FIFTY-TWO
Jason went to bed early that night. The emotional impact of what had gone on earlier had taken a major toll on him. Two people close to his life were now gone. We didn’t know the exact details of what had happened to Amber Nelson, but people don’t put up missing children posters unless, well…
Like I had said previously, Donald Miller was never really one of our friends but still he was the same age as we were and he was from the neighborhood, which made him one of us. I never thought that kids were supposed to die. Kids don’t even think about death, or fear it for that matter. That part should come later in life, when you’re an old man looking through the obituaries to see which of your friends have had their tickets punched recently.
As for me, I took a bath and turned in around nine. I lay awake in bed, for a while, staring up, watching patterns form in the cottage cheese-like acoustic texture on the ceiling. First a lion’s head slowly morphed into the shape of a tree. That one slowly changed to form a child, running. Then everything would slip and I could make out a dog wearing a scarf, then a knife, and then a house. An Oscar the Grouch head, grinning. A baby crying. A soda bottle. A wagon.
Sometime had passed and my eyes eventually grew heavy with sleep. Before I knew it I was in a very dark place. The darkest place my brain could conjure. I hadn’t had what I referred to as the Dark Dream the night before, but now, after all the day’s events, it seemed as if my mind had folded in on itself and let chaos reign.
In my dream I was walking, which was usually the case in those dreams, eyes open but blind in a black world. There was ground beneath me, though I don’t know if it was dirt, grass or rock. I couldn’t feel it but I walked none the less. There were no walls and I reached out only to grasp inky, black space. There was however sound and it was the worst part. And although I didn’t see them, I felt the presence of massive bubbles floating around me. When they popped it was with the sound of hatred and when they burst it was with the feeling of sadness and hopelessness.
They would scream at me and I would cringe and cry in my Dark Dream.
Pop. “BASTARD!”
Pop. “SICK!”
Pop. “DEAD!”
Frog voices.
I squeezed my eyes shut in the dream but it did no good. It was still the same blackness. I tried to cover my ears to mute the noise but to no avail, for I could never connect my hands to my head. I tried to outrun them but they are everywhere. In front of me, behind me, all around.
Pop. “BLOOD!”
Pop. “HELL!”
The sound of someone inhaling while shouting.
With each burst bubble and each shouted word that resulted, a mental picture of the word would flash like a lightening strike.
Pop. “STAB!” A bright red explosion accompanied by a scene of blades and blood and body parts.
Pop. “KILL!” A man, hanging the wrong way on a cross, his entrails leaking from his abdomen.
And I ran. Tried to escape the grizzly scenes my mind forced me to see. Farther and farther into the darkness, bubbles exploded around me, voices bellowed their filth and horror.
After what seemed like a very long time I actually began to leave the hate bubbles behind. I heard them still but from a distance, echoing as if in a canyon. I saw brief flashes of maroon light like someone taking pictures with a camera made in Hell.
Then it was gone, quiet again. For a while anyway.
Finally, after having walked what seemed like a great distance, the darkness began to recede. It was replaced by an eerie glowing gray light, almost what you’d find if you tuned an old television to channel three.
I could see myself now. I had been traveling down a dirt path and there was some sort of building or structure up in the distance and I knew this is where I was meant to go. If I turned around I could make out the blackness behind but I also saw the red flashes of light, also saw dark shadows moving about on the border of dark and gray.
When I reached my destination I found myself standing just outside the front door of a house. It was a small place, most likely three bedrooms and two bathrooms, normal, like any you might find around our city. Non-threatening. Just a nice home but in an open field of dead grass. I opened the door easily and instantly felt another presence inside. It was a presence of love and caring and direction and as I moved into the living room I found Frisbee sitting on his hind legs, waiting for me. Somehow I knew he had called me there. I bent down and grabbed him around the neck and hugged him.
With slow motion-like speech I said, “Hey, Fris. Hey, boy. What are you doing here?”
He stared at me, eyes blazing like there was a fire in his skull. He barked, once, slow and low.
Woof.
At first it just confused me because it seemed like I almost understood that he was trying to convey some sort of message, that there was some purpose for my being there that he needed to explain.
Woof.
Again it fell just short of my comprehension. It was as if I needed to concentrate and look deep into his burning eyes to grasp the meaning. Then…
Woof.
