by Lee Hayton
They burst into giggles again, teenage girls at a slumber party.
“In one of them, I’d been in possession of the stone for ages. So long, I didn’t want to let it go.” Tyler looked down at the soft glow of the stone, running in idle. “We had the book, and everyone seemed to have read it thoroughly except me.”
“You mean, Wilma and me?”
Tyler nodded, and then remembering the darkness, whispered, “Yes.”
Gary snorted. “Then you should have known immediately it was a dream, dude. When’s the last time you saw me reading anything?”
“Wilma kept shouting out what I was meant to do, but I couldn’t force myself to do it. If I had…” Tyler shrugged and let it stand.
Gary reached out a hand. Rather than the usual slap or punch of comradery, he clasped Tyler’s hand, squeezing it tightly before letting it go. “I know you did the best you could,” he said. “So does Wilma. If either of us said any different at the time, it was just our frustrations talking.”
“Thanks.”
Tyler rolled onto his back again, staring at the patterns of the light playing across the ceiling.
“I still didn’t do the right thing, and that was just a dream.”
“A dream that seemed real but probably showed you horrors worse than reality could provide.”
“Yeah.” Tyler nodded, smiling in the darkness. He could live with that. “Far worse than reality.” A quick shudder ran through his body at the memory of a hissing snake. “If that shit ever becomes real, I’m checking out. I mean it.”
“I wouldn’t worry,” Gary said and yawned. “The monsters under the bed always disappear when you shine a flashlight. That’s what we’re going to bring with us to your dad’s house and to wherever that leads us next. A large flashlight of reality.”
Wilma whispered from the other bed, “And the monsters will all just melt away.”
As they pulled up outside his dad’s place, Tyler compared the reality to the faded snapshot in his memory. He’d only visited once, a long time ago. In the years after his dad left, Tyler had spent many hours trying to work out where the man could have gone. Long after giving up jumping every time the phone rang, the doorbell went, he’d still paged through thousands of hits on the internet, hoping to find a match.
The day he did so, Tyler wished he hadn’t bothered. The romantic notion that his father couldn’t help but leave them had been replaced with the certainty that it was a choice. An easy decision, too, judging by the fact the man had never gotten in contact.
Years of searching through every directory in every city and Tyler found him living fourteen blocks away. That they’d never bumped into each other on the street was a miracle.
On that one visit, Tyler had spent more time hovering outside, gathering up the courage to knock, than he had indoors. He and his dad had nothing to say to each other. In the end, Tyler had walked away with no idea why he’d ever wanted to reconnect. The man was a wastrel and a fool. Tyler recognized this because he was used to seeing the signs in the mirror.
“Are you sure he still lives here?” Wilma asked as they walked up the path to the front door.
Tyler looked at the circulars rotting in the mailbox—the grass on the front lawn so long it had blossomed into flowerheads. “Yeah,” he said, turning to knock. “He still lives here.”
Tyler’s dad got straight into the emotional welcome when he opened the door. “What do you want?”
It caught Tyler off-guard so much that he stared at the man for a minute, wondering if his father even recognized him after so long.
“It’s me, Dad,” he said after the pause stretched out to infinity.
“Well, of course, it’s you, Tyler. I do have eyes, you know.”
“Can we come in? I need to talk to you.”
His father looked down at his watch. From where Tyler stood, it had been a while since anybody adjusted the time on it. Whatever his dad read on its face, he sighed and nodded, holding back while ushering them in.
“I don’t have much free time,” he warned, following them through into the front room. “I’ve got my programs starting up in a while.”
“You like the soaps?” Wilma said. She looked desperate to break the tension. In doing so, she earned a scowl.
“Nope. I’ve got money on the horses. The racing starts in fifteen.”
Tyler sat down on the nearest seat, perching gingerly on the edge. He wasn’t a stickler for hygiene but compared to his dad he was Martha Stewart, complete with doilies. “Do you have a copy of our family tree?”
