the legs missing. Some considerate young soul had donated a stack of school textbooks to hold that corner up.
 
The beanbags were ruined; most of the stuffing chewed out and spread across the floor like white mouse shit.

An old tape deck sat on the floor next to an ancient black-and-white television, its cord chewed through by the same absent rodents.
 
The television's power cord was in better shape.
 
The rubber was chewed in a few spots but seemed intact.
 
If the picture tube hadn't blown it would probably still work.