Imaginary Friend

by Stephen Chbosky

  “What is this?” Christopher asked.

  “My last hiding place,” the nice man said.

  The nice man got on his knees and wiped away the dirt, revealing a trapdoor. He opened it, and Christopher saw a long staircase leading to a room like a bomb shelter.

  “She hasn’t found this one yet,” the nice man whispered. “I was saving it for an emergency. We have to hide you until daylight.”

  Christopher climbed inside. The nice man quietly closed the refrigerator door behind them. Christopher followed the nice man down the long stairs. When they reached the floor, the nice man folded the staircase like an attic door. The springs groaned as the steps locked together, leaving them hidden underground. The nice man lit a kerosene lamp. Then, he opened a portable cooler. There were bottles of water, Coca-Cola, fruit, cheese, and candy.

  “Where did you get all that?” Christopher asked.

  “People on a diet. Their nightmares are all about food. They don’t mind when you take it. Trust me. You’re doing them a favor,” the nice man said.

  Christopher filled his arms like a greedy shopping cart.

  “Not the candy,” the nice man cautioned. “We are only staying here until daylight. This is your last time eating for a while. We have to get you out of here before midnight. You’ll need your strength.”

  Christopher begrudgingly traded a Snickers for applesauce and sat down on the floor. He looked around at the nice man’s shelter. It was simple and bare. A cot. A locker. Some clothes. A clock on the wall. But the clock didn’t measure hours and minutes.

  It measured years.

  Christopher looked at the number: 2,020. The number of months: 24,240. The number of days: 737,804 days of this terror. Of this torture. He looked at the nice man’s scars. On his feet. On his hands. The crooked way he walked from his bones broken so many times over so many centuries.

  “How old were you when she took you?” Christopher asked.

  The nice man looked at him, surprised by the question.

  “She didn’t take me. I volunteered. Now eat.”

  The nice man opened a bottle of water and drank. Then, he screwed on the cap and swallowed, the water cutting through his battered body like a cold river.

  “What happens at midnight?” Christopher asked.

  The nice man said nothing. He simply put a finger in front of his mouth and mimed the word “Shhhhhh.” He pointed above them. Christopher stopped and listened to the voices searching for him up above in the woods.

  “Chrisssstopher! Chrissstopher! Where are you?!”

  The nice man stood up. Tense and ready.

  “I can’t smell him anymore. Can you hear him?” the voices called out to each other.

  Christopher watched the nice man, perched near the ladder, ready to strike if they came down. Everything in his posture made Christopher feel safe. The nice man was ready to defend Christopher to the death if that’s what the night brought. Christopher had seen his mother like this before. He didn’t know men could feel that way about children.

  Finally, the voices moved on, and there was silence. Christopher was about to speak when the nice man held up one finger. Then, he picked up a piece of paper and scribbled quickly in number 2 pencil.

  They are still up there. It’s a test.

  Christopher took the pencil and scribbled. He handed the note back to the nice man.

  What happens at midnight?

  Christopher studied the nice man’s face. Grave and haunted. The nice man shook his head with a silent “no” and wrote back.

  I don’t need you scared. I need you strong.

  The nice man kept writing, but all Christopher could feel were his thoughts playing hide-and-seek between the words.

  The nice man is…

  The nice man is…afraid to tell me the truth.

  The nice man knows…it will terrify me.

  The temperature in the shelter dropped a couple of degrees. Christopher grabbed the pad out of the nice man’s hands and wrote on the paper.

  If you don’t tell me, I’ll just read your mind.

  The nice man sighed, then took the piece of paper back. He wrote in big letters, never taking his eyes from Christopher’s. He finished writing, and Christopher read the message upside down.

  Give me your hand.

  Christopher searched the nice man’s eyes. They betrayed nothing. Christopher’s stomach turned. He suddenly wasn’t very hungry. Not even for the candy. So, he picked up the pencil, and they passed notes back and forth like schoolkids.

  What will that do?

  If you want to read my mind, I’ll open it to you.

  Christopher looked down as the nice man opened his hands like a book. Christopher studied the skin on his palms. Cut and scarred. Washed in the water countless times. He felt a weight on his chest. The answers to all the riddles. Four ways in. Three ways out. It was all etched on that hand like a palm reading. Christopher wrote one more time.

  What happens at midnight?

  The nice man took a deep breath and wrote a single word.

  Everything.

  Christopher grabbed the nice man’s hand.

  Chapter 73

  hi. christopher. just breathe. we have to do this fast or your mind will cook. these are things i’ve seen over millennia. you are not supposed to know them this quickly. i’m sorry, but it can’t be helped. breathe. or you’ll die. breathe!

  The nice man’s words itched their way up Christopher’s arm, spreading through his body like cracks in the windshield. He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. But it was more than the wind. It was everything. His lungs frozen with fear. Or was that knowledge? Slowly, the breath returned to his chest. He looked up at the nice man’s face, reassuring and friendly.

  that’s it, christopher. you’re seeing it now. just keep breathing. no matter what you see, keep breathing.