“What the fuck use would I have for a family tree?” Tyler’s dad looked at each one of them in turn, working up a good head of steam. “Did you confuse us for the Rockefellers or something? I can tell you who my brothers and sister are, that’s about the extent of it.”
“Start there, then.” Tyler forced himself to lean back and mimic getting comfortable. “Who are my aunts and uncles?”
“What in Christ’s name have you got yourself mixed up in?” his dad demanded, avoiding the question entirely. He looked at the three of them again, this time letting his gaze linger on Gary for a good minute before flicking his eyes to Wilma.
“Fuck me.” Tyler’s dad leaned back in his seat his shoulders slumping and put a hand up, rubbing down his face, so that loose skin cells floated in a small cloud. When he spoke again, his voice was dejected. “You’ve found out about the bloody stone.”
Tyler pulled his hand out of his jacket pocket. “More than found out about it, as it happens.”
The elder man stared at it for a moment as if entranced by the pink glow. Then he looked back up, jerking his head at Gary and Wilma. “And who’re these two? Prisoners? Hostages?”
“They’re my friends, Dad.”
The man looked at the group again, then burst into phlegm-laden laughter. “Bugger me. Remind me not to get on the wrong side of you, if this is how you treat your friends!”
Tyler snapped his fingers, drawing his father’s attention back. “We talked to cousin Julius. He said that I needed to pass the stone onto its rightful owner in Las Vegas. Do you know who he’s talking about?”
“Talking out of his ass, most likely.” His dad sniffed then wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “You think our lot has problems? Their side of the family is a right mess.”
Tyler leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Why didn’t you ever tell me I had a family? It would have been nice to know I had cousins and stuff when I was growing up.”
“Trust me, son. It wouldn’t.”
At the word son, a thrill ran down Tyler’s back, from his shoulder blades to his tailbone. As soon as it finished, he cursed himself. Stupid boy. As if that casual phrase had ever meant anything to the man.
“You staying?”
His dad leaned forward and flicked on the television. On screen, trainers led the horses around in extended, slow circles to warm them up.
“I’m staying until you can give me some useful information,” Tyler declared. He leaned back in his seat again and stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. “No matter how long that takes.”
“Shut your hole for the moment, then.” His dad pressed the volume up button until it nearly shook the walls. “I’ve got a lot riding on this one.”
Wilma snuck in next to Tyler, practically curling herself under her arm. Gary, meanwhile, chose to lean against the door jamb. An excellent decision, until the third horse race in a row concluded and Tyler’s dad didn’t seem any closer to paying them attention. Sighing, Gary walked into the room further and plonked himself down on a chair.
“You house trained?” Tyler’s dad asked with a smirk, eyes never leaving the screen.
“Grab me something, too, while you’re out.” Tyler’s dad eyed them from his chair, a brief respite from his fixation with the small screen.
Tyler sighed and nodded. “What do you like?”
They’d already decided after a loud discussion
ignored by the person whose interest they were trying to gain, to go for something Italian. The thought of filling up his testy stomach with something creamy and loaded with carbs made Tyler feel the first bit of optimism since they’d begun the journey out to Las Vegas. Add some gelato, and he’d be in heaven, even if it didn’t last the trip back.
“Whatever. Just something filling.”
Something filling they could do. Wilma tossed the car keys to Tyler, she still insisted on retaining them up to the minute somebody actually drove the car. As he slid into the seat, the sun began to set on the horizon. It sent a pale glow, similar in color to the magic stone, out across the world.
“Nice man, your pop.”
Whatever Gary was going to add to his attempt at humor, never got the chance to be heard. A can shattered the passenger-side window and thumped into the footwell. Another did the same in the back seat, landing on Gary before bouncing down onto the floor. A second later, the car filled with noxious gas.
