Though he knew he was pushing his luck, the stale flavor of a meal he’d long since forgotten still lingered in his mouth and he tiptoed from his room to brush his teeth. After a tension-filled trek down the hall, he pulled the bathroom door shut behind him and let out a relieved sigh.
The string of neon-green toothpaste had just begun its birth from the tube when the sound of Kyle’s boots sounded across the hall and grew louder with his approach. Tyler, toothbrush frozen in hand with a wad of toothpaste hanging by a withering tail, shivered as his eyes shifted in his skull away from his terrified reflection to the bathroom door. A silent prayer formed in his mind, begging God that his psychotic stepfather didn’t need to take a leak.
As he listened, the footsteps walked past the closed door and headed further down the hall until their distance assured him that he was safe and he turned back just as the wad of toothpaste fell free and landed on the counter. He cursed as he grabbed a length of toilet paper to clean the mess. The trip back to the sink was almost completed when the door suddenly flew open and threw him back; his head almost slamming against the edge of the tub as he crashed to the floor.
Kyle smirked, standing like a demon in the doorway for a moment before stepping inside and shutting the door behind him. Tyler, still dazed from his impact with the floor, turned towards his approaching stepfather, noticing his bare feet as they touched down on the light-blue tiles. Kyle’s smirk turned into a beaming smile then, and he chuckled as he began to undo the clasp of his belt.
Knowing that his stepfather would make the beating a long and hard one, he decided that he’d let his mind wander to try and alleviate some of the pain and humiliation. At first, he figured he’d recite some of his favorite songs to himself, but with the first sharp impact of the folded leather he felt the lyrics abandon him and leave him with nothing but the pain. Left with no other option, Tyler finally began to think about his dreams: the only thing he had that made him feel strong.
They were, as all dreams were, hazy. Despite this, one detail that never wavered was the always all-too-clear image of the creatures that were, as the doctors had put it, a “mental reconstruction of his parents coupled with an overactive imagination.” More often he remembered the part in the dreams where he was running with them; the glorious scene of the wind-bent trees rushing past like careless memories as his father and mother led him through the wilderness.
He could remember parts in the dreams where he would hunt—stalking baby rabbits with others like him to bring home to their parents like trophies. He remembered the intimidating, predatory faces of the other members of the pack when they hunted, as well as the soft human faces they took when they didn’t.
And he remembered where the dreams became nightmares…
The vague recollection of a conflict between his “parents” and the other members of the pack always—though he knew it was stupid to cry over dreams from so long ago—brought tears to his eyes. The scene of the ravenous creatures that had burst forth so violently from such soft human skins to rip into them made Tyler shudder harder as Kyle continued and grunted in angry exertion as if he knew he didn’t have all of Tyler’s attention.
And then he remembered the end of the dream; a simple, common nightmare: falling.
His first real memory was of waking up in the hospital, finding himself hooked up to beeping machines; half his head wrapped in bandages. He remembered doctors shuffling in, filling the small room with their questions on his wellbeing as well as the incessant and ridiculous question of who he was and if he remembered his name.
They would have been ridiculous if he had actually remembered.
When their questions went unanswered, the doctors began to shuffle out, leaving behind one fat doctor with an equally-fat brown mustache standing in the room. The doctor had scratched some notes onto a yellow pad and slapped it shut before leaning forward and asking more questions about what he had been able to remember.
And so he told the round man about his hazy dreams. The story poured out as fading dreams do, and the doctor had listened with as much patience as one would expect. When he was done, the doctor had nodded and stood up, telling him that they had found him in the woods at the base of a tall hill, which, he told him, explained his memory of falling.
Though the last parts of his dreams he was willing and eager to pass off, he had been reluctant to accept that the parts—the wonderful, all-too-real sensation of running through the woods as something more-than human—had been nothing more than a dream. The doctor had been insistent, however, and worked against any grips that he had on the fantasy.
It wasn’t long before he demanded to have a name. At first, the hospital staff had been uneasy with the idea, but a nurse who had been making her rounds suggested that they call him “Tyler”—her late father’s name. Eager for any sort of hold on reality and afraid that at any moment he’d wake up and have to go through the entire process all over again, he’d been quick accepted the name as his own.
After the third week Tyler was left with little more than some bumps and scabs, but still no memory. The doctors, at that point, could do little more than file the necessary paperwork and put him in a foster home, assuring him that he would be adopted and become part of a stable household in, as they’d put it, “no time.”
“No time,” Tyler thought as Kyle’s belt struck again, had turned out to be several years.
While he was in the foster home, he’d done his best to be friendly with the other children, often struggling against the desire to instead run around on his own. On days when potential foster parents came to eye the children like hanging meat, Tyler did as the others had suggested and tried to look happy and playful while at the same time lonely and depressed. However, despite his best efforts, the potentials never gave him a second look, often muttering about how he was “too old.”
Several months after his eleventh birthday, a young couple had come in and, once again, all of the children took their positions in hopes of being selected. Tyler, who at that point didn’t have any hopes of being chosen, remained seated in the back of the room with an old, tattered copy of Goosebumps.
