by Ike Hamill
“Yeah, but he told me things that he was going to take away. As he got closer and closer, he started to collect.”
“Like what?”
Eric sighed.
“Little things, at first. He would tell me that he was going to take my history book as a down payment. I woke up thinking about it and found the history book on the floor of my room. I thought he was full of shit. I put the book in my bag and the bag never left my sight. But by the time I got to school, it was gone. I must have looked for that book for a week.”
He could tell that she wasn’t convinced.
“My tooth,” he said. He pulled down his lip so she could see, but she probably couldn’t get a good look at it. “One of my wisdom teeth was just starting to come in, but he took it. I woke up with the memory of the dream and a bloody hole at the back of my jaw.”
“Eric…” she started to say.
“I know how it sounds, but you have to trust me. This all really happened. I would have the dream and I could hear him in the distance, walking towards me. He was alway walking, always moving. It didn’t matter how far I tried to get away, that constant walking will eventually catch you because you don’t always have control in a dream.”
She scratched her head and said, “But things from dreams turn out true because they were true before the dream.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Maybe you saw something during the day that your conscious mind didn’t really notice but your subconscious picked up on, you know? You thought you saw the book that morning, but you really left it somewhere the day before. That’s what the dream was trying to tell you.”
Eric shook his head. His voice was little more than a croak when he decided to tell her the really scary part.
“Eventually, he got close enough that I could hear him whispering. I was having a dream that I was doing laundry, back here in Maine. You know that old laundry room we used to have in the basement? I was down there and he was so close that I could hear him whispering through the window. He was talking about compound interest and how I was behind the ball. I looked it up—compound interest is a thing. You can be paying off your debt but still be getting farther and farther behind. I think that’s what he meant. That’s when he said he was going to take the sisters.”
“Sisters?” she asked.
“My Aunt Zinnia and my mom were sisters. When he told me he was going to take the sisters, I woke the next morning to the sound of my mother moaning and coughing. When I took her to the hospital, I prayed. I wasn’t praying to God, I was praying to the man from my dream. I was begging him to take anything else. I begged him to tell me what the debt was so that I could repay it.”
She put her hand on him and Eric flinched back before he realized that it was her.
“Eric, it wasn’t your fault.”
He put his hands over his face, containing his emotions before he removed them again.
“You’re right—it wasn’t my fault that time.”
# # #
“That night, they let me stay in Mom’s hospital room in the chair next to her bed. The nurses there were really nice. My dream was so real that night that I didn’t even think that it was a dream at first. I woke up and made sure that my mom was still breathing. The light that was built into the wall just above the bed was on and I could see the sheet over her chest moving up and down. When her eyes opened up, I could still see them closed.”
“Huh?” Nicky asked.
“She opened her eyes, but that was just, like, superimposed over her real eyes that were still closed. It was like seeing a ghost overtop of a real person.”
“Weird.”
“Right—that’s how I initially figured out that it was a dream. She said to me that she was tired of hiding from him and I asked her who she was talking about. She said it was the Traitor. She had been hiding all those years from the Traitor.”
“Who is the Traitor?”
“At the time, I had no idea. I told her to go back to sleep and get some rest. Part of me was worried that she was expending too much effort and that it would make her sick again, but part of me just wanted the projection and the body underneath to line up again. It was weird seeing her as a transparency on top of a real thing. I didn’t like it. You know how dreams are. I knew it was a dream, but at the same time I didn’t know.”
Nicky nodded.
“That’s when I heard him. It sounded like he was right on the other side of the hospital wall, but he could have been outside or across town. His voice carried sometimes. He told me that he was coming for the sisters and that’s when I knew that he meant my mom and my aunt were going to die.”
His hands wanted to cover his face again. He forced them to stay in his lap.
“The see-through version of my mother sat up and I knew that she had heard him too. She whispered, ‘The Traitor,’ and I understood what she was talking about, but not why. When I asked her, she said that she had made a promise to him many years before and now he had finally found her to collect. ‘All that hiding was for nothing,’ she said. ‘He found me when I can’t run anymore.’ I thought that she was saying that she couldn’t run because she was in the hospital. Later, I wondered if maybe she couldn’t run because of me.”
“Not your fault,” Nicky said again.
“She begged me to go. She said that she didn’t want me to have to be there when he came to collect. I told her that I would never leave her side. It turned out that I didn’t have a choice. The ghost version of my mom got up, out of bed. She moved right through the sheets, leaving her sleeping body behind. I couldn’t move out of my chair. For some reason, she was disconnected from her sleeping self, but I was totally pinned down. I could feel my body in the chair, holding me back as she walked right through the door.”
“Eric, it was just a dream,” Nicky said.
He shook his head and covered his face until he could harden his features. When he looked up, he fixed her eyes with his, making sure she understood.
“No, Nicky. When she got better and came home, she told me that it was going to be okay. She said that she had made a deal with the man. She brought it up, Nicky. I never told her what I had been dreaming, or about that day in the hospital. I didn’t have to. She already knew, because it was real.”
