Stay Away

by Ike Hamill

  “Upstairs. He just took a shower,” Jessie said.

  As Eric watched this exchange, the feeling began to return to his legs. His numbness was diminishing but the fear was still there.

  “Upstairs,” he whispered to Nicky.

  They began to back towards the living room. Eric angled himself so Nicky could stay behind him. He had gotten her involved in all of this. If something happened to her, he would never forgive himself. Reynold opened the refrigerator, pushing aside the contents on the top shelf. He would be looking for his beer—something they didn’t keep in the house anymore.

  “It’s just Dad,” Jessie said, seeing the fear on Eric’s face as he backed away. “I traded for him.”

  They were through the doorway. Nicky turned and bolted for the stairs. Eric went slower—more cautiously—making sure that Reynold wasn’t following. When his outstretched hand found the bannister behind him, he turned and ran up the stairs behind her.

  LILY

  “SLOW DOWN,” SHE SAID. “What are you trying to say?”

  Eric and Nicky were spitting out words between gasps. They both kept looking down the hall towards the stairs.

  Lily knocked on the bathroom door and called to Wendell, “I put your PJs on the back of the toilet.”

  Eric grabbed her by the shoulders and her smile faded as she saw the panic in his expression.

  “Lily, your father is downstairs.”

  She clamped her mouth into a frown. Eric wasn’t one for mean jokes, and this was a terrible way to start.

  “Eric…” she started.

  A voice bellowed from downstairs. “Lily? Wendell? Where are you?”

  After a rush of cold went through her, she got even angrier. Jessie must be in on the joke as well. On occasion, Jessie did a passable imitation of their father. He had outdone himself this time and she was not amused.

  Nicky grabbed her arm as the bathroom door opened.

  “He really is down there,” Nicky said.

  Wendell’s face looked as frightened as Eric’s.

  “Is that Dad? You said there was an accident.”

  “There was,” Lily said.

  She pushed between Eric and Nicky as she headed towards the stairs. When Eric reached out and tried to grab her, she pulled away and picked up her pace. When she began to descend, she saw them back there. Wendell’s face was still framed in the bathroom doorway.

  Lily went down the stairs, slowing as his legs came into view. Her heart fluttered and couldn’t find an even pace. Steadying herself with the railing, she continued down. Her father was holding a sandwich in one hand and chewing around a smile. A little piece of pickle trailed from the corner of his mouth. He swallowed and then his smile broadened as he stretched out his arms.

  “Lily! You look great. When did you change your hair?”

  Her hand went up to touch just under her ear. Her tongue had gone dead in her mouth. What she was seeing was impossible. Left and right her head swiveled as she turned between her brother and her father. They shared the same smile. It was amazing how much Jessie was starting to look like their dad. Lily hadn’t realized it until that moment.

  “Dad?” she whispered.

  He took a small step forward to close the gap. Her fear must have registered with him because he stopped and tilted his head, confused.

  “Lily?”

  “Dad, you’re dead,” she said.

  Her father blinked and then looked down at himself. His arms were still open for a hug that wouldn’t come. The sandwich drooped in his hand. It was one of Eric’s Italian sandwiches—he had made it before they had fled the day before.

  “Dead?” he asked.

  “She doesn’t know,” Jessie said. “Lily, that’s all over with. I traded the fingers for him.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “What are you two talking about?” Reynold asked. “What’s happening?”

  The strength seemed to go out of him with the question. Their father took a step back and sat down on the arm of one of the chairs. Remembering the sandwich, he took another bite.

  For the second time, Lily had to explain.

  “Dad, there was an accident.”

  He stared at her. His mouth was halfway open as he chewed.

  “You and Mom went with Jim Saunders and you asked me to watch Jessie. Do you remember that?”

  With his free hand, Reynold reached up and scratched the back of his head.

  “I guess you went across the river to the boat landing.”

  Her father reached up and squeezed his temples as he looked at the floor.

  “Then, the…” Lily choked on the words. Somehow, it was more difficult to tell her father than it had been to tell Wendell. Her little brother had listened with wide, clear eyes. He had the ability to take things in and not let them really affect him. Sometimes, Wendell was almost like a concrete wall—able to withstand whatever was thrown at him. That’s how he had taken the news of their parents. Wendell had listened, understood and accepted it.

  “The car…” her father said. He took another bite of the leftover sandwich and a tiny piece of bread flew from his mouth when he finished the sentence. “…rolled backwards down the ramp.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Your mother was stuck in there. The doors wouldn’t open. I broke through, and I pulled her out.”

  His eyes lit up with this fact.

  “Yeah. Jim was panicking behind the wheel and I think that he thought your mother was to blame somehow. But I pulled her away from him. She cut her face, but I got her out. I remember.”

  He took another triumphant bite of his sandwich, like he had won an argument.

  The police had pieced together what he was saying. He was right, but that wasn’t the whole story. Before she had to say it, the memory came back to him. Wrinkling his brow, he remembered. Reynold swallowed hard and Jessie moved closer to him, slapping him on the back.