  Christopher blinked and looked around. Somehow, he was in two places at once. His left eye was still in the bunker with the nice man. His right eye was seeing what the nice man spoke. Not as words. But as pictures. Home movies and memories stuck together like peanut butter and jelly. It felt as if it were all happening in front of him. This was the world as the nice man had seen it. And it was terrifying.

  breathe, christopher. it’s okay. it can’t hurt you. breathe.

  Christopher saw the hissing lady torture the people on the imaginary side. The blood on the street. It was the world’s blood.

  this is what it looked like, christopher. just before the last time it happened. you see what she is doing. the ruin and the madness. look at the street. see the blood. that is what it was. and that is what it was going to be for everyone until something miraculous happened.

  he was born.

  Christopher saw a little boy in a bassinet. This was David Olson. Not how his mother or father or even Ambrose knew him. This was how the nice man saw him. How the nice man loved him.

  things had been dark in here for decades. she was finding little cracks in the glass between the real and imaginary sides. finding ways to creep into the town through her whispers. and their dreams. i thought it was all over, but then, I saw something. a bright light. it was david. i knew it the day he was born. there was something different about him. he was talking when most kids were crawling. he was drawing pictures when most kids could barely hold a crayon. he struggled with reading because the letters would not sit still for such an active mind. he thought he was stupid until he realized he might be smarter than everyone. i watched him grow up. i watched his classmates brutalize him for being special. i had never seen a lonelier boy in all my time. but he was powerful. and SHE knew it. SHE wanted him. i tried to keep him safe for as long as i could, but i was no match for her. she lured him into the woods just like she did to you.

  The nice man heard a noise above and stopped. For a moment, the circuit was cut, and Christopher could only see the bunker. The nice man looked up and waited for another footstep. But it was just the wind. Then
, he took Christopher’s hands again and gave him his mind.

  i tried to help him at first. i showed him how the hissing lady could take on different forms. i taught david how to stay on the street. i told him how he could use his tree house to spy on her during the day just like i showed you. but she was smarter than me. she knew what i was doing. she was just waiting for the right moment to strike.

  Christopher’s perception split in two. In one eye, he saw a darkness fall over the nice man’s eyes. In the other eye, he saw the reason.

  i was there that final night. she had captured me, but i managed to escape. just not in time. i tried to save him. david thought he was awake, but he was sleepwalking through a path that she had cleared for him. i saw the hissing lady walk over to the olsons’ neighbor. the family had a senile grandfather. the hissing lady preys on the old. the old man didn’t know where he was. so, he certainly didn’t know why he was putting on gloves and walking to the attic to grab an old baby carriage. he didn’t know why he recorded the sound of his granddaughter crying into an old tape recorder. he didn’t know why he brought it to his neighbor’s porch and pressed play for ambrose and his girlfriend to find. the hissing lady promised the old man that he would regain his memory. the next morning, he was dead.

  Christopher could see the old man dead in a coffin. His family weeping over the open casket. He began to feel their tears. He had to push them away in his mind to stay with the nice man.

  “What happened to David?” Christopher asked through his fingers.

  at first, he didn’t understand. he had escaped from the imaginary world through his tree house before. day and night. but this time, the tree house door was locked. he didn’t understand that he was dying. he couldn’t get out. so, he tried to rebuild the tree house door from the imaginary side. but it doesn’t work that way. he would follow ambrose around, begging him to go to the tree house on the real side. ‘just open the door, ambrose!’ he would scream. but the hissing lady would just whisper in ambrose’s ear and lead him in the wrong direction. it was all a game to her.

  Christopher felt it all play out in front of him. David’s anguish. Ambrose’s grief. For a moment, he pictured himself in the same situation. He saw himself following his mother around. Begging her to open the tree house from the real side. Seeing her weep night after night with him unable to touch her. He could almost feel his mother’s grief. It was unbearable.

  i tried to give him things to make it easier. food. water. i showed him the stream to bathe in. i told him about safe places to go at night. places like this. if someone is dieting, their nightmare is a piece of cake. but to a little boy, a piece of cake is 5 minutes away from this horrible place. so, i showed him how to enjoy himself a little. i showed him how to survive. especially at night. but eventually, she caught me. she tortured me for years for helping him. but that’s nothing compared to what she did to david.

  “What did she do?” Christopher asked.

  she broke him like a horse. then made him her pet.

  Through both eyes, Christopher saw tears fall down the nice man’s face. He felt the decades of torment. The guilt and the grief rushed through him in a single moment. His brain didn’t know if it could take any more. Until suddenly the clouds parted, and the darkness found little cracks to let the light in. The nice man’s hands warmed up.

  i thought that was going to be the end of the story. but then you came along.

