Imp

by Andrew Neiderman

  Something … something … he would find it; he knew he would, and that sense of optimism brought a smile to his face. It was one of the few times that happiness had emerged out of an idea. A warm feeling grew from the smile and lay over him like a soft blanket. He pulled the pleasure around him, curled his body tighter, and fell into a restful sleep.

  He dreamed about the hole and the dream was so vivid, that as soon as he awoke, he pursued the task again, this time knowing exactly what to do. There was a piece of half-inch pipe behind the water heater. He didn’t know what it was; he knew only that he could do the right work with it.

  He rushed back to the hole and shoved it as far in as he could. Then he leaned back and pushed forward, leaned back and pushed forward, doing it continually until the whole fieldstone broke loose. When he pressured that, it caused another stone to loosen and another. Carefully, he pulled the stones toward him. The lime mortar around them gave, but held other stones from collapsing.

  With every stone he removed, another fascinating piece of the world outside was revealed. The large soft blue behind the green and brown things had turned darker. He saw tiny silver speckles all over the blue background. Each time he removed a stone, he sat and stared at the new sights. What a wonder. His heart began beating fast and hard. He put his hand against his chest to quiet it, but it would not stop. It annoyed him, but he didn’t have time for it now. There was too much to see; too much left for him to do.

  He worked faster, tugging and chipping at the stones, until the hole was as large as him. When he realized that, he stopped; but he was too frightened to do anything else. A long time passed. The blue turned almost as dark as his basement world, but those little specks of light grew brighter. He was intrigued by them and wondered if he could touch them.

  Finally, his curiosity overcame his fear and he moved forward into the hole. The first thing that struck him was the scents—there were so many different and interesting ones. Right before him, the earth was soft. It felt different from the sand in his box and it had a more pleasant odor. He didn’t care for the taste, but he liked the cool feel of it. Then there were all those green things coming out of it. Some of them ripped easily. They tasted funny, but tolerable.

  He moved further out until his entire body was nearly through the hole. The darkness around him wasn’t prohibiting for him. His eyes were used to it and, in fact, he favored it. He curled up outside the hole, listening to, feeling, and smelling all that was around him. Without having to go more than a foot or so from the house, he had found enough to interest him for hours. He couldn’t taste and touch enough. And every few minutes, he had to look up at those silver specks and stare at them, until his neck ached.

  Suddenly, he heard the most frightening sound of his life and looked to his left. He couldn’t see the road, but two large flashlights were flying through the darkness, roaring down toward him. Instantly, he cried out and rushed back through the hole. He hurried over the floor to his box and curled up under the blanket as quickly as he could. There he remained, shaking and whimpering, expecting whatever it was to come after him through the hole.

  But nothing happened; nothing happened for the longest time and it was very quiet again. His heartbeat slowed and he felt himself gain confidence. He sat up, listened, watched the hole, and then slowly crawled back to it. He peered out timidly, waiting, but he heard nothing threatening, and all those scents and sights called back to him. He went through the hole again.

  This time he moved a few feet further. He found and explored a bush. He went a few feet further than that and then turned around. It was then that he saw the house, saw the lit windows, saw the immensity of it. The sight frightened him, but he held his ground. He listened hard. He could hear the small creature; he was sure of it. His mind began to work. This that he saw was what was always above him, what he climbed to hear. What did that mean?

  He moved a little further away, over the cool green blanket of soft earth, until he could see even more of the lit window. He heard the small creature’s voice again. It sounded so close. Then the most wonderful thing of all happened—she appeared in the window, standing there looking out at this wonderful place. Did she see him? What if she did? Would she tell the big creature?

  Instinctively, he knew that would be bad. The big creature wouldn’t want him out here. There were so many more places to hide. He could move faster than she could and she would never be able to catch him to put him in the hot bath. She mustn’t know; she mustn’t know what he had done to the wall. He would have to put the stones back when he went back in. He understood that, because he knew it was something he had to do to protect himself.

  The smaller, warmer creature moved away from the window. He longed to see her again, but she was gone. He waited and listened to the many strange sounds. Some frightened him; some intrigued him. He looked beyond the fields into the darkness where he could see the lit windows of another house. He wondered if there were other small, warm creatures in those windows, like there was here. It was something to think about; something maybe even to go to see. For now, though, he was afraid.

  He scurried back to the hole, took one more look at this wonderful new place, and disappeared within the basement. A moment later, the rocks began to fall into place. Although the mortar was gone, the rocks fit like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and he had a great sense of configuration. He enjoyed working the stones tightly and perfectly against each other, until there was barely any visible difference from the way they were before he had discovered the pinhole.

  When he was finished, he went back to his box and sat there with his blanket wrapped around him, thinking. He catalogued all the sounds and scents he had just experienced. He reviewed the structures—the trees silhouetted against the dark sky, the bushes around the house, the tall grass that covered the long fields, making them look like large, dark bodies of water.

  And then he thought about the window again and the small, warm creature captured in its light. Because it was lighter around her, she looked different. She looked even warmer. He was anxious to touch her again and feel her breath.