Tyler’s eyes immediately began to stream tears. He groped for the handle, hitting it and bouncing away the first time because he struck out at it too hard.
With one wrench of the lever, the door opened, but Tyler wasn’t free of the gas. It pursued him as he stumbled out of the driver’s seat, clung to him in a stinging cloud as he staggered a few steps down the street.
“Help.” The moment Tyler got the words out, he recognized his mistake. He’d had to breathe in to do it, and now his lungs were on fire, a pain rivaling the assault on his eyes.
He fell on his knees, barely feeling the rough stones on the road beneath him. Had he tottered out so far that he was in the line of traffic? Tyler couldn’t tell. The part of his brain that dealt with pain thought that being hit and thus put out of his misery was a beautiful idea.
He flapped his arms, first to clear the clinging smoke, then in utter panic. Every sense crowded his brain with signals, all of them at full volume, all of them distressed. “Tyler?”
With his head close to fully engaged with just surviving, he couldn’t focus enough to tell whose voice it was. Tyler lay full-length, rolling over and over. Either out into the road and oncoming traffic or into the gutter, he didn’t care.
“Tyler. Head’s up!”
What the hell did that mean? Tyler curled into a ball, sensing another oncoming attack. Whatever came, it couldn’t add any to his pain toll, that was at such a limit that Tyler was surprised to still be conscious.
Then water sprayed him. The stuff of life. Glorious. In an instant, it washed the worst of the cloud away.
Tyler tried to open his eyes, to thank whatever savior had rescued him from the ever-increasing volume of agony. His eyelids were so swollen shut, he could scarcely move them. A smear of colors was all that he could see.
“Those bastards!”
Tyler recognized that. The strident note of self-pity belonged to his dad. Now able to feel around him and identify the shapes he was touching, Tyler worked out he was on the footpath. Cracking his eyes open again, he saw a blur of movement that could be his father.
“They come in here, soiling up the neighborhood. All I ever wanted was a peaceful life.”
A kick landed on Tyler’s thigh, hard enough to matter, but not on an equal footing with the pain subsuming him already. He rolled over onto his side, once again curling into a ball.
“You brought those lousy, no-good, scum-sucking devils to my doorstep. After everything I’ve done for you!”
Despite the pain, Tyler began to laugh. It was too ridiculous, the situation too extreme, to be able to resist.
While he lay on the footpath beside a wafting cloud of teargas, Tyler’s father bemoaned the fate of having to watch it from the safety of his front room.
“Wilma?” Tyler’s thought processes returned to him enough to think about his friends. “Gary?”
“They’re fine.” A pale pink shape appeared in front of Tyler out of the blurry darkness. A hand. He grasped hold and let his dad pull him to his feet.
“Damn it! I hate that confounded stone. It never brings anything but trouble. Now I’ve missed the five-fifty, and I had a hundred bucks riding on that.”
Tyler struggled upright, stretching out his arms to search for his father who no longer seemed keen on helping. “I’m sure you can find out the results later.”
“That’s not the point. The point is I was sat there, looking forward to it, and now I’m out here with a rifle and a hose and half the neighborhood thinking I’m bonkers.”
“Like they didn’t think that before.” Wilma picked her moment with as much care and precision as she ever used. “Your house is a tip, and your yard is a local eyesore. Whatever you think you’ve got going on, you ain’t.”
Tyler used his fingers to pry his eyes open wider. It didn’t really help. More light flooded in, but there was scarce enough of that about with the sun quickly fading from the sky. Everything he could see came through in broad, blurred streaks like an artist had smeared his hand across an oil-painted world in disgust.
“Where’s Gary?”
Wilma gave a mournful laugh. “He’s sniveling down behind the car. Those fuckers got him good. The canister landed right in his lap and started expelling gas straight into his face.”
“Should we take him to the hospital?”
Tyler’s dad pulled on his arm, leading him away from the road where he was mistakenly headed. “Better off taking him to a vet by the looks of it. Since you’ve got the stone, can you explain why both your friends look such a mess?”