They were like all the others and were hasty and had stepped out of the room without choosing any of the children. As they discussed their options, a thirsty Tyler had excused himself to get past them to get a drink at a nearby fountain.
The woman—a beautiful, fair skinned blonde with soft features and wide brown eyes—looked down at the passing boy and gasped in surprise. Tyler later found out that her reaction had been in regards to his appearance, as he bared a strong resemblance to her younger brother who had been killed several years earlier by a drunk driver. After several moments of awe-filled staring, the woman had whispered something to her husband before turning back and asking Tyler his name.
Having never been talked to by potentials, he’d looked at them and stammered out “Tyler” before looking down at the floor in embarrassment at his stuttering. The husband, a sharp-featured man with well-cut brown hair and narrow, sharp eyes, had smiled and patted him on the shoulder, telling him not to be so nervous.
After talking amongst themselves, they asked about his past. He’d once again blushed and answered that he’d spent what portion he could remember in a hospital healing from a fall before being sent to live at the foster home. When asked if he could remember his parents, he was reluctant to answer, though finally sighed and shook his head.
Kelly and Robert, as they’d introduced themselves, were quick in choosing Tyler after talking with him a bit longer. Both had agreed that, despite his age, he was remarkably mature and well-spoken—both of which Tyler had his compulsive reading habit to thank, though he couldn’t remember where he’d learned how to. After some talking between the adults and a long line of paperwork, Tyler finally found himself preparing to go to a new home.
Though the ride had only lasted forty minutes, the trip seemed to take forever. When their car had finally turned off the main road onto a lo
ng, unpaved stretch surrounded by trees, Tyler had found himself drawn to the sight and had pressed his face against the window to watch the forest rush past. The sight seemed familiar, like something from another lifetime’s memories.
Kelly had smiled at their new son’s enthusiasm, turning around in the passenger seat and ruffling his hair. “Do you like the woods? My father loved the woods. He spent a lot of time just looking for the perfect place to build our house,” her smile had grown so wide that it had made Tyler’s cheeks ache just to watch.
Tyler remembered the first time he’d seen the house and, despite the perpetual pain from Kyle, he felt his cheeks give way to a smile at the memory just before the belt bit into his lower back again and he cried out.
The house was like a castle—a towering three stories tall!—with the corner of an in-ground pool peeking around the back and a large swing that hung on a tall, old tree in the front. The sight had made Tyler’s smile match Kelly’s, and his cheeks began to ache even more.
It was the first, genuine smile he remembered having.
Kelly had nodded, looking at the house as if for the first time as well, “Do you like it?”
Tyler had nodded as he continued to gaze at his new home. “Better than I could have wished for,” he’d told her.
The new family was happy together; happier than they ever could’ve imagined. Though the summer was not yet through, Kelly’s eagerness to get Tyler enrolled had the young man excited at the idea of finally attending a real school. On weekends, Robert had taken him deeper into the woods, stopping only when the thickness of the trees had finally blocked out the sight of the house, and they’d camped—spending the rest of the sunlit hours playing catch and most of the night telling scary stories and roasting marshmallows.
Kyle growled in frustration again, bringing the belt down harder. He shrieked in agony and the familiar chuckle sounded as his stepfather continued.
Desperate to escape the pain, he continued to try to remember…
But Kyle’s poison had seeped beyond the flesh and even his memories turned painful.
Robert, who had always been what Kelly had called “overly friendly” had met and befriended a newcomer to the area while out shopping. After some small-talk in the check-out line, the man introduced himself as Kyle and invited Robert and his family to a barbeque at his house. Robert later speculated, as he’d discussed the event with them, that he’d never mentioned his family, but figured that he “just had that charm.”
Both Kelly and Tyler had been unsure about Robert’s new friend but had both been quiet and polite during the outing. Afterwards, much to Tyler—who had felt an aching discomfort the entire time he’d been in Kyle’s company—and Kelly’s dismay, Kyle had scheduled another outing with Robert. Kelly, on the car ride home, confessed that she hadn’t liked the way Robert’s new friend had looked at her. Robert had passed it off, telling her it was the anxiety of meeting a new person.
Shortly after the second meeting with Kyle the fighting had begun, and Tyler noticed the sudden shift in their relationship. Then their weekend camping trips became less and less frequent until the day finally came that the outdoor gear was thrown out.
It had seemed that the only person at that point who got along with Robert was Kyle, who always insisted that he bring his family with them to their outings. The events, which had become as frequent as three nights a week, became harder on Kelly, who had finally told Robert that she couldn’t handle being around Kyle anymore and demanded that she and Tyler be kept out of any future plans, leading to one of the worst fights that Tyler had ever heard. He could still remember the tear-filled call that Kelly had made to her sister explaining how she felt like Robert was a whole different person.
Several days later, Robert left them.
Though the event was hard on Kelly, Kyle had been sure to make himself available as a source of support, and Tyler was shocked to see that his foster mother was becoming more and more attached to him with each visit.
It wasn’t long after that that Tyler had found himself with his new abusive stepfather and a foster mother left in constant terror.
His perfect family had turned to anything but.