  There were so many things out there; so many more things to do. He couldn’t wait until he would do it again. Again, through instinct, he sensed that it would be safer to go out there when there was less light, when the blue was darker and those silver specks appeared. The big creature wouldn’t see him then and he would be in the biggest safe place of all.

  His happiness made him make a new sound. He didn’t know what it was, but he liked it and did it again. He did it until he grew tired of it. Now, when he looked around his basement world, he was bored. This was nothing compared to what he had just seen. In fact, he was intolerant of it and couldn’t wait until he had his next opportunity to take the rocks out and go through the hole.

  It took all the self-discipline he could muster to wait, but he had the clever patience of a cat on a hunt. He had often sat for hours watching a field mouse emerge from a hole. He studied the way it sniffed the air and listened for danger. The creature came out very slowly, taking a step and freezing its body, taking a step and sniffing. He didn’t move either, learning early on that when he made the slightest gesture, the rodent would scamper back into the safety of its hole. But, if he were quiet and still, the mouse would come forward, almost right up to him. Then he could pounce on it if he wanted.

  It was only a game, but it taught him things—things that would be of great benefit to him later on. He couldn’t verbalize it, but he understood the power of timing. He had the speed of a snake, the caution of a mouse, the sensitivity of a bat, and the sleekness of a cat.

  Because of his kinship with the animal world, he felt an affinity for the wildness outside. The darkness beyond the stones called to him with a voice he wouldn’t resist. All that was primeval in him lingered out there in the bushes and trees. He was anxious to join it and become one with the new night.

  Seven-year-old Billy O’Neil slid off his bed quietly and slowly. When hi
s feet touched the carpet, he turned and listened. Downstairs, the television program ran on with its canned laughter and abrupt and loud commercials. He had gotten so he didn’t hear it anymore when he went into his room to sleep. Even his mother’s and father’s and his big brother Bobby’s laughter didn’t disturb him. He wove those sounds in with the drone of the television.

  Because the set was on so loud, none of them heard Captain barking. He had just told his father about it today; how Captain barked and barked the night before, how he had gone to the window in his room and looked out back and saw Captain standing there barking out at something in the field. He told his father it must be something Captain was afraid of, because he didn’t go near it; he just barked at it. His father said Captain was too stupid to be afraid of anything. What about the porcupine last summer? Did you forget all those quills in his snoot? Billy thought that made sense, but if Captain wasn’t afraid of something out there, why did he just bark at it?

  “I don’t know,” his father finally said, impatient with the constant questioning. “I never wanted the mutt to start with. Your mother was the one who fell in love with him. Anyway, what’s the difference what he’s barking at? That dog would bark at his own shadow.” His father liked his own joke and went off laughing about it.

  But to Billy there was a difference and that difference was a mystery. He went to the window and looked out. The half-moon cast enough illumination over the field for him to make out familiar shapes—bushes, small trees, the old garbage can he used for slingshot practice, the half a treehouse he and Bobby were forever building, even the path that led to Mrs. Oaks’ property down the road. And there was Captain, standing at the edge of their cleared backyard, growling and barking, growling and barking.

  Billy opened the window screen and stuck his head out.

  “CAPTAIN,” he yelled, “CAPTAIN.”

  The four-year-old cross between a collie and a police dog turned and looked up at him, wagging its tail almost immediately.

  “WHAT IS IT, HUH? WHAT? A BEAR? A WOLF?”

  The dog looked at him a moment longer and then turned and began to growl again. Billy studied the field and squinted to get a clearer, closer view. Something was out there in the brush. He could see the wild vegetation moving gently and he could almost hear the branches separating. Something was definitely …

  His eyes widened and his mouth opened. He nearly leaned too far out of his window and had to tighten his grip on the sill. Then he pulled himself back and turned around in confusion, knowing instinctively that no one would believe him. They’ll just have to go out and see for themselves, he thought; they’ll just have to.

  He ran out of his room and down the stairs. No one looked away from the set, until he was in the room screaming.

  “I SAW IT! I SAW IT!”

  “What?” his father turned halfway from the set, drawn to the program, yet pulled by Billy’s outburst.

  “Calm down, Billy,” Cindy O’Neil said. She wore that habitual half smile that made it seem as though she took few things seriously in her life. It, plus her custard-smooth skin and dancing blue eyes, gave her a very youthful appearance. Dick O’Neil was often kidded about his marrying a child bride, even though only three years separated them. “Now, what is it?”

  “Just like in the movies,” Billy said in a dramatic, loud whisper. “Just like . . . E.T.”

  “Oh shit,” Bobby said.

  “Bobby! Now Billy, what are you talking about? We’re watching a show, one of your father’s favorites.”

  “I saw it. I saw it. Captain was barking again and . . .”

  “Oh, not that damn dog,” Dick said. He turned back to the television program and tried to ignore the interruption.

  “What about the dog?” Cindy asked.

  “He was barking, so I got out of bed and looked out my window.”

  “So?”

  “There it was.”

  Dick O’Neil turned to look at his wife and shake his head.