Wilma took over for Tyler. Either she’d escaped the fumes more than he had, or she was made of stronger stuff. “It’s broken. Tyler broke it somehow. We tried to find the instruction manual that would explain everything and hopefully fix it up, but he couldn’t make it through the entrance exam.”
Tyler’s dad burst into a spout of maniacal laughter. “You tried to go through the trials?”
Tyler nodded, feeling like the butt of somebody else’s joke. “What’s so bloody funny?”
“You are, son. You are.”
He retook Tyler's arm, this time leading him up the front path and into the house. “The trials haven’t been got through in over a hundred years. I don’t know which bugger designated our family the keepers of the stone, but they may as well have handed it to the devil.”
Once he was settled on the couch, Tyler’s dad brought him ice cubes wrapped in a dampened washcloth. The feel of it against his flaming skin was incredible.
“Is Wilma looking after Gary?”
“Yeah. She’s bringing the poor bugger in. I think our best bet is to stick him in the shower stall and leave the water running for a good ten minutes. Once we flush out as much of the gas as we can, that’ll let us know if there’s anything more serious to worry about.”
“Done this a lot?” Wilma asked, slowly escorting Gary inside.
Even through his swollen eyelids and burning eyes, Tyler could see that Gary had taken a real pounding. The skin beneath his sparse hairs glowed red with inflammation, irritated beyond belief.
“I’m so sorry,” Tyler gasped. Emotion overtook him in a breathless second, whipping his shell of normality away. “Everything is my fault.”
“It’s Alejandro’s, more likely,” his dad said. He led Gary through to the bathroom and soon water was pounding away, steam puffing out into the front room in a cloud.
When he re-entered the room where Wilma stood, and Tyler sat, he rubbed the back of his neck. “This stunt is a classic trick of your uncle’s. The little shit never bothers to think of something new if he can recycle the same tired ploys again.”
“Did you see them?” Wilma asked. Tyler saw for the first time that her face was creased in a fury. He remembered the smashing window glass before the gas filled the car. That would run her a hefty repair bill, no mistake.
But it appeared that repair bills weren’t top of Wilma’s mind. The shake of fury convulsing through her muscles was present for another re
ason.
“I don’t understand why your family is made up of the worst scum in the universe, but if you could get the message out that hunting season is over, that would be really good.”
Taken aback at the boldness from her tiny frame, Tyler’s dad went back to his old standard. He snorted.
“There’s no calling off the dogs, not once they’ve sniffed out their prey. I’m amazed you made it this far without somebody killing you for that damned rock.”
“Why are you amazed?” Wilma demanded. “We’ve been running blind for days, putting up with crap like that stunt your brother and his kin pulled out there.” She flapped her hand toward the street. “It would be a damn sight more helpful if you told us what you know!”
“Feisty wee thing, aren’t you?”
Tyler had already winced before Wilma slapped his dad across the face.
“Sit down, and tell us everything you know right now. This stupidity has gone on long enough!”
Tyler’s dad bunched his hand into a fist, drawing it back ready to punch.
“Dad!”
Recovering his composure, the man uncurled his fingers, each one done with visible effort. “I suggest you don’t do that again, little lady. Hot tempers run in this family, don’t you know?”
He withdrew a few steps, sitting heavily in his chair.
“How did you do with the trials?”
Tyler had expected a different sentence to come out of his dad’s mouth. It took a few moments before his brain readjusted and found the right words to fit in a reply.
“I passed the first one,” he admitted. “The test for honor.”
“Really?” His dad’s eyebrows crawled so far up his forehead, they were in danger of disappearing into his hairline. “You passed one of them?”
Wilma opened her mouth to correct the number, but on a warning look from Tyler, she bit down on the words she’d been about to say.
“I’ll go check on Gary,” she said instead, withdrawing out of the room.