  In his left eye, Christopher saw the slightest trace of hope on the nice man’s face. In his right eye, he saw the moment his mother drove them into town in their old land shark. His mother wore that old bandanna. Christopher was there in the passenger side. But he was as bright as fireworks. He looked like magic.

  when you showed up, it was like someone turned on a light switch. it had been so long since david, it took a while for my eyes to adjust to you. but once i blinked, there you were. as bright as the sun. your light took away her shadows. you were so powerful, she was afraid of you.

  “Afraid of me? I’m just a kid. I’m not powerful. I’m not strong.”

  you’re not powerful because you’re strong, christopher. you’re powerful because you’re good.

  Christopher saw his own light spread through the imaginary world. He saw the nice man squint from the glow of it. Then, smile. His eyes as blue as the sky.

  i love all people, christopher, but I have no illusions about them. in here, we see their real thoughts. their secret wishes. their dreams. people can be loving. but people can also be selfish. they can be cruel. some are as dangerous as others are good. but no one is better than you. she can’t touch your goodness. good terrifies her. she can’t control it. can’t predict it. so, she WANTED it. she put the mailbox people everywhere to keep us from helping you. i could only speak to you through hidden messages. but david…she didn’t trust him to keep quiet…so david got the worst of it.

  “How?” Christopher asked.

  she cut out his tongue.

  Christopher thought of the serpent tongue she had given David. He thought of all the messages David had to hide from her. The thought made him shudder.

  and if we don’t get you out of here, the same thing will happen to you.

  Christopher’s eyes began to fill with tears. He didn’t know who the tears belonged to anymore. David. Himself. The nice man. Or all three.

  christopher, we don’t have much time, so listen very carefully. there are four ways into the imaginary world. you already know two of them. the tree house, which you control, and nightmares, which she controls. there are two more that no one controls, so she only uses them as a last resort. coma. and death.

  Christopher could see all the nice man’s words laid out in front of him. He saw himself walking into the tree house. Having the nightmare in school. Refusing to take the pill and being hit by the car on the highway and thrown into a coma like a bird hitting a glass window. When he felt his own death, he almost let go of the nice man’s hand. The air left his lungs and didn’t return. Like a corpse crawling through the dirt. Just get out. Get to the light.

  there are three ways out of the imaginary world. the first way is the tree house, which she locked. the second way is waking up, which is much easier from a nightmare than from a coma. and then, there is the third.

  The nice man was quiet for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. Christopher could feel him weigh each word carefully to make sure that he didn’t scare him too badly.

  “What is the third way out?” Christopher finally whispered.

  we have to kill the hissing lady.

  Christopher closed his eyes in horror. Suddenly, the bunker in his left eye and the nice man’s words in his right were replaced by one vision. The hissing lady. Standing in front of him. Smiling with dog teeth. The most terrifying person he ever saw.

  that is the only way to get the key that she has buried in flesh around her neck. that key will get you back to the real side. but we need to do it before midnight.

  Christopher opened his eyes and saw the question that started it all. Written in a hurried hand on the notepad in the bunker. He didn’t even need to say it anymore. He just needed to think.

  What happens at midnight?

  at midnight, the glass between the imaginary world and the real will crack. you will die. the town will go mad with fear. and they will blame your mother for it. they will torment her, ambrose, the sheriff, and your friends. you have already seen a lot of this beginning to happen. the town is like a frog that has been put in cold water and the heat has been turned up. the heat is her. disguised as the flu. i have seen her plant madness in people’s ears like seeds. i have seen the seeds grow. and at midnight, the garden will bloom. the frogs will boil. and the real world will drown in its own shadow like floods. what happens at midnight, christopher?

  Everything.

  The nice man let go of his hand. Christopher blinked through the pain in his eyes. He had seen it all unfold before him. The death spreading over the town. The people insa
ne with fear and rage and hatred. Torturing his mother, Ambrose, the sheriff, and his friends. Not knowing that it was all because of her. Not knowing that they were just little pieces on the hissing lady’s game board. The nice man listened to the woods above them, and once he was satisfied that the imaginary people and deer had moved on, he finally spoke out loud.

  “Remember,” the nice man said in a comforting voice. “That hasn’t happened yet. We can still stop it. I know you’re scared. So am I. As she gets stronger, I get weaker. I used to be able to reach people on the real side. Now I scream until my throat becomes hoarse, and the only person who can hear me is you. But I love people too much to ever give up hope that they can be saved. I just can’t do it by myself anymore. But we can do it together. Someone is going to die tonight. It’s either the hissing lady or the world as we know it. I know how she thinks tonight is going to end. But what she doesn’t understand is that we have a secret weapon.”

  “What?”

  “You. The tree house has been turning you into something extraordinary. I have never seen anyone from the real side who can be as powerful as you. Not even David. So, if we can use that power to save you from this terrible place, you will save your mother and everyone else in the town. Will you help me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The nice man smiled. And patted Christopher’s shoulder.

  “Thank you, son.”

  Christopher smiled at the nice man, his teeth broken. His body battered.

  “What is the tree house turning me into?”