…I was back in my room, in my bed, staring up at the ceiling once again. Light bled through the shades from the lamppost outside and the room had a soft blue-gray glow to it.
“Woof.”
I heard it again. This time I was awake, but still I heard Frisbee. I was sure of it. It was low and quiet but it was there. It came one last time and a voice came with it.
“Woof.”
“Ricky, he’s outside, waiting for you.”
I sat straight up, my heart hammering. I knew I was no longer dreaming but someone had called out to me. Scanning my room, I found him in the corner by the door, a dark shadow among other shadows, standing still. For a brief second I thought he was the figure with the dreadlocks that had crawled up my bed. I knew that figure wasn’t real, that I had had a kind of awake dream when I saw it but I wasn’t entirely sure that the figure in the corner now was real either until he moved into a beam of light from the window. Lightening exploded outside-further illuminating him-and a distant rumble followed.
“Donald?” I said in a whisper.
He moved closer until he was at the edge of my bed standing next to me. It was Donald and he looked glorious. He looked like he always had except he no longer wore his leg braces or looked like the tiny, old man I had seen at the hospital the day before. Softly, he began to glow, as if thousands of golden ladybugs were lighting him from within.
And then he spoke to me again.
“Ricky, he’s waiting for you. Frisbee’s waiting for you outside. You need to go to him.”
My heart began to settle and I was no longer scared but I was confused. I could tell this was no dream but still none of it made sense. How could a boy that had died the day before be standing next to my bed now? How did he even know about Frisbee? And why would Frisbee be outside, in the middle of the night, waiting for me?
“What do you mean, Donald? Why is Frisbee outside?” I asked in a whisper.
“There isn’t much time. You must go now. Please, I will take you to him, but we must hurry.”
Getting up out of bed I stood before him. We were now the same height and about the same weight. He no longer looked like he had at the hospital. He looked full and new.
I held out my hand thinking that he might take it and lead me to Frisbee, but he only smiled and turned and walked through my closed bedroom door.
I, on the other hand, had to open it, slowly, so I wouldn’t make a sound and found him on the other side, walking down the hallway. Listening for any tell tale signs of my parents stirring, I followed him to the front door.
“You must open it, but you must be very quiet,” he told me. “What you are about to see is very important.”
“What are you talking about?” I whispered. “What am I doing?”
“I wish I could tell you everything, but I can’t. I don’t even know much myself. My knowledge of this situation is limited. I was brought to yo
u by another and told to take you to Frisbee.”
“Who?” I whispered in the dark. “Who brought you here? I didn’t see anyone with you.”
Donald seemed to grow impatient, not angry but anxious. The things that made him glow, the things that looked like golden ladybugs, began to buzz and churn, silently.
He said, “There are certain ways that things are done. When someone needs help or needs a push to help another, those ways must be done subtly and with as little interference from us as possible. One led me here and in turn I am to lead you to Frisbee. Frisbee will show you something that you need to make a very difficult decision about. What you decide and how you go about it is entirely up to you. But now you must go out, he’s waiting for you.”
I had no idea what any of it meant. I was having a hard enough time comprehending the fact that a dead boy was at my door. But, somehow, I knew to trust him. I knew that what he spoke was the truth and I knew I must follow him, not fear him.
Opening the front door, I was as quiet as I could be. My father must have oiled the hinges recently because they made no sound. I closed the door behind me but left it ajar just a crack so I wouldn’t make noise when I had to re-enter.
Standing on the doorstep I took in the night. Dark, ominous clouds hung in the sky, crackling with heat lightening as if Heaven were having a party. Lampposts burned at every fourth house on the block and except for the recesses between each house, the street was well lit.
Donald turned and waved me on. Just as I stepped down from the walk and my bare foot came into contact with the warm lawn a flash burst overhead followed a few seconds later by its thunderous progeny. In the momentary illumination I could see that Frisbee was waiting at the edge of the yard by the row of bushes that ran across the top of our hill. Donald stood statue still and pointed to him as if commanding me to go.
There was a three foot gap from the fence line of our backyard to the row of bushes and I went there and knelt next to Frisbee, hugged him around his neck.
“Hey, Fris. Hey, boy. What are you doing here?” I said, mimicking what I had done in my dream.