  “You okay, Dad?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. Reynold’s eyes were sad when he looked back to Lily. “Your mom… We had to get Jim out. When I pulled her through, she immediately turned back to get him. He didn’t know what was happening.”

  Lily nodded. This was a narrative that she had heard before, but it had alway just been speculation that she had rejected. It was so much easier to accept the idea that Jim had been the bad guy. It was easier to believe that he had lured them there and somehow engineered the accident that had taken their lives.

  “I went around,” her father said. “I managed to smash in his window but the car was sinking fast. He couldn’t get out. His legs were stuck under the steering wheel somehow. Your mom…”

  Reynold coughed and Jessie patted his back again.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” Jessie said. “You don’t have to keep going. That’s all in the past now.”

  “No,” Reynold said. He looked at Jessie. “I want to remember. Your mom said that someone was grabbing her and I thought that it must be Jim. He looked like he was trying to swim out from under there. You know, waving his arms around.”

  Reynold gestured with the last bit of sandwich and then put it down.

  “I… I thought he was still attacking Zinnia, so I bashed him with the rock to…”

  Reynold wiped his arm across his face and then looked down at the fancy shirt he was wearing. Pushing his fingers between the buttons of his shirt, he felt his own chest. Surprise registered on his face. Lily’s eyes went wide, too, mirroring his. She didn’t want to know what his fingers felt there.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Lily blurted out the words. “You died, Dad. You and Mom both drowned. Jim survived.”

  “But, the doctors managed to bring us back?” he asked.

  Lily shook her head. “No. That was more than a year ago.”

  Reynold wiped his lips with the back of his hand. Slowly, a smile began to take shape on his face.

  “You kids,” he said, starting to chuckle. “Is it A
pril first?”

  “Dad,” Lily said.

  Jessie was smiling right along with their father.

  “Where’s your mom? Is she in on this?”

  “Jessie, tell him,” Lily said.

  Jessie ignored her. “Mom should be back any time now. Actually, I figured that you guys would show up together.”

  Jessie moved to the window, pushing the curtains aside. While Jessie looked into the darkness, Lily saw her father’s eyes flick towards her. There was a spark of something there that didn’t match the easy smile on his face. It felt like was assessing her—seeing how she was taking all this.

  Lily backed towards the stairs.

  Reynold turned towards Jessie and asked, “So are you serious about your brother being back? Where is he? Is he okay?”

  Lily climbed the stairs.

  # # #

  Her heart jumped when she turned and saw the crouching figures at the top of the stairs. All she could think was that her mother was there, waiting for her to get close enough. Then, she would leap on Lily like a panther and the two of them would tumble back down to the living room.

  But it wasn’t her mother who was crouching there. It was Eric, Nicky, and Wendell. They were up there listening from just around the corner. She waved them back and they all piled into Wendell’s room before Lily closed the door behind her.

  “It’s him,” she said.

  “I know,” Eric said. “But how?”

  Wendell was over at his desk. He pushed his finger through the dust there and then turned his fingertip towards his face to blow it off.

  “I don’t know,” Lily said. “This is all connected though. The Trader, Wendell, and now Dad—we have to figure out what it means.”

  “And why,” Nicky said.

  “Wendell,” Lily said. “The quick version—what happened to you?”

  “When?” Wendell asked.

  Eric picked up the questioning. “You left Jessie at the culvert and then you went to the Trading Tree, right? You traded for the carburetor? Tell us what happened.”

  Wendell wiped his hand off on his pajamas. He had outgrown them. The legs ended up above his ankles and there was an inch of bare skin between the tops and the bottoms. Wendell tried to pull the shirt down into place as he sat on his dusty desk.

  “I went to the Trader. He said he could get the parts for Jessie’s moped, but I would have to go on a journey. I should have asked how long it would be. It turns out that it was a really long journey.”

  “Where did you go? What did he make you do?”

  “He didn’t make me do anything,” Wendell said. “But there were things I had to do along the way. Every time I would have to do something, there was a sign. Sometimes, it would be a regular sign with words and sometimes it would be something symbolic, like a puzzle. In those cases, I had to figure out the puzzle and then I had to do what it told me. Those were the hardest, but I liked them the best.”

  Lily shook her head. “I don’t understand any of this. What does it mean?”

  Nicky leaned closer to Wendell. “What was the first task, Wendell? Do you remember?”

  He nodded.

  “I accepted the journey and he sent me down River Walk, towards the bridge. He said that I had to get across the bridge as fast as possible because there would be my first sign over there. I rushed because I thought that maybe if I went and got the sign, I could still get home for Lancelot Link on TV.”

  Wendell joined his hands together in his lap and looked off at nothing, remembering.

  “When I was walking across the bridge is when I realized that the sign would probably look like a normal thing to most people. It wouldn’t do any good if it was obviously out of place.”

  Lily and Eric looked at each other. Sometimes Wendell had the strangest approach to things, but he also had surprising insights.

  “The sign turned out to be a guy,” Wendell said. “I was thinking of Jessie’s friend, Ben Trout. He was the first person I heard talking about the Trader. Right when I was thinking about him, I saw a guy with a big fish on his back. It was a patch on his shirt. He was handing out fliers, so I took one.”