The way she curled her bottom lip, just a bit, under her teeth, he knew what she was thinking. His mother had been sick and probably not in her right mind. He had been stressed and suggestible. The whole thing was a fever dream cooked up from insomnia and heartache. It was the most likely explanation. Even he could agree to that. He would be perfectly willing to accept that it had all been a foul fantasy if he hadn’t lived through it himself.
Nicky’s voice was soft and almost apologetic for what she asked next. “If he was real, and she made a deal with him… Why didn’t that deal… You know?”
“It wasn’t her debt that killed her. It was mine,” Eric said.
“Yours?” Nicky whispered.
“I imagine that Mom’s dreams stopped. She got better. Mine only got worse. Now that he had been paid, he was even stronger. I could hear him sometimes even when I wasn’t asleep. It was driving me crazy. I begged him to tell me what I could give him to make him shut up once and for all.”
Eric’s throat tightened. He desperately wanted to get the secret off his chest, but his own body wouldn’t let it happen. His lungs wouldn’t surrender enough air to form the words and his numb tongue wouldn’t produce the syllables.
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
Even when he made his face a mask of stone, Nicky could still see through him. It was what he liked and hated most about hanging out with her. There were no secrets that he could keep from her and yet she still stuck around.
When Nicky put her hand on his shoulder, the words finally exploded from his mouth.
“He said that I could give him someone else,” Eric said. “I thought that since she had paid him off once, she could pay him off again.”<
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Eric shook his head.
“That’s not completely… He said he would take them both as payment—my mom and my aunt. I agreed. Mom got sick again and I told her to make a deal. I kept telling her.”
Nicky took his hand but didn’t say a word.
“Maybe she didn’t believe me. Maybe he wouldn’t take the deal. I don’t know. They said she had a heart attack. He told me that the same thing happened to Aunt Zinnia. I don’t know why it didn’t.”
They sat in silence for a few seconds. If she had let go of his hand, he would have known that she thought he was crazy. Gripping her hand harder, he hoped that it wasn’t true.
“Is that why you didn’t want to stay?” Nicky asked.
“That’s why I thought I had to leave. It was wrong of me to stay, but… I don’t know. She seems fine.”
Nicky squeezed his hand.
JESSIE
“OKAY,” ZINNIA SAID, PUSHING her arms towards each other.
They were all standing on the front stairs and Zinnia was out in the lawn with her camera.
“Everyone smush together,” Zinnia said. “Closer.”
The men of the Carroll family were all magnets with the same charge. They repelled each other. Jessie felt his father’s hand land on his shoulder, pressing him closer to Wendell. His father’s aftershave was particularly strong and was clinging to him. It made Jessie want to roll in the mud, like a stray dog, sprayed by a skunk.
“Just push together a little more,” Zinnia said.
“Let me get the Cannon,” Reynold said. “We can use the tripod.”
“I would prefer to take the picture sometime this century,” Zinnia said.
Reynold moaned out a laugh.
When they were finally close enough for her standards and they all said cheese, the camera clicked, and the flashcube on top fired. Zinnia advanced the film and the cube spun. They all waited for her to take a safety photo.
“You shouldn’t need a flash,” Reynold said. “There’s plenty of light out here.”
“Shush. You take one with me in it,” Zinnia said.
They said cheese again and the camera flashed.
As soon as Reynold stepped around the boys and jumped down to the lawn, they spread out again. Eric had almost made his escape when Zinnia climbed the stairs and crammed them all back together.
A moment later, the camera clicked.
“Okay,” Reynold said, heading towards the driveway.
“You didn’t tell us to say cheese,” Zinnia said. “And you didn’t use the flash.”
It was too late. The screen door groaned as Eric slipped inside. Jessie threw one leg over the railing and was about to jump down behind the bushes. With any luck, he could catch up with Charlie and Ben down at the culvert.
“Hold on, mister,” his mother said.
Jessie kept going, hoping that one of the other misters was the mister she was trying to hold.
“Jessie!” his mother shouted.
Jessie froze in his tracks and turned to see if he should stay or run. She didn’t look too mad, so he decided to defer his decision.
“Where are you going?”
“Just… River Walk. I was going to look for bottles. Pick up bottles. Trash—I was going to pick up trash.”
“Take your brother.”
“I don’t…”
Jessie clamped down his mouth hard. He had almost said, “I don’t have a brother.” It was what he told Wendell all the time when the kid was pissing him off. He had never said it in front of his mother, but he had a pretty good guess as to how that would turn out.
“Take. Your. Brother.”
Jessie’s face fell. He waited until he had turned before he rolled his eyes. Hooking an arm into a lazy wave, he said, “Come on.”
Jessie walked towards the corner of the house and heard Wendell crash over the railing behind him. At least he didn’t cry when he plowed into the bushes. That was something.
# # #
“This isn’t the way to the River Walk,” Wendell said.