He was stock still and made no sound. Through the gap in the bushes he stared toward Steve’s house, stared at the darkness on the side by his gate.
I looked from him to where his gaze was cast and saw nothing but shadow.
“What is it?” I asked him. “Is something there?”
Still he looked on, not blinking, not budging and if not for his warmth I’d have thought he’d been stuffed. I strained my eyes to see what it was that held his attention so adamantly but still saw nothing, until the next flash of lightening.
On the side of Steve’s house, made visible for only a second or two was a dark figure wearing a hooded sweatshirt, closing the gate.
My heart knocked against my sternum. Not knowing if I had actually seen a person there, I turned to Frisbee for confirmation. Like before, he remained unmoving, staring.
Slowly I got my voice. “Who was that, Fris?” Was that Jacob?”
We were out of sight from whomever it was lurking across the street. I couldn’t see the figure any longer and I was certain that we couldn’t be seen from our position, but we kept quiet and as still as stones just in case.
When I heard Donald’s voice again it startled me. I thought for a moment that we would be discovered but a reassuring feeling swept over me, a feeling of knowing that only I could hear him.
“That is the one the authorities have named the Sesame Street Killer.”
Hearing that made my blood freeze and my ears ring and I instantly knew it to be the truth. I didn’t know how I knew and I didn’t know how Donald knew either. It just was.
I whispered, “How do you know?”
His reply was, “I know because Frisbee knows. It’s why he’s here.”
What the hell was he saying? We had just found that dog in a field, days before. Dogs didn’t know things. They just chased balls and bit the mailman. But immediately that stereotype was pushed from my mind and I knew it wasn’t us that found him, it was he who had found us.
I whispered frantically to Donald, “I can go inside and call the police. Or I can wake my parents up and have them call them.”
“No,” Donald answered. “That is not an option. They will not arrive in time.”
Frisbee and I continued to stare toward Steve’s house. We saw no more movement form his side yard, at least I didn’t.
“What am I supposed to do then?” I begged. “Why am I out here? I’m scared.”
“You were brought here to Frisbee so he could show you just how close this threat has come and that it has gone on too long. This evil needs to stop and only you, with the help of your friends, can do that. The authorities will never catch that monster by themselves. And, Ricky, if you choose to do nothing, someone close to you, someone that you love, will die.”
My heart sank with the weight of this revelation. I still couldn’t wrap my head around all that was happening. But if the killer was here, now, in our neighborhood, scoping houses, trolling for girls, some action needed to be taken.
“What do I do, Donald? How do I help?”
He replied, “That is something you must decide for yourself. That monster will be back some time tomorrow night. I can’t say when because the killer does not know when, yet. If you choose to do nothing it will only lead to more violence and more killing.”
It all sounded crazy. I was eight years old and I was being told by the ghost of a dead neighbor that I needed to stop a serial killer. It made no sense and seemed too surreal.
“Now,” Donald said and turned away, “I must go.”
“Go where?” I asked.
He stopped and looked back at me.
“You know.”
And I was filled with great comfort. A sense of elation overcame me because; I did know.
“Yeah, I guess I do.” I paused a second before asking, “Hey, Donald, what’s it like?”
Staring at me with the saddest eyes I had ever seen, draining me of that euphoric feeling, making me want to cry, he said, “I can’t say.”
And somehow it made perfect sense to me. I needed to know one thing before he left though.
“Why did you come? I mean why was it you that was sent to me?”
He smiled now and his eyes cleared, the ladybugs went creamy white. “I asked to come. You’re special to me.”
“What do you mean? How am I special?”
“Because,” he explained, “you pushed me. That day back in kindergarten, on the swings, was the last, fun day of my life. You were the only one who would talk to me, the only one who would play with me. Thank you, Ricky, for giving me your time. You pushed me.”
There was another flash of lightening that blinded me. I never heard the accompanying thunder but the next thing I was aware of was the sunlight streaming in through the shades in my room. I blinked; feeling refreshed, got out form underneath my covers and thought of what had happened. It seemed as though I had just been with Donald and Frisbee but when I looked at the clock it read ten minutes past seven. I looked to Jason, lying in his bed, still sleeping and hoped that he had been at piece while he dreamt. I looked down to the foot of my bed and saw grass and leaves on my sheets.
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