  “What, Billy? We still don’t understand.”

  “He must’ve had a dream,” Dick offered without looking back at them.

  “Lucky he didn’t piss in his bed,” Bobby said.

  “Bobby! Dick, will you speak to him.”

  Dick O’Neil, frustrated and annoyed, spun around on the couch. Bobby flinched, expecting his father to strike him. He knew his father had a hairpin temper that reflected only two degrees of anger: mad and very mad. Often he didn’t distinguish much between the seriousness of things, either. He could come crashing down on him or his little brother for the simplest of offenses.

  Although Bobby was six feet one and a high school senior, he was no match for his father, a two hundred and forty pound, six feet four inch construction worker. It still took Bobby two hands to lift what his father lifted with one. Bobby spent his summers working with him on jobs. From time to time he did some independent contracting and the two of them would work on weekends during the spring and the fall. Presently they were working weekends for Robert Miller, the newest neighbor on Wildwood Drive, building a deck on the rear of the house.

  “Do you have to contribute to this problem?”

  Bobby turned away quickly and pretended to be interested in the television program again.

  “Now Billy,” Cindy said, reaching forward and taking her small son’s hand into hers, “speak calmly, slowly, and tell me what you saw.”

  Billy looked up at Bobby’s hurt expression and his father’s red, angry face. The laughter on the television program suddenly made him feel sick.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Captain was barking again and I looked out the window.”

  “I told you,” his father said slowly, making his great effort to control himself obvious, “it can’t be anything. Maybe it’s another porcupine and that dog smartened up since last summer, that’s all.”

  “That’s probably it,” his mother said. “Is he still barking?”

  “No.”

  “So, it went away, right?” She waited. Billy looked down at the floor. He wanted to blurt it out, to say he knew they were wrong and what he saw was more exciting than their television program. He had seen the real thing! But, his mother’s tone of voice put an end to it. He felt himself settle into resignation. “Right?” she repeated, putting her hand under his chin to lift his face.

  “Right.”

  “Good. Now why don’t you try to go back to sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll take a walk out there with you and we’ll see if there’s anything there, OK?”

  “It won’t be there in the daytime,” Billy said. He felt confident that what he had seen was a thing of the night.

  “We’ll see.” She pulled him to her and gave him a kiss. “You want me to come up with you and see you into bed?”

  He shook his head. Bobby smirked at him and his father was completely involved in his show. Billy retreated slowly. Before he reached the stairs, he heard his mother ask a question about the television program.

  “How do I know?” his father replied. “I couldn’t hear half of it with all this damn nonsense. We oughta bring that animal up to the pound.”

  “We will not. That’s a terrible idea. You know what they do to them there.”

  “It’ll happen anyway. He’s about the dumbest dog I’ve seen.”

  Billy ran up the steps. He rushed into his room and looked out the window again. Captain wasn’t barking anymore, but he was sitting and staring out toward the field. Billy studied and studied the backyard, waiting for another sighting. It didn’t come and he grew tired.

  He crawled back into his bed and lay there a while with his eyes opened, thinking. It could be true, he thought; it could really be and only he knew it. Maybe he wouldn’t tell them again. The kids in E.T. didn’t tell. That’s it. He’d keep it a secret and tomorrow he would try to figure out a way to be there the next time Captain barked and it appeared.

  He went to sleep dreaming of fingers of light.

  THREE

  Since it w
as Tuesday, Faith decided to get off the school bus in Centerville and walk the rest of the way home. It was a perfect day to do it, because Mary wouldn’t be home for hours. She was on one of her charity missions, helping to distribute food to the poor and the helpless on the western end of the county, so she wouldn’t be home until just before supper. Faith was to make it, but she had plenty of time to do that.

  Although she didn’t want to admit it to herself, she was getting off so she could stop at Frank’s Auto Dump and see the car again. She was drawn to it by a mixture of love and hate. It held a fascination for her that she couldn’t ignore.

  Bobby O’Neil, pretending to trip her, stuck his foot out as she got up to walk by. He smiled up at her when she stepped over him.

  “Hey, where are you going?” he asked.

  “Town,” she said.

  “How long?”

  “Why?”

  “If my father’s home, maybe he’ll give me the truck and I’ll come down to pick you up. We can go for a ride,” he added, his smile widening. This was the first year they had any classes together and actually the first year she said more than two words to him. She knew the girls he went with—girls like Merle Becker and Susan Lane. They didn’t believe in relationships; they believed in “good times.” In many ways she envied their freedom. Conscience was a burden, and morality sometimes felt like walking with an extra weight on your back. But Mary had poisoned her against such girls and made her see that being friendly with them usually resulted in being like them.

  “They change you faster than you can change them. That’s why it’s better not to even associate with them. ‘Let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.’”

  Even so, she stood there considering Bobby’s invitation for a moment. He was a handsome boy. She had been admiring him for years. Now, when she saw him across the field sometimes, working shirtless, his upper body gleaming in the sun, the muscularity sharp and smooth, she felt herself stirred. The longing was there. How did Mary keep it down, keep even the hint of its appearance away?