“You’re so observant. That’s what I appreciate about you,” Jessie said. He jumped down from the top of the stone wall that bordered the road, not bothering to look either direction. If a car was coming, a broken leg would be a great way to get out of a couple weeks of school. Maryanne Dumont had a cast that went all the way up to her hip. She had come in exactly once since her accident. Her little sister had to walk all the way over to the middle school each day to collect her homework for her.
Jessie pictured Wendell walking over to the middle school. It would never work. Wendell’s school was across the river and he wasn’t allowed to walk home by himself.
They crossed the road, not lucky enough to be hit by a car.
“Why are you going in there?” Wendell asked when Jessie began to walk across the grass towards the cemetery.
“I’m not. I’m just crossing over.”
“Where are you going?”
“Sadie’s Run. Listen, if you don’t want to go, you can’t go home. Stay out until the River Walk lights come on.”
“I don’t want to stay alone,” Wendell said.
Jessie rolled his eyes and sighed again. His brother had to be the only twelve year old who looked like he would cry at the thought of an afternoon alone.
“I don’t have a brother,” Jessie whispered.
Now, Wendell looked like tears were inevitable.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jessie asked.
“I just don’t want to be alone.”
“Fine. Come on, then. But only if you can keep your mouth shut.”
Jessie still walked through the cemetery, but he made the tiny concession of only walking a couple of rows deep before he paralleled the road. Wendell was able to keep up with him by trotting down the edge of the cemetery and then climbing down through the thorns at the edge of the creek.
Moving towards the path, Jessie slowed down until Wendell could catch up.
They were still there—Jessie could tell by the sound of a bottle shattering against the cement barrier at the side of the culvert. Fish was laughing as Jessie approached. Holdty had a hand up to his eye.
“What’s going on?” Jessie asked.
Holdty pointed with his free hand. “What’s with him? Looks like he has pink eye.”
Jessie nodded. Wendell hadn’t really cried at all, but his eyes were still puffy like he had.
“Yeah,” Jessie said. “He was eating your mom out from behind and she farted right in his eyes.”
“She’ll do that,” Fish agreed.
Holdty only shook his head. He had given up trying to defend his mother’s honor.
“What’s with your eye?” Jessie asked.
“This prick threw a bottle and the glass bounced back,” Holdty said. Fish only shrugged when Holdty pointed at him.
Fish moved over closer to confer with Jessie.
“You gotta get rid of the kid, man. We have to make our plans, you know?”
Jessie glanced at his brother. He didn’t want to make Wendell really cry. That would mean endless trouble when they got home. Worse, he didn’t want to live with the constant ribbing that his friends would give him just for being the brother of a twelve year old that would cry at the drop of a hat.
“We’ll make our plans. He won’t say anything. I swear.”
“He told half the world that Holdty paid some old man to show us his cock,” Fish said.
Jessie examined his brother, who had suddenly found something fascinating to look at between his feet.
“Is that true, Wendell?” Jessie asked.
“Ask him,” Wendell said. His voice was hard and cold. If he had actually looked up when he said it, the tone would have sounded defiant.
“I’m not asking if Charlie paid a guy. I know about that. I’m asking if you tattled on him.”
Wendell finally looked up. He was crying now, but not so hard that anyone might notice.
“I didn’t tattle. Sa
rah Miller is the one who heard him. She said she heard Charlie Holdt and Ben Trout talking behind the dumpster after it happened.”
Jessie turned his attention back to Fish.
“Maybe that’s what happened?” Jessie asked.
Fish looked disinterested. He picked a twig off of a tree and stuck the end in his mouth like the world’s worst toothpick.
“There was a pack of kids there,” Holdty admitted. “We heard them when they laughed. Sarah Miller could have been one of them.”
“Even so,” Jessie said, turning back to his brother. “Even if Sarah did go around telling people, you shouldn’t help spread rumors. Got it?”
Wendell nodded, snorting back cry-snot.
“He won’t tell,” Jessie said. “I trust him.”
“Yeah, well there are some solutions that I’m not going to discuss around him anyway,” Fish said.
“Fine,” Jessie said.
“Fine,” Fish answered.
# # #
Their brainstorming session took place on the three rocks at the lip of the culvert. The trickle of water that came through smelled of sulfur, but it made a nice sound as it spilled into the pool.
“We definitely need a new carburetor?” Jessie asked.
Fish nodded. “Yeah. It’s full of rust and my cousin said there was pitting on it or something.”
“And a spark plug,” Holdty said. “The one in there is cracked.”
“What else?” Jessie asked.
“Rings,” Fish said. “Unless we can free up the ones on the piston now.”
“How do we do that?” Jessie asked.
Holdty and Fish both shrugged. For a lot of the engine parts they discussed, Jessie was totally familiar with the names and completely ignorant to what the parts actually looked like. He got the feeling that Fish and Holdty were playing the same game. Jessie’s father always said, “The dumbest person in the room is the one who won’t admit that he doesn’t know.” That meant that they were all the dumbest person in the room, so Jessie was in good company.
“So, how much are we talking?” Jessie asked.
“If we can get a ride up to Auburn, we can go through the junkyard there. They have a lot of parts,” Fish said.