by Platt, Sean
“I understand that, but you need to wake up now. Do you know what happened to Harley?”
“What happened to Harley?” Anderson mumbled into his pillow.
“You really have no idea?”
The curiosity must have been too much. He raised his face from the pillow. “No, I don’t have any idea. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Harley’s dead. Someone killed our dog.”
“The fuck you talking about?”
Anderson was out of bed and on his way to the door in an instant.
She followed him outside to where Junior was still sitting comatose.
“Wake up!” He kneeled down, then snapped in front of Junior’s face. When he got no response, Anderson slapped him, firm but not especially hard.
Junior blinked, his reality slowly returning.
“What happened?” Anderson asked.
Junior looked up at his father, confused.
He got more specific. “What happened to your dog?”
Junior looked down at the dog’s corpse in front of the dog house, and it was as if he was seeing Harley for the first time.
He burst into deafening, uncontrollable tears.
Anderson was back on his feet, ignoring his sobbing son as he surveyed the scene. “Looks like that was the weapon of choice.” He pointed to a metal pole that Liz didn’t recognize. “I’m going to find who did this and shove that thing down their throat.”
Despite his bravado, Liz wondered if he was really thinking the same thing as she was.
Could Junior have killed the dog?
If not, could it have been Anderson? Was he only pretending to be outraged right now?
She’d seen her husband’s most monstrous side, but this seemed like too much for even him. Liz could never marry a man who would kill a dog.
Though she knew for sure that she could marry a man who would kick one.
Or hit you whenever he feels like it.
Or call your son an extraterrestrial.
This had to be a random crime.
And that’s what Liz kept telling herself.
Nine
October 16, 2011 …
Liz had been alone for hours.
She was still crawling out of her skin with worry, but no longer willing to lie around doing nothing.
Junior — Andy! — had spent so much time afraid of his own shadow that she could scarcely believe he was out there on his own right now. The first hour felt especially excruciating since Liz expected the door to swing open and her son to return at any moment. He would probably be crying, confessing his fear, and making Mommy promise that she’d never ever leave his side, no matter what.
The second hour felt even slower as her softer worries darkened into something more horrific. Strobing images of the worst things that could have happened, starting with a simple fall that sent Junior spilling down an embankment into the river where he might drown, almost for sure. Or maybe he fell and wound up shooting himself in the head with the rifle. She wasn’t sure if that was even possible, but she couldn’t rule it out. She never should’ve let him take the gun.
The short films in her mind kept getting increasingly awful until Liz was finally seeing her son defiled and dismembered. She found herself whimpering on the couch, imagining his empty eye sockets crawling with maggots, just like in the nightmare she woke to a couple of mornings ago when all of this started.
Liz struggled to wrangle her out-of-control imagination to something resembling normality.
Like mother, like son.
Pondering Junior’s imagination made her consider how insistent he’d been about protecting his sketchbook. Not just barring his current work from her eyes, he’d made sure to hide it before leaving. Liz wondered what it was he didn’t want her to see, then decided she needed to see whatever it was more than she needed anything else in the world right now.
She thought back to all of those terrifying drawings Mr. Richter had shown her and Anderson in his office two years ago. The ones she had spent several months ruminating over before finally telling herself that they weren’t a big deal; Junior was just a child with an overactive imagination working to figure out the world using the darkest crayons in his box. With tremendous effort, she forgot the details, but now they kept bubbling up to the surface as she lay with her knee screaming on the couch.
Waxy reminders flashed through her mind.
A black rainbow, their abandoned home, and an unforgiving tornado. Skyscrapers and bodies and monsters made of liquid shadow. Most horrifying, Liz suddenly remembered Junior’s drawing of a cabin in the woods and that morbid trio of headstones like crooked teeth in front of it.
Was that supposed to be this cabin?
No. That was impossible.
Her son couldn’t see the future.
And if he could, then what about that last picture of the planet on fire?
She needed to find his sketchbook.
But it wasn’t on the coffee table, or anywhere in the living room. That meant she would need to limp around the cabin until she figured out where he’d hid it.
She had rested enough that the first fifteen minutes or so of her search weren’t too terrible. But things turned excruciating soon enough.
The sketchbook wasn’t in Junior’s room, or anywhere accessible that she could see. And her nerves were corroding the longer she looked. Not only was the pain in her knee increasingly worrying, but Liz also kept imagining Junior coming home and catching her in the act.
He was so particular when it came to his privacy, especially lately.
Junior had been furious the last time he’d caught her with one of his notebooks, shortly after Mr. Richter called her and Anderson into his office. Despite the principal’s concern about the drawings, Anderson kept wanting to dismiss them.
“Kids like to draw shit they see on TV, Liz.”
She’d heard that exact refrain an obnoxious number of times, never mind that Junior didn’t see that type of TV, read those sorts of books, or have even one friend to negatively influence his state of mind or darken his worldview in any way.