  There was a sound from downstairs, like something had fallen over.

  “What did it say, Wen?” Lily asked.

  “It was about the fish ladder.”

  Eric shook his head. “What’s a fish ladder?”

  “They want to build one at the dam so fish can get up. You know how salmon go up rivers? They can’t get up the river because of the dam. That guy with the fish on his back thought that they should put a ladder in so fish can get up. There are four dams on the river. Some have ways for fish and some don’t. It doesn’t do any good unless they all do.”

  “But what does that have to do with you?”

  “I have to fix it,” Wendell said. “That’s what my journey was for—for me to figure out how to fix it.”

  Lily put her hands out. She almost wanted to shake him until he started making sense. None of this explained why he was gone for so long.

  “More fish,” Nicky said.

  They all looked at her.

  “The Trader wanted a fish. He also wanted Wendell to make the river so the fish could get upstream. There was something he needed from fish so he was trying to find a way to get it however he could.”

  “I didn’t finish everything I need to do,” Wendell said.

  “Well, you don’t have to anymore,” Lily said to him. “That’s all finished now, okay?”

  Wendell considered that idea and then nodded.

  “None of this helps us with the problem downstairs,” Eric said.

  “No,” Lily said. “It doesn’t.”

  Eric covered his face with his hands. When he removed them, he pressed them together, almost in prayer.

  “Is there a chance that we’re just thinking about this wrong?” Eric asked.

  “How so?”

  “Wendell came back, and that’s a good thing. Sure, it was shocking that Uncle Reynold came back, but should we just accept it as a blessing and move on?”

  Lily was shaking her head before he even finished the question.

  “No, Eric. There’s something wrong about him being here. It’s something about the way he talks or maybe the way his eyes are taking things in. I don’t know if I can explain it properly, but there’s something about him that frightens me. When you and Nicky came upstairs, you were scared out of your wits. There must have been a reason.”

  “Yeah,” Nicky said. “Because the dead are walking around.”

  Nicky glanced over at Wendell.

  Lily turned and really looked at her little brother, trying to see him objectively. Since his disappearance, as her mother tirelessly investigated, Lily had eventually accepted that he was gone forever. Then, after losing her parents too, it had seemed undeniable.

  “No,” Lily said. “Wendell is fine. Until proven otherwise, there’s something wrong with Dad.”

  “I want to go see him,” Wendell said.

  Lily almost told him no. She had grown so accustomed to fighting Jessie on every front, that it was her natural first reaction.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Wendell,” Eric said.

  Lily took a deep breath and stood up straight.

  “You know what, maybe he should,” Lily said.

  “Lily, hang on,” Eric said.

  “No, Eric. A second ago, you were advocating that maybe we should take Dad’s return as a blessing, right? What’s different now?”

  “I guess I was thinking that we would keep our distance to some extent and reserve judgement until we saw more, you know? Not that we would let Wendell go downstairs and go interact with him.”

  Lily ignored Eric and turned to her little brother.

  “Wendell, you’ve always been smart in ways that other people weren’t. Sometimes you hide inside yourself, but other times you see everything. I need this to be one of the times that you see everything, okay?”

&n
bsp; “Don’t talk to me like I’m a little kid,” Wendell said.

  “Just…” she started. “Okay, fine. But remember Dad the way he was. We’re going to go downstairs and you’re going to see if that’s really him.”

  Wendell studied her for a moment. A thought almost passed his lips, she could tell. For whatever reason, he kept it in.

  “Step out to the hall for a second?” Wendell asked.

  “Huh?”

  “I want to change into real clothes,” Wendell said. “In case I decide not to stay.”

  “Oh,” Lily said, blinking. She waved the others out through the door. Once they closed it, she felt naked out there in the hallway. The stairs were at the end of the hall and there was danger downstairs. Regardless of what her brain said, her gut knew it.

  WENDELL

  THE PANTS IN HIS dresser were all too small. Wendell put on a shirt and a sweatshirt and then crossed the hall in his underwear. They were all looking at him, but he didn’t care. He went in his brother’s room and went through Jessie’s stuff until he found a pair of worn out jeans that would fit once he rolled up the cuffs. Back in the hall, they waited.

  Wendell led the way.

  When he had first learned to deal with strangers, the hardest part had been figuring out which type he was dealing with. Some strangers wanted to hurt and some wanted to help. He had rarely met one that didn’t lean one way or the other. Sometimes the ones who wanted to hurt him acted just like they wanted to help. It almost never went the other way.

  Wendell decided that he would treat everyone in the house like a stranger until he figured out what was going on.

  He led the way downstairs with his sister right behind him.

  The living room was empty. Regardless of where he put his head down to sleep at night, he always imagined the living room of his house as he drifted off. His mother liked to sit on the couch with a glass of wine and the news on the television. In real life, his father had usually been elsewhere. In Wendell’s imagination, his dad was always in the high-backed chair near the lamp, reading the newspaper. Together, they were the keepers of the peace and the guardians of the house. They stood sentry in the living room so Wendell would be safe all night up in his room.