The final crack of the belt always stung the most and Tyler shook, his teeth clenched to a point of agony, as he felt his hatred for his stepfather grow. Kyle let out a satisfied sigh and rose to his feet before starting out.
“Goodnight, son,” he called over his shoulder.
Tyler had always hated it when Kyle called him that, and he knew that the bastard knew it. Though he’d spent a lot of time under Kyle’s belt, something about feeling the hurt while remembering his past made him so angry that his blood seemed to boil in his veins. Though his exhaustion outweighed any ability to do so, he felt compelled for the first time to fight back.
Despite the recent blizzard the night was hot and restless; filled with the warped and terrifying faces of the creatures from his old dreams. In the middle of the night he shot from bed with a violent stomach ache, almost not making it to the bathroom in time. Finally, when the vomiting had ceased and the need for sleep once more had become a pressuring force, he drew his head from the toilet and, overcome by aches and dizziness, passed out.
When he awoke the next morning, Tyler was met with the realization that he was covered in puke and sprawled in the tub. With this burden set aside in the “bad start” bin, he pulled himself to his feet and ran the shower for a moment to rinse both it and himself off. Finally, mouth filled with the lingering taste of vomit, he stumbled to the sink to brush his teeth.
The illness of the night before faded as he finished and went on to wash his face, leaving behind only the burning hatred that Tyler felt for his stepfather. For the first time, however he felt strong and, moreover, no longer afraid.
Shocked by his newfound braveness, Tyler looked up at the mirror as he finished washing up and jumped back in surprise. The face staring back at him did so with hard, foreign eyes; eyes that made his soft, sad own look weak in comparison. As he studied the rest of his reflection, he was only filled with more shock and confusion: his entire face was stretched and his jaw was jutting out. When he opened his mouth he saw that his teeth were spaced at irregular lengths and, more surprising, longer and sharper!
He shut his eyes then, blocking out the reflection.
“It’s not real,” he whispered, “You’re angry and you’re sick… and you’re seeing things that aren’t real!”
He shook his head again, concentrating on waking up from the illness and rage-induced hallucination. There was a sudden pain then that forced his eyes to shut tighter until it passed and when he finally opened them he was himself again.
And he was hungry!
Confident the episode was a lingering effect of the previous night’s illness and driven by his hatred, Tyler made his way to the kitchen and threw open the fridge. He let his eyes roam through the contents before moving down to the shelf that Kyle had set aside as his own; the “forbidden shelf” as he called it. Tyler scoffed at the thought and yanked a package of steaks and several bottles of beer from this before slamming the door shut behind him.
When the frying pan he’d put on the front burners of the stove was hot and ready, he threw two steaks on. The meat screamed from the scorching heat; spattering hot droplets of juice all over the stovetop. As it continued to cook on the one side, Tyler opened the beer and took a hard swig before pouring the rest of the bottle into the frying pan for added flavor as well as added thrill of defying his stepfather.
After flipping the steaks, he then went about cracking all of a still-full carton of eggs into another frying pan and proceeded to make a sunny-side-up mess which he dumped onto a plate along with the not-quite-done steaks. When he was happy that breakfast had been made, he grabbed a fork and, with no shortage of pride, marched his food to the table and began to eat.
It wasn’t until the steak was eaten and almost all the eggs had been consumed that Kyle first stepped
into the kitchen and walked past Tyler, who glared at his pack and unspoken dares for him to turn around. Kyle, not seeming to notice the icy stare or Tyler’s stolen meal, continued his ignorant march to the fridge, throwing it open and studying its contents, and Tyler watched, waiting for the bastard to notice the missing steak and beer.
Then, as if by some unheard cue, Kyle turned and narrowed his eyes at him and then looked back in the fridge, pausing to confirm his suspicions before slamming the door hard enough to shake the refrigerator and knock over most of its contents.
“Arrogant little fuck!” Kyle growled as he stomped towards Tyler, whose fists were balled under the table and shaking in anticipation, “I should…”
Watching his living nightmare storm in his direction, he stopped listening to his threats and began to think of the beating from the night before. Then he thought of all the beatings he’d endured.
Then he thought of Kelly.
He wanted to make him pay…
And then it began.
Tyler cried out from the intense pain that grew inside of him. He looked down at his arm and recoiled at the sight of it stretching, the bones inside it popping and crunching. There was a tightness that grew in his stomach and he wrapped his human arm around his gut and keeled over.
Kyle watched, stunned for a moment before glaring. A hard, solid force pushed against the agonized, misshapen teen then, forcing him against the wall and knocking several framed photos and a clock to the floor. Tyler, pinned by the unseen force against the wall, pried his eyes open and stared in disbelief at Kyle, who glared at him as he approached and shook his head. The gesture was accompanied by a throbbing ache in Tyler’s head that forced his eyes shut again; his body thrown once again into painful spasms. When it was all over he opened his eyes only to see that his deadly, inhuman claw was once again a weak human hand.
As Kyle reached the wall he slammed his hand down and pinned Tyler, the invisible force lifting as he did.
Noir: A Crimson Shadow Novel Page 26