Liz had looked for another one of his notebooks in the vain hope that she might get Anderson to listen. It wasn’t especially well-hidden, not once she started searching. She found the notebook underneath the bottom towel in a tall stack inside his bathroom closet.
Half the pages were still empty. The other half were filled with nightmares.
Liz showed it to Anderson that night, and of course, she got the same old response.
“You’re seriously fretting about that? I can make a list of shit you should worry about with that kid, and I promise his drawings won’t be on it. Boys will be boys, Liz. Way I see it, at least when it comes to his doodles, E.T. might have some talent.”
Liz tried to press and remind him yet again not to call their son an alien, but he wasn’t in the mood to listen.
“You want to hear about some of the shit I was hiding at his age?” Anderson laughed or scoffed or did something to deride her. “Just put it back and be glad the little extraterrestrial is doing something normal for once.”
Liz didn’t know what was normal about their son drawing wolfmen eating little boys, but she ignored her best instincts and returned Junior’s notebook to its hiding place. He caught her. It was the first time he’d ever been mad at her. Furious, then crying about how she had looked at his personal stuff and invaded his space.
She apologized and promised never to do it again.
But two weeks later, curiosity got the best of her. She went back to his bathroom for another look and was surprised to find herself grateful when she found it gone. She convinced herself that he’d stopped drawing such things, and that made it easier to put out of her mind. While the occasional thought still crept into her subconscious, Liz had mostly managed to forget all those hideous images.
Until now, when they were all she could think about.
Maybe he had taken it with him. The cabin had
eight rooms total, and the place was far from lived-in. Unlike at home, there weren’t many places to hide. But Liz remembered Junior’s hiding place under the towels, limped to his bedroom closet, and reached up high to find his sketchbook hiding at the bottom of a high pile of neatly folded blankets.
She opened it, feeling unreasonably frightened.
The first page should have appalled her, but instead, it made her feel safe.
All boys probably drew pictures of girls. Doing so was normal — at least a lot more so than drawing wolfmen or planets on fire.
Two years ago, Liz thought his sketches strongly hinted at potential talent. Now she was surprised by how they looked almost … professional. The first few pages were innocent enough, filled with impressive pencils of nude women.
But then the pictures got more detailed. Darker and increasingly graphic. The nude girls went from crossing to spreading their legs, from running hands through their hair to thrusting them inside themselves.
Liz wanted to vomit.
Instead, she turned the page.
The girls were gone, and in their place was another page full of numbers like the one she had seen two years ago, with that blitzkrieg of ones and fives and zeros.
But this time, Liz looked down at those numbers with an icy chill.
Maybe it was only coincidence, but all of this craziness started a couple of days ago on 10.15 — a day on the calendar that had only ones and fives and zeros.
Liz turned the page again and realized what she was seeing.
The same dozen images that had earned her and Anderson a visit to Mr. Richter’s office were here now, but with more clarity and detail than before. The tornado tearing a crowd to tatters; the man with wolf’s snout and long black teeth; all those piles of bodies.
Then a page with the names Will, Luca, Mary, Paola, Boricio.
Did he mean Mary and Paola from up the street?
Luca was circled in red many, many times, like the solution to some problem that only her son was trying to figure out.
Who are these people?
Liz wanted to hurl the sketchbook across the room. Instead, she kept turning pages, past the new versions of old nightmares given life with a pencil, over to a fresh drawing that caused her to cry out and drop the sketchbook.
Liz picked it up, her mouth dry and her skin on fire.
She looked again to make sure she wasn’t crazy.
But sure enough, Liz was still looking at a drawing of Anderson drowning while their son stood in the boat, holding an oar, the tease of a smile on his face.
The next page got worse. Junior cutting his father’s body into pieces and stacking them neatly in the shed.
The final drawing showed an image of something dark and scary, standing behind what had to be her.
She dropped the sketchbook again, but this time Liz left it lying on the ground.
She stared down in horror, thinking that the offending book might singe her skin if she attempted to bend over and retrieve it.
Liz wasn’t sure how long she stayed frozen, but she was shaken by the sound of someone, or something, moving outside. Leaves crunching and getting louder and louder.
She bent down, grabbed the sketchbook, shoved it back beneath the bottom towel, then quickly limped out of Junior’s bedroom and—
Liz yelped as she crashed forward, trying to move faster than her body could manage with her injury. She fell to the ground, her ligament screaming in an explosion that felt like molten lava swelling across her knee.
The pain was unbearable.
But still, she made herself stand and was back on the couch by the time Junior opened the door and entered the cabin with his humanity still apparently missing. She grabbed a magazine off the coffee table. Newsweek. No expression in his eyes or the set of his mouth, and what appeared to be an alarming indifference in his posture.
Junior closed the door, then took off his jacket and hung it on a hook.
As he did, fate, or mercy, or some sort of providence finally smiled on Liz.
From the couch, she could see something small and silver spill out of his jacket pocket and onto the tiny area rug by the door. A key for the shed door, almost for sure. He turned, grabbed it. She kept her eyes on the magazine, pretending not to notice him.
He turned to see if she was looking, then quickly tossed the key up. It landed on the high mantle over the fireplace.
Why is he putting the key there?
He finally spoke, his voice like Anderson’s, but painfully matter-of-fact. “The cabin is gone.”
“What? I thought you knew where it was,” she said, finally looking up from the magazine.
“I did, and now it’s gone.”
“It can’t just be gone,” Liz insisted.
“I went to where it was. Now it’s gone. There are trees instead.”
“Are they talking?” she asked, not even sure if she was making fun of him.
Junior looked at Liz like she was stupid. “Of course not.”
“Why aren’t they talking?”
“The trees can’t talk when they’re naked.”
“What do you mean … when they’re naked?”
“The trees are naked and stacked.”
“What does that mean? Like logs?”
“The other cabins are gone, too.”
“How do you know?” Liz was dying to believe in anything beyond the emptiness in his eyes or the vacancy on his face. “Maybe you were lost.”
He shook his head. “I walked around. The other cabins are gone too. The land where they were is all cleared.”
“But, you might have been in the wrong place … right?”
Emotion finally returned to his face, and again Junior looked at Liz like she was stupid, this time with his father’s contempt. “I walked to the store. Nobody was inside. The door was wide open.”
“Maybe they left when the storm came and—”
“There was a car parked outside. The keys were inside the car, but the car wasn’t working. Its door was wide open, too.” Junior’s voice had deepened during his time in the woods.
“How long did you stay at the store? Maybe the driver was coming right back? Maybe he was with the shopkeeper … and the two of them went to check on something together?”
Junior shook his head. “Everybody is gone.”
“Where, Andy? Where has everybody gone?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged, and again Junior both looked and sounded like a lost little boy. “The trees won’t say. And they told me I should stop asking them.”
“Why?”
“Because it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Why?” she asked.
Instead of answering, he went up the stairs without another word.
Ten
Three months ago …
“Please, Mommy! Please, Mommy! Please, Mommy!”
Liz had squeezed his hands. “I already promised Junior. I—”
“Promise again! Promise you won’t tell him. Promise that Dad won’t ever know what happened.”
“I promise your father won’t know what happened.” Liz had offered him a reassuring smile, and might never have mentioned the incident to Anderson at all, keeping it quiet just like she did with most of their son’s disturbances these days.
But then his eyes went wild and dark as he growled. “Stupid idiot kid peeing his sheets like a toddler! We oughta smother him in his sleep. Drown him in the river!”
“Junior!”
Liz was taken aback. He had been going to darker places, but she had never seen anything like that from him before. Or from anyone. Even Anderson, at his worst, had never — couldn’t have ever — said anything like that.
He was staring up at her, finally (and rather suddenly) calm.
“Why would you say something like that?”
“Like what, Mommy?” Junior smiled.
“Like … never mind.” She smiled back. “I’ll take care of the sheets, okay? And Daddy doesn’t have
to know. It’s been a long time since this has happened, so there’s no reason—”
“The last time was when I was seven. April 11. You didn’t make me eat my brussels sprouts that day.”
“You have an excellent memory.”
“Memories last forever.”
Liz laughed. “You’ll be surprised by all the things you forget.”
Junior shook his head. “I never forget anything.”
“Everyone forgets things.”
“Only if they don’t know where to put them.”
There was something so unsettling about the entire exchange, but especially Junior’s growling in that aggressive voice with such violent words, Liz couldn’t in good conscience keep it to herself, at least not that part of it. She could tell Anderson about the part that worried her most without betraying his confidence.
She waited all day for what felt like the appropriate time to engage Anderson. After dinner, and enough drinking to lubricate his mood but not yet enough to ugly it.
Yet, Liz felt the anemia of her argument as it fell out of her mouth.
At first, she tried telling the story without mentioning that Junior had wet the bed. But Liz lost her way immediately, saying he woke from a nightmare, which only made his tantrum sound worse than it was. She couldn’t really tell Anderson about his demonic rant without including the first line.
Stupid idiot kid peeing his sheets like a toddler! We oughta smother him in his sleep. Drown him in the river!
The miniature soliloquy wouldn’t stop looping. Giving Anderson only the last two lines turned Junior’s words into the verbal equivalent of his drawings, thereby dimming the issue’s importance in his father’s already-dismissive eyes.
Liz finally relented, honoring her allegiance to finding a solution over her promise to Junior.
“He wet the fucking bed?” Anderson looked like he was about to explode.
“This is exactly why he didn’t want you to know.”
“You mean why he begged his mommy not to tell me. Goddammit, Liz! We’ve been dealing with this shit forever, and you’re still pulling the same old crap.”